Category Archives: Poem

Night Stalking Wordle 534

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Night Stalking

I could not bear the tedium of last night’s fruitless sleep,
so I went out hunting in its forests dark and deep.
I drew light through my crosshairs, then held my breath and viewed
a host of tiny forest sprites, dancing in the nude
in and out of shadows, beckoning and waving,
and so, of course, I followed to quench my idle craving.

They flitted to the treetops and scribbled on the sky,
in clouds of strange graffiti they left as they sailed by.
My heart stretched taut in fear that they’d vanish from my gaze.
I feared that they’d forsake me in the morning’s haze.
I cast vain looks around me, at the shadows, at the sky,
but alas no tiny forest gods continued to sail by.

With no digital reminder of these visitors by night,
I have only words to use to tell you of my sight.
Ethereal and shadowed, they conquered my ennui
by cutting through my dreams and entertaining me.
Thus are our lives enriched as we wander off at night,
collecting all the images we’ll later lose to light.

 

Prompts for this week’s Wordle 534 are: bear host scribbled digital gods cast breath taut crave light crosshairs gaze

About the image: This incredible one-of-a-kind sprite was sculpted of polymer clay by Thomas, an artist I used to do shows with. Its background and mounting were fashioned by my friend Sharon Wheat and me many years ago, after she gave me the sculpture as a very generous gift. Many memories come with this post of both past special times and dream times. Since we put a mirror in the background of our little tableau, it was tricky to get the right image in the background which led to a fun outside photo shoot, trying to get an image with trees and plants in the mirrored background without one of myself and the dogs included, since they both were curious and invaded most of the shots. 

Gestalt and the New Year

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Gestalt and the New Year

Sweep out twenty twenty-one with a mental broom.
Don’t let it be a harbinger of dissent and of doom.
Accept a new beginning. Set out looking for the light.
Don’t rate the whole dinner by your initial bite.

Life is a varied banquet of bitter, sweet and salt.
Those who succeed best at life fall in with its Gestalt.
We must season what is in our heads with what is in our hearts.
The whole of anything, it’s true, is greater than its parts.

 

Prompt words today are light, harbinger, beginning, dissent and dinner. The illustration was made using LunaPic. Start the year out right and try it out. It’s free!!! I like using the Art editor.

2022

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2022

In every corner of the globe in far-flung civilizations
I imagine folks are planning tonight’s celebrations.
This finale of the year will bring a brilliant end
to last year’s resolutions that we saw fit to bend.

This year we will get it right. There will be no debate.
We’ll resolve to start again. We won’t equivocate.
We’ll get pally with old friends we haven’t seen for years,
clean out stuffed closets and pay debts that are long in arrears.

This year as midnight approaches and we sing “Auld Lang Syne,”
the mistake that we made last year in drinking too much wine
will not be repeated, for we’ll avoid the bars
and start our New Year resolutions under the brilliant stars.

Spread out under Orion, we’ll construct our list of “do’s”
to become perfect in those ways that only we can choose.
We won’t eat so much chocolate. We’ll exercise each day
and weigh each night to see how many pounds have slipped away.

We will not play loud music so won’t be held to blame
and hope that all our neighbors will resolve to do the same.
We’ll keep our yards trimmed neatly and repaint all our shutters,
relieved that for this year at least we won’t hear neighbors’ mutters.

We’ll take bags when we walk the dogs and bring their poops all home
so folks for blocks around will not dread it when we roam.
We’re not perfect now, but in twenty-twenty-two,
we’re weeding out bad habits and starting out anew.

 

 

Prompt words today are finale, brilliant, auld lang syne, pally and civilization.

They’ll Be Sorry!!!

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They’ll Be Sorry!!!

She’s stuffing Mommy’s reticule with necessary stuff,
putting on her bunny coat and leaving in a huff.
All the sundry items contribute to its thickness—
pajamas for her dolly and candy pills for sickness.

She’s packed her favorite nightie and her dolly and her bear,
a pair of extra panties and a hairbrush for her hair.
She grabs a sun umbrella as she passes by the rack,
squishes up her raincoat and stuffs it in her sack.

So now she’s set for sun or rain as she sets off to roam.
She’ll make her parents sorry when she runs away from home!
The hall clock ticks its countdown as she sets off on her lark.
She’ll have to run away right now to be back before dark.

 

Prompt words are reticule, sundry, countdown, cohere and sickness.
Image by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash

New Year Resolutions

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New Year Resolutions

When the new year zaps us with our last year’s reflection,
it brings up all our defects and flaws for our detection.
It goads us to be better and to bend our crooked way
to plot a straighter game in life than we’ve been prone to play. 
It’s January 1st that prods our consciences to make them,
giving us a whole long year in which to go and break them.

