Category Archives: Poem

Sister Flowers

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Sister Flowers

Yellow, red and white and green,
insuring that they’re easily seen.
Fifteen maidens in a row,
eyes distended, all aglow.
Skirts spread out to catch the sun,
observing me and everyone
who passed this way, their aprons spread
as though they wished to work instead
of simply standing in the sun
creating beauty for everyone!
You can join them if you wish,
but you must curb your sway and swish.
Stand quietly. Quit all your pranks.
You’re not allowed to break their ranks,
lest you draw disapproving glowers
from your docile sister flowers.

For Simply Six Minutes write a piece to accompany the above photo.  Exactly six minutes!  No rules broken.

Wise Words from the Mockingbird

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mock
Wise Words from the Mockingbird

If I were alate, I’d have wings
to fly me up and over things.
I’d feast on everything that grows,
from oranges to tangelos,
then perch in trees to overhear
all the people who passed near.

When lovers squabbled under me,
I’d fly on down and referee.
I’d convey my firm conviction
in my aviary diction
that to squabble is absurd—
to rise above the common herd.

I simply can’t accentuate
sufficiently the words I’d state.
If you want your love to last,
after a squabble, make up fast.
Listen to my every word:
sound advice from the mockingbird.

 

Prompts for the day are referee, conviction, accentuate, alate and orange. Image from Unsplash.

By Command: NaPoWriMo 19

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Upon Running into a Former Best Friend

Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my career or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!

The prompt for NaPoWriMo today is the post a poem that begins with a command.

Brutal Truth

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Brutal Truth

Fresh as they come, you’re the pick of the litter.
Though too young for pathos and too soft for bitter,
how can I describe what fate has in store
later in life as the innocent lore
of your earlier life is exposed as just part
of what might affect your innocent heart?

Prompt words are soft, describe, pathos, later and young. Image by Alex Gomes on Unsplash.

Friendly Game

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Friendly Game

You come to bat. I toss my pitch.
Convention dictates. It’s a bitch.
You note my sudden augmentation.
A loud crack signals your elation.

Over the fence with deadly aim.
You round the bases to loud acclaim.
Exploit the crowd’s ecstatic cheers.
This afternoon, you’ll buy the beers.

Prompts today are deadly, pitch, augmentation, exploit and convention.

Split Seconds

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Split Seconds

On Valentine’s Day,
standing dizzy on a dry summer country road,
between weekend dances in different towns,
sweet 16 and finally kissed.

 My eccentric English professor,
slapping down his briefcase once, twice, three times
on his table at the front of the room,
opened the clasp, drew out our first papers,
and chose mine as the one to read aloud.

I felt the gun barrel pressed against my head,
heard the gun fire,
fell into the street and rose above
to see them lift his wounded body into a taxi,
my body lying in the street.

The woman in the dream
walked toward me across the barroom,
threw her drink in my face,
then hit me over the head with the glass
and I woke up soaking wet, with a knot on my head,
screaming, “Just wake up!”

I saw him for the first time
on the stage at the little coffee shop in Santa Monica
reading love poems he’d written to another woman,
and it was as though I’d been with him
for my whole life. Then afterwards,
I was with him for the rest of his.

He met me
at the plane
with a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup and a rose.
Hours later, in his kitchen,
after the long ride southward,
luggage spilled sideways on the floor—
another long-delayed
first kiss.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to “write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.”

After the Storm: Wordle 549 For Sunday Whirl

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After the Storm

My former blithe spirit is rocked by the rain,
but I’ll dry it out and use it again.

I fold up my heart and tuck it away
in case I should need it some future day.

The lingering legs of love walk the floor
long after the time he walked out the door.

Preferring the narrows, the reefs and the gales
to the calm of safe harbors, his  ship stretched  its sails.

Now he sits in a vase, secure on my shelf,
while I pace in seclusion, all by myself.

