Category Archives: Poetry

Homosapiens and other Misnomers

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Homosapiens and other Misnomers

Man was always venturesome. He wanted to be free
to examine that next hilltop, to sail upon the sea.
Adventure was his target for game or other food.
Always his first priority to feed his growing brood.
But  he fared more poorly in trying to connect
with a brand new culture or with a different sect.

He too often made a target of what might have been a friend.
We have evolved from all of this and warheads are the end
of this long long story, for it has been always so.
Conquering is swift and understanding is too slow.
Though we are Homo sapiens,  both root words are misnomers,
for we aren’t exactly sapient and for sure we aren’t stay-homers!

Words of the day are connect, target, venturesome and sapient. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/rdp-tuesday-connect/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/11/fowc-with-fandango-target/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/venturesome/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/your-daily-word-prompt-sapient-December-11-2018/

Prisoner of Beauty

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Prisoner of Beauty

To win a beauty pageant is a kinky dream.
You want to be the biggest fish in a manmade stream.
You’ll be closely examined both for charm and beauty,
then questioned for your aptitude in fulfilling your duty
at shopping malls and other places where you’ll be on view
displaying what fine work your folks did creating you.

That you’re a lovely model is not up to debate.
What an excellent product  they managed to create!
Compared to all the others, you simply glow and shine.
You have that extra element we find hard to define.
Is it a special need to please or is it blind ambition?
Or did you simply need the cash for your college tuition?

We rather hope it is the last prompting your pageantry,
so after one year on the runway, you’ll be able to break free
to live a normal life down here, milling with the crowd,
for when you’re up there, special, hobnobbing’s not allowed.
Jostled by the hoi polloi, your royal crown might tilt,
or there is a danger it might be revealed as gilt.

Not a thing of value. Just a pretty piece of junk.
A perfect metaphor all of this “glamor” to debunk.
Beauty is as beauty does the adage tries to tell us,
yet who we are is not the thing that pageants use to sell us.
You are a perfect object standing up there on a shelf,
made to please our eyes and ears. Not to please yourself.

Indeed, you’re slim and lovely. Your smile has its charm.
You simply look enchanting there on the emcee’s arm.
You will be fluffed and feted and put out on display.
It won’t be free, this privilege that you have won today.
But remember, please, when you’ve done all you’re told to do
that you will come down off that stage and simply live as you.

 

The prompt words are free, dream, pageant and kinky.

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/09/fowc-with-fandango-free/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/rdp-sundaydream/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/your-daily-word-prompt-pageant-December-9-2018/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/09/kinky/

Temper, Temper

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fowc

Temper, Temper

Her emotional last eruption caused such a giant rift
that she could not fill it, however large the gift.
A brand new Maserati did not curb his ire.
He still remembered well the smoke, the spewing of the fire.
She bought him a new pitching wedge, an iron and a putter,
but still it didn’t lessen his memory of her sputter.
Her spewing and her venting and that final fiery blast
blew him out the door and consigned her to the past.

 

The prompt words today are driver, eruption and gift.
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/07/fowc-with-fandango-driver/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/eruption/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/your-daily-word-prompt-gift-December-7-2018/

Scattered Dreams

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Scattered Dreams

She mourns the loss of everything as the crescent moon
fades away to nothing this putrescent June.
Orange blossoms drooping in their wedding urns,
an empty flag of wedding veil wafts outward and then turns
to fall from spinning fan blades where it has been tossed—
all its beauty shredded, its inspiration lost.
Her hopes and dreams now fatuous, their ending is now lore
written in tattered satin and petals on the floor.

 

The word prompts today are putrescent, floor, inspiring and fatuous.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/rdp-thursday-putrescent/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/06/fowc-with-fandango-floor/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/inspiring/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/your-daily-word-prompt-fatuous-December-6-2018/

 

Rechanneling Cheer

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Rechanneling Cheer

Scribbling Christmas cards, messaging cheer
is surely the norm for this time of year,
but I think there’s something that is more seasonable,
touching more lives, and also more reasonable.
Hold back petty arguments. Cease the derision.
Why not put Christmas in every decision?

