Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

Open Hand

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jdbphoto2015

Open Hand

Wings held lightly without crushing
survive to join the world’s wild rushing,
while love held by a tight-clenched fist
quells half our reason to exist.

Some laud passions most rapacious—
grasping, volatile, tenacious;
but this is not the love I feel.
I do not seek to swoon or reel.

The tenacity of a skin tight glove
might stay my soaring to heights above.
I need your love like an open hand.
Not for me the wedding band.

The bond I seek from you, my dear,
is not the gauntlet that I fear
but rather, fingers whose sensations
are left free to life’s elations.

Butterflies kept in a jar
lose that beauty seen from afar.
That grace of movement caught on air
is what makes their beauty rare.

I love it when your arms enfold,
but if you love me, loose your hold.
The measure of my tenacity
is that I’ll come back to thee.

jdbphoto

The prompt word today was tenacious.

The Wheel: NaPoWriMo Repetition Poem, WP Daily Prompt

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jdbphoto

The (Wh)eel

We sail through life on an even keel,
solving every small ordeal
until one day, it turns surreal
as death slides in like a slippery eel,
our place in nature to firmly seal,
our invulnerability to steal.

It’s true these thoughts were never real,
but still, we feel what we must feel.
In youth, our lives are stainless steel,
Our pains are solved, our wounds all heal.
Then death slips in like a slippery eel—
gives no second chances. Does not deal.

A carnival barker with his spiel,
death lures us with unfettered zeal,
to spin us on the ferris wheel—
all our accomplishments to peel
and all our woe and all our weal
to cast from us, reel after reel.

On a ride that nothing can repeal,
it’s our turn to be nature’s meal.
The surreal now becomes the real,
and we join the universe’s wheel.
The organs keen, the bells all peal
as death slides in like a slippery eel.

 

jdbphoto

The WP Prompt today is “heal,” and the NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that depends on repetition.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 7 and WP Daily Prompt: Outlier

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Outlier

Born to privilege, propelled to fame.
Everybody knew her name.
Medals and trophies filled her shelves.
Her friends regretted they were themselves,
not wanting to be who they were,
wanting to be just like her—
noted for her style and grace—
slim of figure, fair of face.

Yet all her silver, all her gold
could not dispel the biting cold
of her mother’s distant smile.
She could not purchase or beguile
or win that thing that she most wanted.
With craving it, her dreams were haunted.
The lack of it cut like a knife.
She could not win her father’s wife.

 

For NaPoWriMo, the prompt today is to write a poem about luck or fortune. For WordPress, it is “outlier.”

There’s No Denying Nature, Daily Post Apr 6 and NaPoWriMo Day 5

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There’s No Denying Nature

There’s no denying nature, it surrounds us one and all.
Each time the palm tree shudders and its blossoms start to fall,
they cloak the water of my pool and cover every stone
that paves my outer terrace as though they must atone

for some ill that must be covered up, some sin they’re meant to hide.
It cannot be I who have erred, for I am safe inside.
Yet who am I, denying these early April showers?
I come to float upon my back, surrounded by the flowers.

Though they might create problems with the pool drain and the filter,
throwing all our man-made systems more or less off-kilter,
yet each year I must admit I suffer a few qualms
as I call the men to come and trim the refuse from the palms.

There’s no denying nature, be it human or a tree.
Each day as I look up at them, they, too, look down on me.
They see my foibles and excesses—the errors I have sown
And like forgiving neighbors, cloak my messes with their own.

 

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The WordPress prompt today is “denial.” I’m also combining it with the NaPoWriMo prompt for April 4.  That prompt is: a slice of the natural world that you have personally experienced and optimally, one that you have experienced often.

Keyboard Athlete

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jdbphto

Keyboard Athlete

Not a great sportswoman—champion of none.
I sport a camera when having my fun.
My skill is not measured in baskets or bases.
I score my points while clicking at faces.

Though I’m not the most physical person you’ll meet,
I do exercise caution when crossing the street.
My main lack of muscle tone’s merely because
My pushup experience is mainly in bras.

As you vault over hurdles and excel at tennis,
the extensions I do are less of a menace.
Though I’m not an expert at sprinting or jogging,
my fingers are well-toned through everyday blogging.

 The prompt word today was “champion.”

Jump!

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Jump!

I am on the cusp of something,
grasp the tail of it, lose my grasp,
hurry off to pick up the dog from the groomer,
pick a fresh papaya.
If I could get my teeth into my future,
I would be gap-toothed—with a space between
for slipping away.

