Tag Archives: Word of the Day

Enforced Reflection

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

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

 

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

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

 


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.

Besotten

Love charms1Retablo: Love Charms by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Besotten

I’m inundated with your charms and blinded by your light.
If you wished to bewitch me, I’d give in without a fight.
I’d gladly be your handmaiden if you were just to ask,
and I’d say yes to overtime if you were my task.

Prompts today are overtime, inundated, yes, bewitch and light.

Swarm

Swarm
It’s the dance of the bees with drone after drone

leaving the hive and the queen on her throne.
Carlos the Bee guy seems most disconcerted,
and I wish that we had been sooner alerted.

The air’s raining bees. They are buzzing and winging
into my gazebo and soon might be stinging.
We leap from the hammock, Morrie and me.
He’s licking his nose and I’m slapping my knee.

We run for the house with one bee giving chase.
Its wings scrape my ear and my arm and my face.
We get to the house before it gets mean,
but again and again, it butts into the screen.

Honey is sweet and well worth its labors,
but creatures that make it do not make good neighbors.

When I tried to hire someone to clear off the empty lot I own next to my house, they ran into a problem—two hives of aggressive bees that made clearing the land impossible. Carlos the dreadlocked bee keeper is coming today to remove the combs of one hive that is reachable and to trap the bees to move to his own apiary, but when he came to check out the situation yesterday, the event described in the above poem occurred. He’s back today, and Morrie and I are going to stay inside!!!

Prompts today are dance, drone, raining and disconcert

This photo and all photos without attribution on this blog have been taken by me.

Street Smarts: Flo Educates the Ivy League

Street Smarts: Flo Educates the Ivy League

Slip me a quarter, flip me a dime,
and you’ll still have your meal in the usual time.
When the diner is full due to inclement weather,
and your rowdy squad descends all together,
understand that you’ll just have to wait your fair turn
or the fries will be soggy and the hamburgers burn.

I  have a hunch you’re an ivy league boy—
a chip off the old block, your mom’s pride and joy,
but when you come slumming to this side of town,
it’s best that you play your fancy side down.
We don’t cotton to folks who think they’re our betters
or cater to jocks with their varsity letters.

Some day you’ll no doubt be someone of renown
with your designer suits or your medical gown,
but for now you’re a kid sitting there on a stool—
a self-declared prince with no country to rule.
So shut your damn mouth. Move to that empty table,
and you’ll have your burgers as soon as I’m able.

 

Prompts today are quarter, understand, squad, hunch and street.

Empty Datebook

IMG_7739

Empty Datebook

Another lonely Saturday. The singles are all vexed—
a world of restless wallflowers, feeling they’re surely hexed.
If I may be candid, Corona’s not at fault.
You’re not some precious treasure, sealed up in a vault.
If we did our homework, we’d know the truth of it.
You didn’t have that many  dates  before the virus hit!

 

Prompts today are Saturday, Candid, Lonely, Vex and Homework.

Kissing Lessons

Kissing Lessons

How you structure your kisses is boringly normal.
Your lips are too tight and your stance is too formal.
Your lips are all dry and your beard like a cactus.
If you’d like to get anywhere, you’d better practice.

In girl’s locker room buzz, I’ve heard it expressed
you’re least likely to see any female undressed.
You’ve been tagged a poor lover—unexpressive and rigid.
If you were a woman, they’d label you frigid.

The shower wall validates you’re a cold fish,
but perhaps I could help you with this if you wish.
A night on the town with a few margaritas,
watching the tango moves of senoritas.

Then a few shooters and you will be ready
to learn how to render your “kissee” unsteady.
Untense your lip muscles. Relax each shoulder.
As you relax more, your kiss will grow bolder.

Look into her eyes when you are not kissing.
Give her time to regret what she has been missing.
If your kiss seems successful, go up one more rung
and carefully dare to try out some tongue.

No slurping and sucking. She isn’t a sucker.
Try to instill some class in your pucker.
Be soft and be hard, alternating the two,
and  you won’t need me to tell you how to woo!

Prompts for today are normal, express, tagged, validate and structure.