Tag Archives: excuses for not writing

Just Beyond My Grasp For SOCS, Nov 23, 2024

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Just Beyond My Grasp

When I’ve passed a restless night,
to once more welcome morning light,
I do not leave a lover’s grasp.
No knitted legs need to unclasp.
What time on waking I can afford
is simply spent unwinding cord:
the earbud cord around my neck,
my PC power cord from the wreck
of pillows, comforter and sheet
that somehow, now, are at my feet.
My MacBook Air, just by my shoulder
has come unplugged and so is colder
to my touch. It won’t power on.
Then, when plugged in, my poem is gone.

For SOCS

Poetic Quandaries

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Poetic Quandaries

Prompts can be unpredictable. Of that you can be sure—
if not impossible to use, then probably obscure.
It’s hard not to exaggerate when words are such a stretch.
Hard not to bitch about them. Hard not to whine and kvetch.

We march in lock step in these blogs, so penitent we’re not.
It is the prompters who weave tangled nets in which we’re caught. 
It’s hard for us to devise plans that make use of each word
and add alliteration? Folks it is absurd!!!!

Frost never had such rules to follow–and such provocations.
No such tribulations and no such vacillations.
No trying to put up with a prompt that was absurd,
but on the other hand, he had to think up every word.

Prompts are unpredictable (You can say that again–ha!!!), plan, penitent, march, exaggerate and alliteration.

For another poem for today’s alliteration prompt, go HERE!!!

Why I Can’t Do The Prompts Today

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Why I Can’t Do The Prompts Today

I think I’ll be a morning grouch
and spend these hours on the couch
making lists of things for doing—
certain things that involve gluing,
cleaning, sorting, chopping, timing—
things that do not involve rhyming.

A sea of things I’ve been concealing,
chores that stack up to the ceiling,
divert me from acts of creation
with chores of limitless cessation.
Hobbies I’d rather pursue
put off by what I’ve gotta do.

Pay my house fees, cook the stew,
trim the bushes, find the glue
to fix the statue, sort my purse,
clean out the junk drawer, then rehearse
my poems for next Friday’s reading.
Fix my blouse. Restore its beading.

Answer emails, call the plumber.
Modern life is such a bummer.
Sometimes I think I exist
solely to check off a list.
At any rate, as I have ranted,
other parts of me recanted.

It seems I’m such a winsome elf
that this poem just wrote itself!!!!!!

Prompts today are winsome, sea, certain, list, grouch, hobby and concealing.

Writer’s Block

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Writer’s Block

Rip up your notebook and throw it away.
At heart, you know you have nothing to say.
The cadre of writers who came on before you
wrote legions of words guaranteed not to bore you.
They composed solid volumes of bountiful wit.
Their number of sales will verify it.
The drivel you write is mere uninspired lore,
so better you read what they wrote than write more.

 

Prompt words today are notebook,solid, bountiful, cadre and number.

The Meeting Place (for Dverse Poets)

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The Meeting Place

What are you waiting for––
divine inspiration?
Do you think Shakespeare waited for his muse?
And if your muse came,
would you even recognize her?
Will she wear long white flowing robes?
Will she play a lute or will your voice
be her instrument?
Will she whisper in your ear or speak to you
though your mind?
And will she be beautiful or will that even matter?
As you age will your muse age with you
or is she perpetually young?
And what about wisdom?
Will it be your own acquired wisdom or hers
that will make your words cut like a knife
though the soft texture of days,
that will give them purpose
when those around you
fail and fall
into the magnetic cloud
of forgetfulness or boredom?
What if as you sit there
waiting for your muse,
watching reality TV
or doing crossword puzzles,
your muse is waiting for you
in the keys of your computer
or in your pen point?
What if she has been lolling all these years
in the pages
of that lined notebook
sitting empty on your shelf?
I keep telling you
that every day I see her
pass behind you
as you pine for her,
always looking
in the opposite
direction.

 

For dVerse Poets–a poem about a muse.

Substitutions

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Substitutions

An open window, an open door
from a block away or more,
may leak a song whose melody
brings forth a long-lost memory.

Its strains may bring a prompt detection
of an overlooked reflection—
that abrupt awareness of
those substitutes for human love.

A cat, a dog, a garden full
of beauty that exerts its pull—
diversions that can take the place
of a well-loved absent face.

So we fill in each empty spot
where each loved-one, alas, is not,
making do with what what’s around—
those near-distractions that we’ve found.

Prompts for today are substitute, abrupt, reflect and music.

