Category Archives: Poem

Conversing with Betty

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All paintings by Betty Peterson. Click on photos of paintings to enlarge. The reflection of my hands superimposed over the hand in her painting was purely accidental, but I love the implication of our work being combined in this piece.  R.I.P. Betty, friend of twenty years. The one sketch and watercolor of me was done in a small bar/restaurant in Tequila as we were waiting for my broken-down van to be fixed on our way to the U.S.  The other painting of me she gave to me as a surprise, using a photo I had in my blog. She added Morrie, not realizing this was a photo of me in my wedding dress in 1987. Love how Morrie was suddenly transported back in time.

Conversing with Betty

You are the first person I see every morning—
there on my wall and hanging from my curtain rods––
your heart and talent painted onto watercolor paper,
matted, framed and preserved under glass.

Your  freed spirit spreads out into my room like memory––
the sorties to find pre-Columbian treasures,
van breakdowns on the road to Tequila and road trips to the border,
shared secrets, successes and heartbreaks.

My friend, your life expired while mine still runs its course,
but you have left the women you gave birth to
 behind you on paper and on canvas.
Their eyes follow me upon my rising, look over me in my sleep.

In them, I retain the best of you
here in my heart and on my walls,
grateful to have you still around me,
conversing in our favorite language.

Serial Lover

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Serial Lover

He was skillful at his art: a lover and romancer.
For every question of the heart he had a valid answer.
Pivotal to all his charms was his savoir faire.
He had a knightly bearing—a quality most rare.

No lady could resist his charms or deny the thrust
of his passionate ardor. He always won their trust.
And although perhaps at first they might have hesitated,
In the end, each maid he wooed at last  cooperated.

But when the heat of passion turned inevitably cold,
and he wiped the slate clean, though he never kissed and told,
he’d move on to another challenge of the heart,
forget his last night’s ardor and make a brand new start.

 

 

 

Prompts for the day are clean slate, answer, thrust, pivotal and cooperate.

Be Careful What You Wish For

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Be Careful What You Wish For

The sky was dark and oorie the day of the premiere,
and approaching the red carpet, the star expressed a fear
her gown hem would be sullied as she passed through the morass
and the tabloids would just note the stains instead of her fine ass.

“Please tell them not to mention my less-than-perfect garb,
she spat out at her agent in her customary barb.
And her look was sullen as she left her limousine,
less glamorous than that depicted on the movie screen.

And as she slogged her way through puddles to the gala scene,
through photographers and writers from every magazine,
of course they all reported on that look of arch disdain
instead of any mention of her garment’s spreading stain.

Prompt words are oorie, premiere, disdain, morass and arch. Image by Raychan on Unsplash.

Working Out in My Seventies

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Working Out in My Seventies

I badly need a product that will make me indefatigable.
I have not the energy to blow, and less to bat a bubble.
It is just unfathomable that I ever walked
twelve miles through the jungle and barely even balked!
At the high point of my youth, adventures were my thing,
but lately I feel much deprived of energy and zing.
Swinging in my hammock is now enough for me.
It seems to mark the zenith of my energy!!!

 

Prompt words today are  zenith, unfathomable, indefatigable and product.

It Can’t Go On Without Us!!!!

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It Can’t Go On Without Us!!!!

Moss will not grow on a stone if someone’s there to spin it.
The genipapo needs a hand to squeeze the ink within it.

No finish line is ever crossed in one proverbial minute
without those legs that join the race and set a goal to win it.

No job has ever botched itself unless a human blows it.
Knowledge is not knowledge until somebody knows it.

A car without a human foot can’t pick up any speed.
What good are pears or apples without a mouth to feed?

No tail’s pinned on a donkey without a hand to pin it.
What transgression could exist without a man to sin it?

Even guilt would not exist without human compunction.
In short, the Earth’s in need of us to fulfill every function.

The Gods must be mistaken when they censure us and cuss us.
In truth, we make the world go ’round. Where would it be without us?

Prompts today are moss, minute, genipapo, botch and speed.

Poem inspired by the film “Don’t Look Up.”  Too, too close in its depiction of our present day world.

New Year Ritual

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New Year Ritual

After you toast the new year with confetti, wine and shout,
assemble broom and sponge and mop to wash the old year out.
Let it know it’s finished. Make it abrogate that power
officially surrendered when clocks struck the midnight hour.

