Our Better: Nature
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Category Archives: Poem
Blind Fashion
Blind Fashion
They were a fashionable couple, noted for their dress,
attired on all occasions with a unique finesse.
She dressed up on work days in a crinoline and sash.
He even wore a coat and tie when taking out the trash.
Her shape was rather pandurate—thinner in the middle
and very broad down by the hips, rather like a fiddle.
His hair was thin and patchy with many bald spots that
might have gone unnoticed if he had worn a hat.
So, though they dressed for fashion, they didn’t dress for shape.
He should have worn a tam and she should have worn a cape.
Photo from Unsplash, used with permission. Prompts today are pandurate, work and finesse,
NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25: Bad Timing
Bad Timing
On my birthday in July, my true love gave to me
a coupon for a ski trip and a real live Christmas tree.
Chocolates when I’m dieting, sad songs when I am gloomy.
A grand piano, though my new apartment’s not too roomy.
The week that “Save the Animals” appointed me their chair,
he bought me a new winter coat of lynx and llama hair.
He brings home ice cream in the cold, hot cocoa in the summer.
When I broke my tooth, the peanut brittle was a bummer.
Though his gifts are generous, my thanks are often mimed,
for I’m speechless over just how badly all of them are timed!
The reason why we are not wed is so hard to relate.
I had the cake, the rings, the gown. We set the time and date.
The groom showed up and waited as I walked down the aisle.
My wedding dress was finest lace, my undergarments lisle.
I’d planned each detail out with care and left no stone unturned.
Just one detail left to him–you’d think I would have learned!
For when I went to say “I do” to this man I adore,
they found our wedding license had lapsed two weeks before!
For NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25, we are to write a poem about a special occasion.
Kissing Frogs
Kissing Frogs
If you blow on a warty frog, he’ll worship you for life,
and if you are a princess, he might make you his wife.
Of course it won’t be easy with an amphibian beau,
for you’re sure to draw attention everywhere you go.
Although you’ll be very high and he’ll be extremely low,
as you hop along together, he’s bound to find you slow.
He won’t be good at dancing for with that tiny bod on him,
it will be a certainty that some dancer will trod on him.
A certain growth of character is a prerequisite
for any royal daughter to go along with it.
Your kids would be unusual for though a son or daughter
would excel at feats like swimming in the water,
when it came to royal functions, their gooses would be cooked,
for in any ceremony, they’d be overlooked.
So it’s all right to blow on frogs, to kiss them or to carry them,
but if you are a princess, it is best that you don’t marry them!
Prompts for today are blow, worship, warty, prerequisite and growth.
Hopscotch Flunky
Hopscotch Flunky
When I hop on one foot, I am destined to fall.
Too much scotch and less hop is the cause of it all.
When they said toss the rock, I threw out my ice.
Any shock that I haven’t been asked to play twice?
The dVerse Poets prompt today is to write a poem in anapestic tetrameter
Stopping by Robert Frost on an Early Morning
Thanks, NaPoWriMo, for making my poem one of the featured poems yesterday. The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another poem.
I chose “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Here is my poem. A link to his original is given below my poem. It is the first and only time, I think, that I’ll get top billing over Robert Frost!
Stopping by Robert Frost on an Early Morning
Whose poem this is I think I know,
yet know not where I’m going to go,
so glad I am that he won’t see
my page fill up with parody.
My next-door neighbors must think it queer
at six o’clock I’m in full gear
here on my perch above the lake,
dispelling darkness, this poem to make.
I jog my mind to try to shake
some fruitful thoughts out, then I take
and peel the gatherings of my mind
to seek the flesh within the rind.
This creative state lies deep
between consciousness and sleep.
Each day our rendezvous I keep,
then share the poems that I reap.
See Robert Frost’s poem HERE.
Cowboy on an Off-White Charger (Prompts and NaPoWriMo 2021 day 22)
Cowboy on an Off-White Charger
You say I’m queen of your affection, yet your ambit has grown larger.
I hear you’ve put some extra miles on your faithful charger.
You say she is exhausted, her endurance sorely taxed.
She may need reshoeing and your credit card is maxed.
The extent of your travels and the speed with which you charge
have lately increased greatly—to have doubled, by and large.
If our love’s become monotonous, perhaps you seek new favors.
Perhaps you choose to taste delights of various other flavors.
You say your boots are dusty and nonchalantly stroll
out to find a shoeshine boy to cleanse your dirty sole.
Yet what you seek to polish may be a point that’s moot.
I think that what needs polishing may not be a boot.
Prompt words today are dusty boots, monotonous, ambit, speed and queen. The NaPoWriMo prompt today discussed different poetic devices. In lieu of just using one of them, I decided to try to use metonymy, polysemy, synecdoche and metalepsis in one poem. Image by Karen Cantu on Unsplash, used with permission.
Bothersome Friends: dVerse Poets
Bothersome Friends
I can’t be bothered caring about the way I dress.
I wear my clothes in wrinkles and my hairdo is a mess.
I don’t file my ragged nails. My cuticles are snaggy,
and please don’t bother telling me my pants seat is too baggy.
The only thing that bothers me is folks who are persnickety––
who adjust my collar, smooth my tie or pick at me.
If only they’d leave me alone to be who I am.
Why obsess about my looks when I don’t give a damn?
The dVerse Poets prompt today is to write a “bother” poem. Image from Unsplash by Daniel Pascoa, used with permission.
Tyrant: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 19: The Rant
Tyrant
Your arguments are specious, without a gram of proof,
but when we try to point this out, you only seem aloof.
Though you fancy that you’ve sex appeal and charm and woo and sizzle,
your expected rain of compliments turns out to be a drizzle.
That odor you find fragrant with which you mask your stench
would not be necessary if you were just a mensch*,
but the bald reality that you need to face
is that most of your actions are selfish, rude and base.
All your resolutions sworn to in the past
were but fabrications never meant to last.
In short, you are a narcissist thinking of you alone
with a thousand selfish vanities for which you won’t atone.
That’s why, my dear, you sit there in your ivory tower
wondering why your riches, your accomplishments and power
somehow do not satisfy when done for yourself only,
for all your grand accomplishments just leave you feeling lonely.
*mensch: a person of integrity and honor
The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves.
Prompts today are sizzle, fragrant, past, specious and reality.images from Unsplash, used with permission
The Graffiti Artist
Graffiti Artist
Such errands as having to go to the store
to get milk for one’s mother can be a big bore.
Then I spot a blank wall that alters my view
of what I’ve been sent to the corner to do.
My mind shifts a cog and memory grows faint
as I forget the milk and instead buy spray paint.
I’ve abandoned my purpose and lost my perspective
to scrawl on the wall these words of invective.
It’s not that my sentiments are hocus-pocus.
It’s simply that I have shifted my focus.
I don’t prevaricate, for though they’re ruthless,
let it not be said that my statements are truthless.
What some see as defacement, others see as art,
but this is never my goal from the start.
When I have a thought, I just want to share it.
Some put it on T-shirts and then choose to wear it,
but I want it bigger. I have to shout.
My feelings require a wall to get out!
So please look at the message and if you must blame
someone for graffiti, just look at the name
of the politician that I am exposing
for graft and corruption or lying or posing.
He’s the real villain. I’m only the one
who’s revolting with spray paint instead of a gun!!!
Prompt words for today are prevaricate, focus, abandoned, scrawl and perspective. All photos of graffiti thanks to Unsplash. Used with permission.
