Some Cursory Comments
My cursory comments I doubt will draw raves,
garner no compliments, create no waves.
Words cast to the wee hours have little wit.
It would be no loss if they never were writ.
And yet they keep coming, first one, then the next.
Doubtless their readers will be sorely vexed
to see that these lines here are nothing but fluff.
Cursory comments are rarely enough!!!
For Fandango’s Cursory prompt.
Stormy Thursday Doldrums
I awoke to thunder all around,
skies clad in gray, no other sound.
My whole world tucked into itself,
the white cat on the bathroom shelf,
cuddled into once-folded towels.
The old cat hidden in the bowels
of my closet, seeking peace,
wishing this thundering would cease
so all the other cats could go
outside again so she could know
some peace of mind free from the rankles
of other cats around Mom’s ankles.
Now a lightning bolt that shakes
the house until it groans and quakes.
Unaccustomed to this morning storming
and these dense clouds so closely forming
cover that screens out the sun,
the cats and dogs wake, one-by-one,
but do not clamor for their food
as though this dense dark interlude
bonds us all within its shell,
each thunder clap a warning knell.
Safe within our selves we dwell,
these fears of nature there to quell.
The calicos are on the couch,
accomplices in ready crouch.
The dogs still in their beds, awake,
but still no breakfast demands make.
I fill their bowls and all awaken,
Kibble given. Kibble taken.
Shadows through Virginia creeper
reveal that each noisy cheeper
is now taking to the wing,
as in my waking everything
now comes to life and morning’s born.
Hibiscus opens to adorn
the greenery it’s held up by,
yet still the thunder fills the sky.
This rainy season’s thunderous might
was once sequestered by the night,
but now it’s taken over day,
sealing half the world away
under covers, wrapped up tight.
A car alarm now sounds its plight.
Dogs howl. The whole world now seems bent
on furnishing accompaniment
to that long timpani rumble—
constant loud and rolling mumble.
Perhaps this entire morning with be
a constant natural symphony.
In rain’s surcease, the young cats go
outside again to spots they know
where they can shelter from the rain,
knowing it will be back again.
The old cat remains, safely hidden
in her tumbled closet midden
of shawls pulled down from hangers for
a nest she’s built upon the floor.
We stay inside, protected from
this storm’s pelt and constant drum.
Time for snuggling close in bed,
pillows cushioning my head,
computer balanced on my knee
to furnish me with company.
The rain now beats on ceiling dome.
I’m glad that I am safe at home,
fortunate in its protection,
safe from this stormy day’s detection.
Safely here within my groove,
I will not stir. I will not move.
Only fingers softly tapping.
Later, perhaps, a bit of napping.
The Ragtag prompt was groove.
Fandango’s prompt was accomplice.
Quintessential Gentleman
He was the quintessential gentleman with tie correctly knotted.
Whenever he entered a room, the women were besotted.
Every Grande Dame had him on her dining list,
while all their daughters secretly were yearning to be kissed.
Little girls adored him and their mothers preened and fussed.
When they knew he’d be there, even grandmas showed up trussed.
Artists painted his portrait. Sculptors sculpted his form.
Everywhere he went, slavish attention was the norm.
Every woman on the subway seemed to hope he would accost her,
and every social circle had him topmost on their roster.
All in vain, for every single mother, grandma, sister
was not even in the running, for he preferred a mister.
Fandango’s prompt word today is quintessential.
Sweet Tooth
There are certain practices I’m anxious to curtail,
but I find my past attempts were to no avail.
Cookies placed before me vanish without a trace,
and if you’re toting donuts, you’d better bring your mace.
IÂ should eschew both cake and pie, for I cannot afford it.
So just in case you plan to share, please change your mind and hoard it!!
The Ragtag prompt today is trace.
Fandango’s prompt FOWC is curtail.
And Daily Addiction’s is afford.
