Category Archives: Poem

Swing Shift for NaPoWriMo

5 Replies

Swing Shift
One thing Lynnie Brost knew for sure was when she was right.
The problem was, that her tongue
was not always adequately aligned to her head.
But she knew for sure
that my time was up
and that it was her turn next
on her favorite swing.
Her face red, hands on hips,
she demanded that I surrender my place.
“And I mean maybe!!!” she screamed
into the uncensoring air.
No other denizen of the swings
saw fit to tell her
the contradictory nature
of her emphatic statement.
Nor did I.

For Day 6 of NaPoWriMo
Image by Matthew Moloney on Unsplash

Midday Trialogue For NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 5

3 Replies

Midday Trialogue 

You follow me wherever I go
or walk in front of me.
At day’s middle, I trip over  you.
Never am I free.

I have no light inside me,
I’m your dark side. You’re my cue.
I have no choice in where I go.
I’m always here with you.

I send them both where they must go,
The power is all mine.
I am their master painter.
I keep them both in line.

Without me, neither one would be.
Shadows are borne by sun,
and the entire world would cease
if my light were done.

I grow every living thing,
body and silhouette.
So you can see that both of you
are purely in my debt.

For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 5

Three Things Challenge: Wild Oats

4 Replies

Wild Oats

Pardon me if I refuse to honor your excuse
that your cold has made you into a recluse.
I won’t relieve your conscience for I know that it’s a lie.
I know because that day I just happened to come by.
I saw her car outside your door and saw her going in
with some kind of casserole and a fifth of gin.
So I know you missed my party because you had your own,
and by now your wild oats no doubt have been well sown.
So I’ll just say if there’s a chance you’d like to sow some more,
It’s best that you don’t lug your seed sack to my door!!!!!

 

The Three words for the Three Things Challenge are:PARDON EXCUSE RELIEVE

Cheap Thrills, for dVerse Poets

11 Replies

Cheap Thrills

Stand by the door of the room with your coat still on.
Try to stay melted while he unbuttons his shirt.
He could turn you on his fingers like a carousel
hot
Try to imagine you turning him.
Try to catch hold of him.

Relax everything–

different parts of you
like clothes in a pile on the floor.
You’ll get wrinkled falling down so often
under the tornado
which has dropped him
back again
flat on you, as you melt into the bed
above his favorite spot.

He has been
wherever everyone goes

You may have crossed the equator,
traveling
all around the world and back
for things
but you have never ever
come back with the kind of prizes you can hang
on dressing table mirrors.

Your exquisite things of the world
live with you,
but you have never been
where they all go
though you have tried
and tried
and sometimes you have
nearly made it

yet,

cheap thrills, in the end,
have always evaded you.

In your deepest voice,
you want to
“Hey baby, want a few cheap thrills?”
and you want him to
sink you down
you want to almost drown
call help so he comes after you
and you rise up

together
for the splitting of an
atom     gone

til you
come
back
fall down together.

It would be a miracle.
imagine.

for dVerse Poets:
To see how others responded to the prompt, go HERE.
Image my Jayson Hinrichsenon on Unsplash.

Two Moon Poems For dVerse Poets, Apr 2, 2024

22 Replies

Moonshadows

They lie on the surface without sinking in.
All around them is darkness that does not soak into them.
The moon causes but does not shape them.
What shapes them is what you have chosen to surround yourself with.
Trees or perhaps tall horses that stand unflinching in the moonlight,
making patterns of themselves on the front of your world.
Moonshadows are not the moon.
They are just a hint of it, altered by what comes between them.
Moon shadows are not today what they were yesterday.
They change every night and pull you along with them.
They filter out light but show you precisely where it is by its absence.

 

Moon Pie

When the moon is full
and everything ripe on the vine
I must have pie

juice running from the crisp crust
vanilla ice cream clouding its surface like clouds over the moon.

I bite into the piece like a slice of the moon..
like swiss cheese on apple pie.

slice of the moon.
moon pie.

 

For dVerse Poets “Stepping Out of the World”  Photo by John McKaveney: Bright Moon.
Go HERE to see how others responded to the prompt.

Crazy Shirley Gives a Ted Talk for NaPoWriMo

13 Replies

For NaPoWriMo Day Three :surreal poem. jdb image

Tummy, Dear–For NaPoWriMo Day 2, 2024

15 Replies

 

Version 2

Tummy, Dear:

Stomach, darling, first of all I’d like to tell you how indispensable you are.  Literally, you are irreplaceable in my life.  Aside from digesting my food, you separate my waist from my chest and keep my belts from straying.  You warn me about absolutely revolting subjects as well as food and are handy for nudging ahead in tight crowds.

That said, I need to bring up one large touchy matter.  For all the good you do in this world, do you need to be quite so large?  Lately, for instance, I’ve watched you extending your territory–venturing out into one plump donut extending around my back.  This makes looking at my rear view in the mirror extremely distressing.  “I never look at myself in back,” one friend told me years ago, but darling, that had been evident for years–testified to by the tight snarl of hair in the middle of her head.

