For Cee’s FOTD prompt.
Duck and Cover
To err is human, so when I don’t collect my sneeze,
try to overlook it and forgive my error, please.
Don’t judge my intentions by what I overlook.
I simply cannot make myself go purely by the book.
I sneezed and did not cover. Now “Tag!” you may be it.
It was a simple oversight. Try not to have a fit.
If you think I passed on a bug, do not hesitate.
I’ve heard that it is necessary that you isolate.
As for me, I do not follow dictates from above.
I do not “do” seclusion. I wear no mask or glove.
The world’s my oyster and although I may not be well,
I feel claustrophobic confined within my shell.
If you fear germs, then keep your distance. Turn your head if worried.
New intimate relationships perhaps should not be curried.
Do I follow my advice? That will be the day.
So best not do as I do, but just do as I say.
Prompt words for today are isolate, tag, human and judge. Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Check List for a Budding Poet
If you want to be prolific,
better that you be specific,
and when you choose to state each fact,
try to make each word exact.
Don’t use time-worn words or wilted.
Avoid pretentious words or stilted.
Never try to force a rhyme.
Do not fail to take the time
to make your lines scan smoothly for,
uneven meter is a bore.
Words written for effect are hollow,
but where heart is, the head will follow.
So write your poetry from the heart.
Put your horse before the cart
and let it pull you up the hill.
Let your words express their will—
you following blindly, just to see
what the next line wants to be.
Let words of different shapes and sizes
furnish pleasure and surprises.
Make your poems resemble zoos
of striped okapis and kangaroos.
Delight yourself and then your reader.
Follow words, then be their leader
by whipping them in line and order,
shaping them within your border.
It never is too late to change
an errant line that’s out of range,
but editing is not what you
initially should seek to do.
Words give hearts tongues to share their pleasure
and their pain in equal measure.
Essayists and authors strive
to make their writings come alive.
They show us where their minds have been,
but poets put the music in.
Nothing vampirish about it. I reorganize kitchen cupboards! Lucky you. You get to see. These kind of projects best done between the hours of 8 PM and 1 AM. (You’ll want to click on these to see them in detail. I’m checking the stats. I’ll know if you don’t!!!)
Feast and Famine
More is less,
I have heard.
I take another bite of chocolate,
starting more of me.
I keep getting fatter,
tasting delicious
love in my cheeks,
on my tongue.
It nibbles at my teeth.
My dental bills send my dentist to Singapore.
I floss more between my teeth.
I don’t listen
when other people discuss their diets.
It is painful
filling cavities with food.
It gets hard to sit in theaters,
my stomach pressing against my chest.
People ask if I am pregnant.
I say yes.
I am giving birth to more of me.
Meanwhile, I’m a good listener.
People eat my ears up,
take big chunks of them.
I can grow more.
Right now,
this third croissant
is going to my ear.
The next will grow me
more tongue, bigger lips.
When you notice and inquire,
I’m going to tell you stories
that will wind around your skinny waist
like snakes or punk belts,
coil over coil.
This mouth has blistered
in the sun of Africa
in countries now starving.
Well, they were even starving then.
And children sat very close
and learned the words I pointed to.
In the market,
women taught the words
that my mouth needed
to buy their goods.
This is what I bought
in Bati market
on those three hills
where the desert caravans
would wind,
where the high black breasts jutted,
where the scarred faces sought beauty.
In the red dryness,
I bought a silver beaded marriage necklace for myself.
An old woman offered it.
I thought she had done with it, it was such a bargain.
Years later, looking through my photographs,
I saw my necklace on the neck of a young girl––
her bride price purchased for ten dollars.
I never wear it.
It is so beautiful
and I am growing larger
to feel more ashamed.
I bought also:
lemons, string and wooden beads,
embroidered strips to make a belt of,
Lalibela crosses out of brass,
Shawls as thin as gauze,
a bride dress to be packed away,
camel dung chips for my fire.
On the dead television
in the other room,
some nights they show worlds
that are not strange to me.
Things haven’t changed that much,
though fewer die now than back then.
I’m not insensitive. I send money
I send money
I send money
but it’s never enough.
What I want to send back
is the necklace.
Too late. That young girl is dead,
buried in a woman forty years older.
I eat for her grandchildren.
I imagine their bellies
swelling with the food I eat for them.
I can hardly ever eat enough.
Picture taken at Bati Market, Ethiopia, 1973
For the dVerse Poets challengeto write about some hidden part of ourselves–something we would ordinarily not talk about.
Please click on photos to enlarge.
The bracelets are ones in my ‘Armadillos” line. They are all one-of-a-kind and each consists of from five to nine different elements–many of which consist of a number of macrame knots, so I thought they were appropriate for this prompt.
Shy little bougainvillea blossoms paint their faces white,
then clothe themselves in leaves of colors much more bright.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 