Prompt: Farewell

Lorraine Appreciation Week

The first week in May is Lorraine Appreciation Week
Celebrations in all major metropolitan centers of North America and Canada
The key features will be dragon slayings starting with hatchlings Monday-Wednesday
Young adults Thursday and full on stop you in your tracks
Singe your eyelashes within 50 feet of them sleeping
Melt your sword, scale rot, halitosis infected, pus oozing adults for the weekend

Dragons courtesy of Lorraine and carefully nourished
In a knot of dread and panic fueled decisions over the last ten years
Made extra strong by double clutching on all the curves
Where gravity held her to the pavement when she
Really just wanted to fly

Dispatch the dragons, Lorraine
They’re only here because you feed them
They don’t need you on any level
Slay them during Lorraine Appreciation Week
Starve them, they never see that strategy approaching
Surprise them and yourself

Send them on their way
Then see how we’ll party in your honor

Prompt: Never __________ (fill in the blank)

Never Say It Can’t Get Any Worse (Three Questions)

Who listens at the edge of the clouds
For a gullible human to utter
The misinformed words that taunt fate?

Do these cosmic eavesdroppers
Roll back on their heels or satyr hoofs
Laughing until they snort, drool or choke while
Steadying themselves to
Rummage through their trick bags
For pestilence and flesh eating microbes?

Can’t you just be satisfied with your calamity
Without calling down the wrath of the gods
With that naive incantation
Well, at least it can’t get any worse?

Prompt: Use the 'sestina' form of poetry

Heartbeat Drum Rhythm

The exhibition
Laid out by clowns
In the shape of a flower
Held by a dancer
Driven by drummers
To join the circus

Once in the circus
It brought out exhibitionists
Who threw their names into a drum
Then wrestled for the clown
Make up to dress for the dance
And accept the dates flower

Give me a flower
To go to the circus
Where the elephants dance
In a vanishing exhibit
They’re leaving, no clowning
Their exit timed by the drum

Throw the names in the drum
Cut them all flowers
You thought a mere clown
In an environmental circus
Could stop the exhibit
Grassland leaves in a dance

It’s a sorrowful dance
The beat comes for a dirge drum
Yet it’s an honest exhibit
Of the grace of nature like a flower
It knows its season end as does a circus
Come autumn fold the tent and take make up off the clown

What becomes of the hobo clown
No space in the train between aerialists and dancers
The coffee ground beard is not of the circus
He dances to the beat of his own drum
Choosing the calla lily as his flower
The dignity of life and death his exhibit

Exhibitionist clown
Brings flowers to the dance
Honoring the heartbeat drum rhythm of the circus

Prompt: Longing

Buller Gorge

First week of five and hit the wall
Frozen rain and rampant waterfalls
Left hand drive and right hand rider
One lane tossed back and forth
By thin bridges across a gorge
Roadways chipped out
From the cliff face
Stop for tea and hold the hot water
Pot to your ears, nose and hands
Get back on for the worst of it
The locals don’t go out in this
Only those with no choice
Home is thousands of miles back
Or four weeks forward but not here
You must go on to the sea
First the gorge

Where you lose heart with
The cold, with the road
With the waterfalls right on the roadway
Right in your path
Sometimes in your lap
You swerve and you tense
You chill and you sweat
You freeze and you turn
Then the road straightens out
The river quiets down
The mists thicken
Then they lift
The Tasman Sea
In it’s green glory
Breaking against the lava rocks
Pounding into the beach
Flying into the fog
It parts for a look at the
Pale sun

Parking and placing
Helmet on handlebars
Blinking at water and cliffs
Ferns that are tree size
Laced with more waterfalls
Sky the color of key lime pie
Rocks rough enough to cut leather
Sit and lean back to let them try
Tap on your shoulder blades
Work out the tension from
The ride through The Buller Gorge

The oceans roar replaces the bikes
The taste on your lips is the salt of the waves
Fingers in your back
From a rock that defies definition
But you feel it through the riding gear
And it reminds you you made it
You passed the test you gave yourself
The moment of congratulations sputters as
You begin to realize how very
Very far away from home you are

Prompt: Miscommunication

Meet You at the Station

Before cell phones we waited until people got home to talk
She waited until she was absolutely positive he wasn’t going to meet her
Then she licked her wounds thinking this wasn’t going to fly
I thought he was into me but he stood me up
Good thing I’m at the station I can catch up on paperwork

