Category Archives: poems

Get the Hint and Please, Repent!

9 Replies


Get the Hint and Please, Repent!

A door that opens with a creaky hinge
is sure to make me frown and cringe,
but nothing makes me shiver more
than a lengthy lecture by a raving bore.

When at a party, I walk away
as they pontificate and bray,
but at a lecture or in church
one just can’t leave them in the lurch.

This is when a raging cough
quickly developed, can get one off.
A rapid exit towards the door
delivers you from any more.

More naive listeners might excuse
since they have not seen through your ruse.
More clever ones view your quick exit
wishing they had thought of it!

So those who think they have much wit
and find it difficult to quit
when displaying it to others
(with the exception of their mothers,)

take heed when those you’ve asked to gather
to hear your blah blah blah and blather
start to cough and start to hack,
bolt out the door and don’t come back!!!

The Prompt: Cringe-Worthy–What’s most likely to make you squirm?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cringe-worthy/

Flip Flop

6 Replies

th
flip flop

the sound  of ease
and summer

not much to slip into
or out of

sand between toes
and other cracks

released in sleep
to gritty sheets

grinding our sleep
and clogging up washing machines

long gone the days of high button shoes
and the shoe horns that went with them.

Waist cinchers
give way to bikinis

and bikinis
to nude beaches

half of the world
flip flopping

rubber soles
and swinging breasts.

flip flops
taking the place

of gasps
as stays are tightened

the other half
burqas and Jimmy Choo

these differences
in freedom found

and freedom
found too slowly

find release in
collapsing towers

conceal, reveal.
flip flop.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/flip-flop/

Dishwasher Blues

5 Replies

Dishwasher Blues

It really goes beyond my wishes
to have to load the dirty dishes
into the dishwasher each day.
I’d rather read or sleep or play.
But since I know I’ll never meet
a plate or glass or spoon with feet
to walk itself across the floor
and open up the washer’s door,
I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet.
Reach out for the door and pull it.
Load the glasses on the top,
Load the plates so they don’t flop.
Wedge in all I can and then
commit that common loading sin.
I’ll put some plastic cup in last
where it’s not held secure and fast
so it flips over and fills up
with water to top of the cup
So when I open up the door
it soaks the dishes and the floor.
So, though the loading is a curse,
Unloading’s what I hate the worse!!!!

WordPress offers alternate prompts for those of us who have already written about today’s prompt.  The prompt I’ve chosen to substitute for today’s prompt is The Chain Gang: Write about doing some task that you hate to do.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/back-on-the-chain-gang/

Here is today’s prompt if you haven’t already read it.

Fault Lines

5 Replies

Fault Lines

She lives up on a hillside far from the busy town,
and every year she lives there, she’s less likely to come down.
Her dog sits on her house’s dome and barks at all that pass.
One day she’ll likely join it, but for now she feels it’s crass.
Besides, she’s not that agile.  She seems to fall a lot–
merely due to clumsiness. A drinker, she is not.

She spends too much on artwork. The results hang down her halls,
sit upon her furniture and cover all her walls.
Her closets? Full to bulging with sizes large to small.
Her friends keep telling her there is no need to keep them all,
but to toss the ones that do not fit would cause her great duress.
She cannot throw any away, for next year she’ll weigh less.

Her refrigerator is her favorite scenic spot,
though entering’s an adventure with dangers amply fraught:
dog food barely balanced on a small sweet pickle jar
she has to brush against to get to where the short ribs are.
I’ve said that she is clumsy.  She doesn’t take her time.
This really isn’t new, for she was like this in her prime.

Her elbow strikes the pickle jar, the dog food comes out spinning.
They crash upon the tile floor. Our heroine stops grinning–
her thoughts no longer on the food but on the awful mess
of dogfood, pickles, broken glass–the rest you’ll surely guess.
The exercise that she will get mopping all this glop up.
will surely compensate for all the ribs she’ll later sop up.

And so she’ll lose her weight again and fit in that size eight.
As soon as this feat comes to be, he’ll ask her for a date.
Her dog will come down from the roof and she’ll come down the hill.
Her fridge and all her closets will suddenly unfill.
She’ll sell the art and cease to fall and fulfill all her scheming.
For the sixth thing true about her is that she’s prone to dreaming!

The Prompt: Far from Normal–Take a step back and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

For more writing on this topic go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/far-from-normal/

Today’s prompt was really “Plead the Fifth” about a question we hate to answer.  We were given the choice of an alternate prompt, which is the one I chose, but ironically, it was one I didn’t want to answer so my post really fulfills both prompts.  Tricky.  If you want to see today’s prompt and other answers to it, you will find it:  HERE.

