Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

Cross My Heart

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Cross My Heart

I’m counting steps from one to ten,
across my heart, them back again
to see the places it has been.
First loves were merely friends and kin
before my heart first snagged on men.
Then well do I remember when
the swell of love turned into wen.

The cure of it beyond my ken,
with all my pain I filled my pen,
then released it on the page again.
Once cured, I uttered an “Amen,”
discovered the i ching and Zen.
Turned into a comedienne,
and sought to leave love’s gambling den.

In truth, though, that was there and then.
So now, as through my heart I wend,
I wish that love might never end.
I seek once more its tricky bend.
To welcome in, the heart must rend,
which causes pain, but oh my dears,
a lover’s breath will dry those tears.

 

 

 

The prompt today is “crossing.”

 

 

Ode to Father Time

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Ode to Father Time

What have you taken from my life?
Some of the sorrows. Some of the strife.
Drinking and dancing with my friends.
In youth, the party never ends.
Morning alarm bells, up at six.
Papers to grade. Coffee to fix.
Some nights of pleasure, some days of pain.
Then all of it over all again.
That midnight passion, brief morning touch,
fire of the engine, slipping clutch.

Trying to sort our lives out from
life’s busy energy and hum.
So very young, so very dumb.

When we grew wiser, we found the one—
a milder comforting type of fun.
Dependable like a well-worn glove.
a thirty-something sort of love—
not only heart, but also mind.
We ‘d finally found one of our kind.
Moving closer to ourselves,
picking new parts off the shelves
of all those selves we had inside–
out from where they used to hide.

Living life from day to day,
spending life along the way.
Not knowing we would have to pay

Now two-thirds gone, life prods us still—
a bit more slowly up the hill.
Support of friends, support of canes,
support hose for our varicose veins.
Blander diets, switch to red wine.
(Medicine grown on the vine.)
Earlier hours, newer friends
as the old ones vanish around their bends.
All of life is still a dance
that we’re still in by luck or chance.

So seize life by its swinging hair.
Pull it to you. Risk and dare.
Always changing, but it’s still there.

img_1510Take a vow to dance at least once in 2017

Today’s prompt word was “gone.”

Word Hopeful

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Word-Hopeful

When I come to this place each morning,
I am hopeful I’ll find a word
that attracts other words that are lovely
or heartbreaking or absurd.
I am wishing they’ll gather together
in a community––
to wake this fractured world up
and turn it o’er their knee,
then gather it in loving arms
of solidarity.
Sometimes words must shake our calm,
creating stormy weather,
just to come into our hearts
to bring us all together.

The prompt word today was hopeful.

Nope!!!

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img_1305This really is the number of meds that are keeping me breathing right now.

Nope!!!

Okay, readers, here’s the dope.
Though desolation might reach and grope,
put in my path those bars of soap,
in depressed times, provide the rope,
I choose instead to fight and cope.
I refuse to be a misanthrope.
I really have no cause to mope,
for as long as there is breath, there’s hope.

Background info that I couldn’t fit in without really stretching it to fit in my remaining rhyme words of “ope, lope, Pope and taupe,” is that last night I was taken by ambulance for a night’s stay in the emergency room of the local Green Cross. I started having asthma attacks in the afternoon and by evening I just couldn’t breathe even with the inhalers.  None of my friends were home so finally I called a close neighbor who luckily had a sister who is both an asthma victim and a nurse. She got me calmed down and breathing through the inhaler and they went back home to have dinner, saying they’d come back to stay with me afterwards.  I tried to call a few more friends, but again, none were home, and I had another attack.  Luckily, the phone rang and it was Chris seeing how I was.  I could just gasp “Help!”  They were there in two minutes, called an ambulance, and since they could not get me to breathe without the oxygen, they took me to the hospital for the night.  Twelve hours of oxygen later, plus visits by two doctors, an injection and 5 more bottles of medicine, I’m back home with an oxygen machine I bought, looking for a portable one that doesn’t cost $5,000—what they cost here in Mexico— or $3500—what the model I’d like costs in the states. Never have I been so thankful for the breath of life!

The prompt today is mope.

Everything Old is New Again

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Everything Old is New Again

To dress passé? A fashion sin,
yet everything old is new again.
So if your dress length’s out of date
all you have to do is wait.
In twenty years, you’ll be in vogue,
in what last year marked you a rogue.

Who dictates fashion is beyond me.
As are those who wait to see
whether ankle, thigh or knee
is where a garment’s end should be
and whether cowl or boat or vee
is the right neckline for the tee

they tuck into their faded jeans—
now ripped and shredded like a dumpster queen’s.
Following fashion’s every word?
I fear I find it most absurd.
I want the knees left in my jeans,
my butt well-covered, by all means.

What clothes you wear should be your passion,
not merely what’s okayed by fashion.
There should be no laws or rules
regarding clothes or hats or jewels
except what shows us who you are.
Each woman her own runway star.

The prompt today is renewal.

If Poets Named the World

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If Poets Named the World

If poets named the world, there’d be
a more precise variety
of names for things that suited them.
For instance, take the common “hem.”
We find it on our skirts and pants
if it is not torn out by chance.
But “upturn”seems to suit it better
In fact, it names it to the letter.
“Houseclump” better names a village.
The waterfall could be a spillage.
Each fresh-plowed field would be a tillage.
The drug store? It would be a “pillage.”

 

The prompt today was “pillage.”

Arrive Clapping

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Arrive Clapping

The prima ballerina, the starlet and the queen
might give the appearance that they’ve neither heard nor seen
the hooting and the hollering, the screams and wild applause
emitted by the hoi polloi with very little cause
except for their appearance on the street or on the stage,
where they put themselves on view like exotics in a cage.
Yet imagine their surprise, not to mention consternation
if even a mere glimpse of them did not prompt an ovation!

 

The prompt today is “Ovation.”

 

Advance and Retreat

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Advance and Retreat

The farther we grow apart,
every time we try once more to merge,
the hastier the retreat must be
back to ourselves.
But still we try, over and over,
little incursions, trying to find
a level meeting place more suited
for festivities than battle.
We work our whole lives to become ourselves,
yet must regret losing those less-finished times
when we all floundered together,
no one right enough or formed enough
to be sure they were right.
Every step forward is
a step away from something else.
Every progress a departure, as well.

The prompt word today is “retreat.”

Christmas Morning Tradition

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Christmas Morning Tradition

Every child in the county
will soon approach their Christmas bounty,
transformed from box-shaker and gaper
into a dervish, tearing paper.
Opening tablets, games and dolls,
jumping ropes and basketballs,
until that ultimate stage is reached—
that final Christmas custom breached.
Each child will have the astounding gall
of querying with, “Is that all?”

The prompt today was “bounty.”

Voyage

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Voyage

Each day, do you set out once more
on a voyage of discovery—
following a horizon you’ve been told
bends to itself with wonders in between?

Or do you trace a well-worn path,
fitting your feet to yesterday’s footsteps—
unfolding that map of  yourself
that ventures deeper with each step?

How old are you now?
Old enough to know
both courses can take you
in the same direction?

The prompt word today was “discover.”