SALLY, THE VIRAGO

Tuesday Poetics.  We're asked to write a poem in our mind without committing it to paper, at least the beginning.  I have an affinity for story poems, and often they enter my mind in the wee small hours of insomnia, and this is such a one.  The remaining stanzas complete the story in the same rhythm of rhyme as the poem began.   Submitted to dVerse August 31, 2021

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  SALLY, THE VIRAGO

Sally was a virago

Known in all the town

If Sally wanted something

No one turned her down

She set her eyes on LeRoy

A handsome lad was he

But he wanted nothing of her

And so he chose to flee

While escaping Sally

He traveled far and wide

But soon he found he wearied

Of feeling he had to hide

So he went back to the village

And looked Sally in the eye

Give it up, he told her

Go find some other guy

Sally was astounded

No one ever turned her down

In fact  she was so shaken

She  packed her bags and left town 

LeRoy became a hero

Held in high renown

Man enough, the people said

To get Sally out of town. 

LESSONS LEARNED

 Haibun Monday.  Frank challenges us to recall school days, and I've chosen to extend that to lessons learned when I was a little older!   Submitted to dVerse, August 30, 2021

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LESSONS LEARNED

Once upon a time when I was a newly widowed princess, I fell in lust.  He was a finely turned, smooth-tongued frog.  Not listening to my inner voice, I was convinced my love would turn him into a prince/  (He was already handsome).  Time passed, and so did lust…and by the time I recognized the frog for what he was I was knocked off my lily pad and barely able to slosh out of the swamp.  

In the midst of lust, I’d purchased a pair of brass swans…the male leading, neck proudly extended and bill pointed skyward; the female followed demurely, eyes cast shyly downward.  In all the years after our relationship ended, she leads, cautiously watching for pitfalls and frogs, and he follows with his head in the clouds as usual.  On my garden wall, there sits a verdigris frog gazing skyward.  I call him “Frog,  formerly known as Prince”.

Be careful, princess

Listen to your inner voice

Avoid handsome frogs

NEWS

Writers' Pantry #85.   It's a steamy Sunday morning in my world, and I've made the mistake of watching the morning news!   Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, Augus 29, 2021.

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NEWS

Awake, dressed and hair combed,

I’d just put on my shoes

When I was plunged into deep despair…

I’d watched the morning news

Fires on the west coast, floods on the east

Pandemic everywhere

The Mexicans want in, the Afghans want out

And the Taliban are on a tear

Royal sibblings are quibbling, another politician is diddling

And the vaccinated are against the un-

The maskers are against the anti-maskers

And anti-NRA’s don’t want Annie to get her gun

A hurricane is coming

Sure to be a big blow

It’s headed for New Orleans

Yet another disaster tableau

It’s plain to see to even me

It’s as bad as it can get ….

Alas, I am quite ill prepared …

 I haven’t had my coffee yet!

 

BREVITY

Sunday Muse #175.  I considered eloquent and romantic, but risque won out, I'm afraid.

BREVITY

Ah, my love, we’ve waited long for this moment,

Our abstinence was a challenge for sure

We saved ourselves with such anticipation

There’s much to be said for the pure

I cast my eyes down chastely and shyly

But all I can think is “gee whiz”

All these long months I’ve waited

Is this really all there is?   

SOLILOQUY

MEETING THE bAR, and Victoria is our host.  She's chosen my favorite word, and thank heaven  has left the form to us.  Naturally, I revert to my standard rhyming verse (sigh).  I guess I'm too old to change!  Submitted to dVerse August 26, 2021 

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Bev, old girl, you’ve reached eighty seven  

Most of your cohorts are already in heaven,

playing cards or dancing to a favorite song

wondering what on earth has taken you so long

Your old body pains and falters, that’s true

Be grateful you still have your wits about you

Remember your mantra and start each day

counting blessings.  Days are better that way.

