A Botched Pot
Why does a watched pot never boil?
A failure to ignite the coil?
Failure to put the water in?
That’s how such pithy sayings begin.
Their logic, though, I fear is thin
when they say watching is the sin.
He who tries to pass the buck
by quoting this is out of luck.
His gig is up. He’s surely caught.
‘Twas inattention botched the pot.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today: write a poem in which the words or meaning of a familiar phrase get up-ended.
Rush
Get a leg on. Hurry hurry.
Life is just a daily flurry.
Feed the cat and feed the dog.
Take your pills and write your blog.
Company’s coming. Make a curry.
Lately, life is getting blurry
from all there is I have to do:
write and clean and cook and glue.
Things pile up but I’ve no time.
Days had more hours in my prime.
But now I’m always in a rush,
caught within the daily crush.
My “to do” list has me trapped.
I crave a life that is less mapped.
I fear my rushing won’t be over
until I’m pushing up the clover!!!
The prompt today is rush.
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Naughty LIttle Pleasures
Naughty little pleasures, secret little games—
they are our private treasures, these solitary shames.
We never can admit them to family or friends,
for fear that doing so would bring about their ends.
Childhood is when our private pleasure starts—
not stifling our sneezes or holding back our farts.
Eating the last cupcake or hiding Grandpa’s teeth.
Watching skirts on windy days to see what’s underneath.
Torturing sister’s Barbie Dolls and kidnapping her bears.
Reading Daddy’s magazines underneath the stairs.
Guzzling ice cream from the carton and milk right from the spout.
Opening sister’s love letters to see what they’re about.
Telling mom you’ll help her because she’s running late,
then licking all the cookies you’re putting on the plate.
If being perfect were more fun, then probably we would,
but there’s little pleasure in always being good.
For your listening pleasure, my friend Christine Anfossie added music to the poem and sent me a copy to share with you. Listen to it here:
The NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure.
My TV is Smarter Than I Am
My TV is smarter than I am, springing to life on a whim.
When my Jack-of-all-trades comes to work here, I think she is flirting with him.
She flicks on and then off in a second, just like she has given a wink.
Or perhaps registers disapproval by shutting us off with a blink.
I know she has much to complain of since I purchased her two years ago.
I’ve never connected to cable or dish, so she doesn’t have too much to show.
Although she connects to computers, my Apple igores that she’s here.
That I haven’t read the instructions? I know it’s exceedingly queer.
She’s equipped to show movies in 3D, but my housekeeper threw out the glasses.
So if I want movies to jump out at me, I must go view them out with the masses
and not in the privacy of my own home with my cat or myself or my friends.
I haven’t checked out buying more on the Web, and for this I must soon make amends.
My computer is usually my viewer of choice when my friend sends me movies by Skype.
The films that he sends are amazing. He knows the best subjects and type
of videos that I like viewing. They are smart and they’re funny and Indie.
He doesn’t send action/adventure or slapstick or horror or Hindi.
But I never watch them on my Smart screen, preferring my laptop to it.
I set it right there at my poolside and watch as I try to get fit
doing my pool aerobics for an hour and a half, maybe two.
My workouts just seem to last longer whenever I’ve something to view.
My TV can see out the window that I’m faithful to screens that are small
and I’m sure that I’ve given a complex to my big gal I don’t watch at all.
So I started a “Last Sunday” film night where I can share films that I savor
We eat and we drink and we talk and we laugh as we all view the movies I favor.
For one night a month, my TV springs to life when I plug in the little thumb drive.
Her face flushes up in an enormous blush, for she sees that I know she’s alive.
The eyes of all eight of us fix upon her. She’s the center of all our attention.
We laugh at her jokes and cry at her pathos. Respond to her mysteries with tension.
But the rest of the month her expression is blank, sitting alone in her corner
looking so sad and so lacking in life that I feel that perhaps I should mourn her.
The first time she lit up when I entered the room to say she didn’t recognize me,
I realized with shock for the very first time that my TV could both talk and see!
I hadn’t quite realized the extent of her powers when I bought her at Costco that day.
My old TV weighed in at five hundred pounds—more than a TV should weigh.
I’d inherited it from my mom when she died so I had a personal attachment,
but to move it alone, one risked heart attack or at least a vertebral detachment.
And so I gave in to cajoling by friends that it was time to buy another.
and I gave away the monster TV that I had acquired from my mother.
But guilt has suffused me ever after that day, for I really don’t need a TV,
and this smart girl is lacking in challenges, just wasting her talents on me.
She’s recently started to turn herself on (something that girls alone do)
and talking to me when I enter the room and enter her angle of view.
Finally I just unplugged her—an act of most selfish defiance.
I haven’t the time in my life just to chat—especially to an appliance!
Hate to admit this poem is an edited version of one written over three years ago and I still flounder around trying to work this TV. The world has evolved beyond me. I should be the one blushing! The prompt today is blush.
