Summer, a Poem of Respect, not Love

Over on Smug Cloud, a challenge was issued to come up with 30 great things about Summer. I'm not a fan of Summer, but thought I'd use the excuse to write a little impromptu bad poetry....

I have no love for summer in all its drippiness and stickiness.
I am eternally overclothed for the season.
But if I must endure summer in all its sun and bloom,
then I endure it for only these reasons....

A summer garden, and early-summer roses.
Fresh herbs to delight our taste buds and noses.
More cukes and tomatoes than we ever could consume.
Lightning like sabers and thunder that booms.
The sound of kickball games out in the street.
The ice-cream truck and the ice-cream truck treats.
Nights on a sailboat drifting through Maine.
Picking the daisies -- making a chain.
Baseball and baseball with more baseball in store.
Not to mention summer tv and reruns galore.
Local musicians who play in the square.
Art shows and craft shows and every town fair.
Days packed with daylight, nights packed with stars.
And times made for driving convertible cars.
Fireflies and crickets, on nightly display.
Fireworks that light up the night like the day.
Sipping our lemonades out on our porches.
Holding our luaus with fake tiki torches.
Family picnics with steaks on the grill.
Opening the freezer and enjoying the chill.
Running through sprinklers, not minding the damp.
Sending the kids off to sleepaway camp.
Sandals and flip-flops and open-toed shoes.
Catching a glimpse of your neighbor's tattoos.
Mojitos and julips and other refreshers.
All light years away from the holiday pressures.
Cheap summer reading without any weight.
Letting the children stay up much too late.
Back to school shopping for notebooks and pens.
Trusting that fall will bring coolness again.

Sometimes it's good to get bad poetry out of your system. Like sweating out all the mental toxins, so only your healthy creative brain is left. And once in a while, when you write bad poetry, you come up with something in the middle of it that makes you smile. Me, I'm happy with: "lightning like sabers" and "catching a glimpse of your neighbor's tattoos." The first is reasonably descriptive, and the second just makes me laugh.