Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

School Reunions

26 Replies

School Reunions

Entangled in the distant past, we recall and illuminate
those fifty-year-old stories as we gather to ruminate.
Pranks, first loves and scandals so far back in our past,
it’s as though it was a movie in which we all were cast.

That thumbtack “someone” placed upon our history teacher’s chair.
Will the scoundrel confess at last? But no, he doesn’t dare.
And in our sixties, will we snitch? No, there is not one.
Not one of us reveals the answer to that smoking gun.

The raided slumber parties, the trips up England’s hill,
we tell the stories of our past until we’ve had our fill,
then jump to doleful stories of tragedies and sorrows—
the few of those lost in their youth, deprived of all their morrows.

Hayrides by the river, pep rallies and school dances,
boys passing girls in cars on Main, pondering their chances.
Wild Homecoming raids on barns where we were building floats,
whisperings in Civics class and furtively passed notes.

Both schools we passed those years in have been felled by wrecking crews,
replaced by newer buildings, erasing all the clues
of years we spent within them, the carvings on the desks,
all our various antics as we lived out youth’s burlesques.

Our memories getting dimmer, each five years, we choose to meet
to reminisce and chew the fat. To drink and dance and eat.
We don’t discuss the present. It’s as though it’s in a haze
as we go back to live our half-remembered yesterdays.

Prompt words today are entangle, doleful, ruminate and jump.

Alfresco

15 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.


Alfresco

This gentle little zephyr does not make a din.
We hardly know that it’s a breezy day that we are in!
We step so lightly over the smooth and green terrain
that we barely notice that it’s begun to rain.

Our bedroom’s warm and cozy. I suppose we should go home,
but nature’s made a softer bed in grass spread over loam.
You once called me nature’s child, and today it’s true.
The whole world is a comfy nest when I am with you.

The grass provides a mattress, the trees spread overhead
form a perfect canopy for our alfresco bed.
It is a perfect ending to our day of roaming
to wait here for the evening star, together in the gloaming.

Word prompts for today are din, zephyr, terrain, suppose, and bedroom.

Honey This and Honey That

25 Replies

 


Your honeyfuggling habits will not work with me.
Your foreplay is of no effect—just makes me want to pee.
If you want to romance me, you’ll have to get more physical.
This flittering and buzzing just makes me slightly quizzical.
You promise that your tactics will become more auspicious,
but then you call me “Honey” and make me more suspicious.
Your strategies of courtship are too fluttery and free.
I fear that our love story was just not meant to “bee.”

 

 

The prompt word for word of the day is honeyfuggle.

Fruitless Interrogation

10 Replies

Fuitless Interrogation

When they lampooned the bully, he nearly slipped a gasket.
They had made his effigy and put it in a casket.
When he finds out exactly who engineered this jaunt,
He’ll know whose school locker that he’ll have to haunt
to find retribution—to torture and harass.
When he finds out who did it, he’ll surely have their ass!
But when it comes to sleuthery, he’s not doing so well.
The entire school was in on it. Nobody’s going to tell!

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words today are bully, lampoon, jaunt and basket.

Neologism

16 Replies


Neologism

Once talk at the next table had hushed, I made the observation
that it was likely they were listening to our conversation.  
And though they were both smirking and though their eyes were glistening,
they swore they were not eavesdropping. They were just overlistening!

 

For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Eavesdrop. (This true story happened to a friend and me in 1981 in a small diner in Cannon Beach, Oregon.) A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words.

Free

10 Replies

Free

The lady was omnilegent (which means she was well-read.)
She read while doing dishes, after her kids were fed.
A book propped in the laundry, another on the tub,
balanced there precariously as she had her scrub.
The draconian measures her spouse took to confine her
were fruitless for she did not choose his attempts to define her.

Reading was her gateway to a wider world
and all those intense pleasures waiting to be unfurled.
She held fast to a firm resolve that one day she’d be free.
Her husband could not curtail her mental liberty.
One day when the kids were raised, she’d leave this sunless hollow.
All the words she’d read for years like breadcrumbs she would follow.

Prompt words for today are draconian, uncertain, omnilegent, intense and gateway.

