Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Preparing for Summer

 

Preparing for Summer

When your appetite starts knocking and you crave a light repast,
even though the time since your last meal seems too vast,
tie your cravings to a stanchion and curb their niggling prompt.
Do some calisthenics or take a forest romp.
Defenestrate those Oreos. Resist that peanut brittle.
It takes a lot of will power to make yourself more little.
Dieting’s not easy. Resolution is the pits,
but it will all be worth it when your favorite swimsuit fits!!!!

 

Prompts for today are: knocking, vast, defenestrate, stanchion, forest and peanut brittle.

Anima/Animus

Click on photos to enlarge. Explanations of the sculpture are given below the poem.

Anima/Animus

The sword of guilt is something I continually hone,
and in this I feel that I am surely not alone.
Guile and temper are not exclusively my sin,
for animus is something that we all carry within.

 

In the early nineteenth century, animus was used to mean “temper” and was typically used in a hostile sense. In 1923, it began being used as a term in Jungian psychology to describe the masculine side of women. The anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man. (Excerpts from Wikipedia) 

The photos are of my mixed media sculpture entitled Anima/Animus.  The detail in the second photo symbolizes the shattering of the male side of the ego by a feminine consciousness. The metal object in the glass case is a small replica of the instrument used to sever heads from bodies in sacrificial preHispanic temple ceremonies. The hammer shattering the glass is meant to symbolize the gentling effect of the feminine on the masculine.

 

Prompt words today are animus, guilt, guile, exclusive and alone.

Election Year Blues

Election Year Blues

This is nuts!
No ands or buts.

Change is brewing,
voters stewing.

Economic crunch,
most of the bunch
Half-Baked choices,
crazy voices.

Urban jumble
about to crumble.

The Yellow Brick Road
Soon to erode.

A Dastardly Mash
of rich guys’ cash
Make Rocky Roads
of mother lodes.

Cool Britannia
wins the day

as the rest of Earth
Just melts away!

For dVerse Poets Ben & Jerry prompt.  The italicized words above are all Ben & Jerry flavors and yes, I admit I sneaked in one non-B&J  flavor as well!!! Plus, changed the rhyme scheme in the last stanza. I should run for public office, changing the rules like that!!!

Here are the flavor choices:
Change is Brewing  – current
Half-Baked  – created in 2000 -still going strong
Urban Bourbon  – 2017 -still going strong
Coffee Coffee Buzzbuzzbuzz  – current
Wavy Gravy  – 1993 – 2001
Urban Jumble  – 2000 -2001
Dastardly Mash  – 1979 – 1991
Miz Jelena’s Sweet Potato Pie  – 1992 – 1993
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road  – limited edition available July 18 to 25, 2008
Late Night Snack  – 2010 – 2014
Imagine Whirled Peace  – 2007 – 2013
Sugar Plum  – 1989 – 1990
Cool Britannia  – 1995 – 1998
Economic Crunch  – only in 1987 during the stock market crash
This is Nuts  2001  – 2002

To see other posts that feature Ben & Jerry flavors, go HERE.

Moonlight Reflection: Wordle 562

 

Click on photos to increase size.

Moonlight Reflection

The radiant moon invites me to meander to the pool.
To miss its cloud-scrimmed drama would reveal me as a fool.
Its flickering light reflected in the pool’s steaming glass,
I part its even surface asunder as I pass.

Clothed in liquid light, I walk a smooth straight line,
reflectively immersed in this world that is all mine.
I have no other idol except this ghost of moon.
I feel that I could taste it if I only had a spoon.

Its taste would be ambrosial upon my earthly tongue—
the first to taste a lunar menu formerly unsung.
I bundle up my prayers and toss them overhead,
leaving all my worries unthought of and unsaid.

The stone steps lead me up again from its steaming mass
and I shed off moonlight around me as I pass.
I take its memory with me as I return to bed,
the splendor of the moonlight forever in my head. 