The most practical among you might find this act absurd,
but please suspend your disbelief and take me at my word.
What’s acted out in metaphor declares a second time
what was announced at midnight by the bell tower’s final chime.

 

Prompt words today are broom, sponge, absurd, abrogate and finish.

Protest or Assent?

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Protest or Assent?

The ratio between dissent and absolute compliance–
the odds that we’ll react with order or with strong defiance—
depends on several factors, but the stats insinuate
a majority of people will just equivocate.

If they feel one or the other will work out in their favor,
they’ll take the medicine dished out, no matter what the flavor.
Or if there is a bargain to be gained by compromising,
or a sure advantage that’s outlined by advertising,

they will sublimate their feelings and just go with the flow.
If to do so bends their ethics, well, who will ever know?
Thus, our ethical behavior may change from day to day
depending on temptations that fate may send our way.

 

Prompt words today are insinuate, medicine, bargain, dissent and ratio.

Night Stalking Wordle 534

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Night Stalking

I could not bear the tedium of last night’s fruitless sleep,
so I went out hunting in its forests dark and deep.
I drew light through my crosshairs, then held my breath and viewed
a host of tiny forest sprites, dancing in the nude
in and out of shadows, beckoning and waving,
and so, of course, I followed to quench my idle craving.

They flitted to the treetops and scribbled on the sky,
in clouds of strange graffiti they left as they sailed by.
My heart stretched taut in fear that they’d vanish from my gaze.
I feared that they’d forsake me in the morning’s haze.
I cast vain looks around me, at the shadows, at the sky,
but alas no tiny forest gods continued to sail by.

With no digital reminder of these visitors by night,
I have only words to use to tell you of my sight.
Ethereal and shadowed, they conquered my ennui
by cutting through my dreams and entertaining me.
Thus are our lives enriched as we wander off at night,
collecting all the images we’ll later lose to light.

 

Prompts for this week’s Wordle 534 are: bear host scribbled digital gods cast breath taut crave light crosshairs gaze

About the image: This incredible one-of-a-kind sprite was sculpted of polymer clay by Thomas, an artist I used to do shows with. Its background and mounting were fashioned by my friend Sharon Wheat and me many years ago, after she gave me the sculpture as a very generous gift. Many memories come with this post of both past special times and dream times. Since we put a mirror in the background of our little tableau, it was tricky to get the right image in the background which led to a fun outside photo shoot, trying to get an image with trees and plants in the mirrored background without one of myself and the dogs included, since they both were curious and invaded most of the shots. 

Gestalt and the New Year

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Gestalt and the New Year

Sweep out twenty twenty-one with a mental broom.
Don’t let it be a harbinger of dissent and of doom.
Accept a new beginning. Set out looking for the light.
Don’t rate the whole dinner by your initial bite.

Life is a varied banquet of bitter, sweet and salt.
Those who succeed best at life fall in with its Gestalt.
We must season what is in our heads with what is in our hearts.
The whole of anything, it’s true, is greater than its parts.

 

Prompt words today are light, harbinger, beginning, dissent and dinner. The illustration was made using LunaPic. Start the year out right and try it out. It’s free!!! I like using the Art editor.

2022

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2022

In every corner of the globe in far-flung civilizations
I imagine folks are planning tonight’s celebrations.
This finale of the year will bring a brilliant end
to last year’s resolutions that we saw fit to bend.

This year we will get it right. There will be no debate.
We’ll resolve to start again. We won’t equivocate.
We’ll get pally with old friends we haven’t seen for years,
clean out stuffed closets and pay debts that are long in arrears.

This year as midnight approaches and we sing “Auld Lang Syne,”
the mistake that we made last year in drinking too much wine
will not be repeated, for we’ll avoid the bars
and start our New Year resolutions under the brilliant stars.

Spread out under Orion, we’ll construct our list of “do’s”
to become perfect in those ways that only we can choose.
We won’t eat so much chocolate. We’ll exercise each day
and weigh each night to see how many pounds have slipped away.

We will not play loud music so won’t be held to blame
and hope that all our neighbors will resolve to do the same.
We’ll keep our yards trimmed neatly and repaint all our shutters,
relieved that for this year at least we won’t hear neighbors’ mutters.

We’ll take bags when we walk the dogs and bring their poops all home
so folks for blocks around will not dread it when we roam.
We’re not perfect now, but in twenty-twenty-two,
we’re weeding out bad habits and starting out anew.

 

 

Prompt words today are finale, brilliant, auld lang syne, pally and civilization.