Category Archives: Poem

Love’s Allusions

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Illustration by King Lip on Unsplash, Used with permission

Love’s Allusions

I fear that my Adonis became an Achille’s heel.
His charms were an illusion. He wasn’t the real deal.
His bombastic bearing was one I could not bear.
I plumbed his deepest psyche and found it wasn’t there.

His attempts to woo and win me were perfectly rehearsed,
We were Samson and Delilah, but the ending was reversed!
I was the one who lost my head. Thank god it was not literal,
for when he sought to wield his sword, his target was just clitoral.

My romantic Odysseys give precious little peace.
At times I’ve felt like Jason, seeking the Golden Fleece.
A female Don Quixote, with endless optimism,
If I’d met Dr. Jekyll, I’d have overlooked the schism.

I’ve felt passion ignited via heroes from the telly,
but then found out that my Clark Kent turned into Machiavelli!
My Bat Man became a vampire, which was most disillusioning.
So at least for the present, I swear off romantic fusioning!

I have a feeling that the prompt was meant to be about the illusions of life, but perhaps not, and since the prompt said “life’s allusions,” I took them literally and tried to fit in as many allusions from legend and literature as possible. The allusions are presented in boldface. The theme, however, dealt with my romantic illusions and the rest of today’s prompt words were fit in as well. Prompts for today were: life’s allusions, bombastic, precious, ignite and present.

Gifts

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Gifts

Every day
is the anniversary
of something,
our lives a potpourri
of past occasions
left to dry in memory.

We traverse
the calendar of our lives
like a game of hopscotch,
dipping into pockets
for a means to play the game
and one day finding chocolates,
the next bitter almonds, 
one made sweeter by that other
that is made more bearable
by the promise of  its opposite.

Today is the anniversary
of seventy-two other days
that added to the rest of the days
granted me by a generous fate,
add up to 26,403
 anniversaries
and a life that daily 
has been given to me
like a present
whose contents
I get to choose.

Prompts for today are anniversary,potpourri, generous, traverse and chocolate.

NaPoWriMo Day 15: Jazz Riff

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For NaPoWriMo, they want us to write a poem that copies the style of a favorite song or type of music. I chose Jazz.music

Poetic Inspiration: NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 14

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Poetic Inspiration

I do not seek to emulate great poets of the past,
for if they were any good, their poems are bound to last.
Why do they need an imitator? Better we’re original.
Modern times do not demand a message aboriginal.
Chaucer’s fine for Chaucer and he was an inspiration,
but Middle English has long passed its date of expiration.
Shakespeare is ubiquitous. No need for one Will more.
Leave Love’s Labor’s Lost to him–and Lady Macbeth’s Gore.
Let Frost mend all the fences. Leave Ozymandius to Shelley.
Nineteenth century topics are best left to film or telly.
What’s left to modern poets? Where can they get their start?
Leave imitation on the shelf and merely write your heart.

We were to write a poem dealing with poets who have influenced us..positively or negatively. For NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 14

Travel Wisdom

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Travel Wisdom

A fearless warrior one must be to navigate the world,
for in foreign climes you’ll find vast challenges unfurled.
When you start your journey you may count yourself a tourist,
yet in the end if you don’t fold, you’ll end up an endurist.
You’ll find out it is ludicrous to think bans will be lifted
and for you that ancient laws and mores will be shifted. 
You leave the life you knew before back in your former quarters.
Your world does not go with you when stray across your borders.

Prompt words for today are ban, warrior, ludicrous, navigate and tourist.

Wheeler-Dealer

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Wheeler-Dealer

I am not sorry
for the hours I have stolen
away from your busy life.
You should have given them freely.
I was trying to teach you that.

You were such a poor student,
professing love, then
rushing off hither and yon.

Early morning flea markets
spawned caches—
rental garages stuffed with treasures
that didn’t fit into a house
 already filled with me
years before you moved in.

You picked things up
in driveways
and on curbsides,
widows in the seat next to you 
on bargain flights alone to Mexico.

You snatched me
from that singles party
before I even got my coat off.
Eye trained at the door,
you knew lonely
when you saw it.
   
Commandeering
my Ford Econoline camper van,
you drove me off to most of California,
then to Mexico,
while I tried to teach you how to be
where you were. Pouring salt on your tail,
trying to hold your gaze.

And I am not sorry— either for what I asked of you
or for throwing away the rest of you—
that busy bee, buzzing from bloom to bloom
to see what it could find.

For NaNoWriMo 2020, day 13, we are to write an apology for something we’ve stolen.

Holding Back the Moon

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Holding Back the Moon

Standby. I think I love you, though I’m not completely certain.
But when I see the ship of moon  through my bedroom curtain,
then watch it disappear as the sky takes up its space,
as though its crew has moved it to another time and place,
I hope that you can moor yourself and stay your bullish pride
while you wait for my decision. Please stem restlessness. Abide.

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Prompt words today are standby, moon, disappear, crew and pride.

Haynaku for NaPoWriMo 2020, Day 10 (Kitten on the Keys)

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Kitten on the Keys

Four
months gone
or maybe more

still
she hears
a closing door

thinks
it’s him
walking the floor

but
all is empty
space and time

no
kisses fond
or words sublime

footsteps
are but
creak and groan

she 
lies here
listening all alone

footsteps
on the 
roof top rafter

found
in type
the morning after

once
a wife
no regrets sold

she
doesn’t know
the story told

kitten
paws heed
no man’s barriers

make
the perfect
love note carriers

 

This is a true story. Today while cleaning and organizing my art studio, I found a bag with old notes from my husband in it. Included was this message found typed out on my computer a few months after he died. The kittens loved to walk over the keys and I had heard Talulah or Annie do so the night before. What came out was gobbledygook with “once a wife no regrets sold.” typed out in the middle of it. For nineteen years, I’ve been trying to figure out what the “sold” was about unless it was that we’d put our house up for sale and bought one in Mexico three weeks before my husband died. This message was received as I lay on the floor on an inflatable mattress in the bedroom of the house we would have shared in Mexico. Nope. No regrets, ever, concerning the move to Mexico, but it took me 8 years to stop feeling married.
This is Annie about 16 years later, perhaps remembering her one successful message on those keys she walked over so many times in the 19 years she shared here with me. She was just a kitten in the time period this poem describes.

 

The day 10 prompt for NaPoWriMo is to write a haynaku. Six word stanzas with lines of 1, then 2, then 3 words.

Set in Concrete

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Below is a collage of concrete poetry I’ve done over the past six years. Please click on images to increase the size and read the poems.

 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a concrete poem. Here are a few.

Plumbing the Depths

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Plumbing the Depths

They call him the professor because of his great wit.
Everything he says has perspicacity in it!
The way he wrangles words should be no great surprise,
for he’s a modern Shakespeare in a plumber’s rough disguise.
Once he unplugs your loo, he is not finished, but instead
he shares a legendary quip to clear out his own head.

Word prompts for the day are: perspiscacity, wrangle, surprise, legendary and professor