Category Archives: Poem

Winter Doldrums

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Winter Doldrums

Crimson is reserved for autumn, December is spartan and white.
Frosty and slippery and frigid. Paled by the icy air’s bite.
Folks could be certified crazy for taking a walk on a day
when thermometers hit below freezing. You can freeze off your butt in that way.

Give me a balmy June morning or a sweltering hot afternoon
with a sunshade to keep me from baking  and sinking away in a swoon.
It’s certainly better than winter with snowshoes and mufflers and chains.
If I’m going to have weather, I’d rather contend with spring rains.

Snow has the gross disadvantage of freezing off parts of your nose.
It means going out almost fully obscured with every part wrapped up in clothes.
I can put up with sneezing in springtime and all of the parching of summer.
Leaves falling in autumn don’t irk me, but winter is always a bummer!!!!

 

 

Prompts today are crimson, certify, frosty, spartan and reserve.

Christmas Mayhem

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Christmas Mayhem

No holly’s hung, no lights are lit.
The whole kingdom’s in a fit.
The castle’s dark without a tree.
No decorations there to see.
Warn the palace. Call a jury.
We’re indicting them of worry.
What’s the source of their reserve?
What has quenched their Christmas verve?

What has caused the royal court’s
spirit to be out of sorts?
Is it the Prince or Queen or King
that’s robbed them of their royal zing?
One parlor maid revealed the cause
of their neglect of Santa Claus.
Their tree’s not up or decorated
because they’re all addlepated.

Reticent of jingle-jangle,
for their lights are in a tangle.
The queen’s all thumbs, the king has gout
and cannot sort his tree lights out.
The Prince is spoiled so won’t help.
They should dethrone that royal whelp.
But it’s the truth, there is no doubt
that someone has to sort them out.

Send in a tailor, schooled in string,
to come untangle everything.
Get a lumberjack to see
if he can cut them down a tree.
Hang on candy canes and balls.
Toss on their tinsel, deck their halls,
for royalty undecorated
will for sure be under-rated.

Prompts today are worry, palace, jingle, reticent and reserve. All photos courtesy of Unsplash.

Empty Pockets at Fifty

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Empty Pockets at Fifty

My pockets are turned inside out.
No riches do I have to flout.
This state of my intimidation
is perhaps an apt reflection
of my early hesitation
to obtain an education.
Perhaps if I had done my math,
I’d have pursued a richer path!

Prompt words today are pocket, intimidate, hesitation, spoil and reflection.

Air Despair

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Air Despair

I get goosebumps every time I travel via jet,
but I haven’t  crashed and burned or perished as of yet.
Pedants say my chances of crashing are remote,
but nonetheless, if I could choose, I’d rather take a boat.

The revelry is greater and the distance to the ground
is cushioned way much better with water all around.
It’s easier to stretch one’s legs, there’s shuffleboard, a pool,
and every cabin has a bed with private sink and stool!

Although planes are faster, what’s the hurry? What’s the rush?
Consider airplane food, the tiny restrooms and the crush.
First class in planes has nothing on last class in luxury cruisers.
In short, I think planes were invented for impatient losers!!

Prompts today are revelry, jet, pedant and goosebumps.

Forest Myth

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Forest Myth

Will-o-the-Wisp and Turtledove for a lady vied.
Will-o-the-Wisp declared a troth the turtledove decried.

“He will be here, then he’ll be there. He’ll never constant be.
I am the only one who’ll be eternally with thee.”

And thus he was the one to win the love of that fair lass.
He wed her in cathedral grand and at their wedding mass,

“I will not change” to his new bride, the turtledove had sighed.
For thirty years he kept this vow, but when at last he died,

he left her mourning down below as he soared up above.
Thus death makes sinners of us all who vow eternal love.

 

Prompt words today are turtledove, plunge, sleep, change and not,

Advice to Reticent Romeos

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Advice to Reticent Romeos

If you are greeted with, perchance,
 a flirtatious lady’s glance
in a cabaret in France,
Hedge your bet, bolster your chance,
square your shoulders, hitch your pants
and ask her if she’d like to dance!

If in a tropical lanai
a  cute wahine meets your eye,
do not simply pass her by.
Adjust your smile, straighten your tie,
and claim your portion of the pie.
Use up your life before you die!

Around the globe, it’s my conclusion
that this advice is no delusion.
Confidence with no confusion
that it  may be a mere illusion,
bolsters chances of a fusion!

 

Prompt words today are conclusion,   bolster,  lanai, hedge and cabaret.
Image by Jiang Xule on Unsplash.

Summer Block Party: The Sunday Whirl Wordle 530

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Summer Block Party

So many trillion burning stars form the signs of night.
Most of them so secret that they are out of sight.

Others are so numerous, they form a sort of haze,
spreading out a Milky Way at which we like to gaze,

lying spread-eagled in the grass, during summer nights,
cockleburrs’ sharp edges and mosquito bites.

The chattering of mothers on our screened front porch,
feline yowls and dog barks, Father’s questing torch,

seeking out the faucet to turn the water off.
A roar of laughter from the men, a smoker’s raucous cough.

All the familiar voices of our little hive—
the neighborhood we live in, cozy and alive.

All the roles we choose to fill united for this night
when the stars have chosen to bless us with their light.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 530  The prompt words are: edge, stars, roar, burn, role, chatter, hive, sign, feline, curse, haze, secret. Image by Andy Holmes on Unsplash.

Neighborhood Shopping Spree

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Neighborhood Shopping Spree

I can’t abide the wantonness of my neighbor’s wife
and how it encroaches upon my family life.
And though her husband seems content to overlook her ways,
believing her disinterest just a menopausal phase,
when she goes out for groceries, I watch her shut the door
and know that she’ll be shopping for a single item more
than bread or milk or celery, for as she leaves her house,
I hear my back door closing and know it is my spouse
off upon some shopping spree—some sudden hungry whim
that guarantees her shopping list is bound to include him!

 

Prompts today are encroach, wanton, content, abide and grocery.
Image by Jessie McCall on Unsplash.

Divisible

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Divisible* 

Our species has malfunctioned and we’ve finally met our match.
It’s waited all these years for the right time for it to hatch.
First there was the ice age where we had to deal with frost,
but it seems like global warming is the place where we’ll be lost.
We’ve flaunted our dominion and must be reprimanded
It seems as though our prototype’s about to be disbanded.
It’s ironic that a virus so small that it’s invisible
might be the thing that proves that mankind might be divisible.


Divisible: capable of being divided by another number without a remainder.

Prompt words today are malfunction, flaunt, prototype, frost and match.

Turkey Talk for Tuesday Writing Prompt

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Turkey Talk

When we walk, our wattles wobble
causing us to “Gobble gobble,”
but seeing axes near our neck,
we hit the road and run like heck!
We await November with much gloom,
for your Thanksgiving seals our doom.
It is a truth that we all rue
that then our gobbling ‘s done by you.

 

 

For the Tuesday Writing Prompt,Nov 23, 2021: Write a poem from the point of view of a turkey.