Category Archives: Poem

Mentor

Mentor 

He’s an agent of enchantment, the guru of his flock—
a professor who can mesmerize with ordinary talk.
A master of expression, his descriptions weave their spells
that hold students in their thrall through the stories that he tells.

They copy down in notebooks each word that he has shared,
humbled by the wisdom  of the heart that he has bared.
They will never know that their stunning visionary
is inspired by Wikipedia as well as Wiktionary.

Prompt words today are copy, description, enchantment, flock, professor and express.

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Have you heard the allegory of enchanted mountain
with its chocolate boulders and raspberry soda fountain?
Snow on the top is ice cream, but beware, for it’s precipitous
and only accessible to the most felicitous
children who the lessons of politeness have well-learned.
Children who are naughty and selfish will be spurned.
If you think this is impossible and just a silly story,
remember that I told you that it is an allegory.
The wisdom that it teaches is good manners are rewarded,
and though there is no list in life where they are all recorded,
still life tends to give back to us exactly what we give.
If you desire sweet things, that’s what you have to give.

 

Prompt words today are mountain, spontaneous,
allegory, felicitousice and enchanted,

Puppy Antics

Puppy Antics

With her instinct for mischief, my puppy is remarkable.
Every falling leaf to her is an occasion barkable.
Her sister and her brother and sometimes even me
are all her dupes as any looker-on can clearly see.

She steals her brother’s food and he just lets her be,
his look displaying an expression of futility.
She steals Yolanda’s dusting rags to stage a tug-of-war,
then drags her mop when she’s not looking, clear across the floor.

She must reconnoiter each bare ankle that walks by.
First she licks it wet , but if you wait, she’ll lick it dry.
Then she’ll tug your pants cuff or masticate your shoe,
investigating with her tongue each tasty part of you.

She’s ripped to shreds four pairs of pants, my duvet and my tote,
my tarahumara basket, a two-hundred peso note,
the corners of two cabinets and my poetic papers.
No exposed object’s sacrosanct from her destructive capers.

But when I lock her in her pen for moments of reflection,
she greets her isolation with such whines of pure dejection,
It’s lucky for my puppy that she is so gol-darn cute
that each threatened sentence I’ve chosen to commute.

Prompt words today are mischief, remarkable, futility, dupe, instinct and dry.

Bad puppy videos below. Unfortunately, Youtube will try to take you off in a different direction after each one so you’ll need to come back to this post to see each of the others.

 

 

More bad puppy videos:

 

Procrastination

Procrastination

The imminent future seems iffy at best.
The door to tomorrow reveals a dark test.
Have we rationed our resources, saved for tomorrow?
Will deviations from reason cause future sorrow?
Spatially crowded, our cities all choke
in the fumes of their progress—nature’s cruel joke.
We write words like ECOLOGY large, in italics,
hope it will protect like the arms of a calyx,
think it will create a healing reaction,
and yet it will not, ’til we put it in action.

 

Today’s prompt words from six different sites are imminent, door, spatial, ration, deviation and italics.

My First Poem Ever

I have been going through three big cartons that among them contain every letter anyone has ever written to me in my life and even a number of my own that my mother saved as I was traveling around the world in my younger wilder years.  In the very bottom of one box, I found  a card I made for my mother when I was six years old with the very first poem I ever wrote on it.  It’s pretty beaten up but Forgottenman insists I should share it here.  I’m including photos of the different pages. The cover is a doily with three dimensional flowers on it but consider that it has been rattling around in my mother’s top junk drawer or in a box with a ton of other paper things for 69 years, so its condition reflects this.  Here it is. Click on each photo to enlarge and read the poem: 

What is the very earliest example of your writing? Wanna share with us? If so, please link in comments below:

Bad Holiday Attitudes

I unfortunately didn’t take photos of most of the Christmas ornament devastation described in the below poem, except for the one unfortunate angel found in the yard today, so I will make do with  more of today’s latest.  The pieces of the cushion shown , now collected, were spread over the entire lawn and patio. My day’s exercise was collecting them all and stuffing them back into their cushion, then throwing it away. Luckily the garbage had not been collected so I unstuffed a bit for photo purposes. She also chewed the ties off most of the chair cushions in the garden and the corner off the cushion for the lounge chair.The bedroom duvet is my newest. This is a very recent thing, destroying bedding. Trying to decide what to do. To be fair to Coco, I think most of this devastation is created by Zoe. Pasiano says it is because she’s the smallest and trying to prove her moxie. In that case, she has succeeded.

