Category Archives: Poem

Luminous

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Luminous

He surely struck the bullseye when he razed his squalid hovel
and starting out with little else than hammer, saw and shovel,
he raised a lovely edifice seven stories high,
an apartment building most pleasing to the eye.

Making not a single blunder, all the work that he put in
transformed a former eyesore into a brilliant win.
Luminous and shining, this glorious property
became a local landmark that people came to see.

Those who sought to live there were multiform and varied,
for folks of every background loved the energy it carried.
It was a living monument to industry and wit,
qualities reflected in the folks who lived in it.

 

The prompts today are luminous, bullseye, win, blunder, multiform, apartment building and hovel.

The hand-forged hammer in the illustration was my father’s. Its handle is covered in leather rings. It is one of my most treasured objects.

Wind

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Windmills
Kites
Creating electricity
and sneezes.
and drying sheets in the wind

Wind

The breath of the world blows tendrils of hair,
turns windmills and dries white sheets upon a line.
It  twists into a tornado
and lifts a house off its foundations,
sets it down in a mountain meadow
where zephyrs stir the trees.

The breath of the world blows a bee from its branch,
inhales its pollen and puffs it into nostril hairs
that launch a hurricane of sneezes,
sending a whirlwind of powder
from a powdered sugar donut out the window
onto the shoulder of a passing immaculate black tuxedo.

The breath of the world launches sailboats,
   then sends them into safe harbors as it swells into a typhoon.
     As it exhales, it lifts kites high into the air
              and as it inhales, sends them plummeting to earth.
                   It fuels our lungs to blast a wind of words: expletives or adamant prayers,
                              anthems or a tyrant’s raves, benedictions or cheers for a favorite football team.

Windy cities draw their nicknames from the breath of the world.
Wind in the Willows names our books.
Woodwinds breathe out melodies
Wind gives a name to our direction as we struggle windward.
Hurricanes quench our thirst in airless bars.
Breezes give monikers to our dispositions.

Whirlwind, breeze, zephyr,
hurricane, gale, draft, blow,
tornado, crosswind, cyclone—
from gentle puff to wild tornado,
it is  the world’s breath 
that sets everything into motion.

 

 

For the Fake Flamingo September Poetry Challenge  hosted by Rebecca, which was to write a poem about the wind making use of anaphora (a repetition of lines.) Image of sheets in the wind by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash. All other images by me.

The Answer (For Name Scavenger Hunt)

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                                                 The Answer

Another night, another day
Meanders in, then fades away
And still you do not come or call.
No news from you at all, at all.
Do you realize my heart is waiting
As your heart keeps on debating?

 

 

For Looking At Names prompt, we were to write an Acrostic poem using the name Amanda

Lalibela: For Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568

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Lalibela

I kiss the map where memories lie in the vast stillness of the past.
Your broad laugh silenced so long ago that no remnants of it last.
What I had felt and hoped to see mirrored on your joyful face
was demonstrated as you drew me into our first long embrace.

Sparrows swoop those ancient halls where we loved and laughed and talked,
but only whispers of our love echo the chambers where we walked.
That holy place where we first kissed—the ancient pulpit that we found
buried deep within the earth—religious zeal gone underground.

Corridors carved from living stone that could not check the carver’s zeal
foretold my resolution to resist denying what I feel
so many long years afterwards, when lacking sense and reason,
I remember those short months when love bloomed out of season.

 

Prompt words for Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568 are: sparrows vast stillness hope face silent check pulpit lack whisper kiss map

 

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.