Tag Archives: Daily Post

Don’t Make Me!

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The Prompt:Kick the Bucket—What are the top items on your anti-bucket list — those things you never, ever want to do, places you never want to visit, books you never want to read, etc.?

Don’t Make Me

Please don’t ever make me go back to Cancun.
If I never return there, I’ve visited too soon.
Don’t make me go to church again or listen to more rap.
Don’t make me go to bed at eight or take a daily nap.
I don’t want to do those things I don’t want to do.
Don’t make me look at animals trapped up in a zoo.

Brains are meant for keeping up farther in your head.
To have to eat the things I think with fills my mind with dread.
Don’t make me eat anything only adults eat:
liver, caviar, pate, kidneys or pigs’ feet.
All of those are parts of animals I’ve come to fear,
for none of them are meant to put in human mouths, my dear.

I think that I’ll live longer without jumping from above.
For bungee cords or parachutes I have no sort of love.
Even roller coasters present uncalled-for risk.
For me a walk upon the beach is adequately brisk.
Anything that’s bumpy, jerky, swooping, fast or twirly
makes me want to arrive late and go home really early.

Please don’t make me listen to those who rant and rave.
If I meet them in the street, I’ll merely nod and wave.
Let bores much given to monologues find another ear;
because those who never listen, I have no wish to hear.
Tea-partiers, loud mouths, bigots and folks in the elite
are on my list of strangers I do not need to meet.

I hope no radiation or chemotherapy
is ever necessary to make me cancer-free.
No machines to make me breathe and no dialysis.
As little poking, pushing, testing and analysis
as possible is what I wish for on my “do not” list.
Just let me go gently into that final mist.

I’ve grown to hate the overuse of “bucket list” as label
for what folks want to do before their death if they are able.
So please be more original in thinking what to call
that list of things that you most want to do before you fall.
For the thing I don’t want as “I am” turns into “been”
Is to ever hear the phrase of “bucket list” again!

You might be able to find a list of other people who have answered this prompt by clicking on each person who has “liked” this topic here:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/kick-the-bucket/

Necessary Dangers

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The Prompt: Alphabet Soup. Write down one word for each letter of the alphabet and then construct a post making use of these words.

Necessary Dangers

 How did you find your way into my dreams,
ripping my comfort apart at the seams?
I barely escaped to back rooms of my self
where still I found thoughts of you stacked on a shelf
carefully obscured both in front and above
by other less perilous memories of love.

You walked nonchalantly into the room
that I had just cleared with a cloth and a broom
of other dangers and sadnesses not
knowing that I had been once again caught.
Now I hide out behind walls at the back
where all of my worst fears reside in a stack.

Cowering here as you stride through the place
that your very presence has turned dark and base.
How could I have loved such a frightening soul?
The box of my heart turned into a bowl
with all of my secrets and weakness revealed—
things that I now know I should have kept sealed?

There you sit quietly, perched on a chair,
one hand on the desk top, one hand on your hair
writing cruel words—I know about me.
I ease my way over, hoping to see,
but the paper is empty, your ink has turned clear
making improbable all that I fear.

As now I remember that I let you in,
forgetting all else in the charm of your grin.
The joy of your hand as it guided me sure
across the dance floor—all that allure
that kept me involved in the surface of you
overlooking the dangers as most of us do.

If I’d had an x-ray taken of you
when our romance was shiny and new
I might have seen sooner your dangerous zone
and taken a detour, and left you alone.
And perhaps now my dreams would be placid and calm.
so I’d sleep without worry, sleep without qualm.

I might not have moved off to the edge of the world,
might still have been sleeping, never unfurled.
Perhaps it’s these dangers that make us let go
of all of the comforts of worlds that we know
and send us out elsewhere to discover a self
we’d have never found sitting safe on a shelf.

The Sweet and Bitter Lie

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This is one of 15 creches I’ve constructed of unaltered natural items I’ve found on the beach. For some reason, I am captivated by the gentle side of Mexico best symbolized by her obsession with the Virgin of Guadalupe. I’ve seen motorcycle leathers with an image of Guadalupe on the back! I’ll publish pictures of the others soon. I know. A seeming contradiction to the words I’ve posted below, but perhaps one or the other view is just a sweet little lie!

The Prompt: Sweet Little Lies—As kids, we’re told, time and again, that lying is wrong. Do you believe that’s always true? In your book, are there any exceptions?

