Tag Archives: The Daily Post

Clothes Make the Man but Women Make the Clothes

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Clothes Make the Man but Women Make the Clothes

In matters of both clothes and hair
we profit from the use of flair.
A scarf, a pin, a tilted hat
reveal that we are more than that

we choose to put up our heads
or bodies–for our hats or threads
too often conceal our forms or hair,
not showing what is under there.

Sometimes it’s an improvement, true:
our hair dyed an unfortunate hue
or bodies altered by midnight trips
kitchenward that spread our hips.

This gown I wear is brilliant red,
It spreads around me in my bed–
ankle-length and numinous,
free-flowing and voluminous .

I obscure my  trunk and limbs in it.
My zaftig form just swims in it.
It makes me feel petite and small.
Inside, I’m hardly there at all!

When I awaken, I’m not alert,
throw off the covers, unwind the skirt
from where it’s twisted around my legs,
I yawn and blink to expunge the dregs

of sleep from everywhere it tries
to prolong my dreams and clot my eyes.
It’s in the bathroom where I see
how I’ve made this gown uniquely me.

My reflection in the bathroom glass
shows its brilliant red en masse.
Its designer’s plan I clearly flout,
for I wear it inside out.

The Prompt: The Clothes (May) Make the (Wo)man–How important are clothes to you? Describe your style, if you have one, and tell us how appearance impacts how you feel about yourself.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-clothes-may-make-the-woman/

Baker’s Dozen (Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)

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Baker’s Dozen
(Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)

I forgive you for hogging the covers
and eating the last cookie, too.
I forgive you for doing the crossword
that I was intending to do.

I forgive you for bringing the dog home
that you never have walked even once
and for donating genes to our children
that turned them each into a dunce.

I don’t mind your poker night forays
or the damage you do to my car,
or the fact that your minimal salary
really can’t stretch very far.

Your spare tires and the fact that you’re balding
really don’t bother me much.
I’ve grown used to your slobbery kisses,
and the foreplay no more than a clutch.

But there’s one thing that you always do, dear,
that rouses my most  primal scream,
for I had made plans for a tryst with
that last pint of chocolate ice cream!

The Prompt: Forgive and forget
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/forgive-and-forget/

hear and know

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I spent yesterday and last night at my friend Linda’s house.  There will be more about that in a later post.  For now, here is a simple little poem about living in the here and now.

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hear and know

water drops
from sky or hose
where it comes from
no one knows

the blinds are pulled
I only hear
water moving
very near

morning’s new
the world I wake in
has new sounds
for me to take in

open eyes
and feet on floor
morning waits
outside my door

the smell of coffee
invites me there
my friend waiting
for me to share

how can I know
until I rise
what new world
will meet my eyes

at the window
curtains billow
deer grazing
on weeping willow

window washer
rings the bell
i greet the day
this tale to tell.

DSC09979 - Version 2

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/write-here-write-now/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/coming-to-a-bookshelf-near-you/

May Day!!!

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May Day

When I was seven and when I was ten,
the meaning of May Day was different back then.
It conjured up candy or flowers and fun
not fear of a shipwreck or missile or gun.

We’d construct baskets of paper and glue,
put in some candy and a flower or two–
marshmallow peanuts so rubbery and chewy,
jelly beans, candy corn, gumdrops so gooey.

From a big ribbon, they’d hang like a fob
so the basket could hang from a door handle knob.
We’d sneak to a friend’s house and ring the doorbell,
leave the basket and take off, running like Hell.

If anyone caught us, a prize they would seek–
a slap on the arm or a kiss on the cheek.
The boys gave the slaps and the girls gave the kisses–
(the reverse of our wishes for all of us “Misses.”)

For friends who lived farther than six blocks away,
our parents would drive us some time in the day
before school or after to deliver our gifts.
We escaped easier when we had lifts.

We once strung a Maypole  from tether ball staff
that was rather disastrous—more of a laugh
than a sweet springtime rite filled with dancing and grace.
When our ribbons got tangled, they laughed in our face.

When our class bully fell down, exposing her panties,
we all joined in with our uncles and aunties,
our moms and our dads and even the teachers,
the school board, the doctor, the priest and the preachers.

Everyone roared at this May Day disaster,
then we picked up our ribbons and ran even faster,
some unfortunate dancers wrapped tight to the pole
until finally the school bell began its slow toll,

telling us all to disband and depart,
weak from the laughter and lighter of heart.
A day in my memory much better than payday–
the one time when May Day was also a mayday!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/your-life-the-book/

Less Spice is Nice

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Less Spice is Nice

Once I liked my dishes spicy,
but lately it is getting dicey.
As time progresses, I find it’s not
advisable to dine on “hot.”

