Category Archives: Poem

Backdoor Sliders

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Backdoor Sliders

I take a break from my last chore
to peer through glass, ceiling to floor.
For though a view I never lack,
my house’s eyes are all in back.
I watch the gardener cut and trim,
the locksmith to the right of him.

One scrubs the algae from the pool—
a craftsman polishing his jewel.
A man on ladder repairs the wall,
the tree-trimmer the highest of all.
See how we tend her outer skin–
they without and we within?

Yolanda sweeps the terrace floor,
then comes inside to sweep some more.
Inside I watch and labor, too,
for there are many tasks to do.
I dust and gather detritus,
smooth out wrinkles, straighten muss.

Three days a week we labor so
until I wonder if I know
which is the owner and which the thing
that luxury and comfort brings?
Dear house, is it you that harbors me,
or am I here to maintain thee?

 

DSC09933 DSC09379 DSC09411 DSC09498 DSC09902 IMG_1520 IMG_1512 DSC09935


The Boss:↓↓

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RDP’s prompt for today is looking out of my backdoor. Since I did this prompt three years ago, I decided to reprint that post today. I had forgotten it. Hopefully, if you’ve been following me for that long, you have, too.

Verse for a Reclusive One

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Verse for a Reclusive One

I refuse to say goodbye. I’d rather say hello
if you should ever come back from where you have to go.
In the interim, I’ll let my memories be my guide.
Sometimes they are the safest places to abide.
You decried my frivolous gestures, yet ate up all the cake
those birthdays when you swore festivities were a mistake.
Oh, my reclusive loved-one, why do you hide away?
You do not have the answer. That’s why you never say.

Prompts for today are goodbye, refuse, guide, frivolous and cake.

Secrets of a Warm Climate

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Secrets of a Warm Climate

After a hot afternoon,
a sudden rising chill wind
blows his canvas from the wall.

The pool, filled with the blood of the volcano,
is still hot soup warm after twelve hours of cooling. I slide into it,
all others in the house and neighborhood asleep or abed.
Strings of papyrus blown into the water
catch at me like cobwebs as I swim through viscous water.
I comb them from the water with my fingers
and launch them poolside.

Gentle music floats up from the town,
backup to the repetitious trilling of the nightingale
and the far-off Who? Who? Of an owl.
The crack of the house settling into night.
The wind singing in a different voice from every palm tree
under a clear sky filled with stars.
Air cool on my face,
water hot around my body— its currents like silken whips,
I try to remember sensuality with someone else attached to it.

Moving forward and back, then in circles around the kidney-shaped edge,
I am drunk on the night, making my own romance,
knowing that what matters, now that past loves are over,
is not sharp words or all the craziness of love’s endings,
but instead—the first yearning wishes met impossibly
by the answer in another’s eyes and voice, then mouth and hands.
What is important is that sweet pain of wanting—
the answering pain of wanting back.

All the fairytales of new love:
tropical sand or mountain canyons echoing the call
of goats and the answer of goatherds,
a first sight across a smoky room,
hearing a poet’s words about a past love
and, knowing that power could be directed towards me,
dizzy in love before I even met him.

His death or love dying first is not what it is important to remember—
just those days where love was everything that mattered.
And in this life gained after those first vanished loves,
”Send me a sign,” I say, looking to the stars.
And there is a flash, immediate.
Not a falling star,
but one shooting upward in a quick bursting flash of light.

 

Here is the prompt. And here is what others wrote for the prompt: dVerse Poets: Secret.

Words of Wooing

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Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 8.49.45 AMPhoto by Giovanni Ribeiro on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Words of Wooing

He took her to the movies. He took her to the fair.
He raved about her choice of clothes. He doted on her hair.
He brought his uke and stood for hours strumming at her gate,
riffing on the talents of the lovely Kate.
Was he accurate? Were all his laudatory quips
valid? All those praises of her swan neck and her lips?
Not likely, but it’s lucky that the lady was so vain
that she took verbatim the praises of her swain.
They married in the autumn and by spring the truth was known.
He no longer sang her praises. She had to sing her own!
 

