Category Archives: Poem

“Kitchen Cruelty” For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 10

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“Woman sentenced to 5 years Expulsion from Kitchen for Cruelty to Kohlrabi”

Concerning cruelty to food, I’m worthy of your jeers.
I’ve tortured tortellini and brought green onions to tears.
I’ve chopped heads off of celery, gored eyes out of potatoes,
cut kernels off of ears of corn and boiled live tomatoes.
Shredded parmesan and Julienned countless bell peppers,
minced salmon into balls and rolled pancakes into crepers.
I’m guilty of the boiling of innocent spaghetti
and of wielding blade to chop a cabbage into fine confetti.
I am a kitchen torturer of unthinkable portions,
stretching bread dough into the most grotesque contortions.
I never met a batter that I didn’t want to beat,
so if edible, it’s best you stage a fast retreat
or in my oven or my stove, I’ll find a way to heat you,
In short, if you are edible, I”ll find a way to eat you!

For NaPoWriMo Day 10

Cold Comfort, for NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 9

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Click on Photos to Enlarge.

Cold Comfort

This thermal cup was different. Things stayed cold all night through.
I liked the one that I had first, so then I bought a few.
Four cups grew to six and then finally to eight.
When I misplaced one of them, it always had a mate
waiting in my kitchen drawer, or  three or four or five.
There were always one or two remaining in their hive
when one was left out in my car, the other by my bed,
another in some restaurant  where I had been fed.

One loaned to a friend and one gone to who knows where?
Yet almost everywhere I looked, there was at least one there.
Each time I went to Walmart, I bought all that were left.
When they were discontinued, you can bet I felt bereft.
Now I’m down to six of them from ten that I have bought,
so I need to keep good track of  them—(all of them I’ve got.)
Precious dear containers that keep my ice intact—
my most dear possessions? Yes. It is a fact!!!!

 

NaPoWriMo, Day 9: Write a poem celebrating an everyday object.

“Python Pariah” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 649, Apr 7, 2024

Python Pariah

The root of all his problems is a bad mood he can’t shake.
Spooning with a garden hose?  A horrible mistake!
Returning now to his old den is not within the cards.
Too humiliating to face his former pards.

Outside it is both cold and wet and ice stands up in slivers.
It’s the sort of weather that can give a snake the shivers. 
Hard to move through ice and snow with neither arm nor limb
and all those constellations of shards of ice on him.

He’s gobbled down a lizard and nibbled on a squirrel,
then lay rigid on the platform until ready to unfurl.
He negotiated train tracks after descending a stair.
Zipped right down the train aisle without paying his fare.

Slipped into the baggage room and curled up in a coil,
rocking with the movement as the train began to roil.
He then passed a dreary spell while digesting his food.
It’s hard to enjoy traveling when in an iffy mood.

When he is finished shivering, then he begins to cough.
He knows not his destination, knows not where he’ll get off.
He only asks that it is warm with places he can hide
and curl up somewhere safe with a real girl snake at his side!

 

The Sunday Whirl Wordle 649 prompt words are: nibbles slithers spoon platform shards root constellations limbs dreary spell shake wet

Swing Shift for NaPoWriMo

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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For NaPoWriMo Day Three :surreal poem. jdb image

Tummy, Dear–For NaPoWriMo Day 2, 2024

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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.