Somehow, my tastes have seemed to tame
It’s all those extra years I blame,
that turn me once more into child.
Please, make my taco extra mild!

 

The Prompt: Ring of Fire: Do you love hot and spicy foods or do you avoid them for fear of what tomorrow might bring?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/ring-of-fire/

Speaking in Signs

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Speaking in Signs

Fingers skewed into exclamations,
thumbs jerking questions,
thrusting forearms moving hands to interrupt–
signs are the ballet of languages.

Graceful syllables fall
from the ovals of fingernails.
Joints flex with exaggeration.

No division of dialect or prejudice of accent–
all voices are imagined the same.
What  parts of the mind unknown by tongue,
might express themselves in gesture?

Surely these graceful movements
of words expressed in images and signs
create a language that weds all art–
the music and dance and mime of hands
sculpting  poetry.


The Prompt: Take That, Rosetta–If you could wake up tomorrow and be fluent in any language you don’t currently speak, which would it be?

For other answers to this prompt, go here:
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-post-take-that-rosetta/

Tagline Deprived

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Tagline Deprived

Rockefeller, Stanislavsky, Jones or White or Brown–
some names smack of commonness, others of renown.
We are born with surnames, then get given names and pet names.
Whether born or given, it is sure that we will get names.

Folks who do not like their names choose names that are more regal,
then change themselves to suit the names once they have become legal.
Mark Twain is a pen name, and Saki, too, was one.
And Chloe Wofford took the name of Toni Morrison!

Writers need names for their pens and actors for the screen.
Afterwards, the names their parents gave are rarely seen.
Allen Konigsberg  shifted his first name to his last,
assumed the name of Woody, and the man became a blast!

Jennifer Anastassakis is difficult  to say,
but Aniston is simple to recall from day-to-day.
Some call others names  that are pejorative or racial,
or names based on peculiarities of form or facial.

Whether we are large or small, hirsute or merely bald–
all these factors might affect what nickname we’ll be called.
“Gordo, Freckles, Skinny, Baldy, Curly, “Hey there, Chubs!”
The ones called by these names find little humor in these dubs.

Crooks and other felons assume pseudonyms because
It hides their identity while hiding from the fuzz.
But in this modern age, the name game is more specialized.
Great-grandmothers and grandfathers would be so surprised

at all the different names we need for social media.
It’s gotten so we need a name encyclopedia
to help us figure out the names for new identities
what’s more, to help us out with all the lingo, if you please.

I do not know.  What is this hashtag? What’s a tagline, too?
When I read this prompt, I swear I knew not what to do.
And so I wrote this lengthy poem of pseudonym and name,
only to look up “tagline” and find, much to my shame,

it has nil to do with hashtags or name tags or of title,
screen names, pen names, pet names or of this whole name recital!
It’s just a simple phrase of who I am and how I cope.
If I had done a little research, I would not be such a dope.
I could have looked it up in Google or in other online books.
Instead, I fear I’ve earned this tag:  “She writes before she looks!”

The Prompt: Tagline–Often our blogs have taglines.  But what if humans did, too?  What would your tagline be? (Would that I had researched this topic before writing.)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tagline/

Boy Toys

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erector-set-a - Version 3

Boy Toys

If I were a kid again,
I’d ask for an electric train,
erector sets and building blocks,
a cane to take along on walks
for fending off mean dogs and snakes,
a little oven that really bakes,
decoder rings and magic sets,
ant farms and bug-collecting nets,
a chart for looking up the stars,
paraffin and jelly jars.

The main thing that I’d want, you see,
are more forms of activity:
canvas, paints and wood or clay
to help me pass the time of day.
Instead, adventure came in books–
days spent in armchairs or in nooks
and crannies of our lawn or house,
curled up like a little mouse,
reading of the far-off places,
imaginary deeds and faces.

