Category Archives: Poem

Donald’s Time Out

Donald’s Time Out

Everyone knows that you reap what you sow.
This platitude’s spoken wherever we go.
And when it is cotton you bury so deep,
It’s also true that you’ll sew what you reap.

You must get despondent when things don’t go right,
for the seeds that you’ve sown are what you must bite.
If you plant bitter melons, you’ll meet with defeat
if sweeter fruit is what you want to eat.

Whatever is planted at your behest
is what you will yield at your own request.
Whatever you’ve buried will rise to the top.
Benevole
nt actions will yield a kind crop.

But harm done to others, you’ll likely rue,
as the other one acted upon will be you!
You are part of the world where you’re planting your seed,
and you’ll bear the brunt of your terrible greed.

It’s a different dark harvest the world is now reaping.
It’s been getting a foothold while you have been sleeping.
As you wielded your golf clubs, its roots have spread wide.
It lifted its branches as millions have died.

It crept out of cages as children bemoaned
the fact they were hungry and cold and alone.
It was watered by rivers poisoned and polluted,
as reason was smothered and good sense diluted.

So reap your cruel harvest. What fate is now serving
is certainly what you have long been deserving.
So you’ll sit at the table until you’ve diminished
the junk on your plate, and once you have finished,

please clean up the beaches and oceans and air,
for the evils you’ve planted have spread everywhere.
You’ll sit at that table until you confess
your part in creating this terrible mess! 

Pull your chair to the table and eat ’til you choke.
The evils you’ve done are more than a joke.
The fruits of your labor have made a vile stew.
Please forgive us if we refuse dining with you!!!

 

Words of the day are harvest, despondent, benevolent, behest and difference. Image by Joyce Romero on Unsplash.

 

River Travelers

river

River Travelers

They know this river, know it well.
Daily, they bring their fruit to sell.
We, who find the river strange
reach out our bills as we lack change,
for what they’ve brought to us from shore.
They hand out more and more and more
to strangers whom they must find dense
to give them such great recompense
for what God has amply provided.
All their village has derided
those who float by in big boats,
holding out their ten sol notes
that would buy every bunch they carry.
They wonder why we do not  tarry
for our change after we pay.
Silent, they watch us float away.
The baby held in mother’s arms
does not know what nearby harms
lurk beneath the water’s cloak—
the jaws that snap, the water’s soak.
But we know what small guarantee
exists in lives of poverty.
Rubbed raw, perhaps, by all we have,
our generosity is salve.

 

For dVerse Poets: Boats

Cowboy Kiss-Off

Cowboy Kiss-Off

As the years go by, my dear, it is more obvious that
you’re about as useful as this bobble on my hat.
Your eye has turned to roving and you’re out most every night.

Anger’s the main emotion that you’re able to incite.

You’ve forfeited my trust. You are taking me for granted.
You find me just as tasty as a wine that’s been decanted
for so long that it has molded and started to go sour.
Once put upon a pedestal, I’ve  fallen from my tower.

Once you thought domesticity was like a field of clover,
whereas it’s obvious now that you would rather be a rover.
So best that you be off. The sooner gone would be just fine.
Your stuff is in this bag. As you recall, the ranch is mine!!

 

Other prompts for the day are bobble and trust.

 

Fatal Persuasion

 

Fatal Persuasion

Don’t ruffle up your pinions as though I’m about to strike.
Although my bite is lethal, I am kind to those I like.
They say in certain circles that I am quite a catch,
and I await you at your doorway. Just open up the latch.

 

 

Word prompts today are catch, pinion, strike,

Hard Drive

The year is 2100, and my computer’s dusty hard drive has just resurfaced at an antique store. This is a note to the curious buyer explaining what he or she will find inside.

Hard Drive

If you long for mystery,
poems, facts and history,
long perambulations
and wild exaggerations,
recipes and letters and
episodes of Homeland,
Elementary, Sherlock, Friends,
a blogging site that never ends,
Emails, Youtube, Facebook notes,
starts of novels, copied quotes,
OkCupid pictures of
possibilities for love,
notes from nice guys, threats from creeps,
notes from guys who play for keeps,
friends who only write when drunk,
chain e-mails, jokes and other junk,
two hundred drafts  of my third book,
(each one different, have a look),
kids stories and their illustrations,
the Christmas plans of my relations,
photographs of my whole life—
its happiness and pain and strife—
some successes but also follies:
fireworks, insects, gardens, dollies,
travel snaps and friendly faces,
rooms at home or foreign places,
birds and children, beaches, skies,
the  camera lens is true and wise
and not as given to fraud and lies
as writings filtered through the eyes
of one who feels the joys or pains
of what she witnesses, then refrains
from trying to change her reader’s mind
to accord with the type or kind
of thoughts she carries deep inside:
pride’s cutting edge, love’s waning tide—
then read this hard drive if you dare,
but if you fear a life laid bare,
I have one word for you. Beware.

