Tag Archives: dVerse Poets

Inevitable

Inevitable

What folly that we thought our “we”
was something that would always be.

That lot we thought that we had cast
though once it was, was not to last,

for life is fated from the start,
conjoined hearts to rip apart.

Divorce or death, when it is done,
reduces two joined hearts to one.

 

For dVerse Poets Pub: “We” Couplets

To see other “We” poems go HERE.

“Full-length Mirror” for dVerse Poets

Full-length Mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
I’m addicted to y’all.
I can’t resist casting an eye
at my reflection passing by.
I’m so enamored of my face,
I cannot keep up my pace.
I must stop so I can see
the spectacular whole of me!

 

 

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt: Mirror

If Only I Could Play Guitar

This is one of three guitars I decorated for the “Guitar Gallery” in Ajijic. It was covered in mirrors and silver ornamentation. It was purchased by a gallery in Montana. If you ever see it, please let me know where its new home is.

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to talk and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

 

The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a poem about music. I admit that this is actually a poem I wrote nine years ago so I am guessing few who now read my blog have seen it before.

To read more poems on this subject go HERE.

Looking Out, Looking in for dVerse Poets

 

 

Looking Out, Looking In

 

Looking Out, Looking In

Folks look into my window every hour, every day
when they view my photographs or what I have to say.
It isn’t that I have a need to publicize or flout.
They are just a way to let a part of myself out.

When I’m outside the room of me, looking here and there,
it’s like I am a voyeur. I pry and prod and stare.
The window might steam over, obscuring what I see.
Then I wipe it clear again to see what I might be.

I really just write what I see as I’m peering in.
Each failure and each triumph, each kindness and each sin.
Each interior arrangement has some ugliness, some beauties.
I hold inside life’s pleasures, her sadness and her duties.

Each poem that I’ve written—be it whisper, be it shout––
is a way for me to let a part of myself out.
And if you choose to view them and see where I have been,
You’re standing at my window with permission to look in.

 

For dVerse Poets “Window-Gazing” prompt.

Katydid? What did Katydo? For dVerse Poets

Click on photos to enlarge. Can you find the katydid in the  third photo?

 

Katydid? Just What Did Katy Do?

If you were in a salad or a stir fry, I would have taken you for a pea pod,
crunched you right down with the next forkful.
But instead you stand in bright green relief against the gray trash can lid,
stroking your proboscis with your curious hand shaped like a snake’s tongue.
Your six legs in graduated pairs:  long, longer, longest
bend constantly in 360 degree angles
as each moves in turn to your anemone mouth
which plays each like a piano
trying to stroke music from the keys.
As hand after foot after foot
vanishes into your mouth––
front flap like an apron hanging down––
I wonder if you are perhaps feeding
on nourishment too minuscule for human eyes.

Your broad chest expands and deflates like a bellows.
Praying mantis, grasshopper, leaf-hopper, pea pod––
Whatever it is you most resemble––none have your talent or your wing power.
Your alien protuberant eyes like small yellow beebees.
Now trapped in my jar, you define your glass prison with leg after leg, like a mime.
Colorful strayer from a world of green,
what do you make of this white world of mine?
I have stolen you for a closer look, and for this short hour,
You have enthralled me with your alien looks.
Your mystery.
So much I’ve been told of everything here in this new land strange to me,
each from a different point of view,
that now I feel the need to look at everything more closely for myself.
But you, in a jar, perhaps not knowing you are observed,
farm each foot in turn for something so infinitesimal,
then drum drum the glass.
“What is there?” you seem to ask.
“What is this new world?”
Nothing to nourish you here.
I sit staring in at you.
That artichoke mouth doesn’t look made for singing,
opening like petals of a flower as you put your foot in it.
Like an old man pushing himself backwards
from piece of furniture to piece of furniture,
you limp around the glass on geriatric legs and padded feet.