He waited two hours after he got off shift
Doing the crossword puzzles and watching morning TV waiting
Getting underfoot as A shift made the station their home for the next 24
She’s just not coming but I really thought she’d call
I’d have heard if she’d gotten in a wreck but no 911 on Ford trucks today

They don’t know each other and they don’t know each others station
For him it had always been engine number 9
For her it was KSTM and the whole world knew that
Today they said they’d meet each other at the station
They both showed up and never made the connection

Prompt: Event, make it the title

Dog Knocked Out


You get there early and leave her behind
She’s dopey when you pick her up
The comic walk and the long look of
What happened is happening what is

All this to clean her teeth
Clip her nails back to a civilized length
Teeth and nails
Spa day
With drugs

Prompt 24: Travel

My Plane is Late in New York, Tell My Mother

She sounded British
We only spoke for a moment but there was more Manchester than Munich in her accent
Perhaps I had gotten it all wrong and she was a globe trotting nomad
Picking up speech nuances as easily as picking up a magazine in an airport

I agreed to share my home with a total stranger from Germany
I cleaned out the guest room and moved my favorite dresser in
Rearranged my shelves in the kitchen and in the bathroom and
Waited for the phone call to go pick her up

She missed her connection in New York and wanted me to tell her mom if she called
That doesn’t sound like a cosmopolitan world traveler’s worry but it’s hers
It’s the unknown coming to a room near mine in a matter of minutes
In a house that I’ve only shared for no more than a night or a fortnight at a time

There were the corporate apartments in San Jose during the dot com boom
Two co workers staying out of each others space with great deference
Than 20 plus years in Arizona with the same guest regiment as now
Before that the stuttering parade of partners in the wake of the demise of my marriage

She sounds British and she is spoken of so highly by those who know her
Recommended by a woman I love who has put me on to so many red herrings
Often I wonder why I don’t hold these expensive mistakes against her
She asked me if I would make room for Claudia and I said of course

Prompt: Regret

Ruthie Rues

I sang at Carnegie Hall
Sang in Operas
Entertained rich and low
But I haven’t done
Everything I wanted to do
I didn’t get it all done

We see 74 years of trouping
Judged less than enough
Because it didn’t have it all

I tell you one thing
Don’t marry a cross-dresser
Everybody thinks he’s
The nicest guy but when
You find him in your red
Negligee in the kitchen
It stops you in your tracks
This was after 5 years of
Marriage
I had no idea

You stayed married for 13
More years, more painful
Meetings in the kitchen

Don’t ever let anyone
Run your life
You make your own
Decisions, your own
Mistakes because you
Can be proud of them all
If it’s what you wanted
Not them

She marshals the amateur
Singers into a group
Perfect 4 part harmony

Prompt: work

The Greatest Gift

A twenty year history of cheap stationary
Stained with the ink of ball point pens
Documenting the child donning a profession
Stretching from the Midwest to the Southwest
Told to her first friend from college
In cursive penmanship that became
Less rounded and more implied over time

This stack of letters you gave back to me

Is a treasure few will construct in this day

Where taking a pen to paper is an awkward novelty
Not a map of the moment to a far away friend

A friend who wouldn’t see the letter for several days

Where even the most diligent wouldn’t have

The answer back to your hands in less than a week

Here’s the water stain from my first Heineken
In 1977 I set the green bottle down on this very paper
The ink smudged where it wasn’t dry
Telling you how rich I felt buying that six pack with
My first paycheck from my first radio job
I remember how it tasted and how cold it was
I’ll never forget that beer either

Prompt: haiku

freshly mown lawn

the aroma of summer

shredded nest

Prompt: rebirth

ReBirth at the Glass House

It was all air and muscle when Phil kicked off the set
The Glass House was so small I could put my palms on the ceiling
Dance until my grease and the grease in the air were the same
Drums and brass, no P.A. and the house just shook
Then it hooked. I had to hold on to the popcorn in the ceiling
Just to keep my clothes from slipping off

Finally I was in the middle of New Orleans brass in all it’s raw glory
My hips unhinged and moving like a mercury ball
Rolling and totally liquid at room temperature

Prompt: anger

The Mark of a Victim

It always happens to you because you wonder
Why does this always happen to me?

