Category Archives: Poem

Storage

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Storage

I’m not your typical hoarder. I don’t save balls of string.
Five foot stacks of newspapers really aren’t my thing.
Boxes of garage sale items do not line my halls.
Jumbles of castoff treasures do not obscure my walls.

My collection is more upbeat and easier to store.
I have thousands of them and room for plenty more.
And lest you think my hoarding is of objects more absurd,
I’ll tell you my obsession is simply for the “word.”

Those who have collected them all throughout the ages
are lexicographers and scribes, poets, writers, sages.
Sometimes they swirl around my head and leave it in a fog,
so when I run out of room, I store them in this blog.

Words like ships floating around, looking for a moorage—
I simply help them out by arranging for their storage.

 

Got a bit mixed up with my prompts today and used two from yesterday, so here is another poem with additional prompts from today: jumble and upbeat.

Mourning Matins

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Mourning Matins

Lately,
it is nightbirds

who prematurely voice
the matins of my day.

I keep knocking myself
against hard surfaces

and all my wounds
are in the shapes of hearts.

Anyone more emotional than you
might feel my pain.

This caring for you
is not simple anymore.

I arise too early
and it makes the day too long.

Prompt words for today are simplicity, anyone, emotional, matinal and caring. Also, for dVerse Poets and Bird of the Day.

The Education of a Prodigy

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photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Education of a Prodigy

It’s true he was sardonic, which made it rather hard
for him to assimilate in the schoolyard.
In short, he was precocious, advanced beyond his years.
It’s when it came to social skills that he was in arrears.
He couldn’t really bat the ball. He failed at pitch and catching,
and when it came to fielding, he just excelled at scratching.
When other kids made fun of him, he whipped them with his tongue—
a most distressing habit in one who was so young.
His teachers merely shook their heads and gave him up for lost,
for he took instructions poorly, refusing to be bossed.
It wasn’t until college, when he met a certain “Miss”
that his sharpened tongue was rounded by  a simple good night kiss.
Surprising how true love can bring an end to lifelong ills.
Now she gives the instructions and he just pays the bills.

Prompt words on this Friday the 13th are sardonic, assimilate, precocious and scratch. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

Late Starter

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Late Starter

He called his dad a troglodyte, his sisters, basket cases,
although he was not brash enough to do so to their faces.
He felt himself the underdog—blamed for everything.
He felt his wings were clipped, although he dreamed of taking wing.
Someday he would spring the trap and he would show them all.
But until that day, he’d simply hang out at the mall,
checking out the chicks and panhandling when he could.
He knew he could do great things and some day he would,
but no one gave him chances. The Mexicans and Arabs
with their Virgin Marias and their half-moons and their scarabs
were taking all his jobs away. He didn’t even try.
Why should a decent white guy bother to apply?

How dare his dad declare that he has nothing on the ball?
He is kept plenty busy holding up this wall.
When the other wall is built, his life will come together.
He’ll get some fancy job and break the family tether.
Get a real cool crash pad and party with his friends.
He’ll make some just as soon as this foreign invasion ends.
Time enough for school once Trump takes out the trash.
Then he’ll ace his classes and rake in the cash.
He’ll show every idiot who claims he is a bum
that he is the genius. He’ll show them who is dumb!
Those guys who hang out at the mall in every sort of weather?
If we could read their thoughts, they just might be birds of a feather.

 

Prompt words for the day are troglodyte, brash, underdog, spring. Mall photo by Neel Tailor, used with permission. Other photos by Judy D-B. 

Tropical Gig

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Tropical Gig

A cricket and a katydid in need of some excitement
when the cold winds started, and with no other incitement,
set out on upon a sea journey, their ship an old guitar.
(It wasn’t very roomy. Oh, but it was yar!)

They christened her as Lulabelle after an old amor.
They thought they’d sail the whole wide world from shore to shore to shore.
Setting off from Mexico, they drifted with the breeze,
their water and provisions stacked up around their knees.

The cricket sang such lullabies. The katydid chimed in,
a catfish as a tagalong stroked rhythms on its fin.
Guileless in their motives, they sought no fame nor riches.
From port to port they drifted, with only minor glitches.

On Isla Mujeres, they met a small land crab
that had been used in research in an oceanic lab.
It lit up in the darkness with a thousand little lights.
And so they offered it a ride to light up starless nights.

They drifted off to Cuba atop an ocean swell,
telling all the stories that they had to tell.
Traitorous loves and conquests, flight through the summer night.
The sand crab told of capture after a valiant fight.

The cricket had such stories of houses he’d been in.
The katydid could mime a leaf: long and green and thin.
When they made their music, the crab just clacked its claws.
All night they chirred and clattered—sometimes without a pause.

By the time they got to Cuba, they had a stirring act.
They drew the gulls and pelicans to listen—it’s a fact!
They got a gig in Havana, playing in a bar,
drawing folks to hear them from both near and far.

The cricket’s name is Chirrup and and Katydid is Slim.
The Crab’s name is Oblongus—based on the shape of him.
Their act can be heard nightly in the ocean dunes,
where they will serenade you with their blended tunes.

