Category Archives: Poem

Sated

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Sated

Flirtation is cathartic—a furbelow of life.
Though it is mainly fictitious, still it eases pain and strife.
It sets our spirits soaring and makes us feel much younger,
but takes the edge off appetites without dispelling hunger.

A nibble here, a small bite there might set our lips to smacking,
but a deeper part of us detects what might be lacking.
Caviar on toast is fine for an initial tasting,
but what we need is turkey,
crisp and golden from its basting,

but succulent inside, or a meal that fills us up
like an egg salad sandwich or pea soup in a cup.
Flirting’s great for starters, but it isn’t real.
What really solves an appetite is eating the whole meal.

Prompt words for today are soaring, cathartic, fictitious and furbelow.

Stories Told by Silence

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Stories Told by Silence

Silence has a language unique to every ear.
Anyone can hear it if they choose to hear.
Do you listen to your silences? The various tales they tell?
I’ve listened to them my whole life. I know them very well.
Their insistent voices burrow through my thoughts,
trail their separate stories and tie them into knots.

Some seek out yarns in chaos: carnivals and bars,
rodeos and festivals, parades and speeding cars.
But there’s drama in the silence as it gathers round—
stories waiting patiently for you to hear the sound
of voices in the quiet. Hush now. Do you hear?
They’ll settle on your shoulder and whisper in your ear.

Silence owns no copyrights. It’s there for you to steal.
Unsort its separate strands and then spin them on your wheel.
The fiber of your silence can be woven into tomes.
Weave them into novels, storybooks and poems.
Stories are out there waiting. Hush and you might hear them.
Reach out and grab one for yourself when you venture near them.

 

Prompt words today are silence, tell and insistent.

We Cannot Surrender Her

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We Cannot Surrender Her

Try as I might to urge her on, she will not go.
She sends me on to test the water
but remains on the shore.
Ankle deep and then no more.
Fingers trailing and then no more.
Having once found a false bottom,
she trusts no foothold.
The falling is the thing, I tell her, yet she holds back from the fall.

Let me go down, I beg her.
I will always bring you up, she answers.
This is the role we alternate being the stand-in for.
What I want she keeps me from.
What she fears I pull her toward.

How many of us, children of the fifties,
find ourselves on this seesaw, wanting to control the ride?
Relax, I tell her, but she can’t relax––fearing what relaxation brings.
She cannot surrender herself.  I cannot be content until she does.
Two-in-one, we rail against each other, then hold hands.
Comforting.  This is enough, she tells me.
Nothing is ever enough, I tell her.

This is my third major rewrite of this poem originally written in 1976. Only three lines still remain from that poem. It is perhaps finished now.

Here is the link if you’d like to participate in dVerse Poet’s Open Link night and here is the link to read other poems for dVerse Poets Open Link Night

Detritus

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Detritus

Not given to unicorns and eloquent language,
my melodrama is fueled with common things:
more bad news from the media,
a baby possum murdered by the cats,
the shattered precious wine glass from a dwindling set.

Friends fall like drying petals from a bougainvillea vine,
      the world grown more cruel 
           not only from the brutalities of age,
                         but by the decisions of short-sighted power-brokers
                                              throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

                (The choice of that inelegant, time-worn phrase
             the result of too many months of isolation—
            giving up first the makeup and the hairbrush,
             then the bra,
                 then the bother of digging
                      for the perfect unique metaphor.)

Cities of books and projects                                    
started but not finished,
albums full of photos I mean to scan,
pile up on tables                                     
  and the floor.                                    

                         Bougainvillea petals
scattered
over the terraza
                                                        by the still-laid table,
                               obscuring tiny shards
of delicate glass.

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Prompt words today are eloquent, unicorn, media and melodrama.

Shelter in Place

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Shelter in Place

I’m balanced on the precipice. Should I plunge or not?
I don’t know how to fly, and for sure I won’t be caught.
I’ll be disappointed if I don’t, but frightened if I do.
One says to remain while the other prompts adieu.

