Tag Archives: daily addictions

Memory Games

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Memory Games

Half over-achiever, my other part is zen.
Sometimes I concentrate on now, other times, where I’ve been.
This morning’s evanescent. I can’t remember shit.
I know I found my car key but what did I do with it?

Ameliorating circumstances? Sorry. There are none.
I simply have no memory of what  I have just done.
I know I wrote a poem, but I can’t recall a bit.
I haven’t the foggiest memory of what I said in it!

It’s said I have good judgment and a judicious mind,
but as to short-term memory? I fear I’m in a bind.
I remember blow-for-blow what happened as a child.
My college years I recall well. My twenties are well-filed.

When I write, the memories pop readily to my brain.
It’s only hours later that the memories don’t remain
of what I have just written or the words that I have used.
The present and my recent past simply are not fused.

So if you want a memory, please choose one in my past.
The farther back, the better, if you want my reply fast.
Fifty years ago are fine. The details I’ll relate.
But details of this morning? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.

Prompt words today are ameliorate, judicious, zen, evanescent and bit.

Broken Dreams

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Annie at 17 years old.

My seventeen year old cat, Annie, has for the past two years been awakening me at various early-morning hours to be fed. It makes no difference if I feed her at midnight or 2 am or whenever I choose to turn in for the night. At 4 or 5 or 6, her piercing yowls shock me awake and there is nothing to be done other than to get up to flop an entire can of Fancy Feast into her feeding bowl. She’s taken over my bathroom with her food and water dishes, her litter tray and her bed, so for two years I’ve showered in the guest shower. This old girl rules my world. Today’s five o’clock awakening gave rise to this poem. 

Broken Dreams

I doused my dream to greet the day, but to my great annoyance.
reality, alas, cannot compete with its flamboyance.
The dream was psychedelic and meandering in its plot.
It had all the excitement that my waking life has not.

Before the day resumes its hold, since night is not yet done,
I’ll return to my pillow and awaken to the sun.
The old cat’s fed, the dogs still sleep and so, with luck, shall I.
Perhaps I’ll find that dream again. At least, I’m going to try.

 

Annie at one month, in my headphone case.

Prompt words today are psychedelic, doused, annoy and day.

High Finance

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High Finance

Dabble in the market? I’d do so if  I could,
but to instigate investment? I fear I never would.
I prefer my piggy bank. I save my loose change there.
Never have I broken it. I really wouldn’t dare.
I have it on a high shelf next to a crystal prism.
To get the money out, I’d have to create such a schism
that I could  never fix  it, so I just don’t have the heart.
I prefer my piggy bank as a work of art.
The value that’s within it I find is secondary.
I’ll just use my credit card at the Cash and Carry!

Prompt words for today are schism, instigate, dabble, unlikely and could.

Herded

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IMG_1328Herded

If only we could rectify his brash and wicked pen
and go back to the saner world where we once had been,
where “sincere” was still a virtue yearned for by the masses
and a scrappy tweeting fool was not supported by the asses
who vended us their guns to turn against each other,
and make an enemy of one who could have been a brother.
Perhaps it’s true that we can win the vote and turn the tide,
but how can we affect the greater danger that’s inside?
All the hate within us that this monster has unfurled—
can we tuck it back inside to restore a saner world?
It is the way of nature, this violence and feeding
one thing upon the other, our wild hearts still beating

beneath our higher consciousness. Which part of us is winning?
All our better virtues counterbalanced with our sinning?
The problem is when things are skewed and evil is called good,
meanness and shortsightedness labelled brotherhood.
“Make America Great Again” a usurped slogan used
to herd together masses who then can be abused.
All the bleating, senseless lambs led into the slaughter.
Every fearful parent serving up their son or daughter
so the plastic rivers and the hurricane-fed winds
can circumvent their livelihoods and bring about their ends.
Like the mighty dinosaurs, wiped out from this earth
to see what newer species might grow up in their dearth.

Are my words hyperbole? Do I just rant and rave?
Is there no world redeemable left for us to save?
Should we give up and gaze at made-up worlds within our palms?
Using films on telephones to soothe our fearful qualms?
Whose great plan do we follow? Are we so so deluded now
that we no longer have an inkling left in us of how
to see a broader kinder world where we care for each other,
seeing humans far and near as sister and as brother?
In this world of selfies and facebooking and tweeting,
of foolish men herded like sheep, blindfolded and bleating,
can we return to sanity, our world to save and mend
or will we continue to be led, stampeding to our end?

Please comb your conscience and then vote for a saner world!

Prompt words today are scrap, rectify, wicked, sincere and pen.

Kitchen Queen

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Kitchen Queen

Her souffles are a marvel and her cakes a work of art.
Every single thing she cooks, a product of her heart.
Her kitchen full of luscious smells and openness and levity,
every disaster solvable and noted for its brevity.
She surmounts each problem, opens every stubborn jar,
locates each ingredient, no matter how bizarre.

When she puts on her apron and dons her cooking cap,
she conquers national cuisines from all over the map.
Marinara and béchamel, curries and doro wats—
sauces from every culture simmer in her pots.
From kreplach to pot stickers, she has mastered each cuisine.
When it comes to ruling kitchens, our Dolly is the queen!

