Expert
I used to be plucky, I used to be pert.
I used to pass muster in shorts or a skirt.
But lately my pert parts have just seemed to shift,
and various parts are in need of a lift.
Big tops are my saviors. Caftans are my friends––
obscuring my excesses, shielding my bends.
Back in my plucky days, I was a flirt,
but seduction is over now I’m an ex-pert!
The prompt today was “Expert.”
My Life by Tens
Up to Age One? Cares had I none.
At age ten? Pretty zen.
Then at twenty? Zip aplenty.
Turning thirty? Feeling flirty.
Nearing forty? Lithe and sporty.
Turning Fifty? Bali’s nifty.
Big six-oh? More oats to sow.
Big seven-oh? One year to go.
(Click first photo to enlarge and see years. Hover to just see years.)
The prompt today was “FIfty.” This was all I could come up with.
Roundabout
When we were younger, we all were amused
as my mom steadily grew more confused––
losing her keys and her glasses and purse.
Each year of her life, it seemed to get worse.
At tax time she snorted, she fussed and she stewed
as her simple receipts she sorted and viewed.
One thing at a time was all she could do.
She grew somewhat flustered when confronted with two.
It was a puzzle for those forced to view it.
With much less to do, she took longer to do it.
But now as my seventies get so much nearer,
what my mother faced is getting much clearer.
Once a multi-task wizard, I find even two
tasks at one time are too much to do.
When on the computer I now have to think
to accomplish functions once done in a blink.
The names of close friends I now search my brain for.
What once came so easily, I must now strain for.
I still have my memory—try to believe it.
It just takes me longer to sort and retrieve it.
When it comes to time limits, I just confuse myself.
In games like Trivia, I must recuse myself.
The end of my stories I’m often delaying,
for I can’t recall what I started out saying.
When I finally remember why I came to town,
I’ve forgotten the list where I carefully wrote down
all of my errands and then what is worse,
when I get back home, they are there in my purse!
I’m glad I’ve no kids with whom I can share
or they’d already have me in memory care.
Disclaimer: Naughty word implied in this poem. Do not read if easily offended.
Retired
Mr. Clock, Mr. Clock,
though your advances I try to block,
my attempts you seem to mock
with your continuous tic tic toc,
echoed by my neighbor’s cock
crowing from his noisome flock.
No longer cheerleaders or jocks,
nor femmes fatale with flowing locks,
in Birkenstocks, flip flops or Crocs,
(worn in the winter complete with socks)
we huddle safe behind our locks,
afraid of terrorists with glocks
or neighbors’ children tossing rocks.
We hear your phone calls and your knocks,
we know you gather in your flocks,
your PTAs and your ad hocs,
while each of us sits in our box
as stubborn as a mule or ox,
busy in our painters’ smocks
or cooking spinach in our woks.
Our homes all sealed up like Ft. Knox,
we have no need of the world’s shocks,
its pestilence and chicken pox.
We have our pensions and our stocks,
our Lean Cuisines in our ice box.
We shun your CNN or Fox!!!
Our TV sets set to the past
neglect to show the latest blast
as all the world seems set to cast
Armageddon, coming fast.
So as you watch the latest drone
on your notebook or your phone,
as you predict and hate and moan,
please leave us the f— alone!
Phases of history, cycles of moon––
as we grow older, the thought is jejune
that everything passes too soon, oh too soon.
The days seem to eat up our time with a spoon.
When I was younger, the days went so slow,
with nothing to do and nowhere to go,
and every day, every day––all were the same.
I needed adventure, but it rarely came.
Animals’ phases allow them to dare
to turn into something more special and rare.
Tadpoles swim landwards, developing legs.
Pupae to butterflies, chickens from eggs.
Rain falls and water runs west to the sea.
We try to go with it, my sister and me.
With leaves for our sails and vine pods for our ships,
what we wish for remains behind eyelids and lips.
The gutters are swollen and culverts are full.
We harness our boats, and we push and we pull.
But still they escape––rush away on their own.
I envy their future–unfettered, unknown.
In faraway places, I thought I’d be free
to discover new parts I was fated to be;
so I went after life like a kid at a fair,
from her carousel horse, reaching out through the air.
I could not resist the chance of surprise––
to grab the brass ring and capture the prize.
And yes, I did travel and how I did roam.
Life got faster the farther I wandered from home.
Now I’ve been through the phases from child to wife.
I’ve traveled and struggled and had a free life.
I’ve been on large vessels for months at a time,
and on most of my travels, I’ve had a good time.
If I’d known that the slow times were not going to last,
I would not have hoped for my time to go fast.
For now when the ending comes faster and faster,
The pace of my life is just courting disaster.
Though other seas beckon, my boat is well tethered.
My new dreams are tamer, my old dreams well weathered.
Now that I can go anywhere, do many things,
I wish for more time just to fold up my wings.
