Tag Archives: #MVB-PROMPT

“Wrinkles” for MVB, Sept 25, 2024

When it comes to aging, I’ve found a sense of humor becomes ever more important. Take the subject of wrinkles, for instance! I wrote this poem ten years ago and when I look in the mirror, I realize its truth has only become more obvious!!!

Wrinkles

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

For MVB the prompt is : humor

“Selective Superstition,”For MVB, Sept 13, 2024

Selective Superstition

I don’t believe in messages delivered by astrology.
I think my personality’s a matter of biology.
Images in crystal balls I’m sure are just projections.
I’m not about to spend my dough on engineered reflections.

But still I pluck at daisies. Does he love or does he not?
And I check out daily the Tarot cards I bought.
Every scattered grain of salt I throw over my shoulder,
and I won’t step on sidewalk cracks now that my mother’s older.

I’m flexible, I guess you’d say, dealing with superstition.
I want the ones I follow to match my disposition.
If I’m the one in charge of the ones that I am choosing,
I tend to have control of what I’m gaining or I’m losing.

MVB prompt: Superstitious

“Static” For the MVB Prompt on Aug 29, 2024

Click on photos to enlarge.

Static

Your life catches in its static house
until nothing but the lightest footfall
betrays its presence.
The door to escape, the ocean’s edge,
tempts you to leave yourself and enter.
This echo of the ocean is the dove in you
that carries the message that you want to fly.

Motionless dove, I want to flush you
to the crack of sunrise.
Forget your lonely compulsions.
Leave your comfort.
Desert the false logic that has frozen you.
If you could let this still time pass,
Time’s ricochet might drive you to the canyon’s rim,
revealing to you that you no longer fear the fall.

For MVB the prompt is Static.

“Sweet Harmony” For MVB “Sing” Prompt, Aug 28, 2024

Sweet Harmony

Nine years ago, when I visited friends from my childhood that I hadn’t seen for scores of years, we had a wonderful time  going through a box of mementos and then gathering around the piano to make  music as sweet as the memories.  Susan is a wonderful pianist and Karen a professional-level singer with a lovely soprano voice that always sends chills down my back.  Patti and I, good high school altos that we once were, created the harmony.  A perfect day with three of my favorite people whom I don’t see often enough.  Sweet Harmony for sure.

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Sweet Harmony

As the pianist deftly presses out her chords,
the soprano’s voice slides smoothly from her throat
while we others strain until “Dear Heart” syrups our vocal chords
and we slip with less effort up and down the scale—
old friends singing even older songs.

The small dog snuggles in,
balancing on the plush chair back.
The mother of the pianist and the soprano
observes from her frame atop the piano.
All husbands out and about on other business.

Old letters reread, old memories pulled from forgetfulness,
each of us is left at the end richer—hearts refilled
from a shared past. Every word
has been a song of its own—
our notes blending together
in perfect harmony.

The My Vivid Blog prompt is “sing.”

Ode to My Doctor, For My Vivid Blog prompt, Aug 26, 2024

Ode to My Doctor, Who Has Done Little to Curry My Favor

Each of these foods you suggest for my diet
has not one feature to urge me to try it.
The chard is too leafy, the kale makes me gag.
I will be affianced to naught in this bag.

This fluffy green spinach would be best in a dip
with sour cream and onions and served on a chip.
I have not one vestige of an urge to consume it
raw in a salad, so do not assume it

will ever pass lips as selective as mine.
I need carbohydrates and meat when I dine.
Do you get the message that I’m on the outs
with arugula, collard greens, beet greens and sprouts?

My palate’s delighted when it comes to spice.
A molé is lovely and a curry is nice,
but please put some meat in it. I’m a contrarian
when you attempt to turn me vegetarian.

For My Vivid Blog, today’s prompt is “Doctor.” I wrote this poem three years ago, but I’m still of the same opinion.

