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
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
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
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.
Prompt words for the day are buoyant, truncate, lie, credulous, chain and fuming.
Couldn’t resist reblogging this for the dVerse Poets Restaurant Prompt.
The Prompt today was to write a poem that begins and ends with the same word.
“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.
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.
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…
View original post 487 more words
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
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.
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
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.
]
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.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 