An Apologia for Poesy
My gardener’s broom goes whisking light
first left, then right, then left, then right
with touch so slight I barely hear
the bristles as they take their bite.
The birds were first up and about,
and then both dogs asked to get out.
Then that broom reminded me
of one more creature left to rout.
I stir myself to go and pee,
sifting the words dreams left in me,
birthing a new poem in my head,
Until it’s written, I’m not free.
Back to bed, I find it best
to go, computer on my chest,
typing words with beat and rhyme
still ensconced in my morning nest.
Searching for ideas and words,
I use the rhythm of the birds
and Pasiano’s sweeping broom
the braying burro, the bleating herds.
Noises fill this busy world
even as I’m safely curled
still abed, my senses all
alert and ready, full unfurled.
I hear the grackle far above,
the insistent cooing of a dove,
as in the kitchen, Yolanda dons
her apron and her rubber glove.
I hear the water’s swirl and flush
the busy whipping of her brush
around each glass I might have left,
careless in my bedtime rush.
Her string mop silent, I barely know
if she’s still here. Or did she go?
I find her in the kitchen still,
arranging glasses, row on row.
It’s back to bed again I trot.
Arranging glasses I am not,
but rather words I nudge and shift
here and there until they’re caught.
Glued to the page forever more––
be they rich words, be they poor––
nevertheless, these words are mine:
poems, stories, truth or lore.
We are not slothful, lazy, weak
because it’s words we choose to seek
instead of labors more obvious
like plumber or computer geek.
Words’ labors are most harrowing.
Our choice of them needs narrowing
and not unlike the farmer’s sow,
mind’s riches we are farrowing.
So blame us not if others mop
our houses or they trim and crop
our gardens for us as we write.
From morn till night, we never stop.
As poets, we, too, have this chore:
each day a poem, and what’s more
we never know till morning’s light
what imagination has in store.
As poets, our lives may seem effete––
not much time spent on our feet––
but those feet are busy, still,
tapping out our poem’s beat.
Cerebral though our work may be,
we are not lazy, you and me,
for though we lie in bed all day,
our writing’s labored––ÂÂthat’s plain to see!
Fandango‘s prompt today is cerebral. This is a rewrite of a poem written for NaPoWriMo four years ago. It is a  ruba’i, a Persian form comprised of a four-line stanza with a rhyme scheme of AABA. Robert Frost’s famous poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening uses this rhyme scheme. Multiple stanzas in the ruba’i form are a rubaiyat, as in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
“Peyote Dream” Painting by Jesus Lopez Vega
Preposterous Vision
My friend Chuy says
it is peyote leached into the soil
the corn grows from
that gives Mexicans
such a remarkable sense of color.
The bright pigments of imagination
flood his canvasses.
His peyote dreams leak out into the real world
and wed it to create one world.
“Peyote dream” becomes its opposite—
a freight train taking us into the universal truth.
A larger reality.
This stalk of corn, this deer,
this head of amaranth,
all beckon, “Climb aboard.”
So when you bite into a taco
or tamale, when the round taste of corn
meets your tongue, and pleasure flows
in a lumpy river down your throat,
look up at what is standing in the shadows
and see that it is light that creates shadow.
See the many colors that create the black.
Follow where the corn beckons you to go—
into the other world of poetry and paint
and dance and music. Hot jazz with a mariachi beat.
Chew that train that takes you deeper. Hop aboard
the tamale express and you will ride into your
new life. It will be like your old life magnified
and lit by multicolored lights and the songs of merry-go-rounds
and when you bite into your taco, it will taste
like cotton candy and a snow cone
and your whole life afterwards will be a train that takes you nowhere
except back into yourself—a Ferris wheel
spinning you up to your heights and down again, with every turn,
the gears creaking “Que le vaya bien.”
I hope it goes well with you
and that you see the light
within the shadow
and the colors
in the corn.
For Fandango’s prompt: preposterous
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 