My Bear

 

My bear

has to be awoken gently.

(We've been through any number

of jarring alarm clocks, smashed to bits on the floor.)

My bear

needs to get up by April

or he's groggy all summer.

Wakey, baby,

I whisper in his cute furry ear.

My bear

is the super in our building.

His keys jingle like

Christmas bells.

He is jolly and waddles to the rescue.

My bear

gets dissed by some of the 

harpies on the top floor.

Then they go kiss

the apes and hyenas they married

who keep Cameros under tarps in the parking garage.

My bear

solves problems by waving

at them with his massive paws.

He groans offendedly

when this does not solve the problem.

Then he tries chewing on it or tipping it over.

My bear

makes the residents' kids

get out of the storeroom in the basement.

He gets up on two legs

and shakes his head no.

Some of them need to change trousers afterward.

My bear

is my bruin castle keep.*

We talk in bed and decide

that if we have a girl we'll name her Ursala,

and if we have boy he'll go to Boston

to play ice hockey.

My bear

knows that I will buy

his favorite fruit preserves

and real honey in jars, not the fake stuff.

We have twelve different

honey dippers

and each wear one ring.

My bear

sits back on his butt like a Buddha.

I wear a bucket hat and a thousand

cuffs and necklaces.

He huffs the air with his big fat black nose.

I sigh and smile.

It's a good life.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!

*this line is adapted from a previous poem of mine, "Our Bear."

Music: The Bare Necessities

My Detective

 

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--

everything is up in the air. 

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.

Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl

even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.

I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz. 

Your heart is the President of the United States of America. 

We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara. 

My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.

They know him there.

They hire cellists. 

He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you

via telephone

with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.

I want the call recorded

and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe. 

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.

My small black cubs frolick nearby, 

climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.

My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo. 

The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.

I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.

I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.

My detective wears a felt fedora

and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel. 

I am The Queen of the Mist,

suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary

where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti. 

Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.

I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg. 

He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.

I am innocent. 

Love is a marvelous thing, a joyful thing. My love is happy now, laughing.

_______

For Word Garden Word List--Zachary Schomburg.

Music: Angelo De Pippa Funiculi Funicula

On The Way Home From Finishing School

 

On her way home through a deep dark wood, after studying rhyme and meter, what do you suppose should greet her but a big burly black bear. 

"You are in my woods," said the bear, "and I don't know if I should eat you or lick you."

Hands behind her back, the girl replied, "You are a very burly bear, and I don't know if I should teach you or trick you."

The bear eyed her hidden hands and pointed out that "you could be holding a pistol or a picnic basket, a treat for us or a blunderbuss." 

The girl brought out her hands and the bear's eyes grew wide, his face funny.

Then the bear said, "Oh, honey..."

_______

A bit of fun for Thursday's Six Sentence Link-Up. The required word was "meter." A bit out of my métier, I must say. ;-)

Music: The Bare Necessities

Our Bear

Our bear

smells like an old cottage rug;

is partial to sleep

and us

and loaf

and jug.

Our bear

dreams of honey hives;
leaves the shine of
Ursa Major
and Minor
in our eyes.

Our bear
is our bruin castle keep;
we whisper in his ears
one left
 one right
constellated, constant, sweet. 
_______

for my BFF's weekly 55 thang

Froshus Bear!

Beware:
froshus
bear!

Froshus
bear?!?
Where?!??

(dun worry, Teddy.
I save you!)


a little bit of Monday fun from Shay's Word Garden.

My Bear

My bear
is bigger than your bullshit.

My bear
might stick his nose where it makes you real nervous;
maybe he bite your thing off, maybe he just sayin' hi.

D'joo bring honey for my bear?
Should've. 
My bear gets bored, you'll wish you'd not forgot.

My bear
got claws as long as all next week.
He lets me paint 'em and he don't care.

He's a bear, weigh um-thousand pounds.
Who's gonna say anything?
You?

You say, mind if I open a window?
I say, yeah, I mind.
You say, wut? 
You say, you were just being polite.
You say, you could just open the damn window if you want.

I say, I could just close it again.
Me and my bear.
We like the place warm and stinky, or the bear gets cranky.

How come nobody loves me for long?
Could be my big mouth or my particular ways or my hair.
Couldn't be my bear. 
_______

 
 

Ursa

A bear is no creature to be trifled with.
She's a ferocious mother,
out there in the piney woods, making something out of nothing,
top of the food chain,
taking out a hiker or two any time she wants.

Still, with all her talents,
she's got a fat ass and smells bad.
She sticks her snout in old rotten logs going after termites,
and when she vocalizes, 
she sounds like a old city bus.

So,
spray her with a little lavender.
Have you ever seen such a nonplussed look?
You can almost see the memories floating reluctantly up 
from the deeps of her big bad bruin brain,
reminding her of a time when she was young enough to think
that she might one day be pretty
or popular
or loved.

There was a time, indeed, 
when she could go up a tree as easy as a breeze in June,
and look out over everything from a height,
thinking she was just mighty special and fine.
Goldilocks had nothing on her,
and even though she could put away all the porridge in three counties,
she was still cute,
and young,
and full of herself.

These days,
--at least right up until you spritzed her--
she wanders the forest on ankles that ache every time it rains,
and a back that feels like a creaky bridge.
She looks behind her for her cub, only to recall
that he has gone off on his own long ago,
and has grown to twice her size.
Now, he leaves her a carcass from time to time,
looking after her instead of the other way around.

Oh well, now there will be a temporarily sweet-smelling bear out there,
rooting through the town dump for treasures, 
or breaking into somebody's car for Tostitos.
Maybe she'll get a wild hare and take a loping run at some hikers
just for old time's sake;
hidden in her goofy gait will be the girl cub of so many summers ago,
running just because she could,
because it felt good,
and there was the whole wide world to head into
top speed,
with nothing out there big enough or dumb enough to stop her.
______