The Sweet and Bitter Lie

I think the sweetest little lie we tell ourselves and our children is that of a beneficent and caring God. This belief and the religion that stems from it  is our way of comforting ourselves. It is totally aside from reason. How else could we look at a baby turtle struggling to swim for the first time plucked up and swallowed by a hungry pelican, or a baby suffering with cancer or a horribly deformed child and think, “This is the product of a caring Father?” We all must conclude, if we make use of our senses at all, that nature is impartial and serves only its own cycle. There is no kindness in nature, other than her beauties and comforts; but even they all serve a purpose: to survive against all odds, and to kill or at the very least to depend upon the death of other organisms in order to do so.

I do acknowledge that Religion is probably necessary for many who do not think far enough to recognize the sweet lie. For those who use it to create more compassion for others, I applaud the end. But right now it seems as though religion is being used more as a weapon and political ploy than for the “good” side of its coin.

I don’t know how I align my agnosticism with my belief that there is some sort of incredible synchronicity going on in the world. This is a topic for another day, I guess.

For other posts on this topic, go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/sweet-little-lies/

When is Enough Enough?

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This picture of the sunset a few nights ago is proof enough that the best things in life are free, but they are easier to enjoy when one is not hungry.

                                                          When Is Enough Enough?
To want all or to want nothing are both dangerous. Those who want all are the conquerors and exploiters and power lords who have brought the world to the state it is in today. They will exploit the poor and the weak but get their feelings of the most power from exploiting those equal to them in power. The world is a game to these people and we are all pawns.

But to want nothing may lead to despair. True, in a few holy men, it has been the path to enlightenment; but for those living within the world and not to the side of it, to want nothing can lead to apathy and powerlessness.

I think the secret lies in wanting enough and then wanting enough for others as well. This doesn’t have to be done by charity. It can be done by the way we vote, the way we treat our neighbors, the way we invest our money and the way we conduct our own businesses. It can be done by the way we bargain for a trinket on the beach or handle wrong change.

Sylvia Plath was probably correct in her statement, “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” When the richest woman in the world commits suicide or one of the richest men in the world gauges those living hand-to-mouth with unfair cellphone charges and policies, one has to wonder what great lack they are trying to fill and whether in fact they have any true take on what the world is really about.

Monosyllabically Possible?

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The Prompt: One at a Time—Today, write a post about the topic of your choice — using only one-syllable words.

Monosyllabically Possible?

I
might
just
fail,
but
I
will
try.

in
a
case
of
do
or
die,

If
I’m
caught
out
in
the
kelp,

It
will
do
to
just
cry
help!

But
if
you
want
to
cuss
and
shout,

it
just
won’t
work
to
go
that
route.

When
in
the
door
you
slam
your
thumb,

we’ll
see
how
far
that
you
have
come.

Your
girl
has
just
gone
on
the
lam,

and
you
just
have
to
shout
Goddamn!

Work Ethic / Canción de México: Two Poems

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The Prompt: Gut Feeling—When’s the last time you followed your instinct despite not being sure it was the right thing to do? Did it end up being the right call?

Work Ethic

There’s something stirring in me. I do not know its name.
It whispered to go seawards, so that is why I came.
I do not know the object, though once I thought I did.
Once here the book I thought I’d write left my mind and hid.

I find that I am drifting like a seabird on the swell;
and so far that is fine with me, in fact I like it well.
Instead, I write these ditties that I finish every day,
forsaking what I think I should to just write what I may.

No need for all the boring things: research, footnotes, citing.
Whatever is in front of me is what I end up writing.
Some might say that it’s responsibility I’m shirking,
but I say that I’ve simply learned to go with what is working.


Canción de México
(Song of Mexico)

This small café sits on the square, or rather the rectangle.
The gas trucks pass by, blaring “Gaaaaas,” their grounding chains a-jangle.
Trucks and cycles lacking mufflers roar by every minute,
bass blaring from each car window without much music in it.

The guinea fowl make such a ruckus that they sound insane,
but to complain about the noise in Mexico’s inane.
The daily garbage trucks, the water truck and all the rest
all live by the assurance that what’s loudest is the best.

I drink my coffee, eat my muffin, try to grin and bear it;
but when she sets a napkin down, I grab at it and tear it.
And even though one part of me says that I shouldn’t dare it,
I use a bit to wipe my lips. The other part? I wear it!

I stuff a wad in either ear, and though I still hear all,
I go by the illusion that I hear it from afar.
Sometimes I feel the threat of age, so quickly it is nearing;
but if I lose one faculty, dear God, please make it hearing!

My TV Is Smarter Than I Am

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The Prompt: Wronged Objects—If your furniture, appliances, and other inanimate objects at home had feelings and emotions, to which item would you owe the biggest apology?