 

Go check out Dolly’s blog at koolkosherkitchen. She is presently telling wonderful stories about her grandmother and sharing her recipes as well. One of my favorite blogs.

 

Prompt words for today are marvel, surmount, bizarre, levity and map.

Swift Retribution

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Swift Retribution

Out of all who came to court her, she had picked him as the winner.
It was later, after the wedding, that she discovered he was a sinner.
He had planned her initiation to the gambling and the grog—
her debauchment, his ego told him, easy as falling off a log.
But she had not shown an interest in the wild life he preferred,
so though he vowed that with his marriage, his earlier vices had been cured,
his sporadic bad behavior had her climbing up the wall.
His raw language and deportment weren’t acceptable at all.

Like she hadn’t known his weakness, he did not know her power.
She was not a wife to follow nor a girl to cringe and cower.
When they married he had few prospects—not a nickel nor a dollar,
so when he came home one night with lipstick on his necktie and his collar,
she chose not to be tearful, nor to scream or make a threat.
She just threw him into the driveway sans the keys to his Corvette.
And as he hoofed it toward the highway, perhaps he felt his first regrets
as he learned that one who gambles always has to pay his debts.

 

Prompt words for the day are sporadic, raw, winner, initiation and log.
Photo by Zach Rowlandson on Unsplash, used with permission. 

Art and Industry

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Art and Industry

The languid win no prizes, the slothful not one plaudit.
The lazy artist paints no masterpiece for us to laud it.

The book that is not written finds no reader to adore it.
The man who scores no symphony, no audience to “Encore!” it.

“Popular” wins friends but draws no masses to applaud.
The rarest genius unexpressed will fail to leave us awed.

What movie that was never made has won box office fame?
Lighting a little fire won’t do. You have to fan the flame.

Enthusiasm on its own is rarely oohed and aahed.
It takes a little elbow grease to leave us open-jawed.

 

 

\

Prompt words today are enthusiasm, masterpiece, popular, languid and win.

Jurisprudence

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The Defendant
The Claimant

Jurisprudence

One litigant a teddy bear, the other a stuffed bunny.
The plaintiff acting churlish, the defendant merely funny.
The judge’s view obstructed by the toy box’s high rim,
she declared a change of venue out to the jungle gym
where the judgment was decided by an animated race
to see who could swing highest without plummeting through space,
but before the final verdict could even be recited,
it seems a higher ruling had already been decided.

A necessary recess was called for by the judge.
She told the bear and rabbit they should not dare to budge.
When her mother declared nap time, she said that they’d resume
as soon as she was given the chance to leave her room.
She left Barbie, the bailiff, to insure that they’d be good
and both of them assured her that of course they would.
But in the end both parties wound up in custody
after the judge’s jailer called an emergency

made necessary when hard rain and a gusty wind
tumbled teddy bear and bunny both end over end.
So by the time the judge woke up, a power that was higher
had sent claimant and defendant to confinement in the dryer.
Then the rabbit hung from one ear and the teddy from his tie
from the clothesline in the laundry until both of them were dry.
Then there was a happy ending with all of them set free
as judge and bear and bunny wound up on daddy’s knee!

The Judge

The higher power and the bailiff

The prompt words today are view, emergency, churlish, animated and funny. I asked Forgottenman for a sixth and he gave me litigant.

Chopstick Savior: in Honor of National Chop Suey Day!!!

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Chopstick Savior

Faced with rush hour traffic, I was already leery
that any meal I’d cook tonight would turn out rather dreary.
This day was not abnormal. At its end, I was a wreck.
My colleagues in the office? A true pain in the neck.
My story is not poignant, but it’s sad enough, I guess.
Most days I end up bushed once they are finished, I confess.
So faced with thoughts of cooking, once again I murmur, “Phooey!”
And thank the Lord for takeout. Tonight? Egg rolls and chop suey.

Prompt words today are bush, abnormal, poignant and wreck. Since this is National chop suey Day, I’m adding chop suey to the prompt list.

If you feel inclined to help me honor chop suey today, please give a link to your post in comments below. At the very least, eat Chinese today, take a photo, post it and send me the link. Happy Chop Suey. (If I’m not wrong, it was an Americanization of Chinese food, anyway.)

 

Puzzled

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Puzzled

Life is an exquisite puzzle whose pieces do not fit
each and every time that we seek to conquer it.
Its pieces are not shaped ahead. We form them as we go.
No solutions irrefutable. We grow them as we grow.
Caprice may may make life difficult—impossible to match
the present situation to pieces in the batch
cut out when life was scheduled, predictable and set
to lead in a direction where we will never get.
Life is wild and errant. It goes not where we lead.
We think that it’s the flower, but sometimes it’s just seed
that’s sewn in rocky soil that does not heed its growth.
Good fortune and adversity? We need to fit them both
into the picture of our lives. Each has its unique power
to turn what looks impossible into a thriving flower.

My guiding words today were caprice, irrefutable, errant, exquisite and puzzle.