Tag Archives: RDP

“Reminder” for RDP

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Reminder

This morning, upon awakening,
I kissed my pillow and imagined it was you.
There was no sadness in the act.
It was a simple act of adulation.

If there had been a real person here,
I would wish that it were you,
but I’m content here in my solitude—
writing tributes to past lovers—

a bit puffier (me, not you)
than even that last time we met.
When I waken, joints are stiffer,
the cat more crabby in demands for food.

I wouldn’t say time marches on.
It turns its pages, shifts its screens.
The world, more innovative since the Internet,
spins us a new tale second by second.

Vicariously, we speed through life.
Other people’s lives become our own.
We feed ourselves and perform daily functions,
our minds in one world and our bodies in another.

In that manner,
one thing substitutes for the other.
Over and over, like shuffled cards.
This reality and that one.

Upon awakening, I kiss my pillow—
not a conscious act. Not one I will repeat.
A simpler act and one unplanned
to remind myself, perhaps, what’s in my heart.

For Ragtag Daily Prompt, Wednesday, the prompt is “Puffy.”

Love in a Warm Climate for RDP

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Love in a Warm Climate:  Bali/Mexico

Why did we think that love would be any easier in a warm climate?
Shed of clothes in Bali, we didn’t shed our different skins.
You were prickly as a rambutan,
while I slipped in and out of moods
like one directed
by a maestro.

You once said you couldn’t write when you were happy,
and when you didn’t write for years with me,
you were unhappy in your happiness.

All the planets of your family were pulled by the gravity of your moods.
Could we break the fatal pull beneath the Southern Cross?
Pulled back into love by a climate Equatorial?

We tried again, but once there,
you said you couldn’t stay in Mexico for three days,
let alone a year,
and lobbied for our ejection from this paradise.

Then one week later,
you asked me how I knew
that this was what we were supposed to do,
and you won the argument I never thought I’d let you win.
We bought a house in Mexico.

Perhaps we both thought we could warm our hearts once more
to find that hot love that had fueled our beginning,
and I am left to wonder how our story might have ended
if you had lived to try with me––

love in a warm climate.

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is “Eject.”

“Story Time at the Library,” for RDP

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When I saw the prompt word was magnanimous,
I couldn’t resist repeating this old poem I wrote long ago:

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Story Time at the Library

Cluster here around me. Cross Your legs. Open your mind.
I’m going to tell you stories of a slightly silly kind.

Or lie back on the carpet, close your eyes and try to see
all the varied images that are going to be.

We’ll be crossing to another land where we can be whatever
each of us may want to be: beautiful, brave or clever.

Light the bulbs above your head. Imagine what you hear.
For the next half hour, you’l be “there” not “here.”

In imagination’s magic land, all your dreams come true.
Climb aboard my story train and I’ll share it with you.

And now as then, the crowd, being both clever and magnanimous,
decided they’d all come along. The voting was unanimous.

And so the children climbed aboard to hear a tale or two—
precisely the same stories in the past I heard from you.

(For my first storytellers, Mom & Dad.)

The Prompt for RDP is Magnanimous

Man Vs. Machine

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Man Vs. Machine

It is expedient that we convene
to discuss this new machine.
With teamwork, could we not achieve
all our higher-ups believe
needs to be done by this contraption
that according to its caption
can do the work of many men,
perhaps, it says, the work of ten?

Farewell to manpower, hello panic.
Made obsolete by things mechanic!
While ensconced in our cocoons,
it seems that corporate buffoons
have been brisk to seal our fate
and, alas, we’ve learned too late
that man by man, we’ll be ejected
by this means today detected.

And this is why I’m doubly keen
on dealing with this damn machine,
for men have brains but robots don’t.
If we retaliate, it won’t,
I think that we should make the hit
and simply throw a wrench in it!
Thereby persuading all our bosses
of better ways to stem their losses.

Word prompts today are cocoon, brisk, teamwork, expedient, discuss and farewell.

Big Rock Candy Mountain

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Big Rock Candy Mountain

Have you heard the allegory of enchanted mountain
with its chocolate boulders and raspberry soda fountain?
Snow on the top is ice cream, but beware, for it’s precipitous
and only accessible to the most felicitous
children who the lessons of politeness have well-learned.
Children who are naughty and selfish will be spurned.
If you think this is impossible and just a silly story,
remember that I told you that it is an allegory.
The wisdom that it teaches is good manners are rewarded,
and though there is no list in life where they are all recorded,
still life tends to give back to us exactly what we give.
If you desire sweet things, that’s what you have to give.

 

Prompt words today are mountain, spontaneous,
allegory, felicitous,  ice and enchanted,

Change of Menu

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Change of Menu

Though my visitor is an excellent cook
who bought a fresh fish right off of the hook,
 he said although sturgeon is usually reliable,
he found that this one was sadly not fryable.

Somehow, its innards were too well united
which meant that the rest of it could not be bited.
The end of the story is simply that
we tossed the fish to the dog and the cat,

got into the car and took a small ride
to purchase burgers with fries on the side.
The irony, though, of our untasted sturgeon
is that my guest was a prominent surgeon!

