Fruit Notes

She bathes in Bubblelicious Fuzzy Peach
towels off then spritzes Kiwi Melon Splash.
She chooses Mango Sunscreen for the beach
or Lemon Lime or Berries from her stash.

She balms her lips with Sour Cherry Twist
her body polish sparkles Groovy Grape.
She freshens up with Pomegranate Mist
(such well-fed skin will never turn to crepe).

Her hands are buttered Strawberries ‘n’ Cream
her hair is tousled with Pineapple Glaze
even her rooms smell like an Eden dream
Forbidden Fruit-soaked reeds stand in her vase.

Fresh, innocent, sweet, dangerous and more
Essence of Eve enchants her to the core.

© Violet Nesdoly

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Every month the website Poets Online features a new prompt. In January of 2010 the prompt was to write a poem about ‘fruit.’ While I was mulling over my fruit poem, I was also writing a monthly Poets Classroom column (that I wrote for about 18 months) on the topic of the sonnet. The two came together in this lighthearted sonnet, which was first published here in 2010, along with many other fruity poems.

I’m re-posting it today to share with the Poetry Friday crowd. Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabatha Yeatts at her always intriguing blog The Opposite of Indifference.

 

April Special

 (A choose your own ending poem)

Maitre d’ offers a menu of rain
for starters a sprinkle, a spitting, a mist
my glasses are blurry, my hair is damp-kissed
but hors d’oeuvre about which I will not complain.

Wind and cloud waitresses proffer the main
with all-day-long drizzle, deluge and flood
the road is all puddles, the garden all mud
this unending water’s becoming a pain.

Time for dessert course, by now I disdain
the precipitation. Soaking, please stop!
Ah, here comes the sun, through a drip and a drop
a garnish of rainbow, a plip and a plop
just the right mix so that May blooms will pop
please, shower no more till it’s April again.

OR

rescuing me from becoming insane.

OR

bringing an end to this drippy refrain.

© 2012 by Violet Nesdoly

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This is my first poem of my personal National Poetry Month challenge. My goal is to write 21 new poems this month. I will not inflict them all on you, I promise. But I thought I would put up number one just to prove that I have actually made a start.

This poem was inspired by the April Rain prompt at Adele Kenny’s The Music In It blog, where she has posted a prompt and a linked poem for each day in April.

 

Family table

Family Table - Christmas 2011

A handsome board in 1944
in clan of furniture they called a suite
our walnut table opened up to more
than eight, the matching chairs had padded seats.

In youthful days it served mountains of food
chicken, potatoes, bread, puddings with cream
then listened to us add and sound out words
cut crafts, and doodle pictures of the farm.

At thirty years it wandered from that place
a vagabond to circumstance it roamed.
It’s old and squeaky now, masks age with lace
lives near sis china cupboard in our home.

Content, I hope, though it has parted ways
with most of clan — like families these days.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

 

Corporate Cuts

Five years ago the cut was surgical.
Just minutes with the boss and it was done
a severance of sinew, muscle, bone
shock was the anesthetic, then slow heal.

This time they used an endless tourniquet
new paradigms, objectives, letters, dates
twisting his job description with new weights
revealing their design by slow degree.

He slept, I fought with dread through winter nights
Is what I think I’m seeing really there?
And then more business, spring – I dropped despair.
The date they gave him passed. We’ll be alright!

Till yesterday – the car door slams, he walks
with office things, like ashes, in a box.

© 2006 – V. Nesdoly

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This is my attempt at a poem for the Poets Online March 2006 prompt “Giving form to death.”  It was written to help me process the devastating experience of seeing my husband lose his job, and first published on the Poets Online site.

This republished post from January 2010 is my last tip-of-the-hat to TS Poetry Press’s August exploration of the sonnet. If you’d like to be instructed in and inspired by the form, check out these two excellent articles at Tweetspeak:

– Saturday Night Date with a Sonnet

– Glass Slipper Sonnets

 

Family Reunion

And he turned himself away from them and wept. – Genesis 42:24

Those rugged Semite robes, that tangled hair,
how this one walks, another’s face, those eyes…
They near, the smell of Canaan fills the air.
Ten sheaves bow down – a wondrous, cruel surprise.
“Your servants, twelve, are brothers, sons of one,
the youngest with our father, one is not.”
Ha, that one is! My peace with past hard won,
I’ll not go back. “To jail. You’re spies and caught!”
In Rachel’s tongue one says, “It was that deed..
It’s punishment for how we treated him;
He cried and begged for help, we paid no heed,
Now vengeance serves her cup filled to the brim.”
What’s this – they’re changed? Oh God, I healed that pain
Now it floods back, wounds open, bleed again.

© by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem is posted for Tweetspeak Poetry “Let’s Talk In Pictures” where the challenge is to capture a conversation in a poem. (This conversation is not within a sestina, I’m afraid,  but it is within a form nonetheless.)

This poem was first published at Utmost Christian Writers Poets Places. It is also published in  Family Reunion (2007).

 

Career Move

"The Kiss of Judas" by James Tissot (1836-1902)

Crowds come, he speaks, we cast out spirits, heal.
As a career move I could have done worse.
Mobility is upward here, I feel
for I’m the one he chose to keep the purse.
But he attracts the common, sick and poor,
his teachings contradict, they don’t make sense:
First shall be last? Great riches won’t endure?
Expose hypocrisy, unveil pretense?
Patience, I say, in time he will be king;
at lunch she pours rich perfume on his head.
He calls it good and not a wasteful thing:
“It’s a memorial; soon I will be dead.”
I erred. No future here, inner voice chides,
but—other ladders lean on other sides.

© 2004 – Utmost Christian Writers. Also published in Family Reunion – 2007