Category Archives: Daily Prompt

“Girls” Night Out

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Click on any photo to enlarge and view all as gallery.

“Girls” Night Out

Mary Tyler Moore, Working Girl and I Love Lucy—
 film nights with the ladies are usually juicy.
Although we’re staying in, all that’s tucked in must be outed.
All those mumbled gripes now brought to light and shouted.
Pulling out the bobby pins to let the chignons flow.
Kicking off the heels to wiggle arch and toe.
Slipping off the panty hose, loosening top buttons.
Gorging on potato chips and dip like teenage gluttons.
Drinking margaritas, martinis and mojitos.
Pepperidge Farm and popcorn, ice cream and Doritos.
When old dames get together, pull out all the stops.
Banish all the dust cloths. Lock up all the mops.
Rip up all the lists and turn them to confetti.
Break out the lasagne. Break out the spaghetti.
Fill the crystal bowls with M&Ms and truffles.
Ban antimacassars, doilies, tucks and ruffles.
Bring out your old 8-tracks and your 45’s.
Forget that you are mothers, grandmothers and wives.
Better shake your booties while they still can shake.
Better come alive while still able to wake.
Time enough for normalcy when you’re ninety-six.
When you’re only seventy, you’ve still got some kicks.
Leave your spouses home staring at their football games—
vicariously living while you’re out being dames.
It’s your secret life, for no one needs to know
everything you do and everywhere you go.
Let the whole world think you’re in there playing bridge
while you are jitterbugging and emptying out the fridge.
It’s more fun when it’s secret, so promise not to tell
when old girls get together and raise a little Hell!!!!

The prompt today was juicy.

Yellow

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Okay… gotta do it.  This was a poem I wrote three years ago when yellow was the prompt.  See it HERE.

The prompt word was yellow.

Nativity

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dsc09921

Nativity

It was some day, that day when light came into my world.
Reaching out my arms and legs as they came uncurled,
so many lovely colors bursting into sight.
All this brilliant pigment where formerly was night.

All the parts familiar still attached to me—
my ankle and my navel, my elbow and my knee.
But no longer together, curled into one tight ball.
I never knew that I could be so wide and tall.

Stretching out to fill this square I wonder when
I will be forgetting the curved world I’ve been in.
My mother now beside me instead of all around.
At other times she’s simply nowhere to be found.

My father’s arms around me—arms brand new to me.
All the other others coming to see what I may be.
Scratchy things now touch me—dry things and things with fluff.
Everything a new thing until I’ve had enough.

Then I find my power and make some kind of noise.
Soon I’m joined by other infant girls and boys,
and the whole room fills with sounds of our distress.
Very satisfying, I fear I must confess.

The nurses all come running, the fathers and the sisters.
The orderlies and doctors, the misses and the misters.
And when they lift us up, each one in different arms,
all our cries desist as they cater to our charms.

“Some day,” they’ve been saying, and now we are all here—
a fresh new crop of humans arrived for them to rear.
Once more we exercise our lungs and make each father cower.
Fresh to this new world, we have already found our power.

The prompt today was someday.

Cruel Infinity

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Cruel Infinity

I cannot face the infinite—
that colossal haunted house—
too many rooms seemingly empty
that teem with invisible somethings
that I can’t comprehend.
How could I find myself in such vastness?
What in those giant corridors knows I exist?
Ego, finally, my undoing, as I fear
becoming part of what I find impossible
to grasp.

Everything I am
yearns towards the specific—
fine detail being more or less
how I have spent my life.
How can such a life be reconciled
with the infinite? Everything
cycling up and up from nothing
and, we fear, back down again.
He who says that nature is not ironic
lies or simply refuses to face the truth.

It is a cruel infinity that has included
such a tiny space
for me.

The prompt today was “infinite.”

Voyage

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p2030407

Voyage

Each day, do you set out once more
on a voyage of discovery—
following a horizon you’ve been told
bends to itself with wonders in between?

Or do you trace a well-worn path,
fitting your feet to yesterday’s footsteps—
unfolding that map of  yourself
that ventures deeper with each step?

How old are you now?
Old enough to know
both courses can take you
in the same direction?

The prompt word today was “discover.”

Tree of Faith

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Tree of Faith

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Please click on the first photo below to enlarge and read captions that explain the pieces.

This one Mexican combined with a general mysticism.
My own personal faith
and Huichol. In working with their symbols, I was tryng to understand their faith, not necessarily adopt it.
The cycle of life represented by the trees, sun, clouds, rain.
The sacred amaranth
And the scorpion holding the six-sided star. Now, please click on the X at the upper left of the page to continue reading about the main purpose of posting this poem and these photos.

For any of these creations, I could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. Then crucified for the poem. This holy examination of self is not tolerated in some countries, or by certain factions of our own. This is what we are trying to guard against in a democracy, but its guarantee in our constitution is not, evidently, a given.  It must be fought for over and over again. That open eye of the Madonna was never more called for in our country.

