Category Archives: Poem

Davy Jones Locker, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle #706

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Davy Jones Locker: Davy Jones’ Locker is a metaphor for the bottom of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors and shipwrecks. It is used as a euphemism for drowning. Silver coins spilling from a pirate chest seem to be doing these victims of shipwreck at sea no good at all. I collected all of the shells and sand used in this piece from various beaches in Mexico. Even the plastic cup, once claimed by the sea, washed ashore covered in coral.

(Although I created the piece above for an exhibition 5 years ago,
the poem below is new, created for this prompt:)

Davy Jones Locker

Storytellers tell the tales of underwater realms
where sunken ships lie buried with sand up to their helms.
They lie countless fathoms beneath the emerald foam
of oceans only beasts and serpents of the sea call home.

There saints of the underworld have made more novel choices
other than announcing their presence through their voices.
Silver coins rolled to the beach, bones smoothed by ocean tides,
give hints of those deep regions where Davy Jones resides.

His ship now razed by currents that drew it to its death,
the ocean mist still carries vestiges of his breath.
He has become that element that once he sought to best––
a part of that great ocean that was his lifelong quest.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 706  the prompt words are: underworld realm beasts raze maps storytellers saints emeralds hood voices serpent mist

No Sympathy, for MVB, May 10, 2025

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No Sympathy

I fear I’m barely lucid, for digestion dominates.
I’ve just had a sumptuous banquet of pork shank, rice and dates.
I know it’s fairly common to gorge and then complain,
yet I’m sure that the world’s hungry would gladly share our pain.

 

For MVB the prompt is Banquet.

“School Reunion” for Writers Workshop, May 9, 2025

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Class of 1965, Murdo, S.D. class reunion.

School Reunion

He’s an aging “Murdo Coyote” in his ancient football shirt––
remembering past  touchdowns while we’re dishing out the dirt.

Non-Trumper against Trumper, human rightist against bigot,
all the ways we’ve grown apart, gushing from the spigot.

When the debate gets heated, he brings about a shift,
repeating old glories until we get his drift

and switch our conversation way back to the past
to all those high school memories that thankfully still last

and that turn the party back to what it should have been:
turning old friends back to what they all were way back when.

For Writers Workshop, May 9, 2025

 

Going Spiral

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Georgia O’Keeffe, A Piece of Wood I (1942), oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, gift of The Burnett Foundation

Going Spiral

Few easily attain the goals that are their aspiration
without initial effort that requires perspiration.
Most of us must labor to gain what we desire,
but although we go in circles,  each circle spirals higher.

 

For dVerse Poets we were to write a poem based on a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

Cloudburst, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 705

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Cloudburst

Distant sirens justify our sloshing through the mud
to put the chains on tires that are filthy from the crud
of water mixed with father’s choice of topsoil for the garden
that crows have picked and worked at, so it couldn’t harden.
So when the rain comes, clattering the eaves troughs and the shutters,
sending muddy water swirling down the gutters,
there’s a short answer to the puzzle: that necessary bite
of the metal on the tires that will bring us through the night.
Raw courage and pure valor will guide us through the storm
back to our place of solace––safe and dry and warm.

For The Sunday Whirl 705 Wordle, the prompt words are: chain justify sloshing works clatters choice sirens distant crows puzzle short

“Sing” for SOCS If Only I Could Play Guitar, May 3, 2025

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The bromeliads looked perfect in the Oriental lacquer cup in front of the guitar,

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to sing and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

For SOCS the prompt is “sing.”

Theater, for MVB, May 1, 2025

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Opening Night at the Theater with a Famous Screen Legend’s Guest Appearance


photo by Jordhan Madec on Unsplash. Used with permission

Opening Night at the Theater
with a Famous Screen Legend’s Guest Appearance

There’s an air of raw excitement in the theater tonight.
The ingenues are nervous and the grand dame wants to fight.
Her makeup isn’t done right and her hairdo is a fright.
The set is way too yellow and the stage lights are too bright!

