Tag Archives: Verse

Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

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Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

The perfect reply that I hadn’t yet thought of
but figured out later? I have had a lot of;
but the problem is that now they still can’t be gotten,
for though once I had them, I now have forgotten!

It’s true.  Great retorts are jewels in the crown,
but truer that one has to write them all down!
And it’s best that you write them down lickety-splickly,
for though they come slowly, they seem to go quickly!


The Prompt:  We’ve all had exchanges where we came up with the perfect reply—ten minutes too late. Tell us what it was, being sure to sign off with your grand slam unused zinger!

My Promoter

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The Prompt: You, Robot—You’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

                                                                        My Promoter

Since Ray Bradbury wrote of one in “There Will Come Soft Rains,”
the list of things robots can do seems to have made great gains.
Some are made to wash our hair. Others shave our heads.
They build our houses, clean our floors and even make our beds.
I grant that it is handy that there’s one that scoops dog poop,
and one to stop our snoring, another to cook soup.
Lonely? One shoots billiards and perhaps it lets you win;
but do not gamble with it, for I hear it cheats at gin.
It’s great that there’s a robot that lifts patients out of bed,
but since I am still mobile, I have other needs instead.
I want a robot that can read and surf the internet
to send out my submissions and to guarantee I’ll get
an agent and a publisher to dispense all my writing
and send it to reviewers so my words they would be citing!
Send it out to libraries, to Amazon and Kindles.
Keep track of my royalties so there would be no swindles.
In short, I want a robot that will publicize and fight
so all this writer has to do is write and write and write.

As far-fetched as these robots sound, they are all based on reality.  For more information, go to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30898/10-robots-very-specific-tasks

 

If I Followed the Wandering Poet

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If I Followed the Wandering Poet

Who cares
if I swim naked in my pool?
All other human occupants
have left this neighborhood behind,
leaving more room
for possums, skunks,
birds, scorpions, spiders
and me.

I keep a closer company with them
than I do with any human these days.
Weeks ago, it was the orb weaver spider
who filled my mind,
but this week, I talk to the large caterpillar
with one rear antenna on his tail
as he sits for a day on the Olmec head
that guards my swimming pool.
Back and forth, back and forth I pass,
adding a look at him to my lap routine.
For one long afternoon,
he sits still—like Alice’s caterpillar,
but hookah-less,
meditating in this gray place.
If he were on my Virginia Creeper,
I’d be repositioning him
to the empty lot next door, but here
he seems to be a guest; and so some etiquette
keeps me from altering his placement
as he sits on stone, moving his suction cups in sequence
now and then only to alter his direction, not his place.

Recently,
I question if I’ve stayed too long
in this one place.
Is there something else
I may yet do?
So if you are a wandering poet
and you have a place you think I need to go,
please write of it
in the way you do best
and tell me why I have to go there.
And if you create a good argument and a better poem,
I will go to that place in much the same way
that I have come to this point
in my poem.
Blindly.
Open to what comes next.

This is neither a love poem nor a singles ad. It was prompted by a blog site called “The Wandering Poet” that I recently read. I think I commented, and then as I was ready to leave his/her blog, I caught sight of the “Follow” button. The phrase “follow the wandering poet” got stuck in my mind, leading to “If I followed the wandering poet” and this poem. The challenge is real. I will pick up and go to any place that any poet, male or female, makes irresistible by means of a poem. (Be kind. Choose nothing less for me than the best place on earth you know of. I, by the way, will do the same for you if you wish. Judy)

P.S.: Thanks, Wandering Poet. If I forgot to select “follow,” I’ll do it next time.

I will never cease being amazed at the incredible capacities of the human mind, because three days ago, I wrote the above poem for reasons explained above and the next morning I woke up repeating the lyrics “I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men.  I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me.” (an old Sunday School song I haven’t thought of for 50 years). Now this morning I woke up with the song lyrics, ‘I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go” running through my mind, only to go on the WordPress site to discover that the prompt for today was: Opening Lines—What’s the first line of the last song you listened to (on the radio, on your music player, or anywhere else)? Use it as the first sentence of your post.

All three days, “Follow” has seemed to be the prompt running through my mind and so I guess it is time to publish this poem, conceived of even before I’d heard today’s prompt!!!!

Rum Dumb

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Rum Dumb

Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.

The Prompt: Pick Your Potion—What’s your signature beverage — and how did it achieve that status?      http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pick-your-potion/

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

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The Prompt: The Name’s The Thing—Have you ever named an inanimate object? (Your car? Your laptop? The volleyball that kept you company while you were stranded in the ocean?) Share the story of at least one object with which you’re on a first-name basis.

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

Though Apple named my laptop “Mac,”
I don’t name things that don’t talk back!

(Since my prompt is longer than my poem today, hope you’ll go back and also read one of my earlier prompts.  There are 211 others posted prior to this shorty!!)