Prompt words are visitor, united, reliable, cook and prominent, Image by John Cameron on Unsplash.

2022 Fashion

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2022 Fashion

There is a dearth of luxury in fashions of today.
All the garments made of fur have been tucked away.
Zibelline and beaver, chinchilla, mink and fox
hide in the back of closets or in the remnants box.

The most ardent fashionista wears clothes shapeless as kelp.
Shoulder pads and belts and pads do not seem to help.
They walk runways like branches stripped down to their bark:
minimal and twiggy, sparse and wan and stark.

Lace and ruffles banished, hot Goth is all the rage.
Tractor Trek-Sole boots and chunky loafers stalk the stage.
Sweater vests and crop-tops, shabby chic and Y2K
have replaced silks and satins, mohair and chambray.

Power Bohemian florals compete with color clashing
For what the trend-setters of the day find most chic and dashing.
The only good that I can see in these current fashion rages
is that fewer animals are being kept in cages!

Prompt words for today are kelp, ardent, branch, dearth, zibelline, shapeless.

 

Writer Wannabe

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Writer Wannabe

I wish I were prolific and could elevate each word 
from general to specific, to astounding from absurd.
As they are ejected from my fingers or my pen,
I wish that they were more profound, more thoughtful and more Zen.
But, alas, their attributes remain to me mysterious.
They verge on the inane when my intent was to be serious.

 

Prompt words today are prolific, elevate, attribute, eject and mystery.

Memories of Loves Past

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Memories of Loves Past

To improve those ancient feelings regarding love that’s past—
all of those sad endings for love that didn’t last—
relate the facts as comedy. Banter about life’s failings.
Laughter serves you better than retroactive wailings!

Actually, the past love I’m fighting sad feelings about today is the 22 year old Royal Poinciana tree that they are cutting down today. It had root rot and was in danger of falling so it had to be done. So, unbeknownst to me, I gave myself good advice in writing this poem which started out to be about love of another variety.  Here is the tree in all its former glory:

Prompt words today are ancient, improve, feelings, related, banter

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Beach Morning

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A closer view
Sherry nearly to shore
New arrival via raft from one of the offshore yachts. Trying to get free from his flotation device.
Thanks, Mom
Doggie camaraderie.
The beach house
Morning visitors.
Our friends’ beach house
Beach walking
Living room
Back patio
Dining room
Front garden of beach house
Poolside visitors
View to the north from “our” deck.
Offshore rocks in zoom.
Sherry’s flipper

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

These photos are all out of sequence and Word Press seems to have changed things so I can no longer put them in the order that they occurred. The last photo is of Sherry’s flipper as she swam back to join us at the beach restaurant. I’ve spent two hours trying to get the photos in sequence and another half hour with WP tech help to no avail. If anyone reading this knows of a more writer-friendly platform for blogs, please let me know. So sorry that Word Press is getting progressively more non-cooperative.

Beach Morning

Fear of contact with that first cold wave keeps me lingering in bed this second morning at the beach. I can hear the surf that pounds the beach just ten yards from the garden wall of the house where I am staying for a week with friends. If they manage to rouse me from my warm nest, we’ll probably walk again down the beach to sit at a table at the Playa Azul to await Sherry’s return from her long swim to the offshore island and back. She resists the group swim that will take place later, the participants attached to floats on their backs to ward off overenthusiastic speed boaters  who otherwise might stray too close, forgetful of the fact that other humans traverse these waters unencumbered by craft. It is her opinion that this daily journey is best accomplished in private, face to the water, snorkel fins flopping like friendly pats upon the ocean’s surface, as if to beat a friendly reminder that someone is about to visit.

Every January and February (and sometimes March) for years, I stood in these same waters, closer to shore, doing my thousand exercises while fighting the waves–lifting on their inward journey to land, feet settling again to sand on their outward pull back out to sea. Having nearly drowned once long before while Kayaking the Rogue River in Oregon, I preferred water with the security of a firm surface under my feet, even if it was just at intervals.  What snorkeling adventures I have participated in since that near-fatal water adventure have included a boat within swimming distance, and so sitting here with longtime friends, discussing past adventures and writing and those other beach visitors that walk past us on the beach, I can’t help but keep an eye peeled for a view of Sherry’s flippers, flopping into view a mile or so away across the water, circling the small island, moving away from the sailboat that veers in her direction.

She will return to land, removing her false frog feet, shaking water from her second skin, to join us for coffee and hotcakes and eggs, chilaquiles or breakfast burritos, orange juice and papaya. Joined together again in the most communal of activities–a shared meal–we will again be united by those activities we share: laughter, tall tales, plans for the day, watching beach dogs, memories of past camaraderie, shared absent friends, plans for the rest of the day. This vacation at the beach after two years’ absence is a balm that soothes my soul and makes me thankful for this day, in spite of the future that might await us due to those others who guide the fate of the world. This day, this hour, the minute behind us and those long minutes in front of us are ones of our own making, and they are perfect.

Prompt words today are fear, opinion, forgetful and cold wave.