The Sunday Whirl prompt words are: ship lingering legs instead narrow stretch door heart vase fold rocked rain

Rabble-Rouser

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Rabble-Rouser

I am the king of rave and rant,
the champion of irrelevant.
I raid the nest and throw the eggs.
I raise the lid. Stir up the dregs.
I abhor a quiet ride.
I want the chaos that’s inside.
I’m not a fan of calm reflection.
I stir up trouble, prompt dejection.
What arises is bound to fall,
and I contribute to it all!!!

Prompts for today are eggs, irrelevant, arise, abhor and reflection. I want to thank my compliant “poser” for being willing to mimic the worst in us.

The Changeling

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The Changeling 

At heart I am a changeling, born of fairy stuff.
Reality and daily life simply are not enough.
I yearn for the forest, the valley or the ness.
The only place where I’m content is the wilderness.

And though siblings are rosy and love to laugh and shout,
frolicking like puppies as they roll about,
my skin is wan and pallid and I do not care to play,
keeping mortal company constantly at bay.

Faux parents can’t facilitate my raging appetite,
nor my predilection for the deepest night.
I was born of different stock, unsatisfied and mean,
preferring solitary life, untouched and pristine.

And though I petition that I be let alone,
those who come upon me, alas, are often prone
to try to draw me out, an act that I rebuff,
for I find myself to be company enough.

Somewhere in the forest, in a cavern or a tree,
I know that there resides the opposite of me,
living far away from the place where they were born,
dreaming of the family that they miss and mourn.

Two unhappy doppelgangers, always just off-mark.
One languishes in daylight, the other in the dark.
We stand before a funhouse mirror and without a doubt,
One is looking into it, the other looking out.

While somewhere in the vast lost world, parental arms are aching
for the child that long ago was of their dual making.
What evil force declared that both sets of parents should pine
for the natural-born child each yearns to claim as “mine?”

Those who seek disruption wander through our life,
seeking to take action that cuts us like a knife.
War and rape and pestilence, disorder and melee,
substituting one child and taking one away.

What more brutal action than this cruel deflection
that subverts two tiny lives, causing lifelong dejection?
The human-born and changeling, forced into different lives.
A honeybee and hornet forced into warring hives.

The changeling and the one replaced, both of them misplaced,
yearning from the life from which they’ve been displaced.
Who can blame their solitude, their yearning to be other?
Wanting to take one life and trade it for another?

Prompts for today are changeling, pristine, petition, facilitate and wilderness.

Note: A Changeling is a fairy  that has been substituted for a human baby. While changelings can look like anyone, they do have a true form. Their natural look can be scary to some due to their lack of detail and distinctive features. Their skin tone is always pale, either white or light gray, and they tend to have slender bodies with limbs slightly longer in proportion to other humanoids.The surest way to tell if you have a Changeling on your hands is by observing the temperament of the human in question. Changelings are constantly unhappy, unfriendly, and mean. They may be very cold and aloof, and may even recoil from human touch. Changeling babies’ appetites are never satiated. They may develop nocturnal habits and are abnormally aware of paranormal activity. The mortal child is taken back to the realm of the fairies to be raised and put to work, while the creature left behind usually sickens and dies.

Nativity Diary for NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 14

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Nativity Diary

I’m curled inside, so soft and warm,
protected in my creator’s corm.
Within, without, the pulse and throb
of leg on stomach, thrusting knob
of head against that source of light
down a channel smothering tight.

I will I must continue toward
that severance of birthing cord.
A final push, a hearty cry,
one eye open, a glimpse of sky.
Helping hands receiving me,
head and shoulder, thigh and knee.

The miracle of freedom from
such tight compression. My questing thumb.
Curled into that outer nest
that has been my nine-month quest.
Swathed in warmth, bright lights above,
I take great drafts of mother love.

She wills and I agree I will
drink until I’ve had my fill.
Pursing lips and searching tongue,
and then a healthy burst of lung.
I declare my presence here
to the whole world’s atmosphere.


The prompt for day 14 of NaPoWriMo was to write the opening scene of the movie of our life.
Image by Christine Bowen on Unsplash.