Category Archives: Daily Prompt

Green Tea and Me

4 Replies

IMG_8379

Green Tea and Me

The taste of green tea is a taste to which I do not cotton.
Instead of tasting fresh and green, to me it just tastes rotten.
Although it is a liquid that I must daily swallow,
it clearly is a flavor in which I don’t choose to wallow.

Health drives us to those foods and liquids we would never choose.
Makes us eat our kale and fish oil, takes away our booze.
If we want to keep our blood pressure from simply soaring,
we’ll be giving up our salt for flavors much more boring.

So nature takes our simple pleasures from us one by one.
Things like buttered popcorn become a smoking gun.
If we want our  bodies to cooperate and function,
we’ll gobble less for pleasure and nibble more for unction.

The prompt today was tea.

Pick a Pickled Pepper

8 Replies

IMG_7934

Pick a Pickled Pepper

Some girls lick on lollipops, but I never will.
I prefer the piquant taste of vinegar and dill.
Pickle up some peppers  and shove them in a jar.
Put a label on it to show them who you are.
If a cute boy eats one, he will pucker up,
and perhaps you’ll plant a kiss where he deigned to sup.

Pick a cherry pepper, press it to your lips,
and that spicy boy might want to steal some sips.
Do not tell your mother. Do not tell your dad,
or that might be the only pepper that you ever had.
Lollipops are sweet but just a little coy.
Pickles work much better for picking out your boy.

 

The prompt today was lollipop. Strangely enough, the song “Lollipop, Lollipop” has been going through my mind for the past few days.  I even made up different lyrics to the tune of it to sing to Annie, my 15-year-old ill cat,  as I drove her (meowing all the way) home from the vet the other day. The men who stand in the road to wave people into the fish restaurants near San Juan Cosala must have wondered at me as I hollered out the strange song at the top of my lungs, just like my dad used to do to startle a howling baby into silence.  Ah well.  We get odder as we get older but have more of an excuse for it!

Also, for the Ragtag prompt: https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/rdp-9-pickle/

Do it Yourself

15 Replies

images

Do it Yourself

The ending was disastrous though it started out just fine.
I don’t have anyone to blame. The fault was purely mine.
I thought I knew the way to do it but was surely wrong.
I should have heeded the advice my friends gave all along.

But my father was a Dutchman. I inherited his genes.
To figure out most everything, I think I have the means.
I made and hung the kitchen shelf.
I installed my towel bars by myself.
I patched the wall
and then, y’all,
fast as a wink,
unplugged the sink.

As you can see, I’m competent. Sufficiently sufficient.
In household matters A to Z I’m startlingly efficient.
But—
I guess I should have asked for help with my last operation,
for now I have to stay at home and feign I’m on vacation
lest every friend who sees me delivers an oration
about how I should read instructions,
not depend on pure deductions,
ask for help, request advice.
I heeded not, now pay the price.

The instructions that I never heeded
were probably the ones I needed.
The hair dye warning I failed to see
is in fact what ruined me.
For though I am really fond
of hair a lovely hue of blonde,
I fear I’m unfit to be seen
now that my hair’s a vivid green!

So for a few months I’ll be heard
by Skype or telephone or word,
but no one will ever see me
until repeated shampoos free me.
You do not have to say a word.
I know my actions were absurd.
I might have had lovely blonde locks
if only I had read the box!!!

The prompt today was disastrous. Image from the internet. Thanks, “Psycho!”

Savoring Flavoring

16 Replies

Remember Dagwood making those midnight trips to the fridge, piling his “Dagwood sandwich” high with most things edible that came into his vision?  Or slumber parties where you tried to do the same and everyone ended up ill, to you mother’s great chagrin?  We crave the memories almost as much as the tastes, and perhaps this is what continues to drive us out into the night from our warm beds—exploring the hidden depths of our refrigerators for something special to savor. 

download-1

Midnight Light

I wear darkness like a second skin.
It is the cloak that hides my midnight sin
as I make my way, barefooted, through my house.
Silent, lest I wake my dogs or spouse.

