Plumbing the Depths
They call him the professor because of his great wit.
Everything he says has perspicacity in it!
The way he wrangles words should be no great surprise,
for he’s a modern Shakespeare in a plumber’s rough disguise.
Once he unplugs your loo, he is not finished, but instead
he shares a legendary quip to clear out his own head.
Word prompts for the day are: perspiscacity, wrangle, surprise, legendary and professor
For NaPoWriMo Day 7, the prompt is to choose a news headline as the topic for a poem. Here is the news report I chose to write about: “Researchers Discover Faraway Planet Where the Rain is Made of Iron.” I guess you might call this an ironic poem?
Metallica
Use your cook pots for umbrellas, ‘cuz it’s raining iron rain.
I don’t mind heavy metal, but as weather? It’s insane.
The drumming is excessive, and if you can’t take the pain,
you don’t want to be caught out singing in the rain.
If you plan on going wading, I’d have another think,
for the puddles that you’re ogling seem to be full of zinc.
When it snows, most of the snowflakes have crystals made of lead—
not a pleasing prospect when they’re falling on your head.
Oceans full of copper, bronze and steel and tin
may be the place you have to die for to be in.
Silver hills and valleys, rivers made of gold
are all that’s left now that our nature’s all been sold.
Does tungsten please your taste buds? Can you eat the golden calf?
With no leather, those bronze slippers aren’t as comfortable by half.
Aluminum for cooking, some folks think can’t be beat,
but what you use for cooking you cannot also eat!
Now they’ve fracked away our water and melted polar ice,
Mother Nature thinks a world of metal would be nice.
So put away your appetites, for food will be passé
once the plants and animals have all been put away.
Say thank you to our rulers. Say thank you very much
for their self-serving decisions and their Midas touch.
Some of us saw this coming but the others did not see
They were too busy getting their news from Fox TV!!!
Oh dear. I said I wasn’t going to write another political poem. Well, the prompts made me do it. Once again.
Morning Ritual
For NaPoWriMo Day three we are to do pretty much what I’ve been doing every day for the past six years, so I’m combining it with my usual five prompt sites, whose words of the day are: online, lackluster, help, haze and wonder. (When I tried to add five more words to use this for the NaPoWriMo prompt as well, my computer went crazy and the editor turned everything pink and started flashing off and on and erased the first line of the poem, so I guess WP doesn’t want me to combine prompts, but I’m going to try again. I’ll pick 5 more words at random from sheets of paper scattered on my desk: beginners, solving, developed, warm and milk. Instead of using the rhyming dictionary, I’ll use the one in my head, which works better for me. Okay, here I go again…..)
If your online life’s lackluster, let me help to clear the haze.
It’s no wonder that beginners might feel somewhat in a daze.
Solving all these NaPoWriMo prompts can be a chore.
You develop one poem and next day, must write one more!
Warm wishes I send out to you and others of your ilk.
If I were your mommy, there’d be cookies and warm milk,
but, alas, I’m miles away and locked up in seclusion,
dealing on my own with this confusing ten-word fusion!
online √
lackluster √
help √
haze √
wonder √
beginners √
solving √
develop √
warm √
milk √
Childhood Games Revisited
Hide and seek, hide and seek.
I set them down and then I peek
here and there, in purse and pocket.
Find my keys and grandma’s locket
but I do not find my glasses
even after countless passes
over tables, desks and floors.
Opening cupboards, searching drawers.
My life is like that childhood game,
but it’s hardly just the same,
For unlike others seeking me,
what I’m seeking I cannot see.
The first NaPoWriMo prompt this year is to write a poem wherein our life is described in terms of a metaphor that is an action. I am comparing my life to playing hide and seek. More literal than figurative, I fear.
(If you’re not familiar, NaPoWriMo – the National Poetry Writing Month – happens every April, an offshoot of NaNoWriMo. Back in 2013 I joined the movement, and I’ve been writing poems daily ever since. If you’re curious, HERE is my first NaPoWriMo poem!)
Coronavirus Reflections
I’m exploring my options now that I’m alone,
my only distraction my blog and my phone.
Well, sure, I have dogs and cats I can tickle.
to ease, if you will, this sequestering pickle.
Yet I’m a pariah to humans I know,
so my social life is a little bit slow.
That it’s undeserved may be undisputed.
Nonetheless, unless I show up Hasmat suited,
none of my friends want to hug or shake hands,
and when I explore, not anyone stands
closer than ten feet away from my hips.
Even my lover forgoes my hot lips!
