Saw these beauties in hanging baskets at Rincon de Frida in Nestipac, Mexico, yesterday at my friend Patty’s birthday luncheon. More photos of this interesting restaurant later.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
Not Impossible
Somehow she feels he’s out there,
moving through a world
she’ll probably never brush against.
She feels his breath.
She tastes his shadow.
His molecules
invade her dreams.
It is possible that the stars
might rearrange themselves
in the sky.
And it is possible that one of them
will stray into the other’s world.
Pigs will fly.
The clock will strike thirteen,
and oh, see the brilliance of the sun as it rises in the west?
The NaPoWriMo prompt: take one of the following statements of something impossible, and then write a poem in which the impossible thing happens: The sun can’t rise in the west. A circle can’t have corners. Pigs can’t fly. The clock can’t strike thirteen. The stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky. A mouse can’t eat an elephant.
Mama’s Boy
Nodding over the water,
Arcing over beauty,
Reeling from what you see.
Consummate perfection
In that visage
Swaying in the water’s current.
So many women echoing your admiration,
Unable to break your fascination with your
Self.
The prompt today is to write a poem based on the Narcissus myth.
Sometimes, to get to that authentic part of ourselves where poetry resides, we have to illuminate some dark corners.
Let There Be Light
My mind is a growling dog.
While I stew and fuss,
fulfilling lists,
she jumps the screen door,
beckoning.
Rude me, to turn my back
on the only playmate
who wants to play
the same games I do
every day, every hour,
because I fear that initial
plodding through silt
page after page
in search of the stream
of words.
Sometimes boredom
yawns so wide
that I have to enter it,
to wander its inner closet
where for decades
only cobwebs
have stirred.
In some dark corner
where I spank the dog
or search the bedside table drawers
of a lover called out at midnight,
I find the river’s source,
but then
the phone
rings and I’m off
gathering crumbs from a forest path,
leaving lost children
stranded in their own story.
Stray puppies—I collect every one,
wild orange funnel flowers
and guava
washed in an afternoon kitchen
just before the invasion
of five o’clock sunlight.
All of them I carry back
to hidden places
to rub against each other
and ignite
into the language of this place
where life goes in,
plays dress-up,
but emerges
nude,
like poetry.
If you’ve been following me for four years, you’ve seen this one before. The prompt word today was authentic.
The white bird of paradise plant is often mistaken for a banana tree. It is immense and the flowers so high up that they may be overlooked.
Quelling Rebelling
Rebelliousness is not my choice.
I do not like to raise my voice.
At meetings, if I choose to go,
I like to frequent the back row.
I don’t sit in. I do not picket.
Resistance is a sticky wicket.
Not for me the protest march.
I’m missing nerve. I lack the starch.
So if I choose to be a hellion,
I’ll find a way that’s not rebellion.
The prompt: write a poem that involves rebellion in some way. (This is tongue in cheek. I actually did march in this demonstration.)
See Cee’s gorgeous parrot tulip here: https://ceenphotography.com/2018/04/18/flower-of-the-day-april-19-2018-extra-parrot-tulip/
The Taste of Love
What we feasted on
in those first stages
of internet romance—
when nine hours was too short a conversation—
was words.
We passed on to the next stage of computer dating:
our first dinner date.
He watched on his desktop computer as I prepared a salad.
This was a long and lengthy process
I recorded as closely as was possible
using the camera from my laptop.
A prisoner of his large unmovable console computer,
I watched his empty desk chair
as he repaired to the kitchen to prepare his meal,
hearing sound effects but little else.
When he returned to the living room and his computer,
he laid his meal in front of his computer.
I had yet to see it as I, in turn, placed my salad in front of me
and took my first bite,
watching closely my technique according to my Skype image.
I chewed politely and then smiled,
revealing the lack of lettuce shards on my front teeth.
I looked up. He was watching me as lovingly as usual.
Now, it was his turn.
What are you eating? I asked.
Ham, he said.
He lifted a huge hunk of ham on his fork, taking a dainty bite
and chewing happily.
What else? I asked?
Just ham, he answered.
And so he demolished the entire pound or two of thick ham steak,
now and then washing it down with a healthy swig of rum and Coke.
Rum and Coke.
It had been one of our bonding experiences
to find that the drink of choice of each was not only rum and Coke,
but Bacardi Rum with Caffeine-Free Diet Coke.
How could this not be a romance made in heaven?
Culinary compatibility,
from 2,000 miles away
seemed to be less of a problem than it would be three months later,
when we first made physical contact.
Well, there was a resolution.
He started munching on carrots
and I had no objection to ham.
We both found a like mania for potato chips,
but true romance bloomed
when I found the full bar of Hershey’s Chocolate
atop his refrigerator.
Who says we need to concentrate on our differences?
Hershey’s Chocolate?
Yes. Our first true taste of love.
NaPoWriMo Prompt for the day: write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even gives directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem.
Sport Retort
When faced with talk of games and sport,
I seldom have cause to retort.
For dribbling, sparring, touching down
raise no emotions but a frown.
The games I play are just of mind
Less physically taxing and more kind.
Using tongues and brains to spar,
I am more likely under par
than when I hit a pock-marked ball
off of the course to hit a wall,
bounce off and into someone’s car
to be transported to regions far.
I have not thought to scream out, “Fore!”
My terminology’s as poor,
I fear, as my coordination,
I will not, ever, stun the nation
with my prowess with balls or bats,
parallel bars, hurdles or mats.
Likewise, I have no interest in
watching others skate and spin,
touch balls down or thrust a fist.
When it comes to sports, I must insist
when the tube depicts each bout,
I am forgiven for running out!!!
This is a reblog of a piece I wrote three years ago. The Prompt today was parallel.
