Category Archives: Poem

Waiting for the Rest of Her Life

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img_7765photo and collage by jdb

Waiting for the Rest of Her Life

She has faith in the future that her life will fit.
She sits at home patiently, planning on it.
But as she sits waiting for the rest of her life,
the fear it won’t happen cuts like a knife.
As day after day goes by in a whirr,
she’s starting to realize it might not occur.

Her little white dog lies curled up beside her,
but stroking his coat won’t relieve what’s inside her.
She’s yearning for something­–she’s not quite sure what.
Inside her, the want of it roils in her gut,
then digs itself deeper into her soul.
It’s like playing a game where she can’t find the goal.

In every city, far up, looking down,
there are folks in tall buildings, surveying the town—
every alley and walkway for as far as they can
eyes staring out as they survey and pan
the small world below them that must have an answer
to this life that’s consuming them like a slow cancer.

I want to tell them that love can’t find you.
You must lean yourself over and pick up a shoe.
Put it on, then the other one. Walk out the door.
Waiting’s not what life was intended for.
We were pushed into life at the time of our birth,
and life goes on pushing all over the earth.

So all of you people with all of your faces
behind all these windows in all of these places,
Give up your pining and wishing and hoping.
No happiness lies in all of this coping.
Go find your soulmate, no matter the weather,
and then you can spend your life waiting together.

 

 

The prompt word today was “waiting.”

 

 

Arachnopanic

20 Replies

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Arachnopanic!

Jeepers creepers, what’s a girl to do?
A great big spider just climbed into my shoe.
Don’t have a Prince Charming to drive the fella out.
Cannot think what else to do but panic and to shout.
Guess I’d better collect my wits and make a plan.
Get a glass of water, a squeegee and a pan.
Sacrifice my shoes and pour the water in.
Ruining a  Jimmy Choo surely is a sin!
When I poured it in the spider scurried out.
Lifted up the squeegee and gave him quite a clout.
Squeegeed the remains into the little pan.
I’ll give it a scrubbing—later—when I can.
Go out to the garden to empty the remains.
All my sins will wash away, later when it rains.
No Prince Charming needed. I handled it myself.
Next time I’ll store my Jimmy Choos safely on a shelf!

Today’s prompt word was “Panic.”

Absentee Ballot

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For the past fifteen years, I’ve voted by absentee ballot in Mexico. This year I had particular problems with getting registered and thought I’d failed when suddenly, as if by magic, I received my absentee ballot via e-mail.  My good fortune, as I’m presently visiting in the states and I can just mail it in this year and it will get there in time!  So, I connected my laptop to my friend’s printer and pressed the “print” button.  This, truthfully, was the result.

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Absentee Ballot

When I  went to print the ballot out,
minutes later I had to shout
“Stop!!!!” when minute after minute
the printer always had more in it!
It printed out ream after ream
no end in sight—so it would seem.

To vote for president was simple,
but that just seemed to be a pimple
on the ass of all the choices
for which they sought to hear our voices.
Senators for state and nation,
congressmen, then more frustration:

water boards and State Assembly,
then measures ’til my hands grew trembly.
Statements by  candidates to rate,
endorsements, ballot measure debate,
instructions, warnings, declarations
occasioning more perturbations.

School bonds, statutes, legislation,
reeled out with no hesitation.
Tax extensions,cigarette tax,
laws that we were asked to axe.
School laws that were multilingual,
laws prophylactic, cunnilingual.

Initiatives on marijuana,
and fire protection made me wanna
rip my hair and cuss and scream.
Still out they rolled, ream after ream.
When I got to number sixty-seven,
it made me want to pray to heaven,

“Please, dear God, not one measure more
or I’ll soon be at heaven’s door!”
I gave the ballot one more poke
as with one sure determined stroke,
I banned the plastic bag, then broke
my pen over my knee–a joke,

for then another page popped out
as victory smirk turned into pout.
District initiatives, then county
made me rue this voting bounty.
For when I thought that I was done,
I discovered I had just begun.

Pages? Thirty-seven in all
are printed out, before they  fall
fluttering, onto my floor.
The printer burps, pops out one more.
“Oath of Voter” said this one.
And so I cussed.  And I was done!!!

 

 

The prompt today was “Perplexed.”

Radical Rabbit

12 Replies

655c2b8020db1d3c020343288ee27074painting by James Hollis. Available on etsy

Radical Rabbits

Radical rabbits jump the  stump
and conservatives with one big jump,
but they’ve been known to butt and bump
such right wing radicals as Trump.

This right wing radical, slightly crazy,
seems to leave some voters hazy
and spin their judgement upsy-daisy,
making their thinking super lazy.

Radicals aren’t all on the left.
Extreme’s the warp but not the weft.
One loose of tongue and good at theft
might leave our country most bereft.

If conservative’s your bent,
when you hear him spew and vent,
would you wish him to be sent
to D.C. as your president?