Bad Holiday Attitudes

My energetic puppies are meddlesome at best.
They seek to alter their milieu with destructive zest.
They create a fizzy ambience on patio and lawn
by spreading lawn chair cushion stuffing all hither and yon.

They parade my Christmas banner throughout my lower yard,
sowing its bits and shreds between the onions and the chard.
No matter at what altitude we hang the decorations,

they seem able to reach them to appease their mastications.

They shred what ornaments they find on tabletop and trees.
climbing up and leaping at whatever they can seize.
A dismembered Santa Claus lies nestled in the hay
where once slept baby Jesus, who’s securely tucked away

beneath the new poinsettia, sadly unidentifiable.
His restoration is, I fear, now totally unviable.
So, unless my naughty canine friends speed up their maturations,
Next year I think that I’ll attempt way fewer decorations.

Prompt words today are fizzy, meddlesome, altitude, milieu, onion and banner.

Costume Check: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #588


Costume Check

Let me stand here for a moment hidden in the shade,
for my tank top strap is broken right by my shoulder blade.
I’ll shuffle off to mend it when the band starts up again,
but will stand here nearly silent as a statue until then.

My arms are wrapped around me, holding things in place,
for with one side that’s set free, I’m not ready to face
the folks up in the grandstand staring down at me.
Their half-time entertainment I do not want to be!

I’m a living manifestation of how things fall apart,
for the garment that once hugged my frame now hangs below my heart.
The breeze blows yellow pollen downward from the trees
to coat my arms and shoulders and makes me want to sneeze.

Oh that I’d brought the handy shawl Mom thought that I should bring,
I’d now be in the powder room, fixing everything.
Instead, I stand here cross-armed wishing eyes could be averted
so their perusals of my chest could thereby be diverted.

Prompts for The Sunday Whirl Wordle are: shoulder powdery wraps broken shuffle blade stand moment again nearly silence. Image by Racool on Freepix.

Gossip Girl


Gossip Girl

She always shilly-shallies, so
is extraordinarily slow.
Shopping takes her for forever
for she never ever ever
just does what she has come to do
without a bit of gossip, too.
In other words, it’s cash and tarry
for her instead of cash and carry.

Prompt words are shilly-shally, slow, ordinarily, gossip and forever. 

Fashion Reveal

 

Fashion Reveal

Though once judged diabolical , with no rhyme nor reason,
my acts once labeled as commitments of the highest treason,
I have at last been vindicated, judgements now reversed
and I can hold my head up high—an action I’ve rehearsed.

Though once I cowered in my room, at the limits of my sanity,
waiting for the world’s conversion from  its rude inanity,
I’m ready to come out again now all the world agrees
that it is cool to wear your jeans when ripped out at the knees.

Shredded around the ankles, slashed along the thighs,
butt cheeks half revealed to any passing viewer’s eyes.
What once I was reviled for, when down on my luck,
is the coolest fashion now that intact Levis suck.

Prompt words for the day are limit, vindicated, room, diabolic, ready and high. Image by Tyler Nix on Unsplash.

Bad Actor

Bad Actor

Why are you now limping? Dish me out the dirt.
Are you a malingerer or are you really hurt?
It seems as though you are in pain, especially since
each step you take is punctuated  by a little wince.

Feigning discomfort’s sinful—neither savvy nor a notion,
and this you should consider if you’re seeking a promotion.
You must ban such actions and revise your plans anew
to remain a member of my retinue.

Prompt words today are punctuate, malinger, sinful, savvy, ban and promotion.