Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Doggone Doggie Blues: dVerse Poets

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First there was Frida, then Diego.
After finding homes for five puppies found on the beach after the death of their mother, I found Frida trotting toward us on the busy highway. At first I thought she was a big rat. Cars were speeding by. Of course, she came home with me.


The Doggone Doggie Blues

The naughty dogs who leave their marks when jumping up on me.
The naughty bruises that remain, spreading their stains on me.
I cannot stop this rudeness. I cannot find the means.
I cannot stop their tugging at my blouse sleeves and my jeans.

Unruly little denizens of my humble home,
they range wherever they may choose on terrace and on dome.
They jump up in the hammock when I choose to swing.
They jump up on my visitors to see what they might bring.

They dig into my planters and eat the tasty loam.
They even dig into my sleep to bring their mother home
from dreams where she evades them, living her own life
away from doggie pressures, away from doggie strife.

What pleasures might she find anew living all alone?
What pleasures might they miss for which her conscience would atone?
All in all, they make up for the problems that they bring.
All in all, their lonesome howls to sirens are the thing
that swell her heart and make her want to join along and sing.

I wrote this for the dVerse poets Anaphora/Epiphora prompt, but unfortunately missed the deadline. Been there before, will be there again, no doubt. At any rate, here it is for the world at large!

But, just had a brainstorm and posted it on the dVerse Poets Open Link Night, where we can post any poem on any topic. Tardy but still within the law!. Here is a link to others who published poems for Open Link Night.

Bad Ending, Sweet Beginning

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Bad Ending, Sweet Beginning

In the graveyard of my memory, an adventure stirs.
First it circles like a cat, then settles down and purrs.
The message that it imparts via magical vibrations
reminds me of adventure and of youthful excitations.

No rigmarole of gossip. No conspicuous inflection.
No past welling up sickeningly like some dormant infection.
Fear fades into shadow and romance swirls into view.
And I suddenly remember what attracted me to you.

 

 

 

Prompts for today are rigmarole, conspicuous, adventure, impart and graveyard. Second image from Unsplash.

Moon in Flux

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These are 20 different photos of the full moon taken within a period of a few minutes from my backyard. The only editing tools I used were cropping, light adjustment, color, saturation, and sharpen—all aspects of the Photos Application on my Mac. You’ll get a much better image of each photo if you click on them. The two photos that show two moon are photos of the moon and its reflection in my pool. They are shown in the order in which I took them.

Red Sky

 

 

 

The Green Chair

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I love this green chair spotted at Pasta Trenta, a local Italian restaurant, and I had to take a break from festivities celebrating my friend Gloria’s 88th birthday to photograph it. I should have seated her on it, like a queen on her throne, but that would have caused too long a break in the celebration.

For the Pull up a Seat Challenge

Up Close and Personal, Hibiscus: FOTD, June 5, 2021

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For Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge

Junkyard

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Junkyard

It is a graveyard for lost toys
abandoned by their girls and boys—
objects of fun once ordinary,
spurned by children who are wary
of things on which to soar and slide,
of toys that draw a kid outside.

Once solely meant for entertainment,
they’re now fenced in for their containment
away from children set aside,
away from things to climb or ride
with other kids bare-faced, unmasked.
Now all are differently tasked.

Now housebound children stare at screens
or sit leafing through magazines.
Monkey bars, it is official,
turned into things more beneficial:
fences, barricades or bars
marking parking spots for cars.

But teeter-totters, slides and swings—
a community of cast-off things—
lie here abandoned in a place
that’s never seen a child’s face.
It is a junkyard overgrown
of pleasures that now go unknown.

The raucous crew for which they’re cast
has become a memory of the past.
Hordes of kids on jungle gyms
pursuing their communal whims
are things that they barely remember.
Leaf piles jumped on in September

neatly raked up in their heaps
are safe from children’s messy leaps.
Every child kept in their room,
the world outside would seal their doom.
So, junkyards filled with these diversions
are museums for today’s aversions.

One by one, the kids grow older
never getting one bit bolder.
Contained inside their separate lives,
Single cells replace their hives.
While hidden from this lonely crew
are all the things we used to do.

Remember when the school bell rang?
Kit and caboodle, the whole gang
would rush to see who got the swings.
What nostalgia their memory brings.
I remember them so well,
but especially the carousel.

Prompts for today are carousel, kit, ordinary, solely and community.

 

 

Fixer-Upper

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Fixer-Upper

I am a fixer-upper. My joints are caving in.
My parts are getting even with a long life lived in sin.
Way too many hamburgers, fries and Hershey bars.
Too little time spent jogging — too much time spent in cars.
The fact I’ve been degraded, I admit is not disputable,
for since my early teens my shape has been too often mutable.

I tried to stage a victory over this decline
sometime in my thirties, but somewhere down the line
my resolve grew weaker and I gave up on pilates.
It was too degrading competing with the hotties 
who clinched their little derrieres and flexed their perfect arms.
I simply could not stand the comparison of charms.

I’ll never flip this body. I can’t touch neck to heel.
How can I execute “down dog” when I can barely kneel?
In spite of diligent efforts now and then throughout my life,
with starts and futile endings my biography is rife,
I came up with excuses, I “hee”d and “haw”ed and “hem”med.
Then finally had to admit, this property is condemned!

 

Prompts today are fixer-upper, diligent, victory, mutable and degraded. Photo by Basil Anas on Unsplash, used with permission.

Cherry Summers

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Cherry Summers

They sit on the steps of our low front porch,
cherry-stained fingers dropping pits 
onto the grass or sidewalk.
“They is good but they is sowie,”
exclaims our tiny neighbor, looking up
at my dad, who sits with her and her brothers,
his mouth, too, full of sour cherries
pulled from the trees in our back yard.

My sister and I spend summer afternoons
picking off stems and squeezing
the fruit to expel the pits,
juice running down our arms
to drip off elbows and pool on the 
table, attracting ants.

Bowlful after bowlful is removed from the table
by my mom to make into pies to freeze.
This task of summer is rewarded all winter long
by the crisp thin crust and tapioca-thickened 
ooze of sugared cherry gel surrounding 
the  fruit sweetened by some chemistry
of my mother’s hand.

Those summer days were lengthened
by the absence of the tolling school bell across the street
and by  a sun that lingered into night, 
bedtimes stretching out because of the impossibility
of going to bed before dark.

“Ollie ollie oxen free,” echoed from
games of hide-and-seek that ranged
from the playground across the street
into our backyard where cherry trees
that offered shade in the heat,
offered shelter from detection at night.

The aroma of cherry pie, fresh from the oven,
whetted more than mere appetites
during all those nights when,
snow piled on the windowsills,
we bit into
the sweet memories
of summer

 

 

For dVerse Poets
Image by Joanna Kasinska on Unsplash, used with permission.

Burro’s Tail: FOTD June 2, 2021

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For Cee’s FOTD

The Last on the Card, May 31, 2021

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Don’t you just hate people who take pictures of their food? Sorry, I just can’t help it and it seems to be the last photo I took this month: 

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card Prompt.