Category Archives: Poem

If We Listened to the Birds

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On the dive,

Click on any photo to enlarge all.

If We Listened to the Birds

If I were a mighty bird,
fluent in both voice and word,
when the weather shifted colder,
I’d wing myself to royal shoulder,
have a perch and, I confess,
use all the powers I possess
to loosen up and leave my mark
on that stodgy matriarch,
to feel my presence and touch of wings
and know what necessary things
each creature in nature brings with it.
How each thing comes together to fit.

This I would find exhilarating.
By my presence, educating
the powers-that-be to think of nature
as more than just a nomenclature.
Perhaps I’d tell the president
that I have been heaven sent
to tell the powers that abide
that God’s not really on their side.
God would have us guard our earth
There’s more than money that marks its worth.
All of nature, without a doubt,
makes the world of man work out.

If those large personalities
who run our world would only, please,
take heed of what I have to say,
we’d survive to live another day,
another year, another eon.
We’d have a peaceful planet to be on.
The brother eagle that guides their flight
knows too well extinction’s plight.
The symbol there that marks their seal
is anguished over the ordeal
that fellow creatures of nature face
because of loss of living space.

Our national parks sold off for oil,
waters from which fish recoil,
oceans plugged with plastic waste
we idly cast off in our haste.
While politicians rail and bicker,
our society grows sicker.
Hospitals far out of reach,
schools encouraged not to teach
science, but religious fable
that makes the politicians able
to pull the wool over the eyes
of those who believe their disguise.

It’s true that often what we get
is exactly opposite
of what they promise, their rhetoric
stirring us to moods euphoric
when in fact they’re empty words
meant to bilk admiring herds.
Look deeper at what they profess.
They promise more, but give us less.

The prompts for today are bird, royal, exhilarating, possess. Here are the links, in case you want to play along:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/rdp-saturday-bird/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/08/fowc-with-fandango-royal/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/exhilarating/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/daily-addictions-2018-week-35/possess

Manifesto for the Midterms

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Manifesto for the Midterms

Mere pontificating will not win my trust.
Words with no fair justice fade away to dust.
If greed and ambition are part of what you teach,
move on to another. I’m far beyond your reach.
But if you seek a balance and fairness for posterity,
rightness for the earth and a sharing of prosperity.
If you do not seek to govern by appealing to false fear,
then climb up on your bandbox.  I’ll give your words an ear.

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/05/fowc-with-fandango-balance/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/pontificate/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/daily-addictions-2018-week-35/ambition

Interwoven

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Interwoven

Life is like a tapestry, warp giving strength to weave.
Each birth’s celebration a potential loss to grieve.
We might wrangle living’s fairness, its giving and its taking—
one soul giving into sleep as a new soul is waking.
Its weave may seem circuitous, beginnings onto leavings,
all the energy of life–its lovings and its heavings,
yet the flaw within the tapestry is what gives it its beauties.
The pleasures of the life we live are leavened by its duties.

 

The prompts today are energy, tapestry, circuitous, wrangle.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/rdp-tuesday-prompt-energy/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/04/fowc-with-fandango-tapestry/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/circuitous/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/wrangle

Know It Alls: Sunday Prompts

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Know It Alls

Smug sequacious  thinkers with narrow little minds,
seal up all their windows, pull down all their blinds.
Spend all their time and leisure thinking thoughts uncouth,
simplistic in their reasoning, avoiding hard hard truth.

The word prompts today were sequacious, tantalizing, leisure and infinite.
spacious

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/rdp-sunday-sequacious/ (lacking independence or originality of  thought.)

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/02/fowc-with-fandango-tantalizing/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/leisure/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/daily-addictions-2018-week-35/infinite

In Absentia

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IMG_2075

In Absentia

Although you may be absent, thoughts of you still linger.
I think you have my memory wound around your finger,
for though I find the lack of you totally endurable,
my memory suffers from a need that’s totally incurable.
Friends may think the distance between us is a pity,
and yet with one so erudite, so pithy, loyal and witty,
it seems you linger on even after you are bound
off to other regions— your presence a mere sound
heard over the telephone, imagined o’er the keys,
so I may have your company ‘most any time I please.
Relationships are more, my dear, than a simple presence.
Sometimes merely words suffice to conjure up your essence.

 

If you are still curious about this untypical relationship, read more about it HERE
and then HERE.

I have followed an additional prompt today, as you might notice below. The prompt words today are absent, linger, bound, pithy, durable. (I mistakenly recorded “pithy” as “pity” in my word chain, so you get both as a bonus.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/friday-rdp-absent/

https://okcforgottenman.wordpress.com/linger

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/31/fowc-with-fandango-bound/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/pithy/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/durable

The Unexpected

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The Unexpected

“Taste,” if it could be dissected,
may involve the unexpected.
Convention calls for the reverse,
and so we might expect the worse,
but, instead, what might develop
is a charm that might envelop
all who enter as witness to it
and find there is a fitness to it.

