(Click on photos to enlarge)
Beach Boys, Second Generation
See the motley little band
trudge the beach, tip cup in hand.
A funnel stuffed into a hose––
is held to lips and then one blows.
Two other small musicians lug
a twenty-liter water jug.
Later, one begins to hum
accompanying his buddy’s drum.
I’ve shown these photos before, but the poem is new, for: dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Drum
At Sixes and Sevens
East is east and west is west,
but some say north and south are best.
Thoughts on this are bound to vary.
Righteous folks from Tucumcari
say the south is best, whereas,
folks from Chicago say no town has
Chicago’s flair and wit and jazz.
Rancorous California folk
think East Coast people are a joke,
whereas upper class New Yorkians
crack jokes about the Kavorkians.
Ordinarily, I’d say
that I’m a gal who’d like to stay
out of the north-south-east-west fray.
But when it comes to the siesta,
Mexico must be the besta.
That’s south, if New York’s home to you,
but north if you are from Peru.
Thus, this bit of wisdom I’d like to give:
Direction’s always relative
to where on Earth you choose to live!!!
Prompt words today are siesta, ordinary, rancor, righteous and east.
Biker Wedding
Though I’m just your uncle and backward at that,
I’m exceedingly fond of my sister’s sweet brat.
I hear there’s a biker you’re eager to wed
and though I’d suggest a nice banker instead,
I’m here not to alienate, but advise
(since I am your kin who’s most apt to be wise.)
Instead of a veil you’ll be wearing your patches
and learning his lingo by listening to snatches
of biker bar gossip and those conversations
spawned over road talk and major libations.
You’ll be in your flannels and Kevlar-lined denim
(I’m sure that no bride ever looked better in ’em.)
You’ll whisper “I do” and then exchange your patches
before you head out for a ride down to Natchez.
But, first things being first, you have asked me to aid
in getting your wedding invitations made.
I’ve checked out your spelling. The words are all fine.
Only the printing may be out of line.
Though responsible service may not be impossible,
are you quite sure that leather is embossable?
Prompt words today are uncle, alienate, backward, responsible and service.
Photo by Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Jumping to Conclusions
She’s a lady of distinction. You can tell it by her walk,
in her whole deportment—her manners and her talk.
It seems it is a given, since she has a lot of dough
just where, in November, her vote is bound to go.
She lies back on her chaise, even graceful while recumbent,
but quickly springs erect when you mention the incumbent.
If you ask her about politics, she’s apt to tell the truth.
She will not give allegiance to the stupidly uncouth.
Prompt words today are distinction, apt, allegiance and walk.
Loose Lips
Your tongue is loose, it has been said,
and though you swear “Better off dead
than tell your secret,” still, it’s true
you’ll find someone to leak it to.
So though you did it without knowing,
I fear, my dear, your slip is showing.
For the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Slip
I hope you don’t mind that I used this photo I took of you a few years ago, Erin, and Pat. In no way is the poem about you. it was just the perfect illustration!! xoxo
Love’s Meander
In those first months of its success,
when first love starts to evanesce,
we flounder in its first excesses,
never guessing what the stresses
are that love will soon let loose–
when the gander feels the noose
and in his imagination
conjures up a short vacation
wherein he is free to wander
here and there and over yonder
to see what other lovebirds might
desire to feel his loving bite.
Needless to say, his sudden bolt
may give his present love a jolt,
and when he chooses to meander,
what cooks the goose may burn the gander!
Word prompts today are bolt, lovebirds, goose, evanesce and imagination. Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Floral Retribution
I slink into the plant place and snag a tub of roses—
the kind that is an irritant to weepy eyes and noses.
I could have sent her chocolates, could have brought her fruit,
magazines or houseplants or other sick-room loot;
but she’s such a social-climber, such a diamond Deb
that she won’t even socialize with old friends on the Web.
She has her chi-chi social circle—stylish, rich and arty,
so cannot bother to attend her best friend’s birthday party.