“After all our years have settled like dust . . .”
––okc forgottenman
Ashes and Dust
When that cruel wind
blows against memories
that have settled like dust
on our lives,
what will remain
sealed in our crevasses
––fine furniture that we are
of a bygone age?
What remaining minutes
of a long life of years
will define us then?
A kiss? A child held in arms?
Regrets? Terrors?
In those storerooms
where people sit
stacked in silent cubicles,
what zephyrs whisper through
to stir the embers
of their minds?
Is there music in those currents
or are they the sad
whining winds
that curl over headstones
and lament the dust that settles there,
moaning through cracks in attics
and around hanging eaves troughs,
causing them to swing and bump
lonely against the fading
wood of abandoned houses?
LIfe builds us and wears us away
like the mountain.
Like sand on the beach.
We are not above it all.
No matter how much power
we think we gain,
Nature is a wind that breathes
into us at birth,
then blows itself away.
The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem making use of the first line of someone else’s poem. You can find the poem by okc forgottenman that I drew inspiration from Here. The WordPress prompt was “whisper.”
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-2/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/whisper/
Old Farts at the Beach
How do we choose what to hold on to as life slips away faster––
pulled by a stronger tide?
We want to fall through days with no plans,
like teenagers in a small town,
wandering around to find adventure where they can––
last minute expeditions
to small places
that prick delight.
From beaches piled so high with coral that it shreds our shoes,
we collect shells and driftwood shards and sea skate egg casings––
treasures with no larger price tags than precious time––
hints of another world we have earlier viewed like voyeurs from above,
our goggles misting over as that world darts by
too quickly to catch by hand or camera lens or
anything but memory.
None of us desire to waste time with anything else but wasting time.
“We are in this world to fart around,” Kurt Vonnegut once said,
and we want to have tattoos of it so we won’t forget––
all too aware that soon some of us will.
(Click on first photo to enlarge all photos, then on arrow to view all. When you have viewed all of the photos, click on X on the upper left side of thepage to come back to this page.)
Update: Want to see where we went for lunch? It’s called Restaurante La Mosca, aka The Fly Cafe. You can see photos HERE.
Wild Nights “Out”
When we are young we brag and flout
our exciting evenings out,
but later on the joys of gin
start to wear our patience thin.
Lately, though I still go dancing,
I find an hour or two of prancing
is quite enough to slake my thirst;
and I must confess the worst.
When it comes to nights of sin,
my most exciting nights are “in!”
The Prompt: Tell us about your most exciting night out lately. https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/saturday-night/
Young at Heart
If I walk always looking back,
I only see what I now lack;
but if I look in front of me,
I’m aware of all that I might be.
Staying young? A matter of eye, not heart.
Remembering at the day’s fresh start
to train my eye on what’s to be
and never ever in back of me.
That excitement of the unexpected––
that future formerly undetected––
is what keeps life fresh and new.
Who will deliver your next clue?
Your script in life has not been written.
Life is an apple still unbitten.
Each bite or line is yours to make.
Each day a freshly uncut cake.
Dawn is a gift that’s given us
to start anew with lesser fuss
and more acceptance of what’s there
awaiting us in the open air.
The world unfolds to all who seek,
banishing old and stale and meek.
To spend each day in a world that’s new
is how to keep your youth with you.
The Prompt: What are your thoughts on aging? How will you stay young at heart as you get older?https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/young-at-heart/
I have never had an imaginary friend until four years ago, when one suddenly appeared. She has a special function in my life: memory. When I’m driving to town and suddenly forget exactly where it is I’m going, I prod her and within a few seconds, she has the answer for me. She never tires of these prods–even when I ask her the same question twice within the space of an hour or two. Sometimes she even leaves me notes on the refrigerator. “Catfood,” she scribbles, “Lampshade.” “Hem pants!”
As is necessary with good friends, I forgive her her shortcomings as she forgives mine. When it took her an entire week to come up with the name of a woman whose name I keep confusing with another, I did not chide her. When I forgot the name of one flower for an entire year, I ceased even asking her to provide an answer and in its own sweet time, memory brought the name to me with no prodding.
As with all imaginary friends, I do not call attention to her in public. We have our conversations in private, usually as I rail against myself, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” when the correct information will not come with the ease that it did before this particular decade.
It is she who decided I needed a wall hanger for glasses and keys and after fruitless minutes of my daily searches, reminds me that my car keys and reading glasses are where they’re supposed to be–on the rack! She has been doing this for years, without complaint, and one of my main fears in life is that she will pass on before I do.
We have a pact, my imaginary friend and I, and if it is up to her and me, we will die peacefully, side by side, forty years from now when we are 108. By then she will be so worn out that she will deserve a rest, and by then I will probably be all too willing to go with her.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Imaginary Friend.”Many of us had imaginary friends as young children. If your imaginary friend grew up alongside you, what would his/her/its life be like today?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 