Category Archives: Poem

Failure to Launch

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Click on Photos to Enlarge.

Failure to Launch

When it comes to doing tasks promotional or clerical,
I find that I’m becoming increasingly hysterical.
It’s tough for me to concentrate. I would rather plot
the next word of a poem. A promoter I am not.

I find that my mind wanders when it comes to drafting
queries and proposals. I prefer to spend time crafting
poems, books or stories; but I find it tough
after creative efforts, doing that extra stuff
to place them or to sell them. Though I do not mind the working, 
when it comes to the rest of it, I simply end up shirking.

Words pile up around me. My file drawers burst apart,
for when it comes to their dispersal, I find I’m weak of heart.
It’s not that I am hoarding words. I’d gladly send them out
into the world to find their place. That’s not what it’s about.

The fact that such acts bore me is a fact that’s inescapable.
I’d like to hand them over to a person who’s more capable.
I delight in going inwards and seeing what is there, 
then putting it on paper for everyone to share.

It would be an equal triumph, I have not a single doubt,
if I could find a person I could pay to send it out;
but, alas, I’ve found a new way in which I am resistant,
as I keep putting off locating an assistant!

Word prompts today are tough, hysterical, capable and triumph.

Mantrap 101 (Grading on the Curve)

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Mantrap 101
(Grading on the Curve)

What quantity of your allure
is due to a fine manicure?
What woman ever won a date
by means of being Latinate?
This tidbit I am drawn to share.
What guy was ever known to care
whether your purse matched your shoes?
No sane man has been known to cruise
shoe stores as a place to lure
a conquest, and you may be sure
that when he’s waiting at your gate,
no man is going to berate
the fact that you aren’t wearing Prada.
If your shape rates “Yadda yadda,”
I’d say that you will be successful,
and all the other stuff’s just stressful.
If you want to flummox him,
just skip the rest and hit the gym.

 

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash. Used with permission. Word prompts today are tidbit, berate, lure and quantity.

A Culinary Manifesto

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A Culinary Manifesto

I cannot overlook your incredible zeal
in polishing off the remains of your meal.
I surmise as you gobble up every comestible
that you are finding it very digestible.

The suspense that I felt as I chopped and sautéd it—
all of that angst that I felt as I made it—
seems unwarranted now, for it is amazing
how contented you seem to have been in your grazing.

You devoured the potatoes and chicken and peas.
You sopped up the gravy and licked all the cheese
from your plate before sucking the grease from your fingers.
And I see that your look of contentment still lingers.

Could that expectant gleam that I see in your eye
be because you have noticed the hot apple pie
that cools on the counter? I hereby assert
I’ll complete your seduction over dessert!

Word prompts today are suspense, surmise, zeal and amazing.

‘STRUTH

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The theme of the camp is “When you Wish Upon a Star.” This camper has taken the theme seriously on his mask.

‘STRUTH

Your computer shares
whatever you choose for it to share.
If what leaks out is happiness,
then you’ve enriched us all.
Let humor be an infection you spread.
Share files overflowing with empathy,
documents that are the organs of kindness,
And above all, 
Truth.

For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Happiness

I wrote this intending to edit it, but when I counted the words, it was exactly 44 words, so I am going to try to let it be. In itself, it formed the star shape. I only discovered it when I centered it.
I changed two words because I had totally left out humor and had truth called for twice. So it was justified. I also switched “have folders” overflowing with empathy.” to “Share files overflowing with empathy.” The reason for the change is probably obvious. Okay..I am also changing “stores” and “store”  with “shares” and “share.” Really need one letter more in line two, but leaving it alone. For now. Stay tuned.

After the Election

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After the Election

Once the storm’s been pacified, I’ve made a lucid choice.
Never again will I listen to that orange fool’s voice!!!!

Prompt words today are lucid, pacify, storm and choice.

Edible Augury

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Edible Augury

It was a type of augury, our playing with our food,
though Daddy said to stop it and Mom said it was rude.
Surprises in spaghetti, discovered loop by loop—
the future written out in words within our alphabet soup.