She regales them with stories of when she was at her height.
They wonder just how many great successes she will cite.
It is a frosty evening, yet they brave the cold wind’s bite
to stand out in the alley to escape the much worse plight

of the thirtieth retelling of the star’s first opening night.
The male lead finally gets here, but, alas, high as a kite.
The orchestra begins their opus, hoping to incite
the audience to wild applause as they get their first sight

of the famous lady, surrounded by pink light
that obscures those telltale wrinkles and a costume that’s too tight.
The ingenues are all in place, ready for the fight,
waiting for the star to speak, then exit to the right.

Then all their minor lines they are ready to recite.
It will be a war of words, and they’re ready to fight.
This era, it will be their turn the audience to excite.
Will they outshine the brightest star? Yes, perhaps they might!

The prompt today for MVB is “Theater.”

Obsolete for MVB

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Fast Change

This modern world has changed and changed
until I have become estranged.
These alterations make me dizzy.
I do not like my world so busy.

The young are used to change, it’s true.
They love the instant and the new.
Texts and sound bites come so fast.
Nothing’s really built to last.

But, for someone over fifty,
all this change is hardly nifty.
When at each end the candle’s burned,
when everything we’ve newly learned,

when everything that we hold dear
turns obsolete within one year,
we’re always slightly out of gear,
which makes us feel unjustly queer.

They make these changes without a clue.
Let’s start out minor, then work up to
the major things they’ve set askew:
(I will not mention Dr. Who.)

Every computer becomes its clone.
I cannot use the telephone.
My applications change so quick
that I have come to feel I’m thick.

Skype makes its changes overnight.
(Yet rarely ever improves the site.)
Microsoft Word just loves to change,
which leaves her users feeling strange.

Move this to there and that down here;
so all my mental powers, I fear,
are spent in figuring out the APP
and organizing a mental map

of how to write instead of what,
creating one big mental glut.
No room for creativity.
No safe place where our minds soar free.

We’re always “searching” for, instead,
our minds caught up in fear and dread
of where they’ve moved the enlarge bar to
in this week’s Word processing zoo!

Our e-mail servers have joined the plot.
I feel like pitching out the lot.
Just when I’ve learned most every trick
of tool and contact, every lick—

their Machiavellian, evil team
goes and changes the whole darn scheme!
But when we’re sending coast-to-coastal,
the alternative is going postal.

So though we bitch and though we frown,
they are the only game in town;
and so they have us where they want us.
Though they frustrate, ire and daunt us,

one after another, they are the same,
playing at this modern game
of change for change’s sake, it’s true.
There’s really nothing much to do.

So I submit, though in a tizzy,
I’ll relax less and keep real busy.
I’ll leave the cyber world alone
and concentrate on just one bone

I have to pick in this modern world,
and I say this with my top lip curled.
Max Factor, Revlon, Almay, please—
I kneel before you on my knees.

Leave the lipstick colors that we hold dear
alone! Don’t change them every year.
Each time you cancel one that’s zesty,
to find another makes us testy!!!

For My Vivid Blog, the prompt is “obsolete.”

Short Memory for MVB “Repeat” Apr 28, 2025

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Short Memory

If I repeat what I just said,
I know I could go back to bed
instead of laboring to pen
what has not already been.

But I fear I can’t recall
past things that I have spoken at all.
So here’s a rhyme placed at your feet
that chances are, I won’t repeat!!!

The  prompt for My Vivid Blog today is Repeat

“Stopping by Friends” for SOCS Apr 26, 2025

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DSC00274 DSC00271

Stopping by Friends Enroute to California

Whose house this is I surely know.
I’m sleeping on their sofa, though
And did not see that table there
And so I stubbed my little toe.

Their monstrous dog must think it queer
To find a stranger sleeping near
And yet no fuss he seems to make.
Golden retrievers are most dear.

He gives his collar tags a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
And wakens me from where I sleep–
A task that is a piece of cake.

The morning’s early, dark and deep,
But now I won’t return to sleep,
for I have schedules to keep
And miles to drive before more sleep.

I hope this parody  I wrote of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” will qualify  For SOCS “Shake”prompt.