THE LAST TIME

WEEKLY SCRIBBLINGS, and we’re asked to consider the phrase “the last time”.   Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, August 24, 2021

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                         THE LAST TIME

The pages of life’s calendar turn inexorably onward

and I find the phrase “the last time” plays often in 

my mind.   A dear one passes into the Great Perhaps

and my thoughts turn to our last words to each other.

It is easy to suffer some minor offense, stuff it in our

backpack and carry it with us.  How much lighter our

backpack if we take the time to make peace, and know

each night, if it’s our last, we’ve left no words unsaid.

Life unfolds by startling circumstance that sometimes plunders 

opportunities to make our “last times” what we  might wish 

them to be, and we find ourselves left full of words.  If  we 

approach each instance as “the last time“, how different

our demeanor, whether it’s a kind word or simply taking

the time to notice a sunrise, a sunset, a shower, or a birdsong.

 

THE PLAY

 Poets Pub, and Lillian has tossed the gauntlet of puzzles, or, if we’re brave, acrostic and acrostic plus for our poetic form.   I stumbled over the gauntlet but soldiered onward  to an acrostic, and, heaven help me, the acrostics rhyme.…  Submitted to dVerse August 24, 2021

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    THE PLAY

Words well chosen

Have been used to

Enumerate and

Name the

Cast and

Ensemble

Still,

Each cast member

Naked though they be

Seems slightly

Erroneous

RAINY DAYS

It's Writers' Pantry #84.  Magaly mentioned rainy days and reading up a  storm....a marriage made in heaven!   The rainy days of my childhood were always special, and I've never lost my love for a rainy day.  Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, August 22, 2021. 

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                                                            RAINY DAYS

 The song says “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down”, but not me!  As early as I can remember, I’ve loved rain.  In our part of the Illinois prairie, you could see the spring rain clouds building from miles away over the vast flatness, their skirts billowed out like great clucking mother hens.  By the time they reached the far edge of the corn field beside the house, you could see the leading edge of the curtain of rain.  The distant patter on the corn leaves crescendoed to a wonderful rat-a-tat as the first big splats set off spurts of dust in the barnyard.  Ah, the wonderful earthy, fresh, sweet smell of rain!   Growing up, I remember sitting on the porch so I could savor every minute of a daytime shower.  If the rain came at night when I was in my bed snugged up against a window under the eaves, I’d move my pillow and lie with my nose against the screen, watching the breeze toss the limbs of the old elm tree in the front yard where my rope swung hung.  I never wanted to miss a minute.

Rainy days now are still  special.  I most always want to bake cookies….fat, fragrant chocolate chip cookies.  Then, I want to take up a good book and settle into a cozy  corner with every window open so I don’t miss a thing.   My mother used to say of rain “God’s doing his laundry” and her words always come to mind.  

ANONYMOUS

 The Sunday Muse #174

I always wanted a special name

Like, for instance

Fibonacci’s sequence

Einstein’s theory

Newton’s law of gravity

Occam’s razor

    or  Murphy’s law

But, alas,  I never was a cool cat

I’ve drifted from bar to bar,

seeking fame in a bottle.

one foot in a fairy tale

the other in an abyss

I think my mother knew 

I wouldn’t be a famous puss

When she decided on my name

And called me ANONYMOUS

A FOWL TALE

Writers' Pantry #83  

How we perceive ourselves often determines the impression we make on others,  My fowl story (which I swear is based on truth) illustrates the importance of self image.   Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United on August  15, 2021

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A FOWL TALE

This is a story of a duck named Dog who thought he was a chicken.  You might say it's a fowl story.   Long ago and far away, my niece and her husband gave their little girl a duck for Easter.  For reasons now obscure, my nephew named him Dog  (To elaborate on his quirky sense of humor, I might add my nephew named their parakeet Frog.)  Needless to say Dog, the duck,  was not a welcome tenant in their apartment, so he was soon relegated to my parents' farm, where he was installed in the henhouse with mother's chickens.   Having never seen another duck, Dog quite naturally grew up believing he was a chicken.  Each night, when the hens retired to the roost, he lumbered up to roost with them.  They tolerated his strangeness: but, when he grew to adult duckhood, he began to have male urges, which they rebuffed with a great cackling and flutter of wings.  Dog, the duck,  became quite dejected