Excellent manifesting

Prompt: an interaction of some sort

Archery

The target is always pinned on the bales in front of the hazelnut tree
Douglas firs flank the sides and some days get more arrows than the bales
One afternoon upon the occasion of sinking an arrow so deeply into a Doug
That I had to empty my hands and use both of them to struggle
To pull the projectile out of the bole. I took a breath and put my finger on the scar
I saw I had wounded this magnificent presence in my yard
Wanted to apologize but instead thanked the tree for helping me learn to focus
But the moment seemed to call for more

Feeling foolish I wrapped my arms around the big pine
In denial that I was really seriously doing this I
Laid my cheek upon its rough bark while being thankful no one could see me
Banishing that thought as unfaithful I allowed myself to feel akin to this behemoth
This was a moment to be present for I felt the pulse of the tree

I held it closer vacillating between being aware that I was hugging a tree
Hearing my voice over the years making fun of people who would hug a tree and
Sensing the patient presence of the tree

Was it ten seconds, a minute or several hours that I held this giant?
When conscious of time I was uncomfortable with my position but
The sap pumping heart of the tree called me back to participate in our meeting
Where it accepted my thanks and did not judge me or its wound
In the unconscious time I was wholly one with the rhythm of life in me and the tree
When conscious of thoughts like that I rolled my eyes and chuckled but I did not
Loosen my hold or lift my head until I accepted that yes, I was hugging this tree

It was good and it was sacred and it was funny but it was me and the moment passed
I relaxed my arms and as they dropped to my sides I lifted my head from the bark
But the tree held my lip for a fraction of a moment with a bead of its sap
It gave me a kiss to remind me of what we had shared

Prompt: All I Want is ____ (fill in the blank)

All I Want is a Light Step

A laughing, skipping lightness
Put my feet one in front of the other
Like a tightrope walker
Solid and sure and unbalanced
Only for show, to thrill the crowd
Spinning and stepping
With no thought to the landing

Prompt: color, use it as the title

Gunmetal Grey

Where was the first place I saw it?
It was blue and they called it grey
War of the states all over again

In a hog leg hanging on my hip

A watercolor paint set

Flashed at Warsaw Wally's
Just after midnight on a payday

It was molten and seductive
Reflective and cold

The color of a lanyard string
Woven with white to make a spiral

Gunmetal grey on a firing range
In the Phoenix heat at

Your memorial

Prompt: Famous Poem, change title and use it or don't

JC Penney

I whispered, ‘I am too late.’
And then, ‘I am early enough’;
Wherefore I went to Penney
To find out how much I might save.
‘Go and save, go and save, young lady
The sales are good for all.’
Ah, Penney, JC Penney, JC Penney,
I am looped in the loops of the mall.

O sales are the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For she would be thinking of mark downs
Till the clerks had run away
And the shadows eaten the register.
Ah, Penney, JC Penney, JC Penney,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Apologies to William Butler Yeats

Prompt: love or not-love poem

Cornstarch

“Love” is like water
When it’s pure it can conquer any barrier
Stronger than granite, more refreshing than rest
Always seeking its own level and exceeding it with awe inspiring results

“In love” is like water with cornstarch in it
Thickens up a bit at first but start to shake it and it animates into monster shapes
Doesn’t know if it’s solid or liquid and if you smack it real good
It stiffens up and it’s not good for anything else after that

Prompt: hobby

Elvis on the Microwave

The irresistible headline
Elvis and MM Love Child
Was quickly added to the kitsch
Display in the kitchen of course

Then the Elvis/Martian love child
Martian/Bob Eubanks love child
Bob Eubanks/Wink Martindale l.c.
And everyone else who could breed

The kitchen was lousy with love children
Once people woke their eyes up and
Saw the headlines everywhere
And they had to send them my way

There were Czech love children
Striped love children
And the irresistible tie dyed ones
Captured in headlines and clipped

Taped to the micro, the fridge and the door
I couldn’t eat bacon without seeing their story
The humor was off me the mailings were not
I had to tell everyone’s love children stop!

I pulled them all down and scraped off the tape
Crushing them into a rocket I made heading
Straight to the moon for the stars and their broods
From the fire pit launching pad boom boom boom boom

Prompt: complete the sentence "So We Decided to___"

So We Decided to Fish

Cutting bait stinks
Walking on water is tough
Line in, line out rhythms
Give, take, tension, release
Pull in the line, cast again

We could no longer wait
For the fish to jump into the boat
Too many sharp edges in baiting
Pick up the gear and walk on
Wet the line and douse the doubt

Doubt is so worn to our footprints
So warm on cold mornings
Very reassuring in an odd way
There was never any guessing in it
It was always the same and so sure

We don’t have to catch fish just
Get the line in the water
Over and over again until
You have skills
And no doubt

Prompt: an object

Riding Gloves


Beloved purple gloves
Held her hand
Shape after years
Being curled firmly
Around the grips
Of her motorcycles