Prompt words for today are movie, valid, riff, accuracy and gate.

Dark Rites of Inheritance

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Dark Rites of Inheritance

What was it you discovered under the Union Jack
packed in Grandma’s quilt chest, way back in the back?
I saw the glowing of your torch as you bore it away,
breaking the rule that all be shared in the light of day.

I find your act egregious, and yet I will not tell.
It’s just my curiosity I’ll ask for you to quell.
I need not share your treasure or regulate your act.
When I give my word, I’m the epitome of tact.

What is that you cradle? Is it a jewel or flask?
One viewing of your treasure is the only thing I ask.
Why raise it there above your head in the moonlight’s glow?
I cannot see what’s in your hand down here so far below.

Your movement now so swift and sure, seconds to stop from start.
I feel a trickling down my chest, a swift pain in my heart.
How cruel that even now you keep your secret all unshared.
Who would expect such evil acts from Grandma’s favored laird?

Nothing disputes you as her heir. It’s yours, castle and land,
except, perhaps, that parchment I see gripped tight in your hand.
My life has not been perfect. You have not loved me well.
How perfect that I’ll be the one you’ll later join in Hell!

 

Prompts today are jack, torch, egregious, regulate and rule.

Dana Point #1.––For Janet

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This is a poem I wrote 39 years ago when I decided to give up my job, sell my house and move from Wyoming to California to write. I wrote it sitting in my car at Dana Point Harbor  south of Huntington Beach, where I sometimes went to write.  Janet, who has mentioned Dana Point several times in her blog, asked to see the poem.  Here it is with all its warts, exactly the way it was first written:

(Oops.. this was in a different form, but WP straightened it all up. Oh well….)

                      Dana Point #1.

Inside these clothes, this car,
inside the hairdo and the
rules,
something lives.
A hand reaches from
the sleeve it lives in. A face lives behind
this face. And only journeys out to walk straight lines on
yellow paper. Freeing words, then
wondering how
to follow.        (if she dares, for
prohibitions do not stay them.)
And who is she if she is not
rules to live by
standards to love by,
codes
morals
laws.

The only way to know
is to follow straight blue lines on yellow.
And it is an empty page.
She is the only one who walks there
the only one who weeps there
the only one who laughs there.

Inside these clothes, this car,
inside this hairdo and the rules,
her company resides
within a crowded mind, to call her home
again––home from the yellow sea.

Party House

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Party House

I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors.
Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors.
Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose.
They turn up the music when I want to doze.

Convivial people are really a pain.
Of my existence, they’re really the bane.
I wish I could trade them for sedater folks
who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,

for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution.
I wish I could think of a better solution:
a wall or a device to filter the sound,
but instead I must phone or cry out or pound

on the door that no one inside ever hears.
They just do not care, or so it appears.
I complain to the neighborhood association
that sends them a warning to curb their elation,

but somehow the party just starts up again.
More laughter, more music, more odors, more din.
If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me.
I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!

Prompt words today are can’t, pressure, frivolous, convivial and  nose.

Stationary

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Stationary

Feet firmly planted, I’m not prone to budge.
So, have me arrested. Bring on the judge.
You’re better off giving me a gentle nudge,
for I will not be altered by law or decree.
Better that you use sound logic with me.

 

“Stationary” was a prompt for the Ragtag Daily Prompt

Absolution

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Absolution

A pen her only weapon, she brandished it at life.
From within her cave of thoughts, she used it as a knife.
Cutting out the sadness, filleting the pain,
she served them out on pages sacrificed to rain.
Let the press of water wash them clean again.

 

Prompt words today are press, brandish and cave.

King Neptune’s Joust

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Image by Daniels Joffe on Unsplash, used with permission

King Neptune’s Joust

Who seeks to best the ocean’s roar 
is just a fool, and no more—
delusional right to his core.
The protection of the knights of yore—
that plaited metal that they wore—
was but a many-chambered door 
that led them to the ocean’s floor.

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Roar.