Category Archives: Poem

Mentoring

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Mentoring

Those in their declining years have wisdom they should share
to give incentive to those younger to achieve what they might dare.
Each youth should have an elder ready to inspire
and show him  different types of things to which he might aspire—
to bring a bit of renegade out from where it’s hidden
so he is not inclined to always do what he is bidden.
Just a touch of wildness befits the mildest maiden,
lest she simply be a helpmate much too fully laden.
And they should also all  be told, each sister and each brother, 
not to squash that renegade they might find in another.

 

The prompt words today are elder, inspire, renegade, decline.  Here are the prompt links in case you want to use them and post a link to your blog on their site:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/rdp-84-elder/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/23/fowc-with-fandango-inspire/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/renegade/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/Decline

The Tin Man Talks to His Creator

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The Tin Man Talks to His Creator

I’m just a “thing” made out of metal,
stovepipe legs, my head a kettle.
When it rains, I rust apart
and so expose my lack of heart.
It is no mystery, no riddle
that I’m empty in the middle.
Some say a heart is of no use.
It is a trap. It is a noose.
It is an organ of abuse,
at best of times, merely a truce
in the battle of the sexes
between them and all their exes.
They say, “When born without a heart,
there’s nothing there to tear apart!”

Yet still I feel that all that pain
would not, could not, be in vain.
I’d bear the sadness for the start
of love that I’d feel with a heart.
And so, I pine and wish and stew
that I might be born anew
with a beating corazon
so I’d not feel so alone,
and though I would be made of tin,
that living heart that pulsed within
would let me feel at last what they
take for granted every day.
What care I that I fall to dust
if I could love before I rust?

Once more, I pray to my creator,
to that great procrastinator.
I ask again to have a heart—
what I’ve asked for from the start.
I say, “The pain, without a doubt,
can’t be worse than going without.”
Then that Great Tinsmith in the sky
looks me firmly in the eye
so the truth I cannot miss
as he gently tells me this: 
“A heart’s not something I can bestow.
It is a thing you have to grow.”


Forgottenman says I should tell you what I told him about this poem.  I actually wrote it after midnight while sitting outside in what might loosely be called my hot tub. Since the night was quite cold and the water had been sitting for two days, it was something less than hot, even less than lukewarm. I was writing on lined paper using a flashlight with a magnetic bottom that stuck to the metal bench beside the tub. (I sent Forgottenman photos of my crumpled, water-dotted original manuscript and he insisted I post it on my blog.  If you are curious, see it HERE.) Once started, I didn’t want to stop so tonight I really did suffer for my art!  I believe I finally couldn’t take it anymore and the last few lines were written inside. I was driven by the fact that the last two pieces I’ve written for dVerse were not accepted because although I started them before the deadline, by the time they were finished, the Mr. Linky would not accept them as the deadline had just closed. So this time, I was superstitious and wanted to get finished in time.  Luckily, this time it worked. One day I need to figure out just how long the submission period is. I am terrible about such things.


Public Domain Illustration. The prompt was to write a poem about one of Dorothy’s three traveling companions  from The Wizard of Oz. For dVerse Poets. 

Coping

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Coping

When I’m in the mood for moping,
with no energy for coping,
reticent to kowtow to
boss or parent or guru,
when I’m feeling less than zealous,
down-at-soul, depressed or jealous,
concerned with what I seem to lack,
I go and lie upon my back
in bed or hammock or in pool
in water steaming, tepid, cool.


The point is getting horizontal
on a surface that is fontal,
foam or tightly woven and hung
in a garden, loosely slung.
And there I dream or inspect trees
for butterflies or birds or bees.
I watch their habits, or I dream
joining that unconscious stream
that says the world is not my biz.
Only what is closest is.

And I pull inward to a world
where all the universe lies furled.
Then, enlivened, I get up
to write or play with dogs or sup,
rejoining that space and clime
I’m meant to live in for a time.
I do what I have power to
to civilize this human zoo.
“Think globally,” they used to say.
“Act locally.” Still true today.

