Category Archives: Poem

For Sunday Whirl Wordle 752

 

Heaven Scent

I rifle through my pocketbook, looking for perfume,
needing that hypnotic spell delivered by its spume.
I love its steamy radiance hissing against my skin,
and I’m swaying with the flush of the admirers I’ll win.
A beetle flies up from the  grass to brush against my cheek,
but it’s not exactly the admirer I seek.
Then my lover drifts into the room from where he went,
drawn back , I am certain, by my heavenly scent.

Prompts for the Sunday Whirl 752 are: rifle grass flush steam radiance beetle perfume drifted swaying hypnotic hiss skin

Ode to Sugar, for the Ragtag Daily Prompt

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Ode to Sugar

Hey, Sugar Sugar, you’re the one for me.
I enjoy each calorie.
Smooth or frozen with chocolate on top,
washed down with a glass of pop.
Pile on the sprinkles and roll in nuts.
You’re the best, no ands or buts.
My little Sugar is smooth and dreamy.
My little Sugar chewy, creamy.

Shortbread, brownies, chocolate chip––
in my coffee, I like to dip.
But cheesecake, pie––other forms of sin––
I put on the table and dive right in.
Swim to the middle with my teeth,
see what there can be beneath
the icing or cream or chocolate sauce.
When dessert arrives, Sugar’s the boss.

Hey Sugar, Sugar, you’re the one
in snow or rain or blistering sun.
I don’t care if you’re hot or cold.
Baked Alaska is great, I’m told,
but I also like a big old cone
just piled with ice cream, all alone.
Don’t touch my Sugar, don’t you dare!!!
When it comes to Sugar, I don’t share!!!

The prompt for Ragtag Daily Prompt is “Calorie.”

“African Love Story” for dVerse Poets

African Love Story

In this day and age
Almost everyone has a tropical love story.

Show of hands–
How many here?

There was a war.  Danger.
And there were disapproving fathers
And careers.
And yes, I know that some
Love stories survive them all.
But ours didn’t.
And he didn’t.

So just for a year and a few months
We were in love in a warm climate.
A torn love story with a sad ending
With me as its only living remnant.

Imagine yourself
In that story
Full of hormones and atmosphere

It is a meditation remembering
Sand and moonlight under the Southern Cross.
Or cocks crowing before you fell asleep
Long rolling nights in a village
Where almost no one spoke your language.

Perhaps you were a prisoner of love
As I was years ago.
Non-protesting, dizzy and dumb for passion.

Would I have stayed for love if I’d known
It was the whole business of love I’d leave behind,
And not just my beloved?

Would you?

 

 

The dVerse prompt is ‘Where Does Love Go?”

Star-gazing for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 752

Star-Gazing

Eyes stalk the skies for lucky stars, hoping to harness their good fortune, and although those heavenly objects pepper the skies like jewels cast across a black velvet blanket, ribbons of clouds start to obscure their glow. Then, splashed  in layers like fresh paint over a graffiti-riddled fence, the faces of clouds completely obscure their light. We must set our minds to other hopes. The light has gone out on today’s.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle,752, the prompt words are: stalk sky luck harness pepper jewel ribbon splash layers set light face

“Avoidance” for Sadje’s Sunday Poser #281

Avoidance

I’m tired of enlightenment, bored with my muse.
I give up on all topics that spur and enthuse.
I think I’ll be lazy for the rest of my life,
avoiding all effort and dodging all strife.

For what do I worry and ponder and seethe?
What care I for clean water and air we can breathe?
Let fools be our guides. Let them rule us all.
Let other fools follow them until they fall.

Let scientists fuss over theory and fractal.
I’ll deal with endeavors more sensual and tactile.
I’ll plot games of solitaire, fiddle with flowers,
play video games for hours and hours.

I’ll torment the cat and worry the dog,
lie in the hammock, my mind in a fog.
Let other folks solve all the world’s ills.
I’ll keep myself busy with vodka and pills.

Use avoidance to overcome all of my worries.
Let torpor eradicate all of my hurries.
I’m overlooking the problems in which the world’s mired.
If I need an excuse, It’s that I am retired.

The Sunday Poser question is “What do you always try to avoid?”

Solo Saturday Night (For the “S” Word Prompt)

I am starting a new prompt named The “S” Word Prompt. Today’s “S” word is Solo. Please send your own story, poem or photo that shows your response to the word. Here is mine:

Solo Saturday Night

Half lonely, half happy I have no agenda,
I doctor my coffee with creamer and Splenda.
Tapping the keys to put letters together
with fingertips pressing as light as a feather,
I confront my computer and I never fail
to pound out a poem in my own brand of Braille.