I invite you to send me a photo that illustrates the theme of this poem, along with permission to post it. It might be art, fashion, architecture or house decor.

The prompt words today are taste, develop, unexpected and reverse.  Here are links to the websites that gave the prompts:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/rdp-84-taste/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/30/fowc-with-fandango-develop/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/unexpected/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/reverse

Typical Day

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Typical Day

What had I done by seven o’clock?
I’d let in the dog groomer, fastened the lock.
By eight I had fed all the cats and the dog
and turned to my duties: my prompts and my blog.
What had I accomplished by eight or by nine?
I’d published one poem and started a line

of another I worked on for a short while
’til the plumber arrived with a motor and pile
of tools to put in my new garbage disposal.
I talked to the gardener, made a proposal
to plant a new tree, then the housekeeper came.
If my poem went undone, I’d Yolanda to blame.

We talked for awhile, then I bent to my task
A ten minute reprieve was the most I could ask.
At ten, it was Oscar, arrived for his next
lesson in English.  My poem is hexed!
I download five photos that if I am able,
I’ll use with the poem, then spring to the table.

We study the use of “what, when and who”
of “where, why,” and “how,” then the next thing we do
is read a new story about Tio Nacho.
who had an old hat that was not very macho.
He said it in English, I said it in Spanish,
but when we were finished, my poem seemed to vanish.

I finally found it hidden in “notes,”
Found all my photos. Found all my quotes.
I shoo the white kitty off of my purse,
because the plomero I must reimburse.
I publish my poem and close up my Mac.
That’s a typical day for this poetry hack!!!

Compulsion to Rhyme II

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Compulsion to Rhyme II

By now you’ve read my oeuvre once or twice before.
It’s bulging out of file cases, stacked upon the floor.
It’s quickly filling up my blog and straying to the media.
Soon I fear I must compose my own encyclopedia.
It started out a habit but soon became compulsion.
My housecleaner surveys my poems with undisguised revulsion.
Spiders live within the files, cats use them for their beds,
so they serve grander purposes than cluttering up heads.
Perhaps someone could stop me with a cudgel or a gun,
but lacking that, I fear that when my final poem is done,
my heirs will have to market my oeuvre by the ton.

 

The prompt today was oeuvre. In case you’ve never encountered the word without its buddies hors and d’,  used alone, oeuvre means the works of a painter, composer or author, regarded collectively.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/wednesday-prompt-oeuvre/

The Fan Letter

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The Fan Letter

Granted, my heart did flutter at the words of adulation
in the fan letter that came while I was on vacation.
Accepted by my mother, who suffers from dementia,
yet deals with all deliveries while I am in absentia,
it said that I was handsome, clever, brave and cuddly,
with a stellar presence and a figure that was studly!
It is not any statement that stirs me to demean it,
yet if I were home I think I never would have seen it.
I am not parsimonious, yet usually eschew
these laudatory letters that come with postage due!

The prompt words are due, parsimonious, flutter and adulation. (The word wasn’t posted yet for Ragtag, so I used the other word from the 26th, when two were posted.) When I searched my media file using the word “handsome,” this picture of my friend Dave was the only photo out of thousands that come up.  The WordPress media file has spoken, Dave. You are the “it” boy of this poem!!!!

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/29/fowc-with-fandango-due/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/parsimonious/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/flutterhttp://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=795401

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/rdp87-adulation/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/wednesday-prompt-oeuvre/

When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us

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IMG_0991

When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us

Way back in my innocence, I thought the world was fair.
My biggest daily decision was what I chose to wear.
The probability of danger then was very rare.
The world, not yet insidious, was still one I could bear.
I knew I could accomplish all that I would dare.
I didn’t fear the water or anguish o’er the air.
The very thought of fire did not move me to despair.
But as men work to turn the dream of nature to nightmare,
most of those in power do not seem to care,
letting some wreak damage as others simply stare,
mouths open in horror over  the whole affair.
Protestors standing in the street, protestors on the stairs,
poets writing poetry, crouched within their lairs,
looking at what God hath wrought and tearing at their hair.
Will our help come from heaven or approach us through the air,
coming from other galaxies to see how we might fare,
finally making contact not to conquer but to share,
setting down amongst us not to pillage, rape or tear,
but rather as our saviors, bent upon repair.

The prompts today were fair, probability, insidious and approach.  Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/rdp-tuesday-prompt-fair/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/28/fowc-with-fandango-probability/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/insidious/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/ approach