Category Archives: Poem

The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

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The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

At the age of sixty-eight,
I’ve no wish to equivocate.
Is there a time when childhood ends?
When we give up playful friends?
Cease to lie in grass and dream?
Drink our coffee without cream?
Always do what’s reasonable
in order to avoid life’s trouble?
Say no to candy and dessert?
Cease to giggle, joke and flirt?
If so, I can’t remember mine.
Perhaps when I am sixty-nine!

The prompt: Write about a defining moment in your life when you were forced to grow up in an instant (or a series of instants).https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/when-childhood-ends/

Serpentine

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Last night I was talking to okcforgottenman in between posting pictures for the selfies prompt.  He first said it didn’t sound very much like a prompt I would pursue, then advised me on which pictures seemed too staged (Yes, I removed them), and in the end suggested I add the picture of my shadow on a beach studded with jellyfish.  That was a good suggestion and I posted my blog, then noticed that it was 3 a.m.!!!

This chain of events is not unusual, for I rarely try to go to sleep before 2 or 3 and sometimes even later (earlier?) but for some reason, I am always surprised at the hour.  I think I said something like, “How did it get to be 3 a.m.?”  Forgottenman answered, “Time is a snake,” and for once I was the one who said that would make a good prompt.  Of course he agreed and issued the challenge, so here is my poem on the subject, which is not at all as original as his, which I have read.  He’s now polishing it.  Well, actually, he’s now out mowing his lawn but thinking about polishing it.  I’ll give him 24 hours and then I’m posting with or without him.  It is 3:30 p.m., September 12, 2015.  I’m giving you fair warning, okcforgottenman!!!!

YaxchilanDivineSerpent
Yaxchilan Divine Serpent

Serpentine

Time is a snake coiled in the dark–
ready to strike, eyes on its mark.
In the sun of youth, the snake may laze
in torpor from the day’s long rays.

If it moves slowly you may not see
time progressing from A to Z,
but as you grow older, it builds up speed,
spurred onward by the urge to feed.

The snake uncoils and starts its race.
Sensing this, you join the chase.
Your goal is what you’re meant to do,
while the serpent’s goal is only you.

With luck, you are still in your prime
when you run your race pursued by time.
For later, fatigue stakes its coup
and you slow until time catches you.

Then it coils gently around your head
in hammock, easy chair or bed.
Its pulsing gyre steals you away–
that final price that life must pay.

See okcforgottenman’s poem written to this same prompt  HERE.

We invite you all to write to this same prompt.  If you do, please send a link to both of us!

Unclear Agenda

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This poem is set in California, U.S.A. and the initial character is American, as are the protesters. The men standing outside the lumber yard are Mexicans looking for work. 

Unclear Agenda

His denims worn and torn, his hair unshorn,
he sat on a fruit crate near a stop sign
on an exit road just off the California interstate.
“Will work for food,” his sign said, so I stopped.
“Jump in,” I said, and he looked confused.
“I have a city lot taken over by castor beans,” I told him.
“I’ll give you a meal and ten bucks an hour to clear them.”
“Lady, that would take me a day or more,” he said.
“I can make more than that in a few hours, just sitting here.”

A week later I see him in a line of toughs
who line the street, holding signs and now and then
crossing the street to harass the Mexican laborers
in the parking lot outside the lumberyard.
“Illegals steal the  jobs of good Americans,” their placards say,
while the littler, more brawny men stand silent,
not answering their jostlings and their shouts.
Once more, I pull up in front of him.
“So you’re ready to work?” I ask. “Jump in.”

I direct the question to the lot, and not one answers.
“So no one wants the job of cutting castor beans?” I ask.
This sparks a recognition, and he shifts and turns,
his attention suddenly captured by the man lighting a joint
behind, in the shadows of a shrub.
Still, not one answers, so I drive on to the parking lot.
When I ask the question again, thirteen hands shoot up.
I leave with a full back seat and when I turn into the street
not one picket sign is lifted. Every eye avoids my own.

This poem, based on a real incident, was inspired by the prompt, “Wandering Revenue” that was suggested to me by the Topic Generator. https://topicgenerator.wordpress.com/submit/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-ritual/

 

Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar : Quotation Challenge #5

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I’m going to do one more poem based on the quote that Lourdes Mint sent me.

“Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.”
–Niels Bohr

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Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar

It’s easier to talk than think,
especially when you’ve had a drink
or two or three or six or seven.
That’s when you’re sure you’re going to heaven.