 

For dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night

Found Poem

 

 

I was looking for another poem that I wrote but have never published or put on my blog. I couldn’t find it but instead found this poem that I wrote four years ago. Seems as though it would qualify for this prompt!!  It’s actually a true story. When I was at the beach a few years ago, I had a house right on the beach and it got so I never knew who I would find on my porch when I woke up in the morning. 

Found Poem

One and  two and three and four.
Four little music makers pounding on my door.
One beats a rhythm, one toots a horn––
wild and sweet––sort of forlorn.
One hums a tune behind his teeth––
a sort of descant underneath
the melody on the steel guitar.
The gulls reel in from near and far
to add their screams to the refrain,
then fan their wings, silent again.

Four musicians at my gate.
I wait for their music to abate.
Then I go and let them in
to add my music to the din.
I sing my lyrics fast and slow
first soft then loud, my lyrics go
up and over the drums and horn–
out into the sandy morn.
Over the rocks and out to sea,
setting all our music free.

When the drummer leaves my porch,
he leaves just three to loft the torch.
Too soon the horn, too, fades away
but the hummer’s here to stay,
and the steel guitar swells out to fill
the morning air until until
the morning fades into full sun
and our melody comes done.

Soon guitar and singer fade,
their morning share of music made,
and I fold my songs away.
I’ll bring them out some other day.
With music left behind I wind
only words around my mind.
They weave their spell with me along.
I lose myself in their noisy throng.
Wander aimless, round and round,
in getting lost, this poem is found.

 

For Fandango’s Dog Days of August Challenge: Something you Found.

Bad Fortune

Bad Fortune

A superfluous excrescence  to our sinking ship of state,
of all our past mistakes, I’m sorry to relate
that this uquiet jester is our biggest flub to date–
a fact that many voters cottoned onto way too late.
But if you seek a formula for change, there’s no debate.
Vote this fool out of office before he seals our fate!

Prompt words today are quiet, formula, jester, excrescence and past.

 

Visiting Grandma

 

Visiting Grandma

If you must go on an escapade, be sure to take umbrellas.
Do not talk to strangers and do not flirt with fellas.
Why put on all that makeup? Your natural look is best.
Why would you wear a bustier when you could wear a vest?

Pick locales you know are safe. Just go to ones near churches.
Beware of stuff that falls from planes and pigeons on tall perches.
You may think your gallivanting is the stuff of dreams,
but the world of adventure is not all that it seems.

Why not choose daylight hours to see what you can see
and once the sun sets, stay at home, here with gramps and me?
I’ll make a pan of fudge and then we can play Parcheesi.
This town’s not nice at night. It’s very dark and way too breezy.

But if you simply must go out, mind the bottom stair.
Is that funny little outfit the one you’re going to wear?
Put toilet paper on the seat when you use the loo!
A key? Oh, you won’t need one.  We’ll be waiting up for you.

Prompt words today are umbrella, escapade, dream, locale and natural.

Attitude

Attitude

Memory can be a juggernaut, retelling us too often
of hard past events that time should be allowed to soften.
What good is it to resurrect mistakes and acts of folly?
Better to forget times gone and make the present jolly.

Our only security lies soundly in the present.
Why waste our thoughts on bygone days instead of days more pleasant?
Trade former tears for whoops of joy and for the umpteenth time,
remind yourself you have the choice to make your world sublime.

Words for the day are whoops, juggernautumpteen and security

 

merciless, indestructible and unstoppable.

The Archbishop Gets Forgetful

The Archbishop Gets Forgetful

Priests in town know when the archbishop is about,
he’s bound to have a new batch of indulgences to tout.
And though he’s their head honcho so they must all be respectful,
when they see him coming they get super-genuflectful.
“Please dear Lord, don’t make us sell the pardons that he has!”
These days that sort of fund-raising carries no pizazz.
Paying their bills as he suggests has no appeal at all.
They’d really rather make do with St. Vincent de Paul.
Yet no one wants to tell him that selling the way to heaven
was outlawed by the church way back in fifteen sixty-seven!

Prompt words for today are honcho, pizzazz, respectful, tout and bill.