Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Traveler

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Traveler

Nobody’s secretary, no one’s wife.
I’d be a nomad for all of my life.
Traditions converged as I traversed this earth,
discovering foibles, unveiling my worth.

What I saw as empty was something to fill.
Was it something to savor or something to kill?
It depended on choices of what I would savor.
Would I hold out for love or just curry favor?

The choices I made determined my life.
I was somebody’s secretary, someone’s wife.
But first was a nomad so when I came back,
the world was a memory, not merely a lack.

I no longer wander. I no longer roam,
for when I did, I brought it back home
so the whole world’s my neighborhood spread out around me.
From here in its middle, I let it astound me.

Prompt words today are nomad, empty, tradition, converge and secretary.

Hail Diego!!!

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Hail Diego!!!

He’s the king of dogs by his own choice.
Behold his ruff, Enjoy his voice!
He raises it in time of doubt
to assert his power and raise his clout.

IMG_3721

Bypassers make their passings brief
Their parting sighs denote relief.
And since he notes each falling leaf,
no way he’ll overlook a thief.

 

IMG_9501It is a fact that crime went down
the minute he moved into town.
All citizens should laud his fame,
and spread abroad his glorious name!!!

 

Prompt words today are relief, fact, king, behold and voice.

Spring Cleaning

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Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of the year when I want to come clean
and turn into a virtual sorting machine.
I’m emptying closets and clearing out shelves.
Disposing of all of my former used selves.
Keeping the best of me. Tossing the worn.
Keeping the new me that’s daily reborn
and discarding the jaded, the bored and forlorn.

I’m renouncing old habits and starting anew.
I’m not limping along in my regular queue
of things to accomplish and deeds I must do,
and I’m making a list of things I’ll eschew—
things that inevitably make me blue—
politics, violence, things all askew
that have turned our whole planet into a zoo.

I’m making an outline to use as a guide
with all the things that I’ve certified
will make my life better and straighten it out.
They’ll make me happier, without a doubt.
Troublesome people I’m going to avoid.
Life is too short to spend it annoyed.
What is life for if not to be enjoyed?

I’ll go on a diet and I’ll become svelt.
Shorten my hemlines and tighten my belt.
I’ll take all the tactics I’ve learned in this life
as daughter and student and girlfriend and wife
and put them together into a rich stew
of what I have vowed that I’m going to do.
Then tackle my life with this new retinue.

Or else I’ll stay home and not worry about
having a gorgeous body to flout.
I’ll cook puddings and pastries and share them with friends,
put on a few pounds without making amends.
Taking more time to stare at the birds.
I’ll do fewer shoulds and do more absurds—
cavort with my art and play with my words.

Consort with the dogs and cuddle the cats.
Issue fewer “No’s!” and give way more pats.
Since this is my life and I am the boss of it,
I’ll make a vow to get rid of the dross of it.
Clean out the dreads and stock up on the wants.
hang out at all of my favorite haunts,
believe what praise comes and ignore all the taunts.

Word prompts today are limp, outline, new, renounce and politics.

Enforced Reflection

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Enforced Reflection

I’m keeping my composure and compensating for
the fact that they won’t let me venture out my door.
Given lemons, I make margaritas—take the opportunity
now that I can’t wander about in the wide community,
to revel in the riches that abound right here at home,
watching Jesus painting murals all around my dome.

I’m baking lots of cookies, although their fate is sad.
After painters ate just one or two, Diego was so bad
that he raced into the kitchen and made off with all the rest.
One friend suggested delicately it might have been best.
Would I have eaten any that remained? Yes, it’s true, I might.
I must admit my waistbands are getting sort of tight.

Perhaps it’s lack of exercise. Perhaps it’s medication.
Since I so rarely don street clothes, I have no indication.
I avoid the scales because, you know, they are so changeable.
Up one day but rarely down. (Wish they were more arrangeable.)
With nature as our trainer, perhaps we will be changed
in other crazy pastimes in which we’ve become deranged.

Fracking and polluting, casting all our trash
out there in the ocean, making a god of cash.
Nature has to teach us to change our foolish ways
by sending us all to our rooms to pass our “time out” days.
And perhaps now I’m sequestered and set upon the shelf,
Diego’s her reminder to take care of myself.

The image of Diego with a cookie in his mouth is from a retablo/art collage I’m making that is recording my time spent in Mother Nature’s Time-Out period. Why don’t you join me? Mine was finished but then I have to keep adding to it. At least a story a day. Diego was that day’s.

Prompts for the day are composure, compensate, opportunity, revel and trainer.
And, for dVerse Poets Pub prompt: Solitude.

