While we
are busy building,

While we
are busy boating,

While we
are busy busying
ourselves,

The world is busy being,
breaking apart, coming together,

Every day a reformation
of the last.

This poem was written in response to Margo Roby’s image prompt of 12/15/15.

 

 

I can’t vote.
I’m not permitted to
work outside my home
(or inside, for that matter.)
But I can read! I can
make up my own mind.
And I can still speak,
maybe even advocate
in my quiet “ladylike”
way. Clever observations
over strident opinions from
a spectacled subversive.
 
 

This poem was written in response to Margo Roby’s 12/1 image prompt a painting of a French woman reading Le Figaro. In doing a bit of research for this poem, I found out that France did not extend suffrage to women until 1944!

My wish is to spend Christmas
in New Orleans once again,
the reveillon, the Christmas feasts,
oysters, mud bugs, gumbo, beignets,
sweet music in the streets,
in all the day and night.

New Orleans’ wish for Christmas?
The undertone of loss
in reveillon and Christmas feasts,
missing the music in the streets.
Who is gone? What is left? Who
does she wish to see tonight?

This poem was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Nine Challenge to write two parallel poems about wishes, one concrete and one abstract.

 

Boxes where I keep the tattered
scraps of journals and notebooks,
traces of the struggle all but gone
as I consider what’s been said.
“Do you hear yourself?” I ask
in my darker moments when
I’m standing on the other side.
“Do you ever hear yourself?” I ask
again, as those notebooks and journals
reply in unison, “You are not

finished. Be still and listen.”
 
 

This was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Thirty Challenge in which she gave us a series of phrases to use as we were inspired.

Today I need to write a kyrielle.
I think that I will do so very well.
I dare someone to offer a critique,
‘cause, hey, that last line’s sure to rhyme with “trick.”

I’ll try to write three stanzas, maybe more.
There are so many options, rhymes galore.
I’ll use words such as kleptomaniac
‘cause, hey, that last line’s sure to rhyme with “trick.”

And now I think my little verse is done.
I’ve written lots of lines and had some fun.
And I don’t want to hear a word of flack
‘cause, hey, that last line’s sure to rhyme with “trick.”
 
 
This poem was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Eight challenge. Suffice it to say, I am not so good with slant rhymes and perhaps a bit lacking in the iambic pentameter department too.

 

 

 

“’Tis the gift to be simple.”
Then why do we choose and admire
other gifts — adorned, elaborate,
embellished, complicated,
complex, challenging, difficult?
We swaddle them in beautifully
crafted wrappings with fancy bows,
all to be torn and discarded.

Why do we forget this simple truth?
What if we learned to wrap one
another in our loving presence
and simply be present together?
 
 
This was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Seven prompt, a poem about shopping for gifts on Black Friday.

Red
shiny
Jonathans,
peeled
and sliced.

Perfection:
apple
pie.

This poem is for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Six challenge, which had something to do with fifteen syllables and eight lines (I think.)

Crack, crunch and a muffled,
“Thank you, Nana, for this treat.
Mmmm. Blue raspberry for me.”
And silently I thank you, kitchen gods,
for the forgotten bag of Dum-Dums
hidden, waiting for an indoor day.

While crystalline frost coats the
windows and the wind howls in
bare branches of the trees,
we’re grateful for small treats
and warm hands and bright blue tongues
amidst the crack and crunch.

 

This poem was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Five challenge. I have two granddaughters, one of whom crunches her lollipops while her sister savors hers.

 

Ma belle, are you well?
If you are well, why
do your eyes well with tears
as you wander in white
round home and hearth,
guarding your heart from those
who try to wish you well?

Be well, ma belle, and if
“all’s well that ends well,”
may you find an ending for all
of us in your pen and inkwell.

This is in response to Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Four challenge to rework one of our responses from this month by adding a larger-than-life character to it. I’ve struggled to add the Belle of Amherst to one of my poems. The poem needs work, but I like the concept.

 

Meditation on Lady Macbeth:
Sleepwalking through her part,
where talk is cheap and no
argument can undo what’s done.

No matter how hard the work,
the smell of blood remains,
the flavor of blood in the air,
red stain that equals her guilt.

Fake somnolence to hide
hands that will never match
that innocent rosy pink
before what’s done was done.
 
 
This poem was written for Miz Quickly’s Day Twenty-Three challenge providing twelve possible words to use in a poem. I used ten of the twelve: lady, part, cheap, argument, work, flavor, equals, fake, match, pink.