I empty my heart of all of its ills––
better than pot or liquor or pills.
It is the prescription I write on my own
to relieve my regrets and stifle each moan.
I confide in myself, then type out what I think––
therapy with no recourse to a shrink.

A Reunion Imperative for dVerse Poets


Upon Running into a Former Best Friend

Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my career or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!

For dVerse Poets...an Imperative Poem

Just Me for dVerse Poets

 

 

Just Me
Inside my skin, around my bone,
I am me and me alone.
Wherever I choose to abide,
it is just me tucked here inside.
And if you find you’re in a bind,
you’re welcome to explore my mind
and pass on anything you find.

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille challenge, the prompt is “Bone.” Illustration created with AI. (Best I could do.)

Last-Minute Menu Changes

Last-Minute Menu Changes

My ravenous cats lurk up on the roof
while my dogs all remind me in language of woof
that they’re hollow with hunger and rattled by need
of kibble and catfood to fulfill their greed
for something to fill up space found in their tummies:
chicken or beef or those jerky stick yummies.
Now the dogs rush the door in their need to be seen,
push open the glass door  and rattle the screen.
With a flicker of tail, they crash once and again
into the door screen ’til they have slipped in,
and both dogs and cats leap onto my bed,
shaming their mom, whose face has turned red
with embarrassment over the fact she forgot
to go shopping for food for the whole furry lot!
So I leap from my bed and run down the hall,
pursued by my dogs and my cats, one and all.
Run into the kitchen and throw open the door
of the fridge, then I spread out all over the floor
the food I’d intended to feed to a guest
whom I had invited with all of the rest
of his family to dine–the roast and the cheese
I had purchased because I knew it would please
all my guests–the potatoes and veggies and flan
and I watched all my animals lick every pan
until it was empty of every food scrap,
then they lay on the floor for an after-meal nap
while I wandered in and climbed into my bed
to try to decide what I’d feed instead
to those guests who’d arrive in just 4 hours more.
Then I dressed and departed to drive to the store
to buy frozen pizzas and ice cream and cake
out of which a quick meal I’d return home and make,
shooing out of the kitchen those pets now sedated
once their fierce hunger was finally  abated.
The floor now licked clean, it was one task the less
I’d have to complete. They’d cleaned up their own mess!
So I mixed up a salad and set a fine table
and completed the meal as best I was able.
Poured tequila, cooked pizza and uncorked the wine.
The guests were well-pleased and my pets lay supine
both on terrace and roof or snug in their beds
while visions of roast beef careened through their heads.
And lest you wonder, I’ll say one thing more.
I bought kibble and cat food while there at the store!

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 751, the prompt words are: ravenous lurked shame space found glass hollow flicker rattled slip red crash

Letter from the People of America for dVerse Poets

Letter from the People of America

Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dear Elected Representatives:
(A Letter from the People of America)

We ventilate our dwellings of many different kinds,
but may not have the sense to ventilate our minds.
Perhaps we fear we’d stir up something that has died—
some milk of human kindness that’s buried deep inside.

As kids sit scared in cages and countless forests burn,
you think you’re given license to hoard all that you earn,
protecting it from others who have need of it,
flailing around in luxuries of your money pit.

Yachts and cars and mansions should not buy peace of mind
when they leave our planet in a lethal bind.
Our plastic world is flailing. It chokes on its excess.
How can you turn your backs on its extreme duress?

We elect our rulers. They are not born to reign.
In return we must demand that they share our pain
and do not profit by it with cash for legislation
leading to their betterment and our consternation.

Look at where we’re going and look at where we’ve been.
Open up your minds. Let truth and justice in.
During your term of office who’s advanced as far as you have?
It seems the teeming masses did not profit as a few have.

We’re taking back our government, abolishing each clause
that gives you the entitlement to profit from the laws
you enact for self-interest. It’s time that you were outed
and all who vote against our interests were routed.

You defend bad judgement, support your corrupt clown.
Now all who stand behind him must also be brought down.
You overlook the obvious for motives all your own.
You’ve opened up the cage and the dove of peace has flown,

stalked by a bald eagle who feeds on those for whom
it should serve as symbol of something else but doom.
We must bring back our liberty, nobility and pride.
Resuscitate a country that many fear has died.

The truth is there before you, so open up your minds
to see there’s a solution for our present binds.
If you refuse to topple that one on whom you dote,
we’ll topple you one after one–when we go to vote!!

For dVerse Poets we are to write a poem in the form of a letter.