Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Tall Tales: The Rest of the Story

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Tall Tales: The Rest of the Story

It is my conjecture that you’re given to embellish
all of your old stories that you recite with such relish.
Your lyrical relation at such volume and such length
has informed us of your valor, your virility and strength.

Your life stories, meant to guide us, seem to form a primer for
how to conduct a perfect life behavior but what’s more,
should tell us about settlements and suits that might occur
because in spite of all the truths you proclaim and aver,

folks with all the answers can be a pain to bear—
the sort that former comrades want to get out of their hair.
So former wives and partners might seek to find surcease
by divorce or severance of contract or of lease.

So, after you have told your tales of glory at your leisure,
will you tell your tales of suit, foreclosure and of seizure?
If there’s a moral to the story, I have to say that it’s
that those who tell the longest stories tend to leave out the best bits.

Prompt words for today are: guide, conjecture, lyrical, relish and settlement. Image by Camila Quintero on Unsplash.

Not Missin’ Dissin’

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Not Missin’ Dissin’

I’m inclined to winnow out
friends who grouse and whine and pout.
I prefer to share my housing
with companions much more rousing.
It’s not that I’m beyond reproach,
for my mood’s been known to encroach
upon the moods of those around me,
yet, within reason, I surround me
with folks of a happier bent
who, if they rail and curse and vent,
do so at a minimum
and once they’ve finished feeling glum,
do not make their own frustration
part of my reeducation.

One time or two I’ll gladly listen
to your pointless constant dissin’.
But if you’re gloomy day and night,
kindly grant me a respite.
Put my phone number on hold
if you just wish to bitch and scold.
You can always reinstall
my number when you’ve cured y’all
of your pointless railing at
the traffic, neighbors or the cat.
Fair weather friend? Indeed, I’m not.
I’ll soothe your brow and stir your pot,
but I will not be joining thee
in the quagmire of your misery.

Prompt words today are reinstall, reproach, frustration, winnow and housing. Image by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash.

Layoff

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Layoff

I cannot endorse your obvious redundancy
due to the work force’s current abundancy.
Our air of pathos is painful to bear
with all life’s prosperity gone from the air.

The garlands are down and the flambeaus blew out.
There’s no joyous reason for dancing about.
When bosses agree to some conciliation,
then it will be time enough for jubilation.

‘Til then, I’ll commiserate, cry in my beer,
wishing that you weren’t regrettably near,
for with you at work, I am fed and supported.
What will I do if your job is aborted?

 

 

 

Prompt words today are flambeau, conciliatory, pathos, endorse and redundancy. Image by Thom Masat on Unsplash.

Forgotten Words

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Forgotten Words

Sometimes a certain word just doesn’t clink.
It doesn’t fit in in the place where we think.
It’s not in our lexicon. We can’t remember.
Not only won’t spark. There’s not even an ember
of inspiration to trigger a thought.
We only remember what it is not.

What could be therapeutic at bringing it in
from where it’s been ostracized. What about gin?
A good stiff martini might loosen our brain
and help us remember what it means again.

It hangs somewhere in back like a not-much-worn pendant,
covered up by more popular, less independent
words more ubiquitous, used every day.
More popular, funny and modern and gay.

But somewhere in the shadows, in the back of our mind
are words we’ve forgotten of the long-ago kind,
ready to pop out in most unlikely times
when we’ll use them in novels and stories and rhymes.

Then they’ll shake out their wrinkles and rub off their rust
And rejoin the world, leaving footprints of dust
in the minds of all readers, who for sure when they read them
will use them again when they happen to need them.

Prompts today are clink, lexicon,  ostracize, independent and  therapeutic,

Misnomers

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The prompt words I use each day are taken from five different blogs. To see the sites, click on each prompt word, which is linked to the blog that suggested it.  Words for the day are: brindle, infatuated, obelus, summit.  An obelus is a division sign, by the way. I didn’t know that, either, a fact that gave birth to the below poem:

Misnomers

An obelus should be a globe, a bubble or a ball.
rounded and continuous, uniting one and all,
not something that divides us and splits us into parts.
It’s clear the one who coined the word is lacking in their smarts.

Infatuated should mean thin and brindle should mean flinch.
Summit should mean more or less. I will not yield an inch.
Words should have meanings like their sounds  lest ignorant souls abuse them.
Until they do, bet on the fact that I will never use them!!!

