Category Archives: Poem

Washing Up

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Washing Up

The churning water brings them up.
The grounds of coffee in the cup
rise like saints to water’s top
while water runs, they do not stop.

I read their shapes like tea leaves now.
I see the future but know not how.
They swirl and change, revealing lives––
swarm like hornets from their hives.

The one I wait for comes unstuck,
careening towards his future luck.
The one that’s me caught in an eddy,
stuck for now, but holding steady.

Other remnants of finished meals––
carrot shards, potato peels––
rise up and circle, forming dreams.
Reality, or so it seems.

I see a heart and charm and lies,
a future lover in disguise,
a plane, a knoll, a tree-lined path,
a woman bound in senseless wrath.

She sends out waves that push you here––
the very thing that she most fears.
I know not who or where you are.
Are you near or are you far?

As all goes rushing down the drain,
I feel a sense of loss and pain.
And so I fill the sink again.
Will I see you one time more,
or was my vision only lore?

This poem was inspired by a comment chain on  Jane Basil’s blog. In reply to my last comment, she wrote:”You have just inspired me. When I read your comment I thought about the odd concepts writers come up with. If we didn’t think up strange plots, what would we write about? The answer came in a flash: washing up. We could write about washing up, or hanging curtains, or eating toast. I’m off to try to write a poem about washing up. Would writing about mundane activities make me boring,or odd? And is there something wrong with my thought processes?” I wrote back telling her I’d write a poem about washing up as well. This is mine and HERE is hers!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Airborne

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Version 2

Airborne

Way back in our salad years,
our endings were all sealed with tears
as each successive love affair
popped like a bubble into air.

Now that we’ve earned our seasoning,
more endings end in reasoning.
We understand that all things end
as lover, father, daughter, friend

begins to go the way of all
who stumble, falter, fade and fall.
It is the fate that’s given us,
with all our stories ending thus.

Accomplishments, possessions, love
are like the fingers of a glove
that, when all our work is done
peel off each finger, one by one.

Empty-handed, we leave this life–––
its pleasures, loving, stress and strife––
to join the welcoming arms of air.
To discover what awaits us there.

This morning, I awoke to the line, “Way back in our salad years,” running through my mind.  The next lines occurred as I let the dogs out and stumbled back to bed. I completed the poem before I looked at the daily prompt, and although it doesn’t meet the exact prompt, it seems to go along with the title of “Builds Character,” so here it is! https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Next

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Next

To live in yesterday’s a sorrow.
From the past I need not borrow.
All I need is my tomorrow.

The Prompt: One More Time–What day from the past year would you like to live over again? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/one-more-time/

Homely Studio

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Homely Studio

My studio is my refuge––a place I’m never hounded.
Safe within my compound walls, its door is never pounded.
There is no telephone at all, no internet or texting.
No sense of what I should have done, no hurrying or “nexting.”

Its drawers are full of little things; its shelves are full of paint.
For when it comes to art supplies, I have little restraint.
Some might call it cluttered and I cannot deny it;
for if it’s miniature and cheap, I cannot help but buy it.

Here I paint, arrange and glue––what some would label “playing,”
and if objects perchance might fall, they stay where they are laying.
Yet I’m at home within it, for I know where each thing goes.
Never quite so happy as when making retablos.

Within my many drawers of flowers and charms and old watch parts,
of animals  and tiny fruits, there is a drawer of hearts.
So if “home is where the heart is,” my studio is my home––
the place that I come back to, wherever else I roam.

Often it’s disorganized–things piled and under feet.
Cruel folks say its cluttered, but the tactful say “replete.”
But, the truth is when I’m busy, the mess soon grows absurd.
and it’s true my studio’s homely in both meanings of the word!

Repleted: 1. filled or well-supplied with something.  synonyms: filled, full, well stocked, well supplied, crammed, packed, jammed, teeming, overflowing, bursting, jam-packed, chockablock, chock-full

Homely: 1. unattractive in appearance. unattractive, plain, unprepossessing, unlovely, ill-favored, 2. (of a place or surroundings) simple but cozy and comfortable, as in one’s own home “a modern hotel with a homely atmosphere”

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The topic “Homely Studio” was generated for me by Jennifer’s Topic Generator.  You can find it here: https://topicgenerator.wordpress.com/submit/

Old Sins

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                                                                           Old Sins
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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “No Apologies.” What’s the one guilty pleasure you have that’s so good, you no longer feel guilty about it?

