Category Archives: Poem

Love Charm

9 Replies

Love Charm

You can put away your broadsword. Swashbuckling’s not in style.
You need not kill a dragon to bring about my smile.
Chivalry is so passé. It’s gone right out of fashion.
It does not raise my temperature nor bring about my passion.

If you wish to start a love affair where we will never part,
if you would win my empathy, my ardor and my heart
and bring a love light to my eyes—that certain telling glisten,
then when I talk, just do one thing.  Really, really listen!!!

Prompt words are temperature, empathy,  broadsword and passion. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/rdp-thursday-temperature/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/07/fowc-with-fandango-empath/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/your-daily-word-prompt-broadsword-march-7-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/passion/

 

Wisdom

7 Replies

 

Wisdom

If the earlier march of our lives is for learning, it is seldom the case that we continue to the end in the cadence of our earlier lives. As we mature, if those around us as well as ourselves are lucky, we continue to learn— but in a different way that is more like a long walk, observing the world around us.. Then comes a time when we float on the iridescence of the world we’ve created by our earlier learnings and decisions. 

 

Prompt words today are iridescence, march, learning and case. Here are their links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/rdp-saturday-irridescence/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/02/fowc-with-fandango-case/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/your-daily-word-prompt-magic-march-2-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/learning/

Oldest Friend

6 Replies

 

Clicking her camera and spinning her yarns.


Oldest Friend

She is my very oldest friend—I met her as a child.
Then she was the feisty one while I was shy and mild.
Diametric opposites, still we are never parted—
one of us the loner, the other open-hearted.

She makes friends everywhere we go. I’d rather be alone.
For all my hermit tendencies, she stirs me to atone.
She thinks up the parties and though loath to go along,
I give up my solitude to join the social throng.

We have coexisted throughout a lengthy life.
I thrive when I am single. She wants to be a wife.
When we are together, one must devour the other.
One at a time we make the choice: single girl or mother?

One succeeds the other  in  a continual chain.
As soon as one’s exhausted, the other shows again.
Our relationship is infinite. Neither can break away.
While she drinks all the shooters, I am the one to pay.

When I am the diligent student, she shares in all my glory.
I get to write the manuscripts. She gets to live their story.
One-by-one we take our turns determining our fate—
one of us always timely. The other always late.

Perhaps our friends are tired of not knowing which will show—
the one who’s energetic or the one of us who’s slow,
but our very oldest friends will simply wait to see,
knowing that whoever shows, either will be me.

 

Prompt words today are diametric, chain, infinite and devour
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/rdp-thursday-diametric/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/28/fowc-with-fandango-chain/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/your-daily-word-prompt-infinite-february-28-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/devour/

Baker’s Dozen

38 Replies

 

A dozen fatal flaws forgiven seems to be a fair number to allot to anyone. It’s that thirteenth misdeed that is unforgivable!

Baker’s Dozen

(Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)

I forgive you for hogging the covers
and eating the last cookie, too.
I forgive you for doing the crossword
that I was intending to do.

I forgive you for all of the dogs you brought home
that you’ve never walked even once
and for donating genes to our children
that turned them each into a dunce.

I don’t mind your poker night forays
or the damage you do to my car,
or the fact that your minimal salary
really can’t stretch very far.

Your spare tires and the fact that you’re balding
really don’t bother me much.
I’ve grown used to your slobbery kisses,
and the foreplay no more than a clutch.

But there’s one thing that you always do, dear,
that rouses my most  primal scream,
for I had made plans for a tryst with
that last pint of chocolate ice cream!

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For dVerse Poets, Forgiveness.

Vagaries

8 Replies

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Vagaries

My mind is turning derelict. It often wanders on.
While I am still in need of it, I discover that it’s gone.
My thought processes aren’t uniform. They come and go at random.
Will and concentration no longer come in tandem.
It never ceases fascinating me that what was once
a certified ace student has turned into a dunce.
I know it is the fault of age and yet I often ponder
about this vagary of mind that sends it over yonder
when I have need of it at home. I find it most distressing
when common words are wanted, that my mind now leaves me guessing.


The prompt words today were fault, uniform, fascinate and derelict.Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/rdp-tuesday-fault/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/26/fowc-with-fandango-uniform/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/your-daily-word-prompt-Fascinate-february-26-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/derelict/

The Heel

9 Replies

The Heel

Rumors are abroad that you don’t know how to act.
You like to dig the needle in and haven’t any tact.
If you don’t reverse your ways and learn to get along—
if you stubbornly refuse to right your recent wrong—
I won’t be held responsible for trying once again
to cover up your misdeeds and atone for your sin.
For once you’ll have to face up to your social gaffes—
your misogynistic humor and  inappropriate laughs.
When you’re lying bruised and bloody, helpless on the floor,
you’ll finally discover what high heels are really for!!!

 

Prompt words today wre needle, reverse, abroad and act. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/rdp-monday-needle/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/25/fowc-with-fandango-reverse/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/your-daily-word-prompt-abroad-february-25-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/act/

Dream World

3 Replies

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Dream World

My little nephews were quite the rapscallions,
with tinfoil armor and mop handle stallions
they conquered their foes and made off in their galleons
to sail the wild oceans, and then this wild pair
got into their airplanes to sail through the air.
You barely could tell that the swing set was there.

