Category Archives: Poem

Dining Alone at the Maria Bonita Restaurant Bar (Day 18 of NaPoWriMo)

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Couldn’t resist reblogging this for the dVerse Poets Restaurant Prompt.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

The Prompt today was to write a poem that begins and ends with the same word.

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“Dining Alone at the Maria Bonita Restaurant Bar”

Smoldering.

Señor Garcia is smoking today.
Below him,
Maria Phoenix lies on satin sheets
on the wall of Maria Bonita Restaurant Bar.

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It is a small palapa restaurant––soft orange front with
hot pink trim–– that I’ve driven by hundreds of times before;
and every time, I’ve wanted to come in, but haven’t.
Now today, suddenly,
I don’t want to go home
and so my car turns in across the carretera.

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I am the lone customer.
The cook and waiter
spring to action.
Totopos for him to bring,
a fire for her to light.
This is a fish restaurant
and I am a non-fish
eater, choosing between
quesadillas and beans
or a hamburger and fries.
Needless to say, I’m not here for the food.

I am…

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Morning Cuppas

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Cup of Java?
Cuppa Tea?

Cups of Java or Cups of Tea? Me, I just need my:

Morning Couplets

Every single day for years, my morning’s not replete
until my poem is published—polished and complete.

I meander through my sentences until I think they’re done,
and then I herd them into shape—each metaphor and pun.

My need is pathological to get them all just right.
I love words’ sensuality, their pathos and their bite.

Though some have a reluctance to show up when I call them,
there’s a satisfaction when I finally recall them.

What would I do with mornings if I had no words to play with?
There’d be nothing else for me to find to fill my day with!

Prompts for today are meander, sentence, pathological, replete, reluctance.

Midnight Communion

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Midnight Communion

Grass dampened by the night air sprouts beneath me as I lie
here beneath the swirling stars that spark an empty sky.
The moon sketches my shadow against the garden wall,
temporary art that holds me in its thrall.
Caught up in the orbit of a world that must astound me,
I am sister to a universe that’s breathing all around me.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 565. the words are: damp stars sparks swirl sisters breathe empty sprouting shadows sketch orbit art. Image by Josh Miller @Unsplash.

First Crush

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Prompts today are understand, whim, approval, hinder, systematic and absolutley.

Lately I am finding that every other poem or so shows up in the reader in paragraph form rather than in centered stanzas. Has anyone else found this to be true? To try to remedy it, today I took a screen shot of the poem and published it as a media file rather than the regular way. I’d be interested in hearing your comments about how this affects your viewing and also hearing from those having the same problem.  Thanks, Judy

Belvedere

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Belvedere

Strolling through the belvedere at sunset, just with you,
I pretended that I’d brought you here for the uncanny view.

Yet I really formed a rapt audience of one.
You are the only view I seek when the day is done.

I’m just your part time lover, and yet I must confess
that when I see your line of jaw, your hair braid or your dress,

it catapults my heart into regions that are new.
I’d like to make a wallpaper of visions just of you

so that all the whole day long, whatever I might do,
I could live forever surrounded by your view.

 

Prompt words today are part time, Belvedere, catapult, wallpaper, audience and uncanny.

A belvedere or belvidere is an architectural structure sited to take advantage of a fine or scenic view. The term has been used both for rooms in the upper part of a building or structures on the roof, or a separate pavilion in a garden or park.  And, it is also a brand of Vodka!!!

Holding on and Letting Go

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Holding on and Letting Go

Invariably, our enemies will become more surreal,
flushed into our memories—consigned to how we feel.

Every niggling worry and each old friend who’s lost
added to dreadful feelings that leave us tempest-tossed.

Life seeks remuneration, be it justified or not,
and we pay with guilt for sorrows that we might have wrought.

Time renders us more docile but our guilts become much stronger,
until we decide that we can deal with them no longer.

Then life slips away with one long slide and then a gasp
as all that we’ve held onto is released from our tight grasp.

 

Prompt words today are flush, surreal, docile, remunerated, enemy and invariably.

Seduction

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Seduction

The canvas is my suitor. It holds me in its sway,
seduces me with reaching arms that draw my brush its way.
I paint upon its surface and in turn it draws me out.
All those pains I hide inside on canvas learn to shout.

It stands mostly unnoticed when others are around,
attracting no attention and making not a sound,
but when alone, it prompts me to bare my soul to it,
and all the angst that crowds my mind finds a place to fit.

Written for this prompt: https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2022/08/01/what-do-you-see-145-august-1-2022/  Image by Marti Alonso @ Unsplash

Romantic Fling

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Romantic Fling

It takes tremendous willpower to duck a louche rogue’s charm,
for something deep within us believes he means no harm.
His appeal is so humongous and his influence so great
that although we know at heart that he’d make a lousy mate,
still we can’t resist him. He piques romantic hopes
that make swashbuckling heroes out of misanthropes.

We bundle up our doubts and cast them overhead,
our fond expectations cancelling out our dread.
We jump into a love story we hope is never-ending,
knowing deep within ourselves its probable sad ending.
But nonetheless, we fall in love, in spite of our friends’ censure,
plunging into a fabulous romance-filled adventure!

Prompt words for today are louche, willpower, pique, humongous,
our  and influences.Image by jdb

louche: disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.
“the louche world of the theater”

A “Golden Years” Rebuttal

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A “Golden Years” Rebuttal

Those who call these “Golden Years “deserve my blunt oration,
for getting older, you should know, ain’t no free vacation!
The abundant pains of aging for sure are not a bonus,
for to suffer silently seems to be our onus.

Our skin’s variegations you may think are bad tattoos,
but what you see as sub-par art, alas, is just a bruise
from taking our blood thinners. Every blot and every dot
is a new reminder of a bumping that we got.

When you bring us nuts and caramel, we thank you for your ventures,
but we do not mention we can’t eat them with our dentures!
“Old age ain’t for sissies,” is an adage often told,
so I am not the first to bemoan this getting old.

 

(Just kidding, Dolly.) Prompt words today are caramel, abundant, oration, variegation, and golden. Retablo and photo by jdb.

Animal Nature: Sunday Whirl Wordle 563

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Animal Nature

The spirit of a hollow moon slides sideways under cover
through a crack in heavy clouds that spread apart to hover.
An owl soars by on silent wings to seek his midnight feast,
the power of moonlit talons unleashed on tiny beast.
Another sacred life is sacrificed for hunger’s sake.
It’s all in nature’s plan, and yet I feel the mouse’s ache.

 

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 563 the words are: crack sideways covers feast ache power hollow spirits sacred owl lit heavy. Photos by jdb. Mosaic by Mazinka Rutherford, La Manzanilla, Mexico.