Category Archives: Poetry

Tax Time is Most Taxing

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Tax Time is Most Taxing

I don’t like doing taxes. I’d rather eat a rat.
I saved all my receipts for sure but don’t know where they’re at.
I should have printed up reports and put them on a spindle,
for now I cannot find out what I’ve taken in from Kindle
or Amazon. Their tax sites are really just a maze.
After roaming them for hours, I fear I’m in a haze.
Money spent for doctors and dentists must be here.
I’ve even asked a Ouija Board that says I’m getting near
to where they remain hidden under piles of other papers.
If I lived in another age, I know I’d have the vapors.

The time that I have left is surely waning and not waxing.
And things just keep on getting worse–for tax time is most taxing.
Next year I will do better.  I’ll start out nice and early
and tax time will be easier and I will be less surly.
I’ll pat myself upon the back for files filled with slips
alphabetical and neat–no coffee spills or rips.
I will know to the penny what I spent on medicine.
I’ll save up all my dentist bills, fastened with a pin.
All my insurance payments and social security
will be neatly filed–correct from A to Z.

But as to this year’s taxes, I fear I’m out of luck.
I shake my head over the forms and murmur “What the – – – -?
I do not want to do this.  I fear I’m in a mess.
I want to write a letter to the I.R.S.
giving them my bank account and telling them my pin,
for I fear my patience is growing rather thin.
“Just take whatever cash you need and leave enough for me
to live upon ’til I expire in two thousand-five-three.”
Instead, I go back to my desk to sort another pile.
Please don’t e-mail, phone or text. I’m busy for awhile!!

The Prompt: Set It To Rights–Think of a time you let something slide, only for it to eat away at you later. Tell us how you’d fix it today.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/set-it-to-rights/

Lightning in a Bottle

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This was my response to a message sent to me on a social networking site.  Since there seem to be very few divisions in our cyber world anymore, why not print it here?

We will all go
to lightning in a bottle
too soon too soon
ashes on a shelf
so for today
let’s be words
art
one foot down
another in the air
moving
on sand or in the mind
lightning
that in its freedom
is continually seeking
ground.

 

P.S. As soon as someone sends me the name of a book and its opening and closing sentence, I can get started on Chapter Three.  (See my earlier post today for an explanation.) No suggestions, no further chapters.  Please come be my muse.

Five Shadormas

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The Prompt: For this week, write a shadorma (a non-rhyming six-line poem consisting of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables.)  Instead of following the WordPress prompt, My Circle of 5 will be 5 Shadormas. Thanks, Sam, for the prompt.

Used

 This paper
very slightly used–
erasures
and a stab.
This morning’s poem now dead–
unsung, unmourned.


Chinese Takeout

That rice grain
and the plastic fork–
evidence
against me
of another food court sin.
Yes, I ate it all.


Misanthrope

Walk away
lest you find reason
to stay here,
fouling up
your determination to
have a fucked-up life.


Signing the Papers

You prompt me
to mind my timing.
Five o’clock
on the dot.
I come early anyway.
Her scent signs the air.


Salt Water Taffy

Sweet toffee
cannot hide the tang–
bitter salt
on my tongue–
of all the tears I swallowed,
waiting for your touch.

To see more shadormas, go HERE.

Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

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Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

I lie in bed, flat on my back, head raised by pillows,
computer raised to eye level
by a wadded comforter over bent knees.
I listen to raised voices in the village down below,
the staccato of an inadequately mufflered car revving up,
a hammer falling on wood, birds in the coco  palms.
A pianissimo chorus of dogs spread
over the surrounding hills swells to a frenzied crescendo,
then falls silent but will swell again.

I have dropped obligations
like clothes shed for a lover.
My Saturday morning pool aerobics and zumba,
I slipped out of years ago.
Group luncheons hang from doorknobs and chair backs.
Committee meetings lie sloppily abandoned in the hall.

