Margaret Kollmer Poems

There’s something about the use of the word ‘good’ that bothers me; however lightly. Good afternoon and good morning are fine, as well as have a good day, but just recently I’ve become a little perturbed by various celebs and/or ladies-who-lunch, amongst others, who announce to all and sundry their undying love of a good wine or a good cheese or even a good mushroom for goodness sakes. If all these supposedly posh-noshers are going to make short work of all the good things, then who gets to put away the bad? Us proles of course.

Certainly, I can remember my own mother telling us that we had to have a good breakfast each morning and if we didn’t eat up every scrap, we would be in a for a good hiding when our father came home. That was in the bad old days but the threat was enough to preclude any of us from not finishing the food on our plates.
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There’s something very compelling about television advertising where colourful, bright ads seduce us with slick-of-word, sleight-of-hand genius, to the extent that we find ourselves involuntarily drawn into the dodgy world of consumerism. As if we weren’t already there. Take that horrible little meerkat, for example.

“I like the way you loo—ook, ” he sings hauntingly as he dances through the town like some modern day Pied Piper. Even though he’s quite awful to look at, I find myself swaying in tune with the melody, totally absorbed. I do not, though, have the vaguest idea which cellphone he is promoting. So much for brand identification.
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A plaintive cry
as a sea-bird dips
and planes
high above the azure blue
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Like a fleeting wisp of cloud
I hold you briefly -
then you're gone
taking with you the warmth
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Hamlet was a Prince
Who went away to school;
His mother called him home again
Which he found very cool.
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There's a shaky kind of feeling
Deep within my heart
You have me all a-flutter
As you have right from the start.
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Didst thou tremble, O beast of the lexicon
As thy hooded eyes on nubile flesh didst dwell?

Or wast thy mind on other stellular delights
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What CAN be said in praise of a hurting heart
When all is pain from being torn apart?
And from whence, poetically, doth come
the gentleness and beauty
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Oh wow, Johnny boy -
My yesterday child
Standing tall in army browns
and newly-winged beret
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Remember dearest blood of mine
As years go passing by
Whether body or in spirit
Where'er my soul doth fly.
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