Tag Archives: poem

Passing Time

4 Replies

IMG_1162Detra de las Puertas Cerradas (Behind Closed Doors) One’s own living room can become entirely too comfortable. Shutting the drawers to the past may open the doors to the future. (retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown)

Passing Time

The means of our escape from life are numerous and various,
and there is nothing wrong with getting thrills that are vicarious.
Movies, sports and novels are fine for entertainment;
but if you’re only viewing, there is no sense of attainment.

Looking back on your own life, like opening a book,
isn’t really living life, but just having a look
at the life of someone who you no longer are.
You aren’t really living life by viewing from afar.

Escape is necessary and our choices for it vast,
but there’s no satisfaction in living in the past.
Life is to be spent, not to be hoarded and rethought.
Better just to live the rest of the time that you’ve got!

Fond memories are something that I’m sure none of us lack,
but there’s no time of life to which I’m yearning to go back.
The only thing to do with time’s to live it and to love it.
I have no wish to turn back time, I only want more of it!

The Prompt: If you could return to the past to relive a part of your life, either to experience the wonderful bits again, or to do something over, which part of you life would you return to? Why?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/if-i-could-turn-back-time/

After Vespers

24 Replies

IMG_9501

After Vespers

I arrived home with much ado,
removed a small stone from my shoe,
took off my girdle, straightened my hat,
smoothed my gloves and kissed the cat!
I believe in proper things––
all the joys good breeding brings.
I do not spit, smoke weed or curse.
I carry breath mints in my purse.

I go to church. I tithe and pray.
I brush my teeth three times a day.
But when I went to watch TV,
I found a strange sight greeting me,
for there sitting upon my couch,
next to my little cat treat pouch,
were two small beings––a her and he––
the lady perched on the fellow’s knee.

They both looked up with cool aplomb
as though they hadn’t dropped a bomb
appearing with no invitation.
What’s more, to my great perturbation,
balanced on the lady’s knee
was the chocolate cake I’d meant for me!!!

She took a bite and gave him one,
then turned to me when she was done,
addressing me, though we’d not met.
(I mean, just how rude could one get?)
And what she said in a haughty tone,
perched upon her human throne?
“I’m afraid this cake is rather dry.
I wonder, have you any pie?”

I’ll tell you no more of this story,
for after that, things just got gory.
My opening words would seem most pale
compared to the ending of my tale.
Suffice it then for me to say
the uninvited didn’t stay.
Afterwards, my gloves came off.
I cleared my throat and gave a cough.

I scraped the cake crumbs in the sink,
mixed myself a little drink,
closed the drapes, unplugged the phone
and stretched out on my couch––alone.
As I settled down to Downton Abbey,
I was feeling way less crabby.
Real glad I hid the pie, y’all,
because I sat and ate it all!!!

IMG_9503

The Prompt: Unexpected Guests. You walk into your home to find a couple you don’t know sitting in your living room, eating a slice of cake. Tell us what happens next.  What a hilarious prompt!  I loved writing this one.
 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/unexpected-guests/

We Cannot Surrender Her

12 Replies

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We Cannot Surrender Her

 Try as I might, she will not go.
She sends me on to test the water
but remains on the shore.
Ankle deep and then no more.
Fingers trailing and then no more.
Having once found a false bottom,
she trusts no foothold.

The falling is the thing, I tell her,
yet she holds back from the fall.
Let me always be the one going down, I tell her.
I will always be the one bringing you up, she answers.
This is the role we alternate being the stand-in for.
What I want she keeps me from.
What she fears I pull her toward.

 Relax, I tell her,
but she fears what relaxation brings.
She cannot surrender herself.
I cannot be content until she does.
Twin sisters, we rail against each other, then hold hands.
Comforting. This is enough, she tells me.
Nothing is ever enough, I tell her.

This poem, written in yesterday’s session, loosely meets the prompt. It is about going places––that part of one’s self that wants to let go and that part that fears risk and needs to maintain safe control.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-wanderer/

Lucky???

8 Replies
DSC09653

Lucky Duck riding the wild turkey off to a new adventure!

Lucky???

The first person I talked to today was myself, awakening from a dream and answering aloud whatever question the person in the dream had asked.  So, I’m going to reblog a poem of my own that I wrote three months ago.  When I look back at even something I wrote last week, I barely remember it; so perhaps this will feel fresh to you as well, even if you read it before:

“You’re So Lucky!”

 Too often those described as lucky
are actually only plucky.
It’s the decisions that they make
that make their lives a piece of cake.

If they have a cushy job,
far above the teeming mob,
it is because they chose to go
to college, so they made it so.

Or if they traveled after school,
when others said they were a fool,
and tell of their adventures young,
some people tend to come unstrung

and say they wish they’d had the chance
to participate in life’s wild dance
when they had the energy,
but, you know, traveling’s not free.