I have retired from the running of the world
to run my own small universe on paper.
Saturday morning is my brainstorm session
with “Me,” “Myself” and “I.”
“I” suggested feeding the dogs,
but they are quiet now, so
“Me” suggested we let them lie.
“Myself” laid out some words to dry
in the heat of the fire of our communal
inspiration, laying them smoothly on the page,
rumpling up others in her fist to send them sailing
to join the crumpled singles event invitations in the corner.

This slow Saturday morning dressing of pages
and stripping them bare
is a sort of ceremony celebrating seizing time
and making it my own.
Pages  fill up with passion, angst, anger,
irritation, joy, laughter, camaraderie.
There is more than one word for each.

Imagine such control over your world–
not having to live the world of any other.
If you could have any life you wish?
Imagine a Saturday morning  building it.

 

The Prompt:  Me Time–What do you like to do on Saturday morning?  Are you doing it now?

Head Shots

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Morning Head Shots

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.

 DSC09955

The Prompt: Three Perfect Shots–Take a subject you’re familiar with and imagine it as three photos in a sequence. Tackle the subject by describing those three shots. (As usual, I’ve been excessive and done seven shots instead of three.)

P.S.  Yes, that’s my new Mac Air in the picture.  It just arrived with friends from the States last night.  I’ve been putting my coffee or Coke on the floor or a different table and hope you do the same.  Better to learn from my mistakes than your own.  It feels like I’m finally speaking my native language again after trying to negotiate the web in a language I’ve never spoken before for two months.  Ahhhhhhhh. Relief.  But, I now like my Acer PC as well.  Just still more of a struggle and I was able to transfer all but the last 10 days of what was on my old Mac onto my new Mac, thanks to my dedicated backup drive.  Too bad I hadn’t backed up for 10 days, but this is much better than nothing.

Mexican Fiesta

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 Mexican Fiesta

Every village has one for the saint’s day of their town.
Vendor booths spring up like grass as fireworks rain down.
Bottle rockets all day long are auditory pollution.
Newcomers often fear that it is a new revolution.
Thousands in a day explode, from predawn into night;
so gringos living in the town often just take flight
for the two weeks of fiesta that happens every year
as loud music and announcements join the assaults to the ear.
But after thirteen years, to me it’s just become a joke.
I simply plug my ears and down another Rum and Coke.

The Prompt: Write about a strictly local event in the place where you live as though it were an entry in a travel guide.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/local-flavor/

Fresh Worms for Sale

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Fresh Worms for Sale

Many have not come to terms
with the benefits of worms.
They find them repulsive and squishy.
Revolting, creepy, crawly, ishy.

But these folks tend to just react
without examining each fact
of all that folks could find to do
with worms if they’d just buy a few.

Granted, worms that wad and mingle
lack the charm of just a single
worm that can be used for bait
on a hook and with a weight,

but every person knows this use,
which always calls for worm abuse.
Worms, however, also toil
to break up and aerate the soil.

In jars with holes poked in the lids,
worms make good pets for little kids.
Good for hours of watching, they need
little care and little feed.

Worms don’t need collars, leashes, dishes,
never go against your wishes.
They are not barkers nor run-arounds.
None of the nastiness of hounds.

They have no hair to grow and shed.
You do not have to pat their head.
They have no other nasty habits
like gerbils, hamsters, cats or rabbits.

You don’t have to change their litter.
When traveling, you don’t need a sitter.
No vet bills when your pets are worms–
no fleas nor ticks nor mites nor germs.

Worms take up very little space
and may be trained to run a race.
And if you make a well-placed bet,
they just might get you out of debt.

The benefit of worms now told,
May I consider this worm sold?
Surely you’ll find much to do
with one or two that leave with you.

If you’re not a  fisherman
and if a pet’s not in your plan,
If you are a sadistic sickie,
just put one down your girlfriend’s dickie!*

*for the youth among us, a dickey is a turtle neck or collared inset
that may be worn under a vee-necked sweater or jacket to create the illusion that one is wearing a sweater or blouse under it.