But I would rather have been doing–
drawing, cutting, building, gluing.
Instead I spent my days in dreams,
filling up my mind with schemes
of what I’d do when I was older–
taller, smarter, braver, bolder.
When we are young, if no one shows us,
takes the trouble to expose us
to the world of creativity,
we may never really see

all the ways that there might be
to set imagination free.
It was plain that an erector set
was not a toy I’d ever get.
With “Hello boys,” written on the front,
the message was both clear and blunt.
Girls did not ask for toys like this.
I had no inkling of what I’d miss.
Creativity was slow to dawn.
For years, I simply played the pawn,

doing what others asked of me,
waiting until I was free
to find a path I’d never seen
caught up in the small town machine.
When I was freed into the world,
a whole new universe unfurled
undivided into  girls or boys.
I finally learned to choose the toys
I really wanted: saws and pliers,
sheets of silver, silver wires,

drill presses and dapping blocks,
glues and solder guns and caulks.
I finally have the toys I want–
not toys to look at or to flaunt,
but toys to make things with and do
–things that help me build anew
each day into whate’er I wish:
a paper lamp, a silver fish.
My story boxes tell the story
of all those years in purgatory

before I learned what else there was
to make my life take off and buzz
with focus and activity–
to fill my days and set me free.
Somehow I just got off the track
before I made my own way back,
but If I did it over again,
I’d ask for that electric train.
Around the track, I’d watch it curl–
a perfect pastime for a girl!!!

The Prompt: Gimmee–Was there a special gift or toy you wanted as a child but never received? If so, what was it?If  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/gimme/
TWIST   Twist

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/what-a-twist/

Addicted

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Addicted

It’s altering our planet, or so the experts say,
but I fear I am addicted, for I take it every day.
As regular as clockwork–morning, noon and night–
whenever I have need of it, I take it as my right.

I can take it when I’ve planned to or also just ad hoc
when I need to go out shopping, to the dentist or the doc.
I can take it while I’m listening or take it while I’m talking,
but the one time I can’t take it is whenever I am walking.

It’s become a real compulsion, an addiction and a crutch.
I’d try to give it up but I enjoy it way too much.
Yet I do not need to search it out in pharmacy or bar,
for the thing I cannot do without is just my little car.

The Prompt: Think Global, Act Local–Link a global issue to your personal life.

See more writing on this theme at: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/think-global-act-local/

Home Rule

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Home Rule

The laws of society, made by such a complicated process, are ones that we seldom set about trying to change.  We follow some laws and break others. We pay our taxes and do not steal or litter, but we speed now and then, smoke a little pot in the wrong place, as decreed by state law, and sometimes stray onto private land.  These are small departures from the law which, not taken to excess, hurt no one including ourselves.

The bigger consideration for me is the rules I set for myself.  I often over-complicate my life by the intricacies of these rules.  Whether they are set up  because of the expectations of others or myself is something I’ve been examining at great length lately.  Why, when I entertain, is it so important to me to create a complicated meal worthy of company?  Why must I fuss over the table setting, the music, getting the house just right?  I know in the back of my mind that such things do not matter as much to those invited as they do to me, and yet I feel driven to stage the occasion, to create a memorable event–a happening of sorts.

This is a rule I somehow made for myself long ago and I can’t break the habit.  This is a need for me that over-complicates life and makes me less willing to entertain since to do so demands so much time.  Am I capable of slapping a pot of chili on the table along with a stack of bowls and some spoons and letting others help themselves?  Can I point at the fridge and ask them to choose their pleasure? Use paper napkins and mismatched glasses? Put a bottle of salad dressing or ketchup on the table rather than putting them into a bowl?  Would doing so detract from the pleasure of guests?  Would it even detract from my own?

I fuss and fuss with everything.  My art pieces are added to and subtracted from for weeks or months before I finally make a decision, choosing from thousands of objects stowed away in compartmentalized drawers.  Perhaps this is why I love traveling and making art with what I find around me.  Given fewer choices, I fuss less.  I long for a simpler life, yet seem unable to break the rules I set for myself long ago.

My newest fantasy is to stage a huge garage sale and to sell off jewelry, clothes, excess art objects stowed under beds and in closets and even, I admit, behind a painting in my seldom-used fireplace. Then I could stow the rest of my personal objects in my studio and take off for a year, living simply from a suitcase with a few clothes and a few tools and art supplies and my computer.

Where would I go and in these new places, would it be easier to break the rules, to stay simple and to concentrate on what is most important?  I’ve actually done this five times in my life, and every time I’ve ended up filling my life up fuller:  more things, more obligations, more expectations of doing it all.  Will I ever accomplish my goal of breaking these rules or will it have to be that final move that accomplishes what I’ve never managed to maintain in life–taking away all my distractions, until there remains only me?  And then, inevitably, taking away even me.

The Prompt: Breaking the Rules–Think about the last time you broke a rule (a big one, not just ripping the tags off your pillows). Were you burned, or did things turn out for the best?