A Penny for Your Thoughts (Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

A Penny for Your Thoughts 
(Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

A penny for your thoughts, my dear, in this time of recession.
They’re only worth a pittance, since you’re in deep depression—
perhaps the worst since man evolved from the primordial slime.
If I cared less, I’d offer zilch, but now is not the time
to be looking for bargains, with your love so newly won.
If only we could ditch our masks and have a little fun—
a little kiss, a little hug, a cuddle and a snuggle—
it might be easier to woo without these rules to juggle.
But from day-to-day, I fear, we never can know whether
we’ll spend the day alone again or spend the day together. 
So here’s a penny for your thoughts. Oh hell, it’s worth a nickel
to know whether your heart is true or if it has turned fickle.
It’s been said before that absence makes the heart grown fonder.
I wonder if you feel the same sequestered over yonder.

Prompt words today are zilch, slime, newly, pittance and depression.

 

Leftovers

In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving and looking forward to ours later this month, this poem is dedicated to Morrie and Diego, who profit from all culinary events in my house:

Leftovers
(Dedicated to Two Hopeful Dogs)

Crying for our leftovers won’t bring you any favors.
You will not taste their textures or masticate their flavors
if you stand there begging. Those winsome looks aren’t working.
Nor are your lapsing manners—your twisting and your jerking.

Hunger doesn’t justify your unwelcome behavior.
Before we even sat down, we saw Grandpa was your savior,
slipping you a turkey leg he had dipped in gravy.
(That leg I’d saved for leftovers–a turkey sandwich, maybe.)

Our home-cooked meal? Delicious. That you already know.
When I cooked the pies, I fed you scraps of dough.
The turkey giblets boiled for gravy, later went to you.
When I cooked the cranberries, you even ate a few.

You licked the pumpkin bowl so clean. You licked the beater blade
when I whipped the cream for pies. Dear ones, you had it made.
So when you beg for leftovers, I’ll just ignore your fuss.
You ate before the guests, dears. Leftovers are for us!

Prompts for today are winsome, manner, justify, leftovers and home.

Tropical Gig

Tropical Gig

A cricket and a katydid in need of some excitement
when the cold winds started, and with no other incitement,
set out on upon a sea journey, their ship an old guitar.
(It wasn’t very roomy. Oh, but it was yar!)

They christened her as Lulabelle after an old amor.
They thought they’d sail the whole wide world from shore to shore to shore.
Setting off from Mexico, they drifted with the breeze,
their water and provisions stacked up around their knees.

The cricket sang such lullabies. The katydid chimed in,
a catfish as a tagalong stroked rhythms on its fin.
Guileless in their motives, they sought no fame nor riches.
From port to port they drifted, with only minor glitches.

On Isla Mujeres, they met a small land crab
that had been used in research in an oceanic lab.
It lit up in the darkness with a thousand little lights.
And so they offered it a ride to light up starless nights.

They drifted off to Cuba atop an ocean swell,
telling all the stories that they had to tell.
Traitorous loves and conquests, flight through the summer night.
The sand crab told of capture after a valiant fight.

The cricket had such stories of houses he’d been in.
The katydid could mime a leaf: long and green and thin.
When they made their music, the crab just clacked its claws.
All night they chirred and clattered—sometimes without a pause.

By the time they got to Cuba, they had a stirring act.
They drew the gulls and pelicans to listen—it’s a fact!
They got a gig in Havana, playing in a bar,
drawing folks to hear them from both near and far.

The cricket’s name is Chirrup and and Katydid is Slim.
The Crab’s name is Oblongus—based on the shape of him.
Their act can be heard nightly in the ocean dunes,
where they will serenade you with their blended tunes.

 

 

 

Prompt words for today are guitar, guileless, traitor, research and excitement.

An Aging Siren’s Lament

An Aging Siren’s Lament

I once was bewitching, beguiling and busty,
but now I’m decrepit, doddering and fusty,
making mountains of molehills and blocks out of chips
and adding them onto my thighs, calves and hips.

As I fall apart, I become more voluminous,
my eyes less dewy, my skin much less luminous.
I’m developing poorly, my aging less fine
than mellow old cheeses and whiskies and wine.

As my memory fades and becomes much less credible,
I’m less appealing and for sure less beddable.
I’m held together by trusses and braces,
Spanx and Ace bandages, spandex and laces.

Someone should just shoot me. (Botox, not a gun.)
I’d be more alluring and have much more fun.
But diets are tedious. Shots must be painful.
Of all of these cures, I’m purely disdainful.

I guess I’ll age gracefully, sip from its cup
greedily, admitting I’m giving up.
I’ll simply sit here inert on my fanny
and trade in the title of sexpot for granny!

 

Prompts today are fusty, bewitching, chip and mountain.

Travel Grump

Travel Grump

Look at all those spendthrifts paying for the view
as though it is a contest to spend their cash anew
on hotel after hotel, on safaris, tours and cruises–—
climbing up Mount Everest, amassing scrapes and bruises.
I’ll keep my money in my pocket. I’ve worked for it too hard,
and simply do my viewing here in my backyard.

Prompt words today are view, spendthrift , and contest.

Tongue in Cheek

Tongue in Cheek 

If you cannot still your tongue and it tends to flutter,
my remedy’s a sandwich of bread and peanut butter.
It is the perfect cure-all. If your problem is your stuttering,
it quickly turns your dialogue into a slower muttering.
And if your daily habit is reorganizing clutter,
a palate full of pb gives a different way to putter. 

