Category Archives: Poetry

Our Newest Emperor’s New Clothes

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Our Newest Emperor’s New Clothes

How do we mentor our burgeoning youth
in these times of extraordinary stretchings of truth?
Teach them to sort out these rash acts of treason,
to approach them with heart and strain them through reason.
Teach them hating is wrong and exclusion is selfish—
that plastic’s destroying our coral and shellfish.
That medical care should be something for all
and that hoarding of wealth brings a country’s last fall.

Teach them the future is theirs to decide.
Teach them the truth of whom to deride.
Teach them that facts being taught by their teachers
may rival what they’re being taught by some preachers
and those who would rule to win their own gain,
lining their pockets again and again
with tax cuts that only extend to the rich
while the trickle down theory develops a hitch.

Teach them to sort out rhetoric from fact.
Teach them to care and to vote and to act
to stretch out the privilege to blanket us all.
We are not alone on this spinning great ball.
Our former meddling and incredible gall
is why we’re considering building a wall
to keep out the hungry and frightened downtrodden
who come to us weary, exhausted and sodden.

They ask for asylum and our protection
from dictators who have prompted defection
much as many Americans are fleeing south
to avoid the stupidity and the vile mouth
of the dictator who is now ruining our land
with illogical thinking and truth that is canned.
Who will mentor whom in this crazy new world
once the last hateful invectives are hurled?

Our world has been sold out for profit and gain—
overseen by leaders opportunistic and vain.
Perhaps it’s our youth who will now mentor us
to sort out the truth from this internet fuss.
As in the old legend, They’ll teach the uncouth
to forsake propaganda for naked truth.
It’s hoped that our youth wake us up from our doze
to point out the truth of our Emperor’s new clothes!!

 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/rdp-sunday-mentor/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/04/fowc-with-fandango-extraordinary/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/burgeon/

A Diet Most Fowl

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A Diet Most Fowl

My Dad’s one foolproof diet that he used to quote to us
entailed no calorie counting, no planning, mess or fuss.
He said, “It’s very simple. Put just one thing in your mouth.
Merely eat the north end of a duck that’s flying south!

 

The Daily Inkling prompt today was to create a fail proof diet.
https://normalhappenings.com/2018/11/04/results-guaranteed-daily-inkling/

Advice on Answering the Doorbell of that Translucent Front Door.

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Advice on Answering the Doorbell of that Translucent Front Door

Although  you sorta see through it,
you can’t see who they be through it.
So if you fear it is that bore, it
might be better to ignore it.

The prompt is to write a 29 word poem on the subject of translucent.
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2018/11/03/weekend-writing-prompt-79-translucent/

Saint and Sinner

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Saint and Sinner

Every declared living saint
has in their past some hidden taint
that cannot bear its excavating
without results excruciating.

 

Daily Addiction’s prompt word is excruciating.
WOTD’s prompt word is taint.

A Fine Vintage

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A Fine Vintage

Roving has been in my blood since I was just a  kid.
In hide and seek, I ran away while other kids just hid.
I’d stash myself six blocks away where they could never see me.
I couldn’t wait for age and circumstance to come and free me.

Other kids had tantrums, but I just had my dreams
that took my sheltered sedate life and split it at the seams.
It never once occurred to me that it would be naive
to think that after high school, I’d pack my bags and leave.

And after college in some place exotic in my mind,
I’d be off to travel with others of my kind.
I’d have a travel bonanza to Africa and France.
I’d even go to China if I had the chance.

Was it precognition or simply intuition
that all of my  travel dreams have come  to sweet fruition?
Everything I sought out there, each thing I hoped to find
I found in all those years that now I find I’ve left behind.

Now that my world is smaller and I’m more content,
nonetheless I still have memories that I can vent.
They’ve percolated in my mind as I cure and age
until they’ve aged sufficiently to pour out on the page.

 

The prompts for today are tantrum, roving and bonanza. Here are the links:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/01/fowc-with-fandango-tantrum/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/roving/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/bonanza

The Letter “C”

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The Letter “C”

Here’s to the letter “C” that marks what is in the middle.
Somewhere between “A” and “F,” it has been known to fiddle.
While “A” studies most diligently, “C” is bound to shirk.
It has a certain phobia regarding too much work.
It’s head and shoulders above “F” and far better than “D.”
Nobody ever flunked a course by maintaining a “C.”

