Category Archives: Poem

Shelled Sanctity

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Shelled Sanctity

This retreat for turtles in the mountains of Nepal
has the godliest turtles on our Earthly spinning ball.

See the holiest of holies in their tiny saffron robes,
doing daily meditations by pushing tiny globes

first eastward and then westward with a pointed beak,
defining piety by actions instead of how they speak.

See lurking in the shadows, a million tiny ants,
bending low to watch their passing, those tiny sycophants—

who profess to kiss the ground that the turtles walk upon,
but instead just make use of the paths they’ve made when they are gone.

Busy small collectors, they build layer upon layer
of food to nourish bodies, but murmur not a prayer

in thanks for what they’re given, for they know right well
proper thanks is being given by the Brothers of the Shell.

 

Prompts today are lurking, define, saffron, satirical, godliest, turtles and sycophant.

Tryst, for the Sunday Swirl Wordle 567

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Tryst

I try to breathe the mountains as I travel through the night.
The reaching arms of towering trees no terrors do ignite.

The growls of hidden creatures as I challenge their domain
build my determination and strengthen my disdain.

The moon and stars will light my way until the coming dawn.
No regrets erase my firm resolve to journey on.

My skin relays the message that relieves all my distress,
as it receives the comfort of the evening wind’s caress.

A whip-poor-will calls out to me from its perch above
that the very night protects me as I proceed toward my love.

 

Prompts for The Sunday Swirl Wordle 567 are: build challenge erase skin growl firm
night regrets until breathe mountains try

 

 

Love Lost, Love Gained

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“Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.”

Love Lost, Love Gained

Since my true love just up and left,
there’s no relief. I am bereft.

No matter how much I expound,
help is nowhere to be found.

Come, wipe the memory of his face.
Let, then, a new love take its place.

“Us” bleached out from my memory,
kiss wiped so a new kiss may be,

and so forsake this moan and vetting.
Part of love lies in forgetting.

For the dVerse Poets prompt, we were to take one of the given lines and to make a poem of it, using each word of the line, in order, as the the beginning word in each line of our poem. The the line I chose precedes the poem: “Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.”

For dVerse Poets
To see other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

That Last Infernal Prompt

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She said: Feeling sad.

That Last Infernal Prompt

She was the only casualty of the delphic clue
so obscure no other blogger knew quite what to do
with a word like “xiphisternal.” What other site was rude
enough to pose a prompt word so juvenile and crude?

She tried to write a ballad that would win her wide renown.
Instead, the stress of writing it was what brought her down.
That heart attack (her cause of death) was ironically infernal,
for the last pain that she felt on earth was sadly xiphisternal

 

Prompt words today are juvenile, casualty, ballad, delphic, xiphisternal and down.
To save your looking it up as I was forced to do,  the xiphisternal joint (or xiphisternal symphysis) is a location near the bottom of the sternum, where the body of the sternum and the xiphoid process meet.

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2022 Fashion

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2022 Fashion

There is a dearth of luxury in fashions of today.
All the garments made of fur have been tucked away.
Zibelline and beaver, chinchilla, mink and fox
hide in the back of closets or in the remnants box.

The most ardent fashionista wears clothes shapeless as kelp.
Shoulder pads and belts and pads do not seem to help.
They walk runways like branches stripped down to their bark:
minimal and twiggy, sparse and wan and stark.

Lace and ruffles banished, hot Goth is all the rage.
Tractor Trek-Sole boots and chunky loafers stalk the stage.
Sweater vests and crop-tops, shabby chic and Y2K
have replaced silks and satins, mohair and chambray.

Power Bohemian florals compete with color clashing
For what the trend-setters of the day find most chic and dashing.
The only good that I can see in these current fashion rages
is that fewer animals are being kept in cages!

Prompt words for today are kelp, ardent, branch, dearth, zibelline, shapeless.

 

Love’s Highway

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Love’s Highway

A pilgrim on this long highway of love, he quickly learned how to forsake what was lucrative in favor of what was genuine. He learned how to first cover-up his pain from love’s last skirmish and finally, how to heal.

“Faint heart never won fair lady” and “Hope springs eternal!” became his slogans and in the end, persistence won out. He celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary  today, and their celebratory cake read, “Still Companions on Love’s Highway.”

Prompts today are heal, lucrative, pilgrim, genuine, springs and cover-up.

Morning Chorus

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Morning Chorus

Morning opens one eyelid,
casting eyelash shadows
across the terraza. 
The small dog whines a greeting
as the dogwalker opens the garden gate.
Tap tap of woodpecker in the tallest palm.
Echo of church bells.
Only the first sunrays
silent in this early morn.

For dVerse Poets 
HERE is the prompt.

Druthers

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Druthers

Exemplarily patient when dealing with cats
and rabbits and dogs and hamsters and rats,
trivial matters dealing with mankind
more often than not unsettled her mind.

People toyed with emotions and also, I fear,
were petty and often grossly insincere.
They closed off emotions or tried to be clever—
duplicitous acts that a cat or dog never

would dream to display, for they were what they were,
be it kitten or tiger or show dog or cur.
When out in public or behind  a closed door,
pets are what they are and they are nothing more.

Be they lazy or edgy or tame or unruly,
it will be their true selves on view to yours truly.
People can be puzzling, but not so a pet,
What you see with an animal is what you get!

 

 

 

Prompt word today are toy, closed,  trivial, exemplarily. Image of parakeet by Den Trushtin. All others by me.

In A Society of Women

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2007

In A Society of Women

No patriarchal dominance rears its violent head.
Birth fluids and menses are the only lifeblood shed.
No lifted guns or measured gait. No uniform or boot
disturbs the regal silence of the calmness at our root.

Spontaneity rules the day. We follow no set path.
Not guided by testosterone, we do not extoll wrath.
The crack of no whip guides us. We can’t be led like sheep.
You cannot boss or bully us. We live by what we reap.

Your rules buzz around us like mosquitos in the brain,
centered around principals that we hold in disdain.
Dominance and power and unlimited riches
would not be an option in a world that’s run by bitches!

Prompt words today are crack, mosquito, spontaneity, patriarchal, root and moonlight.

False Prospects

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False Prospects

The young are often credulous—open to chains of lies—
reaching out for the brass ring, desirous of the prize.

Hopeful, naive and buoyant, they flit from thing to thing,
desirous of the riches they hope that fate will bring.

With age their hopes are truncated as reason rears its head
and they discover the reality of what life gives instead.

Toil, sweat and labor and responsibility
supersede those youthful dreams of nobility.

Fuming with fate’s injustice, we are pulled into line,
as sour grapes replace youth’s hopeful dreams of honey wine.

This is a dreary little poem and not really reflective of my experience in life, but blame the prompt words and the fact that I have to be at art camp in an hour!!!!!

 

Prompt words for the day are buoyant, truncate, lie, credulous, chain and fuming.