From morning to night, they were batting or pitching,
expounding on hockey and football and itching
to escape the tame lives that they would be ditching
as soon as they grew up. Then they would be soaring
in airplanes and gliders and missiles less boring.
Their engines fired up, the crowds would be roaring

for the heroes they’d be, taking off into space,
vanishing upwards with barely a trace—
off to adventure, intent on the chase.
They would catch up with life and grab onto its tail.
They’d travel each highway and ride every rail,
pass “go” every round and get out of jail!

Life in short would be anything but dull and tame.
It would be a wild spree—an adventurous game
wherein they’d be heroes, ensconced in their fame.
At least this was their theory when they were young,
when adventure was made up in mind and on tongue
and all of their upcoming conquests were sung!

But childhood dreams often go far astray.
They tend to evaporate as day-to-day
we slowly grow up and enter the fray.
Now one’s an accountant, the other a doc,
and there’s little adventure and even less talk
of being an astronaut, pilot or jock.

Yet who knows in the nighttime what sorties are planned?
With their heads on their pillows, do their wishes expand
to soar off to adventures more wild and grand?
Perhaps in their dreams they go back to their youth
and to pastimes less sane—more reckless and uncouth.
Perhaps in their slumbers, their dreams become truth.

The prompt words today were air, theory, rapscallion and itching. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/rdp-saturday-air/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/23/fowc-with-fandango-theory/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/your-daily-word-prompt-rapscallion-february-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/itching/

Phases of the Moon

9 Replies

Phases of the Moon

When you whispered you’d be leaving with the waning gibbous moon,
I let your words escape behind the music of the loon.
I let the truth go bankrupt in the lapping of the wave.
Underneath the full moon, it was easy to be brave.

Beneath the waxing gibbous and the first quarter moon,
I seldom thought about the truth that you’d be leaving soon.
I turned my back to moonlight to ward off future pain.
My joy could not be sabotaged by its wax and wane.

Under the first quarter, I stifled my duress
lest memory of your leaving undermine your fond caress.
And though the new moon brought again reminders you’d be leaving,
I sealed my eyes against the truth to circumvent my grieving.

Under the waning crescent, resolution slipped away.
I pleaded for our meeting to be done in light of day.
I was wan beneath the moonlight as our time as one grew shorter.
How I dreaded what was coming as we viewed the moon’s last quarter.

Tonight I greet the moon again, standing all alone,
listening to your whispers over the telephone.
In spite of my avoidance, your leaving came too soon.
I finally face its truth beneath a waning gibbous moon.

 

The prompt words were wan, undermine,bankruptcy and seldomly. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/rdp-thursday-wan/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/21/fowc-with-fandango-undermine/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/your-daily-word-prompt-bankruptcy-february-21-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/seldomly/

Changing Places

2 Replies

 

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Changing Places

When I was just a little sprout,
I liked to boss my world about,
but now that I am old and gray,
I’m merely keeping it at bay.
Howbeit that life I used to rule
when I was a kid in school
has come to be the boss of me—
determining what I hear and see?

One-by-one, each faculty
just seems to be deserting me.
I find I’m often in the clutch
of a world that doesn’t listen much.
I’m less intrepid in my demands
as joints and organs, bones and glands
furnish surprises, glitches, quirks.
It’s sufficient if my body works!

 

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https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/rdp-wednesday-sprout/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/20/fowc-with-fandango-intrepid/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/your-daily-word-prompt-howbeit-february-20-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/clutch/

 

Evolution

14 Replies

 

See how tiny he is? He’s in the corner two bars over from the right.

Click on first photo to enlarge photos and see as series.

Evolution

If we took every advertisement
that we saw under advisement,
envisioning ourselves in cars
filled with TVs and guitars,
food choppers and Barbie dolls—
everything we saw in malls—
we might buy it all and after,
fill every house to every rafter.

Blenders, stereos and blouses
would pile up in our many houses.
Consumerism would be the key
to  how happy we would be.
Lethargic children would sit about
staring at phones in hands, not out
into the world their windows face.
Imagination would replace
a reality no one could cotton.
Our old world would be so rotten—
all it was so ill-begotten
that it had to be forgotten.

Our present world now so diluted
(nature being so polluted)
that the animals our kids would see
would not be out and roaming free
but in some zoo with air protected
and no fluorocarbons detected.
All these things that we could buy
would be what caused our world to die.
Plastic world and plastic lives
would seal us into plastic hives
where we could buzz around in cells
creating our own private hells.

How hard would it really be
to imagine this reality?
How close are we to it already—
Our brains scrambled into spaghetti
by barrages of consumerism?
Could we even heal the schism
that our plastic world has wrought?
Would we give up all we’ve got
for the greener simpler earth
of our great-grandfather’s birth?

Man will speed on toward his doom
in his air-conditioned room
that screens the poisons out while he
sits rapt in front of his tv.
His children, who can no longer stand,
sit, each with eyes glued to his hand.
Only robots will go out
to shop for us and walk about
in air that’s suited only for
machines to venture out the door.

They’ll greet each other in the street,
smiling at each bot they meet.
Perhaps the plastic revolution
was the next step in evolution.
They’ve locked us all within their lairs.
The world they sought is finally theirs
as every human sits and stares
at the unreal world he shares
with every other other fleshly being
that gave up doing for simply seeing.

The prompt words today were key, lethargic, advertisement and envision.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/rdp-monday-key/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/18/fowc-with-fandango-lethargic/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/your-daily-word-prompt-advertisement-february-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/envision/