Category Archives: Poem

Deirdre of the Sorrows

11 Replies

Misnomer

Why so taciturn, my friend? Are there things that displease you?
If you’re amenable to chat, perhaps I could appease you.
When they named you Deirdre, what could have been the reason?
To give a child a moniker like this is surely treason.
They put it on the record the day that you were born
that you were predetermined with propensity to mourn.
What sort of security is this to give a child
otherwise unblemished—beautiful and mild?
Such a tragic future and so many doleful morrows
must greet a child named after Deirdre of the Sorrows.

 

Prompts today are security, amenable, taciturn, moniker and record.

Culinary Apologies

27 Replies

Culinary Apologies

Though some would say that I’m a flake
when I’m called upon to bake,
and though I qualify just barely,
I feel I’m typecast most unfairly.

True, I rank with all the rookies
when it comes to baking cookies,
and my cupcakes don’t win prizes
at anything but worst surprises.

Nonetheless, my precedent
at providing less than I had meant
is never intentional.
It’s just that I am rather dull

when it comes to pleasuring
by sifting, baking, measuring.
I lack that culinary calm
so never cook without a qualm.

When I baked banana bread
and measured powdered sugar instead
of flour, yes, I must confess
it created an awful mess.

And when I burned the chicken stew
because I had so much to do,
I hope that you remember that
I trimmed the plants and fed the cat,

wrote a poem and made some art,
(scorched the toast and burned the tart)
took the puppy for a walk,
phoned a friend and had a talk.

So though my fridge is lacking stuff,
I find my life is full enough
All in all, what I’ve got cookin’
may not be where you are lookin’.

Prompts today are flake, calm, intentional, typecast and precedent. (If you want to read about the powdered sugar debacle, click on the link where it is mentioned in the poem.)

Panegyric for Pachyderm: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 11

13 Replies

Panegyric for Pachyderm

Which one among us says I can’t
eulogize an elephant?
Oh thou of ears floppily gray,
of thee I have so much to say.

Words invented will not do.
I have to coin new words for you.
Your skin, in fact, is so abundant
that I must call you epibundant.

And other words unbunkable?
Tuskidopherous and trunkable.
Unchallenged monarch of the zoo,
parades aren’t complete without you.

Your trumpet fills the savanna air
to tell the world that you are there.
Rip Van Wrinkle might better name
thee, monarch of the great untame!

And though by any other term,
loxodonta or pachyderm,
we do not know thee quite as well.
in size and fame, you still excel.

 

For NaPoWriMo Day 11, we are to write a poem about a very large thing. And yes, that is me on the back of that elephant!

Early Release

16 Replies

Early Release

He barely saw the morning view, he was in such a pother.
He skipped his juice and pancakes. He simply couldn’t bother.
Today no one could find a way to dispel his grief.
His nervousness was clear to all. He couldn’t find relief.
His summer bliss was over. The truth blatantly cruel
as his worst fears came true at last with the first day of school!
He dragged his book bag in the dust and lagged behind the others.
He’d be out at the fishing hole if he had had his druthers.
Pencils his ma had sharpened, he broke against the wall,
so when he had to write things down, he’d have no way at all.
He used his brand new ruler to pry up stones and rocks
to catch red ants and spiders to tie up in his socks.
He caught a lizard just before it zipped under a log,
and put it in his pocket with a field mouse and a frog.
So when he got to school he’d have ample ammunition
to bring the brand new school marm to a sure state of contrition
for imprisoning them all inside on such a nice fall day,
and school would get out early if he had his way!

Prompt words for today are grief, nervous, pother and morning view.

Night and Day

4 Replies

 

Night and Day

I memorize your face, your hair,
your breath white light upon cold air.
Hours pass like minutes while
I chart the borders of your smile.

A wisp of cloud, sliver of moon
slip behind the highest dune.
The stars have plans that drive the night
to plots that I will later write.

Fictions Imagined by me,
no match for their reality.
Then, sun rays sent to ban the night
obscure the moon and stars from sight.

A chiming bell is morning’s crime
dispelling pleasures most sublime,
but if I linger long, I might
survive the day to earn the night.

