Sushi

A TV in the examining
room sends a message-
LONG WAIT, a normal
expectation for a doctor's
office, yet you hope
to escape such a fate.

Three cooking channel shows
later, an affair with impatience
embattles your mind and you
dream of being free from this
torturous bind so you open
the door, peek into the hall-

WHERE IS EVERONE?
you thought you thought, but
you screamed those words,
slammed the door for
emphasis
as the ad-
Nadia G's Bitchin' Kitchen
flashes in front of your eyes
and you dream of sushi.

**



Prompt inspirations~
3WW- affair, expectation, free
Poetic Asides- Appointment poem
Real Toads- Words Count with Mama Zen- Power Images

Back to School

Photo by L. Kolp- My Precious Children

I dreamed of quiet days
days of contentment with
no TV or Wii blaring in my ears,
no fighting or I’m bored complaints,
no drifting hours scorned because we never do a thing,
no squished raisins in the couch cushions,
no uphill climb towards something better than this,
no wishing for a backyard pool,
no washing clothes changed too often,
no captive audience, a cluster ‘round my desk,
no arms on my waist ready for a hug,
no sweetness to cuddle with on the couch,
no midday treats at Sonic (2 to 4, of course),
no guarantee of safety or protection from bullies,
no laughter to rouse the midday slumps,
no jokes, no squeals, no crumbs, no spills-
ARGH! This silence is killing me.

Prompt inspiration:

Shawna at Flipside Records gives us prompt words on Mondays. Here are the ones I chose: cluster, raisins, washing, sweetness, overwhelm, waist, climb, rouse, contentment, scorned

Also linked to Real Toads Open Link Monday

When Poets Joined to Play

At dusk we met online,
our link a chain of poems each week;
the idea to empty essentials one after another
like a word association game.
From all around the globe we sat,
hands on keyboards, pencils near-
a moment in time, a union in cyberspace;
our dear operator a yellow rose with a patient heart.
The time approached,
we sat prepared to shoot off words in unison.
A sudden rain with sporadic drops from everywhere
splat, FORGIVEN
each thread a trace of chaos,
a recipe for ADD/ADHD,
a race to keep up,
a bond with poets on the fence of laughter
as spontaneous as the raindrops, the words,
the camaraderie on a Friday night when poets joined to play.

*

Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl #71- dusk, link, trace, empty, essentials, rose, pencils, fence, chain, recipe, forgiven, operator

Loving You Through the Years

A trail of drugstore glasses
...in the kitchen
...in the den
...in the bedroom
like our clothes last night.



Prompt inspiration:
Imaginary Garden Fireblossom Friday #10- Lights, Cameras, Love

Back to Love

Call it 50 shades of weakness, a lapse of judgement from my inner goddess, even a mid-life burp... whatever it was, it's over and I must vitiate my previous opinion of the sorry excuse for literature, 50 Shades of Grey.

I am appalled that this porn trilogy has now outsold Harry Potter. I've read that some hotels place it on their nightstands instead of the Bible... oh my gawd! This E.L James is making a million dollars a week... for filth? If I were her, I'd be embarrassed and ashamed!

What has this world come to? Has it become a world where relationships are devalued and obliterated? A world reverting back to male dominance and female submissiveness? Come on all you female activists... how can we support this abuse?

Violence becomes more prevalent every day. People wear guns like wallets. Any spark of "you did me wrong, so I'll get you and everyone else in my way" becomes a deadly reality. Emotions are time bombs.

Why? We have become a society of instant gratification. Everything is right at our fingertips, just a click away. We are spoiled because we get what we want when we want it. What happened to waiting?

In my opinion, we don't need trashy novels to feed fuel to the fire. I permanently deleted shades of grey (it doesn't even deserve capital letters) from my Kindle. It's null and void. Was never there.

What we need instead is peace, hope and love. A reminder that there really is good in the world left and that fairy-tale love can exist. Yes, we may have to wait... but it's so worth it.

Grounded

Under Windsor Bridge, 1912, by Adolphe Valette
Courtesy of The Mag

grounded, the man

bides time

caramel fog the layer

of descent

hope, a bridge

to heaven

Drawn Before You

Phosphorus greenish glow
breaking crests on dark ink,
a tip of neon highlighters;
lines ~~ the waves across the page.

Vivid drifts of words
conch shell
whispers;
secrets
waiting to be told.

Split down the horizon,
left and right;
paper cuts
a nick of broken glass.

You find yourself torn
between the insidious and tinted
dying to change the evening tide,
rough, then gentle in your limbs.

Preludes of debate
leave a tinny aftertaste,
lies the reason
drawn before your eyes
as clear as elementary art.

**
Prompt inspiration: The Sunday Whirl 70- tip, fix, tinted, preludes, vivid, tinny, drifts, nick, waves, gentle, limbs, insidious, split

College Apartments

Clanky
hanky-panky
flashing opinions
like cymbals clashing. I
hear the echoes, smell
the beer, hide from the fear
with college textbooks
as reading pleasure while I
lie alone on the lawn
bikini clad and covered up
drinking in the atmosphere
away from the rumpus
ruckus at the pool
away from the dissent
having spent
my childhood years
in disaccord, discord,
feeling discarded.

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens- Mary’s Mixed Bag: Neighborhood

Eye Contact

A battered bike leans
against the wall. Inside
Nobody clanks coins
on the drugstore counter,
a cold unopened beer in hand.

I clamor for blue
Gatorade with not much
time before my son’s
Taekwondo class ends.

Nobody
can't talk straight,
and the teenage boy
rings her up,
rank with fear.
I see it in his eyes-
an uncertainty his lack of contact
with the customer reveals.

Just today I reminded my son
to look adults in the eyes
when speaking, out of respect.
We wouldn't want them to mis-
construe the truth, think him miscreant.

When I leave the store, Nobody’s
bike waits beside my van. She
scrounges through Something
for What?
I freeze, wonder
what’s in that bag she has.

Is this the end?

I avoid her eyes, walk with
purpose, hop inside
faster than a blink.

It kills me
we must live
this way, but I
survive. This time.

*

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens- A Word with Laurie (miscreant)

Waltzing with a Wolf

With a whiff of whimsy
and wild whispers,
the gray wolf swept
one warped woman
into his warm embrace,
whooshed away webs
of shadowed woe
as they waltzed
through life.

©laurie kolp

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens - Imagined by Marian Sinead O'Connor's The Wolf is Getting Married"