Category Archives: Poetry

Simple-Minded

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Simple-Minded

I’m a hayseed sort of girl. I don’t believe in fancy.
To me, anything foreign is likely to be chancy.
I don’t eat things like escargot. I shudder at foie gras.
I buy my shoes in canvas, but never peau de soie.
When folks speak French to order food, I find it most pretentious,
and when they draw me into it, I’ll likely grow contentious.
I don’t like words that prettify. I view them angrily.
Like au courant, je ne sais quoi, pardon or vis-á -vis.
Why don’t folks just eat and say what comes naturally?
I think it’s done to irritate simple gals like me!

 

For Fandango’s Daily Word Prompt: Simple

Birthright

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Birthright

He felt it was his birthright and she felt it was hers
to only wear designer lines from underwear to furs.
Their schools were the finest. Their cars were Lamborginis.
They lunched on finest caviar and supped on steak and blinis.
Each Saturday brought manicures and plucked-out nasal hairs.
On Fridays, deep massages to tone their derrieres.
Since they never did a lick of work, they never had to hurry.
Everything was done for them. They had no cares nor worry.

When times demanded action, they sat up on their shelves
hoarding their petty worries and tending to themselves.
And when the celebrations declared the war was done,
our cloistered privileged duo came out to join the fun.
But alas they were not recognized. They didn’t know a soul.
Locked up safe in their houses, they’d had no plan nor goal
for defending all their property inherited from kin,
but now the world was set aright, they claimed it once again.

They restarted their factories, and things were as before
as those returning soldiers labored to earn them more.
Another old year fades away and as the new year waxes,
they’ll find another way of avoiding paying taxes.
They leave to others the taxpaying, the soldiering and  toiling
because it is their birthright that they should not be soiling
their hands with any tasks unbefitting to their classes.
They’ll leave all the laboring to the teeming masses!

(Addendum)

And since of this fine nation he is such an honored resident,
perhaps he’ll step it up a notch. Perhaps he’ll run for president!

 

The Daily Addictions prompt is Birthright.

Nightmare

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Nightmare

You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.

Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.

Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight

when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.

Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?

This is a repeat of a poem I wrote two years ago. It is just too perfect for the prompt not to use it. hope it warranted rereading. The Ragtag word of the day is nightmare.

Longing: Non-WordPress Prompt for the Day

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jdb photo

Knowing this was the first time in over 4 years that I haven’t had a WordPress daily prompt to follow, forgottenman gave me this one.  If you’d like to join me, just post your blog and then give a link to your blog in my comments section. Being that this is also Open Link Night in dVerse poets, if you are writing a poem, you can also link it HERE. Be sure to use the Mr. Linky bar given on this site to link your poem.

I will list links to other new prompt sites as I discover them tomorrow.

Longing

This morning’s church bells’ constant bongings
woke me to familiar longings.
Coded as they were in dreams,
when I awoke, they split their seams
and spilled into my conscious thought.
Futile to yearn for what I’m not.
No longer young or lithe or trim,
no passions spilling from my brim.
No husband, mother, father, lover.
No guardians to watch and hover.
I’ve grown away from most of life,
connections severed as with a knife.
Still, I do not long for these.
I do not pray on bended knees
for what is past or what is lost,
for I know pining’s pain and cost.
My longing, now, is just to see
what life’s plot is left to me.

The prompt today was longing.

Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

For dVerse Poets today, we were to compose a poem making use of the following street names:
Rope Walk, Potacre Street, Silver Street, Catshole Lane, Buttgarden Stree, Gas Lane, Coral Avenue, Dragon Hill, Baron Way, Mutton Lane. Well, I used them all, but don’t blame me for the zaniness of the following:


Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

When I’m asked to walk the rope,
I am most likely to say, “Nope!”
But(t) Garden Street sounds more ornate.
I might pass through its flowery gate.
I won’t be Dragon up the Hill.
Don’t do inclines, and never will.
Silver and Coral? My confession
is that they suit my old profession
as a silversmith and vendor,
so if you are a generous spender,
I’ll go on a buying spree
and sell the results, then, to thee.

Don’t go for mutton. It ends in gas,
so on those two, I’ll have to pass.
There’s a barrier on Baron Way.
I can’t go there, for no one may.
Acres of potholes also mar
Potacre Street and so my car
must avoid both Catshole and it
lest we wind up in a pit,
damaging our undercarriage
and my stability of marriage.

Are we going there? The wife says no,
for she decides where we will go.
So, much as I would like to wander
up all those streets up over yonder,
dVerse Poets are not my boss,
so this adventure will be my loss.
And though I will not ace your test,
all-in-all, I think it’s best
to limit where I’m going to roam
and simply take the fast route home.

For dVerse Poets Pub prompt.

Broken Concentration

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Broken Concentration

The words packed tight within my mind
seek the empty page.
They fly like hummingbirds and hawks
escaping from their cage.
But when all my empty places
I seek to fill again,
too many words rush in at once,
creating such a din
that nothing can be made of them.
I cannot restore order
in these alien syllables
that flood across my border.