This poem and these retablos are dedicated to   Ashraf  Fayadh.  Please click on the below link if you doubt the veracity of what I say above or if you want to see an example of why it is so important for us to continue to embrace diversity in thought , faith and culture:
https://thegadabouttown.com/2016/12/10/speak-out-for-ashraf-fayadh/

The prompt word today was “mystical.”

 

Chaos R Us

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Lately I’ve had the feeling that my entire life is chaotic, but nothing this year has been the equal of having my whole life uprooted and moved to obscure corners and cupboards while they tile all of the floors in my house in one fell swoop. Nine men descended en masse a few days ago, took off all my doors (13 in all) and started turning my entire property into a workshop. Bags of adhesive form a wall between my street gate and front door. The pathways are paved my empty cardboard tile boxes. Men cut tile in my back yard, creating clouds of porcelain dust. Young men carry metal containers full of mixed adhesive and stacks of heavy porcelain tiles. Old men measure, spread adhesive and lay the tiles. Other men arrive to cut off the doors. Meanwhile, I am living in one small room and attached bathroom piled with assorted art objects, clothes and bathroom supplies, trying to find my way to the kitchen through the construction process. Not to mention keeping the dogs contained with every part of the house and yard being used. Here are some of the posts I’ve done over the past few days:

Elicit

The Tile Layers

Hide and Go Seek: Thursday Doors, Nov 24, 2016

It couldn’t be more appropriate to my life that the daily prompt word is “Chaotic“

BP and Me

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BP and Me

Cook a bowl of oatmeal and throw some apples in.
Cinnamon and cranberries and walnuts are no sin.
Gotta get the pressure down––of both my life and blood.
So no more salting French fries or pies of chocolate mud.
I exercise enough, I think, nighttimes in the pool;
but midnight trips out to the fridge brand me as a fool.

So a giant bowl of oatmeal with milk that is nonfat
and a bit more exercising where I once just sat
will guarantee I’ll live at least to one hundred twenty.
I’ll have lower blood pressure and zip I’ll have aplenty.
There is no secret to long life and staying young and burlier.
The answer lies in giving up life’s pleasures a bit earlier.

 

The prompt word today is “Giant.” (It’s not too obvious what this poem has to do with the prompt word until the second stanza, but originally, I had “giant bowl of oatmeal” in the first line. Alas, no rhyme presented itself, so “giant” got relegated to a bit further down in the poem and became less relevant.  Oh well. Main purpose of the prompts is to get us started, anyway.)

 

Unhitched

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Unhitched

I’ll slog through the mud and slog through the rain,
but I’ll never slog back to you, ever again.
If ever again I work fingers to bone,
I will be doing it here on my own—
not chasing your dreams or plowing your furrow
like a mule in a trace or a poor laden burro.
Life was a hard slog, dear, trudging with thee—
much more of a grind than just being me.
So I’ll point my gaze forward, not back where I’ve been
without pulling you with me, ever again.

As Groucho would say, “The secret woid today was ‘Slog!’

Simplicity

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Simplicity

Simplicity is something that I rarely do.
Why have only one of something when you could have two?
It takes a lot of veggies to come up with a stew,
and we’d do a lot of limping if confined to just one shoe.

Multiples are awesome. Multiples are grand.
Look how many fingers we have upon each hand.
One finger could not do the job. Neither could two or three.
Simple cannot form a hand, did not form you or me.

Simplicity’s much touted but I think it is absurd.
Who ever heard of stories comprised of just one word?
With a single raindrop, the world could not get wetter.
Sparsity may be more chic, but I like clutter better.

I don’t get minimalism. I’m a hoarder to the core.
When I ran out of wall room, I put art upon my door.
There are no piles in hallways. Hoarding need not be a sin.
I’ve built three rooms onto my house just to store things in.

With so many lovely things in life, collecting is a joy.
With life’s manifold choices, why be niggardly or coy?
At the ice cream parlor, why does one have to choose?
You need not always limit yourself just to ones and twos.

Have a scoop of strawberry and pineapple and mint.
Green tea is delicious and tequila’s heaven sent.
Load your dish with raspberry and coconut and mango.
Why do the simple two step when you could do the fandango?

In short, I am a gatherer. I have too many things.
I like to make the choices that a complex lifestyle brings.
When it comes to writing, a stuffed-full mind is fine!
Reach into words and shake them out and string them on a line.

A solitary animal will never make a zoo.
One grain of dirt, one drop of water cannot create goo.
A single cannon fired will not execute a coup.
The world just is not simple, nor am I and nor are you!

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I’m having a yard sale of left-over words.  Below is the “free box.” Take what you will (please note that some of these items have been recently used, but all have been laundered and are ready for a new user):

coy ploy toy bore core 
simplicity complicity duplicity felicity
ooze booze cruise who’s whose choose lose blues news pews poos cues ruse sues twos views woos youse 
doozie floozie twozie
boo  goo hue loo moo new poo queue rue sue soo sioux too to you view woo you

*

Right in line with the theme of the poem, below are way too many photos.  If you want to see the details, you know what to do, right?  If you don’t, I’ll tell you.  Just click on the first photo and click on arrows to proceed through the photo gallery.  To come back here afterwards, click on the X in the upper left corner. 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/simplicity/