Outsmarting my Smart TV

My TV is smarter than I am, springing to life on a whim.
When the electrician comes to do work here, I think she is flirting with him.
She flicks on and then off in a second, just like she has given a wink.
Or perhaps registers disapproval by shutting us off with a blink.

I know she has much to complain of since I purchased her two years ago.
I’ve never connected to cable or dish, so she doesn’t have too much to show.
Although she connects to computers, my Apple igores that she’s here.
That I haven’t read the instructions? I know it’s exceedingly queer.

She’s equipped to show movies in 3D, but my housekeeper threw out the glasses.
So if I want movies to jump out at me, I must go view them out with the masses
and not in the privacy of my own home with my cat or myself or my friends.
I haven’t checked out buying more on the Web, and for this I must soon make amends.

My computer is usually my viewer of choice when my friend sends me movies by Skype.
The films that he sends are amazing. He knows the best subjects and type
of videos that I like viewing. They are smart and they’re funny and Indie.
He doesn’t send action/adventure or slapstick or horror or Hindi.

 But I never watch them on my Smart screen, preferring my laptop to it.
I set it right there at my poolside and watch as I try to get fit
doing my pool aerobics for an hour and a half, maybe two.
My workouts just seem to last longer whenever I’ve something to view.

 My TV can see out the window that I’m faithful to screens that are small
and I’m sure that I’ve given a complex to my big gal I don’t watch at all.
So I started a “Last Sunday” film night. They’re pot luck, then we watch a movie.
We eat and we talk and we watch and we laugh and we all end up feeling quite groovy.

So for one night a month, my TV springs to life when I plug in the little thumb drive.
Her face flushes up in an enormous blush, for she sees that I know she’s alive.
The eyes of all eight of us fix upon her. She’s the center of all our attention.
We laugh at her jokes and cry at her pathos. Respond to her mysteries with tension.

But the rest of the month her expression is blank, sitting alone in her corner
looking so sad and so lacking in life that I feel that perhaps I should mourn her.
The first time she lit up when I entered the room to say she didn’t recognize me,
I realized with shock for the very first time that my TV could both talk and see!

I hadn’t quite realized the extent of her powers when I bought her at Costco that day.
My old TV weighed in at five hundred pounds—more than a TV should weigh.
I’d inherited it from my mom when she died so I had a personal attachment,
but to move it alone, one risked heart attack or at least a vertebral detachment.

And so I gave in to my friend’s cajoling that it was time to buy another.
and I gave away the monster TV that I had acquired from my mother.
But guilt has suffused me ever after that day, for I really don’t need a TV,
and this smart girl is lacking in challenges, just wasting her talents on me.

She’s recently started to turn herself on (something that girls alone do)
and talking to me when I enter the room and enter her angle of view.
Finally I just unplugged her—an act of most selfish defiance.
I haven’t time in my life just to chat—especially to an appliance!

Although they still won’t accept my pingbacks (!!!!!) you can see more writing on this subject at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wronged-objects/

New World Miracle

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The Prompt: An Extreme Tale—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. When was the last time that sentence accurately described your life?

Note:  For the ninth day in a row, I (along with several other bloggers) have not been able to pingback to the Daily Prompts page.  If you are able to, can you mention this poem in your blog and pingback to me?  WordPress doesn’t seem to be doing anything about this problem, although we’ve written numerous times!  Thanks.

I’ve told the second part of this story in an earlier post.  Now, here is the beginning and the ending.  One day I’ll tell the in-between.


New World Miracle
(Ethiopia, 1973-74)

Black Tiger in safari jacket
you told me
hyenas in the hills
would attack the mule if I tried
to ride alone
from the lowland landing field
to Lalibela.

By
sunset
we had reached
the high plateaus
sheep crying
miles away
shepherds calling
mile on mile.

In this high air
heard from mountaintop
to mountaintop
from valley
lifting to plateaus above
you with Afro out to here
admitted the hyenas were a lie
took my picture
tucked my camera in your pocket
pulled me up
to you
and
there was no
resistance
in
this
air.

I was
enamored
of the falling sun
the cries of shepherds
your hair
your jacket
your clean mouth
white teeth
and beautiful
tall rest of you.
I had always needed
to feel like this.
Giddy.
Your kiss pulled me in then
ricocheted
to valleys
under valleys
under valleys.
Always something
under
something else.

We were at the edges
of the world.
We were at its
cracking rims.

And I can believe
in you
standing
on the rifted rock
above the canyons
still
I can’t imagine
you
in the valley
deeper in the valley
than the valley floor.

I can’t imagine you
dusted hair
eyes closed by clods
growing trees from your navel
pomegranates from your fingernails.

When you touched me
I grew
then I grew too far.