 

The prompts:
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/Cope
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/rdp80-reticent/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/19/fowc-with-fandango-kowtow/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/zealous/

I Took a Picture of Your Name

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I Took A Picture Of Your Name.

After so many years, seeing it again on the screen,
I took a picture of your name.
Not written by your hand,
it had a strangeness–
featureless, revealing nothing.
It had no voice,
no breath.

Out there sharing itself with the world,
it has formed a wall around
that intimacy it birthed when you took my hand in yours,
using your name to pull me closer,
powerless against its strength on your tongue.

Everyone wanted to share a part of what made you you,
but I only wanted to be with you, back when,
scrawled in your careless hand,
you were written on my soul.

Wanting to be perfect for you,
remembering that tattoo you traced across my back.
Your name and mine.
“Always,” you wrote.

My trip to Guanajuato with my nephew Ryan was wonderful–just about as perfect as it could be.  Since I was 49 when he was born and living two thousand miles away, we had never really spent any time together, other than 4 short overnight visits I’d made to their house enroute to other places or for graduations or other celebrations, and he was always a kid with the other kids, I an adult with the other adults.  This was our first meeting as adults and with an entire week to get acquainted, we walked and looked all day and talked all night. Ryan did fine taking in the sights with people about fifty years older than him and formed a particular bond with one member of the group–a bit of a rascal at 76–really a kid who never grew up.  Ryan was actually better behaved than this man who could serve as the pattern for a trickster.

As our tour bus pulled into Ajijic at the end of our four-day tour, Ryan asked for his name and information so he could send him this photo I’d taken of the two of them. I pulled out pencil and paper, but the man had his own phone in his hand with his contact information on it  as he was spelling out his name so I could copy it , so Ryan merely reached over, clicked his phone over his, and said, “I’ll just take a picture of your name and look you up on Facebook.”

“I Took a Picture of Your Name” popped into my mind as a wonderful beginning line for a poem and although the resultant poem  is not about them and has nothing to do with our trip, here is a photo of them in recognition of the fact that their overheard conversation was really the prompt for the first poem I’ve written in five days.  My Internet-less vacation is over, but I’m going to try to remember the lesson it taught. Less time on the computer.  More time out in life.  Ryan and I are already planning our next adventure. I’ll show some photos later after he’s gone.

Ryan and friend about to descend into a silver mine in Guanajuato.

Breaking Her Diet

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Breaking Her Diet

I measure her cat food with care from the vat,
but she has such an aptitude, my little cat
for flushing out lizards and others like that.
With delicate paw thrusts, she gives them a bat
’til they barely know where it is that they’re at,
then unleashes her claws for a more severe pat.

Be it lizard or bird or scorpion or rat,
she defeats it as though it were merely a gnat
and lays it out nicely on my front door mat:
one scorpion sting less or a feather for my hat,
then returns to the stool where she formerly sat,
licking her chops, and that’s why she’s so fat!!!

 

The prompts were cat, aptitude and delicate.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/11/rdp-72-cat/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/11/fowc-with-fandango-aptitude/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/delicate

Endangered Species

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Endangered Species

It bore investigation, the gods all seemed to think
to see what’s happening on Earth that’s raising such a  stink.
The clouds of poisonous vapors seemed to obscure their view
so they had to come much closer to see what they could do.
Here everyone seemed eager to screw the other guy,
sure that complete happiness was something they could buy.
They’d have to think of something to divert them from their wrath,
to deflect them from their lust for fortune to another path.

What if they gave them something to redirect their thought
from this mania for wanting what the other fella’s got?
They created Martin Cooper and made two guys named Steve,
gave them creativity and something up their sleeve
to invent these gadgets to connect us all together
so we could help each other in times of stormy weather.
But the plans of men and deities often go astray.
Even gods in heaven do not always know the way.

