Dandelion Dreams

Young Woman Picking the Fruit of Knowledge, 1892 by Mary Cassatt
Picture prompt courtesy of The Mag167

Wasted, the years

counting on a dream,

a wish to blow away

her life,

as if

 change came

through osmosis.

 

 

~~

 

Also shared with Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads Open Link Monday 

It's Okay to Go Away

Your serenade a lullaby

When at night, time multiplies

 

And as I watch you hop away

I'm grateful for your flitty ways

 

Of iffy, creepy tainted views

No longer just a greenish hue

 

So on this day of love, my dear

I won't complain if you're not here

 

*

 

Prompt inspiration: Real Toads~  Mary's Mixed Bag- Love (Not!)

Phantasmagoric

It had a phantasmagoric feel,
an atmospheric aura so unreal

this pain reeling from within
a less than fantastic outward whim

to put a hammer to my tooth
and slam impulsiveness uncouth.

Instead I had to sit and wait,
only in fantasy did my ache abate. 

*


Inspiration~ Real Toads: A Word with Laurie

Two Points of View

(Photo
via Wiki under CC Author=Mike
from Canada High-Yellow
Sorong Amethystine Scrub Python)

It inhabits

the ecoregion

of the victim's

digestive tract

slithers through

intestinal tunnels

ulcerates with

pustulous fangs

then recoils

until the next

attack.

~~

Go ahead,
have the last
word. I’ll watch
you flinch with
each inch as I
slither closer,
squinch at HISS-
ing sounds, rebound
venomous snaps.
Go ahead,
have the last
word. I’ll watch
you recoil as I
coil around
your hips,
squeeze you
like a wet rag
until vile drips
from your
quivering lips.
You came
to the wrong
place, go ahead
talk.

*

Googling SPAM

SPAM
Google search
Karl (Blank)-

Photographer
...(he wants to buy my pictures?)

Professional athlete
...(a sponsor?)

Used car salesman
...(mine's fine, thank you very much)

Criminal, sex offender
...(jerk off!)

Karl (Blank)
Google search
SPAM


*


Prompt inspiration: Real Toads- Fireblossom Friday-Doubletalk

The Diary

In diary passages, a subject reappeared
one of addiction, the nasty consequences
a fraying nerve on an otherwise alpha-girl
perfectionist. It only got worse, with bitter
nagging from her doting lover whose razor-
sharp retorts merely threw the girl further into
denial. A killer pace, this endless need for idle
thrills dangerously lurking on a golden precipice
of delusion until a new personality blossomed,
an evil twin oddly opposite from the girl; sober/
drunk unspooling, spiraling until the bitter end
and in a blink, she was gone, the only thing left
a diary with recurring threads of debauchery.

*

Prompt inspirations: Imaginary Gardens~ Get Listed (a word list) and 3WW~ idle, nagging, pace

Watch Your Mouth: A Found Poem

Spoiler alert:
I'm no guru on
trending superfood,
but boneless wings
don't fly, so

double down
the fiscal cliff
into your man cave,

job creators like you
lack passion.

Boot that (not) amazing
bucket list up Capitol Hill;
viral infections only
kick cans down the road.


*

Prompt inspiration: (Lake Superior State) banned word list

Shared with Imaginary Gardens Open Link Monday

Traffic Jams

I thought it all nonsense,
this ethereal scene
unfolding before my eyes:
a holiday bottleneck
wrapped in stiff burlap,
those behind the wheel
acting like turgid miscreants
with dementia, demarcation
a necessary counterattack.

Must we go back
to kindergarten,
review boundaries?
Or direct traffic to
the nearest park,
offer free meditation guides
with effervescent appeal,
discuss change of perspective
from hustle/bustle to Zen?

*

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens~ A Word with Laurie

Why Not Red Delicious, Granny Smith or Honeycrisp?

Kids are sent to school with apples,
ones that crunch numbers and bytes 
where red is read and juice is charge,
a daily dose of  energy every hour.

They take their apples out to recess
feed their egoism with plans to share
as others huddle around hoping for
bits of Internet, uncensored.

And hungry games are played
with guns and blood and gore,
so much they get desensitized
to violence. Reality a funhouse

mirror, warps young minds that morph
before their time, the video games
a fantastical  escape into the dark
a hide and seek, perception skewed.

*

I strongly believe that violent video games of hunting people and whatever else they do (we don't let our kids play them) contribute to the problems of today. Not long ago, I was in a game shop and the shelves were full of games for mature audiences. It used to be that these kinds of games were placed up high, but I noticed they were all over the shelves at eye level. I asked the teenager behind the desk why and he said because that has become the norm, that as a society we are desensitized to violence. I left without finding anything suitable for my boys.

What happens when someone is mentally unstable? Does that person lose touch with reality in such a way that the game becomes their world and he/she begins to play it in real life? What do you think?


