Category Archives: Poem

Mountaineer

10 Replies

 

DSC00169
Mountaineer

I am a mountain waiting to be climbed,
its slopes slippery and rough
with fortifications.
This poem is the face
I am inviting you to scale,

not taking the clearly defined path
that prose would provide,
but a harder course with handholds and footholds
that will not give way if you
use your mind to select a wise course.

If I did not trust you so, I would give you a secure railing
like one provided in showers and bathtubs
for the elderly;
but I know, if you have made it this far,
that you have the stamina to make it on your own.

Every mind is a majestic mountain waiting to be climbed
and also a climber sometimes bent on climbing,
at other times, content
to stand at the mountain’s base,
waiting for the scree to come to him.

 

This is a rewrite of an earlier poem For dVerse poets pub. Majestic

Leftovers

20 Replies

IMG_3941

In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving and looking forward to ours later this month, this poem is dedicated to Morrie and Diego, who profit from all culinary events in my house:

Leftovers
(Dedicated to Two Hopeful Dogs)

Crying for our leftovers won’t bring you any favors.
You will not taste their textures or masticate their flavors
if you stand there begging. Those winsome looks aren’t working.
Nor are your lapsing manners—your twisting and your jerking.

Hunger doesn’t justify your unwelcome behavior.
Before we even sat down, we saw Grandpa was your savior,
slipping you a turkey leg he had dipped in gravy.
(That leg I’d saved for leftovers–a turkey sandwich, maybe.)

Our home-cooked meal? Delicious. That you already know.
When I cooked the pies, I fed you scraps of dough.
The turkey giblets boiled for gravy, later went to you.
When I cooked the cranberries, you even ate a few.

You licked the pumpkin bowl so clean. You licked the beater blade
when I whipped the cream for pies. Dear ones, you had it made.
So when you beg for leftovers, I’ll just ignore your fuss.
You ate before the guests, dears. Leftovers are for us!

Prompts for today are winsome, manner, justify, leftovers and home.

Midnight Swim

11 Replies

 

IMG_5518

Midnight Swim

I love this dark and quiet night
far from the loud and glaring light.
Solitary in the dark,
no mewling cat or warning bark.
The whole world in conspiracy
hides and holds and cushions me.
I move through water, side to side.
Through liquid currents, I freely slide.

Palms backlit by an opal moon
that’s dulled by clouds too soon, too soon.
The silence sliced by mosquito’s whine
mars a night no more divine.
Invader of my private night,
I fear its subtle stinger’s bite.
It moves in circles through the air
from shoulder to my neck and hair.

I swat at where it was until
it, alas, has had its fill.
Then it is off, leaving me
the pleasure of my company
devoid of interloper’s claim.
I wipe out memory of my name,
my age, my talents and my ills.
Suddenly, the pool fills

with the spreading whole of me
becoming part of all I see
and touch and smell and feel and dream.
I am, at last, all that I seem.
I float toward light, then climb the stairs,
free of worry and of cares.
If I can only fall to dreams
before old niggling prods and screams

invade my memory to call
me up against the judgment wall,
my whole intent will be fulfilled.
I’ll have achieved just what I willed.
Such are the charms of veiled nights
that cover over daylight’s frights
and lull us to our sleep and dreams
convincing us life’s what it seems.

Dear Joan (Note Found Pinned to a Husband Left at the Curbside)

9 Replies

Dear Joan
(Note Found Pinned to a Husband Left at the Curbside )

We’ve been friends for forever, but I fear that we are through.
I have no further patience for the awful things you do.
Pretending to be humble, but not shouldering  the blame,
you’re just a kindred spirit in appearance and in name.
There’s no need for thanksgiving for you are that crafty kind
who is an ally when it’s easy but vanish in a bind.
Your friendship is fair weather, for you suddenly get busy
when good times are over and my life is in a tizzy.

I find myself alone in most times of perturbation.
Then you reappear when it is time for celebration.
Our need for help’s not only when we’re rolling in the clover,
so when it comes to friendship, I think our time is over.
A real friend should be one who also shares in all your sorrows
instead of all that sharing that happens when she borrows
appliances and money, your clothes and then  your house.
Then before you notice it, she’s borrowing your spouse.

So I must insist that you find a different friend.
There is really nothing new left for me to lend.
You’ll need a better job now that you have my honey,
for I am the one, my dear, who’s always had the money.
You’ll be needing to support him in his accustomed manner.
He needs a proper tailor and a booth to make him tanner.
He prefers the Riviera, Monte Carlo for the gambling,
a Lear jet for his weekends, Maseratis for his rambling. 

He was whining like a puppy—a most pitiful yelp—
when I dumped him at your walk-up, so I hope that you can help
him carry all his baggage up to your third-floor flat.
I fear he’s not accustomed to labor such as that.
Feed him three square meals a day. He fancies caviar.
But watch him like a hawk. I wouldn’t trust him very far.
You might survey your friends again and find one who is plucky
who will take him off your hands for you if you are really lucky!!!

 

Prompt words today are humble, shoulder, kindred, thanksgiving and kind. Photo by 俊逸 余 on Unsplash, used with permission.

 

Love Song of a Pessimistic Spouse

10 Replies

Photo by Andrii Leonov on Unsplash, used with permission.