This way I know most well and so I bridge
in seconds that long gap between my bed and fridge.
Pull open that snug door and hear the plop
first of the rubber gasket, then the top

of the carton that has been my goal.
Spoon out its richness without benefit of bowl.
This darkness both of me and of the night
something the fridge dispenses with its light

as tears of joy and guilt and pleasure stream
down cheeks distended with this chocolate dream.
For minutes, I stand caught up in the hold
of this trio of pleasures: chocolate, creaminess and cold.

Until some motion jolts me from their grip.
I feel its pressure at my shoulder and my hip.
My spouse rolls over, shattering my dream
of midnight tryst with frozen cream.

Its chocolate savor is one that I try to keep
as I roll over once again to seek my sleep.
Whatever course my next dream serves, I’ll try it.
For I’ve already been one long day on this diet!

ff411ba6f0d90f1e20dab141cf0bf1f9.jpg

 

The prompt today was savor. (Yes, you have perhaps read this poem before.  I wrote it three years ago.) The photos were harvested from the Internet.

Sleight of Knees

Leave a reply

IMG_7755doll by Louie Gann, jdbphoto

Sleight of Knees

When the circus clown was lauded,
marveled at, praised and applauded
for hanging from the high trapeze
for 24 hours by his knees,
though he was admired for his moxie,
it turns out it was just epoxy!

 

The prompt today was moxie.

The Eighth Deadly Sin (Advice for Errant Males)

3 Replies

 

The Eighth Deadly Sin:
(Advice for Errant Males)

Wrath and avarice and pride
can be safely kept inside.
So although we all may be them,
it is often hard to see them.

If you are a seasoned actor,
sloth will never be a factor
leading to your firing
or premature retiring.

Often envy, I confess,
is one more way that I transgress;
but even though we’re caught inside it,
almost all of us can hide it.

Lust is the sin that’s most unfurled
upon us in this modern world
in every book and magazine.
In movies? It’s in every scene.

And though sex is oft debated,
we only label them X-rated;
and though we profess to abhor them,
in solitude, we may adore them.

Gluttony’s the only sin
we cannot seem to keep within;
for everything that meets our lips,
alas, is carried on our hips!

Each is labeled “deadly sin”—
the one outside, others within;
but I’m inclined to add another
perhaps not taught you by your mother.

These deadly sins from one to seven
may be what keep you out of heaven,
but it’s transgression number eight
that will ban you as my date!

You may talk as you pour wine,
and continue as we dine;
but when I start to tell a tale,
heaven help the errant male

who utters “Me, too . . . ” then proceeds
to list more of his facts and deeds.
As music fades and lights all dim,
bringing the subject back to him!

I know that sinning is the fate
of many couples on a date.
So lust may now and then corrupt me,
but no one gets to interrupt me!!!!

 

Must admit this is a reprint of a poem I wrote three years ago, and although this eighth deadly sin is one that well-deserves burial, I think the poem written about it might well be resurrected one more time, so I am telling the tale again in hopes those it describes might recognize themselves and repent before it is too late.

And, for those of you whom I told were incorrect when they guessed that the photo I published yesterday was a bunch of parsnips, I apologize. I was told they were rutabagas, but when I consulted Google images, I discovered you were right!

The prompt today was bury.

Little Savages

9 Replies

Little Savages

Hungry little savages attack the bedroom rug,
assaulting the tassels as they sortie for a bug.
They pounce upon the jingling ball, climb the sliding screen,
finding potential nourishment in everything they’ve seen.
They fall upon the kitten food and empty out their dishes,
inspecting corners of their bowls–stray morsels now their wishes.
Tidily lick my fingers, tongues curling from their lips,
mining me for fish oil caught in whorls of fingertips.

They can find adventure in anything you’d name—
pursuing errant crickets is like stalking wild game.
Every moving thing around is something to be followed—
to be toyed with, then when humans enter, quickly swallowed.
Frisky little savages win every hunting game.
They pounce upon their victim—live or plastic is the same.
They stalk their largest quarry as though they have a map—
track it down and take a leap and curl up in my lap!

