Tag Archives: #RDP

Family Heirlooms

1 Reply

Family Heirlooms

It’s apparent I’m replaceable. At least it is the shout
that you moved in my replacement as soon as I moved out.
I hope that you remember as you stroll down your new path
that your former roadway contains an aftermath.

The heirlooms of our marriage include three children who
don’t share my intention of divorcing you.
They need a proper father and you’re the only one
licensed to address them as daughter and as son.

On the heirloom ring you gave me on our wedding night,
the chimera of your family crest really wasn’t quite
appropriate, though made of gold polished shiny bright,
An ass head on a serpent’s body would have got it right!

 

Prompt words today are apparent, replaceable, aftermath, chimera, proper and heirloom.

Mr. Universe in the Old Age Home

9 Replies

Mr. Universe in the Old Age Home

His life was lovely and bucolic
prior to his anabolic
stage wherein he played the game
of dosing up to gain a name

and a media barrage
descended on the small garage
where he went to lift more weight
than once he could anticipate.

His life became a mad mirage
of barbells, steroids —a barrage
of contests wherein he competed,
going largely undefeated—

a staircase leading to that time
when he, unchallenged and sublime,
ruled without apology,
a miracle of morphology.

Everybody knew his name.
A survivor, fit, top of his game,
in time his will began to flag
and everything began to sag.

His muscles gone to atrophy,
he is not what he used to be.
His bod of steel reduced to puddle,
he is more comfy now to cuddle,

and so he finds at an old age
that happily, he’s still the rage,
for the old ladies that he hustles
still want to feel his former muscles.

 

Prompts today are game, apology, survivor, bucolic, staircase and mirage.

Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride

5 Replies


Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride

Only one seat left, so I thrust myself within it,
beating out another boarding passenger to win it.
Adjusting all my packages, I didn’t chance to look
at my seat mate, for her face was buried in a book.

I used a lull in traffic to begin a conversation,
but was cut off by the bite of her brutal tongue’s serration.
She sputtered without compromise or mercy or a pause
about what she surmised were my weaknesses and flaws.

Her words sprayed out in spittle, unceasing in their venom.
She criticized my hairdo and my shoe size and my denim.
Not a thing about me pleased her. She was brutal in her spiel.
Had I considered a diet? Was my hair color for real?

At the very next bus stop, I finally took flight.
Miles from where I sought to go, I fled into the night.
It must have been a curse or bad Karma or a hex
that I would end up in a seat next to my boyfriend’s ex!!!

 

Prompts for today are traffic, compromise, flight, serration, spray and please. Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Time Holds the Key

6 Replies


Time Holds the Key

The detergent of time washes away
the travail we feel so keenly today,
constantly munching away at our pain,
over and over and over again.

The hemp that was used manufacturing rope
to bind up our hands and tie up our hope
once placed in a pipe, might free up our minds
to journey down roads of alternative kinds.

Life’s journey is kooky. Thus, each generation
achieves some sort of new fenestration
to escape from the bondage of years that are past.
Thus proving that no form of bondage can last.

Freedom and justice must be more than talk,
for though time holds the means to unlock the lock,
there must be a hand turning the key
to open the door that sets justice free.

 

Prompts today are kooky, thrifty, hemp, munch, constant and detergent.

Implausible Proposal

5 Replies


Implausible Proposal

You know, that ring that you were hurling
that landed in the sink,

set the water swirling
 as it landed with a clink,

then elected to go curling
into inky depths below,

its extemporaneous whirling
too fast to see it go?

I admit it was just sterling,
and yes, the diamond fake.

It’s zirconium or pearling
for the money that I make,

because more expensive girling
is not a piece of cake.

So, if you want me for my money,
better find another guy.

What I offer to my honey
is not something I can buy!

Prompts for today are ink, extemporaneous, sterling, nigh, elect and yes.

Spousal Failure

12 Replies

Spousal Failure

My sister met a minister over Love.Com
who’d found God in the trenches while in Vietnam.
And though he had a talent at saving a lost soul,
in fact he was so holy that she slipped out through a hole.

It seems she had an allergy to men who sought to change her.
She thought she’d find another with no need to rearrange her.
And since the fees for Love.Com were close to a King’s ransom,
she set out on her own to find a man over the transom.

She sought him on the subway, at work and in the park.
She sought him in the glare of day and sought him in the dark.
When any man came nigh, she looked him over head-to-toe,
consumed with locating a man wherever she might go.

But an illuminated person, I fear that she is not.
So working on her own, she never found the love she sought.
And since the great love of her life went sadly undetected,
She should have settled on that minister that she rejected.

Rejected ending:

And so, I hate to say, she spent her whole life as a spinster.
All in all, perhaps she should have settled on the minster!

Word prompts are ransom, nigh, consume, minister, illuminated.and allergy
Image by Mosoianu Bogdan on Unsplash.

Kissing With Eyes Closed

4 Replies


Kissing With Eyes Closed

Though she was not disappointed by the fervor of his kiss,
 in fact it was misguided, for it was a total miss.
It landed on her lash extensions, eyelids to the tips, 
but it would have been more piquant if planted on her lips.

He mopped his sweaty forehead, which was damp from the exertion,
then went in for another kiss in spite of her assertion
that he needn’t do an update. One kiss was quite enough.
Perhaps they could go for a walk or do some other stuff.

Thus ended their first date which could have been a fine romance,
if only she had thought to give the chap a second chance.
Kissing with eyes opened, he was sure that he would kill,
but, alas, I’m fairly certain that he never will.

 

Prompts today are mop, fervor, bereft, piquant, extension and update. Click on prompt links if you want to read other poems to the same prompt or to discover the source to play along yourself.

The Last

2 Replies

 

The Last

Old people mumble and snicker and stare
at the last of my lineage ‘s bright lilac hair.

If I’m the most banal of all of my kin,
at ingenuity, she’s bound to win.

I’m reluctant to ask why her clothes are so worn:
so faded and rumpled and tattered and torn.

I immure my comments between lips of stone,
for she’s flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,

with a mind of her own and unique from the start,
the last of my grandkids has most of my heart.

 

Prompt words are reluctant, lilac, banal, start, immure and lineage. Images by Jessie
Dee Dabrowski and Quinton Coetzee on Unsplash.

Final Expectations

13 Replies

Final Expectations

When I’ve drawn my final breath
and fall into the arms of death,
I’ll tell my life I’m through with it.
I do not give a single whit
for what becomes of all those things:
poems and paintings, bracelets, rings.
I mop my soul of all such whims
to rise free of my earthly limbs
on wings of whatever is left
to give my being lift and heft.
What if those things I’ve striven for
have merely been a bottom drawer?

What if it opens to set free
whatever there is left of me
and there is nothing else inside?
What if the whole of me has died?
What part of me is made to last?
Have I an essence that’s more vast
than accomplishments, adventures, things?
Some remainder that will give me wings?
Is there woven within me
something  that will be a key
that will unlock the galaxy
that’s sleeping in the heart of me?

 

 

Prompt words today are mop,
death, whim, whit and bottom.

Dream Perch

3 Replies

Houndstooth Pillow

Dream Perch

When I can’t locate my pillow, my immediate reaction
is to galvanize my efforts in investigatory action.
I’m elated if I find it slipped behind my bed,
and I immediately restore it to its place beneath my head.

But if I cannot find it and do not have something better,
I have to improvise and use a wadded up old sweater!
When away from home, though, if I require a few
winks and have no sweater, any passing dog will do!

 

 

Prompt words today are pillow, locate, galvanising, elate and sweater.