Category Archives: Poem

“Tianguis” for RDP, June 4, 2025

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DSCF1510 - Version 2
(The prompt word really is wedged into the poem down below.)


Tianguis*

When I strolled down to the market to buy a piece of fish,
I had no other shopping list. I had no further wish.
Except for some cilantro to stuff into its cavity,
I suffered from no other acquisitional depravity.

But on my way to aisles that simply dealt in fishes,
I stumbled upon vendors selling other tempting dishes.
I bought some chanterelles and then some green tomatoes,
some Michoacan peaches and fingerling potatoes.

I could not resist a table covered with such things
as necklaces and bracelets and pretty silver rings.
I tried on clogs and three-inch heels, then bought their matching purses.
I purchased four used mysteries and then a book of verses.

Baby diapers by the dozen, though I have no kids.
A set of second-hand cookery minus all their lids.
Thank God I found a shopping cart for sale just half way through
or how I would have managed, I have not the slightest clue.

I mounded up my bounty, then turned down the next aisle,
my eyes seeking out treasures, mile after mile.
So by the time I found the fish, my cart was out of room
unless I hung my salmon from the handle of the broom

that stuck way out in front of me like a chivalric lance
wedged in between my brand new Spanx and bras and underpants.
I bought two whole red salmon and suspended them out front,
then turned my shopping cart around to puff and pant and grunt

wheeling it uphill this time now that I had decided
that it was time to take my bounty to where I resided.
An hour later, out of breath, I’d slowed my former pace,
a small parade of alley cats preceding me in space.

Eying my bag of salmon, they leapt onto my cart.
I shooed them off my underwear. I fended off each dart.
I avoided their advances. I matched their yowls and hisses,
grabbed up the broom and battled those felines for my fishes.

While with the other hand I dialed animal control,
I fear my cart got out of hand and it commenced to roll
down the hill that I’d just climbed, shedding pans and Spanx
while cats made off with both my fish, not bothering with thanks.

The rest of all my bounty was lost in its descent.
I do not have a single clue where all my treasures went.
The broom, a silver ring and a new hat upon my head
were all I made it home with. The rest was forfeited.

The cart has a new owner who fills it full of cans.
My Spanx no doubt are holding in other chubby fans.
Those cats are lying somewhere, dozing and replete
from all that lovely salmon that I did not get to eat.

And I have learned my lesson. The next time I need fish
or any other foodstuffs to complete another dish,
I’ll simply dial the grocery store to have it all delivered.
When it comes to the tianguis, I’m freshly lily-livered!

*A tianguis is an open-air market or bazaar selling new and used goods as well as fresh produce, meat and fish that is traditionally held on certain market days in a town or city neighborhood in Mexico and Central America.

The RDP prompt is “wedge.”

Beach Memoirs for dVerse Poets, June 3, 2025

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The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a poem in response to the Picasso painting above.

Beach Memoirs

That good old salty sea air combined with grainy sand
defined my beach vacation and went great with being tanned.
Felt great under my bare feet and squished between each toe.
And left footprints behind me, wherever I chose to go.
It crusted up my toenails and powdered all my floors.
Seeped into my keyboard and creaked up all my doors.
It maintained a constand presence once I got back home.
It sneaked into my ear canals and caked up brush and comb.
In spite of all the nuisance of the sand within my bed,
good memories of beach life still swirl within my head.
Yet I needn’t wax nostalgic, for I find behind each knee,
in pockets, luggage and the floor—the beach came home with me!

An Apologia for Indolence, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, June 1, 2025

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An Apologia for Indolence

Those beasts that prowl the underworld with claws uncoiled to strike
assume the right to wander anywhere they like.
They thread their ways through canyons, all over the map––
through every twisting river’s course, through every mountain gap.
Stuck tight to their temples are their matted strands of hair.
Masked by tree limbs and tall grasses, they maintain their vigilance where
a hunter or a camper or a homeless, shiftless sort
unschooled in the ways of beasts, chooses to cavort.
Thus do those loved ones vanish who choose to exercise
while at home are resting those of us who are more wise!!!

