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
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
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
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
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
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.
I actually wrote two poems to the prompts today. This was one I wrote in a notebook while waiting in the dentist’s office. I decided it was sort of a downer in a time of too many downers, so I wrote another, but it called out from the notebook sitting on my desk beside my computer, so here it is with all its warts.
Campused
It’s a kind of surviving, this new life we share.
We rarely leave home and we don’t cut our hair.
We mainly commune with our kids and our spouses
and cover our faces when we must leave our houses.
We maintain a distance of six feet away.
We deterge our hands countless times every day.
A soupcon of hand sanitizer’s our goal
when touching a surface not in our control.
Not a world of our choice and not one by design,
so we sulk and we protest. We pout and we whine.
Yet we are not blameless, for it’s the result
of the short-sighted goals of the consumer cult.
Parents respond when kids get out of hand.
So, too, Mother Nature must take a stand.
She’s decided to send each of us to our room
lest we mess up her world, thus sealing its doom.
If we won’t behave, she must take a firm hand.
We’ve not followed her rules, so we have been banned.
Prompts today are surviving, design, soupcon, deterge and kind. And also, for dVerse Poets
Retribution
I swallow screams for dinner,
hold my tongue the whole meal through.
I’m told I’ll have to eat my words
if I let slip a few.
I’m choking back the clever things
that I want to tell,
but all my smart rejoinders
simply will not jell.
“Better seen than heard,” they say,
and yet they do not see me.
If I’m not allowed to speak,
how will I ever be me?
When I grow up, I’ll talk and talk.
Never will I be quiet.
If someone tries to shut me up,
I simply will not buy it.
By then my folks will be real old.
To shush me? They won’t dare.
If they do, I’ll shush them back,
and put them in a chair.
I’ll make them face the corner
and tell them to be quiet.
And if they say to eat my words?
I’ll say I’m on a diet!!!
For Poets and Storytellers United. Swallow Screams
“Spur”ned
Your boots are outlandish. They’re fancy and chic.
I bet they attract all the women you seek,
but your uncanny luck in attracting the ladies
won’t get you to Heaven—may take you to Hades,
for your looks are deceiving. Your spectacular start
won’t prevail when it comes to matters of heart.
Better cancel the wedding, unless, instead,
you learn when you wear your new boots to bed,
what you start you can’t finish. You’ll never be hers
If you don’t remember to take off the spurs!!!
Today’s prompt words are deceiving, finish, uncanny, prevail and cancel.
The Lowest of the Highest by Default
He was a homeless jester, a contentious feisty gent.
He shed a sense of triumph everywhere he went.
No amount of scorn and no superior air
ever contradicted his shabby debonair.
In a stovepipe hat, overalls and a tux jacket,
he played his mobile xylophone, making such a racket
that folks rushed out to pay him just so he would quit.
He felt no sense of shame in this, for he took pride in it.
He had the perfect racket. He felt he counted coup—
raking in the dough for what he didn’t do.
He had a fridge crate penthouse on a tower labeled Trump.
(Also a little pied á terre across town at the dump.)
Highest of the highest and lowest of the low—
his main address the finest though he had so little dough.
The key up to the rooftop he had scored out of a pocket
right after the janitor had gone up there to lock it.
He snitched a maintenance uniform and in the helter-skelter
of a tenant’s moving day, filched his plywood shelter.
It made a perfect domicile obscured in a back corner.
As a joke, on its front cornice, he wrote, “Residence of Horner.”*
But he dragged it to the rooftop’s front when the day was done
and had a view of city lights that was second to none.
You may think that he’s a shyster and the building’s lowest resident,
but only since the former lowest tenant became president!
*Little Jack Horner sat in the corner eating his Xmas pie.
He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, “What a good boy am I!”
Words for the day are homeless, contentious, jester, amount and triumph. Image by Donald Teel on Unsplash, used with permission.
