Lines & Rhymes: More List Poems

Purple

Purple is
the queen of colors
a little strange
to the others
royally quiet
and magically shy
mighty maybe
but not really bad
raindrops on grass
wet but not cold
watching silent
with secrets untold
Purple is for
grapes and soft flowers
overcast lcouds
magic powers
still pool waters
amethyst stone
starry night skies
imperial thrones
Purple, purple
undoubtedly wise
hiding secrets
a wizard in disguise

Grey

Grey is the color of uniformity
It's the grey flannel suit of the 50's business man
the parochial school uniform skirt
the pants preppies wear with their blue blazers
a West Point dress uniform
and the most basic of sweats

It is the colorless sky of just-before-dawn on what's to be a dismal day
It is newsprint and sadness
The ashen faces of early mourners
The leaden sky over roiling pewter waters
It's March- not the white of winter or the promise of spring but the colorless dead earth

Grey is the cold wind that ushers in December
It's a cancelled picnic
unpolished silver
and the moral np man's land or not right but not wrong

Grey is the whining country ballad on the only station your car radio gets in Wyoming
It's the keening of an Irish dirge,
Faded dreams and forgotten glory,
Dirty sneaker and dingy laundry,
Age and faded hope.

I Don't Need

I don't need
to be a weathernan to know which way the wind is blowing
to be an ichthologist to swim with the fishes
to be an archaelogist to dig the past

I don't need
a compass to know it's going south
an odometer to know it's a long way
a map to know I'm home

I don't need
a protractor to take a right angle
a calculator to divide and conquer
graph paper to plot a curve

And I really don't need
an arrow to know what's up
a watch to know it's time,
or an X to find the scene of the crime