Category Archives: Poem

Emily

6 Replies

Emily

An introspective traveler, my trips are of a kind
wherein I follow footsteps left there by my mind.
They are a kind of loving, these journeys that I take—
the only sort of antics that I ever make.
Outside of them, I squirrel away, hidden in my rooms,
but oh, my friends, within my mind, my next adventure looms!

 

If you are an Emily Dickinson fan, you might enjoy this other poem I wrote, inspired by one of her poems.

Photo of Emily Dickinson from the Emily Dickinson Museum. Prompt words today are footprint, introspective, loving, antics and hide.

Home (A Nonet for dVerse Poets)

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                                                                              Home

Broken shadows across the cracked ground
flow together when skies darken.
As night birds start to call,
we start our long walk
to that place where
light returns 
when we
do.

The opening line of this Nonet is a line from the poem “To the Light of September” by  W.S. Merwin. According to the nonet rules, each line had one less syllable, descending from nine to one.

For the dVerse Poets prompt

Stay of Execution

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Pardon by Way of a Higher Power

There was  a stay of execution, and the prisoner was relieved.
The executioner, in a turmoil, was sorely aggrieved.
If he couldn’t fire incessantly, it put him off his game.
And yet he couldn’t argue with the one who was to blame.
Sometimes it was the law that won, and sometimes the sinner.
He cut his prisoner free and then shuffled off to dinner.
“Does Jimmy want to stay to eat?” his mom was heard to say,
“I can call his mom to ask her, if he wants to stay.”
But the sheriff told his mom that since he wasn’t ichthyophagous,
a tuna sandwich wouldn’t make it past his friend’s esophagus!

Prompt words today are stay, incessant, ichthyophagous, turmoil and game. What travesties of plot these prompts sometimes force upon us!!!

Do-It-Yourself!

10 Replies

Executing

Do-It-Yourself!

He’d written the definitive how-to-do-it guide,
but needed a good editor, so I had applied.

He was a woodsy sort of bloke, self-confident and curious,
but once I got to know him, I found him to be spurious.

Though he seemed independent, when I asked him to replace
a light bulb in its socket, he did a turn-of-face.

He balked and had a certain emergency of bladder
when asked if he would simply climb up on a ladder!

It seems the very sort of jobs he taught us to be doing,
due to his acrophobia, were ones he was eschewing!

When it came to home improvement, he was words upon a shelf,
giving literal meaning to the term “do-it-yourself!”

Prompt words today are woodsy, replace, independent, editor and spurious.

Framed

13 Replies

Framed

When I’m tired of television, my digestive tract
draws me to the kitchen and there we make a pact.
Shoe by shoe, approach the fridge and though the hour is late,
We stuff ourselves with what’s inside ’til appetites abate.

Making sorties on the fridge with just my own collusion?
The thought I’ll get away with it it’s merely an illusion.
They’re bound to miss that half a pie, but then the plot will thicken
when they  note the absence of half a tub of chicken.

I leave the fridge a bit ajar, the Colonel’s box in front of it,
hoping when it’s time to blame that I won’t take the brunt of it.
I put the pie plate on the floor, increasing the odds that
if I spread bones around it, perhaps they’ll blame the cat!

Prompt words today are illusion, television, late, tract and shoe.

Why Bakeries Were Invented

24 Replies

Why Bakeries Were Invented

I’ve baked the cake, but cannot get the damn thing from the pan—
the problem being, mainly, that sticky layer of flan.
My daughter had demanded it, persnickety like her dad.
How had she ever heard of flan? I guess it was a fad.

I poured the custard in the pan and covered it with batter,
not sure whether the flan went first or if it was the latter.
Ten minutes in the oven and the glop began to rage
as though it was an animal, intent to leave its cage.

It roiled and fluxed, formed bubbles and spouted like fresh lava.
I lit a cigarette and poured another cup of java.
Although it was her birthday, I rued the day I’d asked
what kind of cake she wanted, for in this I’m sorely tasked.

But surprisingly, this devil cake did not escape its boundaries,
in spite of all my puzzlements and all my gross confounderies.
Now that I’ve finally got it out, I really am exhausted—
only to hear her next request. Now she wants it frosted!!!

Prompt words for today are exhausted, cage, flux, persnickety and cover.

Doggie Attention

12 Replies

Doggie Attention

Though they love to eat obnoxious stuff
like bees and grass and dryer fluff,

see how they bristle
at my whistle?
Come a-running
for more funning?

Making pious little prayers for
just one doggie biscuit more,

they’re more pawsome
than they’re awesome—
begging treats
with doggie feets.

They’re authors of expressions of
countless little signs of love.

Giving sure signs 
of their designs,
they tell no lies
with tails and eyes,

Prompt words today are bristle, obnoxious, awesome, pious and author.

How I See

26 Replies

Can’t believe that I wrote this yesterday and forgot to post it to dVerse Poets! So here it is, a bit late.

dVerse Poets Self-Portrait.

Time and Space

5 Replies


I hear it from afar—
across the street
or down the mountain—
unoccupied laughter
that carries with it
memories
of long-ago encounters.

Lessons learned,
idiosyncrasies shared
with a place and a love
on a mountain
thousands of miles distant
from any previous experience.

These encounters,
long dead,
resurrected
by anonymous merriment
that, unknowing,
carries messages
linked to memory
by some truth
of quantum physics.

Two beings, once connected,
maintain that connection
over time and space.

 Your laugh.

Prompt words today are lesson, Idiosyncrasy, Encounter, Laughter and Unoccupied. 

Missed Shot

3 Replies

Missed Shot

He was not noted for his charm, much less for his amenity.
Although he had been praised a bit for success at serenity.
He found spectator sports to be relaxing and most riveting
those times when he was not intent on shooting hoops or divoting.

His interests were not widespread, his hobbies not eclectic.
He simply spent his time at hoops and golf—both actual and electric.
But because a dance or movie caused him great travail,
his attempts to woo fair maidens were to no avail.

And so he forfeited a life of conjugal felicity
for a single life of what was unrelieved simplicity.
And  though he thought that chances for love had passed him by,
it wasn’t just a stroke of fate, but more a lapse of eye,

As he shot hoops with brothers on a public knoll,
a lady he’d admired before out on an aimless stroll,
paused to watch their antics, and especially to watch him
as he lofted up the ball and put it through the rim.

But when the lady winked, he traded one pass for the other
by simply pivoting to throw the ball on to his brother!
He thought that chance had passed him by. He had no luck at all,
when in fact the problem was he only watched the ball!

 

 

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words for the day are serenity, riveting, eclectic, travail and simplicity.