Love Song of a Pessimistic Spouse

Look before you leap. Run with scissors pointed down.
Stay away from drafts, dear, when in your dressing gown.

Careful on the the stairs, don’t hasten your descent.
Don’t turn on the gas without opening the vent.

Put alcohol on cuts and scrapes, mercurochrome on splinters.
Drive slowly during rainstorms and use chains during winters.

Death is always lurking and I fear that you are jaded
thinking life’s perpetual when in fact it’s dated.

There are way too many dangers to sweep us from our feet,
so always look both ways when you cross a busy street.

Remember, dear, you’re not alone. Your “I” turned into “we”
the day that we were married for perpetuity.

Life is a roulette wheel. Take care not to spin it.
Life wouldn’t be much fun, dear, if you were not in it.

 

Prompt words for today are splinter, jaded, death, descent and look.

Pen and Ink, Musical Version

10 Replies

DSCN2148

I wrote and published this poem last year, but Christine Anfossie has set it to music and if you click the link below, you can hear her singing it.

 

Pen and Ink

The pen that stands, clipped and inert
in the pocket of your shirt
has no power on its own
so long as it is left alone,
but once held upright in your grip,
free of cap and free of clip,
it forms a partnership of sorts
that spews out pithy, smart retorts.

It snaps the present into line
with words that easily combine
in sentences that, once unfurled,
have the power to change the world.
I ask you, who would ever think
that two joined objects—pen and ink—
could form a perfect synergy
to spew out jokes or tragedy?

Guided by a hand like yours,
a pen can open many doors.
A simple point, an ink-trailed line,
could link your heart with one like mine.
Unclip it now. Uncap its point.
Let ink your paper now anoint.
Let words turn somersaults and caper.
Let words flow from your heart to paper.

Let ink flow rampant from its cage
to dance across the naked page.
No telling what it might report
as words go wild and cavort.
“I” and “love” and “you” might do
a sort of line-dance or soft-shoe.
Words just might and words just may
leak out and give your heart away.

Words by Judy Dykstra-Brown, Music and Vocals by Christine Anfossie.

Evolutional Malfunction

4 Replies

\Image by Francesco De Tommaso on Unsplash, used with permission

Evolutional Malfunction

In the shadows of the tundra, the lion hunts tonight.
What unsuspecting detour will still a gazelle’s flight?
Nightfall cancels the good fortune of the graceful beast.
The ballet of his progress has mercilessly ceased.
So nature feasts on nature in our world’s cruel plan—
animal on animal and man on weaker man.

Much as we hope that we’ve evolved, we cycle back again,
supplementing power by feeding on the pain
of people that we use as stepping stones to power.
What man can stand above unless other humans cower?
The nature of wild animals is that they give short shrift. 
The kill is sane and merciful. The slaughter sure and swift.

Mankind is the species where cruelty was born.
Their hunts don’t end in darkness, but leak over to the morn.
Men amassing billions while other billions starve—
how big is the kingdom that they hope to carve?
A lion with its appetite sated ends the slaughter.
Not so the questing magnate or his greedy daughter.

Send back the starving children, parentless and weak.
They will not have the mercy or safety that they seek.
Recycle them to other lions on the hunt.
In darkness or in light of day, their stalkers never punt.
Oh how the jaded mighty exercise their powers
by stacking bodies of the powerless to build their lofty towers.

 

Prompt words today are shadows, detour, fortune, lion and nightfall.

Gremlins: A Teenage Mythology

9 Replies

Gremlins: A Teenage Mythology

A sneeze is how a poltergeist gets outside of you.
At night a different stinky elf sleeps inside each shoe.

Every creaking rafter supports its resident ghost,
and it’s little gremlins who make you burn the toast.

Each night those tricky fairies put snarls in your hair,
while pixies in your sock drawer unsort every pair.

Midnight curtain billows are caused by banshee whistles.
Vampires use your toothbrush and put cooties in its bristles.

Truths all come in singles. It’s lies that come in pairs.
That’s a zombie, not a teenager, sneaking up the stairs.

 

This poem is posted for: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest

Canned Cantos

28 Replies

 

Canned Cantos

Behold the simple can of soup.
Outside it’s hard. Inside it’s goop.
Cream of mushroom, turkey noodle—
kids adore the whole kaboodle.

Crass men raid the chicken coop
to gather poultry for our soup.
They chop up onions, slice potatoes,
murder mushrooms, slay tomatoes.

Must Warhol then immortalize
this canned concoction I despise?
The world agreed. He must. He should.
They called his canned art very good.

Yet this icon that he chose
to paint and to overexpose,
I could easily view myself
lined up on my kitchen shelf.

Why pay a thousand bucks or more
for something that each day I pour
into a pan and then ingest?
I think, friends, that it was a test

to see how gullible we are.
As we made this elf a star,
fanned his fame, increased his rank,
he laughed his way right to the bank.

For dVerse Poets Andy Warhol prompt.

Green Door

7 Replies

 

Green Door

Not a wall. A door at most.
Barely more than lath and post.
Peep hole worn by questing fingers––
a lost soul whose presence lingers.
What has this fortress kept inside?
What prisoner trapped? What captive died?
We have no idea––none at all
of what was kept behind this wall.
As paint peels off and dust invades,
the story ages, wanes and fades.
The story too grim to express?
They leave it up to us to guess.

 

For Friday Fictioneer45: 77 words