April 30, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write a dead end poem.

I heard on the radio that railroad crossing bars

are stuck in the down position in SODO

where there’s a baseball game tonight and

Big Bertha is drilling a tunnel under Seattle,

moving the earth and shaking the land

causing the viaduct to be closed,

the whole purpose to make commuting easier

but right now everywhere you turn it’s a dead end.

Drivers give each other the one finger salute

and the sun shines on those who have no idea

where they put their sunglasses seven months ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading....

April 29, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write a haphazard poem.

a children’s’ story

down the rabbit hole

teacups rattle and teapots talk

heads are rolling and

minor disputes have turned into wars with

marching, shouting, slaughtering soldiers.

little girls, offered wine, eat

mushrooms and tablets

of questionable origin.

cats…

cats, mind you, excuse behavior with

“we’re all mad here”

AND it’s well known the best people usually are.

rabbits run, they truly RUN.

impossible things happen to the

curiouser and curiouser.

lazy, lascivious larvae smoke unknown substances.

and Disney has no problem with any of this

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thanks for reading

April 28, 2016 - For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank)"

IMPORTANT LOAN

When I speak of My House

My Street

My Neighbors

My Children

My Cat, My Dog, or the Birds in My Yard

I am commenting as a thief.

Innocently so, and yet….

These things are, none of them,

Mine.

For a short time I might embrace them, admire them, chase them, hug them,

Clean them, shun them, break them, mend them.

All these things are simply on loan

For my use, while I’m here;

And when I leave

I am expected to leave them in good condition,

Unharmed, repaired, cleaned up, left in their proper place.

The Mother allows us to borrow, make use of her things and

Treat her with respect and love.

She gives; we are to give back.

We have learned to kill and maim and sunder and sully.

We have tarnished, defiled, raped and stolen.

We are beggars, not choosers.

She will charge us with interest we cannot remit.

We are the stealing borrowers; borrowing thieves.

************

Thanks for reading.......

April 27, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write a take off poem.

Montana

 

My daddy raised some hell in

Montana

until he was a wise guy at the age of

fourteen

and decided to take off

for parts unknown

and rode rails,

picked watermelon for pennies

and played his harmonica for company.

It was 1919.

People were lonely everywhere.

Daddy was deathly afraid of snakes and

all things that moved across

the face of the earth

without feet.

This would include

fire,

which scared him more than

rattlers.

He came back to Montana as a young man

And chased smoke for a living;

a dangerous pastime

that brought him to familiarity of deep fear

and profound courage.

Mother Nature, out of control.

My daddy was a humble man in many ways

but he could stand up to a fight

with little compunction

and was always on the side of

the underdog,

the Cinderella team,

the downtrodden.

Montana,

a place named for mountains ,

known for a vast sky;

where my daddy’s heart yearned

and his mind imagined.

My daddy was a Capricorn,

an earth sign,

as am I, a Virgo and

my mother, a Taurus.

These are feet that sense

the dense physical world.

Like Montana.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading.....

April 26, 2016 - Write a love poem.............

REAL LOVE

I want to share this with you.

This time from far away and long ago.

How brilliant to remember

To remember the little things

The feel of my shoulder leaning into yours

The song we heard that morning at breakfast after we made the bed

Peering at each other over the continent of sheets and pillows. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you, my friends, for reading......

April 25, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write an exercise poem. The poem could be about a specific exercise, or it could just incorporate exercising into the poem

It was an accident he said

Clearly unintended

It started out as just a game

But that’s not how it ended.

A summer morning, on a day,

That should have been for fun

Was turned completely upside down

When Billy found a gun.

The closet was a perfect hiding place

Nate didn’t make a sound

Breathing barely, standing still

He doubted he’d be found.

It turned out to be Nancy’s fault

Coming in from walking

She thought it odd with kids at home

There was no noise or talking.

She crept in on catlike feet

And snuck around a corner.

There was no one in this game

Assigned to yell or warn her.

There are two views presented here

That cause dividing fights;

One is the man who claims

He’s just exercising his rights;

The other side has a loss

Of no comparing sorrow,

To have a son or daughter

Who won’t wake up tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading.

