Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Emily

 

Emily

Picture a woman sleeping, words wrapped close around as sheets.
Syllables slipping to the floor, loosed from their midnight feats.
A whole new world evolving as she’s lost away in dream.
All those single actions spilling from the seam
of those reveries she’s wrapped in, meaning more than what they mean.

Click

Picture eyelids opening as light begins to dawn.
See the eyelids close again, her stretching and her yawn.
See the dreams she’s had all night pulled to consciousness–
all tightly wrapped, but wriggling themselves free from all the mess
of what they’ve been bound up in to become what she’ll confess.

Click

See the words all rising from the place where they’ve been sleeping.
See her brow remembering bits it struggles now at keeping.
See her form a paper sheet into a little sack
and use her pen to prod the words back into a pack,
sparring with belligerent phrases that fight back.

Click

See her herding each into its place with little nudges,
overlooking warring words that seek to live their grudges,
making words that don’t belong together somehow fit,
forcing the recalcitrant to want to do their bit
to turn their separate strands into a story finely knit.

Click

Now see the picture on the page where words have come to rest–
stretched out vowel to consonant, best standing next to best.
Brutal words relaxing, flaccid words now showing zest.
Brought recently into the world where they have met the test,
here they stand before you, shaken out and neatly pressed.

Click

Then see the floor around the bed–the words she’s thrown away.
The words that somehow just don’t say what she wants to convey.
See them rising in the air to hover up above.
Words of anger, sadness, envy, honor, lust and love.
They jump, they float, they kiss, they spar, they hug, they joust, they shove.

Click

Tomorrow night they’ll rain back down to form adventures new.
To form themselves into the curious plots that dream parts do.
Picture them assembling into order all their own
or forming groups informally, wherever they are blown.
Ready on the morrow to once more go where they’re sown.

Click.

 

Daily Inkling’s prompt is: You’re going about your everyday life when you happen upon the perfectly preserved head of a famous historical figure. Who is it, and why is it there? 

Do you know a poet named Emily, long dead but never forgotten? If we could resurrect that head, perhaps the above would describe her.

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/24/a-head-of-its-time-daily-inkling/

Empowerment

Empowerment

If you are prone to flinch and cower,
use this secret to empower
and to draw your wits about you.
So no one else will ever doubt you.

The secret to more confidence
and belief in your excellence
is very simple. Trust yourself.
Store all your self-doubts on the shelf.

Leave them there and shut the door.
They don’t describe you any more.
Lock the door. Discard the key.
Decide anew who you will be.
 

Ragtag’s prompt today was “empower.”

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/rdp-wednesday-empower/

The Retirement

The Retirement

His retirement oration
was a clear manifestation
of his need for a vacation.
It had been long in its gestation—
a long-awaited incubation. 
Now, it was an education
to witness his mad excitation
over his final termination.
On view, his heart’s wild palpitation
celebrating the cessation
of the daily tedious ration
dished out at his working station.
Let it be an education
that one’s final maturation
need not be a castigation,
but is instead a satiation—
a sort of workplace masturbation
ending in this apt quotation,
“Even an end can bring elation!”

j

The Word of the Day today is manifestation.

Bogged Down in Blog

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Internet Infraction: Bogged Down in Blog

The only way I’d ever stop
is flagged down by a cyber cop
who says my blogging cannot last
if I continue to go so fast.
He’d give a lecture and a ticket
and then he’d actually stick it
across my screen with strict instruction
to cease this method of destruction.

If life had meant us to go on line
hour after hour––eight or nine
hours or more day after day,
with always one more thing to say,
why would it give us legs to go
and feet to walk on, heel to toe?

Day after day, it’s grown obscene––
my eyes plastered upon my screen,
my fingers stiff with my attention
over what I might next mention––
fingers drumming, tapping, bending
all the while sending sending––
typing out, first fast then slow
my life as a reality show.

Until I wonder if I log
its details daily on my blog
because I want to recall life––
its joys and sorrows, pleasures, strife––
or do I only move about
to give me something to write about???

My friends all say this can’t go on.
I’m growing flaccid, weak and wan.
I need some exercise and sun––
some movies, dancing or other fun
aside from snapping pictures of
each bougainvillea or mourning dove.

Life’s meant to live, not to record.
It should be shouted, screamed or roared––
not typed out softly on the keys
of a laptop spread out on my knees!
The truth of this I’ve clearly seen
now that this sticker obscures my screen.
“Do not remove” it clearly reads,
“Go live your life! Go do some deeds!”

I’ll put on sneakers and do some laps.
I’ll exercise ‘til I collapse,
then do more laps around the pool
‘til I’m an exercising fool.
I’ll call twelve friends up on the phone.
I’ll never ever be alone.
I’ll live my life until its end
without a single blogging friend!

My dedication will never lapse;
and yet, how temptingly it gaps–
that sticker, unstuck at its edge
so easy now to pick and wedge
my fingernail beneath and tug,
to drop its shreds upon the rug
and free my screen of its obstruction––
this taboo not of my construction.