We move to the terrace,
where I put you down
On the leaf of a geranium
in the crumbling pot up on the wall.
Putting your heels down first,
you test each new leaf for it’s ability to support or give.
Each hand and foot is like a tiny forked penis hanging from green testicles–
the penis one forked finger, mining space
then gripping the leaf, fore and aft as your
anemone mouth
moves over it like a slice of watermelon
held the wrong way––
not side to side like a calendar illustration,
but front to back, even bites
increasing its inside arc.
In five minutes, one-fourth of the leaf is gone.
and you move to another
like a child with a cookie in each hand.
My ink run out, I leave you
And when I come back, you are invisible
against the potted geranium that I have set you down in.
Your mouth like a different insect
reaches tendril arms out for the leaf edge,
takes sharp bites–like a leaf cutter ant.
The white front flap of your mouth
sweeping the diminishing leaf edge like a vacuum cleaner.
One-quarter of the leaf gone in five minutes.
You fly to the tree branch next to me, startling me,
as finally we stand eye-to-eye at the same level.
You stand more clearly defined,
for you are the yellow green of geranium,
not the dark green of this tree.
Here you are more blended in shape than color

As you change your diet––
eating not the leaves, but stems of leaves––
you rock on a hobby horse of legs.
Your chest like bagpipes
expands and releases,
rippling like an air balloon.
Now that so many of your mysteries have been revealed,
I solve your only secret left––
the origin of your song.
You play “Las Mananitas” for your lady,
with your compadres joining for the chorus,
one wing your violin,
the other your bow.
My night newly passionless,
fills with the sounds of yours.

 

To hear Katydids, you can go HERE. And for a fascinating closeup video of what I experienced first hand above, go HERE.

This is a poem I wrote about a katydid many years ago.Go HERE to read other poems written for the dVerse Poets prompt to write a poem about an animal. If you want to see the prompt, go HERE.

Weeds (For dVerse Poets)


Weeds

They poke their heads through every crack.
We pull them out, but they come back.
What rule of nature is to blame
that the flowers we plant don’t do the same?

Here are other poems written for the dVerse Poets prompt: Weeds

Here is the prompt for dVerse Poets!!!

Bearcat

 

Bentley, Bearcat and Patti arrived at my house in the belly of their mother when I lived in Boulder Creek, CA in 1987.

Of the three kittens and mother cat who joined me shortly after I moved to our all-redwood house in the redwoods of California in 1987, only Bearcat was still alive when I moved to Mexico in 2001. Sadly, he drowned in my pool a few months later.  I was devastated.  This was his epitaph, written as a string of kennings for a NaPoWriMo prompt in 2014.

Bearcat
1987-2002
R.I.P.

back lofter
tail wafter
gray bearer
drape tearer
ball loser

lap chooser
bunny slayer
shoelace player
sofa climber
sleep mimer
shadow springer
dragonfly bringer
lizard de-tailer
spider nailer
basement searcher
window ledge percher
tree dweller
mouse smeller
dog chaser
bug caser
door crack peeper
sunbeam sleeper
woods walker
squirrel stalker
rail balancer
prey glancer
shadow catcher
love hatcher
body spinner
heart winner

 

 

for dVerse poet’s word-play prompt: Kenning
To read other word-play poems from those answering the same prompt, go HERE.

Postcard from an Old Work Buddy for dVerse Poets

Postcard from an Old Work Buddy

Shifted my focus,
turned 45 degrees to the right,
began walking.

Ended up near the equator,
removed my shoes,
wiggled free toes in the sand.

Plucked new fruit from an unnamed tree.
Suffered no ill-effects. 
New life, suits me fine. Wish you were here.?

 

For dVerse poets Quadrille Prompt: Shift
To see other Quadrilles on this topic go HERE.

Kiss and Tell

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                   “How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.” – Jane Austen

Kiss and Tell

How did you make your way into my heart?
Quick, tell the answer before we next part.
Come into my comfort, then comfort me back.
The way of the pair beats the way of the pack.
Reasons are given for all that we do—
For the ways that we love and the ways that we woo.
Approving my actions in loving you is
What wins you my love and wins you this kiss.
We swear to each other that we will be true
Like all the lovers in storybooks do.

Like brides and their bridegrooms and lieges and kings,
We shall swear our obeisance and seal it with rings.
What others have done is what we will do.
Approving tradition will make one of two.
For the rest of our lives, if they revile and chide us,
Reason’s just one of the things that will guide us.
The love we keep strong will keep us together.
Come be my steed, and I’ll be thy tether.
Quick, take my hand and give me thy pledge.
How we’ll kiss in the meadow and roll in the sedge.

For dVerse Poets
This is actually a poem I wrote 8 years ago, inspired by a line of Jane Austen’s. Read the first word in each of my lines to see her line, first forward and then backwards.

and HERE is the prompt, if you’d like to kiss and tell yourself.

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