Category Archives: Poem

Empowerment

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Empowerment

If you are prone to flinch and cower,
use this secret to empower
and to draw your wits about you.
So no one else will ever doubt you.

The secret to more confidence
and belief in your excellence
is very simple. Trust yourself.
Store all your self-doubts on the shelf.

Leave them there and shut the door.
They don’t describe you any more.
Lock the door. Discard the key.
Decide anew who you will be.
 

Ragtag’s prompt today was “empower.”

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/rdp-wednesday-empower/

Early Morning Jazz

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If you are viewing in Reader or on facebook, please click on the title or URL to view poem in its correct form.

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                                                      Early Morning Jazz   


The scrape of your chair.
                     The gentle tap of keys
   as you, rhythmic early riser,
 rouse the day.

I burrow deeper, 
trying to ignore

Icicles
          beating 
           your accompaniment
        as
       
        o
        n
        e
       
        b
        y

        o
        n
        e

     touched
           by
       sunlight,
                   they
               loose
       their    
         h
         o
          l
         d       

      on the
frozen, silent
        night.

Version 2

For the  dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge.

River Travelers

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river

River Travelers

They know this river, know it well.
Daily, they bring their fruit to sell.
We, who find the river strange
reach out our bills as we lack change,
for what they’ve brought to us from shore.
They hand out more and more and more
to strangers whom they must find dense
to give them such great recompense
for what God has amply provided.
All their village has derided
those who float by in big boats,
holding out their ten sol notes
that would buy every bunch they carry.
They wonder why we do not  tarry
for our change after we pay.
Silent, they watch us float away.
The baby held in mother’s arms
does not know what nearby harms
lurk beneath the water’s cloak—
the jaws that snap, the water’s soak.
But we know what small guarantee
exists in lives of poverty.
Rubbed raw, perhaps, by all we have,
our generosity is salve.

 

V.J.’s Challenge: The River

The Distance

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The Distance

It’s true the distance draws me, though your closeness holds me near.
Why do I risk this safety for what I surely fear?
The mystery that pulls us is not one of our choosing.
We reach out for the unknown in spite of what we’re losing.
The secrets of the possible overcome what knows us
as we let loose of our moorings  to discover where wind blows us.

For V.J.’s Weekly Challenge: Distance

The Twins at Eighty

16 Replies

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Leonora

The lustre’s left my hair and skin. I’m simply bottom drawer.
My lovely high soprano voice has deepened to a roar.
My joints are gnarled and knotted. My back is bent a bit.
I’d prefer my stomach if I could see over it.
To say I am exasperated would be understating it,
but at least the truth cannot make the claim I’m skating it.
I blame it on the influence of age, chocolate and gin.
I’m simply not responsible for the shape I’m in!!!


Isadora

The gentlemen surround me in an unbroken cluster,
exclaiming over my smooth skin—its creaminess and lustre.
My drawers are full of love letters. Exasperated lovers
seek to win my girlish shape and woo it under covers.
They fall under the influence of my winning ways.
They do not guess my actual age when held rapt by my gaze.
I do pilates every day and all my life I’ve fasted.
Although I haven’t had much fun, at least my looks have lasted!

 

The prompts today are lustre, drawer, exasperated and influence. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/rdp-monday-lustre/
FOWC with Fandango — Drawer
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/exasperated/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/daily-addictions-2018-week-42/influence

Where Does the Wind Live?

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Where Does the Wind Live?

 

                                             Behind the unfurled sails of sailboats

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                                              In spaces between raindrops

Version 5

                                                                  In the arms of windmills

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                                                                             Behind the Clouds

 

For Daily Inkling’s prompt: “The Wind and the Sail.”

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/22/the-wind-and-the-sail-daily-inkling/

Imitations of Immortality

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Imitations of Immortality

Lend my consciousness to an android—every feeling, thought, ambition?
Can I commit this practice without suffering perdition?
Why not replace the faulty parts? We do it with our car,
and with this perishable body, I won’t get very far.
So why not buy a new one if I have the cash to do so?
I may even treat myself to invest in a few so
I can change my body like others change their clothes.
I’ll put me in a fresh one while the other bodies doze.
I’ll live a life that’s double. I won’t waste any hours.
Twenty-four hours of every day, I’ll exercise my powers.
Will I still be myself? Yes. It’s plain as it can be
that I won’t be my android. My android will be me.

The prompt: Welcome to the future. We now have the technology to upload your consciousness into an android body. The feelings, thoughts, and ambitions that make you unique remain after the transfer. Do you accept this new reality given the opportunity, and why? 

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/21/getting-an-upgrade-daily-inkling/

Next Season’s Cancellations

11 Replies

 

Next Season’s Cancellations

Riches may not always be all you might expect,
for one thing that cash can’t buy is genuine respect.
One, in fact, that we are daily driven to inspect
daily causes masses to rise up and object.

Clearly something’s rotten, and we often get a whiff
of that decay in Washington that we’ll prove only if
we repossess the country that we’ve so clearly sold
at the ballot boxes, making choices that are bold.

Our country’s not a boxing ring, a bout or match or race.
Voting’s not a sport. It is a simple act of grace.
We should not vote on people, entertaining or magnetic,
whose ridiculous antics are crazy and frenetic.

Vote for those who truly have our country’s good at heart—
those with sincere values: charitable and smart.
Leaders not afraid to interrupt the status quo
to make our country more than a cheap reality show.

If you are considering not voting because you are tired of the fray or think it won’t make a difference, please read the following article and reconsider: 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/07/2018-midterm-elections-senate-races-to-watch/597965001/

Prompt words today are object, whiff, magnetic and grace.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/rdp-sunday-object/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/21/fowc-with-fandango-whiff/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/magnetic/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/grace

Stand Up For Verity

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Stand Up for Verity

A fabulist can take the truth and spin it, change it, plan it,
but then it is no longer truth, for truth is carved in granite.
The real truth is indelible. Permanent. Etched in stone.
Don’t mess with it and call it truth. You must leave truth alone.
It can’t accommodate a stretch. It’s fierce in resolution.
It’s not right to bend it simply to find a solution.

Truth is truth and fabrication is another matter,
so do not conjure up a tale and claim it’s not the latter.
Though presidents and kings and poets scratching in their dormer
might for their single purposes stray away from the former,
there must be someone willing to call out their acts as ruthless,
for there’s no folly greater than to be led by the truthless.

 

The prompt words today are fabulist, fierce, accommodate and granite. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/rdp-saturday-fabulist/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/20/fowc-with-fandango-fierce/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/accommodate
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/granite/

Pursuing the Wild Prompt

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Pursuing the Wild Prompt

This blog’s teeming with challenges by the day or week.
I seem to find a new one everywhere I seek.
This leads to combinations of words that are deplorable.
At times the stories that they tell, admittedly are horrible.
Still we keep on churning out this poetry and prose
using all these silly words that other people chose.
Why do we use these words that they give us fully blown?
Because the alternative is thinking up our own!

 

The prompts are week, challenge, teem and deplorable.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/rdp-friday-week/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/19/fowc-with-fandango-challenge/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/teem
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/deplorable/