And anyone more liberal
is surely going to go to hell
along with those who worship God
with rituals that you find odd.

And even worse is all of those
in turbans, robes or hippie clothes
who don’t believe in God at all.
They’re destined for the biggest fall.

Transsexuals and the profusion
of folks with sexual confusion
need to get their heads on right.
or be removed from good folk’s sight.

Those who pontificate in bars
sport redneck slogans on their cars
and are so sure that them and thars
will live with God up in the stars.

Creationism is a fact
and scientists have made a pact
with one below who waits for them.
to come and make their home with him.

and they don’t even need to think
beyond what they next want to drink,
They’re so securely in the know
because the Bible told them so.

They do not need to feed their brothers,
or provide health care for the others.
Planned Parenthood’s the devil’s scheme
and Right To Life’s the savior’s team.

Woman should bear what she has sown
and raise the product all alone.
It is her punishment for sex
this guilt for children she neglects.

Society should never pay
for lowlife children such as they.
Society should close its doors
to the progeny of faithless whores.

Retribution is the thing
Obamacare neglects to bring.
Cutting welfare’s the best way
to insure they pay and pay.

If you were smart like them, you’d know
this scheme is how the world should go.
First remove birth control and then
make sure she has her spawn of sin.

Do not provide for them at all.
Then you’ll begin to see Eve’s fall.
What she brought Adam to she’ll see
and be punished endlessly.

 

 At Fourteen

There is a whole world out there and you’ll see it soon enough.
It is the world inside of you you’ll find especially rough.
Try to write about it, and try to tell the truth
about the things that happen that you find uncouth.

Write about what hurts you, and hurts that you have done–
all those shadows in you brought into the sun.
Ask those around you why they act in ways that might seem cruel
and try to live your own life by the golden rule.

Take chances and do not be cowed when you achieve less
than what you might have hoped for, and when you’re wrong, confess.
Don’t just do what your friends do. Don’t act before you think.
However strange the ones around you, try to find a link.

The world has enough meanness. Try not to add to it.
Try harder in environments where you seem not to fit.
People who are petty will cut you like a knife,
but the chances that you take will be what will make your life.

Other people’s rules pinch like a too-small shoe,
so don’t let other people dictate what you do.
Do not fear to step aside and go out on your own.
The fields that yield the sweetest crop are those that you have sown.

Post this advice up on your wall and read it now and then.
Use it as a means to reassess where you have been.
Then when you are older, and your life grows thin,
do what I am doing now. Consider it again.

 

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.” Write a letter to your 14-year-old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years.

Back Window

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Back Window

I take a break from my last chore
to peer through glass, ceiling to floor.
For though a view I never lack,
my house’s eyes are all in back.
I watch the gardener cut and trim,
the locksmith to the right of him.

One scrubs the algae from the pool—
a craftsman polishing his jewel.
A man on ladder repairs the wall,
the tree-trimmer the highest of all.
See how we tend her outer skin–
they without and we within?

Yolanda sweeps the terrace floor,
then comes inside to sweep some more.
Inside I watch and labor, too,
for there are many tasks to do.
I dust and gather detritus,
smooth out wrinkles, straighten muss.

Three days a week we labor so
until I wonder if I know
which is the owner and which the thing
that luxury and comfort brings?
Dear house, is it you that harbors me,
or am I here to maintain thee?

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          The Boss:
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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”
Look out your back window or door — describe what you see. 

Disinclination (Sleep Phobia)

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Disinclination (Sleep Phobia)

I hate to give the day up.  There’s so much left to do.
I like the sky when midnight black is its only hue.
No interruptions on the phone. No meetings, no last chore.
It’s days that contain all the rules.  Days are such a bore!
At night I watch Doc Martin or read the blogs of others.
It always would be dark outside if I had my druthers.

I resist sleep when first it comes knocking at my door.
I put it off and fight it, sometimes ’til three or four.
At night it seems like such a shame to waste my life in sleep,
yet in the morning I find those convictions hard to keep.
When the alarm bell rings if I could choose, I find I would
go back to sleep, for suddenly my bed feels really good!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.”

Clothes Make the Man but Women Make the Clothes

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Clothes Make the Man but Women Make the Clothes

In matters of both clothes and hair
we profit from the use of flair.
A scarf, a pin, a tilted hat
reveal that we are more than that

we choose to put up our heads
or bodies–for our hats or threads
too often conceal our forms or hair,
not showing what is under there.