April 24, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write a poem in which something is lost and then regained.

YOU WERE NEVER MINE

I opened the door without knocking;

There you were

sewing buttons on your own shirt.

You sat on the bed with a small woven basket full of colorful spools

and worked the needle back and forth through the tiny holes like a Mighty Tailor.

You barely looked up.

I keenly stared at your shoulders, chest, belly with a small line of hair growing up your middle; you, as brown as a coconut, a scar running from your clavicle downwards aiming at your heart… like an arrow, pointing out to me the vital part of your anatomy.

The shirt was yellow, laid across your knees, and the buttons were bone, ancient, stolen from other garments over the decades.

I’ll never forget the contrast of yellow cotton on brown flesh; your indifference to my presence and my awareness of yours; the throbbing in my veins.

If I told you I loved you, I would lose you completely. I needed to keep you, just as you were. How could I have known that then?

~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading...... 

April 23, 2016 Write a poem that mentions shoes

Lost Shoes

 

One night we drove up river for pozole.

Pedro had been drinking all day

But we let him come if he’d not make a fool of himself.

He’d lost his shoes, they were expensive flip-flops and

He kept bringing it up and the girl; I can no longer remember her name,

Told him to “shut up about the damn shoes…” she must have said that twenty-five times.

The cicadas were like sirens; they were so loud you had to pause sometimes to let them settle down a little so you could talk.

We got to the pozole place and they were just about to close but they said to come in anyway.

Rain started to fall in big diamond drops and pretty soon it was coming down in sheets. Sheets of rain; I’d heard of that before.

We ate the pozole and went outside where it was so dark, the only light from the little jungle café, and you couldn’t see one foot go down in front of the other. I held my hands out to catch my balance.  

Puddles turned into streams around our ankles and Pedro laughed at us when we said we were afraid our shoes would float away in the black nothing. 

##############

Thank you for reading.....

April 22, 2016 For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Star (blank)"

STAR ALIGNMENT

 

Sluggish odor of sulfur floats over the street

Engines rev and horns honk…those arriving on the

Scene

Daily lives interrupted by

Unseen circumstances

Ángel’s legs are turned in too many directions

Splayed

Later they will be laid

In white satin

Keens and guttural womanish sounds, not unlike those heard at

Birth

Recorded pipe organ and

A number spoken out-loud

Fifteen

Quincé

Shíwū

This Taurus child has flown

Way too early for a boy to go home

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Thank you for reading.......

April 21, 2016 Poem In a Pocket Day ----For today’s prompt, write a poem that responds (or somehow communicates) with another poem.

Tonight I Can Not Write
(Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda)

Tonight I cannot write what I need to say to you. The words won’t come.

I cannot tell you how the sound of the wind clattering in the palms shivers my heart. I cannot recall being with you in the sand, under the moon, by the sea.

Tonight and tomorrow I cannot write nor can I sing the love songs we sang together secretly – so only we could hear.

Tonight I cannot write how your hands wrapped around my soul and your fingers tapped the code of my heart. It is dark now. My heart is dark.

I do not miss you, nor do I yearn for you. I never think of you. My mind is clear. Open.

Tonight I cannot write and plead with you in my quiet way to forget me. Forget me. As I have forgotten you.

The music drifts down my street and the notes are the same that never rouse my memory of things that no longer matter.

Tonight I cannot write that your face to me is a clear and empty sphere. I do not see you. Nor do I dream of you.

I have forgotten you. Your eyes. Your voice, your touch. I no longer remember you.

April 20, 2016 - For today’s prompt, write a poem of what goes unsaid.

  I Would Have You Again 

I walked away.

You think I never looked back?

I did.

I watched the Caller ID

every

time

you

called.

I almost picked up many times.

There were so many things I wanted to ask…

But I knew the chances of getting truth out of your mouth was as

likely as

unpaid debts to the collection agencies of our youth

getting paid.

We burned each other

and left scars that make modern day tattoos look like

a redheaded boy’s freckles.

Your jagged smile wakes me at night from solid sleep…

I would have you

I would definitely have you

Again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading...............