Prompt: Friday

A Very Good Friday

Tuesday I learned the song of the chicakadee
Sweee Deee Deee it sings
This morning amidst the chorus of birds I heard
Swee Deee Deee before I’d even opened my eyes
I said good morning back to that particular bird for the first time
I called it chickadee by name thinking Good Friday indeed

I continued work on my new garden path
Moving two dozen wheel barrows of wood chips
Shoveling, dumping, smoothing and tidying
The fine rain that fell barely wet my jacket
Until some scattered sun
Organized into a break from the gray

I left my work for the chair cupped in the Hazelwood
The branches dangled the leftover pods but no leaves yet
I stretched to my full length and breathed the early April air
Closing my eyes I heard the chattering chickadees land in the tree
One of them flew down and tousled my hair
Saying good morning back to me in particular, for the first time

I cried that the birds would know me
Wept in the sweetness of spring
Sobbed that I took so long to learn that song
Again when my dog comforted me in my tears
With her head across my shin
She confirmed that we’re all the same thing

I went to the store to buy the Easter ham
Dense rain greeted me on my way out
I walked right into it to share that clean and it
Slowed to a drizzle when I got to my car
Turning I looked up to the boldest rainbow of my life
Horizon to horizon brilliant red, gold and blue to purple

It was a very good Friday, indeed

Prompt: a memory

How Could Anyone Forget?

Years ago Oprah was high in the news cycle over abuse
She all of the sudden remembered being abused as a child

I thought, “That poor lady is just starved for attention
How could you forget a thing like that?
No on could forget that not to say for decades and
Pop, it comes up out of nowhere.
Bull Shit, Opie.”

Last year while musing on my idyllic childhood
It dawned on me that those bloody marks on my backside
Left by the wire coat hanger that my dad swung at me
Was at the least abuse and more likely assault

But everybody spanked their kids in the 60s, right?
It took over forty years for me to realize that was
Beyond the pale

So I comforted myself with the memory of
My remarkable mother and mulled the thought of dad
Over and over until I saw a fellow
Doing the best he could with the skills he had
He took care of his family and pulled us
Out of poverty and on to a path where I claimed
The first college degree in my family
That was the best he could do but he never
Beat the rage within himself

Then I shook the dust off my mom’s darker side
Constantly berated and told I was lazy
I was selfish I couldn’t think of anyone but myself
Why wasn’t dinner ready for the family
I was never enough and told I didn’t care
Then this Christmas I was told she had left us
For months when I was still quite young

She did the best she could with
The skills she had but
She had so few skills for success
But mad skills for survival

Now I know why I acted out until they died
I forgot that the two people charged with
Making sure I was safe had done
Everything in their skill set to do the best for me
They had also given me their demons

I have spent a lifetime in ignorant bliss
Praising my childhood, blaming bad things on my brothers
Yet always wondering why I had a non-specific pissed off
Why I hooked up with drunks, got kicked out of school
Hung with the wrong people and acted out
Seeing finally that never in all honesty have I loved me
Or known how

Now I put the demons to rest as I stare them down
I thank my parents for doing their best
And Oprah for letting me judge her
Finally I thank myself for the will to love that little girl
Wrap myself in the knowledge that I absolutely deserved to be loved
I do it when I tackle the question
How could anyone forget?

Prompt: routines

Light the Stove

How will I light the stove
When the paper don’t come no more?
It happened up in Seattle
But they have another one
For now
I got two being half way
Between Tacoma and Olympia
But that can’t last either it seems
They’ll be able to get away with
Worse than they’ve been doing
Without reporters digging and asking

Didn’t anyone notice what happens
When reporters don’t ask the hard
Questions we all have in the bars
Like about yellow cake and WMD
TV people don’t come up with facts
The talking heads don’t write
Blog people don’t investigate
They link and cut and paste
It barely happens in radio
Bless the hold outs and NPR
But when the newspapers go
Nobody’ll light the stove
We’ll just fuel rumors
And burn paranoia
and neighborhoods

Prompt: clean or dirty, your choice

Coming Clean in Haiku

I thought you were some
body else. Now I wish you
were any one else

Prompt: something missing

Pocket Sprung a Leak

Pocket sprung a leak
Feel the cold coins chase car keys
Down my leg on to the hard floor
Where they make noises
Liberated noises
Like money and keys are supposed to
Be on the ground and not in my pockets

Pocket sprung a leak
Now I got to remember
Next you wear your favorite pants
Don’t trust them pockets
Sure as one goes the other one goes
Next thing you know you’ll be
Walking down the road or crossing the street
Chasing silly willful coins and keys

