Category Archives: Poem

Tough Girl

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Tough Girl

She’s a diamond in the rough,
shiny, beautiful and tough.
Not one to be steered by force,
she’ll decide her lifetime’s course.
Not likely to be shamed or battered,
no way will her dreams be shattered.
She will boggle macho men,
for she won’t play the cackling hen.
Won’t be distracted from her goal
of what she feels to be her role.
Be just what she wants to be,
undeflected by any “he.”

Prompts today are boggle, shattered, distracted, cackle, decide and diamond. Image by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash.

New Years Eve: Wordle 586

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New Years Eve

Scraps of mindless party chatter
whispered behind backs don’t matter.
Clink of glasses, passed hors d’ouvres,
mastering those party nerves.

Which old boyfriend is a rat?
Which college roommate got so fat?
How have you handled life so far?
What new degree? What brand of car?

Be you in hut or stately castle,
lift your glass or raise the wassail.
Quit petty talk and ribald laughter
and in the silence that comes after,

cash in on the quietude,
of this less ribald interlude
to give your thanks for what has passed
and pledge your petty gripes won’t last!

For Wordle 586 The Sunday Whirl the prompt word are: back chatter laughs glasses champ scrap cash rat handle master pass castle

Spinning Tales

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When I talkied about my laptop computers not lasting much longer than five years, Martha Kennedy commented “Same here. All one (of mine) does is play YouTube I project on my TV monitor for riding the Bike to Nowhere.”  When I commented that I’d like to steal, with attribution, that phrase “Bike to Nowhere” and write a poem about it, she generously agreed, so here it is:

Spinning Tales

As I go spinning on the bike to nowhere,
imagination knows no bounds.
Earlier adventures catch up to me,
jump on the handlebars and  hitch a ride.

Riding the highway shoulders
north and south and east—
gravel corridors with their destinations
too far away to ever be reached.

Lunch in a brown paper bag,
top twisted in the bike’s basket.
My tan Hiawatha,
my best friend’s blue Schwinn.

Passed up by boys
with fishing rods
fastened to rear fenders,
somewhere to go revealed
by their hurry to get there.

Our kick stands
useless in the soft dirt,
our bikes lie toppled over
beside us.

As we lie flat-backed in the grass
beside the North Dam,
we hear them cast their lines, again and again,
into the fruitless water.

My ham salad, her peanut butter,
potato chips in a twist-tie baggie—
all I remember of earlier rides
almost lost to memory.

 

 

Life Experience, for dVerse Poets

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Life Experience

A soul need not be in the know
to boldly come and boldly go.
You’re likely not to move an inch
if you are prone to falter  and to flinch 
because you fear you lack the knowledge
earned by those who’ve gone to college,

 

For dVerse Quadrille Challenge: Bold

You can find the dVerse Poets Pub prompt HERE.

Moonshine

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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

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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

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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

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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/