The Prompt: Embrace the Ick–Think of something that truly repulses you.  Hold that thought until your skin squirms.  Now, write a glowing puff piece about its amazing merits.

Unopened Rooms

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The Prompt: Brain Power–Let’s assume we do, in fact, use only 10% of our brain. If you could unlock the remaining 90%, what would you do with it?

Unopened Rooms

My working thoughts live in a mansion, restrained to just ten rooms.
When the unused rooms grow cobwebs, they must sweep them out with brooms.
They cannot see their pleasures, for they enter with eyes shut.
Sealed chambers filled with many things, but we do not know what.
It is exhausting just maintaining all these extra spaces.
No wonder that I lose my keys and forget most new faces.

No telling when we’ll let our thoughts roam free in other rooms.
For all these years they’ve been sealed up like dark and unused tombs.
Perhaps we’ll find they’re portals to other times and places.
Perhaps they lead to other worlds in intergalactic spaces.
They might allow a journey into the minds of others.
Would extrasensory perception make us enemies or brothers?

I’m sure the reason that we use small portions of our brain
is because if we knew of them, we’d use them all in vain.
We’d journey through the cosmos to plunder other spheres.
React to them like enemies, guided by our fears.
If there is any entity guiding how things go,
perhaps they recognize that Earth’s evolving sort of slow.

Our energies put into things instead of who we are.
Instead of love? Investments. Instead of aid? A car.
If perhaps we aren’t allowed the full use of our brains,
it is because we have not learned to use them for our gains.
How we look’s important. How much it costs the point.
We’re ruining our planet by cluttering up the joint.

Our brains we use for warfare. Weapons we can’t control.
They wind up in a child’s hands or on a grassy knoll.
They’re used for entertainment on a computer screen
in games that build agression. We win by being mean.
Shows they call reality prefabricate each role.
The lowest denominator seems to be their goal.

True, other things are in our mind: poems, music, art,
dance and social functions, a few of them with heart.
So we stage elaborate galas to raise the money for
children who are hungry, adults chewed to the core.
And yet some of us still balk at giving medicine to the ill.
If they are not wealthy, they must chew the bitter pill.

No doctors and no dental care. No succor for the poor.
If they would work, they’d have health care. Complaints are such a bore!
These things we fill our minds with. There’s no need for more brain space.
In the ten percent of brain we use,new thoughts we cannot face.
This E.S.P. is hogwash, and U.F.O’s are fiction.
Even the thought of universal health care causes friction.

For every room within the mind that’s used, there are nine more
filled with mysteries we won’t know until we try the door.
Some enter and return to tell of wonders they have spied.
Yet unenquiring minds respond by saying they have lied.
We’ll never leave these sealed up rooms unless we learn to dream.
Let creative thoughts flow out in an uncensored stream.

To seep beneath closed doors into our mind’s more spacious realms.
Be adventurous voyagers standing at the helms
of ships of mind that sail the wilder seas of consciousness
regardless of the ones who try to censor and to hush.
Turn off the TV sets and games of war and violence.
Let Honey Boo Boo slip back into former innocence.

Lay Kim Kardashian to rest, pull out your skeleton key
that just might let you in to all the rest that you can be.

A Modess Proposal

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Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt: Bone of Contention – Pick a contentious issue about which you care deeply — it could be the same-sex marriage debate, or just a disagreement you’re having with a friend. Write a post defending the opposite position, and then reflect on what it was like to do that.

This post is by no means meant to be directed towards all men. It is just that certain sort of man that it is meant to depict. (Who? Me? Hyperbolize?) To all the gentle men of the world, you will know at once that it is not you of whom I speak below.

A Modess Proposal

A woman should be shrouded, silent, pregnant, dumb.
All her private places cut off, sewed up, numb.
If only we could cauterize those portions of her brain
that let her reason for herself, we men would feel less pain.

Women are so handy as vessels for our sperm
that thinking of them sleeping with each other makes us squirm.
They have no need for credit, independence or a job
lest by gaining power, our power they might rob.

