Tag Archives: RDP

Tempering Anger

9 Replies

Tempering Anger

Temper has no reason. Temper has no rhyme.
Temper keeps us agitated. Restless all the time.
If it is abundant,  we lose all control.
We can’t escape. It holds us firmly in its bowl.

Others give us wide berth, fearing what we’ll do.
They  navigate around us as we rage and stew.
The only ones who’ll meet us are others of our ilk
for whom the brew of anger is like mother’s milk.

We draw on it and fester as it sours inside.
Ire is what carries us. We mount it and we ride
off to bloody encounters, thirsty for the fray,
intent that those who anger us will be the ones who’ll pay.

We do not stop and reason, for revenge is our goal.
We don’t consider it may be ourselves who’ll pay the toll.
For other angry people, on the other side,
may have an equal anger, as tall and deep and wide.

Some causes warrant anger. When liberty is sold,
to the highest bidder, we must be strong and bold.
We might use ire to drive us, but it’s reason that must lead.
It is more easily directed, yet draws a finer bead.

The prompts today are:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/ragtag-prompt-26-navigate/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/abundant/ (Mr. Linky)https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/26/fowc-with-fandango-temper/

The Place

7 Replies

 

The Place

This year, 
all of the hard to reach places,
difficult situations and difficult people
are falling away,
and I’m letting them. 
I need an easier place for my heart.
Some gentler place
where my heart fits.

Meanwhile…
I’ve been misplacing everything,
and now it seems
that it’s my heart that I can’t find.

Knowing myself,
I know that I will never find it by looking,
but instead, must wait until I chance upon it
in some spot where I would never think to look.
Some place where it has been placed absent-mindedly
to free my mind for other tasks,
or perhaps  where a part of me kind to myself
knew it would be safe for awhile
while I was not in need of it

So I’m not looking for my heart.
Instead, I’m trying to build a new place
so that if I ever find my heart, it will have
a spot that it fits into just right.
A spot that has been prepared for it.
A warm spot and cushioned
away from elbows extended
just right for knocking hearts off ledges

The place for my heart
will not be a  high place–
no careless place that earthquakes
could spill it from.
It will not be a low place–
too near toes that might stumble
over a heart brought low.
It will not be a place in direct sunlight
that might fade a heart away.

The place for my heart
will be a handy place.
A place I don’t have to think about twice.
A dependable place like the door of my refrigerator:
grocery list, dentist appointments,
art openings, family pics,
and my heart—
here in this busy place near
other necessary things.

A place like that
is where my heart will want to go
once I get it back again
from wherever it has fallen
or been kicked to
or hidden.

In a whisper,
probably at night
while I am sleeping,
it will come into my dreams
with  a plan for where to put us both.
So I will dream harder,
watching for the heart I barely even recognize.
Listen  for its whisper.
Listen  for its shout.
Let it grab onto me and pull me after it.

Because while I’ve been building
the place for my heart to go,
it has grown so large that it no longer fits
inside of anything;
so that when I chance upon it,
my heart will just open its arms
and welcome me in.

Retablo, “Restoring the Peace” by Judy Dykstra-Brown  jdb photo

For the Ragtag prompt, heart.

International Date Lines

5 Replies

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

International Date Lines

Italian guys are sexy,  but pasta makes me fat.
When a Scots boy served me haggis, had to hide it in my hat.
I had a Japanese boyfriend, but I gagged while eating sushi.
French crepes don’t suit my fancy. I find them bland and squooshy.
Foreign dates? I’ve had enough to man a whole battalion,
and so long as I take care that I’m not dating an Italian,
I’ve found that when I’m traveling and have a need to guy it,
it’s a perfect opportunity for sticking to my diet!

The Ragtag Prompt today is Italian.

Late Check-Out

15 Replies

Late Check-out

The camera battery left in its charger in a motel in St. Louis,
my batik sarong left gracing a hostel bed in Jakarta,
my only pair of shoes in Timor.
A pair of Levis in Singapore,
my diary in Tanjung Pinang,
my swimsuit in Sri Lanka.

I am lost all over the world,
and this is why, five minutes after
my sister has gone down to check out of the St. Paul hotel,
I am rechecking the beds and desk tops of our room.

My bag packed and zipped at the door,
my purse and computer case propped next to it,
I sift through soggy towels in the tub,
open the closet door once more
to rattle empty hangers,
check each plug socket on each wall.

 

“Check” is the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. This is a rewrite of a poem written three years ago.

