Category Archives: Bucket List

Bucket List

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Bucket List

I have learned it is not wise
to reveal to other eyes
one’s bucket list lest they despise
those things that you
have chose to do
that they eschew.
Their judgement  might be too severe
for what you’ve yearned for, year on year—
to saddle up a wild deer
and ride for miles through his world,
fearing not that you’ll be hurled
to die out in the wild, not curled
within your room of board and nail
with loved ones there to hear you wail,
wanting to help, to no avail.

Or, to choose a pilot that you trust
to carry you to some high gust
that will waft you, chuteless, down to dust.
Do not dismay, oh friends of mine.
Do not doubt and do not pine
because I’ve chosen to decline
that death bed pressed and white and clean
with prolongation by machine
devoid of beauties of the scene
of forest, ocean, mountain, beach—
those places that by choice I’ll reach
more quickly in that final breach.
Know that the wildness of their lending
creates for me less painful  wending
toward my journey’s final ending.

 

For NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 7, we are to write a list poem…or an anti-list poem. That certainly widens the field!!!

I”m combining this prompt with my usual poem that makes use of prompts from six different  blogs. The prompts are linked to their source. Today they are: wise, dismay, bucket, severe, trust and nails.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Don’t Make Me!

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The Prompt:Kick the Bucket—What are the top items on your anti-bucket list — those things you never, ever want to do, places you never want to visit, books you never want to read, etc.?

Don’t Make Me

Please don’t ever make me go back to Cancun.
If I never return there, I’ve visited too soon.
Don’t make me go to church again or listen to more rap.
Don’t make me go to bed at eight or take a daily nap.
I don’t want to do those things I don’t want to do.
Don’t make me look at animals trapped up in a zoo.

Brains are meant for keeping up farther in your head.
To have to eat the things I think with fills my mind with dread.
Don’t make me eat anything only adults eat:
liver, caviar, pate, kidneys or pigs’ feet.
All of those are parts of animals I’ve come to fear,
for none of them are meant to put in human mouths, my dear.

I think that I’ll live longer without jumping from above.
For bungee cords or parachutes I have no sort of love.
Even roller coasters present uncalled-for risk.
For me a walk upon the beach is adequately brisk.
Anything that’s bumpy, jerky, swooping, fast or twirly
makes me want to arrive late and go home really early.

Please don’t make me listen to those who rant and rave.
If I meet them in the street, I’ll merely nod and wave.
Let bores much given to monologues find another ear;
because those who never listen, I have no wish to hear.
Tea-partiers, loud mouths, bigots and folks in the elite
are on my list of strangers I do not need to meet.

I hope no radiation or chemotherapy
is ever necessary to make me cancer-free.
No machines to make me breathe and no dialysis.
As little poking, pushing, testing and analysis
as possible is what I wish for on my “do not” list.
Just let me go gently into that final mist.

I’ve grown to hate the overuse of “bucket list” as label
for what folks want to do before their death if they are able.
So please be more original in thinking what to call
that list of things that you most want to do before you fall.
For the thing I don’t want as “I am” turns into “been”
Is to ever hear the phrase of “bucket list” again!

You might be able to find a list of other people who have answered this prompt by clicking on each person who has “liked” this topic here:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/kick-the-bucket/