Category Archives: Poem

No Partner?

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IMG_0057

The Dance

Cheek to cheek and toe to toe,
graceful dancers come and go
smoothly passing me while I 
sit motionless, with dancing eye.
Jealousy may rear its head
as I wish that it were me, instead—
held securely in my partner’s arms,
guided surely away from harms
of other dancers’ straying feet
or jutting elbows I might meet.

I might feel sorry, sitting there,
no arms around me—only air.
Then I remember in the past
dancing nights I thought would last.
How all those partners have stepped away—
even the ones I hoped would stay.

Life has a way of leaving us
like hopeful riders passed by the bus
as it soars away with no seat left
those left behind feeling bereft.
Then I look deeper and clearly see
one day that bus will stop for me.
Something heavy grows inside
where it’s not good for it to bide.
I scoot back my chair to shift that stone
as I get up and dance alone.

Steered through dangers into bliss,
barely meeting the floor’s long kiss,
I soar and bend and sway and glide,
giving way to what’s inside,
the music coming to live in me
setting all that’s in me free.
Stirring sadness at my core
and leaving it upon the floor
for other dancers to kick away
while only light parts choose to stay
within my heart as I dance on
from dark of night into the dawn.

 

The prompt today was partner. I have an early meeting today, so this is a rewrite of a poem written a few years ago.

First Lust

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 jdbphotos (Click on any photo to enlarge all)

First Lust

When we were young, before love rusted,
how we pined and how we lusted.
We lived on love. So sure. Nonplussed.
As though we held a deed of trust
on those we kissed. We arched, they thrust,
our hearts pounding as though percussed.

We came home rumpled, dizzy, mussed—
our heads swirling, slightly concussed.
Our mothers warned. Our fathers fussed,
seeking to turn our dreams to dust.
Our hearts reeling in shamed disgust,
our faces flamed as they discussed.

And although we thought we must
pretend to listen, inside we cussed,
knowing their words to be unjust.
Within each throbbing teenage bust
beat a heart free of distrust,
bursting with love’s wanderlust.

Back there at our very starts,
as we were learning to use our hearts,
back when we thought they might combust,
our hearts were tender, without crust.
We gave them fully with no mistrust.
We thought the world of love was just.

 

 

The prompt word today was lust.

Appetite

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Appetite

It is the appetite we wrap our skin around like clothes—
that we push down but that squeezes out around us
in spite of our best efforts—
that appetite we run from and run to.

It lies waiting for us
behind the cold glass windows of stores,
coils in our cooking pots
and curls out in their steam.

Appetite sits under the Christmas tree
wrapped up in red paper and green ribbon.
It is the appetite of the Barbie Doll and the erector set,
the jigsaw puzzle and the bouncing ball of the jacks game.

It is the appetite
that lies dormant in our gonads,
jumps in our semen,
sleeps in an egg.

It vibrates in a vocal cord,
trembles on the fingers of a lover,
swims on the tongue of a nursing infant,
catapults off the slingshot of a seven-year-old boy.

Appetite kinks out from the curling iron,
chews itself from the tips of our fingernails
and spins itself from our feet
during a jungle rhythm or a southern reel.

Appetite pipes from the end of a flute
and shakes off the edges of a tambourine.
It is sealed in a tube of paint,
carried by a brush to the canvas where it dances its own dance.

It is appetite that hides in our computer keys
and in the tips of the fingers that tap them,
appetites lined up on our paper
where we have assembled them in unaccustomed order.

They are what bring us here,
these appetites that can never be catalogued or collected in their entirety—
our appetites better presented in a brown paper bag,
jumbled like penny candies, tumbled over each other like in a junk drawer.

Appetites that can never fully be defined
or neatly wrapped up in a moral or a surprise ending.
Appetites that can never be satisfied,
because our appetites want everything,

and gaining everything, reach out for more.

 

The prompt today is dormant. The prompt word today brought something up in me that has lain dormant for many years.  That is, this poem which was actually written in a MUCH longer form twenty-five years ago. “. . .that lies dormant in our gonads” kept running through my mind, and although I knew I had written it, I couldn’t remember where.  Finally, I did a search in my poetry file and found this poem. The original I submitted to a national poetry competition and won first prize for.  The judge said it was for my pure audacity in submitting a poem that took 12 minutes to read!  I published it in a shorter form two years ago in my blog, but even that tightened poem was probably too long for most viewers to read. At any rate, here it is in its newest and shortest form–a poem from within a poem, where it has lain dormant for twenty-five years.

Tailor of Mankind

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     IMG_7739Doll by Judy jdb photo

            Tailor of Mankind

    He thought he would be a tailor of men.
 Then, “Woman!” he thought,
  laughing as he
      extracted a rib, seaming

hills and valleys, taking a subtle tuck
     here, folding an excessive curve there
and there. Smoothing it over, shortening
          a length. Extending another.

      Making them fit and not fit.
  Not a perfect pair but rather
thesis and antithesis,
yin
   and
yang.
   Anima
           and
  Animus
     he shaped into each
               in different quantities.

