Tag Archives: RDP

Advisor to the Lovelorn

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Advisor to the Lovelorn

Although she was a novice, she had a trenchant wit.
No matter what the problem, she had a cure for it.
With very little practice, she had soon mastered the job
of advice to the lovelorn—that suffering, confused mob.

She composed her column while sitting in the tub,
dispensing rules and practices to her admiring club
of followers who hung their lives on her guiding words
from their first fumbling kisses to the bees and birds.

She gave names to their thingamajigs and taught them how to use them.
Taught them all the body parts and how to not abuse them.
Virgins forsook their single cots for their marriage beds
with thoughts of all her wisdom swirling through their heads.

But when it came to her own life? Up that proverbial creek.
No wiser soul advised her. No counsel did she seek.
Lover after lover was given a brief chance
to try to woo this very master of romance.

But, alas, their tactics never quite took hold.
This one was too timid and the next one was too bold.
So was it that, sadly, did this mistress of romance
miss out on on her own turn at the wedding dance.

So is it that our betters tell us what to do
whereas within their own lives, they do not have a clue.

Words for today are thingamajig, practice, novice, trenchant and composed.

Impotus

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Impotus

He’s up there on the platform acting crass and disagreeable.
That he will bring the whole world down around him is foreseeable.
Every single day I hope and pray for his quiescence,
but, alas, refraining from brash speech is not his essence.
He opens mouth and words fall out—disjointed, vague and dense.
He’d make a great orator if only he made sense.
Good that his mother cannot see the travesty she bore—
narcissistic, senseless, and rotten to the core.
His attempts at humor only render him more silly.
His stench sickening and cloying—like an Easter lily.
He’s like a wild animal: vicious, cunning, feral.
What more can he do to put our whole wide world in peril?
No good can be said of him. He’s rotten through and through.
Daily, the world waits for him to drop the other shoe.

Prompt words today are disagreeable, platform, mother, quiescent and Easter lily. And action!

Traveler

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Traveler

Nobody’s secretary, no one’s wife.
I’d be a nomad for all of my life.
Traditions converged as I traversed this earth,
discovering foibles, unveiling my worth.

What I saw as empty was something to fill.
Was it something to savor or something to kill?
It depended on choices of what I would savor.
Would I hold out for love or just curry favor?

The choices I made determined my life.
I was somebody’s secretary, someone’s wife.
But first was a nomad so when I came back,
the world was a memory, not merely a lack.

I no longer wander. I no longer roam,
for when I did, I brought it back home
so the whole world’s my neighborhood spread out around me.
From here in its middle, I let it astound me.

Prompt words today are nomad, empty, tradition, converge and secretary.

Hail Diego!!!

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Hail Diego!!!

He’s the king of dogs by his own choice.
Behold his ruff, Enjoy his voice!
He raises it in time of doubt
to assert his power and raise his clout.

IMG_3721

Bypassers make their passings brief
Their parting sighs denote relief.
And since he notes each falling leaf,
no way he’ll overlook a thief.

 

IMG_9501It is a fact that crime went down
the minute he moved into town.
All citizens should laud his fame,
and spread abroad his glorious name!!!

 

Prompt words today are relief, fact, king, behold and voice.

Spring Cleaning

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Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of the year when I want to come clean
and turn into a virtual sorting machine.
I’m emptying closets and clearing out shelves.
Disposing of all of my former used selves.
Keeping the best of me. Tossing the worn.
Keeping the new me that’s daily reborn
and discarding the jaded, the bored and forlorn.

I’m renouncing old habits and starting anew.
I’m not limping along in my regular queue
of things to accomplish and deeds I must do,
and I’m making a list of things I’ll eschew—
things that inevitably make me blue—
politics, violence, things all askew
that have turned our whole planet into a zoo.

I’m making an outline to use as a guide
with all the things that I’ve certified
will make my life better and straighten it out.
They’ll make me happier, without a doubt.
Troublesome people I’m going to avoid.
Life is too short to spend it annoyed.
What is life for if not to be enjoyed?

I’ll go on a diet and I’ll become svelt.
Shorten my hemlines and tighten my belt.
I’ll take all the tactics I’ve learned in this life
as daughter and student and girlfriend and wife
and put them together into a rich stew
of what I have vowed that I’m going to do.
Then tackle my life with this new retinue.