(Click on first photo to enlarge all.)

Ollie..runt of the litter.

The prompt word today was savage.

Unsolitary Confinement

5 Replies

img_7363.jpg

Unsolitary Confinement

When I’m walking down the street, my bracelets jingle jangle,
executing dialogues—bangle against bangle.
Calling up to earrings that answer as they dangle,
warning errant necklaces not to twist and strangle.
Every little moving piece—every single spangle
creates a  cacophony that’s more than I can wrangle.
Just a little peace and quiet’s all I hope to wangle
as, thrown into my jewelry box, they’re silenced by the tangle.
They’re driven by their fear that their proximity will mangle
if they even try to move to aim for a new angle.

 

 

The prompt today is jangle.

Paper Shoes

5 Replies

Paper Shoes

I’m folding me some paper shoes
so I can walk away the blues.
The love poems I cannot recall
I’ll scuff off as I pass the mall.
Someone will find my words all shredded—
how you wooed and won and bedded
one so young and so naive
that she could not help but believe
words pilfered from a Hallmark store
that you had often used before.

All those lovelorn lines obscured.
All that loneliness endured.
On Main Street I will shed my heart—
that part of me you tore apart.
All the lines I wrote about it,
all the times I grew to doubt it.
Your words the heel, my words the sole,
the sidewalks will consume them whole.

All the futile poetry
that passed once between you and me
ground into the pavement where
perhaps two lovers will find it there—
the words like seeds that hung around
hoping for more fertile ground.
Love sprouted from a used-up word
might strike some others as absurd,

But I like to think perhaps
our use of them was just a lapse.
Repeated by those other voices
who choose to live by other choices,
all those words that we now rue
might work for lovers who are new.

The prompt word today is paper. (Image from internet, photographer unknown.)

Loop de loop

6 Replies

Thought I’d have to do this job myself, but Pasiano took over immediately and did a beautiful job.

Loop de Loop

Every little hole drilled, every little loop
helps attach the walls for—our new kitty coop.
They’re tired of the inside. They want to get out.
They’ve got cabin fever—I’ve not any doubt.

They’ve taken over all my house—bathroom, sala, kitchen.
So many handy spots to hide while they’re mama-ditchin’.
They pulled down all my CD’s and ate my bird’s nest too.
So many great high perches. Always something new.

But mama’s running out of time. She has too much to do
to spend all of her time running this temporary (?) zoo.
Some outside time is what we need—these 4 kittens and me—
a little outside running place will set all of us free.

So Pasiano’s attaching walls over the side gate bars
to protect the kitties from dogs and speeding cars.
Although escape to the big world I’m sure they’d find sublime,
we hope the napa palms are too slippery to climb.

The particle board is all installed.  The kittens in fresh air
leap and climb and hide and play. They find it lovely there.
They don’t answer to their names, their naming is so new;
They are Kukla, Fran and Ollie and the white girl we call Roo.

Will the big cat come to visit, or perhaps a frog or two?
That would give them other interesting things to do.
As for me, I finally have some time to do some writing
with nothing climbing up my leg—scratching, mewing, biting.

Kittens are so precious, a constant fun delight;
but I can’t be petting kittens every hour—day and night.
They had two inside places. Now they have an outside other.
No one can tell who likes it most—the kittens or their mother!

 

Olie and Roo have a wonderful time rolling in the dirt, playing with palm fronds and trying to climb the slippery trunks of the trees. So do Kukla and Fran for a half hour or so, but . . .

soon I could hear their piping little “mew mew mew”s.  They’d climbed between the bars and were begging for me to open the sliding screen to let them in.  Within minutes, they were curled up in separate drawers in the bathroom, as was Ollie. Soon, only Roo remained outside, asleep in the sun, where she still is two hours later!

I would have shown you many more photos, but alas, my computer drive is full again and I can’t download any.

 

The prompt today was loop.