Category Archives: Poem

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. 

Cutting Loose

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Cutting Loose

When daylight breaks, bring in the paper
and over breakfast, plan a caper.
Crazy plans are fun to bake up.
Do your nails, put on some makeup.
Call in sick. Forsake your labors
and boggle all your friends and neighbors
by doing something crazy wild.
Reconnect your inner child.

A vital element in fun
is do not stop until you’re done.
Paint your house a vivid hue.
Then why stop there. Why not paint you?
Go for a boat ride, buy a bike.
Buy hiking boots and take a hike.
Wear funny clothes. Get a tattoo.
No end to things that you could do.

Turn your hems up, cut your hair.
(No one can see what’s under there.)
Take Santa Claus out on a date.
Most months he’s bored. Don’t hesitate!
When you are letting loose, please just
only do the things you must.
It’s vital that at least just once
you dare to play the fool or dunce

and take the chance to try to binge
and do what makes the whole world cringe.
It’s fun sometimes to be unique
in what we do or how we speak—
to be that person standing out
with anything that you can flout.
Life’s too short to always do
what the world expects of you!!!

 

Prompt words today were daylight, paper, boggle, vital and bake.

Won by Wit

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Won by Wit

South sea island cruises do not stir up my lust.
I fear that all my passions have succumbed to mold and dust.
All that iron will to love has come to naught but rust.
To date, there is no counter urge that says, “My dear, you must!”
It never was my temperament to plot and scheme and plan
complicated maneuvers to try to catch a man,
but still I found that now and then one drifted into view
that caused me to examine my attitudes anew.

Perhaps my behavior included one or two
of the tiniest maneuvers by which I hoped to woo.
It may be that in passing, I allowed the slightest brush
of my arm and his arm and blamed it on the crush
of bodies in the elevator, even though the fact
is that the elevator was not so tightly packed.
Nonetheless, my hints were subtle, for I rarely pined
for a lustful body over a brilliant mind.

So if you want to woo me, do it over books.
For me a silver tongue will always win out over looks.
Write with wit and logic, original and kind.
Fan my imagination. Seduce my wild mind.
My upper arms are flabby, but my mind is sharp and taut.
To woo me, try to judge me not for all that I am not.
The only one to win me would be one of my own kind.
The only nuptials I seek are marriages of mind.

 

Prompts today are south seas, brush, lust, temperament and date.

The Scheme

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Photo on 7-4-14 at 12.20 AM

The Scheme

By the seat of my pants I’ll accomplish my scheme
which some may consider to be too extreme.
Avoiding the bridge, I’ll have forded the stream
in the dark of the night to the moon’s guiding beam.
As I find the right path, if only by chance,
small rivulets will stream down from my pants—
evidence that will dry up in the day
with the breeze’s collusion and each dawning ray
of the sun as it shrugs off the night’s blinding hand.
Permit me to hope that by then all I’ve planned
will be finished and done. I’ll have reached the far ridge,
crossed down to the road and fled over the bridge.

Extreme measures are sometimes all that can be done
to enact revenge. In the end, I’ll have won.
The news will corroborate all of my acts.
They’ll furnish the details, establish the facts.
My crime will go down in the annals as one
that everyone’s heard of but to this day none
will have heard who accomplished it. No one will know
that I orchestrated that fabulous show.
How can I be sure you won’t let it be known
that I did the act and I did it alone?
This vengeful act that I so aptly hid?
You’ll know I did something, but not what I did!!!

Prompt words today are hope, permit, scheme, corroborate and pants.