Chew Thoroughly
I want conversation
We chew our food thoroughly
swallow all opportunities
with chipped cups of coffee.
Time passes
dishes cleared
Pour ourselves into recliners
Netflix anyone?
More silence
Flip through the options
Drama, too much already
Comedy, could hurt to laugh
Horror, what could be more scary
than the unmasked
Psychological thriller, no one knows
just who the psychopath really is
until the very end
Good extended family fare
As for romance
We unite in our darkened room
Far from the tv blaring
From her room, despite hearing aids
And closed captions
She prefers serial killer crime shows
How many is she up to now
and where are the bodies hidden?
It Was Time
The grandfather clock stood silent for over a year.
No more baritone stately chime,
stilled silence from the once soothing pendulum.
After making an appointment with a clock doctor,
we loaded the wooden case into the car,
a coffin slid into the back of a hearse.
The chimes greeted us for many years.
I bought the tall elegant clock at a yard sale
after my ex left me with very little time or anything else.
I envied an uncles grandfather clock, the stoic keeping of time,
the steady nod to consistency, the commitment to pulling weights.
The forty-five minute drive to the Sacramento clock shop,
chimes in their death rattle all the way over.
The clock doctors diagnosis was rebuilding the mechanism,
open heart transplant to the tune of nine hundred dollars.
After the shock, I let the clock go to the doctor.
He’d use it for parts and appreciated the donation.
At the side of his dumpster, a gutted wooden case lie face up in the rain,
unprotected smiling clock face hides
deep sad eyes in the stilled phases of sun and moon.
Oscillating
To everything a place—
This sense of belonging—
Home as we crave it,
Where life begs to be lived,
If only for the moment,
Hour, day, week, month—
Whatever time grants us.
Here, there is space enough,
Ample room we claim,
Despite how the earth spins,
One revolution after another.
Yes, locate the harbor,
By any means possible.
Bring relinquished faith.
Curl into calm so vast,
You’ve never known its joy.
Diane Funston (she/hers) writes poetry of nature and human nature. She most recently has been the Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture Poet-in-Residence for two years. It is in this role she created Poetry Square, a monthly online venue that featured poets from all over the world reading their work and discussing creative process.
Diane has been published in Synkronicity, California Quarterly, Whirlwind, San Diego Poetry Annual, Summation, Tule Review, Lake Affect Magazine, F(r)iction, and other literary journals. Her first chapbook, “Over the Falls” was published July 2022 from Foothills Publishing.
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