April 19, 2016 - Write a cool poem

Today's prompt was a challenge; all I could think of was Cool Hand Luke.

Paul Newman followed me around all morning and erasing the image of the movie's crucifixion pose was impossible.

Luke Jackson was a tough guy and we never are let on to why he turned into a petty criminal, went to jail and in the end, was senselessly killed. 

We all start out good. Some of us end up well. 

vicarious living through heroes,

real,

imagined,

animated

cartoons,

good guys,

bad guys.  

tough guys;

tattoos,

skulls,

dragons,

snakes,

scorpions.

“Stop feeding off me,” Luke said.

meth is not cool

junk is not cool

no means no

means no

means NO

people kill people

guns are not chill

use your head

feed your head

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for reading....

April 18, 2016 --- Write a poem about an office

Today's prompt was a tough one for me and I ended up doing an Acrostic poem, which is a bit lame. I apologize. 

On Monday, employees drag their

Feet and can’t wait til Tuesday just so it won’t be Monday

Forever; or so it seems. Wednesday

Is hump day and the week is
Cut in half, and Thursday gets a pass into Friday when
Everybody gets to rest for two days and do it all over again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading........... 

April 17, 2016 Today is International Haiku Poetry Day!

children at the beach

delicious summer weather

on the horizon

April 16, 2016 "For today’s prompt, write a poem about (or at) a food establishment."

The Taco Stand by Farmacia Guadalajara

 

open late afternoon

with guarantee of

customers,

taco stand

next to brightly lit

pharmacy comes to life

with scented smoke and

the sounds of knives

chop

chop

chop

onions cilantro radishes more onions.

one gringo patiently stands

in line, listens intently to orders given

in a foreign tongue, trying to make

sure he gets what others are having.

juicy meat and trimmings on the

half shell

so to speak .

lean over slightly to

grab a bite

red sauce

green sauce

and some sweet white

horchata

to wash it down.

por favor.

***********

Gracias por leer......

April 15, 2016 - Today's prompt is to write a poem using at least 4 of these 8 words: flat, ring, lavish, vessel, paper, blacklist, gaudy, tooth

Syrians 

On the blacklist of life

Fight tooth and nail to climb into a flat vessel

Not one life ring. No paper, just the shirt on his back

The baby in her arms, the mark on the soul

Wishing not for lavish, gaudy lifestyles

Just life

Blacklisted from living

~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading

April 14, 2016 The prompt is to Write a Time-Out Poem

 

(Every Tuesday and Thursday, I go to a yoga class at the Y for one hour. This is my time. No phone. No contact. I am alone in a sea of people who are also alone; we are doing ourselves. We are doing nothing else.)

My Yoga

Strength

Balance

Breathing

Energy

I am  

T

R

E

E

.

.

.

Rooted and reaching, my leaves growing to East, to West

I shift from being a Child to a Warrior in the course of one hour

Soft to inflexible

Cradled to keen

Strength

Balance

Breathing

Energy

Learning how to breathe again,

In

Out

In

Out

Resting, as I have not rested in the past

Resting now, as I cannot rest in any place other than here

Free

Strength

Balance

Breathing

Energy

I cross my hands over my heart and thank her for beating

I thank her for being strong and giving me a day

After day

After day

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading

April 13, 2016 - Last_______ - Fill in the Blank

Last Trip

It was the last ski trip of the year

Less like snow and more like ice 

but longer daylight

We took sips from the suede wine bladder your stepfather brought from Spain

Our spindly legs dangling from the lift chair, leaning from side to side

Singing oh way oh oh way oh

You kissed me with rotten berry lips, the wine was awful, I felt your hot tongue inside my mouth and bile rising from high in my throat, I would've died for you to know

I saw you again in the summer. I was off to school and you were working for your father and accruing solo hours in your brother’s Piper Cub. You said we should meet some night and hang out. I knew what you really wanted

You'd been dead for nearly a year before I knew about your plane going down, caught in wires from flying too low, doing tricks and showing off.  I remembered everything about you. I smelled English Leather. I heard your rough laugh. I felt your hand on my belt buckle. I missed you. I missed any chance with you

Thanks for reading......