But nothing
since
has touched your warm
your brown
your hands
your mouth
where you touched
nothing since
has quite
touched.

In your country
where names
are only words
strung together
your name
Andu Alem Tamirat
meaning new world’s miracle.

You could have come with me
to grow invisible in California.
Instead you
died in
futile
revolution,
seeding
painful
memories.

Remember
how you used to climb
out of my dining room window
to the back yard compound
to pick orange waxy blossoms
from the pomegranate tree—
how you used to
tuck them
in my hair?

To The Island

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The Prompt: We’ve all been asked what five objects we’d take with us to a desert island. Now it’s your best friend’s (or close relative’s) turn to be stranded: what five objects would you send him/her off with?

To the Island

If I sent you to an island, it would be for your own good.
It wouldn’t be unwillingly, with chains and ropes and hood.
I’d lure you off to be with me, surrounded by the sea.
You wouldn’t have to talk or walk or be in love with me.

The objects that I’d give you are a camera, notepad, pen
and a computer with no wifi to connect to where you’ve been.
You’d live in the present with the details of your life,
examining where you have been without the daily strife.

With no Internet distraction, no ringing of the phone,
sometimes you find a part of you that you have never known.
There’s something that is lacking in what’s crowded in one’s brain.
It’s hard to find ourselves when we must live the whole world’s pain.

In the morning, you would walk the beach, move inward with the tide,
examining what treasures the waves conceal inside.
A stone shaped like a check mark or a continent or heart–
it’s hard to suspend looking, once you’ve made a start.

You may take photos of them or collect them in your pocket—
something to make art from, or a picture for your locket.
Another way to get inside is what you write about them.
If you have secrets, it’s inevitable that you’ll out them.

The sea’s part of something larger and each treasure is a clue
connecting the whole universe to something within you.
This is why each object plucked up from the sand
is part of you that you’ve reclaimed—there within your hand.

What you see in what you find is what you have inside.
Perhaps it’s something you don’t know or that you know and hide.
The very fact that it is here revealed for you to see
may mean that you are ready to finally set it free.

The sea with all its treasures and its recurring tide
is also found within you—safely tucked inside.
So look into a mirror—a metaphor, more or less;
if you are wondering if you’ve changed, you won’t have to guess.

You’ll look for things within yourself as closely as the sea
and find out more of who you are and who you want to be.
You’ll see the changes on your face that say you’ve become wise.
Deep worry lines around your mouth and laugh lines by your eyes.

And once that you have found yourself, you’ll find yourself again;
for you are always changing—refining what you’ve been.
Tucked off on an island like a wallflower on a shelf,
perhaps you’ll find the whole wide world there within yourself.

And when you see the world within, you’ll want to live in it,
for it’s a world that you have power to change as you see fit.

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Just a few of the more than 30 heart-shaped rocks I’ve found. I’ve photographed many more than that.

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What do you see in these beach finds?

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This check mark shaped stone was one of my favorites today. I also found one in the shape of Africa, which is alluded to in the poem, but didn’t take a photo.



Writing Habit

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The Prompt: Winning Streak—What’s the longest stretch you’ve ever pulled off of posting daily to your blog? What did you learn about blogging through that achievement, and what made you break the streak?

Writing Habit

I’ve written every day since April 1, 2014, except for yesterday, when I couldn’t get online all morning. I then got involved in working with the illustrator of my next book, who came to visit for two days to work on the covers. They are now finished, except for the lettering, and he’s done a wonderful job. Thrilling! I actually did answer yesterday’s prompt today and I’ve answered every other WordPress Daily Prompt since May, when I switched over from the NaPoWriMo prompt. I have not, however, managed to post a pingback to the WordPress Prompt page 3 or 4 times in the past and have not now been able to do so for the past 7 days, which is frustrating. I wonder if anyone reading this knows what the problem is and why some can trackback/pingback and others are unable to?

Blogging and the WordPress and other prompts have given me two things: a daily audience and pressure/permission to make writing a priority. I write every day, first thing, with very few exceptions. I now exercise in the late afternoon instead of the morning, giving me the entire morning to write if I need it. If I have activities, I get up early to write and sit waiting for the prompt like the parent of a teenager out after curfew.

I also sometimes post things I’ve written as a draft, waiting for a prompt to which they will relate. This serves as a backup as well, but so far I haven’t had any writer’s block. I think writing every day helps to prime the creative flow. I expect it to be there, so it always is. I also try not to censor myself. It’s necessary to let thoughts flow naturally. One can always delete or edit things later, but sometimes what feels not up to par when being written actually ends up being good. We need to give ourselves a chance and to be as supportive of ourselves as we are to our fellow writers.