Fist

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Fist

It was that night, as they lay choking in the stench of jasmine,
that he unmasked his rage. Their whole life, it seemed,
was a cipher that obscured his former truths.
Now he seemed socked in by this sudden swirling fog of memories
that suddenly parted, giving him access to his rage.
It was his mother, not her, he said later, that he had struck out at,
but in trying to confront his past,
he had obliterated any hope for their future.

Prompts for the day are unmask, rage, jasmine, cypher and sock.

Funny Man

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Photo by janko Ferlic on Unsplash. Used with permission

Funny Man

He invented silly. It began with how he looked.
His eyes were slightly bulbous and his nose was long and hooked.
But he had such charm within him that it really didn’t matter.
Choosing between Brad Pitt and him? I would choose the latter!

 

 

 

For dverse poets quadrille prompt: silly and Here is where you can read more poems on the subject. A quadrille is a poem that contains exactly 44 words.

Not A Creature of Habit

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jdb photo/do not replicate without permission.

Not A Creature of Habit

Fortitude’s cool, but frazzled’s more fun.
I’d rather be scattered and out on the run
than to be stoically still like a nun.

Out in the village, I’ll use my fine wit,
but identical nuns would have none of it,
Me as a nun? I just wouldn’t fit.

Even clothes are a habit when cloistered in place.
A nun has no moxie, no sass in her face.
They’re out of the mainstream and out of the race.

So hand me no wimple, no habit, no veil.
Confined in such clothes, I could barely exhale.
This bird needs her freedom, not salt on her tail.

 

The word prompts today are frazzled, fortitude, wit, identical and village.

Note: I know there are many nuns who do not fit this stereotype. I claim poetic license to make use of hyperbole!!

High School Commencement, 2020 Style

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     muhammad-rizwan-VnydpKiCDaY-unsplash Used with permission

High School Commencement, 2020 Style

Here in Coyote Valley, we’ve had a small preview
of just what can happen when the world has gone askew.
High School Graduation might have gone without a hitch.
A certain senior’s choice of clothing was the only glitch.
When he approached the platform, parents nearly had a stroke.
His classmates simply had a laugh. They all enjoyed the joke.
His Hazmat suit was timely, though his mortarboard was tilted.
It beat the valedictory speech, which was a little stilted.
Thus Billy Jenkins pulled one over getting his diploma.
First the face mask and what with the principal’s glaucoma,
he missed the fact of who he had just handed an escape
from another year as senior without the dread red tape
of actually passing history, keyboarding or biology.
English, math or woodshop, PE or sociology.
Without opening a single book, Billy counted coup.
Add this to the statistics. COVID-19 got him through.

Prompts for today are coyote, valley, graduation, stroke and preview,

Street Smarts: Flo Educates the Ivy League

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Street Smarts: Flo Educates the Ivy League

Slip me a quarter, flip me a dime,
and you’ll still have your meal in the usual time.
When the diner is full due to inclement weather,
and your rowdy squad descends all together,
understand that you’ll just have to wait your fair turn
or the fries will be soggy and the hamburgers burn.

I  have a hunch you’re an ivy league boy—
a chip off the old block, your mom’s pride and joy,
but when you come slumming to this side of town,
it’s best that you play your fancy side down.
We don’t cotton to folks who think they’re our betters
or cater to jocks with their varsity letters.

Some day you’ll no doubt be someone of renown
with your designer suits or your medical gown,
but for now you’re a kid sitting there on a stool—
a self-declared prince with no country to rule.
So shut your damn mouth. Move to that empty table,
and you’ll have your burgers as soon as I’m able.

 

Prompts today are quarter, understand, squad, hunch and street.

Cyber Catastrophies: Sleep on It!!!! NaPoWriMo, Apr 22, 2020

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Cyber Catastrophes

Irritated with your friend
and caring not whom you offend,
after you’ve had a bit to drink,
decide to tell her what you think?

Computer keyboard there in sight,
so you decide it’s time to write
an email, filled with words that rend.
You reel them off and click on “send.”

I cannot stress strongly enough
how much you’ll rue your rude rebuff.
It takes long years to make a friend
but one cruel quip for trust to end.

It’s hard to choke back how we feel,
but arguments on even keel
work better than a sharp retort
after you have had a snort.

So this is the advice I’d give.
It’s easier to just forgive
Than to retract one angry word
after it is seen or  heard.

If you can’t say something nice,
best you take this sage advice.
Before you go and leap on it,
grab a pillow and sleep on it.

For day 22 of NaPoWriMo 2020, we are to create a poem that reflects a well-known idiom. Mine is one my mother used to frequently say, “If you can’t say something nice, it’s best to say nothing at all.”