And yet it calls no sound its own. It’s either “K” or “S.”
At birthday time,  we’re given kake and winning brings suksess.
We’re stopped dead in our trases. When we’re kissed, it’s a karess.
Why “C” has no sound of its own, not one of us kan guess.
When the sirkus komes to town, it’s happened onse or twise
that the krokodiles eskape. It isn’t very nise.

Townfolks run and skurry—skared as they kan be,
for katastrophes kan happen when krokodiles run free.
It isn’t too konvenient, as you kan klearly see
to be a kurly letter the likes of letter “C”
that’s firmly in the middle, with no sound of its own.
Does “C” dream of being “S” when it’s fully grown?

The Letter “S.”

For “The Letter C” prompt by Daily Inkling.

A Halloween Primer

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A Halloween Primer

Bloodcurdling screams of banshees and the moans of other specters
are signals to skirt graveyards and other creepy sectors.
Do not go close to water. La Llorona* lingers there.
Hobgoblins roam on Halloween. Please take extra care
that you aren’t impeded by your costume’s girth and weight
so just in case, you can maintain the proper speed and gait
to insure escaping witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls
who inhabit Halloween and make up all the rules.
Heed well my past instructions of where you should not go.
Get home before the witching hour. These warnings you should know
lest you become another statistic of the night
set aside for horrors, for hauntings and for fright.
Halloween is filled with fun: the costumes, pumpkins, candy,
and if you heed my warnings, everything should turn out dandy.
Just stay away from witches of the authentic sort—
the kind with real black three-inch nails and a genuine wart.
Make sure the vampire’s fangs aren’t real, that ghost is in a sheet.
Assure the authenticity of every friend you meet.
It does not do to make new friends. Be guided by your fear
and do not talk to strangers on this one night of the year.

*In Latin American folklore, La Llorona (pronounced [la ʝo.ˈɾo.na], “The Weeping Woman”) is a ghost of a woman who lost her children and now cries while looking for them in the river, often causing misfortune to those who are near, or who hear her.

I was premature in my posting of spooky Halloween photos. Go HERE to see scary photos.

The prompt words today are costume, weight, bloodcurdling and signal. Here are links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/rdp-wednesday-costume/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/31/fowc-with-fandango-weight/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/bloodcurdling/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/signal

Short Vacation

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Short Vacation

Just for today, repress advice
that the world is not so nice.
For just one day, forget the slime.
Pretend the world’s once more sublime.
Let’s hop aboard our little dingy,
grab that picnic hamper thingy
and simply sail our fears away.
Escape the news, just for today.

 

Prompts today are sublime, dingy, repress and advice. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/rdp-monday-sublime/
http://FOWC with Fandango — Dingy
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/repress/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/advice

On the Wagon (A Vampire’s Lament)

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Matt is turning Halloween on us, demanding that we imagine being turned into a vampire for the month of October for the rest of our lives.  I just wrote a vampire poem for another prompt, Matt, but oh well, here I go again!!!

On the Wagon
(A Vampire’s Lament)

I’m facing a whole month of sober
now that it’s almost October.
Passing up my gin and tonic
for a drink more histrionic.

Need I say I merely ask
liquid refreshment from a flask?
All said and done, I much prefer
to drink from glass and not from her.

I find this other way of curbing
my addictive thirst disturbing.
All that blood that sucking draws
is neater when it’s done through straws.

Alas, I find this vampire curse
most distressing. Nothing worse
could be my fate except perhaps
karma so far kept under wraps.

An Easter curse would be the dregs—
to spend all April sucking eggs!

For Matt’s Vampire Prompt.

Dear John

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Dear John

I am impervious to your wiles.
Your mephistophelian guiles
that work so well on other wenches
will no more draw me to their trenches.

For though you are adorable,
the games you play are horrible.
The traps you lay? Deplorable.
Thus, I’m no longer scorable.

My thirst for love has been well-quenched.
Seeking a sip, I came out drenched!
Go find another piece of meat
to make your perfect day complete.

Mistakes once made, I don’t repeat.
I’ve found your name and hit “delete.”

 

Prompts for the day are drench, adorable, mephistophelian and complete. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/rdp-saturday-drench/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/27/fowc-with-fandango-adorable/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/mephistophelian/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/daily-addictions-2018-week-42/complete