Category Archives: Addiction

The Moon is Full and Waiting

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The Moon is Full and Waiting

The moon is full and waiting,
but the night is full of chill,
though my true love expects me
over yonder hill.
His ardent calls invite me
to join him for the night,
and yet I dread the cold cold wind
and the night air’s bite.
If I were only twenty
I’d have no choice to make,
but I have guests arriving
and sweet bites yet to bake.

My true love lies waiting
over yonder hill,
but he’ll return another night.
I’m confident he will.
For he has no other
to overlook his flaws:
the roughness of his ardor,
the power of his jaws.
His embrace often bruises,
though this is not his intent.
In the excess of his ardor,
only tenderness is meant.

The warm cave of our meeting
still carves out yonder hill,
but tonight I will not join him.
It may be I never will.
Tomorrow night the full moon
will partially be spent,
and perhaps by next month’s equal,
I will once more not relent.
Perhaps I’ll find another
closer to my kind,
though an equal to his passion
I’m unlikely to find.

A mild wind blows the clouds away
to clear the shrouded moon.
My guests will be arriving.
I know it will be soon.
I stir in leavening powder.
I stir in heavy cream.
Across the hand I stir with
falls the moon’s broad beam.
I drop the spoon and go again
to open up the door.
I hear the gentle song of wind,
my lover’s beckoning roar.

I answer with a beat of blood.
A spasm in my thigh
invites me to be climbing
over distant hill and high.
The crumbs fall from my fingers
as I run into the night.
I do not feel the bruising stones
or the wind’s cold bite.
My lover calls me onward,
and once again I go.
For when the full moon calls me,
not once have I said no.

 

 

IMG_0562Both of these photos were taken on Christmas Eve, 2015, from my sister’s back terrace in Peoria, Arizona.

The Prompt: Earworm––Write whatever you normally write about, and weave in a book quote, film quote, or song lyric that’s been sticking with you this week. (The song lyric I was inspired by was “Baby it’s cold outside,” but when I finished, it had no actual place in the poem other than to be its inspiration.) https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/earworm-2/

Stuffed

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Stuffed

I lose my glasses, cuss and mutter,
but my worst quality is clutter!
I have a drawer just filled with socks
I never wear.  And pans and woks,
old dishes, fondue pots  and skewers,
a fourteen-year-old bottle of Dewars
not one friend drinks, much less myself,
sitting there upon my shelf.
Everything I buy just clings.
I  can’t seem to part with things!

In boxes on my garage shelves
are all my former castoff selves.
The slides from art shows long ago?
I dread sorting them and so
they remain in plastic crates,
labeled with their types and dates.
Old letters, class notes, tax returns?
I’ve heard that paper easily burns
as well as shreds, yet still I wait.
Years pass as I equivocate.
They might be needed someday so,
get rid of them? I just say no!

My studio is filled with things.
My jewelry drawers with bracelets, rings.
My closets stuffed with different sizes,
shelves stacked with future gifts and prizes.
Snow boots although it never snows
anywhere this woman goes.
A safari hat with veil
hangs upon a closet nail
along with wet suit, snorkel, fins,
and other useless hoarding sins.

My kitchen is a spice museum.
So many spices, I can’t see um.
Fenugreek and capsicum
that I was given by my mum
so long ago they have no taste,
green olives and tomato paste
well past the date they should be used.
Yes, my house should be perused
and sorted out, I must admit,
instead, I sit and write of it!
I know some folks clear out their closets,
but me? I only make deposits!

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The Prompt:  Flawed––What is your worst quality? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/flawed/

Old Sins

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “No Apologies.” What’s the one guilty pleasure you have that’s so good, you no longer feel guilty about it?

I wrote about this prompt so long ago that probably few have read it. Here again is my poem about a plethora of  guilty pleasures!

Chocolate-covered Potato Chips and 90210

Thanks be to God for TV that’s evolved beyond Godzilla.
And thanks to him for frozen cream—both praline and vanilla.
Another pleasure is writing in bed. It’s how I start my day.
With no spouse or kids to feed, it’s where I get to stay.
I know that grandkids would be nice, but still I’m rather grateful
that being childless cuts to nil the chances they’ll be hateful.

Chocolate and potato chips, together or alone
are two more guilty pleasures for which I must atone.
I try to limit quantities that pass between my lips,
for if I eat too many, they’re displayed upon my hips.
Another guilty pleasure that’s high upon my list
is a stupid TV show that somehow I just missed

the first time that it came around and which I must admit
is really superficial, although it was once a hit.
Still, I can’t stop watching it when I am all alone—
a guilty pleasure for which I’ve found ways I can atone.
I only watch it from the pool as I do exercise—
computer balanced within view while I aerobicize.

The show I watch is Beverly Hills Nine-Zero-Two-One-Oh.
And that’s about as far as this confession’s gonna go!
I’m sure I’m shrinking brain cells, but I grow them back again
by reading hours of Marcel Proust, and then Anais Nin!
My ending comment must be this sincere beatitude:
for friends who like me as I am, I have great gratitude.

Guilty for my sins and the excesses that are mine—
grateful for the friends who still insist that I am fine
if I never turn out perfect both in looks and my behavior,
I guess the fact that they’re not perfect either is my savior.
Guiltily and gratefully, we all pass through this life,
pudgy from our excesses and battered by our strife.

But that’s how life is patterned, and we all are lucky still
that of our guilty pleasures we’re allowed to have our fill.
Thanks be to our compulsions and life’s excesses of pleasure,
for all our peccadillos end up as life’s greatest treasure.
So, thanks be again for naughty things. We both love and revile them.
With some of them we stuff our mouths. With others, We just dial them.