The truth is that most anybody
can go to college if they study
or travel anywhere they wish.
Life’s feast is a communal dish.

There is work that you can do
from Broken Hill to Timbuktu
if you are willing to do the tasks–
whatever the situation asks.

It’s true that there are places where
life is not equitable or fair–
places where a woman’s lot
keeps her chained to stove and cot,

or places where sheer poverty
limits all that you can be.
Yet  many who bemoan their fate
simply needed to leave their gate

and take the chance to see the world–
allow their lives to be unfurled.
But, lacking courage, they remained
in the place that fate ordained

was their lot in life and so
just maintained the status quo.
Many are happy where they are
and have no wish to roam afar,

but for those who moan and fuss,
saying all the luck’s with us
who have chosen to live in paradise
(and say it more than once or twice,)

I just want to say once more,
“Here is your suitcase, there’s the door.”
Luck is more often made than won,
and is, I fear, too quickly done.

So even if you’re old and gray,
do what you want to do today.
If you feel caught in the muck,
break free from it and make your luck!

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-luckiest-people/

Next

1 Reply

IMG_8397

Next

To live in yesterday’s a sorrow.
From the past I need not borrow.
All I need is my tomorrow.

The Prompt: One More Time–What day from the past year would you like to live over again? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/one-more-time/

How’s It Going?

10 Replies

DSC00264How’s It Going?

Whether I’m going near or far,
my choice of travel is always car.
I like to go at my own pace,
to break away from life’s mad race,

to take that road that leads to “where?”
and see what they are keeping there.
At roadside diners to share a yarn.
To investigate that leaning barn.

A tour or cruise or packaged deal
does not account for how I feel.
They’re too much like  our daily life––
alarm clocks, deadlines, schedules, strife.

Serendipity is what sates
while schedule just regulates.
In short, when going over yonder,
I prefer to merely wander.

n response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.”You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, or car? (Or something else entirely — bike? Hot air balloon?)

THE NATURE OF PERFECTION

7 Replies

IMG_1205

Random Thoughts on the Nature of Perfection

Everything in the natural order is perfect.
If you doubt this,
look closely at any flower
or consider the workings
of any animal,
including man.

Each part of nature is so intricately bound up
in the web of it all that its perfection
is only a small part of the whole.
Man makes the mistake of overlooking this
as he pokes and prods and institutes changes
in the natural order.
What man believes is of benefit to himself
is not necessarily of benefit
to the whole cycle of interdependence,
and it may not even be of benefit to himself.

PERFECTION

Potentially,
Every
Reaching
For
Excellence
Contains
This.
It’s
Opposite?
Nadir.

But all perfection is not to be aimed for.
There is perfect evil in the world
as well as perfect beauty
or perfect kindness.

If everything in the natural order is perfect.
In seeking to alter nature, it is man who has created imperfection.
Monsanto is the enemy of perfection.

MONSANTO

Perfect
Evil
Rebounds
From
Every
Can
That
Is
Opened
Now.

Perfection is best observed very close by and very far away.

Here is a printable list of Monsanto owned companies: http://www.realfarmacy.com/printable-list-of-monsanto-owned-food-producers/

https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/the-sandbox-writing-challenge-8-what-is-your-idea-of-perfection/

Knock Knock Reknockin’ on a Circadian Door!

1 Reply

                                           Knock Knock Reknockin’ on a Circadian Door!

DSC00209

In nonsmokingladybug’s Knock Knock Prompt, she asks us to link to a piece formerly written.  For my reblog I went waaaaay back to the beginning to a poem I posted when I had very few followers, so I think only two of you (Ann and Patti) following my blog have read it. What poem is it?  It’s a surprise.  You’ll have to open the door by clicking HERE.

 

Here is the Knock Knock prompt I am answering.  If you are a blogger, perhaps you’d like to answer the prompt as well:  https://nonsmokingladybug.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/knock-knock-writing-challenge-week-5/

DSC09986

The Prompt: Mouth Drop: Creatively describe one moment when your mouth dropped open, chin hit the ground, and tears rolled down your face!

Drop Jaw

Embarrassment or joy or mace
might cause tears to flood your face,
but did you ever really see
someone’s jaw down on his knee,
much less his chin upon the floor?
This feat seems like senseless lore.
So surely you can clearly see,
this prompt is pure hyperbole!

DSC00994 - Version 2

Devil # 3

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.” Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Okay, I was going to give this prompt a “miss” and went to the new prompt generator I’ve been using for the past few days.  I hit the button and was served up the two-word prompt: “Ill Devil”.  At first I read this as #3 Devil, and I must admit, I got a chill, because what I immediately thought about when I read the prompt was the third time I was in a near-death situation where I felt totally helpless.  What are the chances, I thought, that these two prompts would line up?  This must be something I’m meant to write about.  But then reason stepped in and I realized this prompt always gave an adjective and a noun.  What they probably meant by the prompt was ill Devil. (Changing the capital to a small “i” clarified the prompt.) But then I realized that ill devil described the occurrence I am trying not to talk about as much as #3 devil did, so I guess, prodded on twice by fate or coincidence or synchronicity, I will try.

