Category Archives: Poem

A Surefire Recipe for Banishing Dejection

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Click on first photo to enlarge all.

 

A Surefire Recipe for Banishing Dejection

If you’re feeling down and out about this last election,
here’s a recipe that might banish your dejection.
Or, if instead your problem is way too much to do,
this selfsame concoction might just work for you.

You need to take a holiday away from all your hurrying.
Life was not created for perpetual worrying.
Take all the world’s problems and put them on a shelf.
Take a little time off  purely for yourself.

Find a ripe banana, a papaya and some ice.
Blueberries, soy milk, fiber and some apple juice are nice.
Don’t worry if the papaya has a big brown spot.
You can cut it out because, poisonous? It’s not.

Put it in a blender. Push the button with your finger.
It’s not automatic, so you will have to linger
while the magic little blades make your concoction thinner.
Take a meditation break as you watch its spinner.

After just a minute, retire with your drink.
Take it to an easy chair to have a little think.
Chances are your problem is that you do not sin enough,
so, pour a little gin in if you find it isn’t thin enough.

The Ragtag prompt today is Holiday.

The Good Wife: Page 62, Line 6

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The Haunted Wordsmith’s prompt is to pick up the nearest book and turn to page 62, line 6 and use that line in a story.  The book I picked up was Veils, Halos and Shackles and this is the line: “. . . .each night passing through a boundary.”

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The Good Wife

Each night passing through a boundary, every morning coming home.
Pinned to the day’s agenda with no free time for her to roam
the streets of her imagination, gathering images she’d share
in all the stories she would write if she had the time and nerve to dare.
What would they think if they knew where she journeyed during dreaming time?
Would the other wives revile her or tell their husband of her crime?

The lush banks of imagination where she went barefoot and unveiled
and did the things that in the real world would cause her to be shunned or jailed
were her reward for time in harness, being that person they expected.
Veiled and cloistered and obedient. Qualities they all respected.
But in her dreams she lived the wild world—unfettered, uncensored and free.
It was the only place in her life that she labeled herself “me.”

In that world that wasn’t her world—that place where she was forced to be—
She existed as observer, watching a self she labeled “she.”
She kept her true self safely hidden. Kept her opinions to herself.
All her precious thoughts and talents neatly stacked upon the shelf
waiting for her nightly visits when she could take them down and play
until the early morning sunlight drew her, regrettably, to day.

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/page-62-line-6/

 

Sacrifice, for VJ’s Weekly Challenge

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Sacrifice

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Some people give their lives to it,
And others never do––
Conditions never calling for
Rash actions to ensue.
I’ve held onto my life because
Fate never asked me to
Immolate myself to save
Child, soldier, Jew,
Ensuring that I remain here
Securely in life’s queue.

I don’t think sacrifice has been anything I’ve had to do much of in my life, short of occasionally knowingly giving someone the last pork chop or the biggest piece of cake.  Perhaps this is because I had no children.

I can think of only one big potential sacrifice I made in my life and that is something I will not speak of, mainly because people it might affect are still alive. So, in lieu of writing a personal essay or poem on this topic, I invite you to read an article about the top ten most inspiring self sacrifices.  You can go  HERE to read it.

VJ’s Prompt: Sacrifice

Oblivious Seduction

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Oblivious Seduction

You’d completely
won me over
by your second stanza, 

even before you knew
I was the one
you were writing it for.

You had me
in the wink of an eye, even
before you knew

it was me
you were meant
to  wink at.

 

For dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt: Wink.

Our Newest Emperor’s New Clothes

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Our Newest Emperor’s New Clothes

How do we mentor our burgeoning youth
in these times of extraordinary stretchings of truth?
Teach them to sort out these rash acts of treason,
to approach them with heart and strain them through reason.
Teach them hating is wrong and exclusion is selfish—
that plastic’s destroying our coral and shellfish.
That medical care should be something for all
and that hoarding of wealth brings a country’s last fall.

Teach them the future is theirs to decide.
Teach them the truth of whom to deride.
Teach them that facts being taught by their teachers
may rival what they’re being taught by some preachers
and those who would rule to win their own gain,
lining their pockets again and again
with tax cuts that only extend to the rich
while the trickle down theory develops a hitch.

Teach them to sort out rhetoric from fact.
Teach them to care and to vote and to act
to stretch out the privilege to blanket us all.
We are not alone on this spinning great ball.
Our former meddling and incredible gall
is why we’re considering building a wall
to keep out the hungry and frightened downtrodden
who come to us weary, exhausted and sodden.

They ask for asylum and our protection
from dictators who have prompted defection
much as many Americans are fleeing south
to avoid the stupidity and the vile mouth
of the dictator who is now ruining our land
with illogical thinking and truth that is canned.
Who will mentor whom in this crazy new world
once the last hateful invectives are hurled?

Our world has been sold out for profit and gain—
overseen by leaders opportunistic and vain.
Perhaps it’s our youth who will now mentor us
to sort out the truth from this internet fuss.
As in the old legend, They’ll teach the uncouth
to forsake propaganda for naked truth.
It’s hoped that our youth wake us up from our doze
to point out the truth of our Emperor’s new clothes!!