If women gained control, they’d likely choose to end all warring
and other games we men must play to make our lives less boring.
They might ban all blood sport starring dogs or bulls or men,
substituting yoga or other pastimes Zen.

We might find even television affected by their censure.
No slasher movies, torture, war or action and adventure.
They’d probably insist then that we give up every gun,
just for the sake of safety, removing all our fun.

Chick flicks would take the place of porno, football, boxing, soccer.
They’d tear out centerfolds and remove pinups from each locker.
No lap dances or girls on poles or writhing bumps or grinds.
They’d all be in university, developing their minds.

Better that they’re burqa’d, locked up in a cage
or on the floor, weeping, as we express our rage.
We men need our whipping posts and women serve so well.
It’s a little bit of heaven to put them through such hell.

You men who speak for women’s rights? You’re all a bunch of queers.
It would be much better if you’d stick up for your peers.
Go away to boot camp to learn to be a man—
to pillage, plunder, murder and rape women (if you can.)

These women with their placards are certainly excessive.
Their lobbying for equal pay is getting most obsessive.
The Bible says the man is boss and woman merely chattel.
Like other livestock meant to serve—like horses, sheep or cattle.

Best off if we could brand them and keep them in a pen
and when an urge needs satiating, go and let them in
to cook and scrub, tend children, and iron in each crease.
Then sell them off when they grow old and lazy and obese!

This world has gone all crazy with its call for women’s rights,
which causes men to beat their wives and get in barroom fights.
International warfare, terrorist actions and their likes
are all the fault of women—those ball-breakers and dykes.

Everything was better before this women’s lib,
when women alternated between kitchen and the crib.
If females took their proper place, shrouded to the eyes,
The world could be as God intended—a haven for the guys!

Thanks Be to Sara Lee

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I just couldn’t get going using today’s WordPress Daily Prompt—someone else’s first line—so I elected to follow another prompt, now that we have this option. In response to The Daily Post’s earlier writing prompt: “Thank You,” I am reposting a parody of “Pied Beauty” (better known by its first line, “Thanks be to God for dappled things.”)

“Thanks Be to Sara Lee for Appled Things” was the irreverent first line that I wrote for its parody for NaPoWriMo in April of last year. I think this was before most of my followers knew who I was, so I’m hoping you won’t be too put out by it.

By way of explanation, I will tell you part of a story—that story being that I actually read a poem to one of my favorite authors of all time today. I won’t interfere with her privacy by naming her or revealing how I happened to meet her, but it was scary and thrilling at the same time. This is how I have come to be sitting here at 4 PM, still not having posted a blog entry for today. This time I can’t blame it on the lack of a computer or the presence of a computer that speaks a different language. It is just me, still a bit dazzled from meeting this very nice, down-to-earth friendly lady who possesses one of the finest minds of our century. So fine that for today, at least, I feel unable to write. All I am thinking is that yes, she liked my poem. (I read “The Ways I Do Not Love You” which was also posted earlier as a NaPoWriMo poem.) I just couldn’t bring myself to read one of my silly ditties in front of someone whose writing I respect so much, fearful that she would think this was all there was to me! How can it be that at this age I still care what people think of me? At least it is to my credit that it was my words I was worried about, not my hair or my weight or what I was wearing. I guess I’ve made some advancements with age. “What are you, sixteen?” my super-critical alter-ego is whispering in my ear right now. “Exactly!” the real me shouts, and wishes it could fit a swim in before dinner.

Okay, here is the NaPoWriMo prompt: Our prompt today was to write a curtal sonnet in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ famous poem “Pied Beauty”. This form consists of a first stanza of six lines followed by a second stanza of five, closing with a half-line. The rhyme scheme is abcabc defdf. I chose to make it a parody of “Pied Beauty” as well.

Here is the original:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins

And now, my version:

Pied Beauty II

Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced—place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?

All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.

—Judy Dykstra-Brown