Addled scene.
Lingering sunset residual,
palest pink hazy clouds.
Grey rain clouds hover nearby.
Belligerent earlier,
dryly brooding now.
Wearing nature’s night cap,
fog topped buildings
tower over drizzled damp pavement.
Scattered bright office windows
tell-tale signs.
Duped or dedicated workers toil.
Green light,
twenty-four hour traffic cop.
Evidence the city never sleeps.
Photo taken from our Uber ride home last night after seeing the fabulous play, Eureka Day. Boston’s changing scene.
city deck
concrete perch
serenity, relaxation, calm space
urban busyness below
Summer’s peach, sensory delight.
Fingers leave light impressions
on delectably ripe fruit
blushing to the touch.
Peach skin’s palette presents palest reds
blurring into sunset shades of lightest orange,
blending into golden yellow.
All these shades, a gentle swirl of color
so appealing to the eye.
One bite and juice dribbles down the chin.
Moisture stains fruit’s soft velvety surface
where our mouth has been.
Colors remain the same
on dry intact outside of fruit.
Inside colors brighter than outside.
Pinkish bronzed red merges into
lemon and orange sherbet shades,
temptation for another taste.
Summer’s peach,
visual and sustenance delight.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting, asking folks to write a “colorful” poem. No required length, form or rhyme scheme. Only requirement is that it must include colors! Images from Pixabay.com
how did we get to this place
where journalists are called piggy and stupid
and the one before is called sleepy joe while the one now
who was also before the one before
nods off in televised meetings but wakes up
demanding cabinet members sling odes of praise
while hiding their genuflecting knees below the conference table
refusing to speak against indulgences given to insurrectionists
as others under his spell fund masked men
not Zorro types
accosting individuals who by the way are not eating your pets
rather paying taxes to raise their children who are US citizens
being good neighbors attending church
working jobs that need bodies who show up and care
we need Martin and Jesse
John Lewis and Barbara Jordon
to be here again
we need their spirited tenacity to rile up cowardly sycophants
to grow backbones and finally say enough is enough
meanwhile he’s playing feral tom cat lifting his leg all over DC
leaving his mark so future felines and species of any kind
will know he was here in his gilded age of narcissism
adding his name atop JFKs and on towers and arch de trumps
even as he paints the Reflecting Pond blue
in the image of Mar-a-Lago’s swimming pool
which as he explained with posters as visual aids
is taller than any of the tallest buildings in the world
never mind it’s a pool of water lying prone on the ground
not a building actually standing tall reaching to the sky
he’s become an AI Master in the wee hours
evidenced by his creations
something no other president has or ever will be
see Donald the pilot dropping shit bombs everywhere
while JD warns Leo to be careful talking about theology
his boss created himself in the image of Christ
and it goes on and on and on like a run-on sentence
with no stops no resets no commas
just implicitly felt exclamation marks slung everywhere
until we the people add our own exclamation mark
and say NO in November
let the reckoning come
Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa asks us to write a poem with no punctuation.
Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay
She’d wandered away again.
Rain pelted sidewise,
passersby doggedly plodded forward.
Uncooperative umbrellas flipped inside out.
She was invisible to them.
Sopping hair plastered her head,
clothes adhered to her skin
like shrink wrap over packaged chicken.
Three miles away,
her caregivers were frantic.
De is hosting Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We’re to write a poem of exactly 44 words (sans title) and include the word “dog” within the body of the poem. We may use a form of the word or a word that includes the word “dog” within it….hence “doggedly” in my poem. AI image generated on Bing Create.
Some days I feel as though I’m listing,
weighed down by too much news.
Hantavirus, gas prices,
John Roberts resurrecting Jim Crow,
taxpayer money gilding an extravagant,
exaggerated, excessive, exorbitant,
extraneous, bawdy ballroom
for Mr. You Know Who.
Perhaps a blooming list might brighten my day.
My favorite blooms then, in no particular order:
hyacinth, cherry blossoms, tulips, daffodils,
crocus, lilacs and *panties of the week.
Listing toward eighty now,
purple veined hands, crepey knees,
fading eyebrows, expanding girth.
All changes I can live with.
I can still dance the waltz,
twist lasciviously, bunny hop ridiculously
and show off my *bloomers
doing high Rockette kicks.
So the point is, listing at my age
is more than a poetic feat.
It should tell you I am alive and well,
not planning any time soon
to take a docile back seat!
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Bjorn from Sweden is hosting.
WORDS OF EXPLANATION:
1. The astericks on panties and bloomers. Back in the day, panties were called bloomers!
2. Panties of the Week were a very popular fad in the 1950s. You bought a 7-pack of girls underpants and each one had a day of the week embroidered on them!
