Empty Pockets at Fifty, for dVerse Poets

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Empty Pockets at Fifty

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Empty Pockets at Fifty

My pockets are turned inside out.
No riches do I have to flout.
This state of my intimidation
is perhaps an apt reflection
of my early hesitation
to obtain an education.
Perhaps if I had done my math,
I’d have pursued a richer path!

For the dVerse Poets prompt, we are to write a Quadrille (44-word-poem) on the word, “Pocket.” Strangely enough, I found a poem I wrote to that prompt 5 years ago and coincidentally, it is 44 words long, so I had to repeat it here. I’ve written nearly 5,000 poems over the past 13 years…I’m taking the license to repeat some of them.

Reclaiming the Ship of State, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle #777

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Reclaiming the Ship of State

Let’s show a little backbone and vote for what we believe––
that success is in the giving and not what we receive.
Of course, some think the opposite and I have a hunch
that those beings who think otherwise are a shifty bunch.
“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,these greedy shysters say,
tallying up their billions before they hit the hay.
They storm our capitols and courts, streaming in enmass
to do their bit by self-rewarding bills and laws to pass.
What care they for the needy––the aged, poor and ill?
So long as they have license their own pocketbooks to fill?
Their diamond rings and yachts and planes do not grow on trees,
so they will requisition your tax dollars, if you please!!!
Therefore, when casting ballots, please remember what you’ve read.
To reclaim our ship of state, you’d best vote Blue, not Red!!!

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle #777 the prompt words are: show backbone beings believe bit storm stream ring scratch hunch

For Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule––Oct. 4, 2016

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Daring-do

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Daring-do

Once from our comfort we are torn—
from the first moment we are born—
we’re put into this world to do,
to suckle, gurgle, bill and coo,
then to stand and tie a shoe.
To participate, and not just view.

From a broomstick with horse’s head,
we go on to bust a bronc instead.
Playing drums or clarinets,
clicking heels or castinets,
from paper airplanes to flying jets,
doing’s as good as living gets.

We start out small and then get bigger.
Vine pod boats grow sails and rigger
to sail the world and tell the tales
of seas like glass, whirlpools and gales.
Each time you try out something new,
it brings more world inside of you.

Some things work out, others we rue,
but still it’s better to try and do
than put ourselves up on our shelves
and simply analyze ourselves.
Daring-do beats daring-don’t,
for life consists of “will,” not “won’t.”

For Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule, Oct. 4, 2016

9 thoughts on “Daring-do”

“The Sporting Life” Blast from the Blog for Oct 3

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This is what I was up to on Oct. 3, 2017

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The Sporting Life

I’ve never had much interest in sports played with a ball.
Of games with pucks or shuttlecocks, I have no need at all.
Gym workouts, laps and chin-ups do nothing for me.
I simply have no talent for touching chin to knee.
The body part I work out with is of a different kind.
I like the sort of games requiring exercise of mind.
Dominoes or Mastermind, Bridge or Chess or Scrabble
are aspects of the sporting life discounted by the rabble.
Yet if you want to hold my interest, team sport is absurd.
Just woo me with a domino, a die, a card, a word.
Lay your mind upon the table, dear, I’ll trump it with an ace.
The contact I like in a sport is merely face-to-face.

Blast from the Blog for Oct 3

For Fibbing Friday, Oct 2, 2026

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For Fibbing Friday, Oct 2, 2026, the assignment is:

1. What is a calibre? A bachelor who lives in the longest state situated on the West Coast of the U.S. 
2. What is citrus?  The muscle that holds an eye in its socket.
3. What is phlebotomy? The removal of biting insects from a dog or cat.
4. What is pumpernickel? What you do when your coin gets caught in the gumball machine.
5. What is meant by nimbus? What an Irishman says to the bus driver when the wrong bus pulls up and opens its door.
6. What is a sea monkey? What you use to get into the men’s restroom.
7. What is an ambassador? A fisherman who gets up early in the morning to cast his rod.
8. What is a flywheel? One of those spinning devices put in the center of the table at restaurants that shoo flies away. (See illustration above.)
9. What is a catacomb? A feline grooming implement.
10. What is flamboyant? An oil slick aflame.

 

CHUY

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Bedtime Story

Here’s the new one curled up tight
ready for another night
in the one place on my bed
where I like to put my head.
Lucky I know what to do
to maneuver room for two.
I push him over, snuggle in
so our slumbers may begin.
And this is how my canine smartie
engineers our slumber party.