Mother had a friend who had several female ducks who were in need of male company, so mother and her friend felt a fine solution would be to move Dog to the friend's farm. When Dog arrived, the lady ducks were quite excited; but Dog was initially terrified and quite confused by these strange quacking females who had love on their minds.  His world, you might say, was fowled up.   Eventually, as is often the case, the females were successful and Dog began to realize he was quite a handsome and in-demand drake and followed his natural urges.  Joy reigned supreme in duckdom, and Spring brought lots of waddling little quackers.  Mother and her friend were quite proud of themselves for having solved this dilemma and the lady ducks were enjoying motherhood.  And Dog, the duck?  He had learned a valuable lesson about self-image.   

MUSIC

The Sunday Muse #173  My apologies to Guido Vedovato for altering his art a bit. 

"Music is what feelings sound like"    ~Anonymous 

NO LONGER IMPRISONED

MY FEELINGS SET FREE

IN ABSENCE OF WORDS

MY MUSIC SPEAKS FOR ME

A WOMAN'S PLACE

 Poetics Tuesday, and we're asked to "conjure an imaginary house of any size" and "fill it with imaginary people/person".  I've chosen a 1950's little Cape Cod house and a typical housewife of the time (and admit I know whereof I write!)  Submitted to dVerse, August 10, 2021

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Summer lay on the land

in a suffocating blanket of humidity.

Leaves clung listlessly to their branches,

scarcely moving in the dense air.  

The sun shone relentlessly

on lawns so thirsty they crunched underfoot.

Even the birds seemed unable to summon 

the energy to sing.  All was quiet

on Maple Street, except for the hum 

ot the laboring window air conditioners.

In the tidy Cape Cod at 1423 Maple

the housewife tied on a fresh apron

and looked out her kitchen window.

Her husband would be home from work

any time now.  She poured sweet tea

over the tall glass of ice he expected when 

he arrived home from work.   For a moment, 

she thought of the time before marriage

when she was working, and the excitement

of feeling useful and alive.  As she

reminisced, she saw his car pulling into

the driveway.  Sighing, she went to the door

to greet him with a smile.  It was, after all,

1952, and a woman’s place was in the home.  

MAN IN GOOD STANDING

 Monday Quadrille, and the word for our exact 44 word poem is "stand".  For some reason, my father came to mind, and his good advice to all the boys in our family.  Submitted to dVerse, August 9, 2021

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A MAN IN GOOD STANDING

It’s a good stand of corn,

my father used to say when

crops were thriving

Stand up, give a seat to your elders

Mind your manners

Watch your tongue

Be true to your word

And one day you’ll be a man

in good standing

IRONY

Writers Pantry #82  Sometimes you just contemplate life and wonder at the irony of it all.  This was one of those times...a quirky mood, a quirky poem.   Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, August 8, 2021

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                                                                    IRONY

On the dark backstreets of the inner city,  where home is a cardboard box and hope is a forgotten memory, stories are traded by the citizens of the night,  fueled by alcohol and drugs with a mantra of betrayal and rejection, if onlys and I wish I hads. 

 A block away the privileged have the valet park their Cadillac and the concierge take their luggage to their room in the luxury hotel.  Time to celebrate.

Somewhere in the burbs,  a guy pops a Blatz and settles in his worn recliner to watch the Saturday night ball game.  

Life in the city.............

IF ONLY

Sunday Muse #172   Submitted August 7, 2021

IF ONLY

I once kept the grudges and perceived 

mistreatments in life, hurts large and small

in my cage of malcontent, to be reviewed 

when I chose to hold a personal pity party, 

As the years passed, my cage now filled 

and taking long to review, the wisdom of 

my years fell upon me and I opted to open 

the cage and set them all free, my seeds 

of malcontent scattering to the four winds 

and dissipating on some summer breeze.

