Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Forgotten Words

4 Replies

 

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

1 Reply

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

13 Replies

 

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

4 Replies


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

18 Replies


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

8 Replies

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

2 Replies

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.

Fatal Obsession

18 Replies


Fatal Obsession

My father is an ogre and rather hard-of-hearing,
but I had the silly idea I could rise above my rearing.
All my friends were human and I had a strange obsession
for screening them from tendencies I had in my possession.

The result was that I scored a beau inimitably grand—
the sort of perfect boyfriend I thought I’d never land.
Vibrant, handsome, wealthy and inordinately smart,
he was the sort of catch that would melt any ogress heart.

In short, I could barely believe that Avery was mine,
but when I brought him pridefully home with me to dine,
after the aperitifs, the soup and the tossed salad,
I noticed that my father was looking somewhat pallid.

I stepped into the kitchen to find him food more savory,
only to return to find that dad had eaten Avery!!
I cried, “How could you do this to one who’s so indelible?
“I tried to prove you wrong,” he said. “I thought you said inedible!”

 

Note: An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster usually depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, Ogres are closely linked with giants and with human cannibals in mythology.

Prompt words for today are vibrant, indelible, inimitable, possess and pride.

Payback

12 Replies

Payback

When Hal at the feed store hired a new clerk,
he was friendly enough, but a bit of a jerk.
He quickly filled orders for packets of seed
of a kilo or so, but he didn’t accede
to requests for help out with a heavier sack.
He had an excuse as he claimed a bad back.
Then later that rascal would  go to the gym
and work out with weights far heavier than him.
Of course word got around and was cause for his layoff.
Good news for his back which now has every day off!

Prompts today are layoff, rascal, friendly, accede and clerk. Image by julian-andres-carmona-serrato on Unsplash.

Saint Valentine Speaks the Truth for Once

34 Replies

St. Valentine Speaks the Truth for Once

Yesterday,
before he caught the plane for Guaymas,
the lacquer heart box
I was going to fill with fudge for him
was still empty.
I stuffed it
with bought cookies
and tucked them in his bag,
not food for much.
Any love I might have felt
somehow got left out at the last minute.
He was hurrying to catch the plane.
There wasn’t time to do things properly.

But today it feels like things were done just right.
Loving him has always felt this empty.
Our hollows we filled from the very first
with fresh tortillas, warmed with butter on the grill,
chocolate truffles,
cookies from the corner doughnut shop.
Real cookies. One would make a breakfast
or a midnight meal
in bed, before the lights went out.
First the bed lamp,
then the t.v. screen.

His third wife didn’t like to cuddle,
but I made up for that.
In return, he gave it almost all.
But what he saves his mouth for,
I can’t guess.
I even gave up smoking for a year.
Still, no kisses.

I took up writing poems
about early loves, all kisses.
I thought their poetry
more satisfying
than he was in the dark.
We bought more cookies,
bags of them.
We kept nuts on the bedside table.
Hershey Kisses, one after the other,
are almost foreplay.

When he comes,
it’s only a sound.
A tiger growl.
I listen. Once, I laughed.
I just can’t believe he feels that much,
because when we love, if you can call it that,
I never seem to be along with him.

Once, in those first weeks
when I was just about to call the whole thing off,
he said to stare into his eyes.
For minutes, I looked into him
and I saw all the men of myths
I’d tried for years to find.
I thought he knew then
what I’d seen in him,
or maybe it was just the grass.
Metaphysics always seem more real
after the pipe is passed.

Really, I still believe what was in his eyes once
when he stopped,
but I can’t love him anymore
from memory.
I’ve tried so often
in the years since then
to enter his eyes again–
to take him with me,
gathering selves.
He’s never followed.
Not once.
Maybe I need to look into a mirror
closer
at myself.
My eyes.
Maybe God is buried there as well.

In the evening
after business meetings,
in the bar,
I can imagine eyes like mine
on barstools or in clusters
at the tables
over Margaritas.
Fresh eyes
willing to look into his
and believe
that love might grow.

I’ve dressed him well.
Other women always comment on how he looks–
cute in his Jaguar hats, brown corduroy and tweed.
I’ve thrown away his plain white undershirts.
Old man shirts, we always called them,
his kids and I.
Even though I never taste him from the collar up,
I take great satisfaction in the decorating
of the rest of him.
Like cookies to taste, his gentleman’s clothes to watch,
him in them, walking toward me
and away from me.
Not stopping much,
at least not long.

If I could keep up with him,
he would be glad to have me there,
but I like to stop along the way.
The picnic breakfast on the ocean cliffs
near Rosarita,
his hand and mouth for just five minutes.
I need these stopping places
that he gives up in his hurry
to be somewhere else.

All his family
and my family
and my friends
think the fault is his.
The many times I’ve asked him to move out, they’ve understood.
They all recall the crucial times he hasn’t been here.
They see me as weak when I let him stay
another week, a month, a year,
waiting for things to be right in his bank account.

But I’m aware of what they can’t know.
I was glad for him when he took pleasure with a growl.
The pleasure that I took from it
is how the magic women must have felt
after a successful incantation
breathed
for the traveler
who sought them out and crossed their palms with silver
for a spell.

His family
and my family
and my friends
do not understand
that this is what is left in this for me—
this thin crust just before its crumbling.

For, though it’s definite that Cupid’s arrow missed the heart
on the cover of the Valentine he left for me
before he flew to Guaymas,
It’s also true
that inside the card
he called me
friend.

 

This is a poem written in 1985 that I’ve been doing some work on, but I still don’t feel like the ending stanzas are right. Actually, in real life, I asked him out to lunch, gave him this poem to read and he moved out the next day. All he said after reading it was something like, “God, you just tell the brutal naked truth!!!!” A year and a half later, I married one of the great loves of my life. Happy Ending.

For dVerse Poet’s: Valentine’s Day