Category Archives: Poem

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.

 

 

Spelunking

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Spelunking

Swimming in my sorrows, I’m obliged, I fear, to share them.
My friends all shrink away and hide, hoping I will spare them.
But worries are a mother lode, and each of us a piner,
tunneling into all our woes like a trauma miner.
Then relating all of them in streams without a comma,
turning everyone we meet into a surrogate momma.

 

Prompt words for today are swim, oblige, sorrow, miner and comma.

Every Saturday Night

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Every Saturday Night

In those final years before television
and long before computers,
we’d fly in unison
to our small town’s
sole scintillating diversion—
following the usher
in
single
file
down
the
narrow
center
aisle,
to sink into that seat closest to the magic screen.

At its first ignition,
our minds automatically shifted
to an outside world
devoid of waving wheat fields,
gravel streets
and minds
consumed
by
cattle,
ballgames,
church
and
books—
diversions
less glamorous
than this view
out into the wide wide world.

Prompt word today are Saturday night, fly, unison, scintillating, automatic and follow. Image by Noom Peerapong on Unsplash.

Preparing for Summer

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Preparing for Summer

When your appetite starts knocking and you crave a light repast,
even though the time since your last meal seems too vast,
tie your cravings to a stanchion and curb their niggling prompt.
Do some calisthenics or take a forest romp.
Defenestrate those Oreos. Resist that peanut brittle.
It takes a lot of will power to make yourself more little.
Dieting’s not easy. Resolution is the pits,
but it will all be worth it when your favorite swimsuit fits!!!!

 

Prompts for today are: knocking, vast, defenestrate, stanchion, forest and peanut brittle.

Anima/Animus

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Click on photos to enlarge. Explanations of the sculpture are given below the poem.

Anima/Animus

The sword of guilt is something I continually hone,
and in this I feel that I am surely not alone.
Guile and temper are not exclusively my sin,
for animus is something that we all carry within.

 

In the early nineteenth century, animus was used to mean “temper” and was typically used in a hostile sense. In 1923, it began being used as a term in Jungian psychology to describe the masculine side of women. The anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man. (Excerpts from Wikipedia) 

The photos are of my mixed media sculpture entitled Anima/Animus.  The detail in the second photo symbolizes the shattering of the male side of the ego by a feminine consciousness. The metal object in the glass case is a small replica of the instrument used to sever heads from bodies in sacrificial preHispanic temple ceremonies. The hammer shattering the glass is meant to symbolize the gentling effect of the feminine on the masculine.

 

Prompt words today are animus, guilt, guile, exclusive and alone.

Rebus

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Prompt words today are excited, accord, glare, rebus, stitch .

Rebus: a puzzle in which words are represented by combinations of pictures and individual letters; for instance, apex might be represented by a picture of an ape followed by a letter X.

Night Terror

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Night Terror

The circuits were all overcharged the night that one livewire
crossed another, triggering an electrical fire.
It was approximately midnight when I brutally awoke,
avulsed from bed and blanket by the acrid plumes of smoke.
Reeling from my dreamworld, plunged into reality,
Suffering from vertigo, I attempted to flee.
Gathered in my father’s arms, comforted by his grasping,
I was rushed into the cool night air, coughing, choking, gasping.
Our neighbors gathered all around to comfort and to gape—
 to give thanks with our family for our safe escape.
Fire whistles shrilling their approaching welcome scream,
I was jerked awake once more from that childhood dream.
And even though I knew those terrors were all in my head,
I padded down the hallway into my parents’ bed. 

 

Prompts today are livewire, approximately, brutal, avulse, overcharge and vertigo.