Prompts are: sliver breath sent plans hours minutes chime drive write light crime match for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 548

Alter Ego: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 8

5 Replies

Alter Ego

Sometimes she’s  an angel. At other times a witch.
There is no way to know when her personae’s going to switch.
When an angel, she’s gregarious, obedient and sexy,
but during her more bitchy days, she’s silent, dark and hexy.
No x-ray can determine which one she’s going to be.
There is no test to indicate which one she’s going to see
when she wakes up each morning and stumbles to the mirror
to discover which she’ll be today–the feared one or the dearer.
I’m always the first one to see what side of her will win,
for each day the face she chooses is the one that I’ll be in!

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. Whoever or whatever your alternate self may be, I hope this prompt lets you stretch both your writing skills and your self-knowledge.

Opening Night Jitters

7 Replies

Opening Night Jitters

I’m consumed by stage fright. Please bring me my wrap.
This whole acting “thing” is a barrel of crap.
My memory’s kaput and I have a bad cough,
so before my first snafu I’d better take off.
There’s a good possibility that I might faint.
It’s clear that an actor I certainly ain’t.

 

Prompt words are stage fright, wrap, snafu, kaput and possibility. Image by Redd TK on Unsplash.

A Bird in the Hand: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 7

4 Replies

A Bird in the Hand

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” a psychic said to me.
Then my psychiatrist said the same, but for a bigger fee.
When people preach to me like this, I get set in my ways.
I’m never going to take advice from folks who spout clichés!
The birds that I’ve had in my hand number very few.
I can’t recall a single time I combed a bush for two.

And so although I know in fact a proverb is not literal,
and that allusions to two birds are very likely clitoral,
still I’m loathe to think in adages as others do.
I have no wish to take a walk in any other’s shoe.
I’ve never thought the grass was greener in my neighbor’s yard.
And spouting other people’s words does not make you a bard.

I don’t think cleverness with words need make us any wiser.
If my neighbor’s lawn is greener, I’ll use more fertilizer.
So please don’t give me your advice using hackneyed phrases.
For all this glib advice just sorta puts me into dazes.
And if you simply must advise, my character to hone,
please do me a favor and use words of your own!!!

 

The prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying. They say that “all cats are black at midnight,” but really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has some mild dyspepsia.  Whatever phrase you pick, I hope you have fun complicating its simplicity. Happy writing!

Winter Reunion

7 Replies


Winter Reunion

Mom has popped some popcorn and Dad has built a fire.
Snow collects on window frames as flames lick high and higher.
With pillows piled on the couch and warm rugs on the floor,
it makes a cozy little nest for tired kids to explore.

With  temperatures lowering , it’s fertile territory
for a mug of cocoa and another Grandpa story
about their Halcyon years of youth when Grandma’s evening gown
set new stylish standards for their little town.

Her look representative of a wider world,
all the girls took notice of the way her hair was curled,
and what length her skirts were and what words she used
and when Grandpa came to town, they inevitably fused.

Grandpa in his Model T, raccoon tail on the mirror,
speeding down the main street, grinding every gear.
Grandma on the sidewalk in her flapper gear,
how they got together is why we all are here.

And we are representatives, each and every one
of the whole long story of how her love was won.
These familiar stories building our education
of how a family is built on each past generation.

Prompts for the day are fertile territory, temperature, stylish, Halcyon and representative.

Cold

9 Replies

Cold

Furniture leaves stick by stick.
His cold furnishings in the storehouse
while I put away my feelings
one by one.
He suggests we still be friends
while we wait for new friends to happen,
as though he’s drawing closer
as he pulls away.

I keep creeping closer to the truth
that lies
in eyes
cold.
Cold
eyes,
nothing written there.

His hand edges closer
on the seat between us.
Like a deaf-mute,
all communication
in his hands.

But those hands
don’t know all
my languages.

Handless bodies
in El Salvador
might think
my demands on them
less foolish.

My mother’s hands
drumming fingers
while she told a sleepy tale.
I was always in it,
in dark forests where the bears lived,
and although she acted
like she didn’t know it,
I was in the forest, lost,
expecting bears
while only drumming fingers
foretold the presence
of something
cold.

 

For dVerse Poets
To see the prompt, “A Little Repetition,” go HERE.