Hidden
In youth, it was the supernatural that I found charming.
Sinister and spooky I did not find disarming.
Halloween I yearned for, and I was not daunted
by midnight trips to houses reputed to be haunted.
Ouija boards and seances held infinite appeal—
as popular as Tarot cards in what they might reveal.
In supplementing reason, they brought magic to our world—
revealed that place within us where our own magic lay furled.
Prompts today are yearn, supplement, supernatural, sinister, infinite and popular.
For Cee’s FOTD
Writer’s Block
This poem will go unspoken, unwritten, unconceived.
It will have no mentor by which it’s been received.
It won’t be manufactured to become a hot bestseller,
in fact it won’t be read by you nor any other feller!
This poem’s an ice-blocked river with words jammed up inside it—
each word imbricated with a word stacked up beside it.
I just don’t have the wherewithal by which I can procure them
and turn them into poems where you might have to endure them!
Prompt words today are imbricate, procure, river, mentor, manufacture and unspoken. Image by Anomaly on Unsplash.
For Cee’s FOTD
Monster Mash
When wind howls like a banshee to fill the dark night air
and monsters lurk in closets or in creakings up the stair,
when your brother knows they’re out there––these creatures he can’t see,
when nightmares wake you up at night and you have to pee
but daren’t leave your bed in fear those creatures will come “getcha”
(all those night-born monsters that come out at night to fetch ya.)
It’s times like these when all the kids form a small tribunal
and determine that their parents’ bed should be declared communal.
A scary night poem For NaPoWri Mo
I love this stage of the lily as much as the fully flowered version which may be seen HERE along with an explanation of why it is called an India Shot lily!
For a short version: This Canna is famously called Indian Shot. The story is that during an uprising in India, those loyal to the British were running out of ammunition. So they filled the barrels of their rifles with canna seed. The rock hard, perfectly round seed was used as a substitute for lead shot in muzzle loading guns. Hence the name Indian Shot. The plant also has medicinal value. The roots are sweet and edible and the leaves may be used as an outer wrap for tamales. The seeds are used in percussion instruments.
For Cee’s FOTD
Next Step
Life is a conundrum often unresolved.
Every day another sin to be absolved.
from transgression to transgression, mankind’s been known to scuttle,
searching for excuses to use in their rebuttal
of charges that we’ve ruined nature’s sweet confections,
destroying with what we have wrongly seen as our corrections.
With a flippant attitude, missing the wider view
of how we affect everything with each thing that we do.
Thus, impartial in her actions, nature then corrects,
working out solutions to ills that she detects.
How she must be wondering if mistakes in our past
might lead to the solution that mankind cannot last.
And so she’s started over by altering our genes,
thus aiding all mankind to evolve into machines!
Prompt words for the day are flippant, rebuttal, conundrum, impartial, correction .
Looking Out, Looking In
Folks look into my window every hour, every day
when they view my photographs or what I have to say.
It isn’t that I have a need to publicize or flout.
They are just a way to let a part of myself out.
When I’m outside the room of me, looking here and there,
it’s like I am a voyeur. I pry and prod and stare.
The window might steam over, obscuring what I see.
Then I wipe it clear again to see what I might be.
I really just write what I see as I’m peering in.
Each failure and each triumph, each kindness and each sin.
Each interior arrangement has some ugliness, some beauties.
I hold inside life’s pleasures, her sadness and her duties.
Each poem that I’ve written—be it whisper, be it shout––
is a way for me to let a part of myself out.
And if you choose to view them and see where I have been,
You’re standing at my window with permission to look in.
For dVerse Poets “Window-Gazing” prompt.
The sun setting directly behind this mountain near where I live gives the effect of a volcanic eruption.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 