I have an urge to sell my life off
chair by chair,
painting by painting,
shirt by shirt––
until, stripped bare,
I have only myself to sell
to the zephyrs,
dissolving up into the universe.

Or perhaps I’ll finish all those novels
on the cusp of completion
for 30 years or 20 or 10—
Every decade a new story begun,
attempting in the telling
to sow my secrets to see what they will yield.
Fame or disgust or apathy?
The problem with daring to surge ahead from the cusp
is that we find out for sure.

“She is on the cusp,” they are always saying.
“Why doesn’t she jump? We’ll catch her.”
My muses hold the net. How loosely?
Dare I trust them?
That time before the beginning so safe
that perhaps I’ll stay here
on the cusp.

 

The prompt word is “cusp.”

Imprudent.

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Imprudent

An hour ’til midnight and still I’d not
written anything but rot.
The problem is, I’m not a student
of anything that smacks of “prudent.”
Especially when it comes to writing.
How can prudent be exciting?
A friend from whom I asked advice—
a guy who’s usually nice—
said, “Just write a limerick.”
“Yech!” I screamed. They make me sick!”
The problem is, time after time,
they are not funny and do not rhyme.
His advising role I here recuse,
and declare him as my anti-muse.

(This poem is based on a real conversation at the end of which I declared that I didn’t want to talk to him for 20 minutes, at the end of which I’d have a poem.  Done!!!  Not much, but better than a limerick! And I finished, proofed, tagged and posted in exactly 20 minutes.)

The prompt today is “prudent.”

 

 

Time Rush

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Time Rush

Although I’d love to pause and take the time
to create an adequate rhyme,
Alas, I must get on the road
to drive back to my own abode.

The piles surround me. I must go.
But, alas, I’m moving slow.
With a car to finish loading,
I’ve developed a sense of foreboding.

When I’m Skyped by my best friend,
I know my luck is at an end.
Yes, my planning most precise
would have turned out very nice

except for one fact I forgot.
Now in a time-crunch I am caught.
The cause of all my frantic ravings?
Forgot to switch to Daylight Savings!

 

It’s true.  Mexico changes at a different time than the rest of North America.  Although I thought I’d be checking out precisely at 11 a.m., it seems that the time will be noon.  But, the fridge is cleaned, floor swept, Morrie precautions removed, except for his long lead that has rusted shut around the post.  Oh woe.  Bye for now.  I’m off to the road.

The prompt today was “pause.”

April Fool

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April Fool

The April breeze comes in a wave,
loosening words I’d like to save.
I’m afraid if I use them today,
I’ll simply throw the words away.
I’ve been keeping them around
for when I’m feeling more profound,
but errant winds have tossed them so
I feel I have to let them go.
Here they are, all madly sprawled
across a page they should have crawled
ornate and planned, all neatly sown.
Instead, they’re scattered where they’ve been blown.

 

The prompt today, which was so late that I didn’t receive it until just now at 5:37 P.M., was ironically, “later.” I leave tomorrow so got up at 5 A.M. to pack, went to writer’s group at 10:30 at which point they still hadn’t published a prompt word, then had two appointments in the afternoon and hurried home to do more packing.  I’ll get the prompt done sooner or “later.”  Is this an April Fool’s joke, WordPress?

I’m also using this as my first day’s NaPoWriMo poem.  Been packing and loading car all day, Will be driving all day tomorrow.  Once I’m home, I’ll do better.

 

Passing Through

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Passing Through

Do not jostle for your places, for you’re fully in our view.
We have the V.I.P. seats here in your cosmic zoo.
Perhaps you sense our presence, but there’s nothing you can do
to see us for it’s set up so we’re only viewing you.

We see who you turn into each time you’re born anew.
One lifetime you’re a Muslim, and another you’re a Jew—
your choice of birth determined by your placement in the queue.
It’s purely arbitrary which person will be you.

You might become the very thing that now you most eschew,
but there’s no one to object to. There’s no one you can sue,
for the world that you’re reborn to was made by folks like you,
and the life you’ve made for who you’ll be might be a life you’ll rue.

This revelation should not come out of the blue.
It’s one that’s often explained by the mystic or guru.
If you love this lifetime where the cat’s meow is you,
please hold onto your passport, for you’re only passing through.

 

The prompt today is passport.