Category Archives: Poetry

Poems in many categories: Loss, NaPoWriMo

Fly-Bye on the Day of the Dead

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Fly-Bye on the Day of the Dead

That fly that chose to falter
for a minute on the altar
I’d constructed for my lover
should have made the choice to hover.

The worst choice of all
was to choose to land and crawl
attracting my attention
to a means of his detention.

Namely, to kill the squatter
with a switch of my fly swatter.
Though he was silent ever after,
no more soaring floor and rafter,

it was I who did the gasping,
for the bottle he was clasping
of my mourned-ones favorite drink
soared out to shatter in the sink.

Thus in the battle between darter
and me, he was the martyr
while I strained my funny bone
accepting actions to atone

by cleaning glass shards from the table
and all places I was able
to reach within the kitchen
without grumbling and bitchin’.

Then I quickly made a trip
to buy a sticky strip
so future flies would be defeated
and my actions not repeated.

 

Prompts For the Sunday Swirl Wordle 600
are: bones gasping strip switch shatters battle fly altar martyr bottle crawl falter

Also for NaPoWriMo

Info Overload

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Info Overload

Contemporary culture is one I dread to contemplate—
much more prone to outcry than to logical debate.
Folks bury fact with fiction misleading and irrelevant,
quelling truth and logic in favor of their rave and rant.

Who can deal with all the various sorts of messaging,
let alone absorb events rarely less than harrowing?
Lately my delete button has become my dearest friend
as I limit messages mostly to ones I send!!!

 

Prompts today are bury, outcry, contemporary, contemplate, absorb and irrelevant.

Karaoke Detour

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Karaoke Detour

When our Karaoke Adventure Tour took off to fly to Glasgow
we had not an inkling it would be such a fiasco.
It started with complaints when we tried to rehearse
and before we even managed to reach the second verse,
an angry man behind me began to scream and curse,
causing his long-suffering wife to  hit him with her purse!

The distress of other passengers ignited accusations
that they sought placation for with further free libations.
But an uncanny silence brought the fracas to an end
as four hours early, we started to descend.
The stewardess ran forward to grab a parachute
with a dozen passengers following in pursuit.

The singers ceased their singing and the angry man his cussing.
Passengers still in their seats so busy with their fussing
to fasten tight their seatbelts that their drinks were overturned for
they’d forgotten all those further drinks that they had yearned for.
Then the pilot’s voice came booming through the awful din,
to finally advise us of what trouble we were in.

So many violent storms between California and Taipan
that he was going to have to land our carrier in Japan!
Then terror turned to anger as folks began complaining
with little indication  of when protests might be waning,
while I and my companions started up another chorus,
sure that this disaster had been planned completely for us.

What better place than Tokyo for karaoke fun?
(A better place than Glasgow for our singing to be done!)
With no machines to guide us, nonetheless we lifted voices,
song requests from passengers reflected in our choices.
I guess the man behind me must have settled down to nap,
for his wife joined in our chorus with her purse safe in her lap!

 

Prompt words are karaoke, canny, accusation, complaint, pursuit and fiasco.

A Valediction Forbidding Morning

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Disclaimer: John Donne wrote “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.”  This is not that poem!!!

A Valediction Forbidding Morning

When the moon is at its peak
It is the nighttime’s time to speak
words worthy of our full attention
yet this is a mere audition.
Another speaker’s  coming soon
who has hopes to debate the moon.

The sun will soon commence to snivel
that moon’s sentiments are drivel.
Thus day and night both ebb and flow
informing us by what they show
of light and dark and sun and moon,
all of their phases gone too soon.

Each noonday sun flashing its warning,
every moon forbidding morning
while warning the ladybug
to check her babies are all snug,
for as the sun climbs ever higher,
it might set her house on fire.

 

Prompts for the day are valediction, drivel, audition, worthy, peak and ladybug.

Time Temporal, for NaPoWriMo Day 3, 2023

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Time Temporal

                  by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Shall I contrast thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art less lovely and more tempestuous.
The lack of wind doth still November’s empty stalks,
Oe’r which the winter hath too long a power.
Sometimes the too-cold moon hides ‘neath the clouds.
Then rarely doth it’s pitted face shine forth;
And dark from dark can sometimes rise,
Spurred on by fate or providence’s static plan.
But thy short winter shall soon pass away,
Restore to thee the homeliness of death.
Nor shall that birth that brought you forth to light
Still claim thee when temporal time shall stop thy growth.
As men lose breath and eyes lose sight,
So dies this poem, and draws thee with it to thy grave.

