Category Archives: Poem

Moonshine

30 Replies

I’ve been having a conversation with Jez who is astonished that I’ve completely worn the letters off ten of the keys on the keyboard of my MacBook Air.  I jokingly said it would be fun to try to compose a poem out of only those ten letters. Actually, nine letters and a period that will come in handy.  The letters are: e i o a s h l n m and . (the period.) The joke is on me, however, as I then felt compelled to actually do it.

Moonshine

Me is I.
Oh.
I am
me.

Shine on
oh moon
on all
I see.

No man
has
his
name
on me.

I am
alone
on
ashen
sea.

A shame
oh shame
anon
anon.

I shine
on him.
He shines
me on.

A sin
a sin
I moan
I moan.

On
a sea
alone
alone.

Seasons
mesh
on moon
on sea.

I am alone.
Moon
shine
on me.

For the final word on those worn-out letters, go HERE. See-saw!!!

Tittynope (Leftovers)

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Self-Portrait by Judy Dykstra-Brown, Mixed Media Assemblage8″X12″

Tittynope

A small bit of time left over on the windowsill of life,
I am no longer daughter, student, siren, wife.
My new definition is to simply be—
one last leaf that’s clinging to the family tree.

Not merely a copy of those who came before,
I tried to build on what they were and add a small bit more.
First coddled but then soon set free to follow my own course,
the path I took led me away from my original source.

Paper, brush and pencil—all things to amuse
led to many pastimes where life was not a ruse.
Soldering irons, glue pots and thing after thing
that wandering through market stalls and flea markets could bring.

Putting them together became a way to be,
journeying out to find them but ending up at me.
And now that I’m together, gathered into one,
I am still collecting, not sure that I am done.

 

Prompts today are coddle, copy, tittynope  (A small quantity of anything left over)   ruse, course and windowsill.

Hindsight

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Hindsight

I admit I was a casualty of your new addition
as you engineered your life into its new rendition.
How could I not have known that there would be a repetition
of the mess you left behind in our love’s fruition?

You drew me like a magnet. I was brazen, cruel and bold.
Reveling in the heat of you, I overlooked the cold
wasteland that you left behind—family, wife and kids—
our new life an adventure that left their lives in the skids.

Now the present situation repeats what once was,
with me the one who’s left behind. Most fitting, though, because
I saw the whole thing once before in a rear vision mirror
as you put the car we fled in into a higher gear.

Prompt words today are brazen, repetition, casualty and magnet.

Colloquy

16 Replies

Colloquy

If you want to float my boat, when you speak your piece,
know when you have made your point and preserve the peace
by resisting going on once you’ve reached your peak.
It’s always best to stop and give others time to speak.

It’s often a consensus that brings matters to right.
Like oil on fire, those who know it all only ignite
conflagrations that make bringing matters to a close
impossible as they attempt their theories to impose.

As tempers flare and anger mounts and epithets are hurled,
as in a drive-by shooting, rank chaos is unfurled.
Pure reason makes its calm retreat, waiting for the day
when each one speaks and then allows others to have their say.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 585  the prompt words are: boat preserve speak resist oil fire drive fly shoot matter close right.

By and By

3 Replies

By and By

Lately, when she couldn’t sleep, she debated whether
she should forsake winter for a more salubrious weather.
Hidden under blankets with a heater at her feet,
she dreamed of balmy breezes and the sunlight’s heat.

In less than a day, she could drive down to the border
and find a small posada where she could sit and order
margaritas by the pitcherful beside a sunlit sea—
a novel fallen from her hand, a chihuahua on her knee.

Tacos or enchiladas? In her hometown, she’d be loath
to order either one of them, but here she’d order both,
all her peccadillos unviewed by censoring eye.
She pledged an oath to do it in the by and by.

Prompt words today are border, both, salubrious, peccadillo, winter and hidden.

“. . . In the sweet by and byWe shall meet on that beautiful shoreIn the sweet by and byWe shall meet on that beautiful shore . . .”


—lyrics by S. Fillmore Bennett and music by Joseph  P. Webster

Fallen Woman

6 Replies

Sam has asked what tree we would choose to be and perhaps this is fudging a bit, but this  is a poem I wrote a few years ago about the tree I am no doubt fated to become:

Fallen Woman

For Sam’s prompt: https://mcouvillion.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/which-tree-would-you-be/

This Year’s Additions

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This Year’s Additions

They jockey for attention and steal the old dog’s ball.
When I try to calm them down, it does no good at all.
To get any quiet time, I have to lock them out.
Paths worn through the garden show where they’ve run about.

They commandeer my deck chairs in spite of my requests
that they should surrender them to my party guests.
They  make off with my underwear for a tug-of-war
so it has been three times now I’ve had to order more.

Puppies are enchanting when one first gains custody,
but they jump up on my lap each time I try to pee.
When I go to bed at night, exhausted from my day,
that’s the time they want to join me for frenetic play.

They walk across my laptop to burrow in my hair.
They are an energizer bunny sort of pair.
My sister says I’m crazy. Two puppies in one year?
But the first one was so tiny and the second was so dear.

Their delight in each other so delighted me
that I had to add them to our family tree.
Three dogs and two cats, it’s true, is probably too many.
The only thing that would be worse is if I hadn’t any!!!

 

Prompt words today are path, custody, enchanting, jockey and ball.

Home for the Holidays

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Home for the Holidays

The advent of a new year has me in a tizzy,
feeling discombobulated, very nearly dizzy.
For no matter how experienced I am in greeting new years,
It suddenly occurs to me that there are very few years
left for me to celebrate, so I will not roam 
far from that place I love best. I’ll celebrate at home.

Prompt words today are tizzy, advent, experienced.

Plethora

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Plethora

If I had any gumption, I’d attack that backlog of
poems that I have written about life and death and love.
Fantastic in their numbers, those poems exist in piles,
bound in three-ring binders and squeezed into hanging files.

Thy cluster in my consciousness, swim nightly through each dream.
They are both strength and weakness as they stretch out, ream on ream.
They allow me no real leisure, for they’re everywhere I look,
begging for confinement in a magazine or book.
They crave to be collected between front and back cover,
but in spite of resolutions, I  simply write another.

This poem and these photos are  no exaggeration. I have 13 file cabinet drawers plus one big bin and a few piles, binders and stacks that contain poems and stories I’ve run off, or ideas for new ones.  I have no idea now many poems I have in my blog and computer that I’ve never run off. 

Prompt words today are fantastic, weakness, backlog, gumption, allow and cluster.

Conjoinings (Interspecies and Otherwise)

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Conjoinings (Interspecies and Otherwise)

Spiders have spiderlings, cats have their kittens.
Elbow-length gloves perhaps produce mittens.
Whenever a boy cockroach happens to mount her,
a girl cockroach procreates right on my counter!

Such coteries tend to insist on inbreeding,
but the world’s solidarity comes from cross-seeding.
Thus, mermaids lure sailors onto the rocks
for intercourse better confined to their docks.

When horses and zebras conjoin, then of course,
the end is a hebra, or perhaps  a zorse?
A tiger from Asia and lion from Niger
might call their offshoot a tion or liger.

The tone of this poem? I admit it is crass.
It ends with a haddock  shtupping a bass.
resulting in baddocks or perhaps a hass.
Another stanza? Bet you’re glad that I pass!!

Prompt words are spiderling, tone, solidarity, coterie, counter and dock.