Linked to Imaginary Gardens Open Link Monday

Pipe Dreams

Abnormal
legs
        dan-
                gle
off cigarette butts
angle sideways
d
o
w
n
lavish tracks:
pipe dreams.


 *

Linked to Imaginary Gardens Open Link Monday 1/7/13

Prompt inspiration: 3WW- abnormal, dangle, lavish

My Christmas List

Dear Santa,

Clothes might be nice,
Pots and pans to drum,
A remodeled kitchen,
For my iPod, tunes to hum.

But, really...

Enough space for all the poems
I'd like to write next year,
Health, abundance for us all,
A daily attitude of cheer.

Merry Christmas!

*

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens- Words Count with Mama Zen- Christmas list

Regifted

*

 

Burlap wrapped,

burlapped-

your regifted gift

slapped me

to my senses,

and course defenses

like downed fences

drifted away.

 

*

Prompt inspiration- Imaginary Gardens' A Word with Laurie: Burlap

***To read more about using texture in poetry, click Here.***

A Morning Twist of Fate

S - - - - T - - - - R - - - - E - - - - T - - - - C - - - - H
when you wake up, fetch
a cup of coffee (for me,
add a touch of cream,
for you a splash
of water).

We might be late.
Cause: A chill to mark our fate,
a   let's - not - get - out - of - bed
quicker than the flicker of dawn
decision to satisify the need
for exercise. Go ahead,
implicate us... but
don't tell anybody.


*

Prompt inspiration:
Imaginary Gardens- Breaking the 4th wall
 3WW- cause, implicate, stretch

Focus

 

~~

Capture the white light inside you.

Focus on its brilliance.

Snap the moment in time.

Store it in a peaceful memory.

~~~

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens A Word with Laurie

*

 

(Some Things Will Never Be) Passé Composé

Photo by Susie Clevenger

Orange tape reflects

a line-up on County Lane;

yesterday's letters, hard to choose.

 

One stands with flap open

unwilling to wander away

from tangible SENTiments

 

like a parent waving arms,

"Come back to me,"

as the child walks down the road.

~~

Prompt inspiration- Imaginary Gardens mini-Sunday challenge (tercet)

Bottlenecked Hope

Southern-Style Bottle Trees
photo by L. Kolp

 

Blue

bottled

blooms

brush the

heavenly

skies, clank

rhythms  as  a

bottomed - out

drunk  on   the

dusty   streets

of hell exhales

exhaust - like

sighs.  Y o u

think his only

escape from

bottlenecked

hope  is  to

shatter glass

into the air.

Prompt inspiration- Imaginary Garden's A Word with Laurie: Bottleneck

If You Lose a Good Thing

If you lose a good thing,
don't expect me to sit on your pity pot
and watch you flush yourself like a dead goldfish.
If you lose a good thing,
don't blow bubbles in your Budweiser
or shove hot air down the throat of a stranger;
you might two-step your way straight to jail.
If you lose a good thing,
don't forget to take the tissues
out of your Wranglers before you do your laundry;
leave them out to dry on an old beat-up clothesline
like you did me.

*

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens music prompt w/ Marian- "it's better to have it" (Miss Barbara Lynn)

Regrettable, Gossip Overheard

Have you heard the banter of he said, she said, they said, what-
gossip in the vestibule; duty taken, final cut

as a wrestle match between butt out! and OMG, say what? 
I battle from within; and though I try to fight it, the second wins.

"No, this can't be true- John Boy really is a girl?"
The women in their element gasp aloud, their noses curl

as I hide behind the paper, headline news- another day;
"I guess that makes him unisex," I hear the women say

wishing I'd listened to my first internal hunch
to mind my own business, let the ignorant eat their lunch.


Prompt inspirations:
Imaginary Gardens- Kerry's Wednesday Challenge- Internal Monologue
3WW- banter, duty, element

A HURRication Paradise

Photo by L. Kolp
100 Lazy Days

My safe haven,

heaven in a backyard scene;

a white wrought-iron seat

between a green vine heart
connecting me to you.

As above the bluest blue,

bluer than Paul Newman's eyes,

a waterfall trickles

lucid thoughts a splash, a drop

of doubt

of fear

of what I left behind;

Ike's wrath the path to here,

a HURRication
one might have thought
they'd only find in movies.

This is a picture of where I stayed after Hurricane Ike. The whole family rode out the storm (BAD decision). The next day, a friend and I took the kids to her brother's house. This picture of his backyard is merely a snippet of this paradise where we stayed. After Hurricane Rita, we had stayed with family members in another beautiful part of Dallas. There have been so many evacuations in my children's memories that they have come to think of them as hurricane vacations, or HURRications. I pray we don't take one this year.

~~

Prompt inspiration: Imaginary Gardens- Sunday Photo Prompt

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