“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
–General Douglas MacArthur
General Con-fusion
If he advances while retreating,
is throwing up just reverse eating?
Can he freeze ice cubes by unheating?
Is standing up simply unseating?
I didn’t litter. I’m un-neating.
When we press clothes, are we de-pleating?
He left , so are we now un-meeting?
Upset Hat
It’s just a piece of cardboard rolled into a cone.
It really doesn’t make me look like a witchy crone.
I think it’s just a party hat—not really very scary.
It will not cause a single soul to commit hari-kari!
These masks are a formality– they really aren’t inspired,
but last year we liked our costumes ‘cause our grandmas both conspired
to make them more original, but this year just our dad
had time to help and so we know we’re looking kind of sad.
And after all his fussing and running out the door,
we find that all the candy’s gone and so we’re kind of sore.
They gave us bags of potato chips. They haven’t any candy.
And that is why our faces show that we’re not feeling dandy.
Don’t flip your lid, our papa said,
for you are better than that.
So I am trying to be cool…
It just upset my hat!
I used this prompt generator to generate the prompt “Upset Hat” Try it it is fun! http://jennifernicholewells.blogspot.mx/2015/08/jnws-writing-photo-prompt-generator.html
http://jennifernicholewells.com/2015/08/13/topic-generator/
The Proposal
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 not the only thing 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.
(Judy’s note: If you haven’t already noticed, please look for the quote within the poem.
Actually, it is repeated twice. Hint: Look at the bold words.)
Listen to the Babe was the person who invited me to do this three-part prompt. See her blog HERE.
The Prompt: Write a piece of fiction describing the incident that gave rise to the phrase, “third time’s the charm.”
Charm School for Cinderella
Stir the pot round and round
until no essence can be found
of division between root and seed
between your wishes and the deed
that brought you here to my woods abode
for me to birth and coax and goad
fate to give you what you wish–
Prince Charming on a golden dish.
Throw this leaf to spin and bubble.
It removes your courting trouble.
Stir in this bleeding heart and mold
to wrest affection from the cold.
Now stir three times with unfaltering arm.
One time, two times, three time’s the charm!
And lest you find these arts disarming,
remember, the result is Charming!
Pragmatic Faith
Coins cast in a fountain with wishes voiced above–
requests for fame or money, beauty, health or love.
Do those who make the wishes have faith they will come true?
If so, what difference from the prayer whispered from a pew?
Twenty years thereafter, what wishes still remain?
Do we again repeat these things that we’ve wished in vain?
Do we still have faith in magical solutions
via coins subjected to watery ablutions?
Fantasy may have its place in fairy tales and dreams,
but it rarely helps us to achieve life’s major schemes.
Santa Claus and fairies, the Easter Bunny, elves?
Far better that we base our faith mainly in ourselves.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/three-coins-in-the-fountain/
At Fourteen
There is a whole world out there and you’ll see it soon enough.
It is the world inside of you you’ll find especially rough.
Try to write about it, and try to tell the truth
about the things that happen that you find uncouth.
Write about what hurts you, and hurts that you have done–
all those shadows in you brought into the sun.
Ask those around you why they act in ways that might seem cruel
and try to live your own life by the golden rule.
Take chances and do not be cowed when you achieve less
than what you might have hoped for, and when you’re wrong, confess.
Don’t just do what your friends do. Don’t act before you think.
However strange the ones around you, try to find a link.
The world has enough meanness. Try not to add to it.
Try harder in environments where you seem not to fit.
People who are petty will cut you like a knife,
but the chances that you take will be what will make your life.
Other people’s rules pinch like a too-small shoe,
so don’t let other people dictate what you do.
Do not fear to step aside and go out on your own.
The fields that yield the sweetest crop are those that you have sown.
Post this advice up on your wall and read it now and then.
Use it as a means to reassess where you have been.
Then when you are older, and your life grows thin,
do what I am doing now. Consider it again.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.” Write a letter to your 14-year-old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years.
Relax, it’s only henna! I get a Mayan tattoo on my lower leg every time I go to the beach. It fulfills all my contradictory impulses.
Change of Mind
Tattooed pierced and branded, or to be marked for life
with patterns carved into the skin with a sterile knife?
I cannot help but tell you that I find it very strange–
this trend to decorate ourselves by means that we can’t change.
When I was in my twenties, I bought a gorgeous hat
of pink and blue with colored plumes that swayed this way and that.
But what if I had had it sewn forever to my head,
so when I desired a wedding veil, I had feathers instead?
What if those chandelier earrings I found so cool in my teens
were implanted so I couldn’t take them off by any means?
So when I trekked across the jungles, weaving through the trees,
those earrings caught upon the vines and brought me to my knees?
My hair would be a helmet, and my eyes would look so queer
if worn like I did at twenty with eyeliner ear to ear.
So I cannot help but think this child with corks stretching her lobes
might regret them in her forties as she dons her judge’s robes.
Or the youngsters with the tongue studs, one day when they are men
might regret it as the shots they drink leak out onto their chin.
I’m so glad those mini skirts I wore—a poor choice even then––
are not still sewn upon my hips now that I am more Zen.
Thank God those darker outlined colors that made our lips less thin
and those psychedelic tie-dyes are not printed in our skin.
For although our taste was laughable, at least we can repent–
for the choices that we made in youth were not permanent.
And, that hat mentioned in the poem? It really existed and still does, although no, I have not worn it in over 40 years. Here it is, a side view!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Tattoo….You?.” Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin?
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Isn’t Your Face Red.”–When was the last time you were embarrassed? How do you react to embarrassment?
I have so recently written to the above prompt that I’m choosing this alternative prompt to write a “charm” poem. This was an assignment from NaPoWriMo before I started answering the WordPress Daily Prompt, so it is fresh to the WordPress prompt site. As far as I can tell, this was written so long ago that only Tamara, Ann and forgottenman read it so perhaps they’ll humor me and let me present it again:Go HERE to see it.
In the Blood!!!
(Dedicated to Walter Palmer)
Don’t you just love football—the running and the tackling?
The sounds of hamstrings pulling and the crunch of femurs crackling?
We sit up in the bleachers eating hot dogs, drinking beer,
comfortably viewing blood sport—the kind we hold so dear.
Aren’t dogfights lovely–the growling and the whining?
Too bad they aren’t more elite, so we could watch while dining.
So amusing watching canines being dished their due.
Dying is so entertaining when it isn’t you!
Better still are bullfights, though they’re few and far between.
The bull so lithe and dangerous, the matador so lean.
The best part of the sport is that the dying is so slow.
I feel its thrill suffuse me from my head down to my toe.
We adore big game hunting in such exotic lands–
our chance to prove our manliness with our own two hands–
handing over money to those trackers in the know
who guarantee an easy kill with rifle or with bow.
Easy on the hunter, but not the animal,
for just because he’s hit the prey’s not guaranteed to fall.
We get more for our money if he’s hard to track,
and war games are more pleasant when one’s foe doesn’t shoot back!
All these minor titillations just a prelude to
the main event and the most major way of counting coup.
Once all the good old boys are finding life is just a bore,
they round up all the younger men and send them off to war.
See how the valiant struggle, see their stripes and purple hearts–
apt pay for missing arms and legs and other blown off parts.
Lucky to be home at last and lucky to be living–
the products of that blood sport that just somehow keeps on giving.
R.I.P. Cecil and the numerous humans who have shed blood in unnecessary wars.
This post is in response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Game of Groans.” Think about an object, an activity, or a cultural phenomenon you really don’t like. Now write a post (tongue in cheek or not — your call!) about why it’s the best thing ever.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 