Old-Fashioned Attention for MVB prompt, Aug 22, 2024

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Lunch Date

One thing I’d like that I will mention
is some old-fashioned attention.
The kind with no device in hand
is the kind that I can stand
better than the sort with texting—
minds caught in “before” and “next”ing—
and not a thought for whom you’re with
until I’m sure that it’s a myth
that I’m the one you want to see,
even though you have invited me.

For though our table is for two,
you bring so many more with you—
every relative and friend.
Your texts to them just never end.
Our tete a tete‘s become absurd.
I never get to speak a word!
Since I’ve discovered you’ve come to see
your smart phone as more smart than me,
there’s just one thing I’d like to state.
Please cancel our next luncheon date,
and the next time you desire a munch,
just take your iPhone out to lunch!

FOR MY VIVID BLOG PROMPT: OLD-FASHIONED

For the MVB Prompt: Discernment, Aug 20, 2024

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Discernment

Borne, then born.
Clothed, fed, shorn.
Housed and cuddled,
brain filled and muddled.
Schooled, polished, allowed to roam,
to make the world into a home.
Later settled, now sedate.
Content to let my life abate.

Find worlds inside and there abide,
to let what happens be my guide.
To try to live with less precision.
To fear less the world’s derision.
Why so hard to be oneself?
Easier when on the shelf.
Now here I pull my world around me,
memories and dreams surround me.

My solitude a crystal jar
that lets me ponder from afar
the current of my life, its tide,
to reach without and pull inside
the things that help me try to see
just where my life has taken me.
I contemplate and sometimes share
the truths that I’ve discovered there.

I’ve  come to read, to judge  and learn.
I’ve finally learned how to discern!

The MVB Prompt today is Discernment.

“Spotless” For MVB prompt: Reputation

Spotless

They say he was a bastion of the community.
Of what their youth should aim for, the exact epitome.
Mothers named their kids for him and he was so discreet,
his name labelled a shopping center and a city street.

Asked to speak at graduation, his words were most succinct.
Not one old lady fell asleep. Nobody even blinked!
Moral, staunch and upright, he was everyone’s ideal.
He always used the crosswalk. He didn’t cuss or steal.

No forensic laboratory ever had a label
or test tube or fingerprint of his upon their table.
In short, his reputation was one without besmirch.
He went to each town meeting, every Sunday, went to church.

He did not exceed the speed limit, use liquor or smoke pot.
Every single vice on earth was something he was not.
His genes were the best of genes. His relatives all lasted
at least until one hundred, and he dieted and fasted.

Ate kale and probiotics, whole grains and leafy greens.
He sponsored many charities and lived within his means.
So when he died it wasn’t from alcohol or drugs.
He did not die from violence—his own or that of thugs.

He did not perish from obesity or accident or whoredom.
In the end, they say that he simply died of boredom!

 

Thanks to  Martha Kennedy. and ForgottenMan for contributing this cartoon.

For the My Vivid Blog prompt, Reputation

Baby, Baby for My Vivid Blog, Aug 7, 2024

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Forgottenman just asked me to add this photo, which he says is his favorite. This is my mom holding me up in my stroller.  I love it, too, so I will comply with his wishes. 

For My Vivid Blog prompt: Baby

For MVB, July 31, 2024

Abandoned

Shack+Pump3.jpgPhoto Credit: D. Hammock

                             Abandoned 

Grass sways by the abandoned house
I cower inside––a trembling mouse
exposed to the bright flash of day
when all else has gone away.

First my father, then my mum
go away and never come
again to shelter, feed or love.
Life is a winging mourning dove

that makes us and then flies away,
making green grass into hay,
the flush of life and then decay,
a harsh light turning shadows gray.

Life swells  like paint–a curling blister.
It peels away my older sister,
then also takes my younger brother
and never comes to bring another.

A shadow passes over me.
A sparrowhawk. I dare not flee,
for life is mainly perilous.
It makes us just to feed on us.

Outside I see the preening cat.
It waits for me––patient and fat
in tall grass by the abandoned house
wherein I hide–a trembling mouse.

 

The MVB prompt for today is Abandoned. (This is a repost of a poem  I wrote years ago.)