Category Archives: Poetry

Green Mountain Gold

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Green Mountain Gold

Vermont Cheddar, how could anything be terrible about that? The terroir and tang of regional cheeses with a great bottle of wine sound delightful. I’m in, who knows maybe too much wine will help with this month’s Terrible Poetry Contest! About that, Chel asks us to write a terrible limerick about this regional cheese. Two months ago I said let them eat cake, now I say let them eat cheese!!! on to the terribleness again…

From Vermont came a cheddar, behold
Legend has it, one heck of a mold
Big cheese curd not forstall
The coming Woodchuck brawl.
For a chance to taste Green Mountain gold.

And I’m off to make some nachos with melted cheese (and maybe chili!)

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Decapod Delights

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Decapod Delights

Pink and plump upon my plate,
Wrong place, wrong time, cruel twist of fate.

One of a million tiny eggs set free,
Upon the current of a briny sea.

Sifting through the ocean floor,
For bits of plankton, algae and more…

What’s up bruh, yo, bust tha’ rhyme,
In clicks and snaps on ocean time.

Stay in school and you’ll be set,
Against most predators but not man’s net.

Swimming in a sea of butter,
The surfer half of my steak supper.

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Home of the Braves

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Home of the Braves

Is there anything more culturally inappropriate than the tomahawk chop? I can’t think of much that makes me cringe more than watching a stadium full of Braves fans do its rendition of a Native war chant while some yahoo with a drum and Aboriginal feathered headdress beats on.

This month Chel’s Terrible Poetry contest asks us to write a terrible poem about cultural appropriation using the triolet form. I have chosen the English iambic tetrameter model. To heck with my French heritage, I say let them eat cake! Now let the terribleness begin…

Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum,
Back and forth the tomahawk chop.
Warpaint, feather headdress, and drum,
Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum,
From what century did you come?
Ratta tat tat tat, make it stop!
Aah wah aah wah wah a warriors hum,
Back and forth the tomahawk chop.

It is the start of another baseball season and I say “go, anyone but Atlanta, go!

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Emma Fynds, P.I.

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Sabina Sturzu via Unsplash

Emma Fynds, P.I.

Emma surreptitiously melted into the streetscape, carefully concealing herself as she panned a male subject moving through the snow.

She’d been following him for days – the bank, post office, convenience store, his mother’s place – but he had revealed nothing remotely suspicious.

She trailed behind him as he beelined towards the corner restaurant, although she was beginning to concede that her client’s notions may have been painted with an ugly shade of green.

 “What do we have here?” she muttered to herself as the shutter blinked open just long enough for the silver halide strip to register an imprint of his lips pressed against those of a woman he’d met out front and who was not Emma’s client.

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Don’t Look Back… (Reworked and Revisited)

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The following is being reposted for a minor rework for Fandango’s Flashback Friday series. “Don’t Look Back…” was originally published on March 1st, 2021 taking inspiration from the image prompt from Sonya’s Three Line Tales challenge.

Jason Yoder via Unsplash.

Don’t Look Back…

Wrapped in last night’s hazy memories, the dirt of the hard road pressed up between her toes.

The past echoes like a thousand screaming voices trapped inside her head.

“Don’t look back…” she whispers to herself as she travels the path from which she can never break free.

I hope you have enjoyed this walk down memory lane.

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Seeds

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Greg Glazebrook @ GMGPhotography

Seeds

Seeds scattered upon the wind, like birds that have left the nest.
Each restless generation innately driven to carve out its own place in the world.
The mark we leave is not measured by how much we’ve grown.
It is determined by what we teach our children to sow.

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I Was Certain

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I Was Certain

the chill of autumn’s breeze
whispers through the rustling leaves
the last of summer’s songbirds warble
warnings of the coming freeze

~ I was certain I’d enjoy the silence ~

the great flocks have long taken flight
my synesthetic heart, barely alight
a rainbow fire that once filled the sky
but a cipher in the grey winter blight

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The Waiting (Reworked and Revisited)

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The following poem is being reposted for Fandango’s Flashback Friday series. “The Waiting” was originally published on February 17th, 2022 using prompts from The Sunday Whirl‘s weekly Wordle challenge and Fandango’s own One Word Challenge. The version I am posting today has been reworked because I found some of the writing cumbersome and believe the changes work better for the peice. It has also been edited for some embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors that appeared in the original.

The Waiting

The tick of the clock
     slams like a hammer
     against Arianne’s eardrum.
Her eyes growing heavy
     as the itinerant sun slips
     towards the western horizon.
Endless red, orange and yellow
     spills from the heavens,
     onto the blue canvas sky
Great billowing cloud herds
     transiting the azure ocean are
     set ablaze against a fiery sunset.
Arianne sits by the open window,
     hypnotized by the meadow sages
     bending in the evening breeze.
Luminescent fireflies dancing free
     leave trails of ghostly strings to fade
     amongst the old grey stones.
Whilst wisps of fairy dust swirl
     in the magical air, like lacy strands
     gilding her already flaxen hair.
She knows not who the traveller is,
     only that the journey ends
     at the old weathered gate.
How much longer must
     she remain here before
her limit has been reached.
For as long as she has a heartbeat
     she has sworn to help
     her weary guest reach the finish.

I hope you have enjoyed this walk down memory lane.

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Mass Extinction

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Whoisbenjamin via Unsplash.com
Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz via Pexels.com

Mass Extinction

My trunk stretches into the salty water,
but this will not quench my thirst.
These stone monuments
carved by the mother of everything
will be all that remains of the
great herds that once roamed here.
As we go extinct, so does your kind, waiting for
our fossils to be discovered in the next great epoch.

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The Nightbird

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The Nightbird

It is absurd in a dubious kind of way,
the need to fit in with simulated norms.
I don’t care anymore if the jukebox plays
a re-mix of this fucked up excuse for a life.

The nightbird does not bend beneath such sorrow,
soaring high above the smoke-filled bordellos,
She knows no fear of being crushed beneath
the one-eyed monster’s armadillo-skinned boot.

I lay here all but empty – shamefully waiting
for the scent of homemade soap, and
the primal thrust of a hot starched pistol,
Though I’ve not a pound of flesh left to give.

I’m swept high upon a ribbon that swirls
in the turbulent eddies she leaves behind,
Catching glimpses of freedom in the pull of her wake.
Below my battered shell awaits, unsure if I’ll return.

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