Confessions of a Line-Crasher
Patience is not my forte. I put it on a shelf
and withdraw my impatience. It better suits myself.
I do not enjoy waiting for my turn in a store,
and bank lines make me want to barrel for the door.
I will not take a number when going out to dine.
I do not get my jollies from standing in a line.
Pharmacies and waiting rooms are simply not for me.
Let alone the airport queues when I’ve a need to pee.
If patience is a virtue, I fear I’ve flunked the test,
I think it is my birthright to go before the rest!!!
The prompt today was patience.
Donald’s World
It seems reality’s been hacked.
The dice are loaded. Cards are stacked.
Truth is no longer so exact.
Actuality’s been cracked
and reason pilloried and racked.
Verisimilitude is yacked
and common sense has long been sacked,
along with logic, reason, tact.
So what’s been rumored, gossiped, quacked
is now more true than proven fact!
The prompt word today is fact.
Mismatched
You seem to dwell, dear, in the main
securely down in the inane.
If only you could just refrain
from loudly voicing your disdain.
Astrology you find a pain,
consider ESP insane,
while astral travel is the bane
of your existence and you’re fain
to scratch your head and shake your mane,
swearing you’ll open a vein
if I don’t try to put a rein
on my attempts to reach you where
you constantly refuse to fare.
Meditation’s out with you,
and you’ll have nothing to do
with Ouija boards or the I Ching.
You do not “Ohm” or chant or sing
to anyone or anything.
In short, you’re firmly planted here
on the earth, so dour and drear.
While my mind dwells in the stars,
yours hangs out in lowlife bars.
This love match has not scored a win.
Match.Com has erred again.
And so, my dear, ta-ta, adieu.
I guess I’m breaking up with you.
I fear that I have tried in vain
to find you on the astral plane.
The prompt today is astral.
Market Day
This day, alas, has dawned so hot
I’ve no need to be where I’m not.
I want to spend it where I can
be exposed to ice and fan.
Though I’m in need of countless things:
foodstuffs, videos and rings,
a hairbrush, pens and other stuff,
I do not need them near enough
to venture out into this heat.
I’ll sit here in the catbird seat
at least until the sun goes down,
then venture out into the town.
Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar
It’s easier to talk than think,
especially when you’ve had a drink
or two or three or six or seven.
That’s when you’re sure you’re going to heaven.
And anyone more liberal
is surely going to go to hell
along with those who worship God
with rituals that you find odd.
And even worse is all of those
in turbans, robes or hippie clothes
who don’t believe in God at all.
They’re destined for the biggest fall.
Transsexuals and the profusion
of folks with sexual confusion
need to get their heads on right
or be removed from good folk’s sight.
Those who pontificate in bars
sport redneck slogans on their cars
and are so sure that them and thars
will live with God up in the stars.
Creationism is a fact
and scientists have made a pact
with one below who waits for them
to come and make their home with him.
And they don’t even need to think
beyond what they next want to drink.
They’re so securely in the know
because the Bible told them so.
They do not need to feed their brothers
or provide health care for the others.
Planned Parenthood’s the devil’s scheme
and Right To Life’s the savior’s team.
Woman should bear what she has sown
and raise the product all alone.
It is her punishment for sex—
this guilt for children she neglects.
Society should never pay
for lowlife children such as they.
Society should close its doors
to the progeny of faithless whores.
Retribution is the thing
Obamacare neglects to bring.
Cutting welfare’s the best way
to insure they pay and pay.
If you were smart like them, you’d know
this scheme is how the world should go.
First remove birth control and then
make sure she has her spawn of sin.
Do not provide for them at all.
Then you’ll begin to see Eve’s fall.
What she brought Adam to she’ll see
and be punished endlessly.
For dVerse Poets: a poem about drinking.
No Longer in the Present
Seated around the table in our favorite cafe,
attention to each other has come to be passé
We are not present here and now. We’re all in other places
as we stare at tiny screens, intent on other faces.
The friends we have around us will simply have to wait
for our interest in the world-at-large to finally abate.
The news that’s happening elsewhere is simply more amusing
than what might be happening in this space our body’s using.
Other friends are funnier in their “selfie” poses—
pooching out their lips at us and scrunching up their noses.
It won’t do to look natural, we have to look unique
in the selfsame pose that all selfie-flashers seek.
So if your friends are boring, not half so chic as you,
you always have the option to make a Tweet or two.
Check out the latest fashions available from China.
They’ll only take three months to reach you here in Carolina.
Check out the weather in Tibet and give YouTube a glance.
Companions won’t distract you if you don’t give them a chance.
Living one life at a time no longer has to do
so long as you remember to have your phone with you!
So if you’ve dropped a French fry and spilled ketchup down your dress,
you needn’t be embarrassed. It couldn’t matter less.
Intent on Twitter, Instagram, Facetiming and Facebooking,
the friends with you won’t notice, for nobody is looking.
The prompt word is present.
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lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 