Every life decision is a choice between
leaving to see more or staying with what I’ve seen.
Both choices irresistible. Which one do I chose?
Either way I win and either way I lose.

Time and time again I’ve chosen the same choice.
“Be off to your future self” speaks with the loudest voice.
Only now does nature make my choice for me—
instead of changing places, to stay and explore “me.”

 

Words of the day are adieu, plunge, disappointed and precipice.

Non-inherited Tendencies

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Non-inherited Tendencies

I am forty-three years old. Why is it that my mother still feels it is her purpose in life to educate me?

She stands in front of the junk drawer in my kitchen, “There is no excuse for anyone to have a drawer like this in their house,” she says. With one finger, she rifles through the drawer, moving a pair of pliers closer to fifty peso bills for the water vendor  that are piled to its left, sending loose screws rolling across the bottom of the drawer.

I reach around her to hand her the pair of scissors she seeks. Then, once again, I careen into the precipice of self-doubt. Surely, others less-perfect than my mother have drawers such as this one.

My qualms deteriorate as I readjust my thoughts to coincide with the actual world, but as I restate mentally and silently my oft-repeated mantra. “What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter,” my mother, briskly and methodically, starts arranging the drawer. 

 

Word prompts for today are What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter, deteriorate, educate and precipice.

Sad

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Sad

Falling
straight
through
gray
skies
into a
world
of
blue
mosaics,
rain
is
sad.

Word of the Day: Sad

“Comeuppance Rears Its Ugly Head–Again!”

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“Comeuppance Rears Its Ugly Head–Again!”

I’ve an issue with these prompts that give us words that are obscure.
Any more weird words will be more than I can endure.
I yearn for words more ordinary so my poem can shine.
Shame on you for choosing words that stand out above mine

like a boil on proboscis or a zit on a smooth cheek.
A prompt word should suggest a theme, but never prompt an “Eeeek!”
A prompt word should strike lightning but not burn down all the trees.
Think before you prompt, dear friends. No more “comeuppance,” please!

* “Comeuppance” has been the prompt word for two of the four prompt sites I use in the past week and one suggested it twice, withdrawing the earlier prompt after I’d already written my poem, so I rewrote the line, thankfully, only to have the word pop up a few days later in another prompt site, then again in this one a few days later! Now, if you want to see “comeuppance” for a fourth time, click on the link for “obscure.” I hereby give the word its own comeuppance by means of this poem.

Prompt words today are lightning, issue, obscure and yearn. Illustration thanks to DP on Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Hopscotch

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Hopscotch

One foot, two feet, doing fine.
Do not stray over the line.
This childhood game of balanced action
far in the past, a mere abstraction—

a metaphor far from unique
for the balance that you seek
as you advance as you are able,
moving forward, sometimes stable

on two feet. balanced and steady,
resting there and getting ready
for that time when one foot only
rests on firm ground, feeling lonely.

One leg, balanced in the air
is enough to curl your hair
but two firm squares are there ahead,
so you hop up to them, instead—

balanced on one foot or two
in each adventure offered you.
So life advances, hop after hop
No choice except to never stop.

 

Prompt words today are forward, unique, ulotrichous (curly-haired), abstraction. Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Been There, Don That!!!

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Been There, Don That!

I wouldn’t give a nickel, I wouldn’t give a tuppence
to save our expired president from his earned comeuppance.
His service contract’s over. He will not get another.
And hopefully Ivanka won’t, nor will her older brother.
They’ll no doubt muddle on in life, spending their father’s millions,
living on a credit line, maintaining they have billions.
A new guy’s in the White House and we hope he might
prompt a more irenic phase to save us from our plight.
He doesn’t shoot endangered species or found charities to plunder—
proof that future national elections need not echo our past blunder!!!

Prompt words today are muddle, service, comeuppance and irenic. (Irenice=prompting peace or reconciliation.) Image by Jose M. on Unsplash. Used with permission.