Words for a Formerly Rejected Would-be Lover
The prospects are quite iffy that you’ll shift my view,
but come equipped with custard and I’ll take a spin with you.
We’ll see if we have anything in common other than
a taste for boiled custard and a mania for flan.
Prompt words today are shift, spin, custard, iffy and equipped. Image by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash.
Infestation
When she screams like a banshee, running through the house,
just because she saw a tiny little mouse,
the mouse bilks all her efforts to thus scare it away
by slipping in the closet where in time it may
produce many other creatures of its ilk
in a tiny nest it has established in the silk
contents of her drawer of sexy lingerie—
picking for its bed her favorite negligee.
So, if she’s so lucky as to score a kiss
and, planning for a night of amatory bliss,
she reaches in her drawer, completely unaware
of the little visitors housed in her underwear,
no doubt she’ll find reminders of that earlier day
and the previous companion she thought she’d chased away.
Then her latest conquest will beat a fast retreat
as her former screams she ventures to repeat.
Word prompts today are banshee, reminder, bliss, bilk and house. Illustration thanks to Frenjamin Benklin on Unsplash.
Admonitions from the Editor of The Southern Christian Monitor
Good gracious, sir can you not mend your pertinent demeanor?
Clean up your language, cease your slurs. Find language that is cleaner!
When you speak, why must you be such a surly gent?
For once why don’t you try to say something we can print?
Your thoughts are fine. It’s just the words with which you choose to state them.
It simply is your word choice that makes us excoriate them.
As my southern mama used to say, “For goodness sakes, y’all,
if you can’t say it politely, don’t say anything at all!”
Disclaimer: There is to my knowledge no such publication as The Southern Christian Monitor. This poem is pure fiction, prompted by the prompt words!!!
Prompt words today are gracious, slur, pertinent, mend and print. Image by Roman Kraft on Unsplash.
New Neighbor
We exercise due diligence, but still we find we can’t
avoid the proclamations and the daily rant
that we’ve had to put up with, lately, ever since
our new caustic neighbor started peering o’er the fence,
raising his head above it by standing on a stump
to spread the raving tirade that he loves to dump
on anybody present who’s so unfortunate
as to visit our back yard and encounter this nut.
Every time I go outside, I must absorb his spewing.
He seems to have some radar that tracks all that we’re doing,
so when I take the garbage out, he’s always out there, too,
spreading verbal garbage that he’s amassed anew.
I guess there’s only one way to get out of this groove.
It may seem excessive, but I think we’ll have to move.
We’ll find a brand new house that has a tall back wall
and rebuff any neighbors who should try to call.
We’ll be the sort of neighbors that no one seems to know,
but we’ll have blessed privacy when we go out to mow !
Prompt words today are stump, anybody, caustic, diligent and absorb. Image by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash.
7 A.M.
Their rebuke is most benign.
Cats yowl protest. The dogs all whine.
As outside dogs slip into gear,
Zoe wakes up and bites my ear.
Their stomachs are a timetable
that I will meet if I am able.
I drag myself out of my bed.
If only I could sleep instead!
The hour that I hit the hay
I fear was not so far away.
Three hours of sleep or perhaps four
were all I had. Surely, not more.
Just as I thought to jump sleep’s hurdle
I remembered, “Daily Wordle!”
Grabbed computer, filled every square,
weeding out vowels my only care.
Wordle in five or four or three?
I cannot sleep until I see.
But later, morning comes too soon
as animals begin their croon.
I move to kitchen to feed cats,
open the door, put bowls on mats,
fill with kibble and with wet
catfood, and they still their fret.
Move to back door, feed each dog
different portions, mind in fog.
Zoe inside, big dogs out,
fends off pilfering and pout.
What I gain in remuneration
is their ceasing excitation.
Whines replaced by scraping beat
of metal dishes on concrete,
clicking jaw and lapping tongue
as cats and dogs both old and young
enjoy results of their design.
Then, back to bed as they all dine!
Prompt words today are concrete, remuneration, design, rebuke and timetable.
,
The prompt for the 30th day of NaPoWriMo 2022 was to write a cento–a poem made up from the lines of other poets. In my poem above, the lines are numbered. The sources are given below:
I listed Hilda Morley as a 4 in two places in my poem because although both lines were from the same poem, they were not sequential, but were in different parts of her poem.
Family Links
These are the gifts I was given at birth:
my father’s high cheekbones, my auntie’s wide girth.
Legs that are solid and a brain that is sound,
a head that’s too big and a stomach too round.
From my mother, a funny bone and a fine wit
in sharing my life by writing of it.
A talent for rhyme and a need to be telling
stories original, tight and compelling.
A thirst for travel, squelched in my dad,
allowed me adventures he rarely had.
A love of babies and a wicked humor
that didn’t go wasted in this baby boomer.
I’m forever grateful that I came to be,
thanks to those genes that created me.
With both foibles and talents, I’m not perfect for sure,
but all that I am, I have come to endure.
I’ve lived to an age where I appreciate
all of the gifts that I’ve come to relate.
Here I am, the next link in the family queue,
and what they shared with me, I now share with you.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is “to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth.”
Advice to a Poetry Critic
Each poet worth her salt adores
well-appointed metaphors,
but when they step up to the mike,
similes they only like.
Before you discuss simile
consult an expert vis a vis
the difference between the two
so you will never have to rue
mislabeling your imagery.
Hyperbole is not allusion,
so don’t add to the confusion.
Synecdoche to oxymoron––
as you choose what to write more on––
get their names right for your reader.
There’s more to poems than rhyme and meter!
This is a rerun from a few year ago, but couldn’t resist using it for NaPoWriMo.
Clown of Renown
With his roisterous manner and carbuncle nose,
he attracts children wherever he goes.
Talented clown that he’s been from his birth,
his floppy big feet and his startling girth
along with a certain elegant ease
makes him the perfect comic and tease.
Whether melodramatic or over the top,
playing Buster Keaton or a Keystone cop,
he captures the fancy of everyone there:
the perennial favorite of every town fair.
Word prompts today are melodramatic, elegant, carbuncle, roister and talented. Image by Ehimetalor Akhere on Unsplash.
