Forced Celebration
As they frogmarched their prisoner into the room,
uncountable candles dispelled the gloom.
A pervading odor of sugar and wax
was entrenched in the air around piles and stacks
of brightly wrapped boxes of variable sizes,
yet she was not swayed by potential surprises.
Soothing smiles of friends and the song they were singing
were tangential to thoughts that were wildly zinging
through her mind, for in short, she did not find it nifty
that this was the day that she would turn fifty!!!
Prompts today are frogmarch, variable, soothing, entrench, pervading, candle and tangential. Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash.
Imitating Grandma
In my grandma’s pleasant house,
dressed up in her peasant blouse,
a towel stuffed in to form a lump
to imitate her dorsal hump,
I tried to imitate her waddle
and her propensity to dawdle,
offering morsels from her cookie jar,
as she watched me from afar.
With not a filament of shame,
I went about my childish game,
beaming as I played the gimp,
miming her arthritic limp.
In my innocent portrayal
was the cruelest betrayal.
The family knew the shame was mine,
but as I toddled down the line
of people who filled up the room,
I gloried to the cheerful boom
of Grandma’s laugh as she piped up
to save this youngest clueless pup
from the shame I might have felt
if she had not approached and knelt
down next to me, gathering in
this cruel mime, absolving sin.
And though I thought the final line
would surely be a quip of mine,
aping her halting foreign speech
as I tried to avoid her reach,
she gathered me in loving hug
and giving an indulgent shrug,
said, “Forgive her, for she’s only three
and gets her sense of humor from me!”
Prompts today are dawdle, (love that word) mine, peasant, filament, morsel, beaming and portrayal. Image from the internet.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Yolanda
She plucks the dirty clothes
like field flowers from the basket,
her journey to the laundry
another joyful excursion
from room to room in my house.
Did she enjoy her vacation? I ask.
She shakes her head no.
She’d rather be working,
she insists.
Every task,
fulfilled to perfection,
builds her pleasure in the day.
She dusts the picture frames,
folds the towels,
steals her dusting cloth back from the playful puppy,
then takes the dish sponge from my hand.
Let her, she says,
and you go write a poem!
Y, en espanol. Gracias, Lisa. oxoxox
Yolanda
Ella arranca la ropa sucia
como flores de campo de la canasta,
su viaje a la lavandería
otra excursión
alegre de habitación en habitación en mi casa.
¿Disfrutó de sus vacaciones? Pregunto.
Ella sacude la cabeza no.
Ella preferiría estar trabajando,
ella insiste.
Cada tarea,
cumplido a la perfección,
construye su placer en el día.
Ella desempolva los marcos de los cuadros,
dobla las toallas,
roba su tela de polvo del cachorro juguetón,
luego toma la esponja del plato de mi mano.
Déjala, dice,
¡y vas a escribir un poema!
A double quadrille for the dVerse Poets Pub, the task set by Lisa is to compose a quadrille on the topic of work. To see the prompt itself and the wonderful poems it quotes to name the task, go HERE. And to read poems that answer the prompt, go HERE.
Something Fishy
Those who embrace fish cuisine need to heed my warning,
for even though a new catch comes in every single morning,
our local seafood retailer it’s rumored is a mobster
who concocts a fishy mishmash and pawns it off as lobster.
It’s mushier than lobster and they say a wee bit pallid,
so if you want the real deal, better stick with tuna salad.
Prompt words today are lobster, embrace, concoct, retailer, tuna salad.
I believe this is a Physostegia Virginiana or Obedient plant flower, based on the leaf shape.
For Cee’s FOTD.
So Long, Marianne!
Mmmmm, he said, I think I need
Another kiss and then, indeed,
Require a hug to go with it.
I like the way that our lips fit.
And if you choose to give me none,
Neither will I give you one!
No love is won by those found lacking
Expertise in hugs and smacking.
–Judy Dykstra-Brown
Murisopsis’s Scavenger Hunt Prompt at Looking at Names is to write an acrostic poem for Marianne.
Chasm
I flounce, you plod. You reach the crest
while I have chosen to stop and rest.
From far below, I scan the skies.
dreaming, as you supervise.
You are inflexible and frigid,
I the opposite of rigid.
As I wander here and there,
you search for me and tear your hair.
What tantrums over my transgressions
must be prompted by my digressions.
Comparable to day and night,
you are the darkness to my light.
This, dear, is the dichotomy—
the chasm between you and me.
Prompts for today are flounce, crest, supervise, comparable, tantrum, inflexible and dichotomy. Image from Unsplash.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 