I wrote about this prompt so long ago that probably few have read it. Here again is my poem about a plethora of  guilty pleasures!

Chocolate-covered Potato Chips and 90210

Thanks be to God for TV that’s evolved beyond Godzilla.
And thanks to him for frozen cream—both praline and vanilla.
Another pleasure is writing in bed. It’s how I start my day.
With no spouse or kids to feed, it’s where I get to stay.
I know that grandkids would be nice, but still I’m rather grateful
that being childless cuts to nil the chances they’ll be hateful.

Chocolate and potato chips, together or alone
are two more guilty pleasures for which I must atone.
I try to limit quantities that pass between my lips,
for if I eat too many, they’re displayed upon my hips.
Another guilty pleasure that’s high upon my list
is a stupid TV show that somehow I just missed

the first time that it came around and which I must admit
is really superficial, although it was once a hit.
Still, I can’t stop watching it when I am all alone—
a guilty pleasure for which I’ve found ways I can atone.
I only watch it from the pool as I do exercise—
computer balanced within view while I aerobicize.

The show I watch is Beverly Hills Nine-Zero-Two-One-Oh.
And that’s about as far as this confession’s gonna go!
I’m sure I’m shrinking brain cells, but I grow them back again
by reading hours of Marcel Proust, and then Anais Nin!
My ending comment must be this sincere beatitude:
for friends who like me as I am, I have great gratitude.

Guilty for my sins and the excesses that are mine—
grateful for the friends who still insist that I am fine
if I never turn out perfect both in looks and my behavior,
I guess the fact that they’re not perfect either is my savior.
Guiltily and gratefully, we all pass through this life,
pudgy from our excesses and battered by our strife.

But that’s how life is patterned, and we all are lucky still
that of our guilty pleasures we’re allowed to have our fill.
Thanks be to our compulsions and life’s excesses of pleasure,
for all our peccadillos end up as life’s greatest treasure.
So, thanks be again for naughty things. We both love and revile them.
With some of them we stuff our mouths. With others, We just dial them.


How’s It Going?

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DSC00264How’s It Going?

Whether I’m going near or far,
my choice of travel is always car.
I like to go at my own pace,
to break away from life’s mad race,

to take that road that leads to “where?”
and see what they are keeping there.
At roadside diners to share a yarn.
To investigate that leaning barn.

A tour or cruise or packaged deal
does not account for how I feel.
They’re too much like  our daily life––
alarm clocks, deadlines, schedules, strife.

Serendipity is what sates
while schedule just regulates.
In short, when going over yonder,
I prefer to merely wander.

n response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.”You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, or car? (Or something else entirely — bike? Hot air balloon?)

“Absence of Malice” Judy’s Poem and Reissue of the Challenge!!!

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                     “Absence of Malice”  Judy’s Poem and Reissue of the Challenge!!!

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You never told me you wanted the head of your bathtub rubber duckie attached, Mom!

Okay—the first person to answer my challenge was Marilyn Armstrong. She commented on her own Scottie named Bonnie, which made it a bit hard to construct a poem using as my first words the first words of her eight sentence essay. I actually used each of her first words twice, to enable me to construct a 16 line poem. Here it is:

I’m the owner of a Scottie.
I watch him tear around––
bonnie little terrorizer.
Terriers get around!

Which apparel did he chew up
that I wear every day?
It probably was not his fault,
most Scottie folks would say.

I’m guilty of the dumbest act.
I should have known the pup.
Bonnie little masticators,
terriers like to sup.

Which are the things they like to chew?
That is hardly recent news.
It seems that what their jaws like best
most certainly are shoes!

I’m still waiting for more entries for the challenge. Check out the quote and explanation of the prompt posted on my earlier posting HERE and post a link to your entry in my comments! If I find a juicy one on a topic other than dogs, I’ll write another poem as well, using the first word of each of your sentences  as the first word in one of my lines., in order. Your entry can be a story, poem or essay.

 Here is Marilyn’s comment I used to spark my poem:

“I’m glad sweet, retiring, shy little Morrie seems to be growing out of his “my jaws, the world” phase. I had one hound who never grew out of it and we lived in a state of siege for 12 years. Bonnie settled down around 2 years old, which is when most dogs seem\ to release those final gas bubbles from their funny little brains. Terriers mature slowly and stay puppy-like longer than most breeds. Which makes them terrorists — but lovable; you may WANT to strangle them, but usually wind up laughing.
That quote has worked for me in so many ways. It reminds me (often) that acts of true malice are relatively rare. Most stuff is done by accident or ignorance or just a flash of “duh” … to which, sadly, we all are prone.”