I spent all day trying to fight off a migraine. Soon after I woke up I lost half my vision—could only seen the right side of my head by turning my head sideways.  I took a couple of caffeine pills, hoping that it was the beginning of a migraine—fearing the alternative more. My vision eventually came back but a nagging little headache persisted so I took more caffeine, tried to eat around 3 but had terrible indigestion and more of a headache. Finally, I took an Extra-Strength Tylenol along with a Coke, which I knew would give me arm and/or leg cramps, but it was preferable to a full-strength migraine. Went down to the hammock with an audible book so I could close my eyes, Morrie jumped up on my lap and Diego hung his head over the side of the hammock seeking my other hand. I pulled my cowl neck over my head to avoid their stinky bodies and breaths (bath-time is in order) and finally, blessedly, fell asleep. Aroused by a phone call from a good friend, after hanging up, I was seized by a massive foot cramp, got up and stamped it out and came up to the house where the pups and kitties were glad to finally have their meal a few hours late. Not the best day in the world but it brings me to the reason for telling you my woes, other than your sympathy—that being the reason why I haven’t yet written and published my poem for the day. So, finally, at 8 in the evening, here it is.

 

Trading Vices

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Trading Vices

An inherited tendency that rendered him pugnacious
was a quality that caused his friends to label him audacious,
but luckily this acting out, though maddening, was fugacious,
because they’d found his surly mood was frequently contagious.

In between his pouty moods, he had a great ambition
to write great works and stun the world with his erudition.
He’d be a star. The Pulitzer would be his life’s great crowning.
Sadly, his words rarely occasioned moods other than frowning.

In the end he turned to a lifestyle less vivacious
than the pen. Alas, he chose a comfort more herbaceous.
His solace was that healing weed that smoothed out disappointments
and made action barely possible—let alone appointments.

He stopped visiting taverns to hang out with his mates.
Did not return their phone calls and cancelled dinner dates.
His doors, once open, stayed sealed tight with vapors only seeping
under their cracks to hint at the company he was keeping.

He ceased to be pugnacious, erudite or anything.
Dust blanketed computer keys. He heard his cellphone ring
as friends all tried to reach him but I fear it was in vain.
They tried a dozen times before not calling him again.

Sometimes, cures are worse than the thing that they are curing.
To have their crusty friend back would make bad moods worth enduring,
but, alas, it was too late. In life it is allowed
to make our own decisions. Thus, he vanished in a cloud.

The prompt words today are fugacious (good grief!) open, star, ambition and write.

Let There be Light

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Sometimes, to get to that authentic part of ourselves where poetry resides, we have to illuminate some dark corners.

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Let There Be Light


My mind is a growling dog.
While I stew and fuss,
fulfilling lists,
she jumps the screen door,
beckoning.
Rude me, to turn my back
on the only playmate
who wants to play
the same games I do
every day, every hour,
because I fear that initial
plodding through silt
page after page
in search of the stream
of words.

Sometimes boredom
yawns so wide
that I have to enter it,
to wander its inner closet
where for decades
only cobwebs
have stirred.
In some dark corner
where I spank the dog
or search the bedside table drawers
of a lover called out at midnight,
I find the river’s source,
but then
the phone
rings and I’m off
gathering crumbs from a forest path,
leaving lost children
stranded in their own story.

Stray puppies—I collect every one,
wild orange funnel flowers
and guava
washed in an afternoon kitchen
just before the invasion
of five o’clock sunlight.
All of them I carry back
to hidden places
to rub against each other
and ignite
into the language of this place
where life goes in,
plays dress-up,
but emerges
nude,
like poetry.

 

If you’ve been following me for four years, you’ve seen this one before. The prompt word today was authentic.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 11

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Bite

The gardener sprays the water wide
in an arc from side to side.
The old dog moves out of its path.
No one knows her held-in wrath

for all who hold the power but she––
the door for which she has no key,
the young dog taking power away,
as she grows weaker every day.

The universe is never kind
to those caught in the crushing grind
of power eroding day by day.
Surrender is the price we pay.

Commanding, shy, flamboyant, staid––
everyone falls to the blade.
For all, it is the price that’s paid–
by tyrant and by serving maid.

What has happened to stay my hand?
I’ve read the words both fine and grand
that other poets have been writing
and envy has commenced its biting.

What I write is merely babble.
It’s obvious I only dabble.
These words I have so easily found.
surely cannot be profound.

The gardener sprays the water wide
in an arc from side to side,
in a move so sure and quick,
quenching inspiration’s wick.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-eleven-3/

Excuses, Excuses

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Excuses, excuses

Posts that wander here and yon
and just go on and on and on
telling why they haven’t “writ?”
Just grab the theme and write of it!
I’m sure that you have much to say,
I look for it day after day.
But please desist your bitch and moan
lest you wind up here alone!
Daily excuses make us yawn.
If you don’t stop, we’ll all be gone!!!

I must admit that I’ve been that blogger who complains about the Daily Prompt.  I’m not talking about the occasional healthy complaint here, but the very few bloggers I’ve found (of course, not you) who seem to have established a blog mainly as a grounds of complaint about why they can’t write!.

The Prompt: Yawn! What bores you? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/yawn/