Tag Archives: poem

Blog-out

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Blog-out

Dark genius sits there pondering and staring at the screen.
His features in reflected light glow a sickly green.
He works his cyber screwdriver slightly to the right.
His only tool––the keyboard––is his weapon in this fight
…………………………………………………………as every blog on WordPress skews slightly all at once.
He’ll show his third grade teacher for calling him a dunce!

He tugs a little here and there, adjusting cyber screws.
And just for fun, he adds a few zeroes to my views.
He knows that I am watching and he senses my excitement.
He chuckles that my false success has been at his incitement.
Then he shuts down the internet––Facebook, WordPress, Twitter.
and my seconds of great happiness turn just as quickly bitter.

Bloggers the world over are turned back onto themselves.
Photos trapped in media files or stacking up on shelves.
No place to reach out for a friend for shut-ins who, once freed
to roam a universe of blogs now sit in dire need
of someone just to talk to. To realize they are there.
They sit staring at their screens, though all of them are bare.

Week after week we wait for our deliverance from this blight.
We miss the internet all day, and even more at night.
I’m thinking about former friends, now lost across the miles,
tripping over poetry surrounding me in piles,
thirsting after comments about every brand new thought.
Having no fast outlet, my brain feels like it’s caught.

Bound up in old creations that have no place to go,
with no easy outlet, the thoughts are coming slow.
Jammed up creativity is worse than constipation,
for writing with no readers is just mental masturbation.
It’s true that I have friends to call and writers’ groups as well.
But they have not the patience to hear all I have to tell.

A blog gives me an avenue to fill out a whole world
with thoughts that for a lifetime, I’ve kept inside, tightly furled.
For those of us who always have felt slightly alone,
the Interweb has seemed a placed created to atone.
In the darkened hours when others are asleep,
we live that midnight life we’ve kept within us, buried deep.

History moves ever onward despite glacier, war or flood.
We see it trailed behind us in footprints etched in blood.
So we’ll survive the cyber war when it comes to pass
by spending more time with our friends, calmly smoking grass
or sharing drinks at Starbucks, devoid of texts or apps,
but we’ll miss our midnight family filling in the gaps.

 

The prompt: Life after Blogs– Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/life-after-blogs/

Okay, I must add a comment here, where everyone can see it.  See that fifth line in the first stanza, where the line is skewed over to the right?  WordPress doesn’t let you do that.  Every time I put spaces in to make that happen, they erased them.  So, as usual, I prevailed upon my tech expert/volunteer co-blog-administrator okcforgottenman to find a solution.  As you can see above, he found one and I’m not surprised.  What I am surprised about is his solution, that was nothing short of genius!  His solution was to put in a line of periods in front of the line until it was out where I wanted it and then to CHANGE THE COLOR OF JUST THOSE PERIODS TO WHITE!!!!  Tell me that isn’t genius.

Passing Time

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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

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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!!!

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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

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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???

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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

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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?

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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

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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!

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                                           Knock Knock Reknockin’ on a Circadian Door!

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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/

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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!