Sometimes it’s an improvement, true:
our hair dyed an unfortunate hue
or bodies altered by midnight trips
kitchenward that spread our hips.

This gown I wear is brilliant red,
It spreads around me in my bed–
ankle-length and numinous,
free-flowing and voluminous .

I obscure my  trunk and limbs in it.
My zaftig form just swims in it.
It makes me feel petite and small.
Inside, I’m hardly there at all!

When I awaken, I’m not alert,
throw off the covers, unwind the skirt
from where it’s twisted around my legs,
I yawn and blink to expunge the dregs

of sleep from everywhere it tries
to prolong my dreams and clot my eyes.
It’s in the bathroom where I see
how I’ve made this gown uniquely me.

My reflection in the bathroom glass
shows its brilliant red en masse.
Its designer’s plan I clearly flout,
for I wear it inside out.

The Prompt: The Clothes (May) Make the (Wo)man–How important are clothes to you? Describe your style, if you have one, and tell us how appearance impacts how you feel about yourself.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-clothes-may-make-the-woman/

Mr. Crow

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Mr. Crow

A flash of shadow in morning’s glow–
interrupts the daylight’s flow.
That sleek black coat I seem to know.
Why have you come here, Mr. Crow?

I heard that here the water’s fine.
The garden lush. The fruit divine.
I saw it falling from the vine
and swooped right in to make it mine.

You bow at us as though in jest,
then bend your wing and dip your chest.
You have not come at our behest.
We know you rob the songbird’s nest.

But I just stand here, staunch and tall.
I make no movement, sound no call.
I threaten no one.  None at all.
Your garden holds me in its thrall.

The mourning doves and chickadees
do not bathe here as they please.
Black bird, you splash there, as though to tease,
then dry your feathers in the breeze.

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I watch to see what you may do.
Through kitchen window, you’re in full view.
One beaded eye of turquoise hue
watches no songbirds.  It watches you.

Mr. Crow, with feathers fine,
take care where you might choose to dine.
The grapes you eat were meant for wine.
Please stick to seeds.  The grapes are mine!

To those of you behind the drapes,
it is a myth I dine on grapes
In garden grass, I watch for shapes.
No skittering snake or mouse escapes.

Small birds won’t deign to linger near
or take a bath while you are here.
Their fluttering movements display their fear.
They find your visit very queer.

I haven’t been here very long.
I’ve robbed no grapes, I’ve stilled no song.
Though your suspicions are grossly wrong,
since I’m not welcome, I’ll move along.

The blackbird lifts from saucer’s edge,
skirts the  treetops, lands on the hedge.
A warbler lifts from stalks of sedge
and takes his place on the birdbath’s ledge.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/new-internet-order/

May Day!!!

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May Day

When I was seven and when I was ten,
the meaning of May Day was different back then.
It conjured up candy or flowers and fun
not fear of a shipwreck or missile or gun.

We’d construct baskets of paper and glue,
put in some candy and a flower or two–
marshmallow peanuts so rubbery and chewy,
jelly beans, candy corn, gumdrops so gooey.

From a big ribbon, they’d hang like a fob
so the basket could hang from a door handle knob.
We’d sneak to a friend’s house and ring the doorbell,
leave the basket and take off, running like Hell.

If anyone caught us, a prize they would seek–
a slap on the arm or a kiss on the cheek.
The boys gave the slaps and the girls gave the kisses–
(the reverse of our wishes for all of us “Misses.”)

For friends who lived farther than six blocks away,
our parents would drive us some time in the day
before school or after to deliver our gifts.
We escaped easier when we had lifts.

We once strung a Maypole  from tether ball staff
that was rather disastrous—more of a laugh
than a sweet springtime rite filled with dancing and grace.
When our ribbons got tangled, they laughed in our face.

When our class bully fell down, exposing her panties,
we all joined in with our uncles and aunties,
our moms and our dads and even the teachers,
the school board, the doctor, the priest and the preachers.

Everyone roared at this May Day disaster,
then we picked up our ribbons and ran even faster,
some unfortunate dancers wrapped tight to the pole
until finally the school bell began its slow toll,

telling us all to disband and depart,
weak from the laughter and lighter of heart.
A day in my memory much better than payday–
the one time when May Day was also a mayday!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/your-life-the-book/