Or else I’ll stay home and not worry about
having a gorgeous body to flout.
I’ll cook puddings and pastries and share them with friends,
put on a few pounds without making amends.
Taking more time to stare at the birds.
I’ll do fewer shoulds and do more absurds—
cavort with my art and play with my words.

Consort with the dogs and cuddle the cats.
Issue fewer “No’s!” and give way more pats.
Since this is my life and I am the boss of it,
I’ll make a vow to get rid of the dross of it.
Clean out the dreads and stock up on the wants.
hang out at all of my favorite haunts,
believe what praise comes and ignore all the taunts.

Word prompts today are limp, outline, new, renounce and politics.

Enforced Reflection

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Enforced Reflection

I’m keeping my composure and compensating for
the fact that they won’t let me venture out my door.
Given lemons, I make margaritas—take the opportunity
now that I can’t wander about in the wide community,
to revel in the riches that abound right here at home,
watching Jesus painting murals all around my dome.

I’m baking lots of cookies, although their fate is sad.
After painters ate just one or two, Diego was so bad
that he raced into the kitchen and made off with all the rest.
One friend suggested delicately it might have been best.
Would I have eaten any that remained? Yes, it’s true, I might.
I must admit my waistbands are getting sort of tight.

Perhaps it’s lack of exercise. Perhaps it’s medication.
Since I so rarely don street clothes, I have no indication.
I avoid the scales because, you know, they are so changeable.
Up one day but rarely down. (Wish they were more arrangeable.)
With nature as our trainer, perhaps we will be changed
in other crazy pastimes in which we’ve become deranged.

Fracking and polluting, casting all our trash
out there in the ocean, making a god of cash.
Nature has to teach us to change our foolish ways
by sending us all to our rooms to pass our “time out” days.
And perhaps now I’m sequestered and set upon the shelf,
Diego’s her reminder to take care of myself.

The image of Diego with a cookie in his mouth is from a retablo/art collage I’m making that is recording my time spent in Mother Nature’s Time-Out period. Why don’t you join me? Mine was finished but then I have to keep adding to it. At least a story a day. Diego was that day’s.

Prompts for the day are composure, compensate, opportunity, revel and trainer.
And, for dVerse Poets Pub prompt: Solitude.

Fist

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Fist

It was that night, as they lay choking in the stench of jasmine,
that he unmasked his rage. Their whole life, it seemed,
was a cipher that obscured his former truths.
Now he seemed socked in by this sudden swirling fog of memories
that suddenly parted, giving him access to his rage.
It was his mother, not her, he said later, that he had struck out at,
but in trying to confront his past,
he had obliterated any hope for their future.

Prompts for the day are unmask, rage, jasmine, cypher and sock.

Two Faces

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Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash. Used with permission

Two Faces

There’s a twinkle in his eye in spite of higher education,
and although he is hard-headed, there’s an air of jubilation
whenever he is in a room. There’s magic in his laughter
that sets you all to wondering just what it is he’s after.

He’ll bathe you in attention. His queries will resound,
but his answers to your problems are likely to rebound.
He’ll write you up on charges and you’ll wish you gave a pass
when he inquires about your problems, then fires your whiny ass!

 

Prompt words for today are twinkle, education, hard-headed, resound and bath.

Not A Creature of Habit

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jdb photo/do not replicate without permission.

Not A Creature of Habit

Fortitude’s cool, but frazzled’s more fun.
I’d rather be scattered and out on the run
than to be stoically still like a nun.

Out in the village, I’ll use my fine wit,
but identical nuns would have none of it,
Me as a nun? I just wouldn’t fit.

Even clothes are a habit when cloistered in place.
A nun has no moxie, no sass in her face.
They’re out of the mainstream and out of the race.

So hand me no wimple, no habit, no veil.
Confined in such clothes, I could barely exhale.
This bird needs her freedom, not salt on her tail.

 

The word prompts today are frazzled, fortitude, wit, identical and village.

Note: I know there are many nuns who do not fit this stereotype. I claim poetic license to make use of hyperbole!!

Selective Superstition

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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 until I’m somewhat bolder.

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.

 

Prompt words today are image, dough, message, astrology and personality.