Poets’ Corner – May, 2025

Poems draw connections, between remembered sensations, feelings, and stories that abide and sometimes persist in our lives. The poems in this month’s assemblage have been collected from the archives of Manor residents. As you read them, they may elicit your own connections – enjoyable or poignant – that you can gently consider.

Milt Friedman

Don’t Laugh

Bill Coleman

Don’t laugh at me
for making mistakes
and grabbing at
what may be
a chance to fail.

Don’t laugh at me
when I forget
how to dare
to rue a day
or fear to try again.

Don’t laugh at me
when I look away,
when I tum a cheek,
or when the buck stops here
leaving me to foot the bill.

Don’t mock me
for siding with another,
for having skewed views,
or for looking in
from outside a box.

Don’t remind me
of poor choices
or missed opportunities.
Don’t laugh
at what I find awesome.

Don’t confuse tears of joy
for those of despair.
Look away from my stumble.
Don’t watch as I return to my feet
to brush myself off.

Don’t laugh
at egg on my face,
a foot in my mouth,
a dropped ball,
or a shot in the dark.

Don’t take from me
my mourned lost loves
and failed friendships.
Don’t deprive me of the flaws
that make me human.

Don’t laugh, dear friends,
at the heart on my sleeve,
at my January hair,
at the clothes I wear,
or at good turned bad.

Don’t laugh when
I’m blind to the obvious
or losing words.
Don’t laugh
at the mouse that roars.

Don’t mock my disdain for lies
and manipulations.
Let me grit my teeth.
Allow my improbable dreams,
and impossible expectations.

Don’t laugh at me, friends
for being who I am,
for who I want to be.
Don’t laugh at me
for missing you.

I don’t know why

Jackie Parrish

Old men perched high in tiered row
Proclaim we have another foe,
And insist we have to go.
But is it so?
Yet, who can say no.

Soon Missiles fly,
And invisible women cry,
And Children die.
And I wish I knew why.

Old ones and young ones,
Dark ones and light ones.
They all
Silently fall,
A momentary sorrow,
Forgotten tomorrow.

Another missile sails
A Mother wails
At child blood trails
Drawn in the sand
Of the battered land.
What did they do?
I wish I knew.

For oil, for greed?
For color, for creed?
For profit, for pride?
I think they have lied.

We’re sent to kill.
They’re left to die
Tiny specks on a hill,
And I don’t know why.

A Haiku

Marisa Stone

A crying grey sky
Cozy here with fire blazing
Dog whining for a walk

The Natural World

Milt Friedman

We can learn by observing
the natural world
The resilience of trees
Squirrels, bees, butterflies,
Bears, wildflowers, deer
The flight of geese across
the reddened, cloud streaked sky.
The marsh, the desert, the estuary
These have their beauty
But I get lost in their complexity.

Amoebas are more simple.
They are attracted to sugar,
they move away from ammoniated waste.
They aggregate and form communities;
they extend themselves
with pseudopodia,
reaching out to discover
more about their world.
We can learn by observing
the amoeba.

Enjoy a good meal,
Clean our homes,
Aggregate with our friends.

Final note: Gently consider your responses to reading these poems. Poems can be doorways to our inner selves, and they are doors that we can open to others. You are invited to submit your own.