Category Archives: Poem

Designer Diets

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Designer Diets

I’m in need of a diet in front and behind,
yet I cannot survive on such food as the kind
that dieting gurus decree I must chew
like all of the reigning glamor queens do.

Designer lettuce and parsley and kale
with a soupcon of dressing is what they inhale.
They do not eat Oreos, bon bons or gummies.
They deterge their colons and staple their tummies.

No carbohydrates of any kind
will they order in diners, even in a bind.
And so they go hungry, albeit they’re svelte,
but I think I would rather just loosen my belt.

 

Prompts today are surviving, design, soupcon, deterge and kind.

Creeping Shadows

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Creeping Shadows

I have no wish to classify shadowy explorations—
furtive trips to low-life bars or questionable vacations.
I’m aloof in my present. I don’t think about my past.
I have no need to dwell upon times more overcast.
In past attempts to deal with them, I tried to rearrange them
to find they only frustrate me because I cannot change them.
Still, memory’s tyranny will win. I can’t escape, it seems.
Those shadows banished in the day creep back into my dreams.

 

Prompt words today are shadowy explorations, classify, aloof, frustrate and tyranny.

Retribution

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Retribution

I swallow screams for dinner,
hold my tongue the whole meal through.
I’m told I’ll have to eat my words
if I let slip a few.
I’m choking back the clever things
that I want to tell,
but all my smart rejoinders
simply will not jell.

“Better seen than heard,” they say,
and yet they do not see me.
If I’m not allowed to speak,
how will I ever be me?
When I grow up, I’ll talk and talk.
Never will I be quiet.
If someone tries to shut me up,
I simply will not buy it.

By then my folks will be real old.
To shush me? They won’t dare.
If they do, I’ll shush them back, 
and put them in a chair.
I’ll make them face the corner
and tell them to be quiet.
And if they say to eat my words?
I’ll say I’m on a diet!!!

 

For Poets and Storytellers United. Swallow Screams

 

Final Rights

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Final Rights

The legacy our mother left seems to have something missing.
Is it just coincidence I think I saw you kissing
her lawyer shortly after her funeral today?
It reminded me of earlier behavior, I must say.
Your high school English teacher whom you later held at bay
only after he had raised your grade from F to A.
Do I mean to insinuate it may have been a factor
in the raising of your grade that you’re such a primo actor?
Feigning school girl crushes until you’ve achieved your aim
and seducing gullible lawyers? Do I think that’s your game?
I must admit this codicil  that you have lately found
gives rise to questions. You should realize that we are bound
to question her late change of mind, leaving the bulk to you
when all the time that she was ill you never were in view.
The lawyer swears it’s aboveboard. These were our mother’s wishes.
Did she forget those countless times you would not do the dishes
but left the job to me as you hurried out the door?
The times you defied curfew, tracked up her just-mopped floor?
Because I was her favorite,  was it, then, her guilt
that made her deed to only you the house that Grandpa built?
Sister dear, your goose is cooked, for just a month ago
Mom fired the lawyer you seduced and hired one you don’t know.
He filed a new will signing the house over to me.
Mom foresaw your shenanigans and said they would not be.
Your lawyer’s response to your wiles? A small sin of omission.
Who could blame him for collecting his amorous commission?

Prompt words today are legacy, missing, reminded, insinuate and factor. Although the poem is fiction, this is actually the house I grew up in. 

On Picasso’s Imaginary Self-Portrait

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Picasso

 

On Picasso’s Imaginary Self-Portrait

Is it conceit or self-knowledge
that makes you paint yourself
in the ruffed collar
of Shakespeare
or a clown?

Satyr, young at heart,
your merry countenance
masks darker moods and behaviors,
the bright pigments
hiding a more somber undercoat.

Picasso,
your children
and your mistresses
might paint you as master:
stern, egotistical,
but always with the backlit inspiration
of genius.
Yet, old goat,
you paint yourself a clown.

 

Reblog For dVerse Poets: Clown

First Love: Fandango’s Dog Days of August, Aug 18

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Then and Now

First Love

Zing! went our heartstrings. Zang! went our souls.
Eyes filled with wonder, hearts cupped like bowls
ready to fill  with passion and love.
Putting each other on like a glove.

First kisses miracles we’d never known.
No longer single all on our own.
Someone to cuddle, someone to spoon.
Hand holds and lip locks over too soon.

