Category Archives: Poetry by Prescription

Plus One: The Eighth Deadly Sin: (A Dating Primer for Errant Males)

Plus One: The Eighth Deadly Sin:
(A Dating Primer for Errant Males)

Wrath and avarice and pride
can be safely kept inside.
So although we all may be them,
it is often hard to see them.

If you are a seasoned actor,
sloth will never be a factor
leading to your firing
or premature retiring.

Often envy, I confess,
is one more way that I transgress;
but even though we’re caught inside it,
almost all of us can hide it.

Lust is the sin that’s most unfurled
upon us in this modern world
in every book and magazine.
In movies? It’s in every scene.

And though sex is oft debated,
we only label them X-rated;
and though we profess to abhor them,
in solitude, we may adore them.

Gluttony’s the only sin
we cannot seem to keep within;
for everything that meets our lips,
alas, is carried on our hips!

Each is labeled “deadly sin”—
the one outside, others within;
but I’m inclined to add another
perhaps not taught you by your mother.

These deadly sins from one to seven
may be what keep you out of heaven,
but it’s transgression number eight
that will ban you as my date!

You may talk as you pour wine,
and continue as we dine;
but when I start to tell a tale,
heaven help the errant male

who utters “Me, too . . . ” then proceeds
to list more of his facts and deeds.
As music fades and lights all dim,
bringing the subject back to him!

I know that sinning is the fate
of many couples on a date.
So lust may now and then corrupt me,
but no one gets to interrupt me!!!!

Luddite (Within Reason)

Luddite (Within Reason)

Resurrect the Luddite gene!
Raise the axe! Kill the machine!
Its use is seldom credible
in products that are edible.

A bread machine for making bread?
Ban that idea from your head.
Bread manufactured should be banned.
The nobler loaf is shaped by hand.

Lasagna, too, it is a fact,
is better manually stacked.
Those frozen ones from Costco? Toss ‘em!
For no machine knows how to sauce ‘em!

Torillas handmade pat by pat?
You simply can’t improve on that.
But I admit I’m not that keen
on ones that come from a machine.

South of the border, arts abound
on almost every wall they’re found.
All over town, the artists stand
creating murals there by hand.

Art that’s produced digitally?
It will simply never be
as satisfactory to me
as this handmade artistry.

The stately dome, even and round,
in Mexico is often found.
With bricks, cement and lime and sand—
it’s true that they are made by hand!

I admit that a brick wall
is hardly any view at all.
The only worse thing in a town
is when you find one tumbled down!

But Mexico excels at walls.
Hand-stacked, a stone wall rarely falls.
And they are things of beauty, too,
and add, not detract, from the view.

I find that I can best assuage
my aches with a hands-on massage.
Our massage chair bought for beaucoup bucks?
Truthfully? It really sucks.

And yet, I know that many lean
in preference to the machine.
I must admit, though I am wary,
that certain ones are necessary.

Elevators beat the stairs.
Electric shavers best cut hairs.
(Those signs extolling Burma Shave
belong outside a caveman’s cave.)

And I admit the movie sector
clearly needs its film projector.
Doctors? X-rays. Dentists? Drills.
Pharmacists? Machine-made pills.

And I am sure I’d really balk
If I were forced to always walk,
so cars and trucks would make my list
of machines that should exist.

I could live if forced to brave
this world without my microwave,
but take my Wifi? Don’t you dare!!!
Some things are better sent by air!

The Prompt: Handmade Tales—Automation has made it possible to produce so many objects — from bread to shoes — without the intervention of human hands (assuming that pressing a button doesn’t count). What things do you still prefer in their traditional, handmade version?

Lame

Lame

It’s been three months since first I came
to make these daily posts my aim;
and though I do not seek to maim,
to damage, libel, slur or blame
the reputation or the name
of the guy or of the dame
who promised they would fan my flame
(increase my fans and spread my fame)
if I would join this posting game,
I fear the prompts have turned too tame.
Do any of you feel the same?
These prompts are getting pretty lame!!!!

Daily Prompt: 190 Days Later—Back on January 21st, we asked you to predict what day #211 would be like. Well, July 30th is that day — how have your predictions held up so far? If you didn’t reply to the prompt at the time, is this year turning out to be as you’d expected?

Reading

This post has been removed as a stipulation for submitting it in a poetry contest.