I have written to a similar prompt twice in 2015, so probably most of you who read my blog have chanced upon one of those posts, but when I wrote to a similar prompt in June of 2014, I wrote a different piece and since I had few of my present-day readers then, I’ll mention that THIS is what I wrote.  It may not be obvious that the topic given in today’s prompt was what I was really talking about then, however, because it was a poem where I actually stood to one side of what I was really remembering and wrote about the subject as an onlooker rather than a participant.  I only alluded to the real subject, which is what I’m going to attempt to write about today. That real subject is Ted Bundy and how otherwise respectable women sometimes fall prey to such predators.  Okay, deep breath. I’m going to tell to the world something I have actually told to very few people. Yes, this is a true story.

Devil # 3

Nineteen seventy-something. In the bar with friends.
When you are in your twenties, the partying never ends.
It was rodeo season  and the big one was in town.
As one by one they ordered drinks, I couldn’t turn them down.
We were a rather rowdy bunch of teachers in our prime
Devoted in the classroom, but wild on our own time.

The bar was crowded hip to hip, the music barely heard
over the loud cacophony of laugh and shouted word.
It was my turn to buy a round. I struggled towards the bar.
My polite “Excuse me’s!” really hadn’t gotten me too far
when a guy appeared in front of me and moved the crowd aside
as though he had appointed himself to be my guide.

As I returned with eight full drinks, again he stemmed the tide
by walking close in front of  me and spreading elbows wide.
He smiled and then departed, back to the teeming mass.
Impressive that he had not even tried to make a pass!
My friends all wondered who he was. I said I had no clue.
Tall and dark and ivy-league, he vanished from our view.

This story happened long ago. Some details I’ve forgotten,
and any memories he retains, you’ll learn were ill-begotten.
I think we danced a dance or two. I know we talked awhile.
I liked his fine intelligence, his low-key polite style.
At three o’clock the barman’s bell commenced it’s clanging chime
and I made off to find my friends, for it was closing time.

Two lines of men had split the bar, lined up back to back.
Their hands locked and their arms spread wide–they moved into the pack.
One line moved east, the other west, forcing one and all
Either out the front door or towards the back door hall.
I was forced out the back way–out into the alley.
My friends and I had made no plans of where we were to rally

and so I walked around the block, sure that was where they waited,
but there was no one there at all–the crowd had soon abated.
I went back to the alleyway to see if they were there.
but all was dark and still, and soon I began to fear
that both carloads of friends had thought I was with the other.
I had no recourse but to walk, though I prayed for another.

I combed my mind to try to think of anyone at all
living in this part of town where I could go to call
a friend to come and get me and furnish me a ride
for 3 a.m. was not a time to be alone outside.
There were no outside phone booths and I lived so far away
I simply had to rouse someone, but what was I to say?

But since I had no other choice I thought I’d check once more
if any single soul was waiting at the bar’s front door.
And as I left the alley to be off to see,
I saw a new familiar face looking back at me.
It was my dancing partner, his face split in a grin.
It seems that he was going to save me once again.

He had asked me earlier if needed a ride,
but I had told him wisely that I had friends inside
and so I thought he’d left, but I could see he was still there.
Yet, ride home with a stranger?  Did I really dare?
And yet I had no other choice, abandoned as I was.
And so I said I guess that yes, I would, simply because

I knew there was just one of him and I was young and strong.
And he seemed kind, polite and gentle.  What could go so wrong?
His car was just a block away. Our walk was short and brief.
And when he pointed out his car, I felt a great relief.
For it was a convertible–and easy to escape
If I detected the first signs of robbery or rape!

He opened up the door for me. I got in the front seat.
But as he started up the car, my heart skipped a beat.
For from the bushes, two more men emerged and jumped inside–
one man in the backseat, the other at my side!
He pulled out into the street, though I protested so.
I didn’t really want a ride, so please, just let me go!

(And here I have to beg off and say I’ll finish this story tomorrow.  Right now my heart is pumping and my head throbbing as though I’m re-enacting this whole tale physically as well as mentally.  I’m totally exhausted.  Why I decided to write this in rhyme I don’t know. Perhaps I thought it would be easier, or more fun or more lighthearted, but there is simply no way to write this from any other frame of mind but the terror I felt that night. So, sorry, but I will resume tomorrow. You all know that I’m here telling the story, so be assured that the worst didn’t happen…but the story is by no means over, so join me tomorrow for the rest.  I, for one, could really use a drink, but it is only 1:40 in the afternoon so I’ll find some other means of escape.)

To see the conclusion of this poem, go HERE.

If you’d like to try out Jennifer’s new prompt generator, go HERE.