 

Lear’s Fool or Harlequin?

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The Prompt today is “A Bookish Choice”—A literary-minded witch gives you a choice: with a flick of the wand, you can become either an obscure novelist whose work will be admired and studied by a select few for decades, or a popular paperback author whose books give pleasure to millions. Which do you choose?

Lear’s Fool or Harlequin?

Obscure or popular? That witch
creates a choice that is a bitch.

For, if at fame I had a chance
only if I wrote romance,

I’d prefer to be unknown,
in my corner, all alone,

writing words they’ll find profound
if in fact they’re ever found.

But wait. Have we two choices only?
Trite and read/genius and lonely?

Where is it written I must depend
upon a witch to plan my end?

Since when has either witch or fairy
determined what is literary?

Once I took a little breather,
I decided I’d choose neither!

Rebellious thoughts swirl through my head.
I’ll simply write my blog instead!!!

Wrinkle

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Wrinkle

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

The Prompt: New Wrinkles—You wake up one day and realize you’re ten years older than you were the previous night. Beyond the initial shock, how does this development change your life plans?  Actually, I don’t worry much about wrinkles, but for the sake of rhyme and humor, let’s just pretend!

Compulsion to Rhyme (All the Time)

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Compulsion to Rhyme
(All the Time)

You may guess there are drawbacks to writing as I do,
for lately, I must find a rhyme for everything I view.
This matching up of words that rhyme has come to be compulsion.
A harmless one, but still one sometimes met with some revulsion.
When making jokes or making bread or making whoop-de-do,
I always think of words that rhyme and then I voice a few.
So when a lover bites my neck and with my hair is toying,
and the only word that I can find to rhyme is “cloying;”
it certainly gets in the way of my successful “boying!”

Or when a good friend feeds me and under-cooks the meat,
as I run through my retinue to find a rhyme that’s neat;
and she happens to hear me just as I curse the red,
wishing she had opted for a well-done steak instead,
my sincere protestations do not seem to be accepted.
If only that one choice of rhymes had not been intercepted,
perhaps she would still ask me to her luncheons and her dinners.
Instead, I’ve wound up on her list of culinary sinners!

As much as I like rhyming, sometimes it is a curse,
for what is my best habit may also be my  worse.
If only long ago I’d learned how not to rhyme each word,
the last one in this poem would not need to be “absurd.”

The Prompt: Not Lemonade-When life gives you lemons… make something else. Tell us about a time you used an object or resolved a tricky situation in an unorthodox way.

As a writer, almost any bad situation may be improved by writing about it! It doesn’t always solve the problem, but at least something positive may be gained out of something negative. This poem makes light of this tendency, but the truth is that I almost always feel better after writing about something, no matter how it has turned out in reality.

(This post is dedicated to Laura and Mamta, who prompted it by commenting on my proclivity to rhyme. And because I cannot waste even a mediocre product, to Duckie!)

 

 

 

“Flutter” : The Surrogate

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Surrogate w pic 6

The Prompt: Sounds Right—This is clearly subjective, but some words really sound like the thing they describe (personal favorites: puffin; bulbous; fidgeting). Do you have an example of such a word (or, alternatively, of a word that sounds like the exact opposite of what it refers to)? What do you think creates this effect?

I’ve always loved the word “’Flutter” as it applies to a butterfly or moth.  What better word could be used to describe the motion of their wings?  The moth described in my poem, however, was noticeable because of its lack of flutter.  It landed upon my computer screen like a magnetized object to metal and remained there for over two hours.  The moth pictured in the poem is the actual moth.  Tiny and green, it became part of my writing experience. Since it had chosen to remain in one position, directly on my screen, I was forced (by choice) to write around it, which could not help but influence the poem that resulted.

 

 

Pining for the Prompt

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Pining for the Prompt

Checking e-mails, cooking curry.
Where’s the prompt? Please hurry, hurry!
Not a mother, not a wife,
But still, WordPress, I have a life!

I need to go to buy some rice,
and a shower would be nice.
I’d like to take a swim and then
comb OkCupid for some men.

Instead, I sit like some blog glutton,
staring at my “renew” button.
Is every minute too excessive?
Every hour too regressive?

I understand this sleeping in
on Sunday’s really not a sin.
For, however, those who wait,
it feels like you’ve stood up your date!

That we adore you goes unsaid,
(We know you probably aren’t paid.)
But if all Sunday you plan to snore,
could you please prompt the night before?

(Note:  The prompt was finally posted at 11:43 PM.  Now the question is, is this today’s late prompt or tomorrow’s early one?  Always a new thrill in the world of blogging!!!  Since I’ve already written four poems today, guess I will think of this prompt for tomorrow, or not at all.  Anyway, I think with a prompt this late it was fair to choose my own, don’t you? Happy blogging.)