Category Archives: Poem

Purple Passion

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Purple Passion

 

Light can add an interesting aspect to what might otherwise have been an ordinay portrait
Click on any photo to enlarge all and view as slide series. 

Purple flowers––violets, maybe.
Purple eye makes purple baby.
Purple sweater, purple wall
and four o’clocks, the last of all!

 

 

Some of these photos and the ditty were published a few years ago.  I’ve upped the purple for this post, though. Hit this link and come play along!  For the Ragtag Prompt: Purple.

Generosity

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Wikimedia image 

Generosity

Too often generosity
must suffer the pomposity
of that rich soul who grants it to
recompense those lucky few
for all he gouged throughout his life—
blind to their needs and lives of strife.

The library that bears his name
should also bear the stain of shame.
His reputation  for charity
indeed, had been a rarity
for all the years he cheated workers,
calling them deadbeats or shirkers.

When they asked for a living wage,
their pleas were met by silent rage,
beatings, dockings, firings, 
lock-outs and rehirings
of other hungry men who stayed
for meager wages that he paid.

The dedications will proclaim
his noble acts and spread his fame,
but the world will not take note,
nor will the history books quote
how his empire was slowly carved
out of those masses who slowly starved

The Daily Addictions prompt today was generosity.

Simple-Minded

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Simple-Minded

I’m a hayseed sort of girl. I don’t believe in fancy.
To me, anything foreign is likely to be chancy.
I don’t eat things like escargot. I shudder at foie gras.
I buy my shoes in canvas, but never peau de soie.
When folks speak French to order food, I find it most pretentious,
and when they draw me into it, I’ll likely grow contentious.
I don’t like words that prettify. I view them angrily.
Like au courant, je ne sais quoi, pardon or vis-á -vis.
Why don’t folks just eat and say what comes naturally?
I think it’s done to irritate simple gals like me!

 

For Fandango’s Daily Word Prompt: Simple

Birthright

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Birthright

He felt it was his birthright and she felt it was hers
to only wear designer lines from underwear to furs.
Their schools were the finest. Their cars were Lamborginis.
They lunched on finest caviar and supped on steak and blinis.
Each Saturday brought manicures and plucked-out nasal hairs.
On Fridays, deep massages to tone their derrieres.
Since they never did a lick of work, they never had to hurry.
Everything was done for them. They had no cares nor worry.

When times demanded action, they sat up on their shelves
hoarding their petty worries and tending to themselves.
And when the celebrations declared the war was done,
our cloistered privileged duo came out to join the fun.
But alas they were not recognized. They didn’t know a soul.
Locked up safe in their houses, they’d had no plan nor goal
for defending all their property inherited from kin,
but now the world was set aright, they claimed it once again.

They restarted their factories, and things were as before
as those returning soldiers labored to earn them more.
Another old year fades away and as the new year waxes,
they’ll find another way of avoiding paying taxes.
They leave to others the taxpaying, the soldiering and  toiling
because it is their birthright that they should not be soiling
their hands with any tasks unbefitting to their classes.
They’ll leave all the laboring to the teeming masses!

(Addendum)

And since of this fine nation he is such an honored resident,
perhaps he’ll step it up a notch. Perhaps he’ll run for president!

 

The Daily Addictions prompt is Birthright.

Nightmare

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Nightmare

You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.

Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.

Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight

when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.

Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?

This is a repeat of a poem I wrote two years ago. It is just too perfect for the prompt not to use it. hope it warranted rereading. The Ragtag word of the day is nightmare.

Last Minute Redemption

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DSC09979

Last Minute Redemption

I have made a resolution
to attempt last-minute absolution
for the sins I have collected,
just in case I’m resurrected.

 You see, I have a certain hunch
that later I’ll be in a crunch,
burdened by a heavy pack
of life’s misdeeds tied to my back,
condemned for all eternity
to never be completely free
’til I atone for every one.
Only when I’m down to none,
will I advance thus unencumbered.
Now that I know my days are numbered,
if I have ever slighted thee,
now is your time to contact me
to receive my late apology.

So Mia culpa, lo siento.
In just one second, un momento,
I will voice my sorrow for
all the ills I’ve caused you, or
all the times I didn’t say
those words that might have made your day.
For though I don’t believe in hell,
I figure that I might as well,
 just in case, try for exemption
to win my guilty soul’s redemption.