But I digress.  You’re  awfully quiet.  I’m a bit worried that I might have offended.  But, the topic of magnitude of sound being brought up, I’ll continue.  Were you aware that you have taken to communicating with me at inopportune times?  A small growl after midnight to remind me of today’s brownies hiding in their microwave storage space safe from ants and marauding family members and friends?  That’s fine…and probably the real reason you were given a voice in the first place. But that long low rumble increasing in volume in the middle of the significant pause in the dialogue of the movie playing in a hushed movie theater?  Totally unacceptable. Other times your voice is uncalled for?  At the dentist’s office and in the throes of a long passionate kiss.  In teachers’ conferences and at ladies bridge afternoons.  No. No. No.  You are not invited in this capacity.  Yes, digest the margarita, the popcorn or the rich dessert.  Comment upon it? No.

That’s it, dear stomach.  I appreciate you. I know you are vital to my health and happiness.  You provide me with countless pleasures–those pleasures increasing with the years.  But, sweet middle of mine, if you could see your way clear to not increasing at a rate commensurate with my pleasures, I would appreciate it very much.  Oh.  Talking again, I see.  And probably not listening.  Oh well.  I hear your message loud and clear.  A pint of triple chocolate extra fudge gelato in the freezer?  Well, honey, this time you are speaking my language.  No one is around.  And it is totally acceptable!

Love, Judy

The NaPoWriMo prompt Day 2 is to write a platonic love poem in the form of a letter. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.

The Teenie Weenies: NaPoWriMo Day 1: April 1, 2024

11 Replies
The Teenie Weenies were my favorite characters from the books of my childhood.
The captain, the school teacher,
All of the characters who supposedly frequentled the small hidden places of my life.
The closest to modern day Teenie Weenies are these model railroad figures.
They are meant to grace the scenery alongside the tracks.
You can see how many stories they tell.
From skating on thick ice
To everyday tales of domesticity
Me as a Teenie Weenie I”m the hammy one imitating the Sunbeam Bread girl.

The Teenie Weenies

An entire civilization of charming creatures whirled
through all the hidden spaces that frequented my world.
They came out in the shadows or the crevices or nooks,
but the only things we knew of them were what we read in books.

Although they once were my best friends, member after member
of that small world is now forgotten, I only remember
the Schoolmarm and the General. The other ones, I fear,
though they mined a fallen cherry to make preserves for the year,

alas, I have forgotten. There are not the slightest traces
of names to go with any of those cherubic small faces.
I remember interactions with mice and bumblebees,
but the rest is lost to memory. Forgive me, if you please.

Buried on some bedroom shelf is one book, worn and tattered
but long-preserved because some part of me knew that it mattered.
And once that NaPoWriMo ban has finally been lifted,
and my jungle of old books has been explored and sifted,

I’ll fill you in on stories that used to fill my dreams,
to stuff imagination until it burst its seams,
leading to that poet that here puts down this line
to share with you this favorite memory of mine!

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write – without consulting the book – a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you remember having liked but that you haven’t read in a long time.

Burnt Offering

12 Replies

In some cultures, loyalty extends far beyond the fair or rational, but no one controls what happens after tradition is satisfied:

Burnt Offering
(The Virtuous Wife)

This suttee

is easier to bear with eyes closed.

She falls upon his burning pyre,

puts out his flame,

grateful for short rituals.

The pyre,

the bone,

ashes on the sheets.

He cannot touch her.

She is air.

She floats his breath.

She tracks his carbon

down the hall.

She walks

out to the Avenue,

wearing  sheerest black

with nothing but a cauldron underneath.

Her fire.

She picks a stranger

dusted by the road,

leans him against

shadows

in  the tall grass,

spills her steam,

lifts into

penumbra

above shaded hill.

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night 359

To see what other poems were published, go HERE

“What a Turtle Has and Hasn’t” for Wordle 648, Mar 31, 2024

8 Replies

What a Turtle Has and Hasn’t

It’s true that turtles can make do
with fewer bones than mortals do,
for all the bones that they may lack
are compensated by their back
which curves skyward and then back down
to form a solid armored gown.

They spill no blood, pray not for healing
with such protection  for their ceiling.
Thus does creation seed the waters
with its tough-shelled  sons and daughters,
for though they may lack fins and gills,
they can overcome these ills.

If, perchance, you’re given to wonder
how a turtle breathes when under
water for up to an hour,
it simply executes its power
to hold its breath instead of breathing,
and when it comes to turtles teething,

instead of teeth, they have a beak,
(although it’s ill-advised to peek
inside a turtle’s mouth for proof)
its mouth is toothless, jaw and roof.
Please leave turtles their private places––
whether under shell or in their faces.

Consider sacred what God hath wrought,
instead of thinking of what they’re not!

 

I am so happy to have an excuse to use this photo of a turtle that I snapped last week! 
Thanks for this fortunate prompt!!!! For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 648 the prompt words are: creation seeds waters blood breathe turtle sacred bones curve sky pray heal