Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

Substandard in My Dotage

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Well-dressed-older-women
     

Substandard in My Dotage

My body is substandard, defective, under par.
It does okay for walking if I don’t walk very far,
but at jogging mile after mile I would not be my best.
My left knee hath a hitch in it and so it doth protest.

And as for aesthetics, it takes no art detective
to discover all the many ways that I am  defective.
My skin is pale and blotchy and will not stay in place.
It sags here on my underarms and here below my face.

My fingernails are ridgy, my toes starting to curl.
Everything is different from when I was a girl.
And though I have less hair now in places where it’s been,
When I go in search of it, I find it on my chin.

Gravity has claimed those spots where once I was most perky.
That neck so firm and regal now resembles most a turkey.
The pounds that all my life I have been struggling to lose,
as by magnetism have settled where they choose.

Some ladies age most gracefully. I fear I am not one.
Of all the charms of aging I’ve not captured even one.
So I guess I’ll just dress funny with a little flair.
Put shadow on my eyelids and feathers in my hair.

I’ll jangle all my bracelets and put on all my rings.
I’ll give away old lady clothes and wear more stylish things.
At least I’ll finish my last yard with a little dash.
What I lack in all the rest I’ll make up with panache.

 

Substandard is the prompt word today. Photo borrowed from the Internet.      

First Lust

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 jdbphotos (Click on any photo to enlarge all)

First Lust

When we were young, before love rusted,
how we pined and how we lusted.
We lived on love. So sure. Nonplussed.
As though we held a deed of trust
on those we kissed. We arched, they thrust,
our hearts pounding as though percussed.

We came home rumpled, dizzy, mussed—
our heads swirling, slightly concussed.
Our mothers warned. Our fathers fussed,
seeking to turn our dreams to dust.
Our hearts reeling in shamed disgust,
our faces flamed as they discussed.

And although we thought we must
pretend to listen, inside we cussed,
knowing their words to be unjust.
Within each throbbing teenage bust
beat a heart free of distrust,
bursting with love’s wanderlust.

Back there at our very starts,
as we were learning to use our hearts,
back when we thought they might combust,
our hearts were tender, without crust.
We gave them fully with no mistrust.
We thought the world of love was just.

 

 

The prompt word today was lust.

Best for Last

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Best for Last

Just as I’m ready to ingest
the morsel I consider best
and so picked out from all the rest
to be my last bite, savored with zest—
last memory of this gourmet fest—
from north and south and east and west,
descends each winged little pest,
radared in on diabolical quest
as though invited at my behest.
They put my appetite to the test,
settling as though to the nest,
their hairy feet intimately pressed
upon that morsel that I loved best.
I wave my hand over them, lest
they eat too much, then I confess
I guiltily consume the rest.

 

The prompt today is pest.

Pelicans

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Pelicans

They float upon the gentle swells,
with chins tucked in politely.
Of all the birds, most dignified,
their movements never sprightly.

They look like grumpy butlers
named Oliver or Jeeves
in morning coats of softest gray
with wings tucked in their sleeves.

They may be only scouting
the source of their next meal,
for soon they take off to the air
with energy and zeal.

And soon they’re diving down again,
straight like an arrow shot,
down into the shallows
to see what can be caught.

Bobbing once again,
they lift their bills and then let slide
all that’s in their pouches
to another place inside.

I wonder if the fishes flop
all the long way down,
and this is why the pelicans
then fold their arms and frown?

 Version 2

The prompt today is shallow. This poem is a rewrite of a poem published a few years ago..

Makeovers

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Makeovers

What truths lie hidden back of where
you wear your countenance and hair?
Behind the mask you show the world,
possibilities are stacked and curled.
Beings within us piled on shelves—
other thoughts and dreams and selves.
The self we are tomorrow may
change from who we are today.

Today our art project in camp is going to be masks.  I’ll publish photos tonight.  Above is the mask I made to demonstrate one possibility.

The Prompt today is hidden.

Green Tea and Me

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Green Tea and Me

The taste of green tea is a taste to which I do not cotton.
Instead of tasting fresh and green, to me it just tastes rotten.
Although it is a liquid that I must daily swallow,
it clearly is a flavor in which I don’t choose to wallow.

Health drives us to those foods and liquids we would never choose.
Makes us eat our kale and fish oil, takes away our booze.
If we want to keep our blood pressure from simply soaring,
we’ll be giving up our salt for flavors much more boring.

So nature takes our simple pleasures from us one by one.
Things like buttered popcorn become a smoking gun.
If we want our  bodies to cooperate and function,
we’ll gobble less for pleasure and nibble more for unction.

The prompt today was tea.

Stink Think

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Stink Think

Scotch broom makes me nauseous. Roses make me sneeze.
I abhor the scent of jasmine on an evening breeze.
Room deodorants should be banned, as should scented candles.
I’d rather smell my brother’s sneakers or a vagrant’s sandals.

Now that we want each thing to smell like something it is not,
there’s a different odor on everything we’ve got.
There’s perfume in detergent, in dryer tabs and soap.
Scented toilet paper makes we want to mope.