Pocket sprung a leak
What do I got to lose that can be kept in leaky pockets

What do I Got to lose

Prompt: Landmark

The Tank

My good brother just told me the tank was gone
They carted it off when they tore down the American Legion
The land now holds luxury condos
That don’t know the richness of the ground they sit atop

Every summer the Legion parking lot would fill with the Ox Roast Carnival
Portable rides and games of chance would go up in a matter of days
Stay up for a matter of weeks
Across the alley from our house and in the center of the fair was that big lawn ornament

I got my first job picking up money at the game where you
Throw dimes at glassware until it goes into the glass and you kept it
People would spend 5 whole dollars
To win a glass that cost thirty cents at the Ben Franklin store

Years later I figured out why my parents refused to
Let me take the early morning job polishing the horses
On the carousel
Just me and the 7 fingered boss early every day didn’t sit well with my folks

In winter the parking lot would have all the snow plowed
Back to the alley so there was a tall mountain range of snow
Outside our back gate
We marched a path across the ridge line to the biggest pile on the corner

We would sled off into the street and start full contact snow ball fights
Some little general would form us into a fighting unit
We trained and drilled
Of course this always involved the tank

If it was our tank we would have to scramble under it to escape enemy fire
If it was an enemy tank that day we had to sabotage it
Lodge grenades in the treads
Scramble out from beneath it at top speed and seek cover behind the snow bunker

One cold winter day I came home for dinner frozen solid and full of stories
Wearing my brand new royal blue ski pants with stirrups that were the rage
There were two little holes in the knee
I cringed at the ruin to my fashion fortune and pulled up the pant leg

Bully brother sat on my left and was quite put out that I was fussing my leg
I was too heartbroken to be cowed by him and I kept up my search
My leg was a bloody mess
Bully blanched and I felt a whole lot better with that small victory

As my leg warmed up the cut started to hurt and the questions came raining
It had to be when we were crawling on our bellies under the tank
Mom said it’ll scar
It did and I stroke that place as I write this poem and wonder what they did with

The Tank

Prompt: pick an animal and make it your title

Judy (WWJD)

You were the first example that came to mind
I thought of everything I'd learned from you
I wanted to say
Judy exemplifies unconditional love

Everyone should have such a fine teacher
You are completely present with each guest, in the moment
There is no other human and they know
You hear what they say and accept them where they are

At the end of the evening everyone wants to take you home
There is no jealousy in me
There is none in you
We offer nothing you do not already possess

Nothing can break our bond
When you love another
You love me no less
There is only more love for us all

When I love another and complications arise
I ask myself, what would Judy do?
How can I love this one as purely as you love me?
My pet, how can I love with no bounds?

Prompt: fill in the blank "The problem with _______"

The Problem with Spring

One day, that first day, you see the first reveal of the green dreamt in winter
This first pang filled hopeful green only lasts the better part of a day
Today you get the very first naive green of a vale, green for the first time
Filled with promise and dew that will only age after today
This green in the sour taste bud thrills only have
a moment in a day in a season this year and no other

Prompt: outsider poem

Laid

I wonder what everyone is doing this time on a payday
I’m trying to remember what I did on paydays
I was in front of the wave of lay offs
My fortune is that I’m so experienced in getting fired
I chuckle at the palpable pink slip panic in the air

I stopped eating in restaurants
Stopped buying anything that caught my eye
I started growing my own food
I bought a gun and a flock of chickens
And got ready for the next wave of lay offs

This time on a payday
Hay day on a play day
Lay down for the lay off
Lay off
Move along

Prompt: origins

Babysitting Causes Artist

Babysitting money begat record buying
Record buying begat telling people about artists
Telling people about artists begat FM radio listening
FM radio listening begat more record buying
More record buying begat working in a record store
Working in a record store begat going to concerts
Going to concerts begat seeing men wearing leather pants
Seeing men in leather pants begat meeting people who were artists
Meeting people who were artists begat being an artist
Being an artist begat telling people about music
Telling people about music begat income streams
and those income streams become babysitting money for
more little artists who finds new music on the Internet
and want to grow up to be just like me.

Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. and has been since 1996. I was in the middle of organizing events for the month many years in Arizona.

Ever since I took on my big healing project in 2005 I haven't been active as a writer anywhere but in journals but not for the public.

This year I've taken up the glove of a challenge from a poetry blog to write a poem a day. The poem is to based upon their prompt so here we go.