I did not think these previous lines.
They just crept up on me.
I place words here upon the page
and thereby set them free.
They have no place within my head
where I had plans to write
a solitary love poem.
Instead, they spar and fight,
one trying to beat the others
to the front line of my mind.
Love words elbowing their way,
lined up in back of “pined.”

So “heartsick” steps on “passion’s” toes.
“Adore” runs out of steam
trying to reclaim the place
where words like it must dream.
I no longer know the purpose
that I set out upon
I fear the mood is broken,
my concentration gone.
The thought that any love poem
will come is now absurd.
Minutes ago I was in love,
but now I have been cured!!

 

For the WordPress prompt word broken.

Tomorrow will be the last day for the WordPress Daily prompt.  Please comment HERE if you want to try to help me to change their decision.  Whether you write for the daily prompt or just enjoy reading those who do, please help us try to stop this change for the worse. This is an extensive rewrite of a poem written over three years ago under a different name.

Juxtaposition

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Juxtaposition

Artistic types must juxtapose
these to these and those to those
just for the contrast, I suppose.
Somehow, each artist simply knows
to vary hues that they impose
upon the subjects that they chose
to depict first in line and pose.

Poets may likewise words oppose,
and so may writers given to prose.
Composers also juxtapose
in sonatas or do si dos
whatever music sweetly flows
from saxophone, fiddle or Bose.

Shoulder to shoulder, nose to nose
such contrasts form the undertows
that draw attention, lift our lows
stir lethargy and banish woes.

As all these contrasts come to blows,
so our imagination grows.
Time enough to nap and doze
when life draws nearer to its close.
For now, stay open  to the shows
of all who seek to juxtapose.

 

The prompt today is juxtapose.

After the Ceremony

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After marriage, even after the mundane invades our life, hopefully, some of the magic remains.

After the Ceremony

Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.

It is flowering, our ordinary world.
Zephyrus peanut butter
and turgid corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.

If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
I am diaphanous in my kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.
For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.

Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
I am thy bride, thy fairy princess.
Your pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of your wick,
the cooker of your sausage.

My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, you are my big zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
and I am forever thy camellia and thy rose.

Remember me under lindens,
my footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and my cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.

This is a rewrite of a poem first written five years ago. The prompt word today was ceremony.

Fame

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Fame

I don’t want to be Gwyneth, Julia or Pink,
Madonna, Shakira or Cher.
Their kind of renown is simply too much.
Much more than this woman could bear.

Though there’s no famous person that I’d rather be,
it’s not that I wouldn’t like fame.
It’s just that I want to be known for myself
and not by another one’s name.

I want to be known for my words and my art,
but not by my form or my face.
So I can dine out and walk down the street
without all the bother and chase.

I want to go out for a coffee or tea
and see someone reading my book.
And without her knowing, to study her face,
interpreting how she may look

as she reads every page, be it smile or tear,
I’d be known by my writing alone.
Like watching your child go out in the world
to establish a life of its own.

I want to stand hidden, unknown by the world,
to observe someone viewing my art.
To see if what registers there on his face
is what I’ve revealed of my heart.

Unnoticed, unphotographed and unpursued,
I could walk at my usual pace.
I’d get to the finish in plenty of time
without ever joining the race.

I wrote this poem four years ago, but it is perfect for today’s prompt word of  famous.

Modern Bride

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Modern Bride

The groom’s family was titled and a bit anachronistic.
So when they saw the bride, I fear they went a bit ballistic.
Instead of white she wore a dress of scarlet oddly draped.
The mother of the groom grew faint. Her husband merely gaped.
She wore something archaic instead of merely old—
her grandma’s feather boa—a bridal statement bold.
Around her neck, a python, and her arms were densely bangled.
Her veil pinned to a tractor hat of satin, oddly-angled.
The brim turned back as though she were an umpire at a game.
In short, the bride’s ensemble was anything but lame.

As she hip-hopped down the aisle to a tune by Kanye West,
the groom stood fondly watching her in morning coat and vest.
Her lipstick blue, her bustier was borrowed and conditional
on return to its owner in a manner most traditional.
To complete her fashion statement, her combat boots were blue,
and if you’ve paid attention, you could guess that they were new!
Her bouquet was fresh dandelions bound up with some chives.
She held it in one hand and with the other, gave high fives
to friends all up the aisle as she jerked her way on by.
The groom’s mom gave a shudder and his father gave a sigh.

So did this modern wedding  forsake the antiquated
with customs much less stuffy, less predictable and dated.
The wedding fare was tacos, Cuban sandwiches and chips,
jelly beans and donuts, crudites and dips.
No caviar or salmon. Just ribs and Tater Tots.
The toasts to bride and groom were made with jello shots.
The wedding cake was chocolate with custard between layers.
Good wishes  voiced by ministers, gurus and namaste’ers.
In place of rice the bride and groom were showered with quinoa.
In short, it was a wedding to rival mardi gras!

 

The prompt today is archaic.