How could they know that iPads and tiny little phones,
the Internet and Facebook would turn us into drones
staring at our open hands or clicking selfie shots,
intent more on ourselves than in helping the have-nots?
While skulking in the background, cronies of corporation
plotted most unnoticed in corrupt cooperation
to keep the masses busy with their puzzles and their games,
their TV and their movies and their lists of contact names.

We all would be so busy staring at our palms
that no one would be worried. No one would suffer qualms
about what was happening—the greed and the pollution.
Our leaders all the problem and never the solution.
We sold our world for cyber toys, believed their staged reality.
Traded in our real world for scheduled banality.
Kardashians and Candy Crush, sitcoms and solitaire,
Twitter, selfies, Instagram—a virtual nightmare.

Have we really botched it? Will no one come to aid?
Will our species all die out? Sicken, fall and fade?
They say after Chernobyl the animals returned.
The grass and tees grew back where they formerly were burned.
Only humans can’t abide the mess that they have made.
as though they have created their own end by their charade.
It’s the way of evolution. Species come and species go
Those who do not worry as they vanish tell us so.

The thing that they don’t realize, just waiting round the bend
as species after species is herded toward its end,
of all endangered species, another they have hexed
may be homo sapiens, whose extinction may be next.

The prompts were below, investigation and eager. The links are below:

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

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/investigation/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/eager

Generational Reunion

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Generational Reunion

Those stern-looking ancestors with furrowed brow—
if they saw what they’ve evolved into now,
would they be shocked at how I spend my day
toiling for hours on tasks that don’t pay?
Would my sense of humor be found too offensive?
Would they be shocked and would they feel defensive
if I told them the truth about what I believe?
Would how I turned out just cause them to grieve?

Would they swim in my pool, enjoy my strange home
with odd paintings and statues beneath a great dome,
or think me a heathen and pray for my soul?
Would my redemption be their only goal?
Would the truth of their progeny cause them to balk
so they were loath both to laugh and to talk?
Transposed to my setting, I’m sure they’d be shocked
but similar traits might come out as we talked.

One might be an artist, another a writer.
The atmosphere might turn out closer and lighter.
I’d see their high cheekbones and they would see mine.
We’d compare our physiques and our tastes as we dine.
Surely there’s something in genes that would bind us,
draw us together, unite and remind us
this is my past that is visiting me
and I am the one that they turned out to be!

 

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These are photos of my Dutch and Scottish ancestors. The prompts are setting, loath and ancestor. Here are the links:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/07/fowc-with-fandango-setting/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/07/loath/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/ Ancestor

Red Eye

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Red Eye

I’m suffering from swollen eyes
that make me appear in the guise
of one who’s had a recent loss
or been upbraided by her boss.
But, much as I appreciate
the words of sympathy you state,
 my red eyes, I must confess
are occasioned by much less.
I haven’t cut myself or fallen.
I’m simply suffering from pollen!

For Cee’s Flower of the day

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/06/fowc-with-fandango-swollen/

In a Nutshell

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In a Nutshell

The problems in America? What started the commotion?
A borborygmus businessman got a big promotion.

 

Fandango‘s prompt word today was commotion.
Ragtag‘s prompt word was borborygmus.

The Naming of Gassy Dan

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The Naming of Gassy Dan

I’ll tell you of a man I knew by name of Gassy Dan.
It’s true he was a glutton—a mountain of a man.
A sopper-up of every bowl, a scraper of each pan.

He wasn’t the most pleasant guest to ever grace one’s table,
for his appetite was something of legend and of fable
as he gobbled up more than his share whenever he was able.

Once seated at the table, though, he never had enough
of pork chop and of gravy, still he’d commence to huff
and puff about some gossip with language rude and rough.

With his slanderous assertions, his posturings and brayings,
his sanctimonious protests and all of his trite sayings,
he punished all our eardrums with incessant oral flayings.

Thus the rumblings at our table as we commenced to sup
were not his gastric gasses growling like a pup.
His borborygmus rumblings came from farther up. 


The Ragtag prompt for the day is borborygmus. bor·bo·ryg·mus (a rumbling or gurgling noise made by the movement of fluid and gas in the intestines.)