(Sorry, Marilyn. I missed this last line because it was on a separate page of my document. Since I’d already written the poem and since it would have added an extra line to the second and fourth stanzas, I didn’t go back and add it. Here is Marilyn’s last overlooked line: “But not Morrie! He’s always smart!”

√

Why Blog?

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Why Blog?
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If I didn’t have this blog to do, I’d probably wash the dishes
or do the other daily chores that go against my wishes.
I’d have to clean my desk off and put everything away–
tasks that more or less consume the best part of my day.
I might have to mend or clean or sweep or dust or cook.
But mainly, I’d have no excuse for putting off the book
that has been in my computer for a year or more––complete,
waiting for its formatting. Everyone I meet
asks if I have finished it, so I can just repeat
the excuse that’s easier than falling off a log.
“I’d like to but I have no time. I have to write my blog!”

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Million-Dollar Question.” Why Blog?

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Companionable.” Head to one of your favorite blogs. Write a companion piece to their penultimate post.

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As I lie

Once, in that long dream of childhood, I
assumed that I would be a child forever,
slipping between the lives of adults, somewhat

off. The wrong hairdo, clothes
in my closet hanging in
that off-kilter way

like teeth missing in a child’s mouth, others grown half-way
in to not quite meet their lower neighbor.
It was a mystery

where I’d fit in adult life––
The job I’d do,
the children I’d tell what to do;

and I never quite found the answer, although
my teeth grew in, to meet
each other in the middle.

Blooming, after their
crimson exit––
two by two, they nourished a life,

burying childhood
like
a lie.

I chose S. Thomas Summers’ poem, “As a Child” as a springboard for my poem. Rather than use his poem as a theme, instead I used the first word of each of his lines as the first word in each of my lines. Go here to read his excellent poem: https://inkhammer.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/once-i/

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Trick Retreat

At five o’clock they climb the hill and they ring my bell.
When I do not answer, the mob begins to swell.
Their cries of “We want Halloween!!” resound like cries from Hell.

My dogs begin a clamoring—and barks turn into growls.
The children’s only English words digress to angry howls
that prompt a shiver down my back––a loosening in my bowels.

I give in and seize the bowl and open up the gate.
The children swell around me, angry I’m so late.
They dig their hands into the bowl—in no mood for debate.

When I scream out “Take only one!” they begin to mind,
and they become more orderly and line up one behind
another as a snake of children starts to move and wind

from the bottom of the hill up to my front door
but when it seems I’ve served them all, there are always more:
one hundred, then two hundred, three hundred and then four!

And when I think the line perhaps is starting to get thin,
I finally discover that they got in line again
and came back to my doorway––where they’ve already been!

My candy store’s diminished, in fact there is no more
and they grow disorderly, waiting at my door
as I distribute all my fruit—right down to the last core.

Then I start giving canned goods—beans and corn and peas.
By the time my larder’s empty, they have brought me to my knees.
“Please, go home,” I beg them. “Leave my house now, please!”

But they have no pity. They are carrying off my plants.
I go into my closets and bring out my shirts and pants.
Still I hear requests for more—their demands and their rants.

I give them all my easy chairs, my pictures and my rugs,
my glasses and my dishes, my pots and pans and mugs.
From my refrigerator, I return with bowls and jugs.

Until my house is empty, they refuse to go away;
but finally I have no more, and I begin to pray
that they will soon release me from this relentless fray.

And then I see a ray of hope as across the street
my neighbor opens up his door and children’s footsteps beat
in a new direction—as they mount a swift retreat.

I hear my neighbor’s screams and cries as they shout for more.
Though I should go and help him, I’m yellow to the core
as I take the coward’s action and swiftly slam my door!!!

Mexico is lovely. It’s warm and lush and green.
I love its smiling people. I love its rich cuisine.
But there’s one drawback to living here that I have clearly seen.

I RUE THE DAY THAT MEXICO DISCOVERED HALLOWEEN!!!!!

1913688_1136037647847_2684641_n 1913688_1136037727849_5594428_n 1913688_1136038367865_7037617_n 1913688_1136038287863_5588685_n1913688_1136037767850_5683525_n (1)1913688_1136038167860_1696102_n 1913688_1136038127859_5133796_n 1913688_1136038527869_395578_n 1913688_1136038207861_6603987_nIn response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Trick or Trick.” Let’s imagine it’s Halloween, and you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?