Since the Daily Prompt from WordPress is now defunct, I’m trying out a number of other daily prompts.  The Daily Addictions word today is redemption. Feel free to play along by clicking on the link and adding your own post on the theme to the Mr Linky link.

That Small Feeling

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That Small Feeling That Something’s Wrong

My intuition sounds its gong.
I have an inkling something’s wrong.
I look  around  for what’s amiss,
but cannot tell what signals this.
My arm and neck hairs stir and rise,
as if to warn me of surprise.
This tiny hunch keeps me alert,
but insight is a fickle flirt.
When nothing happens, it goes away
and I live out my normal day.
That tiny niggling little prickle
might lead to nought, for insight’s fickle,
and sometimes things are just so small
that they aren’t there at all.

 

This poem was written in October of 2016. The RDP2 prompt today is insight.

Longing: Non-WordPress Prompt for the Day

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jdb photo

Knowing this was the first time in over 4 years that I haven’t had a WordPress daily prompt to follow, forgottenman gave me this one.  If you’d like to join me, just post your blog and then give a link to your blog in my comments section. Being that this is also Open Link Night in dVerse poets, if you are writing a poem, you can also link it HERE. Be sure to use the Mr. Linky bar given on this site to link your poem.

I will list links to other new prompt sites as I discover them tomorrow.

Longing

This morning’s church bells’ constant bongings
woke me to familiar longings.
Coded as they were in dreams,
when I awoke, they split their seams
and spilled into my conscious thought.
Futile to yearn for what I’m not.
No longer young or lithe or trim,
no passions spilling from my brim.
No husband, mother, father, lover.
No guardians to watch and hover.
I’ve grown away from most of life,
connections severed as with a knife.
Still, I do not long for these.
I do not pray on bended knees
for what is past or what is lost,
for I know pining’s pain and cost.
My longing, now, is just to see
what life’s plot is left to me.

The prompt today was longing.

Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

For dVerse Poets today, we were to compose a poem making use of the following street names:
Rope Walk, Potacre Street, Silver Street, Catshole Lane, Buttgarden Stree, Gas Lane, Coral Avenue, Dragon Hill, Baron Way, Mutton Lane. Well, I used them all, but don’t blame me for the zaniness of the following:


Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

When I’m asked to walk the rope,
I am most likely to say, “Nope!”
But(t) Garden Street sounds more ornate.
I might pass through its flowery gate.
I won’t be Dragon up the Hill.
Don’t do inclines, and never will.
Silver and Coral? My confession
is that they suit my old profession
as a silversmith and vendor,
so if you are a generous spender,
I’ll go on a buying spree
and sell the results, then, to thee.

Don’t go for mutton. It ends in gas,
so on those two, I’ll have to pass.
There’s a barrier on Baron Way.
I can’t go there, for no one may.
Acres of potholes also mar
Potacre Street and so my car
must avoid both Catshole and it
lest we wind up in a pit,
damaging our undercarriage
and my stability of marriage.

Are we going there? The wife says no,
for she decides where we will go.
So, much as I would like to wander
up all those streets up over yonder,
dVerse Poets are not my boss,
so this adventure will be my loss.
And though I will not ace your test,
all-in-all, I think it’s best
to limit where I’m going to roam
and simply take the fast route home.

For dVerse Poets Pub prompt.

Broken Concentration

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Broken Concentration

The words packed tight within my mind
seek the empty page.
They fly like hummingbirds and hawks
escaping from their cage.
But when all my empty places
I seek to fill again,
too many words rush in at once,
creating such a din
that nothing can be made of them.
I cannot restore order
in these alien syllables
that flood across my border.

I did not think these previous lines.
They just crept up on me.
I place words here upon the page
and thereby set them free.
They have no place within my head
where I had plans to write
a solitary love poem.
Instead, they spar and fight,
one trying to beat the others
to the front line of my mind.
Love words elbowing their way,
lined up in back of “pined.”

So “heartsick” steps on “passion’s” toes.
“Adore” runs out of steam
trying to reclaim the place
where words like it must dream.
I no longer know the purpose
that I set out upon
I fear the mood is broken,
my concentration gone.
The thought that any love poem
will come is now absurd.
Minutes ago I was in love,
but now I have been cured!!

 

For the WordPress prompt word broken.

Tomorrow will be the last day for the WordPress Daily prompt.  Please comment HERE if you want to try to help me to change their decision.  Whether you write for the daily prompt or just enjoy reading those who do, please help us try to stop this change for the worse. This is an extensive rewrite of a poem written over three years ago under a different name.