Category Archives: Poem

Winning

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Winning

Any athlete worth his salt
can row or shoot or ski or vault,
balance, skate or box or splash,
hurdle, sprint, relay or dash.

But I find it curious
that all these actions furious
do not bring us closer to
what mankind really needs to do.

Instead of trying to beat each other,
overcome, defeat each other,
trying for cooperation
among each competing nation

just might serve to be a sample
that could be a good example
for the politicians who
do not seem to have a clue

of how to share our planet’s wealth.
Instead, by cunning, war and stealth,
they seek to get more than their share
of minerals and food and air.

What irony that they can’t see
how much better it would be
if we just learned it’s cheaper to
expand our neighborhood to view

every color, every nation
every man of every station
each the same as every other–
everyone as sister, brother.

There’s enough richness, if we dare
to treat the world as though we care
for every country, every nation
as one giant congregation

and not a game wherein we choose
that one or the other has to lose.

The words for today were splash, curious, irony and vault. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/rdp-wednesday-splash/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/15/fowc-with-fandango-curious/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/your-daily-word-prompt-irony-may-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/vault/

East Meets West

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East Meets West

I’m fueled by fire yet pulled by the moon.
Everything used up too soon, oh too soon.
I’m a pig by my nature. I want it all.
I love my home, yet hear the world’s call.
Adventure and travel I had in full measure,
but now it’s my home that affords me my pleasure.
Nesting, then flying patterns my past.
Change chasing change in the past was a blast.
But now I prefer for the nesting to last.
As a crab in my shell, my future is cast.

Born a fire pig according to the Chinese calendar, western astrology brands me as a water sign—moonchild—crab. In the last quarter of my life, I would say that water has quenched fire, but of course all of these elements reside within us always. I just now find more sedate ways to express them.

For dVerse Poets.

Luxury

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Luxury

I am alive.
Loud morning birds
give testimony to the fact,
and I have started again to write this book
after a lapse of one year.
I sing to celebrate
two miracles,
my backup chorus
fading out behind me
as I warble
my extreme pleasure
in being chosen
to participate
in this wonderful world
and in having the luxury
to write
about
it.

 

https://aroused.blog/2019/05/11/friday-fun-luxury/

Jackman and Jillian

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Jackman and Jillian

Jackman and Jillian ascended a height
because they were parched and required respite.
They possessed a flagon they desired to fill,
yet calamity transpired as they mounted the hill.
Jackman descended more quickly than planned,
Ruptured his cranium, fractured his hand,
rent his best raiment, untidied his hair,
while she also swooped downward on her derriere.

 

After reading my poem that parodied pretentious words today and writing her own, Christine Goodnough challenged me to write a poem parodying pretentious language.  Can’t refuse a challenge, so. . . .

(See our earlier poems by clicking on links above.)

 

For Matt’s Broken Memories Prompt.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

There is a special beauty in the broken,
as though established beauty is being reordered–
the predictable broken apart
and presented to us again,
assembled by a different hand.

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DSC06826 - Version 2

DSC09888

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Broken.”

View original post

Melancholy

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Melancholy

The campfire collapses into a plaintive rune,
echoing the plangent wolf call of a loon
that floats the silver pathway of the water-jellied moon.

I face our final parting. As I hear its taunting croon,
the humid night surrounds me in its tight cocoon.
Life is a cruel comedy whose laughter ebbs too soon.

 

The rune “pertho” designates secrets and chance. It’s sign is water.

Prompt words are plangent, anyway, comedy and river. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/06/rdp-monday-plangent/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/06/fowc-with-fandango-anyway/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/06/your-daily-word-prompt-comedy-may-6-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/06/river/

Oddball

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Oddball

You don’t follow instructions. You will do as you may.
No matter what the plan, you always had another way.
No one could ever force you to form an even line.
You’d veer this way or that way and say that it was fine.
You waged a constant battle and staged a constant fight,
as though causing dissension was your main delight.
But it the end, it turns out that the others were the fools,
for they’ve labeled you a genius and are following your rules!

 

The words of the day are may, battle, force and delight. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/rdp-saturday-may/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/04/fowc-with-fandango-battle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/your-daily-word-prompt-force-may-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/delight/

Divine Plan

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Divine Plan

He could wed his boards so smoothly that you could not feel a seam,
or carve a massive sycamore into a ceiling beam.
His benches were the strongest and most beautifully turned out.
He was the finest craftsman in the region, without doubt.

From a very early age, his folks could not explain
his prowess with a chisel or gouges or a plane.
He could carve a wooden ball, a slingshot or a dreidel.
He carved his wife a mixing spoon, then built a tiny cradle.

It seemed that he was born to it, like birds are born to fly,
but not even Joseph could discern the reason why
until the baby in the cradle who lay so sweetly curled,
turned into the young man who grew up to save the world.

 

 

Prompt words today are bench, finest, region and seam. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/rdp-friday-bench/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/03/fowc-with-fandango-finest/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/your-daily-word-prompt-region-may-3-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/seam/

Rain on Mosaic: NaPoWriMo 2019 Minimalist Poem, Apr 30

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Rain on Mosaic

Drop.
Flat.
Rain
is
sad.
Dropping
straight.
Falling
sure.
Into
a
world
of
blue
mosaics.
Glide on smooth.
Slide off easy.
Straight.
Sure.
Rain
is
sad.

Our assignment today was to write a minimalist poem. Last day of NaPoWriMo!!!!

Rainy Season: NaPoWriMo 2019, Apr 25

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DSC00131

Rainy Season

When you walk into my photograph
in your new yellow raincoat,
a stalk of grain is in your hand
and you are plucking at it, shredding it.

I have set the tripod,
pinned the curtain back,
and I am waiting for the turn of light.

Chaff blows in the rain behind your shoulders.
In the wet street I can see you twice.
Steam from the straw pile down the street,
yellow blossoms of the spirea bush—

and still
I do not close the shutter,
for I am waiting for the turn of light.

You woke earlier than usual today,
craving fresh yogurt.
A waxed street that your footsteps
and the wheels of bicycles had marked

did not prompt me
to close the shutter,
for I was waiting for the turn of light.

When you return three hours  later,
your pockets  filled with fresh strawberries,
as though this is the reason
for which you left,

your shadow passes
across my photograph
as I stand waiting for the turn of light.

 


For the NaPoWriMo poem we are to write a poem that:
     Is specific to a season
Uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell)
Includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”)