Category Archives: Poem

Just Be You

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Just Be You

When I look into your eyes,
your potential to improvise
and mold yourself to any guise
tells me that your talent lies
in the fine art of disguise.

You could give a master session
in the changes of expression
to obscure extreme depression,
thereby forestalling confession 
of your doom and gloom obsession.

Why not just be who you are?
Reality can get you far.
When you feel you’re under par,
just show the truth and raise the bar,
and of your life, become the star.

MVB’s prompt today is improvise. Since it is the only one posted so far, I’m going to go ahead and dedicate my entire poem to this one word.

The Fruits of My Labors

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The Fruits of My Labors

I drink smoothies for stamina. Somehow, they maker me brighter.
If I skip one for one day, I’m a more mundane writer.
I grow the fruit right in my yard: papaya plump and round,
and the freshest bananas—as delicious as they sound.

Together, they form food for thought and make me much less grouchy.
My skin acquires a healthy glow. My eyelids are less pouchy.
When I mix these fruits together with oat milk and some berries
and drink them down, all editors respond to my queries.

What we put into our mouths comes out in our thoughts.
Mixed up in our blender or boiled in our pots,
they form a magic elixir, a wild creative brew
that when you imbibe in it, will inspire you!

Today’s prompt words are stamina, drink, mundane, grouch, mix and writer.

Change of Menu

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Change of Menu

Though my visitor is an excellent cook
who bought a fresh fish right off of the hook,
 he said although sturgeon is usually reliable,
he found that this one was sadly not fryable.

Somehow, its innards were too well united
which meant that the rest of it could not be bited.
The end of the story is simply that
we tossed the fish to the dog and the cat,

got into the car and took a small ride
to purchase burgers with fries on the side.
The irony, though, of our untasted sturgeon
is that my guest was a prominent surgeon!

Prompt words are visitor, united, reliable, cook and prominent, Image by John Cameron on Unsplash.

Day of the Dead

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1953

Click on photos to enlarge.

Day of the Dead

It is that spooky time of year when dead folk walk about.
They lasso wild horses to ride, without a doubt.
They leave their earthy prisons and slake their appetites
with dead bread and with other toothsome proffered bites.
Their crimson eyes shine brightly this one night of the year,
as they slake their year-long thirsts for mescal or for beer.

Each year their thoughtful mortals replenish altars nightly,
putting out their favorite brews and foods for them, politely.
They fill town squares with altars that honor friends departed,
revealing that their memories have remained open-hearted.
Candles light their way for them and marigolds form highways
that mark their paths toward friendly altars from their ghostly byways.

Dia de los Muertos is that night that spirits roam,
renewing those past pathways that have led their footsteps home.
If you doubt their coming, view their pathways in the morning
to see how they have visited you, silent, without warning.
Some say it is the field mice that have nibbled on the bread,
but those of faith know that it was their beloved ones instead!

Prompt words today are replenish, prison, crimson, spooky, and politely.

His Hopes: Love Messages

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His Hopes: Love Messages

Long after sleep is over and you’ve made your morn’s retreat,
I find an image of your kiss pressed into my sheet.
It summarizes passion and the pounding beat
of two dazzled lovers united in their heat.
I gently kiss your absent lips and smooth the cover neat,
hoping that tonight you will return for a repeat.

 

Prompt words today are sleep, summarize, dazzle, beat, lipstick.

Art and Acquisitions

10 Replies
Bob Brown, Artist
Carol Lopez, artist
DePaul Durham, artist
Art Studio
Jan Golik, artist
Pablo Picasso
Bob Brown sculpture and visitor
Young artist
Accumulated
Tree House Art Studio
Art Studio
But, to be fair, the root of all evil is also what feeds the artists who create so much beauty in the world.

(Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.)

Art and Acquisitions

Those who patronize fine art
start out congenial at the start
but then upset the apple cart
by arriving early at the mart
and increasing rate and pace
so they can win the prestige race
by obstinately using cash
to win the collector’s ten-yard-dash.

Marble statues and fine oils
are thus simply used as foils
used within the competition
between those whose one ambition
is to amass all those things
that a pile of money brings.

But in fact, it is the making
of great art, and not the taking
that produces joy in living.
Buying can’t compete with giving.

Prompt words for today are congenial, race, marble, obstinancy,   patronize,  art

Father/Daughter Discourse

33 Replies

Dear Daughter:

Your frenetic new admirer is not my cup of tea,
for even though I told him that he’d have to let you be,
he resorts to tactics like climbing that big tree
to gain visual access to our property.

You, too, must be incisive in telling him to cease
if you’d like his constant efforts to come to a surcease.
For though I am your father, he allots to me no power
but simply remains stubbornly in his leafy bower.

His persistent efforts prove that he is from that faction
that they label OCD, for he shows no reaction
to my constant pleas, so do you agree with me
that it’s necessary to just cut down the tree?

Dear Papa:

Alas, though my new suitor is not your cup of tea,
I find that his flavor is agreeable to me.
I am not your teenage daughter, for I’m almost thirty-three.
So please do not molest him, and do not cut down his tree.

It is a fact, dear parent, I’m of marriageable age.
So cease with your obsession and curb parental rage.
It’s time to cut the apron strings and set your daughter free,
for I prefer another perch to my father’s knee!

 

Prompt words are frenetic, incisive, faction, allot, and almost.

A Tinder Rebuttal

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A Tinder Rebuttal

Stranger conversations may have taken place,
presenting arbitrary details with vehemence and haste.
With insubstantial logic spouted too close to my face,
the slab of beef in front of me was sure to go to waste.
I rued the day I’d made the swipe on Tinder to the right.
I knew that if I answered it would end up in a fight,
but if I was too lenient in pointing out the flaws
in his conspiracy theories, it might be worse, because
one inch given, one foot taken with such crazy sorts of gents,
and so I shoved my plate away and jumped down from the fence,
packed my steak into my go-bag and decided not to linger,
shoving back my chair to leave, I proffered him my finger.
With folks like him, I’d realized, logic is absurd,
so I made my rebuttal without a single word!

 

 

Prompt words are stranger, insubstantial, arbitrary, lenient, slab and conversation.
Image by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash.

Sobriquet

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Sobriquet

He is an aficionado of all things fine and rare.
He judges friends on what they eat as well as what they wear.
His taste is never arbitrary. He knows what is right,
and contrary preferences are sure to cause a fight.

Intricate directions are issued to his staff
and any omission is a fireable gaffe.
So, though he showers every day and his name is Jack,
Everybody calls him “Old Sour Balls” to his back.

 

Prompt words today are aficionado, intricate, , arbitrary, contrary, bathroom and sour balls. Image by Yerling Villalobos on Unsplash.

Blade and Balm be

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Blade and Balm

Here in a crevice near my heart,
the grief I field does not depart.
Lodged in the depths beneath my skin,
it harbors pain trapped tight within.
Lifted from the depths below,
my heart succumbs to thoughts of woe.

Its edges cut like sharpest steel
insisting I recall and feel.
The wild tides tumble me again,
salting my tears with waves of pain.
Its murmurs stir, then rock me calm.
offering me a soothing balm.

Ancestors reach up from the deep
to lull me to a restful sleep.
These bruises that I bear today
are the price that generations pay
for life that harbors treasures, too,
along with sadnesses we rue.

For Wordle 575 the prompts are: grief field skin depths edge salt murmuring bruises ancestors lifted crevice wants