Radical’s found on either side––
right and left of where you bide.
Please cast your vote for a bonafide
choice that is not suicide!

Radical rabbits may be slightly
more to the left than you deem rightly.
Still their motives shine out brightly
and they are not as unsightly!!!

Yes, you guessed it.  The prompt today was “Radical.” The electricity went out as I was writing this so I hurried to get it posted. Wish I’d had a bit more time for rewriting and perhaps I’ll do so later, especially for that last line which only scans if you read it as intended––with the stress on “they, not, as and sight!” Hope to find a better solution when the lights come back!!!

Twinkle

4 Replies

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Afar

Twinkle twinkle little star
I can’t approach you with a car.
A train can’t reach you, nor a plane.
To walk up to you is inane.

Though I crave your brilliant shine,
I fear you never will be mine.
I’ll be content with lesser things
like fairy lights and diamond rings.

But when I see this earthly bling,
I will not think of anything
except for you, so far above.
Things out of reach prompt longer love.

 

 

The prompt word today was “Twinkle.”

Lack of Direction

6 Replies

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Lack of Direction

What am I doing here sitting on the street
looking like a vagrant to everyone I greet?
I know this is the day. I put it in my book.
Also on my laptop. I have another look.
9 a.m. on Saturday. I do not have it wrong.
I drove like a madman. The way it was too long.

My older dog just wouldn’t eat, my alarm didn’t work.
I rushed like crazy to be prompt. Didn’t want to be a jerk.
Yet when I got here on the dot, the salon was shut tight.
I sat down on the steps to contemplate my plight.
It’s been awhile since I have had a haircut here.
A month or two, or perhaps more. Perhaps it’s been a year!

I do not have the number to ask her what is wrong.
But wait! It’s on my laptop that I have brought along.
I prop it on my lap and open up the lid.
I rifle through my purse to find where my phone has hid.
I find my phone list and I dial, hear it ring and ring––
but just my luck my hairdresser must not hear the thing.

I leave a message but I fear I’ve made a big mistake.
Her name’s no longer even on the door, for heaven’s sake!
She hasn’t changed her phone for it worked for the appointment,
but when it comes to keeping it, I fear a disappointment.
Then from the corner of my eye, I see a woman waving.
It see her face and raise myself, slowly, from the paving.

She’s moved her shop across the street and down the block a bit.
And when she peeks outside, she sees the place I chose to sit.
She waves me in and now my hair is washed, conditioned, snipped.
I sit with toenails soaking, soon to be detipped.
So even though a big mistake started out my day,
it seems somehow that once again, good fortune found a way!

(And, best news of all, Edith’s Salon has the best wifi connection!  I got this entire blog finished while I was there.  The photo depicts what a perfect office spot this turned out to be!)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/mistake/

Eventually

10 Replies

 

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The prompt word today is “Miniature.”

Jarred and Unjarred: DVersePoets Quadrille Prompt 14—Jars

15 Replies

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Jarred and Unjarred

Seeing the world through crystal walls
curving around, protecting me.
Safely alone, I sit observing—
never jarred by what I see.
Infrequently, the lid screws open,
and sweet music streams into me.
Then I reach, sealing it tighter,
content to watch instead of be.

The prompt is to write a poem of exactly 44 words on the subject “Jar”

https://dversepoets.com/2016/08/15/quadrille-13/

 

Surfaces

25 Replies

IMG_3143jdbphoto

Surfaces

I do not denigrate the surface of things–
that outer shell that holds back all
that might otherwise leak out and fade away:
the snapshots and the clay cup,
the crude paintings on the refrigerator by a naïve hand,
the roses scattered to complete the collage
of a life composed of surfaces:

your hard muscled arms,
the curve of the brush,
the sharp steel of the edge that cut
you out and then back into my life
in silhouettes that, lacking one dimension,
revealed so much more.

Surface meaning is an oxymoron.
Surfaces are never the meanings themselves;
but instead, like a cup, they hold our lives.
Without surfaces the world would be but an idea,
and perhaps not even that.

Who knows but that ideas themselves are surfaces,
clinging to protons and neutrons and quarks.
She is only on the surface?? Impossible—
perhaps just unable to convey what lies beneath,
for every surface of the world lies deep as well.

The leaves have a deeper significance,
as does the sonata and the sonnet.
It is when we do not look beneath the surface
that we fail to see what is connected beneath.
Always, always, a surface is an ocean you can swim in.
It is outer space and inner space.

Geometry tells us that a surface
has only two dimensions, like a square,
yet boxes are comprised of squares.
Everything in our world is more complex
than some would make it out to be,
and surfaces are both doors
and invitations asking us to enter.

 

Please join me at open link night to post a poem, read some poems or do both at: https://dversepoets.com/2016/08/11/open-link-night-177/

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/surface/

Heading for the Door (Daily Prompt: Elusive)

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Heading for the Door

When someone starts to get abusive,
that’s when I become elusive.

(Camp day, folks, so that’s all she wrote!!!)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elusive/