Category Archives: Poem

To Bee or Not to Bee

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To Bee or Not to Bee

Busy little honeybee adhering to each flower,
collecting all their nectar for hour after hour.
Will exhaustion stay your flight, your rubbing and your nuzzling
so there will be less honey to fulfill our need for guzzling?
Your antennae look disjointed, your hairs are slightly grizzled,
but I’m waiting for my crumpet with its honey lightly drizzled.
Do you find it pertinent that we are debating
whether you’re aware that your consumers are all waiting?

 

Prompts for the day are honeybee, adhere, grizzle, pertinent and exhaustion.

Hermit’s Creed

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Hermit’s Creed

Although they stand stiffly at attention,
these walls reach out
and hold me safe within their middle.
They stand guardian,
cushioning sound,
deflecting sharp edges.
Lucky me to have their protection.
Foolish me to leave their arms.
Yet the butterfly
soars over and away.

 

For dVerse Poets “Stand” Quadrille prompt. The only rule for a quadrille poem is that it must have  exactly 44 words. If you want to read other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

Return to Sender (For the “Let It Bleed” Prompt)

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Return to Sender

Tell it, please, to Cupid and to the cooing dove.
I don’t require a second chance at the game of love.
I’ve said goodbye to mystery, nostalgia and the moon.
I find the very topic of love to be jejune.

Once I was its addict, but I’ve quenched my lovelorn thirst.
I’m immune to its magic, its betrayal and what’s worst,
its transitory nature which conspires to betray
all those yearning feelings one collects along its way.

I hereby vent my sorrows and hold a mirror to
all those scattered memories to bring them into view.
Zesty looks that falter and  vows that always fail
fly away to shadows and the wintry gale.

Passions pause with time and hearts once flushed and tender,
offered up with love are now “returned to sender.”
Love blinding in its brilliance is destined to depart,
creating that inevitable sunset of the heart.

 

In the above poem, I used all of these words given for the Randomness Inked, Let It Bleed prompt :
addict, always, betray, conspire, fail, fly, goodbye, love, magic, mirror, moon, mystery, nostalgia, pause, scatter, second chance ,shadows, sunset ,thirst, time, transitory,, vent, winters and zest

For Randomness Inked, Let It Bleed.

Nature’s Tithe

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Nature’s Tithe

Cold drafts inspired carpet and swift winds gave birth to walls.
Thus, human folk keep warm and dry in their shopping malls.

A transcript of the weather might reflect our evolution.
Good turns to bad and bad to good with each revolution

of a world that seems to extract her scheduled tithe.
Nine days in ten we celebrate. The other day we writhe.

And yet we find solutions to all of her disaster.
Trials affecting change to make development go faster.

 

 

Prompts for today are inspired carpet, transcript, keeping, tithe and affect.

Putting the Bucks in Starbucks

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Putting the Bucks in Starbucks

First they grind the beans and last they add the foam
to create the very coffee that you could have at home.
Countless cups thrown in the trash adding to the glut
of paper cups collected from every coffee hut.

How can I articulate the excess that I find it?
How prudent is this mania when you could simply grind it
and put it in a cup you save to use again tomorrow
to save a tree and save a planet reeling from the sorrow

of all the disposables thrown daily in the trash
in a world that’s populated by the blindly rash?
Every time you buy a cup of fad-inflated joe,
remember where the cup it’s in will ultimately go.

Then think about the money that you’re using up
simply by your refusal to brew your daily cup.
If you don’t believe me, read the facts below
before you leave for Starbucks to have a cup of joe!

 

“Depending on where you live and how you prefer to take your hot caffeine water, if you’re buying coffee, you’re spending between $1 and $5 per cup. Meanwhile, brewing a cup of coffee at home costs you between 16 and 18 cents per cup.”

The average cost of a cup of coffee purchased at Starbucks is $3.15 and, while $3.15 a day may not seem like much, what if I told you that cup really costs $13?   Read on: https://avgjoefinance.com/surprising-amount-starbucks-costs/

 

Prompt words today are grind, foam, articulate, prudent, trash.

Entente

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Entente

In recrimination’s marathon, we must forge an accord
to cease our constant bickering and pass the drinking gourd.
Sustain our forgiveness and forget ills of the past.
To pass around the platter and share a fine repast.