 

Free at last, the bitterness gone leaves

room for joy, excitement and anticipation

of each new day.  

If only I had known sooner …………..

WHAT PURPOSE WAR?

 Open Link #297 at dVerse, and my thoughts in prose on the Olympic games.  Submitted to dVerse August 5, 2021

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WHAT PURPOSE WAR?

.I joined the legions of viewers of the Olympics in Tokyo.  I watched the march of countries one by one in colorful attire,  each represented by the most talented of their young sons and daughters, and saw the city of Tokyo at its most glorious in reception of the athletes.  My mind wandered to the time Japanese bombers decimated our navy in Pearl Harbor and thousands of bright young Americans died, and to the flight of the Enola Gay which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and thousands of innocent Japanese died.  As the German contingent marched in, I thought of the dreadful battles of the European war and all the young men and women whose lives were sacrificed in that conflict.  

Now, here it is 80 years later, and  the horrors of that war are relegated to pages in the history books of these young athletes as they compete in these games in harmony.  Does this not speak for the dismal lack of purpose of war?  Those who would make war for whatever reason would do well to learn from these young people, and carry forward the spirit of camaraderie that exists at the Olympic games.  May it be so   

IT'S GREEK TO ME

Tuesday Poetics, and Sarah refreshes for us the story of Persephone and Lughnaa from the Celtic calendar, and asks us to be inspired by the story.  I was inspired to poke some fun at it.  I ask the forbearance of the talented poets of dVerse.  I seem always to come out of left field with my poems.

Submitted to dVerse August 3, 2021, 

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            IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME

Are we to believe there were no seasons

Until Hades spirited Persephone away

And the seasons that occur on our old planet

Happen because Persephone ate a pomegranate?

This was construed by a king named Zeus

(Whom I would consider to have a screw loose)

He was her father, and Hades her uncle

Ceres, her mother, completes the kerfuffle

This family, the very epitome of dysfunction

Controls the seasons with little compunction

And poor Persephone has come to naught

Depressed, and thinking it’s all her fault.

So, this is what evolved from the truth I seek

It seems it was all started by some confounded Greek

   

AUGUST

 Haibun Monday.  Frank Tassone suggests we talk about August.  It happens to be one of my favorite months.  My poem is submitted to dVerse, August 2, 2021

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August nights in our grove of trees offer a soothing symphony conducive to slumber, as the tree frogs converse quietly amid the slight rustle of leaves welcoming a gentle breeze, and the resident owl offers an occasional hoot and flutter of wings.  Sunrise, and the symphony changes to the cheerful melodies of songbirds greeting the day and visiting the bird feeders for their morning buffet.  In the distant woods, the crows are having their morning committee meeting in a cacophony of caws until one single cardinal caw seems to send them on their daily mission and they all fly away, their obsidian wings glistening in the morning sun  There’s something special about an August sky, often uncluttered cobalt, a cloudless backdrop for the splendor nature is about to offer.  In early August the leaves begin to show tinges of yellow and russet in preparation for their autumn display.  In the fields, the corn stands tall and heavy with yield,  and farmers prepare for harvest.  August is a waiting time….a time to consider rich blessings.

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forest symphony

and golden days of August

while autumn awaits 

SPEECHLESS

Writers' Pantry #81 and my muse is suffering from a severe case of speechless, and refuses to help me with some bit of titillating rhyme.  I can only describe my sorry state.  Submitted to Poets and  Storytellers United, August 1, 2021.  (Art is my own).

SPEECHLESS

Good morning, Muse, and what’s on your mind

Others have poeted, and we’re quite behind

They’ve been very eloquent and ever so wise

And here we are, seemingly fresh out of tries.

Heaven knows we’re capable of a powerful write

So, why are we coming up only with trite?

Memories like dust motes captured in sunbeams

Fail to inspire me this morning, it seems

Perhaps love words, romantic and tender

Rapturous words of sesquipedalian splendor

I’m certain I have something of import to say

…...but for now I’ll save it for some future day.