Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

The Archbishop Gets Forgetful

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The Archbishop Gets Forgetful

Priests in town know when the archbishop is about,
he’s bound to have a new batch of indulgences to tout.
And though he’s their head honcho so they must all be respectful,
when they see him coming they get super-genuflectful.
“Please dear Lord, don’t make us sell the pardons that he has!”
These days that sort of fund-raising carries no pizazz.
Paying their bills as he suggests has no appeal at all.
They’d really rather make do with St. Vincent de Paul.
Yet no one wants to tell him that selling the way to heaven
was outlawed by the church way back in fifteen sixty-seven!

Prompt words for today are honcho, pizzazz, respectful, tout and bill.

 

And A Little Child Shall Lead Them

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Click on photos to enlarge. All photos used with permission from Unsplash.

And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
(For Greta Thunberg)

When it comes to children, upper classes can be haughty.
Even normal kid stuff they consider to be naughty.
They send them off to private school to simplify their keep
and their favorite time when they are home is when they are asleep.

The words and thoughts of children are rarely heard at table,
for it might upset the apple cart if they were only able
to introduce hot topics like the way this world is headed.
But, alas, they’re fed and watered and then promptly bedded

without asking what they’re thinking and of course they don’t insist.
They’re patted and they’re smiled at and they’re talked at and they’re kissed,
but their parents don’t consider how they are dissembling
and it’s their children’s future that they are disassembling.

Trashing up the oceans, melting the North Pole,
ruining the air with oil and gas and coal—
it’s the parents who are unruly and should be sent to bed
to see if kids could run things better in their stead.

 

Prompt words today are cart, asleep, hot, word and naughty. Photos from unsplash.

Rescinded Offer

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Rescinded Offer

Her succinct requirements rush outward like a river.
What she expects from marriage. What she expects he’ll give her.

She tries to soften her demands with voice both soft and sweet—
habits he must abolish. Standards he should meet.

They stand before cerulean bay the color of her eyes.
Waves breaking gently on the shore first soothe, then hypnotize.

Then a clap of thunder disturbs the scenic spell.
He hears the content of her words and knows her very well.

There won’t be any marriage. She never will be his.
He’s decided to just find a girl who’ll take him as he is!

 

Word prompts for the day are cerulean bay, abolish, river, succinct and breaking.

Alarm Clock Rejoinder

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Alarm Clock Rejoinder

My alarm clock’s rude awakening I eschew vis-á-vis
a gentler mode of wakeup that is buzzer-free.
Questions upon awakening I find somewhat aberrant.
Kindly save your queries until I am more coherent.
If I’m a pebble that must drop into my daily start,
I pray the ripples of my morning  come farther apart.

 

Prompt words today are vis-á-vis, awakening, coherent, save and ripples,

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

I was almost mature, I was almost thin.
Now I must start all over again.
So please have compassion. Eat your own surprise.
Don’t bring me donuts or candy or pies.

I’m redoing my fridge and throwing out naughties
homemade by friends as well as my boughties.
Ice cream and truffles go straight in the bin,
for I must amend this shape I am in.

I’ll begin my diet as soon as I’m able,
pushing myself away from the table
as soon as banana bread I baked last night
has been depleted to nary a bite.

Then I’ll eat salads and green beans and stuff.
Doing without sugar will not be so tough
tomorrow. I’ll begin tomorrow, I vow.
Tomorrow works out so much better than now.

Prompt words today are almost, mature, ready, compassion and organization.

Poised

8 Replies

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Poised

My past retreats in the rear vision mirror
while in the windshield the future draws nearer.
Gliding along, sometimes I go slow,
fearing what the future will choose to bestow.
Ahead a small cove offers shelter from stress:
security, housing and a wedding dress.
But if I veer off and drive over the hill,
I may never stop again until, until—
I’ve encountered adventure like stories I’ve read
while curled up in the hammock or lying in bed.
All of those lives there lined up on a shelf,
each one revealing a part of myself.
One eye trained behind me and one on the highway,
will I choose the known road or opt for a byway?

Prompts today are rear vision mirror, glide, bestow, cove and housing.

 

Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering: My First Two Excuses.

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Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering:
My First Two Excuses

I’ ve run out of storage for all the provender
I bought in advance, thinking chances were slender
that in a month there’d be staples enough.
I thought that the going was going to get tough.

So with my freezer full and no cupboard space free,
the only place left to store food in is me.
I forage on fudge and I’m gorging on chips—
storing them here on my waist and my hips.

Please come to my rescue. I’m tortured by guilt.
Last year at this time I was pleasantly built,
but this forced isolation obliterates “no”
as an answer to chocolate and cookie dough.

You may be amused by my failure at coping,
but I am not drinking and I am not doping.
It isn’t my fault. I’m a victim of fate.
It’s my body that’s yearning to assimilate

cookies and candies and pastas and pies.
It’s my body’s fault that I’ve grown a size.
With no one to stop me, I’ve just given in.
I guess you’d describe me as formerly thin!

Words for the day are rescue, torture, obliterate, assimilate and amused.

Adulation and Lamentation

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Adulation and Lamentation

Held captive by your luscious smile, I state the total truth
when I say you are perfection, both in lip and tooth!
Your hair’s no less than gossamer. Your figure scores a ten.
No greater beauty’s lauded by any poet’s pen.
 
Thanks to both your parents for creating such perfection.
Hereafter we must ostracize beauty of less confection.
It’s clear they scored a victory when they created you,
so why stop at one instead of making us a few?

 

Prompt words for the day are luscious, thanks, victory, ostracize and captive.

McDonald Duck and Friends

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McDonald Duck and Friends

I know a certain Donald— a king of pass the buck
who to leadership is much less suited than that duck
with whom he shares a name but whose smarts and application
far exceed the POTUS who prefers a golf vacation
to tending to affairs of state except to prompt aggression,
medical misinformation, racism, secession
in order to create a place where he would be the King
relieving congress and the courts from every single thing.

He’d sit up in his tower once the senate had resigned,
ruling at his leisure far above the daily grind,
digressing into fun and games—a golf game, maybe two,
stopping in for French fries and big Macs with extra goo.
He’d sit upon his golden thrown waiting for his bribes
to be delivered daily from his well-heeled tribes.
Courts would not be needed, for guns would rule the day,
trading in extortion in lieu of legal pay.

Let the country go to hell so long as billionaires
go on stockpiling more cash to soothe away their cares.

 

Word prompts today are leadership, resign, duck, digress and application. photo by Amir Abbas Abdolali on  Unsplash. Used with permission.

Thinking Cap

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Thinking Cap
What transpires in a brain in just a single minute
would astound us if we listed everything that’s in it.
What miracle surpasses it? Its creative motion
distills possibility from every single notion.

Our thoughts spiral outward into the universe.
From the wheel to a moon landing, back to a Gucci purse.
From minute to universal, from profound to superficial,
from a child’s imaginings to great schemes more official,

The very thought that thought exists chills me to the bone.
Of all nature’s created, the human brain alone
is a miracle most magical. In fact and art and myth it
defines every one of us by what we may do with it.

Prompt words today are notion, spiral, surpass, transpire and minute.