Slick politicians may emphasize how
our social distancing affects the Dow,
saying, perhaps the stock market is mendable
so long as we declare seniors expendable.
This chain of reason sounds bogus to me.
I’d like to remain on my family tree
labeled as living for as long as possible.
I soundly reject being labeled as tossable!
Prompt words today are slick, tickle, undeserved, explore and chain.
photo from Pinterest
Dagwood
After my pizza and after my knish
I have just one more edible wish.
I’m building its fantasy here in my mind:
a spectacular sandwich of a unique kind.
A little pastrami, baked beans and some cheese,
pickles and mustard and if you please
some mayonnaise lightly spread over the bread.
(Miracle Whip? I’d rather be dead!)
Some avo and onions sliced thin would be nice,
and if you have it, a green pepper slice.
Some olives and beets would add a good zing,
and then I’d like one more additional thing.
Some chips to add crunch––put them right there inside.
(Only a ninny would place them outside.)
Then slice it diagonally if you will,
with a pickle beside it––a big kosher dill.
Then you can leave, please, so I can I start
greedily ripping that sandwich apart.
For though I needed help, perhaps, in its construction,
I need no further guidance in its destruction
Prompt words today are sandwich, fantasy, ninny, vanquish and guidance.
Piscine Phobia
I don’t eat salmon, don’t eat flounder.
I prefer my protein rounder—
chicken, roasts or food like that.
Fish is too fishy and too flat.
Tuna mixed with soup and noodle,
I despise kit and caboodle!
Nothing could persuade me that
I should eat food fit for a cat.
I won’t eat food grown in a swamp,
so crabs and clams I never chomp.
No protein caught by motor boat
will ever pass my teeth and throat.
When dinner parties serve up chowder,
I’m likely to just take a powder.
I simply can’t take the suspense
of what fish lurks in soup so dense.
So if you want to plan a treat
that I will find the nerve to eat,
once again, I must repeat,
forget the lobster. Give me meat!!
Words for today are flounder, suspense, nothing, swamped and motor.
High and Dry
Who wouldn’t feel dejected being jilted by their lover?
It’s normal to be feeling that you might never recover.
Yet when it comes to loving, let me give you this advice.
Too often love’s determined by the rolling of the dice.
It may come up all sevens or it may come up a bust,
but no matter what your luck is, it simply is a must
that every time you meet the jerk who hung you up to dry,
you have to act as though he is just another guy.
Exercise some sangfroid. Act happy and aloof.
I can guarantee it will send him through the roof.
Prompt words today are sangfroid, jilted, advice, aloof and recover.
Of course no one would ever jilt any of these irresistible women. This was a photo for a joint art show I did with three friends years ago. The show was titled, “Now Hanging,” thus the photo of the four of us hung up to dry…
More Advice Regarding the Coronavirus
With the coronavirus, it’s been given to debate
whether it’s advisable for people to conflate.
Though Pence may okay shaking hands, doctors disagree.
I’d listen to the experts if it were up to me!
Cheek-kisses were delightful in eras non-pandemic,
but lately people fear that they might start an epidemic.
So we’d better kick the habit and make do with a tweet—
just clicking our affection to everyone we meet.
Let safety be our anchor as we all isolate—
our crowded barrooms giving way to the cyber date.
Bitcoins replacing money, for it doesn’t carry germs.
Wearing masks and hazmat suits as we come to terms
with what our esteemed president once tried to pass off
as no major problem—a mere temperature and cough.
Tweeting like a dervish, he still gets such a kick
spreading disinformation as more and more get sick.
But I have a solution for one thing that we could do
to try to stem the factors spreading this dreadful flu—
a mandatory gag and a mandatory mask
for POTUS and Vice-POTUS is what we all should ask.
Prompts for today are delightful, conflate, kick, anchor and money.
Lazy Feet
Crossing the room or traversing the plain,
one foot goes in front of the other again.
It is the business of shoe after shoe
to follow each other through sand, dirt or goo.
They have easy going through fields filled with clover,
but when they meet something they have to climb over,
their task is much harder. No reflecting or browsing,
for climbing up hills is ten times more rousing.
They pump up the blood, these mountains and ramps.
They irritate arches and instigate cramps.
They cause blisters, pulled muscles, and wear a girl out.
That’s why I don’t often saunter about.
You won’t often find me walking out there
with the wind to my back and stirring my hair.
For although there’s less scenery, I do not care.
I prefer bed or hammock or chair.
Prompt words today are something, browse, revenge, traverse and business.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 