Yet when she breaks her leg and is in need of a diversion,
her new friends stay away as though they have a mass aversion
to hospitals and folks who do not share complete perfection.
In short, her newest “besties” stage the ultimate defection.
And thus it is her old friends that she calls to cheer her day,
forgetting that she is the one who threw us all away.
So when I come into her room and hear her cough and wheeze,
I’ll just withdraw with card and gift and my apologies.
She needs no further problems added to her maladies.
It’s been so long that I forgot about her allergies!
Prompt Words for today are snag, tub, rose, slink and fruit.
Animal Voices
My cat is very subtle, so I named her Innuendo.
Not so for the dogs, who always speak in a crescendo.
When they feel romantic, cats may wail an eerie tune,
but dogs need no testosterone to prompt their nightly croon.
Cats vocalize for grand events. Dogs blather on at small things:
a squirrel on the garden wall–literally all things.
Every passing siren causes canine howls to bloom.
They seem to herald catastrophe–to signal the world’s doom.
If cats should chance to dream a tune, they keep it in their bosom,
but I think dogs release their songs simply to amuse ’em.
Word prompts today are: innuendo, bloom, bosom, blather and tune.
Sixteen
She met him at the harvest dance.
An act of fate, they met by chance.
The very first grown man she kissed,
he was a traveling journalist,
and she had barely got love’s gist
when he vanished in the mist.
For reference, she had not any.
She had not made love with many
and those she’d had were only boys,
as unacquainted with the joys
of mature love as she had been,
for they were only kids, not men.
She found it tedious at best
to spoon with any of the rest,
and yet she tried, and kept a list
in which she rated and she dissed
those teenage lovers that were left
once journalism left her bereft
of seasoned lover who had pleased her
whereas all the rest just squeezed her
wrong, somehow. They smacked and cuddled,
yet, somehow, they all just muddled
what she’d had occasion once, perchance,
to experience at the harvest dance.
She finally devised a plot
wherein she could improve her lot.
She’d do a deed of much renown
to draw her lover back to town.
And this is why she planned the prank
wherein she would rob the bank.
Of course she’d send the money back.
The larcenous gene she seemed to lack,
but this would create so much news
that she was fairly sure he’d choose
to come investigate the crime,
and that would be the perfect time
to improve her skills of woo.
He’d be her prey and she’d count coup.
For a week, her schemes just perked.
She watched and waited, planned and lurked
watching for the perfect time
to enact her lovelorn crime.
And, finally, the time seemed good.
She donned a long-armed cloak with hood,
took her daddy’s gun and, masked,
said “Stick ’em up” when she was asked
if she was seeking to deposit,
distressing her, it seems, because it
seemed to cause so little pause,
from the teller, perhaps because
the teller, who was also masked,
gave her a sucker before she asked
what transaction she might mean
to request on this Halloween!
And so it was the plot was foiled.
By mistiming, her plans were spoiled.
She abandoned larceny
and resumed her tomfoolery
with the local high school boys
wherein they all discovered joys
by practice to bring that surcease
she’d sought to learn by expertise.
Prompt words for today are journalist, reference, tedious, list and pleased.
Ever played a word in Scrabble that you didn’t know the meaning of? They acknowledged it as a word but you hadn’t the foggiest? This happened to me a short while ago. The word was siriasis and extra points to you if you know what it means. Quadruple points if you can write a poem making use of it within the next 14 minutes. Here is my 14 minute poem:
Rainy Day Reminder
You rue those rainy nights and days
when everything is in a haze
and you cannot go out the door
without whiffing petrichor.
Your hair is soggy, face too ruddy,
raincoat sodden, rain boots muddy.
And suffering from all this damping,
girls are in no mood for vamping.
It’s hard to flirt, I must confess,
when one is such a dripping mess.
But consider now the opposite.
When all day in the sun you sit,
you’ll never find men making passes
at girls who suffer siriasis!
(To save you the bother of your looking it up, siriasis means sunstroke, but it was Bushboy who gave me a hint that led me to investigate the very interesting Australian origins of the word petrichor.)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 