Category Archives: Poem

They’ll Be Sorry!!!

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They’ll Be Sorry!!!

She’s stuffing Mommy’s reticule with necessary stuff,
putting on her bunny coat and leaving in a huff.
All the sundry items contribute to its thickness—
pajamas for her dolly and candy pills for sickness.

She’s packed her favorite nightie and her dolly and her bear,
a pair of extra panties and a hairbrush for her hair.
She grabs a sun umbrella as she passes by the rack,
squishes up her raincoat and stuffs it in her sack.

So now she’s set for sun or rain as she sets off to roam.
She’ll make her parents sorry when she runs away from home!
The hall clock ticks its countdown as she sets off on her lark.
She’ll have to run away right now to be back before dark.

 

Prompt words are reticule, sundry, countdown, cohere and sickness.
Image by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash

New Year Resolutions

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New Year Resolutions

When the new year zaps us with our last year’s reflection,
it brings up all our defects and flaws for our detection.
It goads us to be better and to bend our crooked way
to plot a straighter game in life than we’ve been prone to play. 
It’s January 1st that prods our consciences to make them,
giving us a whole long year in which to go and break them.

 

Word prompts are zap, play, reflection, goad and bend. Image, Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash.

Make Mine Tanqueray

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Make Mine Tanqueray

A gin and bubbly with a twist?
Sufficient reason to exist.
As integral to daily life
and in deferring pain and strife
as a good psychiatrist.
Better, in fact, I must insist,
than thrusting all one’s problems on
some overworked Freudian don.
On days when feeling near-demonic,
nothing soothes like gin and tonic!!!

 

 

Prompts today are twist, integral, bubbly defer and thrust.

Peace on Earth in ’22

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Peace on Earth in ’22

If only we could clear the world of every tragic issue
as though we’d wiped the slate clean with one gigantic tissue.
If Pollyanna ruled the world, there’d be no end of cheer.
There’d be no hungry children, no drunks crying in their beer.
But in our potential Shangri-La, perfection’s not to be.
The playing field’s not even and there is no guarantee
that things will all be equal regarding happiness.
In fact with every passing year, the world’s more of a mess.

Yet before we shed this mortal coil, there’s something we can do
to try to bring some happiness to this human zoo.
Before this year is over, it would be stupendous
if each and every one of us could do something tremendous
like deflect a bit of gossip or curb a caustic quip,
 resist an impulse to defraud or cheat or bilk or gyp,
 see a foreign culture as exotic, not as wrong,
 join hands with the universe and try to get along.

As this old year’s winding down, if we could make a pact
not to steal or plunder, not to blame nor to react
in anger to each other. Treat each woman as our mother
and try to view each man on earth as our potential brother,
then maybe things would straighten out and throughout the Earth
our population would be healed and all would feel their worth.
Warfare would be abolished and kindness seize the day.
Oh that this was reality and we could find our way.

 

Prompt words today are coil, stupendous, cheer, caustic and tissue. Image thanks to the New York Public Library on unsplash.

The Great Reveal

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

The Great Reveal

When it comes to Christmas gifts, I hope you get a passel
and you find unwrapping them to be a task most facile.
Every bound up package, may it be in bow or tassel,
a rip-roaring pleasure instead of any hassle.

And though we are adults now, let them be mementos of
all those bygone childhood years that all of us just love
to retain with pleasure in our memories—
how we would  prod and finger gifts and ogle, guess and squeeze.

Then, finally, on Christmas morn, we’d wake up like a shot,
barreling downstairs at dawn to see what we had got.
Before the church bells drew us out, we had to do our duty
and reveal just what Santa had left us for our booty.

Thus however much we’ve tried maturity to hone,
at Christmas time we find how very little we have grown.
As we untie ribbons, rip off paper, pry off lids,
we discover in our hearts that all of us are kids!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!!!!

Prompts today are gift, memento, bells, facile and shot.

“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

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“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

When there is a wrinkle, she works fast to smooth it out.
She loves to plug the iron in and move it all about.
Steam wafting all around her, she executes arm action.
She finds it scintillating dealing with each new infraction
of the rule that each garment should hang seamless and true,
without a single furrow dividing it from you.
She feels no reluctance in relieving clothes of wrinkles—
no puckers and no creases. No scrunches and no crinkles.
Because of her I’m faultless. My wardrobe is sublime,
for in Yolanda’s view, a wrinkled garment is a crime!

 

Yolanda has been my housekeeper, accomplice and friend for twenty years now. She rearranges my belongings, leaving little jokes, removes dust and fingerprints and generally rules the roost when it comes to the state of my house. In addition, neither I nor any houseguest can leave the house without meeting with her discerning eye. and if she spots a wrinkle, you can be sure she’ll whip the iron out and insist that it be dealt with. I’ve never yet won an argument to the contrary.

Prompt words today are scintillate, smooth, waft, reluctant and fast.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

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Click on photos to enlarge.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

My former spouse seems not to feel a similar elation
to what I have been feeling ever since our separation.

He feels invested in the gardening and wants to poke and sow.
Every other day he comes and says he has to mow.

It’s a bit of an enigma, for this farming bent is new,
and I can’t corroborate what’s causing him to do

all these acts of digging and furrowing and tilling.
If he wants me to reciprocate, I fear am not willing.

But my garden sure has flourished since I asked my spouse to go,
which goes to show I really should have done it long ago!

 

Prompt words today are enigma, corroborate, poke, reciprocal and separation.

Beneath the Covers

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Beneath the Covers

Books are cemeteries where old thoughts go to die—
landscapes of words spread out under a variegated sky.
Bright children might discover them ‘neath covers in the night,
searching for new universes where the erudite
join them undercover to whisper down through time:
literature, history, philosopy  and rhyme

Prompt words for the day are variegated skies, bite, erudite, bright and cemetery. Image by Klim Sergeev on Unsplash.

Lactose Intolerant

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Lactose Intolerant

If you’re intent on becoming maternal,
I’m hopeful your plans include turning nocturnal.
For babies claim most of your time, night and day,
but their favorite time to entice you to play
is when you have finally  collapsed in a heap
and obtained REM sleep, so blessedly deep
that you swim towards the surface with collections of dreams
that shed off you like water as you waken to screams
of your recent dependent who’s hungry and wet,
needing all the attention that there is to get.
Since you went through the nausea and gained all the girth,
acquired all the stretch marks and endured the birth,
though you love this dear bundle with skin smooth as silk,
how you wish that their father could provide the milk!
Yet you search for your robe and for your other shoe,
for that wholesome nutrition provider is you!

Prompt words today are hopeful, claim, nocturnal, wholesome and collection. Image by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.

 

 

 

 

Vernacular Confusion

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Vernacular Confusion

When he says I have puissance he means I have power.
Why must he go on like this, hour after hour?
I don’t understand his schoolbook French.
In Yiddish, I cannot tell shiksa from mensch.
I fumble with Spanish and flunked at Italian.
An onion’s an onion. When you call it scallion,
it’s all Greek to me and I don’t have the energy
to combine languages. What’s with this synergy
that creates Tex Mex, Pig Latin and Spanglish?
I have enough problems just pronouncing Anglish.
I don’t catch your meaning when you say “Que tal?”
This method of talking means nothing at all
to one not versed in languages. So, when you call,
please don’t say,”Salut!” Just say, “Howdy, y’all!”

Prompt words today are fumble, synergy, catch, puissance and method.