Misunderstandings, squabbles and fights.
Heartbreak and lonely Saturday nights.
Then a new glance from cars “U”ing  main.
Flirting and wooing all over again.

More hugs and kisses parked on a hill.
How to forget them? We never will.
At school reunions, we relive those lives,
husbands beside us, or boyfriends or wives.

Talking of other things: study halls, games,
but always remembering carving those names
in desktops and memory—first loves forever—
tendrils that bind us that we cannot sever.

We’ll soar ahead to the rest of our lives,
collecting new memories—bees in our hives.
But no honey finer than that we made first.
No sweeter lips and no stronger thirst.

Stored in our hearts, remembered but hidden,
hoarded like treasures sealed in a midden,
our lives are made richer by both now and then.
Past memories opening over again

spill out old secrets, then seal them away
to be unwrapped on some future day
when old schoolmates meet for two days’ reminiscing
of school pranks and ballgames and homework. And kissing.

 

 

This is a reblog of a poem from four yers ago For FDDA :First Love

Loose Lips

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Loose Lips

I hear my new assistant is a great man at a party
which may be the reason why he is so often tardy.
Describing my proboscis is his favorite party schtick.
Plus, speculating over what makes his bossman tick.
He thinks I’m ancient in my forties and lists all that I lack?
He can tick “spineless” off of his list when I give him the sack!

 

Prompt words for today are party, ancient, proboscis, describe and assistant.

Remembrance of Things Past Aug 17, 2020

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Remembrance of Things Past

I think I’ve vanquished wanderlust. I do not pine for travel.
All my wandering hopes and dreams have started to unravel.
I have no need to ameliorate the life that I am living.
I find that simpler pleasures are ones that keep on giving
pleasure far after the fact. It seems that memory substitutes
to satisfy what once I gained via other attributes.
Events in memory flower again  after their first flowering.
A simple  perfect blossom on a plant once lush and towering.
I no longer need it all. What I have is sufficient.
I’ve learned so much this lifetime that with more I’d be omniscient.
Year by year and friend by friend, I’m losing more connections.
I only hope that I will not outlive my recollections!

The prompt words today are vanquish, wanderlust, longer, ameliorate and hope. 

(Click on photos below to increase size.)

 

“That” picture in the wheelbarrow. I look shocked at being so posed.
Merry-go-Round
Fishing with dad and my sisters.
My fifth birthday party.
Me as a Teenie Weenie I”m the hammy one imitating the Sunbeam Bread girl.
1953
1981
1973
Bali
Bali

I was looking for one photo to illustrate the poem and got sort of carried away..I could have added sixty more, so if you are from a period of my life not represented, sorry..I just took them as I could find them and suddenly realized I was getting excessive.  You are in my heart even if not on this page…

“Spur”ned

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“Spur”ned

Your boots are outlandish. They’re fancy and chic.
I bet they attract all the women you seek,
but your uncanny luck in attracting the ladies
won’t get you to Heaven—may take you to Hades,
for your looks are deceiving. Your spectacular start
won’t prevail when it comes to matters of heart.
Better cancel the wedding, unless, instead,
you learn when you wear your new boots to bed,
what you start you can’t finish. You’ll never be hers
If you don’t remember to take off the spurs!!!

 

Today’s prompt words are deceiving, finish, uncanny, prevail and cancel. 

Rules and Regulations

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Rules and Regulations

Orange houses? Not allowed. Nor are blue or yellow.
The rules of this subdivision call for hues more mellow.
Tan or brown or gray or beige, trim equally sedate
are the colors they allow and you’ll seal your fate
if you select tricolors or a hue too bright.
Original’s not sanctioned. Artistic’s just not right.
Your entire edifice must sport one desert hue
lest you be delinquent in your neighbor’s view.
The ratio of bright-to-dull? Exceptionally low.
Blending-in is favored. One’s not allowed to glow.
They simply prefer colors more tranquil and more restful.
And so they do not put up with house colors more zestful.
Everybody to their own–monochrome or bawdy.
As for me, the hues I choose tend to be more gaudy.
They do not want the likes of me in Phoenix or Calexico.
If I want such colors, they with ship me off to Mexico.



Writing prompts today are tricolor, edifice, delinquent, entire and ratio, First photo by Eric Brehm on Unsplash. Used with permission.

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