Breach of Conduct

8 Replies

 

Breach of Conduct

There’s a glitch in my spelling—a flub in my speech.
I spelled the word breech when it should have been breach.
There’s a stupendous difference from word to word,
thus my conveyed meaning was rather absurd.
Forgive me for saying that your breech was ample.
and sending the notice out to get a sample
of whether the world at large shared my opinions,
and that is how my formidable minions
came to demonstrate actions unseemly and rude.
Their remarks about size were incredibly crude.
And so though I am sure that your actions were dumb,
I have no opinion re/ the size of your bum! 

Prompt words today are glitch, speech, stupenous, demonstrate and sample. Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash.

Masked and Unmasked

48 Replies

Masked and Unmasked

Would you please exonerate me from my daily task
of hourly disinfectant and this horrid mask?
They’re needed for survival and using them is wise.
I believe the truth of it. I don’t believe the lies
that Donald tries to feed us about things getting better.
The west coast’s burning up as our southern coast gets wetter.
His conniption fits don’t reach me. I know he’s just selected
any random facts and words for getting reelected.
The only way to free us is to get some wiser folks
to  replace these charlatans that are merely jokes.
Self-serving puppets of the rich, they posture and they bluster.
They proudly go out maskless as they gather in his cluster.
The only way to save us is to vote these fools out.
It’s done no good to protest, to riot and to shout.
The finest weapon that we have is easier to tote.
Just put your mask and gloves on and hurry out to vote.
We’ll wear these masks forever until we pass away
if every single one of us doesn’t have our say.
If you’re my friend, please go and vote. It’s not much of a task.
And maybe in my lifetime I can get rid of this mask!!!!

 

Prompts today are lies, survive, conniption, exonerate and feed.

Heartful Gatherings: August 27, 2020

15 Replies

Heartful Gatherings

Those who yawp on about rainbows and the weather are too wordy.
I’d rather converse at great length about topics more nerdy.
Crossed ankles and a pot of tea with polite conversation
seem somehow remiss in their mental titillation.
Give me feet up on the coffee table with a nerd or two—
both talk and a libation of a stronger brew.
Quantum physics, writing, music, games or art
make for a connection that is closer to my heart.
When it comes to cliques that I could  be a part of,
I prefer to find a group that I can find the heart of.

Prompt words for today are connection, nerd, rainbow, yawp and group.

The Duchess’s Hair Comb

19 Replies

The Duchess’s Hair Comb

In a very strong wind, in a leap of confusion,
a grasshopper staged an act of intrusion.
His leap took him higher than ever before
just as a visitor opened the door,
and he rocketed high over carpet and chair
to land in the dowager’s snowy white hair.
His illegal entry unplanned and unwitting,
he clung to her coiffure and he ceased his wild flitting.
As friend after friend arrived at her door,
each was given to say, “I simply adore
your new hair ornament. Is it vintage Lalique?
and they came a bit closer, the better to peek
at the grasshopper clinging within a stiff curl,
sprayed liberally so it wouldn’t unfurl.

The grand dame, a bit dotty and splendidly vain,
said over and over and over again,
“Yes, it is,” and bent over to pour out more tea.
Then she  settled again, with a cup on her knee.
As the gossip flowed on with nary a bleep,
the grasshopper settled and soon fell asleep.
By this means, he avoided a swat or a squashing
as all of the ladies continued their noshing.
They murdered each sandwich and cookie and cake,
never once taking note that her comb was a fake. 
And when the tea ended, he took a small ride
as his patron accompanied her guests all outside.
Then he took a great leap and was finally free
to luxuriate in his new liberty.

Not one person there knew the truth of the matter.
One guest told the tale to her favorite hatter
of the fabulous jewel the dowager wore
and the hatter relayed it to more and to more
of his customers, then asked the lady who wore it
if she would show him, so he, too, could adore it.
So she raided her vaults and her jewelry case,
but the jewel had vanished—was gone with no trace.
And the lady, known lately as vague and forgetful,
imagined great loss and grew angry and fretful.

She questioned her servants, then called the police,
but since she could find not a trace of the piece—
no receipts or photos or proofs of insurance—
the police could not give her any assurance
that they could recover it, and soon departed,
leaving the dowager so broken-hearted,
now convinced that this hair ornament was her favorite,
mourning the fact that no more could she savor it.
Thus goes the story that was handed down
among the servants and all over town.
It went down in history as a grand theft
that left the grand duchess sorely bereft.
While down in the garden,  hearty and hale,
her purloined jewel calmly munched on her kale.

Prompt words today are carpet, rocket, garden, intrusion and illegal.