3. The Prompt: Bjorn asks us to write a “list poem”. He says, “The use of lists in poetry can be very powerful. You can start with a list and expand around it. Maybe even your shopping list can be made into poetry by reflecting on what the list tells you about the season. The whole poem may be a list, but you may also use a section only as a list.”
So basically we’re to write a poem that involves listing. I had fun with this one!
Image is AI created on Bing Create.
Our first home in Illinois had no front yard.
Stepped off the front porch at your own peril,
into the dug-out pit for a new college gym.
Construction equipment clanged and buzzed
constantly digging, laying pipes and beams.
Inside, we served visitors spaghetti suppers
on our auction bought wiggly table top
screwed into four tall two-by-fours.
Rotary telephone hung on peeling plastered wall,
rarely used for expensive long distance calls.
We watched Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show
on our nine-inch black and white television.
As the old song goes,
“Those were the days my friends.”
Fifty-six years later, it’s high-rise condo life.
Outside our windows, Boston’s city scape
includes trees, few green areas,
buildings in every direction.
When guests or family arrive,
we serve delicious meals with wine
at our lovely oak claw-foot dining table.
Large screen television streams movies,
24/7 news, sitcoms of every genre.
Our handheld “telephone” is a clock,
calendar, address book and weather man.
It streams music on Spotify.
Reaches friends nearby and across the globe
with audio and video calls.
Gratefully happy then.
Thankfully happy now.
So is the old adage true?
Things are not better,
they’re not worse,
they’re just different.
What say you?
NAPOWRIMO Day 29. Prompt: In your poem today, compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.
AI image created on Bing Create.
Lessons from ancient cultures,
wisdom in Native Americans’ ways.
Guiding principles to live in harmony
passed down from generation to generation.
Debwewin is Truth.
Represented by the turtle.
The tortoise carries lessons of life on its back.
Years piled upon years.
It walks slowly,
sometimes laboriously,
feet firmly planted in earth’s reality.
Its purpose was, still is, forward movement.
Honest plodding, slogging, traipsing at times.
Memories, achievements, failures, goals.
All stored and carried through life’s journey.
No regrets. This is me. In this place. Now.
Everything past, a part of my weight,
my girth, my being, my soul.
I’ve chosen to write about Debwewin, Truth, represented by the turtle. “The turtle carries the teachings of life on his back. Slow and meticulous. Understand the importance of the journey. Be true to yourself. Speak your truth.“
Dandelion me.
Youthful glee in splashy yellow dresses.
All sunshine and skipping through fields!
But old age they say can be grizzly.
Those cubs, born hairless and toothless.
Grizzly cubs but not grizzly at first.
No pacifiers. Mother’s nuzzling enough.
Then playful to rambling to belly fat acquired
and hibernation needed. I always liked naps.
Or acorn me. Digging into soil, finding my own way.
Gangly seedling teenage years with
autumnal outbreaks. Cacophony of colorful
fashion fad flairs. To sentinel oak standing
with quiet grace. Am I there yet?
I still feel dandy and fierce. Dandy lioness am I.
Elderly dandelions’ delicate translucent skin
fades slowly until a passing by small child delights
in one puff from chubby cheeks. Giggles as seeds
soar on spring’s born-again breezes.
Dandelionalicious me with walks, hand in hand.
Stops along the way to collect bouquets of flowers
and skip rocks across the pond. With many smiles.
All the while acknowledging life’s delights.
NAPOWRIMO Day 25. Prompt: Write your own poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line(s) to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.
DEDICATED to my dear friend, Lindsey. Wishing her well.
Metaphors used: comparing my life (anyone’s life) to a dandelion, a grizzly bear, and an acorn growing into an oak tree. Within the grizzly bear section, I ruminate on the meaning of old age. Had fun with this one once I decided how to approach it!
Photo taken many many years ago. And yes, it’s a dandelion in its old age!
In his dodder of thyme,
the current head DC gardener
continues to uproot and rip out
Justicia, Honesty, and roses of all kind.
As if they were the weeds.
In their place he sows and propagates
Crown Imperial, Wormswood, Snakesfoot,
King-cups and Creeping Cereus.
This prickly pear of a man
is in no way a humble plant.
More like a mouse-eared-chickweed
forever noshing on Fool’s Parsley,
basking under the shade
of his pruned Judas Trees.
Outside his sphere, weeping willows
flail in dire need of gentle balm.
They must find a new sage, soon.
Both Burpee and the
Farmer’s Almanac warn
the upcoming planting season
will be a crucial one.
NAPOWRIMO Day 19. Today’s prompt: Using Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, write a poem in which you muse on your selections of flowers names and meanings from her extensive list.
*** All of the flowers and plants I’ve used from her book, are italicized in the poem. I’ve kept the capitalization only on those that are actually used in the poem as the plant/flower itself. Reference is paid to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Burpee Seed Catalogue.
IMAGE of the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House, courtesy of the National Park Service website.
lillian the home poet 