Category Archives: Poem

In Absentia

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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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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

Earthlings

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Earthlings

Children love to play in it,
while miners spend their day in it.
We grow our food and build each home
in our planet’s dark rich loam. 
If we are wise, we choose to mentor it,
lest too soon we’re called to enter it.

The prompt word for the dVerse Poets Quadrille challenge was “earth.” The only rule for a quadrille is that it must be exactly 44 words long, not counting the title.

Random Travel

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Random Travel

There’s precious little rectitude in knowing where you’re going.
Straight lines are only called for when you’re writing or you’re sewing.
I think there’s room in travel for a little ingenuity
so long as you don’t coddiwomple on in perpetuity.

The words today are ingenuity, rectitude, precious and coddiwomple. Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/monday-prompt-coddiwomple/
(To coddiwomple is “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.)
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/27/fowc-with-fandango-ingenuity/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/rectitude/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/precious

The Groom has Second Thoughts

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The Groom has Second Thoughts

You say he is articulate whereas I say he’s wordy.
You think he’s intellectual, whereas I fear he’s nerdy.
Is dusk the genesis of dark or is the day just over?
I think it’s time to mow the lawn while you’re rolling in clover.
An optimist and pessimist should doubtless not be marrying.
What you see as casual I simply see as tarrying.
Time after time, we face each other o’er this widening schism.
For what to you seems happily real to me seems euphemism.

 

 

Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/rdp87-articulate/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/26/fowc-with-fandango-euphemism/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/genesis/

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

Unfortunate Fashion Choices

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Unfortunate Fashion Choices

The dancer wore a tube top, for a hat, flowers with pot.
His partner was a pistol freshly fired, really hot.
She didn’t get his outfit. She didn’t groove his vibes.
Wherever he had touched her, she soon broke out in hives.
The moves that he suggested were not what she desired.
Instead of feeling challenged, she just felt merely tired.

He found he could not lead her, so he followed her instead—
reading her faint signals, going everywhere she said.
When the stereo instructions told them to embrace,
she did a dive under his arm to evade his face.
She danced herself around him and directed him to kneel,
and when she jumped up on his back, she speared him with her heel.

All-in-all,  total disaster, for when he dipped her down,
her bodice ripped asunder. Parts popped out of her gown.
He quickly pulled his tube top off and pulled it o’er her head.
Pulled out his pocket sewing kit—his needle and his thread.
He sewed up her damaged bodice and she retired to the loo
to change her top and do whatever girls in bathrooms do.

He waited there bare-breasted with the soil sifting down
from the damaged flower pot, turning his shoulders brown.
When she returned, he took her home. The blind date was a flop.
He should have worn a derby hat and a different top.
His good-night kiss rejected, he stood on her veranda,
ruing the fact he’d styled himself after Carmen Miranda!

 

The three “things” are: flower pot, stereo instructions, dancer and the link to the prompt is: https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/three-things-challenge-24-august-2018/