Sonnet 18

            by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

For NaPoWriMo  Day 3, they wanted us to write an “Opposite Poem” based on a famous poem. Mine is above.

Influencer

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Influencer

By what are you influenced? What triggers you?
Do you stand at attention for the red, white and blue?
Are you of the first nation or Apache or Sioux?

Do you bask in the limelight, awash in your fame.
Hoping that everyone’s seeing your name?,
aware of the problems, but you’re not to blame!

Or are you sedulous, loving and caring,
more concerned with your heart than what you are wearing?
Wanting justice for all, intent on the sharing 

of all the riches of the land of your birth,
looking for solutions for the ills of the Earth,
considering everyone of equal worth?

 

Prompt words for the day are influencer, bask, first nation, sedulous, wash and triggers. Image by Laura Chouette.

 

NaPoWriMo Day 2, 2023. After and Before

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 After and Before

Rush hour traffic for raindrops.
The universe’s roar of disapproval.
That last guest left at a party who doesn’t realize the party is over.
Words that called out for company.
A bird searching for an answer.
A small pond that has died and gone to heaven
A single kernel.  
A small scuffle.
A man with limited vision.
 A relationship that barely passes for love.
Fate coinciding with a wish.
A storeroom for rain.

 

For NaPoWriMo 2023 Today’s prompt asks you to:

*pick 5-10 words from the following list :
owl generator fog river clove miracle cyclops oyster mercurial seaweed gutter artillery salt elusive thunder ghost acorn cheese longing cowbird truffle quahog song

*then to write out a question for each word selected and for each question, to write a one-line answer.

What is a river? Rush hour traffic for raindrops.
What is thunder?  The universe’s roar of disapproval.
What is a ghost? That last guest left at a party who doesn’t realize the party is over.
What is a song? Words that called out for company.
What is an owl?  A bird searching for an answer.
What is fog? A small pond that has died and gone to heaven.
What is a cyclops? A man with limited vision.
What is a miracle? Fate coinciding with a wish.
What is a gutter?  A storeroom for rain.
What is a truffle?  A small scuffle.
What is  acorn? A single kernel.  (A group of corns is called an ear.)
What is longing? Precognitive achievement.
What is artillery? Digging in an attempt to find buried Pre-Columbian statues.
What is a quahog? A new breed of hybrid animal half duck and half pig.
What is an oyster? A Jewish Grandpa.
What is clove? A relationship that barely passes for love.
What is mercurial? A doctor who specializes in treating the maladies of mythological sea beings.

*After you’ve written out your series of questions and answers, place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page. See if you can make a poem of just the answers. You may find that what you have is very beautifully mysterious, and somehow has its own logic.

Romantically Retired

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Romantically Retired

I think I’ve formerly related
that I’m neither wooed nor dated.
Zero heroes, zero traces
of besotted hearts or faces.

Gamblers better put their money
on the fact I’ll have no honey.
Chances more likely for a win
on the roulette wheel’s random spin.

Fortune tellers’ only visions
are of partings and divisions.
No new meetings, no reunion
that might prompt a future union.

So I guess I’ll go on missing
bouts of geriatric kissing.
And instead of passions new,
fond memories will have to do.

Prompt words today are spin, related, traces, vision, money and zero.

Lifelessons

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Lifelessons

My perception see-saws between wonderment and worry,
all our lovely world devoted to such hurry
that in the furious ruckus, much is overlooked,
as if every second has been overbooked.

Take time to watch the sunrise and to hear the finch’s song.
Pick these things like flowers and carry them along.
Everything’s a lesson. All of nature is a book,
so between your rushing-offs, be sure to have a look.

(Be sure to click on the blue links in the poem to see the rest of the story.)

Prompt words today are wonderment, ruckus, see-saw, perception, lesson and sing.

Weeds (For dVerse Poets)

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The beauty of a weed.

Weeds

They poke their heads through every crack.
We pull them out, but they come back.
What rule of nature is to blame
that the flowers we plant don’t do the same?

Here are other poems written for the dVerse Poets prompt: Weeds

Here is the prompt for dVerse Poets!!!