Today’s prompt words are: reflective radiant immersed meander idol  line taste drama ghost  flickering stone. The photos I took two weeks ago before leaving my house to travel to the states for my school reunion. A glorious scene. One of the shots is the moon and trees reflected in the surface of my  pool that is fed by  hot mineral springs that pass through the  magma layer fed by the Colima Volcano, 80 miles away. I swim in it almost nightly.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 562

 

Reality Redefined

Reality Redefined

(From Reality Shows to Reality Politicians, the meaning

of the word seems to have shifted to its opposite.)

Your underwhelming comments on my photographs should shame me,
but if they foster apathy, you really cannot blame me.
Timeless snapshots can’t be made of subjects that are boring,
and ordinary truth, it seems, leaves viewers merely snoring.

“What seems to be” has turned into the new truth that we seek—
reality  becoming something we can tweak.
A pantomimed emotion, sadly, I must confess,

if one is good enough at it, is good enough, I guess.

So bring on the kitschy actor, the reality show clown.
Their entertainment value will bring them wide renown.

They are what is called for in this modern cyber world.
“Reality’s” new meaning therein has been unfurled.

 

Prompt words are snapshot, underwhelming, timeless, kitschy, foster and pantomime.

Born-Again Gourmet

 

Born-Again Gourmet

Once I was a candidate for gourmet school flunky,
sporting the dubious honor of number one food junkie.
But now I’m basically looking for a way to curb
my appetite for junk food in favor of superb
cuisine that suits the palates of gourmands and gourmets.
I’ll impress headwaiters with my knowledge of patés,
place orders for obscure foods that will startle and amaze.
Then I can claim my trashy choice in food was just a phase.

Prompt words today are: head, basically, candidate, activate and superb.Image by Mads Eneqvist on Unsplash.

Restorative Rhyme

Restorative Rhyme

When life gets too busy and I wish that I had wings
to get me free from obligations and off to greater things,
away from lists, committees and everything that’s pending,
everything that in the modern world seems to be trending,
I fly off in my thoughts instead and write a silly verse
in words I put together, absurd and even worse.
And yet in its reciting, somehow it’s rehabilitating,
wiping out those serious thoughts that were debilitating.

Prompt words are: wings, trend, great, debilitating and busy.

Writer Wannabe

Writer Wannabe

I wish I were prolific and could elevate each word 
from general to specific, to astounding from absurd.
As they are ejected from my fingers or my pen,
I wish that they were more profound, more thoughtful and more Zen.
But, alas, their attributes remain to me mysterious.
They verge on the inane when my intent was to be serious.

 

Prompt words today are prolific, elevate, attribute, eject and mystery.

Easy Love Affair

Easy Love Affair

When I’m atop my sweetheart, everything’s sublime.
My time with her is perfect every single time.

Once I had a sampling of everything she does,
no other loved one of her kind could satisfy because

I needn’t be too active, for she does all the work.
She is not loud or vulgar. She does not yank or jerk.

If you would like to see me put her through her courses,
come out to my stable, for there are lots more horses!!!

 

Prompt words today are  atop, sample, sweetheart, loud and active. Image is a detail from a photo by Sebastian Hermann on Unsplash.

Broadband Controversy

Broadband Controversy

When he formed his “Broadband,” he wanted them all girly:
ruffles and boutique lace, and he wanted their hair curly.
But I fear that what he named them is a bit passé,
for no one ever calls a girl a “broad” today.

Still, he liked the name and said he would not cave
and make use of modern lingo, so the name he gave
remained in use as east and west they traveled on their tours.
Those shiny broads continued their bills and coos and purrs,

bravely enduring catcalls and pickets from their sisters
who proclaimed real women did not cave in to misters
who use insulting language like battle-ax, broad and bitch,
bimbo, bird and arm-candy, sheila, chick and witch.

An “all-girl” band’s acceptable, at least was in the past,
but women’s lib participants hope this band will not last.
Their music’s great and expressed according to their nature.
Too bad a guy decided on their clothes and nomenclature.

 

Prompts for today are shine, broadband, boutique, east and brave. Image by Zoriana Stakhniv on Unsplash.