 

For dVerse poets quadrille prompt, Cheer.

Seduction

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The Seduction

He knew to win her favor he must wine her and then feed her.
And finally to the forest he felt compelled to lead her.
He kissed her ‘neath the elm tree and he kissed her ‘neath the cedar.
And, need I tell the rest to you, my very dearest reader?
Did he woo her, did he charm her, did he  flatter her and need her?
Did he lay her down in clover? Did he dandelion weed her?
And when she voiced objections, did he circumvent, indeed, her
girlish hesitations? Did he in fact fail to heed her?
And was it inevitable, that he then should seed her?

Cedar is the prompt for today.

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/your-daily-word-prompt-cedar-December-3-2018/

First Kiss

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jdb photo     


First Kiss

Your kiss is radioactive  and its half-life is too short.
I’d like to have another, but I’m not the tartish sort.
My exhilaration is one that will endure—
a sort of welcome fever for which there is no cure.
I want to tell the world of it. I want to shout and sing,
make friends with all your relatives and let my love take wing.
But confiding in my diary, instead, will be my fate,
at least until you call me for another date!

 

Prompts today are sing, relative, radioactive and exhilaration.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/rdp-sunday-sing/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/02/fowc-with-fandango-relative/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/radioactive/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/your-daily-word-prompt-exhilaration-December-2-2018/

The Doldrums

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The Doldrums

Please pardon my annoyance and don’t mind my chagrin—
my great dissatisfaction with the mindset that I’m in.
All the former methods that could cause me to exult:
first prayer and then Buscaglia, pot and the occult,
no longer serve this purpose. I am left here cold and rigid.
My fires of enthusiasm have, I fear, gone frigid.
Yet I think I deserve credit, at least, for still resisting
temptation just to end it all. At least, I’m still existing.


Note: It’s fiction, folks. I’m feeling fine!!! So is Forgottenman. He’s just too much of a clown and affords too many photo opportunities that later come in handy for illustrative purposes. Blame the prompts.

The prompt words today are exult, frigid, credit and chagrin. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/rdp-saturday-exult/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/your-daily-word-prompt-frigid-December-1-2018/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/01/fowc-with-fandango-credit/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/chagrin/

Interloper

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Interloper

How did you find your way into my dreams,
ripping my comfort apart at the seams?
Once I’d escaped to back rooms of my self,
still I found thoughts of you stacked on a shelf
carefully obscured both in front and above
by other less dangerous memories of love.

You walked nonchalantly into the room
that I had just cleared with a cloth and a broom
of other dangers and sadnesses, not
knowing that once again I had been caught.
Now I hide out behind walls at the back
where all of my worst fears reside in a stack.

Cowering here as you stride through the place
that your very presence has turned dark and base.
How could I have loved such a frightening soul?
The box of my heart turned into a bowl
with all of my secrets and weakness revealed—
things that I now know I should have kept sealed.

There you sit quietly, perched on a chair,
one hand on the desk top, one hand on your hair,
writing cruel words—I know about me.
I ease my way over, hoping to see,
but the paper is empty, your ink has turned clear
making impossible all that I fear.

As now I remember that I let you in,
forgetting all else in the charm of your grin.
The joy of your hand as it guided me sure
across the dance floor—all that allure
that kept me involved in the surface of you
avoiding the dangers that later I’d rue.

So even now, so far from your threat,
I find myself struggling, caught in your net.

This is a rewrite of an earlier poem For dVerse Poets Open Link Night

 

download-1

That Brilliance

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That Brilliance

It echoes through the atmosphere,
slipping through shadows
that too often hoard our attention—
the shine of a heart amidst pain,
that pinprick of light
through a chink in the mortar of a brick wall,
that smile in passing,
that squeeze obscured in a handshake.

There is much light in this world,
but sometimes it lies shattered,
at other times is one sure beam that lights up the day—
that one brilliant sword of light
slashing gray clouds.

We are not always aided in our seeking,
yet must be vigilant in our search,
shifting our glance again and again
to where it lies scattered
through the murkiest days.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/rdp-wednesday-brilliance/