 

 

 

Prompt words for today are guitar, guileless, traitor, research and excitement.

Calling Trump

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Calling Trump

No remnant of credibility that he might have had
at the start of his dark odyssey clings to this foolish cad.
Claiming to solve problems that his actions just exacerbate,
mere echoes of his words still chide enough that they infuriate.

Of the seven deadly sins, he’s had a taste of all.
When, if they are so deadly, will they bring about his fall?
Lust and gluttony? For sure. Greed? No doubt about it.
Sloth and wrath, envy and pride? What sane man would doubt it?

He’s left his presidential desk, preferring his own throne.
He borrows other people’s deeds to claim them as his own.
He manufactures science, quoting no valid source.
Lessens the force of hurricanes while altering their course.

There’s nothing that he cannot do, at least in his own mind.
To serve his ends, he’ll put entire countries in a bind.
He’ll trump the hand of anyone. This game is not so hard.
If it’s lacking in his hand, he’ll just invent the card!

 

Today’s prompt words are infuriate, borrow, odyssey, remnant and seven.

Memory Games

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Memory Games

Half over-achiever, my other part is zen.
Sometimes I concentrate on now, other times, where I’ve been.
This morning’s evanescent. I can’t remember shit.
I know I found my car key but what did I do with it?

Ameliorating circumstances? Sorry. There are none.
I simply have no memory of what  I have just done.
I know I wrote a poem, but I can’t recall a bit.
I haven’t the foggiest memory of what I said in it!

It’s said I have good judgment and a judicious mind,
but as to short-term memory? I fear I’m in a bind.
I remember blow-for-blow what happened as a child.
My college years I recall well. My twenties are well-filed.

When I write, the memories pop readily to my brain.
It’s only hours later that the memories don’t remain
of what I have just written or the words that I have used.
The present and my recent past simply are not fused.

So if you want a memory, please choose one in my past.
The farther back, the better, if you want my reply fast.
Fifty years ago are fine. The details I’ll relate.
But details of this morning? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.

Prompt words today are ameliorate, judicious, zen, evanescent and bit.

Broken Dreams

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Annie at 17 years old.

My seventeen year old cat, Annie, has for the past two years been awakening me at various early-morning hours to be fed. It makes no difference if I feed her at midnight or 2 am or whenever I choose to turn in for the night. At 4 or 5 or 6, her piercing yowls shock me awake and there is nothing to be done other than to get up to flop an entire can of Fancy Feast into her feeding bowl. She’s taken over my bathroom with her food and water dishes, her litter tray and her bed, so for two years I’ve showered in the guest shower. This old girl rules my world. Today’s five o’clock awakening gave rise to this poem. 

Broken Dreams

I doused my dream to greet the day, but to my great annoyance.
reality, alas, cannot compete with its flamboyance.
The dream was psychedelic and meandering in its plot.
It had all the excitement that my waking life has not.

Before the day resumes its hold, since night is not yet done,
I’ll return to my pillow and awaken to the sun.
The old cat’s fed, the dogs still sleep and so, with luck, shall I.
Perhaps I’ll find that dream again. At least, I’m going to try.

 

Annie at one month, in my headphone case.

Prompt words today are psychedelic, doused, annoy and day.

Kitchen Queen

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Kitchen Queen

Her souffles are a marvel and her cakes a work of art.
Every single thing she cooks, a product of her heart.
Her kitchen full of luscious smells and openness and levity,
every disaster solvable and noted for its brevity.
She surmounts each problem, opens every stubborn jar,
locates each ingredient, no matter how bizarre.

When she puts on her apron and dons her cooking cap,
she conquers national cuisines from all over the map.
Marinara and béchamel, curries and doro wats—
sauces from every culture simmer in her pots.
From kreplach to pot stickers, she has mastered each cuisine.
When it comes to ruling kitchens, our Dolly is the queen!

 

Go check out Dolly’s blog at koolkosherkitchen. She is presently telling wonderful stories about her grandmother and sharing her recipes as well. One of my favorite blogs.

 

Prompt words for today are marvel, surmount, bizarre, levity and map.

Swift Retribution

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Swift Retribution

Out of all who came to court her, she had picked him as the winner.
It was later, after the wedding, that she discovered he was a sinner.
He had planned her initiation to the gambling and the grog—
her debauchment, his ego told him, easy as falling off a log.
But she had not shown an interest in the wild life he preferred,
so though he vowed that with his marriage, his earlier vices had been cured,
his sporadic bad behavior had her climbing up the wall.
His raw language and deportment weren’t acceptable at all.

Like she hadn’t known his weakness, he did not know her power.
She was not a wife to follow nor a girl to cringe and cower.
When they married he had few prospects—not a nickel nor a dollar,
so when he came home one night with lipstick on his necktie and his collar,
she chose not to be tearful, nor to scream or make a threat.
She just threw him into the driveway sans the keys to his Corvette.
And as he hoofed it toward the highway, perhaps he felt his first regrets
as he learned that one who gambles always has to pay his debts.

 

Prompt words for the day are sporadic, raw, winner, initiation and log.
Photo by Zach Rowlandson on Unsplash, used with permission.