The Prompt: Middle Seat—It turns out that your neighbor on the plane/bus/train (or the person sitting at the next table at the coffee shop) is a very, very chatty tourist. Do you try to switch seats, go for a non-committal brief small talk, or make this person your new best friend?

 

Unstarched

 

Unstarched

My ladies writing group is classy—never crass or gaudy.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found they can be bawdy!
Just one impromptu potluck and a few bottles of wine
turned their metaphoric minds to matters far less fine.
For Jenny had just mentioned that a friend had lately lent her
a rather naughty film that nonetheless had really sent her
off into the paroxysms of unbridled laughter—
the kind that take you wave-on-wave and leave you aching after.
I’d been needing that for months—my life had been sedate
since my old gang had moved away and left me to my fate
of no last-minute games of train and late-night jubilation,
for though I still have good friends here, I lack that combination
of friends that I enjoy who all enjoy each other, too,
enough to create silliness to make my nights less blue.

“Bad Grandpa” was the film we watched, and though I must admit
I watched behind spread fingers for at least a fifth of it,
still the antics had us all just rolling on the floor
—starting with a snicker and then ending with a roar.
Scatology is not my thing, nor are pratfalls or shtick,
yet still I must admit to you, I got a real big kick
from this film filled with all of them, and so did all the others;
so as we watched, it felt like we were all sisters and brothers.
And as they left, I think we knew we’d shared a priceless treasure,
for there’s nothing that unites us like a mutual guilty pleasure!

The Prompt: When was the last time you watched something so scary, cringe-worthy, or unbelievably tacky — in a movie, on TV, or in real life — you had to cover your eyes?

The Daily “Catch”

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The Prompt: From the Top—Today, write about any topic you feel like.

The Daily “Catch”

The daily prompt, “write what I wish?”
That’s like ordering the fish
and having the waiter bring a hook
and once you catch it, a pan to cook
it. This is one that I’ll do poor on.
This “prompt” is just an oxymoron!!!

The Air Around Me

The Prompt: Object Lesson—Sherlock Holmes had his pipe. Dorothy had her red shoes. Batman had his Batmobile. If we asked your friends what object they most immediately associate with you, what would they answer?

My MacBook Air—no contest!!!!  There is not a time when I’m home that it isn’t with me…and usually not a time away from home.  I have to be able to write at any given time and my Kindle is too hard to type on.

The Air Around Me

In the morning when I wake, she’s on my bedside table
where she’s been charging all night long, so now I find I’m able
to perch her on my counter as I brush my hair and dress,
put mascara on my lashes and curl them, I confess.
I take her to the kitchen as I blend my smoothie up—
slice the fruit, add soy milk, and pour it in a cup.
To my desk we go then, to write our morning verse.
If I wrote it longhand, I fear it would be worse.

When I do pool aerobics, she sits at pool edge.
(I put her on a table that has a little ledge
to protect her from disasters that might tip her in the pool.
I never take her in with me. I’m not a complete fool.)
That hour of exercise flies by as I watch junk TV.
Old situation comedies are what I like to see!
But when I drive to town I always listen to a book.
Much better than a video, as I don’t have to look.

At the plaza café, at my favorite outside table,
I converse with favorite friends whenever I am able.
But if they’re busy I just take my laptop there with me
and talk to her with fingers whenever they are free.
When the waiter brings totopos and the sauce to dip them in,
salsa on her keyboard would be disastrous sin;
so I have to move her—our contact I must breach—
but close enough so earbuds are still within my reach.

Before I eat, I talk to her with fingers fleet and swift.
During the meal, I listen, for my food I have to lift
from plate to mouth from plate to mouth till it becomes a rite.
Then my computer talks to me. She has no appetite.
She is my secretary and my bookshelf without end.
My video library and my calendar and friend.
She is my photo album and the archives for my writing.
She corrects my spelling and she’s expert at reciting
all my words right back to me so I can see what’s wrong.
And when I need interpreting, her language skills are strong.
So perhaps it’s clear now why she’s always here with me.
For the bond that binds us both is electricity!

ESP

Daily Prompt: Full Disclosure—A mad scientist friend offers you a chip that would allow you to know what the people you’re talking to are thinking. The catch: you can’t turn it off. Do you accept the chip?