Sour Grapes from a Pissed Rhyming Poet

7 Replies

Sour Grapes from a Pissed Rhyming Poet

I fear this world of prompts has gotten slightly out of hand
and so their choice of prompt words is likely to be panned.
Antediluvian? Come on!!! Who uses that strange word?
It best describes itself. In modern usage, it’s absurd.
Please give us words that help us, not vocabulary puzzles.
We need words that lead like leashes and not creative muzzles!!!!
Do not try to impress us with obscure nomenclature.
I don’t care about their backgrounds. I don’t care about their nature.
Give me conglomerations of letters that I know,
and not these fancy words that seem simply meant for show!!!!
In short, I’m pissed because I do not like “antediluvian”
which only seems to rhyme with hard to use words like Peruvian!!

 

This prompt sort of threw me for a loop, so instead of just giving up and going on to a different prompt, I decided to write a gentle protest, meant in fun.. The Ragtag prompt today is antediluvian. 

Falling Water

9 Replies

This is one of three waterfalls that spill down the mountain behind my house during the rainy season.

Falling Water

You, my wild and rushing daughter
remind me of falling water
spilling  from one place to another
while your sister and your brother
are calm ponds—docile and still.
Do you think you ever will
come to rest within our glade
or will you continue to cascade
from mountainside to jungle floor,
always rushing out the door
to adventures in a farflung world?
Another part of you unfurled
in some new place and some new time,
a foreign place you find sublime.
We’ve had one life. You’ve had a few.
Why, love, will one world not do?

 

For the Rag Tag Daily Prompt, the word of the day was cataract.

Although I don’t have a brother and my family did move around a bit (but not as much as I have,) this poem was based a bit on the only letter my father ever wrote to me. I had been traveling and working abroad for a few years by then, first in Australia, then in Singapore and Africa. I’ve remembered one of sections: “The wild geese have rested on the pond for the night. They remind me of you, my wild fledgling, winging your way across the world with no place to call your own.” Those words, so poetic, show a side of my father I wish he had brought out more frequently on paper, so here I’ve done it for him.

Squelched Evolution

8 Replies

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Squelched Evolution

I fear there’s a frustrating schism
between progress and atavism.
For though I’d like to best my folks,
adding my genius to the yolks
of  eggs of the next generation,
instead I feel great perturbation.
I could improve the family genes,
but fear that I have not the means.
For though I’m sure I’m an improvement,
our gene pool won’t see any movement.
There is a sure futility
regarding  mutability.
My evolution’s hit the skids.
I forgot to have some kids!!!!

 

This was written to fulfill two prompts. The RDP daily prompt is atavism and Daily Addiction’s prompt is futile.

R.I.P.

8 Replies


R.I.P.

They say he was a bastion of the community.
Of what their youth should aim for, the exact epitome.
Mothers named their kids for him and he was so discreet,
his name labelled a shopping center and a city street.

Asked to speak at graduation, his words were most succinct.
Not one old lady fell asleep. Nobody even blinked!
Moral, staunch and upright, he was everyone’s ideal.
He always used the crosswalk. He didn’t cuss or steal.

No forensic laboratory ever had a label
or test tube or fingerprint of his upon their table.
In short, his reputation was one without besmirch.
He went to each town meeting, every Sunday, went to church.

He did not exceed the speed limit, use liquor or smoke pot.
Every single vice on earth was something he was not.
His genes were the best of genes. His relatives all lasted
at least until one hundred, and he dieted and fasted.

Ate kale and probiotics, whole grains and leafy greens.
He sponsored many charities and lived within his means.
So when he died it wasn’t from alcohol or drugs.
He did not die from violence–his own or that of thugs.

He did not perish from obesity or accident or whoredom.
In the end, they say that he simply died of boredom!

For RDP prompt bastion.

and Daily Addiction’s prompt forensic

and Fandango’s is succinct.

Nightmare

6 Replies

Nightmare

You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.

Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.

Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight

when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.

Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?

This is a repeat of a poem I wrote two years ago. It is just too perfect for the prompt not to use it. hope it warranted rereading. The Ragtag word of the day is nightmare.

Flummoxed

11 Replies


Flummoxed

I fear that I am flummoxed about where to post this poem
since Daily Post abandoned us, our postings have no home
where we can find each other sufficiently clear.
Just where do we post them? Is it here or here or here?
I applaud your efforts. I know you’ve planned and planned.
You have your daily promptings sufficiently manned.
The problem is we need one place where we can find each other
once we have surveyed the prompt and written yet another
poem or essay most profound that we would like to share.
Except, where should we put it?  There, or there or there?
The solution to this problem has me tearing at my hair.
Please give me a solution. Where should I post this? Where?

Perhaps I’ve overstepped my bounds, and if I have I fear
that you’ll simply say that I should  hang it in my ear!

 

The prompt today is flummoxed.