All of science can not explain,
Though it tries mightily,
The off beats of the human heart,
The perfume of a baby’s breath.

If it could take the common patterns:
The steaming coffee, the floss, the sunbeam’s
Streaking cross a window not lately washed.
Take it to task, demand an answer,

Our fate would be assured.

We could live in personal nirvanas,
Trading cards like kids flipping
Baseball legends,
Romping through Elysian Fields
Of Periwinkle.

But, no.
Hypotheses don’t calculate.
Theorems don’t sway reality.
Our time leaks out or dances gaily,
We decide
And that’s the fun of it.

Charlene James
Amissville, Virginia 

Just eight gals in a warehouse
Setting the world on fire,
Helping Mother Nature sing out from every
Tunic and tee.

With bolts of potential evolving to
Style and panache
Each sees her likeness in the crisp cloth, breeze drying.

The artists treasure their wears.
Their wares split through the air on planes,
Into hearts.

Cherishables are created and renewed.
Like banners of joy and courage
A brushing here, a dash of unstoppable color there,
Jills to whom no Jack can compare.

Each day
They greet dynamo Rose, mapper of a mission.
But special day, Today,
Cupcakes home-baked for the surprise.

True to form she shares this day of birth
With nothing less than 30% off price.
“Sharing largess,” the Flower says,
“That’s what chic is all about.”

Charlene James
Amissville, Virginia 

Give out flags to dimpled little girls
To wave at drumming high school bands,
While other “Stars and Stripes” bedeck streamered bikes
Of bold young boys
In parades that haven’t changed in years.

Eat the brats
Washed down with cold ones.

Remember Uncle Johnny, the Doughboy,
Uncle Caz, the renegade,
Young Ralph freezing in Korea,
Uncle Joe, the sharp shooter,
And Dad, keeping B29s flying out of Biloxi.

Men with Country,  first and foremost, on their minds.

Unquestioned in loyalty
In times of black and white newsreels,
Free postage from the front,
And only good news from home.

All departed,  gone.
None forgotten though,
Living  on in the 4th, each year.

We, Families,
Gather with a quiet
“Thank  you, Heroes,”
Gently on our lips.

Charlene James- Duguid
Amissville, Virginia

Why try so hard to understand ideas
Outside one’s ken.
A star is a star, a window of heaven,
Planetary dust salts and peppers my steak,
Black holes are where I find my missing socks.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Mismatched things, that’s why, that’s how
My universe thrives.
Befriending scientists, analyzing Einsteinium
I pretend I’m bright, as shiny as platinum
Or one of the elements I don’t understand.

So far beyond my neighbors’ thoughts
That distance need not be measured
In rods, bounds or meters, instead
It just sits there like a corner grocery’s aisle
Pretending the final frontier is all mine.

Until, in white, my keeper , the same old orderly arrives,
Tray, dish, knife, all of safety grade rubber.
Pushing it through the slot for the millionth time,
He says for the trillionth time:

“Crazy old lady, still listening for gravitational waves.
Still thinking she understands God.”

Charlene James Duguid

I feel like a junkyard dolly.
My only friend is gone, gone, gone.
He ran ‘way  with a circus of Celts,
Never to come home again.

So they tossed me away,
For no reason at all.
Left out in the rain to chill and die
For no reason at all, at all, at all.

Without my friend, who ran and ran,
Away to the Carnival’s call.
I’m sad, sad, sad
For his hand, hand, hand
But he’s gone, gone, gone,
To a Big Top somewhere
With the roar of a lion
And rusty brass band.

I sat on the dung heap,
So still, so still,
Never  a question, a sound.
Giving a smile whenever I could,
Waiting for his return.

But he’s gone, gone, gone,
To a Big Top somewhere
Hearing the roar and the band.

My pinafore kept clean, my shoes out of mud,
My curls curling best as I could, battered, not broken
On top of the past,
Watching for his return.

Too ugly, too old, too out-of-date,
Unneeded in The Land of Now.
I sit so still, so still,
A smile when I can,
Waiting for him to return,
From the Celtic circus, the roar, and the band.

Char Duguid
May 27, 2015

Relentless, his jokifying
Went on non-stop,
Made traffic halt and Aspens quake.

Encouraged by the slightest chortle,
A guffaw sent him off in mirthic ecstasies,
Stepping not too lightly on the trillium.

His prized possession, the Motley’s cap,
Always kept at the ready, rarely worn,
Showed signs of fabric fatigue.
Not only folded, crushed, and stapled,
It groaned of humor burn-out.

Shakespeare and Henny Youngman might have paused,
Seeking fresh material,
But the run-of-the-mill laughter
Would  pass by, unimpressed, in April or in any other month.

Hard as he tried,
Fool just couldn’t keep the funny-side alive,
So hat in hand, last joke in his back pocket,
He fell off the edge of the earth,
Sliding silently through time
Past the giggles  of the universe.

Mother Nature planned
Tea. Father Time declined, with
“Scotch, Dear, for me please.”

The Walking Wounded
Step Round Me.
They, and I, afraid to touch our Half Lives.

Cautioned by the Sun,
“Leave space between your atoms.”
It advised, “Too dense a mass and you will implode.”

In lieu of “hellos” and “adieus”
“Ciao” and “tatas,”
We excruciate over
Time’s move—
a.m. to p.m.
and back again.

Fretting over issues
Of when moments came and went,
How memories got so quickly sore
Then even worse, infirmed. We look longingly for a place to rest,
A chair on which to sit.

No lounging here.

Perpetual motion, the rule.
Never wind down, for if it did, we’d have to
Call it quits,
Call it a day.

Mornings, noons, and nights,
Taken away,
Replace the Sun
With Dark.
Losing motion, all we’ll know is pain.