Mashed potatoes were our crystal balls. They told us what we’d be
stirring them around our plates to see what we could see.
We flattened peas with tines of forks and piled them in  towers
and when they fell, we saw if they foretold our future powers.

When Grandma saw us doing it, she’d rap us on the fingers
with a colossal soup spoon. The memory still lingers.
And yet I still play with my food—a type of edible rune.
I like it more these days since I’ve outlived the ominous spoon!

Image by Rakhmt Suwndi on Unsplash. Used with permision. Word prompts today are spoon, ominous, augury and surprising.

Light and Dark

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Our Children Follow in Our Footsteps

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Our children follow in our footsteps

Light and Dark

Darkness is a costume that light dons every night,
drawing ghoulish shadows around her blinding light.
Outlandish to surrender to midnight’s inky stain,
then return as Aurora—shedding her light again.
Why do we seek our opposites? What could the purpose be?
The mountains meet the valleys. Desert gives way to sea.
Every single element and every creature, too—
Christian and agnostic, Arab, Hindu, Jew,
lives with all these contrasts jostling within.
Goodness gives way to evil. Piety battles sin.
Frolicking or feuding, our inner natures jell—
drawing us toward Heaven and/or jerking us toward Hell.
Day by day how can we know how we’ll go down in history?
This alchemy of opposites still remains Nature’s mystery.

Word Prompts today are shadows, outlandish, ghoulish, frolic, light and costume.

Ode to a Spider, Best Spinner of All, and to a Mosquito, Caught in its Thrall

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To the Spider

Insatiable monster, you spin your fine strands,
creating your trap with abdominal glands.
You then cast your nets out into the breeze
that carries them off to the bushes and trees.
With anticipation, you wait in the center
for mosquitos or flies—whatever may enter
your gossamer trap. Then, their prospects are dire,
for one tremor of contact is all you require
to be off in a flash to put them to bed
with  a cocoon of silk wrapped from bottom to head.

To the Mosquito

“I am” says the spider, as she sips out your sap,
“going to have a light lunch, and then take a nap!”

 

The spider pulls the silk created from liquid in its body through its spinnnerets – silk-secreting organs on its abdomen. Once the thread is started, the spider lifts its spinnerets into the breeze. It’s the breeze that is the secret to the spider’s ability to spin a web from one tree to another.

 

Prompt words today are anticipation, insatiable, monster, require, I am and spider.

Casting About for Fame and Recognition

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Casting About for Fame and Recognition

I’ve never done a single thing of any magnitude.
I’m not in any centerfolds, posed there in the nude.
 I’d love to give a Ted talk, but I simply do not dare.
I’m nervous in the limelight, a stranger to the glare.

Peak climbing is too vigorous, so I avoid Mt. Everest.
I don’t compete in spelldowns for I’m simply not the cleverest.
Each autumn when the leaves turn, I swear I’ll turn one, too.
I’ll examine all my talents and find one that I’ll do.

I’ll write the next great epic tale. I’ll sail to Zanzibar.
But writing isn’t easy and that voyage is too far.
I’ll buy paints and a canvas and combine the two,
I’ll find out if great artistry is what I’m meant to do.

Or maybe I’l adopt ten kids and have a try at mothering.
See if I can show the correct interest without smothering.
If I approach this task with correct energy, less fear,
perhaps I can obtain my fame as mother of the year!

Prompt words today are strange, magnitude, nervous, vigorous, something you’ve always wanted to do and leaves.

Memory

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Memory

Life is like a labyrinth. Things may be just fine,
yet we don’t know what awaits us farther down the line.

We can’t discern our futures, so we must enjoy today
so at least we’ll have a past to remember, come what may.

Changes of perspective are bound to come with time.
We may not have the passions that we had in our prime.

We are changeable creatures. So nature has intended.
If we hold onto earlier goals, our lives may get upended.

In times of adversity, we still possess rare treasures.
Our recollections are where we can hoard our former pleasures.

 

Prompt words for today are down the line, adversity, labyrinth, discern, change of perspective and creature.