                    Then, he clothed perfection,
       sheathing it and obscuring
  differences to be discovered
    under falling leaves, in darkness,
          setting a whole world in motion.
                           Then he wept.

The prompt today is tailor.

Silly Words

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Silly Words

Bumbershoots and pollywogs, gorp and whirlybird—
Why are the words we choose to coin sometimes so absurd?

Why does one word sound sillier than others we might use?
Why are some sounds more serious while others just amuse?

Why do some get tummy ache blocking their digestion,
while others simply get the flu? It is a puzzling question.

One names the problem. That is all. No words that might confuse.
Whereas the other says the same in words that might defuse

the worry that plain words might cause–a silly sort of way it
is possible to ease the news by the way we say it.

So if the day dawns cold and drear, don coats and scarves and boots
and if dark clouds float overhead, grab your bumbershoots.

Umbrellas block the rain out and keep your shoulders dry,
but bumbershoots are bound to add a sparkle to your eye.

 

The prompt word today is bumble.

Word Mill

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Mount Señor Garcia and Lake Chapala from my gazebo

Word Mill

The world I see outside my sill—
the clouds that cover lake and hill,
treetops and vines that seek to fill
every space–both rock and rill,
completing  crevasses until
they’ve rendered empty spaces nil.
These things now serve to fuel my quill.
They are my unguent, band-aid, pill.
They prick my fancy, charge my will.
They level out that long uphill
journey to that final kill
when wan and empty, sore and ill,
I will finally pay life’s bill.

 

The prompt today is quill.

Birds of a Feather

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poem


Birds of a Feather

Tossed about in the storm—the tidepools and the heather.
Cast adrift in the air like a tattered feather.
Blown wherever fate decrees, determined by the weather.
One surrenders all control when they are without tether.
Blown up to the highest points, then dropped to the nether.
Never knowing what comes next. Never knowing whether
somewhere there’s another soul, skin weathered into leather
to furnish some protection once we have flocked together.

The prompt today is tether.

Prophet

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jdbphoto, painting by Jesus Lopez Vega       

 

Prophet

All the solitary seas that he chose to sail
only took him farther, out beyond the pale.
All truths he discovered, he shared to no avail.
When he tried to hit the mark, why did he always fail?

Call him an outsider. Throw him into jail.
Form the boards into a cross. Hammer in each nail.
Set him adrift to flounder with no scoop or pail.
Let him use his own hands if he needs to bail.

Put him on the pillory. Bring out whip and flail.
Bind him up and gag him lest he tells his tale.
Instead of seeing different truths, it’s best you wear a veil.
No telling if you listened, your own truths might just pale.

Fresh new winds are often perceived as a gale.
Manna sent from heaven to others is just hail.
When you confront that other—messiah or white whale,
get your harpoons ready. You must insure they fail.

Truth-tellers speak so softly that when the bigots rail
it may be that you only hear their shout and wail,
but if you set out to find them over that next dale,
the whole world falls silent when you find their trail.

In the night wind’s keening  or rattle of the quail
or in the ridges of the road, written there in Braille,
you may find the answer the outcast tried to tell.
Grasp those truths you find yourself and live by them as well.

 

The prompt today is sail.

Magnet

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I suppose it is the light that is the magnet drawing insects to my screen when I write late at night, but sometimes it seems like an electromagnetic force.  These insects do not flutter, but glue themselves to the screen. That force was active on the night described in this poem.

 

The prompt today is magnet.

Wheel

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The prompt word today reminded me of this poem I wrote three years ago, and since my sister professed it to be one of her favorites, I’m going to post it again:

IMG_1976In case you think peddlers on wheels are a thing of the past, here’s a photo I took in March, 2017 in La Manzanilla, Mexico.

Wish Wagon

Hear the clanging pots, the squeaky wheels?
Over the rise comes the peddler’s cart––
horse with head down, pulling the load,
the jolly man just dangling the whip over her flanks.

Pitchers, fry pans, mops and brooms,
a doll for sis and kites for the boys
who run to greet this week’s happening,
hoping that Pa has spare bills in his wallet this time.

Now hear the “Whoa, Nell!” and see Zeke, the peddler,
swing his bent frame down from his high perch,
Ma drying her hands as she emerges from the kitchen door,
sis attached to her skirts, shy but drawn irresistibly from safety

to see the wonders that the peddler draws from his wagon:
penny candies by the jar and safety pins.
Needles, spoons and dime novels.
Cloth for Ma of calico and new boots for Pa.

Rag rugs made by Ma and traded for a bucket
and a wash pan his last trip here
that haven’t sold and so he won’t need more.
Jangly bracelets like the city women wear.

Her brief laugh scoffs at them.
The very idea. But one finger runs them round
before it draws away. And in her eyes
there is a wistfulness we will not see again

for thirty more years, until another wagon
crests the hill and drives away with her,
that look again frozen on her face
for eternity.

The prompt word today was wheel.