To push the button, light up the screen––
to see its colors from red to green.
Black words on white, Cee’s daily flower––
no longer do I pine and cower.
I peck the keys, upload some pics––
once more getting my daily fix.
The truth of modern life leaks in.
To blog is not a major sin!
I’ll give up blogging, become a rover
precisely when Hell freezes over!!!

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Daily Inkling’s prompt is: 

Has technology affected your ability to communicate with other people? If so, to what extent, and are there any examples of when it affected you for better or worse? (I confess, I wrote this poem three years ago but it meets this prompt so well that I’m going to subject you to it again, if you’ve been around this blog for that long.)

Here’s the link: https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/23/social-outage-daily-inkling/

Stalker


Stalker

The spectre of your memory haunts me less with every year.
Those things I feared so long ago, I no longer fear.
I do not flinch in public when I think I see your face.
No resemblance flags my terror as I wander place to place.
To reinforce my courage, I have wiped you from my mind,
changed my modus operandi to avoid your type and kind.
Although you haunt my past, you have no presence in the present,
where I admit your absence is what makes my life so pleasant.

 

Today’s prompt words are flag, public, spectre and reinforce. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/rdp-tuesday-flag/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/23/fowc-with-fandango-public/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/spectre/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/daily-addictions-2018-week-42/reinforce

River Travelers

river

River Travelers

They know this river, know it well.
Daily, they bring their fruit to sell.
We, who find the river strange
reach out our bills as we lack change,
for what they’ve brought to us from shore.
They hand out more and more and more
to strangers whom they must find dense
to give them such great recompense
for what God has amply provided.
All their village has derided
those who float by in big boats,
holding out their ten sol notes
that would buy every bunch they carry.
They wonder why we do not  tarry
for our change after we pay.
Silent, they watch us float away.
The baby held in mother’s arms
does not know what nearby harms
lurk beneath the water’s cloak—
the jaws that snap, the water’s soak.
But we know what small guarantee
exists in lives of poverty.
Rubbed raw, perhaps, by all we have,
our generosity is salve.

 

V.J.’s Challenge: The River

Where Does the Wind Live?

Where Does the Wind Live?

 

                                             Behind the unfurled sails of sailboats

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                                              In spaces between raindrops

Version 5

                                                                  In the arms of windmills

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                                                                             Behind the Clouds

 

For Daily Inkling’s prompt: “The Wind and the Sail.”

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/22/the-wind-and-the-sail-daily-inkling/

Imitations of Immortality

Imitations of Immortality

Lend my consciousness to an android—every feeling, thought, ambition?
Can I commit this practice without suffering perdition?
Why not replace the faulty parts? We do it with our car,
and with this perishable body, I won’t get very far.
So why not buy a new one if I have the cash to do so?
I may even treat myself to invest in a few so
I can change my body like others change their clothes.
I’ll put me in a fresh one while the other bodies doze.
I’ll live a life that’s double. I won’t waste any hours.
Twenty-four hours of every day, I’ll exercise my powers.
Will I still be myself? Yes. It’s plain as it can be
that I won’t be my android. My android will be me.

The prompt: Welcome to the future. We now have the technology to upload your consciousness into an android body. The feelings, thoughts, and ambitions that make you unique remain after the transfer. Do you accept this new reality given the opportunity, and why? 

https://normalhappenings.com/2018/10/21/getting-an-upgrade-daily-inkling/

Next Season’s Cancellations

 

Next Season’s Cancellations

Riches may not always be all you might expect,
for one thing that cash can’t buy is genuine respect.
One, in fact, that we are daily driven to inspect
daily causes masses to rise up and object.

Clearly something’s rotten, and we often get a whiff
of that decay in Washington that we’ll prove only if
we repossess the country that we’ve so clearly sold
at the ballot boxes, making choices that are bold.

Our country’s not a boxing ring, a bout or match or race.
Voting’s not a sport. It is a simple act of grace.
We should not vote on people, entertaining or magnetic,
whose ridiculous antics are crazy and frenetic.

Vote for those who truly have our country’s good at heart—
those with sincere values: charitable and smart.
Leaders not afraid to interrupt the status quo
to make our country more than a cheap reality show.

If you are considering not voting because you are tired of the fray or think it won’t make a difference, please read the following article and reconsider: 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/07/2018-midterm-elections-senate-races-to-watch/597965001/

Prompt words today are object, whiff, magnetic and grace.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/rdp-sunday-object/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/21/fowc-with-fandango-whiff/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/magnetic/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/grace

Stand Up For Verity

Stand Up for Verity

A fabulist can take the truth and spin it, change it, plan it,
but then it is no longer truth, for truth is carved in granite.
The real truth is indelible. Permanent. Etched in stone.
Don’t mess with it and call it truth. You must leave truth alone.
It can’t accommodate a stretch. It’s fierce in resolution.
It’s not right to bend it simply to find a solution.

Truth is truth and fabrication is another matter,
so do not conjure up a tale and claim it’s not the latter.
Though presidents and kings and poets scratching in their dormer
might for their single purposes stray away from the former,
there must be someone willing to call out their acts as ruthless,
for there’s no folly greater than to be led by the truthless.

 

The prompt words today are fabulist, fierce, accommodate and granite. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/rdp-saturday-fabulist/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/20/fowc-with-fandango-fierce/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/accommodate
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/granite/