Unscented’s getting almost impossible to find.
It leaves allergic folks like me in a real tight bind.
Gardenia in my hand lotion or chamomile or peach.
Hairsprays  smell as fresh as air or like a summer beach.

Floor cleaners smell like forests of freshly gathered pine,
as though without this pungent scent our floors would smell like swine!
These odors leave me gasping and running for some air.
Their vapors make my eyes run, causing much despair.

I do not want my table waxed with lemon or “fresh scent.”
I believe that everything should smell as nature meant.
I’ve done a lot of research, and  I’m fairly sure
that perfumes out-stink everything they’re meant to obscure!

 

The prompt today was fragrance.  I found at least five old poems about fragrances and odors.  Here’s another one that goes waaaay back. Image of Scotch Broom from the internet.

back when we were baby birds

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back when we were baby birds

feeding each other
cold spaghetti worms
in grass clipping nests
empty summer stretched in front of us

stale plastic wading pools
pressing yellow circles
into grass
that smelled like wet bandaids

during a game of hide-and-seek
dust bunnies behind the chest
full of old prom dresses
in the upstairs hall

mouse droppings
in the basement
pits from sour cherries
scattered on the back steps

scraps of soggy paper
dried into small sculptures
under the weeping willow tree
revealing part of each original message

mommy is . . .
. . . ate my cookie
I hope Sharon . . .
my doll doesn’t . . . your doll . . .

summer just an empty cup
we filled each day
with the long summer rains
of daydreams.

 

The prompt today way fragrance. Since I have to leave soon for the first day of Campamento Estrella, here’s a poem I wrote so long ago that I’d totally forgotten it. I’ll post photos of camp later today.

Sweet Harmony

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Two years ago, when I visited friends from my childhood that I hadn’t seen for scores of years, we had a wonderful time  going through a box of mementos and then gathering around the piano to make  music as sweet as the memories.  Susan is a wonderful pianist and Karen a professional-level singer with a lovely soprano voice that always sends chills down my back.  Patti and I, good high school altos that we once were, created the harmony.  A perfect day with three of my favorite people whom I don’t see often enough.  Sweet Harmony for sure.

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Small Reunion

The pianist deftly presses out her chords.
The soprano’s voice slides smoothly from her throat
while we others strain until “Dear Heart” syrups our vocal chords
and we slip with less effort up and down the scale—
old friends singing even older songs.

The small dog snuggles in,
balancing on the plush chair back.
The mother of the pianist and the soprano
observes from her frame atop the piano.
All husbands out and about on other business.

Old letters reread, old memories pulled from forgetfulness,
each of us is left at the end richer—hearts refilled
from a shared past. Every word
has been a song of its own—
our notes blending together
in perfect harmony.

The prompt today was harmonize. This is a rewrite of a piece blogged two years ago. I’m getting ready for Camp Estrella so there won’t be much time for blogging for the next week!  

Appetite

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Appetite

It is the appetite we wrap our skin around like clothes—
that we push down but that squeezes out around us
in spite of our best efforts—
that appetite we run from and run to.

It lies waiting for us
behind the cold glass windows of stores,
coils in our cooking pots
and curls out in their steam.

Appetite sits under the Christmas tree
wrapped up in red paper and green ribbon.
It is the appetite of the Barbie Doll and the erector set,
the jigsaw puzzle and the bouncing ball of the jacks game.

It is the appetite
that lies dormant in our gonads,
jumps in our semen,
sleeps in an egg.

It vibrates in a vocal cord,
trembles on the fingers of a lover,
swims on the tongue of a nursing infant,
catapults off the slingshot of a seven-year-old boy.

Appetite kinks out from the curling iron,
chews itself from the tips of our fingernails
and spins itself from our feet
during a jungle rhythm or a southern reel.

Appetite pipes from the end of a flute
and shakes off the edges of a tambourine.
It is sealed in a tube of paint,
carried by a brush to the canvas where it dances its own dance.

It is appetite that hides in our computer keys
and in the tips of the fingers that tap them,
appetites lined up on our paper
where we have assembled them in unaccustomed order.

They are what bring us here,
these appetites that can never be catalogued or collected in their entirety—
our appetites better presented in a brown paper bag,
jumbled like penny candies, tumbled over each other like in a junk drawer.

Appetites that can never fully be defined
or neatly wrapped up in a moral or a surprise ending.
Appetites that can never be satisfied,
because our appetites want everything,

and gaining everything, reach out for more.

 

The prompt today is dormant. The prompt word today brought something up in me that has lain dormant for many years.  That is, this poem which was actually written in a MUCH longer form twenty-five years ago. “. . .that lies dormant in our gonads” kept running through my mind, and although I knew I had written it, I couldn’t remember where.  Finally, I did a search in my poetry file and found this poem. The original I submitted to a national poetry competition and won first prize for.  The judge said it was for my pure audacity in submitting a poem that took 12 minutes to read!  I published it in a shorter form two years ago in my blog, but even that tightened poem was probably too long for most viewers to read. At any rate, here it is in its newest and shortest form–a poem from within a poem, where it has lain dormant for twenty-five years.