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ESP

I don’t really need a chip to know what you are thinking,
for when I ask, “Should I wear this?” your left eyelid starts blinking
like it does whenever you tell a little fib;
and I can tell your “It looks great!” sounds a little glib.
That’s how I know without a doubt you’re spinning a fine yarn;
and that, in fact, in this dress I must look wide as a barn.

If you say this dish is great but feed most to the dogs—
if you say I’m clever but you rarely read my blogs—
if you “want” to get together but we rarely do—
I’ve already read the clues to ascertain your view.
Yet, still I have the option to see the other side
and find a way to look at it that will preserve my pride.

Your eye might blink because a gnat got caught in it just now,
and so I do not really look as broad as any cow.
He just has a small appetite. Her eyesight might be failing.
She might be out of town and when she gets home from her sailing,
she’ll call me up and we will meet and have a laugh or two.
Without this ESP I really get to choose my view
of believing what I want to in spite of what I’ve guessed.
When it comes to friendship, less clarity is best!

 

Sleuthing

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Sleuthing

There’s a Clue in the Leaning Chimney and a Password to Larkspur Lane,
and no one will ever discover them without me, that is plain.
I’d love to go a-sleuthing, my sidekicks at my side—
George Fayne, who is so boyish and Bess Marvin who’s so wide.

Together we’d read diaries and find each hidden clue,
‘cause no one else but us has ever known quite what to do
with broken lockets, attics, tolling bells or hollow oaks;
for non-teenage detectives seem to come off like bad jokes.

They may have had the clues but never seemed to solve the crime—
these matters just too difficult for searchers in their prime.
I’d hop in my blue roadster with a picnic box from Hannah
and somehow I would wind up in Wyoming or Montana.

Interviewing cowboys is the way I’d have my fun,
returning to Ned Nickerson when all of this was done.
I don’t have other fantasies of being Peter Pan
or Goldilocks, Rapunzel, Cathy or Superman.

Those fairy tales and comic books and novels are unreal.
I’d have to be like Nancy—a character who’s real!
The only mystery I can’t solve of all her mysteries seen
is how I’ve gotten so damn old while she remains sixteen!

The Prompt: Fictional Intruder—Go down the rabbit hole with Alice; play quidditch with Harry Potter; float down the river with Huck Fin. . .If you coud choose three fictional events or adventures to experience yourself, what would they be?

How I (Don’t) Lay Me Down to Sleep

Spider Solitaire

How I (Don’t) Lay Me Down to Sleep

At 2 AM, when others sleep,
computer solitaire I keep
in front of me on lap or chest,
for part of me decrees it best
to put off sleep an hour or so.
That precious time I often blow
on playing Spider Solitaire.
At my computer screen I stare,
moving little clubs or hearts
here and there in fits and starts,
trying to beat my own best time,
this silly game becomes sublime.
I know not why I love it well—
and so I cannot really tell
why I prefer it over all.
Deluxe Free Cell can be a ball,
In fact, I play it hours on hours
trying to deplete those towers
of mismatched cards, quickly I bring
them from below, from Ace to King.
Card by card, I pile them high—
my laptop balanced on my thigh—
until the cards become hypnotic,
my moving of them now Quixotic.
Too sleepy to beat my own time,
my need for rest becomes sublime.
Then sleep fills up my empty cup
till seven or eight, when I wake up
to spill night’s cards clear of my screen
so this day’s daily prompt is seen.
And this is how I start my day.
This time, it’s words I choose to play!

The Prompt: Now? Later!—We all procrastinate. Website, magazine, knitting project, TV show, something else — what’s your favorite procrastination destination?

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This big fella appeared on my steps last night—perhaps a harbinger of what I was going to write about today.  He’s the first tarantula I’ve ever seen at my house—four inches across, he is a formidable addition to my garden menagerie!

I just have to add a postscript.  This reply to my today’s post was just sent to me by my three- months-a-year housemate. I feel a bit like Jeanette MacDonald to his Nelson Eddy!  Ha. I absolutely love it, by the way. This is what he posted on his blog this morning:

To your addictions I can attest.
You’re clicking, clicking. You need your rest!
“Sleepy time,” I do proclaim,
And you reply, “Just one more game.”
And so I roll upon my side
and let your clicking, clicking guide
me off to sleep, to dream, to waken
to morning to find that you’re makin’
words to poems to fill your blog.
Keep writing, Dear. I’ll feed the dog.