 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/rdp-sunday-mentor/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/04/fowc-with-fandango-extraordinary/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/burgeon/

Political Gaming

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Political Gaming

Even a gamester must confess
that life is no mere game of chess.
Friday’s vote, Friday’s disaster
that brings on man’s end all the faster.

 

The Ragtag Daily Prompt was Friday.

Fandango’s Prompt was Chess.

 

 

Microcosm

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Microcosm

Solace from this angst-filled world can best be found at home.
It wraps around me snuggly under my protective dome.
Prioritizing calm and peace, I have a little chat
with a dog or bird or two, or maybe with a cat.

I lie snug in my hammock and survey the too-long grass
of my private little meadow where no evil comes to pass
short of combat between possums and dogs too poorly trained
to entertain these welcome guests in manners more restrained.

Their battles are, alas, short lived. The dogs always the winners.
As in the world, the bounty here goes to the biggest sinners.
The possum’s only infraction? It’s not a dog or cat
and its physical resemblance is too close to a rat.

And so the world injects itself into my little nest,
insisting the familiar is what we accept best.
These battles happen when I’m gone or when I’m fast asleep,
too lost to this too-conscious world, lost in a world more deep.

As things are on the outside, I fear they’re also here.
My world is not a perfect world, but simply a small mirror
to what is happening all around. It is without a doubt
those who have most everything keeping others out!

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Dear John

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Dear John

I am impervious to your wiles.
Your mephistophelian guiles
that work so well on other wenches
will no more draw me to their trenches.

For though you are adorable,
the games you play are horrible.
The traps you lay? Deplorable.
Thus, I’m no longer scorable.

My thirst for love has been well-quenched.
Seeking a sip, I came out drenched!
Go find another piece of meat
to make your perfect day complete.

Mistakes once made, I don’t repeat.
I’ve found your name and hit “delete.”

 

Prompts for the day are drench, adorable, mephistophelian and complete. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/rdp-saturday-drench/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/27/fowc-with-fandango-adorable/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/mephistophelian/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/daily-addictions-2018-week-42/complete

Ghostly Happenings

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Ghosts

It floated off to the side,
disappearing when I turned to face it head-on.
It hadn’t his features, really,
but I felt his presence a dozen times after—
something floating just off the corner of reality.

Then, weeks later, in the bedroom—a bat.
It flickered against the white curtain and then disappeared.
Moments later, there it was again.
I jerked my head quickly around, flipped the curtain out,
examined its other side.
Moments later, there it was again.
Then a circle floated across to join it.
A hair floated down from above and stuck, center-vision.

A few hours later, the fireworks started—
flashing corollas of light just to the right of me,
like subtle flashbulbs going off.

This was when I decided I needed to see a specialist.
Yes, a retinal detachment, he agreed,
but not yet perforated.
Now, my movements curtailed,
I await that new cloudy ghost
that will be a harbinger
of surgery.

Every tope, every cobblestone
brings a new flash of light—
a signal to still myself.
No jumping. No Zumba.
No jogging. No lifting.

I wait, inactive, watching floaters
move to the center of my vision
and off to the side again.
I practice various levels of exertion,
waiting for the flash that signals rest.

I wait for words to float
across my vision,
to rend my inactivity
and prompt me
to pin them to the page––
to stitch them together
into a clearer sight
of what is there, invisible,
inside me, waiting for the tear
to let it out.
They are the ghosts
of the future
and I am the one
who seeks to gather them,
to mend the tear
and anchor
these slippery ghosts.

As we sat in the waiting room waiting (of course) for my eyes to fully dilate so the dr could do his tests, Gloria asked what the red dot was on my blouse. I hadn't noticed it, but the nurse said, "Oh we put that on her to show she'd been dilated!" Two hours later, I was still waiting for the dot to turn green so I'd know my eyes had returned to normal!!!!

As we sat in the waiting room waiting (of course) for my eyes to fully dilate so the dr could do his tests, Gloria asked what the red dot was on my blouse. I hadn’t noticed it, but the nurse said, “Oh we put that on her to show she’d been dilated!” Two hours later, I was still waiting for the dot to turn green so I’d know my eyes had returned to normal!!!!

Red Dot Syndrome

Red Dot Syndrome

Artist's rendering of my retinal disfunction.

Artist’s rendering of my retinal disfunction.

Gloria, contemplating my fate.

Gloria, contemplating my fate.

Retina specialist humor.

Retina specialist humor.

An undashing pirate wench

An undashing pirate wench

My reward!!! Gloria got to share.

My reward!!! Gloria got to share.

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/26/i-know-a-ghost-daily-inkling/

Awarded

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Awarded

Transforming an opponent from a rival to a friend
might not affect the outcome of who wins out in the end.
Whatever escapade you face—
what bout or match or game or race—
your gains can’t be identical. The trophy you may lack.
You might not be the leader of the athletic pack,
but you’ll still be a winner when all is said and done,
for though you’ve lost the race, it is a comrade that you’ve won.

 

The prompts  today are: friend, opponent, escapade and identical. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/rdp-thursday-friend/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/25/fowc-with-fandango-opponent/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/escapade
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/daily-addictions-2018-week-42/identical