Throw Away: Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge 9/27/15


Throw Away
As I go through my pictures on days I’m not in the mood to go take new photos, trying to remember which ones I’ve already used on my blog, I also take the time to delete photos I know I will never use.  But today I got a wild idea and decided to restore the picture I’d just deleted and see if there was any part of it I could use.  After an hour or two of playing, I came up with fourteen possibilities.  I’m posting them all, and at the end, the picture of the giant blooming castor bean plant they all came from.
IMG_5369 IMG_5373 IMG_5370 Version 7 Version 10 Version 9 Version 8 IMG_5371 Version 6 Version 5 Version 4 Version 3 Version 2 IMG_5368Below is the unedited photo I threw away and then retrieved–the mother of them all:

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I guess the moral of the story is that there are lots of possibilities in even a picture you think doesn’t warrant saving.  Unfortunately, I see this potential in other parts of my life as well, which is why I got distracted waiting for all these photos to download to my media file and started sorting closets.  I’m proud to say I sorted out a big box of clothes to give away and another to sell.  Photos are an easy thing to hold on to because they don’t take up much space, and if all else fails you can send them to the cloud.  Now if they could just invent a cloud for the rest of the clutter of my life!!!.

Do not miss this photo: http://ceenphotography.com/2015/09/27/flower-of-the-day-september-27-2015-bashful-dahlia/

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Lost: The Ones That (Fortunately) Got Away

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Out of Reach.” Write about the one X that got away — a person, an experience, a place you wanted to visit.

Love

The one or two who got away
I’ll not call back another day;
for, compared to all the rest,
it seems I got to keep the best!


Job

Though a poetry press was up my alley,
I never saw a single galley;
for the editor did not choose me
though I thought the  job was meant to be.

I decided to go back to college
to get some other sort of knowledge.
Met the editor’s wife in my first class,
who professed her spouse to be an ass.

Art took the place of words for years,
as I happily changed gears;
for although the poetry press was hot,
it seems the editor was not!


Pounds

The pounds I lost over the years
have lived up to my greatest fears.
They decided they would all come back.
Have old home week. Rejoin the pack!

But I will not give up the fight
to try to curb my appetite.
I buy these capsules that are magic–
a spell against an outcome tragic.

Expensive?  Yes.  But worth the cost,
to keep at bay those pounds  I lost!

 

Lunch Date (Old-Fashioned Attention): JNW’s Prompt Generator

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Lunch Date

One thing I’d like that I will mention
is a bit of old-fashioned attention.
The kind with no device in hand
is the kind that I can stand

better than the sort with texting
minds caught in “before” and “next”ing
and not a thought for whom you’re with
until I’m sure that it’s a myth

that I’m the one you want to see,
even though you have invited me.
For though our table is for two,
you bring so many more with you–

every relative and friend.
Your texts to them just never end.
Our tete a tete‘s become absurd.
I never get to speak a word!

So there’s one thing I’d like to state.
Please cancel our next luncheon date.
The next time you desire a munch,
just take your iPhone out to lunch!


My prompt was “Old-fashioned Attention.” To get a prompt or see more JNW Prompt-Generated posts, go HERE.

Needless to say, there will be no sequel to this lunch date, but to see posts about sequels to movies, go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/missing-seqeuls/

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Top and Bottom

I pass it on my way back home from everywhere I go,
and every time my car just seems to naturally slow
and even if I’ve recently finished a big meal,
and much as I vow this time I won’t turn the wheel,
still something else takes over and I turn into the street
where the ice cream vendor sells his icy sweet.

I do not have to leave my car, just pull up to his booth some
and drive away in minutes with a treat that’s sweet and toothsome.
Vanilla on the bottom and strawberry on the top–
he has my order ready as I come to a full stop.
And since I always buy it when I’m on my way back home,
I eat all the ice cream, but I save my dogs the cone.

Though I think it’s my secret, I’m not fooling anyone;
for though they only see me when my ice creaming is done,
there is evidence of strawberry spilled down the front of me
as well as evidence behind that everyone can see.
This ice cream is delicious–never too bland or cloying,
yet I fear its overuse is interfering with my “boying.”

For though a gal might overlook the fact a guy is tubby,
I’ve yet to find the man who likes a woman who’s too chubby.
That’s why it’s been two months since my addiction I have kicked,
and in that time nary an ice cream have I ever licked.
So if you see that I’ve resumed this nasty ice cream habit,
you have my permission  to intervene and  grab it.

For I can wipe the Ice cream off both my blouse and lips,
but it’s not easily removed from down there on my hips
where you can see remains of it as I come and go.
Some deposited above, the rest seen far below.
In the absence of will power, I could use an ice cream cop
lest I wear vanilla on my bottom and strawberry on my top!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Breakdown.” Tell us about a habit you’d like to break.

Addicted

Addicted

It’s altering our planet, or so the experts say,
but I fear I am addicted, for I take it every day.
As regular as clockwork–morning, noon and night–
whenever I have need of it, I take it as my right.

I can take it when I’ve planned to or also just ad hoc
when I need to go out shopping, to the dentist or the doc.
I can take it while I’m listening or take it while I’m talking,
but the one time I can’t take it is whenever I am walking.

It’s become a real compulsion, an addiction and a crutch.
I’d try to give it up but I enjoy it way too much.
Yet I do not need to search it out in pharmacy or bar,
for the thing I cannot do without is just my little car.

The Prompt: Think Global, Act Local–Link a global issue to your personal life.

See more writing on this theme at: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/think-global-act-local/