Although you may be jealous that I have a sure solution
for stuttering and puttering, please grant me absolution.
Don’t hold my thoughts against me as I offer resolution
to problems such as famine, global warming and pollution,
then give my sure-fire remedy for war and revolution.
I simply cannot help that I’m ahead in evolution!

I tend to wax nostalgic when I think of all the times
I’ve solved our planet’s problems within my daily rhymes,
for as I view predicaments in all the different climes—
political maneuverings and other selfish crimes—
all the foolish misdeeds best abandoned in our primes—
I feel I owe it to the world to dish out paradigms!!!

If my constant words of wisdom set your stomachs churning,
cause regret to fill your minds and set your eyes to burning,
if you reject solutions, thereby all my wisdom spurning,
considering “unfollowing” and never once returning,
please reconsider doing so. Try being more discerning.
And let me be your guru—your font of further learning!!!

 

The prompts today are putter, jealous, nostalgic and return. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/rdp-sunday-putter/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/26/fowc-with-fandango-jealous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/your-daily-word-prompt-nostalgic-may-26-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/return/

Incantation for the Rainy Season

Incantation for the Rainy Season

I admit I’m taking sanctuary, waiting for the rain.
I really cannot help it that I’m foolish and I’m vain.
It’s lack of all humidity causing my hibernation.
This dryness is my scapegoat. I am needing rain’s hydration.

Once there’s water in the air, my cavities will out,
and all these ugly wrinkles are destined to fill out.
I’m praying to the rain gods, though I don’t like to beg,
for the wrinkles on my torso are spreading to my leg.

My hand backs are so furrowed they’re impervious to lotions.
My crepey neck defies even my most expensive potions.
I’m succumbing to my wrinkles. I’ve barely a smooth patch.
I think I’d be the winner in a “most wrinkled” match.

In the aging Olympics, I would surely win the gold.
I’ve passed from young to middle-aged and ended up at “old.”
I’ve given up on vagueness and modesty and pride.
I’m bluntly revealing the condition of my hide.

Yes, I’ve succumbed to wrinkles. and my only hope’s the rain.
Surely with humidity, I’ll plump right up again!!!!

 

Prompts today are regenerate, scapegoat, vague and sanctuary. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/23/rdp-thursday-regenerate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/23/fowc-with-fandango-scapegoat/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/23/your-daily-word-prompt-vague-may-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/23/sanctuary/

What’s Wrong with Your Mom?

What’s Wrong with Your Mom?

My husband’s language is so curt that lately I’ve been wondering
if these moody epithets that he has been thundering
have anything at all to do with my consistent blundering.

Ashtrays in the ice box and ice cubes in a puddle
on the shelf where glasses go? I fear I’m in a muddle.
I see him with the children, over there in a big huddle.

Now and then, they look at me. I think they are suspicious.
It’s me they are discussing, and their looks are not auspicious.
But still they feel that questioning me would not be judicious.

Why don’t they remember that  I’ve been this way before
exactly three times in the past, and this is number four?
By now I am surprised it hasn’t become family lore

that mother always gets this way during a certain time
when thinking gets confusing and moods turn on a dime,
but in the end it’s worth it as the outcome is sublime!

It seems I cannot  count on them to interpret the clues,
so I think that it is time that I give them all the news
that will solve the puzzle and resolve Daddy’s blues.

They see me coming towards them and it looks like they might scatter,
but they realign their faces as though nothing is the matter
until they hear these words that I contribute to their chatter:

“The secret that I’ve kept from you is worrying as a blister.
This surprise that I’m carrying might be our first young mister,
although I know you would not mind if it were a fourth sister!”

 

Prompt words today are language, puddle, auspicious and wondering. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/rdp-wednesday-language/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/27/fowc-with-fandango-puddle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/your-daily-word-prompt-auspicious-february-27-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/wondering/

Out of Order

Out of Order

If you’re an avid planner—an agenda sort of man,
life seems to have a fondness for screwing up your plan.
Ideology is fine so long as you take note
that fate seems to have other schemes than life lived out by rote.

Providence is naughty. It thinks irony is divine.
It likes to move our decimal points, nudge columns out of line.
It screws around with calendars, plays jokes with weather, too.
It messes up your Windsor knot, conceals one favorite shoe.

It messes up collections and puts them out of sequence.
confuses medication in its timing and its frequence.
So if life changes the rules after you think you’ve won,
learn what it seeks to teach you: spontaneity is fun!

 

Prompt words today were collection, avid, ideology and plan.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/ragtag-daily-prompt-tuesday-collection/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/15/fowc-with-fandango-avid/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/your-daily-word-prompt-ideology-january-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/plan/

Tropical Christmas Agenda

 

jdbphoto

Tropical Christmas Agenda

I’m tired of snowy and of cold.
I prefer weather less bold.
Forget the frost. Forget the ice.
Some trade winds would be rather nice.
Sand and surf would hit the spot
in a place where snow is not.
More intrigue near the steaming beach.
Romance is somehow more in reach,
perhaps because sans scarf and mitten
the chance for one to be more smitten
over vast amounts of skin
creates a greater chance of sin.

And so, so much for Nordic pleasures.
I prefer the island treasures
of a fresh pina colada
over the yada yada yada
of another Christmas season
so devoid of charm and reason.
Keep your presents and your nog,
your carols and your Yule log.
I choose a hammock and a book
and swimsuit for my Christmas look.

The prompt words are intrigue, snowy and frost.  Here are the links:
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/23/fowc-with-fandango-intrigue/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/your-daily-word-prompt-snowy-December-23-2018/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/frost/