This is Chuy, who sneaked into the hotel garden where I was about to read to a twice-monthly reading group.  He made the rounds of the tables, then came home with me after devouring a packet of dog food I always keep in my car for starving doggies I chance upon  and then a trip to the vet for a checkup, shots, deworming and de-fleaing. After a very necessary bath to remove whatever was matting and crusting his coat and skin, he fit very quickly into the hustle and bustle of our house. He’s put on a needed pound or two and his coat is looking shinier and curlier every day. He gets along well with both cats and other dogs who reside in my house and is the favorite at the local dog park where they all go every day with my houseguest Julie and recently myself as well.

Present animal tally at my house: 4 dogs, 2 cats, 2 humans.

For Let’s Hit Rewind, Oct. 1

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Beholding Beauty (Oct. 1, 2021)

Beholding Beauty

You are the Burmese cat, stepping high
over the small sculptures
on the wall where he is fed,
his tail curving into a delicate hook.

You are vibrating leaves on the hibiscus tree
adding the contrast of green
to the one exquisite yellow bloom
with its fuchsia sunset middle.

You are a child whose violet eyes
open wider to each wonder––innocent,
never knowing yourself to be more beautiful
than what you observe.

You are music, harmonious, played
on the spur-of-the-moment with no rehearsal,
fingerpaints on the wall in an incredibly wild pattern
that could not have been planned.

You are the gourmet meal
made of leftovers from the fridge,
the wonderful costume gathered
from hangers at the thrift store.

You have a beauty
you were not born to––
one that is an amalgam
of every choice you make in life.

Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder, many say,
but it is impossible to imagine
a beholder who couldn’t see it in you.

Lacking Vision, for dVerse Poets

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(Lacking) Vision

Whereas in leaders, we seek vision,
alas, in ours, we got division!
His rich cronies buy support
for policies that they purport
are for us, because he cares..
but profit only billionaires!!!!

The wall, the pool, the usurpation
of earlier tributes that our nation
made to presidents we revered
are proof our ship of state he’s steered
into waters perilous,
good for himself, but bad for us.

Healthcare and social security?
Safety in our maturity?
Clearly, things not necessary!
His policy of cash and carry
meant only for his personal coffers
to pay for new investment offers.

Our ship of state, mentioned before
has become a ship of war
whereas our president of late
has a new conveyance of state––
a plane much more luxurious
furnished by China, not by us!.

So we’ll be seeing by and by
where his allegiances will lie.
His vision firmly fixed upon
his fortunes and the art of con.
Too many citizens, I’m afraid,
still thirsty for the Kool-Aid!

Ooops. I got carried away and forgot this was supposed to be a haibun. Mea culpa. Please forgive….

.For dVerse Poets, the prompt is “Vision.”

“Prairie Grass” for Word of the Day

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                                                            Prairie Grass

IMG_0108Prairie grass waves over the spot where my parents’ house used to be. Its roof was blown away in a tornado years ago and the house leveled, the basement filled in. What physical remnants of my past remain beneath this dirt I’ll never know as members of the family were all far-distant when the tornado hit and no one ever went to clear out items stored in the basement. I’m told townspeople came in and scavenged in the basement before it was filled in.  A friend took my childhood books for her children.  I have no idea where other letters, books, trophies and assorted treasures from my past ended up. Perhaps they are buried there.

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Across the dirt road is the cemetery where we all will lie beneath prairie grass one day. Yes, I was moved to tears both by the beauty and the inevitability that all our fuss and bother will result in this simplicity. We rise from the earth, feed on it and in return are fed upon. No person is so special as to survive the inevitable leveling force of nature.

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The Word of the Day prompt is “Grass.”

“Gradual Justice” For Blast from the Past, Sept 28

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Gradual Justice

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Gradual Justice

Life metes out a gradual justice that we may not  see.
Not choreographed for one lifetime, not designed for you or me,
but rather, for the planet or the universe.
There’s no way to avoid it, circumvent it or rehearse.
We’re a part of something larger even as we make mistakes
as nature compensates for all  the snafus mankind makes.
Great men may be jaunty––swelled up with their great plan,
but nature has more problems than looking after man.
She has the heart of all within, seeing a scope broader
than the needs of man or any other great marauder.
There is just so much for any of us. When we grab for more,
we can be pretty sure we may be headed out the door.
What species will replace us, or how will we evolve
if we don’t act quickly our problems to resolve?
Even all technology is part of nature’s plan.
Perhaps it’s written that robots will take the place of man.
Micro chips for healing and mechanical hearts
are only the beginning. They are only the starts.
Species that overgraze domains bring about their endings.
So it may be with us with all our diggings and our vendings.
Machines spewing toxins in our air and putting poisons on our shelves
may only be the means of making more room for themselves!

“Blast from the Past” prompt asks that we post a prompt made on this date in an earlier year. This was my post on Sept 28, 2018.

The prompts today are justice, heart, jaunty and gradual. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/friday-rdp-justice/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/28/fowc-with-fandango-heart/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/jaunty/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/daily-addictions-2018-week-38/gradual