No. 10

Peppermint candy,

Lovely Taste,

Delicious beauty,

A peripatetic dancer,

Skipping,                    

Hopping,

Whirling

around

and around and around

and Tickling my senses,

Forcing lust,

Casting blue-green shadows

and

Mighty images.

i

l – o – v – e

Peppermint candy,

But i keep it a

Secret.

This was the tenth poem in an anthology I wrote in 1970, and it was the first poem I had published–in a small literary magazine for High School Students–in 1971.  At the time, I just liked the imagery a lot.  My dad really loved starlight mints, so they were always around me.  I didn’t care much for them at the time.  I eat them sometimes now, because they remind me of Dad.

Here is another short poem from that series, and it was also published.  It is interesting that these were the only two whimsical poems in the collection, and they were also…