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle, the words are: prowl beast claws shift strands twists  wander underworld map thread

 

Not-so-common Sense, for Sunday Poser #236

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Not-so-common Sense

The climate in the world today is generally tense.
So many of our leaders have lost their common sense––
basing their decisions just on thoughts of recompense.

For all of you who sit there, balanced on the fence
with regrets that your thinking formerly was dense,
please do better thinking as you vote forever hence

 

For Sunday Poser #236: Common Sense

Quality Control, for Weekend Writing Prompt 418, May 31, 2025

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Quality Control

As neighbors you are irreplaceable.
The prospect of your loss? Unfaceable 
What if the  folks  you sell it to 
turn out to be ones we will rue? 
Replacing you? 
We no can do! 
We’ll annex your house and then 
 use it as our adjunct den. 

The Weekend Writing Prompt 418 is to write a 44 word poem or story on the theme “annex.” (Image from the Irish Times)

Immobility, for SOCS, May 31, 2025

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Immobility

What once passed for vigor, I fear has turned into a case of fine acting. If I walk with energy, it is a forced energy expressed in spurts in situations where once I ran. I hope this can be attributed to the dignity of my age; but when I see others my age outpacing me, the jig is up and I am revealed for what I am—someone who, in spite of what I have always believed would happen, is wearing out and falling into that part of the life cycle that includes wrinkling up and slowing down. Ugh. I hate to admit it, but perhaps if I do it will be a type of therapy and in confronting it, it will go away—or at least it will lessen in its effect.

The truth is that I fear acting old more than I fear looking old. I hate it that I struggle to get up from a kneeling position and that I can in no way do it gracefully. I put both hands against the floor in front of me, raise my butt in the air and walk up to my hands—only way it seems possible without a lot of grunting and straining. In animal behavior, I would probably appear sexy as I do so, but I do not delude myself that any human being would find it so.

An additional truth to face now that I am older is that I am turning into my mother. Having to do more than one thing at once befuddles me and sometimes even one thing at a time is a bit confusing. Numbers don’t behave as they once did. I add and subtract and multiply and divide just fine. I grew up in a time before computers and handheld devices, so I’m used to doing functions mentally that youth finds better relegated to machines. The problem is in the interrelation of functions––just how to convert dimensions expressed in feet and tenths of feet to feet and inches, to enable me to equate it to the past when all dimensions were expressed as such. Why describe in tenths of feet which are traditionally divided into twelve parts, not ten? Why not just convert to a decimal system entirely, which I could then translate easily to inches and then to feet and inches?

The world is no longer my oyster. Devices get smaller and smaller as my eyes get worse and worse. I can’t wait for all of today’s young programmers and systems designers to get to be 60 and to try to make use of the apps they’ve designed primarily for phones so tiny that you can barely find the phone, let alone make out pages as small as playing cards. And don’t even get me started on the designers of medicine labels!!! If it isn’t bad enough that they are in size 2 font, they then make them white on yellow or gray on blue so it is impossible to read them no matter what size they are. What are they thinking? The clincher was my optometrist’s card that was primarily empty space with the writing squeezed into one corner, so small that I doubt it could be read by anyone­­–glasses or no glasses, and remember, people come to optometrists primarily because they can’t see in the first place! In addition, it was one of those cards impossible to look at because the two colors used not only made it difficult to read, but tended to affect one’s astigmatism, or at the very least one’s sense of good taste.

I must admit that I have never been an athletic person. Zumba, yoga and pool aerobics have been my most successful and enduring modes of exercise. But what I have done, I have always done with great vigor. I work hard, in the past did all my own housework and gardening and have been a bit of a workaholic. But very recently, I find myself wearing out faster, sneaking off to a hidden corner to huff and puff a bit or lie down for a ten-minute rest. I find myself getting a bit testier and less patient when things go wrong, but blessedly usually express my frustration (aloud) primarily to myself.