So many ills done to each other but to stem the scarlet flow
of blood we’ve spilled for ages, we must find that place to go
where brother meets with brother in spite of faith or creed.
We must put away our prejudice and put away our greed.

What we share in common must supplant our differences.
We must concentrate on styles that take us over fences.
With all of our advances in technology and mind,
surely we can find a way to unite humankind.

Prompt words for the day are accord, scarlet, sustain, forgiveness and marathon.

Wasted Youth

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Dressed up by my sister in her clothes, just for fun. For sure, not my usual fare!

Wasted Youth

It is too late to try to tone
my skin and muscle, fat and bone.
When I walk, they sway and jiggle,
protest at my every wriggle.
Arm and neck and waist and thigh
are not as bad as I imply.

Nonetheless, I do not dare
attempt bikinis or clothes that bare
great expanses of leg and skin.
I will not brave it, the shape I’m in.
Oh to relive days back when
I was taut and smooth and thin.

And could convince my young self that
I was neither plain nor fat.
If I had known, I now confess,
I would have concealed me less.
Shown more skin, gone a size smaller,
pulled back my shoulders, stood up taller.

That youth is wasted on the young
way back then were words unsung
and so I wasted all those years
peering into bathroom mirrors,
wanting to be better because,
as I look back, I see I was!

Prompt words today are question, bone, jiggle, imply and brave.

Polite Conversation

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Polite Conversation

If you’re looking for activities that are sure to excite us,
best not to show the cat scans of your diverticulitis.
Discussion of this topic is sure to bring unease,
for most folks are oblivious to other folks’ disease.

Illness carries no cachet and should not be repeated.
When bringing up such maladies, you’re sure to feel defeated.
So keep incisions covered and try not to share your woe,
for if you’re hypochondria’s showing, you’ll be labelled as a schmo.

 

Prompt words today are diverticulitis, oblivious, schmo, cachet and defeated.

Weight Watcher Coup

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Weight Watcher Coup

Why would my Weight Watchers meet in a restaurant
that’s a buffet where diners can eat all they want?
I guess it’s to practice resisting temptation,
but instead I am feeling severe perturbation.

Potatoes and gravy and chicken and peas
and desserts where a person can eat all they please
are simply not kosher when one should be dieting.
Instead of resisting, I find myself rioting.

I charged up to the counter and filled up my plate
with a pile of entrees I’m ashamed to relate.
Then muffins and crepes and strawberry pie
spilled over the sides and reached up to the sky.

Something about me was slightly off-kilter,
and I found I was eating without any filter.
If they’d pared down the menu, I’d have much less naughty,
and the folks at my table might have looked way less haughty.

My table mates clucked and looked sad and disgusted.
It was  clear at buffets I was not to be trusted.
Yet I noticed also some looks of regret
as they surveyed these goodies that they, too, could get

if only they had the nerve to break ranks:
scalloped potatoes and baked beans with franks,
chocolate eclairs and ice cream with hot fudge
all could be theirs with nobody to judge.

Yet what could it hurt, just one serving of gravy?
Just one piece of chicken, one biscuit and maybe
one serving of pudding without the whipped cream?
Would one scoop of vanilla really be extreme?

I saw resolve falter as one after one
they returned to the line for a muffin or bun,
chicken fried steak or some pork or some shrimp—
first with restraint, then ceasing to scrimp.

And that’s how I broke up our Weight Watcher’s bunch
after a single ill-fated lunch.
I’m not proud of my actions and the resolves I’ve killed,
but at least for the present I’m sufficiently filled!

 

 

Prompt words for the day are filter, naughty, meeting, pare and menu.

Short Career in a Chinese Restaurant

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Short Career in a Chinese Restaurant


Her first day on the job, how was she to guess
why so many customers left in distress,
complaining that they found the restrooms deficient—
the number of stalls being hardly sufficient?

How was she to know that epsom salt wasn’t
the same as real salt, for everyone doesn’t!
When he found that she’d filled all the shakers with it,
her boss came unglued and threw a small fit.

Her poignant excuses were given short shrift
and alas she was fired at the end of her shift.
At a meeting of friends, she took refuge in booze,
then opened her heart and relayed her sad news.

All of her friends found her firing dramatic
bemoaning a boss so rigid and dogmatic,
and along with their sympathy, gave the advice
that they should have used soy sauce to flavor their rice.

Prompt words for today are poignant,  dogmatic, meeting, advice and shift. Image by Lachlan on Unsplash.