Empty Cup

14 Replies

Empty Cup

You would think there would be some remnant left,
but death was simple.
You were there and then you weren’t.
After one deep ragged breath
you were so gone that even your body
seemed to miss you.  That stillness
so irrevocable. So not right.

Our friends all came
to see the place where you had been,
bringing offerings
to fill the void.
It was a full-packed house–
your sons, their wives, your daughter–
eight of us filling out every hollow corner.

I slept in the bed meant for two,
trying to convince myself I was enough–
trying to fill in the space you left.
That empty cup.

The Prompt:  Cut Off–When was the last time you felt completely, truly lonely?

I’ve Come Undone

10 Replies

I’ve Come Undone

If I could undo anything that’s happened in my life,
I would not undo enemies or illnesses or strife.
For all led up to my life now that really isn’t bad.
All given, I am happy, and frequently I’m glad.
My palm trees may need clipping and my dogs may have the mange,
but all in all there’s really only one thing I would change.
I’d undo one tequila or two or three or four.
I think that that is all I drank. I can’t remember more.
And after that, that dance I did as others ringed the floor?
I fear I chose to party when I should have chosen the door!

And that knee I rocked on back and forth, remembering the twist?
I fear I chose to overdo instead of to desist.
My friends did not remove me, but cheered me on instead.
And now I have a throbbing knee and needles in my head.
That knee I’d earlier injured when I fell on cobblestones
had healed, I thought, relieving all that aching in my bones.
But now I’m hobbling back and forth–gimpy once again,
for you gotta pay the piper when you choose a life of sin.
I know my knee will heal and that this agony will end,
but please remind me next time that tequila’s not my friend!!

The Prompt: If you could undo something, what would it be? Discuss why, potential repercussions, or a possible alternative.

The War of the Words (Love and War)

7 Replies

 The War of the Words

The words packed tight within my mind
seek the empty page.
They fly like hummingbirds and hawks
escaping from their cage.
But when all my empty places
I seek to fill again,
too many words rush in at once,
creating such a din
that nothing can be made of them.
I cannot restore order
in these alien syllables
that flood across my border.

I did not think these previous lines.
They just crept up on me.
I place them here upon the page
and thereby set them free.
They have no place within my head
where I had plans to write
a valentine or love poem.
Instead, they spar and fight.
One trying to beat the others
to the front line of my mind.
Love words elbowing their way
through “sensitive” and “kind.”

So shyness steps on anger’s toes
and sloth runs out of steam
trying to reclaim the place
where words like it must dream.
I no longer know the purpose
that I set out upon
I fear the mood is broken–
my concentration gone.
The thought that any love poem
will come is now absurd.
Ten minutes ago I was in love,
but now I have been cured!!

The Prompt: Write an Ode to something or someone you love. Bonus points for poetry.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!!

Ice Cream Manifesto

16 Replies

Ice Cream Manifesto

It’s just a little kiosk in the middle of the street
between two one-way roadways, in the center where they meet.
There aren’t any tables. There isn’t any chair.
You have to stand out in the street to give your order there.

Mango or tequila, tamarind or corn.
As you can see, the flavors don’t agree with any norm.
They’ve ice cream made of purest cream , but they have ices, too,
in so many flavors that I always choose a few.

My favorite? Strawberry ice. Vanilla under it.
I get a cone so I don’t have to wait to plunder it.
I finish it as I drive home, licking all the way.
I give my dogs the empty cone. It always makes their day.

The cone is hard as any bone–sweet and chewy, too.
If I were a better mother, I’d arrange that they had two.
But though I know I’d enjoy two passing o’er my lips,
Later I would not enjoy their presence on my hips.

I love that little ice cream stand. Love it all to heck,
with its lovely homemade ice cream made in Jocotepec.
That pueblo is quite close to me. It’s just five miles or so.
So it isn’t that it is so very far for me to go.

The thing is that for me, ice cream is an impulse buy.
It’s not a major purchase, like a cake or like a pie.
If I just happen to be passing and see that fellow there
waving his ice cream scoops at me, right out in the air,

preordination says that I must stop and have one now–
a bite of crispy wafer cone, adorned with ice of cow.
I do not claim responsibility for decisions of this kind.
It’s a creative impulse, not a matter of the mind.

So if you’re a public servant–an official of this town
looking for new laws to pass, don’t tear this kiosk down.
Fill some potholes in the street or put a speed bump in.
For legislating ice cream bans is sure to be a sin!

 

The Prompt: Do or Die–You have three hundred words to justify the existence of your favorite person, place, or thing. Failure to convince will result in it vanishing without a trace. Go! (355 words, poetry police–so sue me!)