It occurred to me earlier this year, however, that passing neighbors can probably hear me when I shout “Idiot” to myself—or worse. Or, when I yell at the dogs to stop barking or stop jumping up. “Judy, you’re worse than the dogs!” a friend sputtered, shaking his head one day as I roared “Frida, Diego, Morrie–stop!!!” as they executed a deafening chorus of deep barks when I arrived home and opened the garage door. So I guess that is one place where my energy remains unabated. When it comes to expressing myself, I have great vocal cords. You could even say I’m still capable of a vigorous rejoinder!!!

The prompt for SOCS is “Walk.”

Class Reunion, for dVerse Poets, May 27, 2025

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Class Reunion

I wish I’d set the truth aside.
I wish instead that I had lied
when you asked the reason why
I didn’t choose the other guy.
I wish I’d said you’d won my heart
quickly, from the very start.

But, alas, I told the truth.
Blame it on my careless youth.
It was, perhaps, naïveté
that made me answer you that way.
I said you were my second choice,
then heard that quaver in your voice.

For all those years forever after,
I’ve recalled your bitter laughter
as you said you guessed you’d wait
for the type of girl who’d rate
you first when making her selection,
and thus began your swift defection.

After all these years, I’ll tell
that I remember very well
regrets I suffered at your leaving—
all those nights of futile grieving.
Watching as you met your wife,
had your kids and built your life.

Every few years at class reunions
as we all share our fond communions,
I’ll catch your eye and feel the spark
that goes unnoticed in the dark.
And every day, until I die,
I’ll wish I’d told that little lie.

for dVerse Poets the prompt is to write a poem about any pivotal moment in your life that left you with gnawing regrets or you could cover the entire gamut from anger to forgiveness and reconciliation. In short, you will be writing about a krisis in your personal life. Image by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash.

Ghost Stories for dVerse Poets Memento Mori Prompt, May 26, 2025

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Ghost Stories

     I look at hubcaps of police cars at the late-night coffee shop. Inside, stool pigeons could be telling on me–fearful secrets from my childhood I’ve been waiting for years for someone to tell and get it over with. The man eating donuts at the counter is my father, spilling wheat out of his pants cuffs after driving fast over dangerous unpaved roads in a pickup that carries stories of his life all over it, but he disappears before I can reach him. The lady with her head in the sack is my sister. I pull it off to find it filled with salt, her eyes hard water oceans washing us away––the family that has ended too soon, lost again in her memory, trying too hard to get out. We are a wasted story.  Over.

No stories survived.
Some folks died away from them,
then the rest forgot.

 

For dVerse Poets, Momento Mori, haibun prompt.

Keyboard Athlete, for Word of the Day, May 26, 2025

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jdb photo

Keyboard Athlete

Not a great sportswoman—champion of none.
I sport a camera when having my fun.
My skill is not measured in baskets or bases.
I score my points while clicking at faces.

Though I’m not the most physical person you’ll meet,
I do exercise caution when crossing the street.
My main lack of muscle tone’s merely because
My pushup experience is mainly in bras.

As you vault over hurdles and excel at tennis,
the extensions I do are less of a menace.
Though I’m not an expert at sprinting or jogging,
my fingers are well-toned through everyday blogging.

For the Word of the Day Challenge, the prompt word is everyday.

Junior Prom, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 708

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Junior Prom

Remember your first ball gown floating in the light
of the high school gymnasium, lit up for the night
with stars bound up in streamers  and even paper trees
wound around the trellises, leaves swaying in the breeze.

Bare shoulders on each teenage girl, stiff collars on each date
as they enter the prom’s runway with their chosen mate.
Rhinestone crowns fixed firmly to each mounded lock,
with pins that soon go flying to the strains of “Jailhouse Rock.”

Young spirits cool and groovy–feeling they might freak
decades before their need to present themselves as chic.
That one night of fantasy of all nights in the year––
slow music your permission to draw each other near.

For the Sunday Whirl, the words are: remember gown ball runway floating light mound crown bare chic stars spirit

This really is a photo of my junior prom. I’m the one in the shocking red dress and red heels! Looks like everyone else chose pastels and white shoes.