 

Image by Simone Secci on Unsplash.

Maybe it is My Heart

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Maybe It Is My Heart

Maybe it is my heart I hear when I think I hear Coyotes.
Maybe it is my heart I hear in the croaking of the frogs.
Maybe it is my heart tap-tap-tapping on the window glass.
Maybe it is my heart walking across the rooftop.
Maybe it is my heart howling in the treetops.
Maybe it is my heart in the two long rumbles of thunder.
Maybe it is my heart in the three-minute violence of hail.
Maybe it is my heart in the rustle of the Redwood trees.
Maybe it is my heart in the weeping of the loon.
Maybe it is my heart in the quiet undulations of the reservoir
Maybe it is my heart that splits the water with the paddle.
Maybe it is my heart that reflects from the breast of the waves.
Maybe it is my heart that has found its own places
Maybe it is my heart that is looking for me.

 

This post came about because of a Facebook message from Linda Levy, a friend of many years who lives in Bonny Doon, California. When she saw news of my upcoming show entitled “The Poet’s Eye, the Artist’s Tongue,” she sent a photo of a piece we collaborated on when I was the curator of the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center in Ben Lomond, CA. I used that title for a show that involved artists and poets collaborating on pieces. Either the artist showed the poet a work of art they had created and the poet wrote a poem to go along with it or the poet presented a poem for the artist to make a piece to go with. In this case, I gave her the poem and the illustration above is the cardboard and paper sculpture she made. The ripped-out pieces of poetry on the desk are the words of the poem above.

That show reoccured on a yearly basis for a number of years after I left and Linda assumed the curatorship. Can’t believe that was twenty years ago and SCMAC is still going strong. Long story short, when Jesus asked me to do a show with him in his gallery, since both of us are writers and artists, I thought the title would work well for our show, so I resurrected it. Thanks, Linda, for the memories.

Poem by jdb Sculpture  and photo by Linda Levy

Here is another photo of the lid of the box just sent to me by Linda:


Adolescence and Anorexia

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Adolescence and Anorexia

When I was a teenager, I thought that I was fat.
I felt that I must be obese if I wasn’t flat.
To look like Twiggy was our goal, but we never achieved it.
The media said curves were bad, and dumb us, we believed it!
Normal flesh felt flabby and we feared cellulite pebbles.
and though in other matters, we felt like we were rebels,
when it came to body image, news and fashion led us.
Thankfully, in retrospect, they weren’t the ones who fed us!

Prompt words today are pebble, referral, flabby, teenager.

Ancient and Modern History

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Ancient and Modern History

As long as there are riches, then rich men will host wars.
“What’s mine is mine” does not insinuate that “Yours is yours.”

 

Prompt words today are war, insinuate, rich, host.

Turning the Tables

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Turning the Tables

The turtle stuck his neck out to see where he was going,
but might have hidden in his shell if he had means of knowing

that the chef had plans for turtle soup, so caught him at the threshold
and put his hands around his neck so he could gain a flesh hold.

But such plans “gang aft astray.” The turtle put a spin on
and designed a different course from  one that he had been on.

He dragged that gourmet chef along and headed for the sea.
Their noise of battle was the thing that awakened you and me.

We put our vinyl raincoats on and fiddled with the locks,
scooting feet into our shoes, devoid of any socks.

No moonlight eased our journey, for rainclouds obscured all,
and amidst the raindrops, we commenced to slip and fall.

Around us, many turtles were streaming towards the sea,
intent upon their journey. Ignoring you and me.

So we turned back homeward, to sit upon our stoop
imagining those turtles enjoying human soup.

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: turtle neck shell hidden
but design no spin fiddle amidst noise vinyl

For Wordle 542 Image by Dusan Veverkolog on Unsplash.

No Chip Off His Block

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No Chip Off His Block

He cannot get a rise out of his insouciant daughter.
A woman on a tightrope, he cannot make her totter.
Cool as a cucumber, a lamb chop with no gristle,
teasing does not faze her. No insult makes her bristle.

He sees her as a puzzle he’s determined he will solve.
Where did she get her backbone and her strong resolve?
He’s had too many beers, but when he goes to get another,
it’s clear to everybody else she takes after her mother!

 

 

Prompt words today are gristle, mimic, insouciant, totter and tease.