too much of a good thing
gorge, and your gorge may rise
not a canyon – a narrow valley,
nearly an anagram of George.
Gorgeous George inspired Muhammad Ali
who went on to beat George Chuvalo,
George Foreman
a blow to the face may cause swelling
engorgement
not such a good thing.
The Daily Prompt is dead, long live…..
Suddenly at the end of May, the Daily Prompt disappeared from the blogosphere just when I was getting to know it. Frankly, I miss it. I didn’t respond on a daily basis but every now and then, a prompt would fire my imagination (I can’t get no..) and I would write a poem that I would never have written without that prompt. So here is a haiku to lament the passing of the Daily Prompt.
In Memoriam: the Daily Prompt
left bereft, promptless
stalled and stumped and paralysed
how can we go on?
But all is not lost, I have noticed a few bloggers out there are trying to fill the gap, and I would like to throw my hat into that ring. The difference is I will be offering prompts that are not actual words, but words that I have made up. Today’s word is “brattitude”. As in…..
“The dress has that swaggering catwalk brattitude we have come to expect from a Karl Aufderfelt design.”
Since I do not want to sully the memory of the Daily Prompt, I have struggled to come up with an alternative name. I thought maybe, the Daily Prod, but some of my friends in Belfast might mistake it for a sectarian bulletin. I toyed with the Daily Prick but abandoned it for obvious reasons. I finally settled on the Daily Jolt, like a shot of caffeine, a creative laxative. (This post is like a bowling ball that keeps veering towards the gutter.)
So give it a go, hit me with your best shot, post something inspired by the jolt word “brattitude”, link back to this blog and I will list a link to your post here. Or simply post a comment here.
By the way, it’s very unlikely that I will have the imagination or application to do this on a daily basis, so the Daily Jolt will probably be occasional.
Love at…
they met, she
insulted him,
it was love
at first slight.
Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry
write long poems on short days
short poems on long days
you don’t need a drummer
but you do need rhythm
avoid melodrama
your head cannot explode all the time,
there is uncharted territory
between ecstasy and despair
look after your images
they should splash like cold water
on the reader’s face
observe, always observe.
Taking part in Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Writing Poetry
Dog Days
Oscar’s wife, Anka,
declared:
we need to procure
a guard dog
to make our home secure,
a real dog
not some mangy cur
some obscure miniature
some saliva dripping
skinny impostor
looking for a sinecure
a dog that barks
at every knock on the door
and when, Oscar asked,
should this occur?
Yesterday, she said,
or before.
Photo taken at the Takashi Murakami exhibition (The octopus eats its own leg) at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Elaborate (following the sound)
elaborate
haliborange
aurora borealis
abhor
great expectorations
Little Dorrit
Oliver
more
invigorate
adumbrate
helleborus orientalis
Mary Tyler Moore.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elaborate/
Joint Memories
I have this vague memory
of the last time we were stoned
how we all stood around laughing
at a joke that no one told.
Trigonometry
I had a dream last night
about trigonometry
sines, cosines, angles
my mind going off
at a tangent
maybe it was that email
out of the blue
from Leo Mangan,
an old school friend,
made me think of blackboards
chalk dust
Isosceles triangles.
Luminescence
The stars are out
luminescence rises
from the surface of the pond
I think of Tommy
Tommy Tumescent and the Hard-ons
yes you could say
they were big in the fifties
yes you could say
they rose to stardom in the fifties
all pompadour and pointy toe
and to counter this puerile nonsense
I also think of iridescence
finesse
obsolescence.
Game Day
the soccer dads
bark and pace
like chain-linked hounds
like dogs locked
in parked cars
on a sunny day,
while in the bushes,
Thwarted Ambition
waits to join them
on the long journey
home.
Inchoate
inchoate
inculcate
incarcerate
incubate
inundate
indoctrinate
inseminate
incarnate
incinerate
inoculate
inanimate
inhabit.
Drive
On a strange day
in a life that’s becoming stranger
Myron is driving north of Kona
on a road bisecting the black lava landscape
when Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
comes on the radio,
and in no time at all
he’s picturing himself
on a boat on a river
and marveling for the first time
at that rhyme between
marmalade skies and kaleidoscope eyes
not the skies and eyes
but the lade and leid
and just when his head
is filling with technicolor
the black cloud that’s sitting
on the mountains to the right
moves across the sun
that’s shining
on the blue ocean to the left,
and the black asphalt road
and the jumbled chunks
of frozen black lava
that cover the landscape
suck the remaining light
from the air
leaving everywhere
a dull monochrome.
This poem was published in The Galway Review some time back and also previously published here.
Daily Prompt : Quartet
Micro
phone
scope
meter
soft
manage
be
the prefix
that belittles
everyone
and everything
but can’t hold
a candle to
nano, pico, femto.
Louis CK
What the FK?
I can’t see
a way BK
from where
you are now.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/micro/
talisman
miasma
chalice
charisman
polisman
phallus.
In Praise of Extended Benefits
born identical twins,
they became indentured servants
to Lord Denton,
a wealthy landowner
who believed passionately
in the benefits
of dental care,
consequently
the identical twins
lived a long
indentured life
and never endured
the indignity of dentures.
These poems were originally written as an attempt to provoke. That didn’t happen, and nothing changed as a result of writing them but at least I had some fun doing it. The second poem appeared in the magazine Anti_Heroin Chic
Haiku for Donald
petulant pillock
postcranial curmudgeon
bombastic buffoon.
Trumputin (a romance)
Don loves Vlad
Vlad loves Don
Love as big as
A nuclear bomb.
Front door, back door,
Kremlin, tower
Nuclear love
Nuclear power.
you call your
self a tree
my bank has
more branches.
plus a bonus poem in which Slim escapes the 3 syllable shackles of slimverse and displays an uncharacteristic lightness of being.
The low November sun
hits the silver birches
and the cherry tree
sending the bush tits
and the black-capped
chickadees
into a flitting frenzy
Who pulled the alarm?
Which one is my nest?
Where did I leave that worm?
Both poems have appeared in other posts, this combination was prompted by the Daily Prompt – ‘branch’.
Fabric
rubric
Rubicon
Kubla Khan
scabrous
lexicon
toucan
Aga Khan.
No Dumplings
we lost enthusiasm
on the way to Dim Sum
the light of our appetites
dimmed………somewhat.
And now, a slimverse from the past…..
The Future
Grandma, can
I see your
tattoo, the
dragon one.
Encrusted
encrusted with barnacles
encrusted with sesame seed
encrusted with sea salt
from a qualified ocean
rust is a scale
not a crust
some people trust in God
Ron Reagan
says that’s a bust
dust to dust
that’s it
that’s all
life hath no sequel
so have a ball
I wonder
what his dad
thinks of it all.
When I saw the daily prompt ‘encrusted’, I thought…well, I like that word but I don’t see a poem in it. Then I was at the gym listening to Don Henley’s album, ‘Cass County’, on Spotify. It’s a country album. I don’t particularly like modern cowboy-hat-and-boots country, the singer always seems to be in a rush to get to the chorus, but this is more singer-songwriter country music and Don Henley is such a good lyricist that I would listen to anything he does.
Country music, of course, is all about story and rhyme – the melodies are usually lifted from other songs. So, my brain started to absorb that rhyming rhythm and free associate on the word ‘encrusted’ , when I hit “trust in God” I thought of an ad that Ron Reagan has on CNN. The rest…….
there’s a sign
out on the highway
Jesus, Lord,
over us all
well no one
here can tell me
that submission
was hard won.
I know something’s up
you’re sending mixed metaphors
your rhythm’s way off.
Stopdraggingthepanda 