 

Word prompts are zap, play, reflection, goad and bend. Image, Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash.

Make Mine Tanqueray

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Make Mine Tanqueray

A gin and bubbly with a twist?
Sufficient reason to exist.
As integral to daily life
and in deferring pain and strife
as a good psychiatrist.
Better, in fact, I must insist,
than thrusting all one’s problems on
some overworked Freudian don.
On days when feeling near-demonic,
nothing soothes like gin and tonic!!!

 

 

Prompts today are twist, integral, bubbly defer and thrust.

Peace on Earth in ’22

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Peace on Earth in ’22

If only we could clear the world of every tragic issue
as though we’d wiped the slate clean with one gigantic tissue.
If Pollyanna ruled the world, there’d be no end of cheer.
There’d be no hungry children, no drunks crying in their beer.
But in our potential Shangri-La, perfection’s not to be.
The playing field’s not even and there is no guarantee
that things will all be equal regarding happiness.
In fact with every passing year, the world’s more of a mess.

Yet before we shed this mortal coil, there’s something we can do
to try to bring some happiness to this human zoo.
Before this year is over, it would be stupendous
if each and every one of us could do something tremendous
like deflect a bit of gossip or curb a caustic quip,
 resist an impulse to defraud or cheat or bilk or gyp,
 see a foreign culture as exotic, not as wrong,
 join hands with the universe and try to get along.

As this old year’s winding down, if we could make a pact
not to steal or plunder, not to blame nor to react
in anger to each other. Treat each woman as our mother
and try to view each man on earth as our potential brother,
then maybe things would straighten out and throughout the Earth
our population would be healed and all would feel their worth.
Warfare would be abolished and kindness seize the day.
Oh that this was reality and we could find our way.

 

Prompt words today are coil, stupendous, cheer, caustic and tissue. Image thanks to the New York Public Library on unsplash.

The Great Reveal

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

The Great Reveal

When it comes to Christmas gifts, I hope you get a passel
and you find unwrapping them to be a task most facile.
Every bound up package, may it be in bow or tassel,
a rip-roaring pleasure instead of any hassle.

And though we are adults now, let them be mementos of
all those bygone childhood years that all of us just love
to retain with pleasure in our memories—
how we would  prod and finger gifts and ogle, guess and squeeze.

Then, finally, on Christmas morn, we’d wake up like a shot,
barreling downstairs at dawn to see what we had got.
Before the church bells drew us out, we had to do our duty
and reveal just what Santa had left us for our booty.

Thus however much we’ve tried maturity to hone,
at Christmas time we find how very little we have grown.
As we untie ribbons, rip off paper, pry off lids,
we discover in our hearts that all of us are kids!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!!!!

Prompts today are gift, memento, bells, facile and shot.

“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

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“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

When there is a wrinkle, she works fast to smooth it out.
She loves to plug the iron in and move it all about.
Steam wafting all around her, she executes arm action.
She finds it scintillating dealing with each new infraction
of the rule that each garment should hang seamless and true,
without a single furrow dividing it from you.
She feels no reluctance in relieving clothes of wrinkles—
no puckers and no creases. No scrunches and no crinkles.
Because of her I’m faultless. My wardrobe is sublime,
for in Yolanda’s view, a wrinkled garment is a crime!

 

Yolanda has been my housekeeper, accomplice and friend for twenty years now. She rearranges my belongings, leaving little jokes, removes dust and fingerprints and generally rules the roost when it comes to the state of my house. In addition, neither I nor any houseguest can leave the house without meeting with her discerning eye. and if she spots a wrinkle, you can be sure she’ll whip the iron out and insist that it be dealt with. I’ve never yet won an argument to the contrary.

Prompt words today are scintillate, smooth, waft, reluctant and fast.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

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Click on photos to enlarge.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

My former spouse seems not to feel a similar elation
to what I have been feeling ever since our separation.

He feels invested in the gardening and wants to poke and sow.
Every other day he comes and says he has to mow.

It’s a bit of an enigma, for this farming bent is new,
and I can’t corroborate what’s causing him to do

all these acts of digging and furrowing and tilling.
If he wants me to reciprocate, I fear am not willing.

But my garden sure has flourished since I asked my spouse to go,
which goes to show I really should have done it long ago!

 

Prompt words today are enigma, corroborate, poke, reciprocal and separation.