From Tad:
This phrase just popped up on my screen totally out of context. "Tell me what you want me to do." So that's the prompt. I later figured out what it was. It's from my jazz book, and it's something Thelonious Monk said to Miles Davis during a recording session that almost ended in a fight.
What You Want Me To Do
ReplyDeleteI clean the house and mop the floors
Try to keep up with all the chores
Do the laundry and wash the dishes
Fulfill all your wishes
Shop for food and whatever you desire
Still nothing lights your fire.
Your sour and depressed
Don’t even want to get up and dressed
You complain about the things I do
Nothing is ever good enough for you
Things are put in the wrong place
You don’t ever have enough room or space
The cats bother you yet you want them there
Say about your feelings I don’t care
I try my best to make life easy for you
I don’t know what you want me to do!
If i talk during a tv show
Your anger at me you let me know
But you watch tv all day long
Sorry honey but that’s just wrong!
So to make things better between us two
Please just tell me what you want me to do!
The rhyme really works here. Holds it together. Meter could be a little tighter in a few places. But it tells the story.
DeleteSounds like a dreadful response to all your kindness. Hmmm, maybe he's aforesaid you'll stop if he says he's happy! Just kidding. Good poem. Please take a look at my last post?
DeleteWoops, that word is meant to be AFRAID
DeleteYup. Been there, done that. I feel lucky that Karl does a lot of the housework and leaves me to do what I want/need to do. Good poem. As Tad says, the rhyme works. It does not feel forced at all, flows very well.
Deletehmmmmm I know I commented on this poem! oh well I don't know what happened. It is a terrific poem and I know that it is true! Very imaginative how you fit the prompt in!
DeleteI'm so tied up in getting this jazz book finished that I'm not thinking poetry. I'll try to write a new one before week's end. Meanwhile, here's an older one.
ReplyDeleteSCARVES
You don’t want her to stop
but you don’t know
how well you dreamed her
if she’ll want
what you want her hands like
sea cucumbers
feather duster worms
sea urchins
recall the soft brush of
sunken kelp beds
but that’s not enough
summon her
to the surface turn her
till she’s rounded
smooth as a decoy
it’s when she
rises up over you
sets out the scarves
fastens each in turn
your wrists and
ankles to the bed posts
brings out chocolate
syrup drizzles it
over you
you know you got it right
oooh kinky!And cute. Nice one. BTW, no one commented on my darkness poem! NO ONE!
DeleteI didn't sign on last week. I'll go back and look.
DeleteI commented.
DeleteMany thanks, as I said below your comment, and I will say it again. All comments are very much appreciated.
Deletevery interesting...I think you have to write a new one though. This one didn't quite make it to your prompt...slightly...I think it was an enjoyable poem even so. I enjoyed the smile I got while you drizzled chocolate syrup over her body...left a lot to the imagination!!!
DeleteAs always, awesome poem. And I think it fits the spirit of the prompt if not the exact prompt.
DeleteI need to finish formatting and proofing this book before I can get back to poems.
Deletesometimes after Victoria reads my poems she responds with... I worry about you lol... lmbo! sorry but this does have me wondering... kinky and fun :-)
DeleteThere is almost never anything autobiographical in my poems.
DeleteResolution
ReplyDeleteWhat you want me to do
and what I may want to
are sometimes askew,
except maybe we
agree to disagree
and so peacefully
decide that this way
we each have a say
and thus ends our day.
great rhyming scheme...meets protocol...fun read. I enjoyed it very much. it reads well aloud because the meter is right on.
DeleteThanks! I appreciate your comment and you!
DeleteSounds like life in general. A lot of content into a few words. I will go back and check out your Darkness poem. I posted my June poem way late and didn't get comments until I poked at people either. LOL
Deleteso true and don't we wish everyone would agree to disagree and we all compromise somehow. good write!!
DeleteThanks to all, much appreciation for kind words.
DeleteI feel like a lot of what I write for this blog is "journals with short lines," a description of bad poetry by a fine poet, Jim Finnegan. But given the short amount of time I have to write, I guess I consider them rough drafts that may have potential to become poems at some later time.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you want me to do?
If I could
I would go back
to 1968,
tell my teenage self
to control
herself, be calm,
not fuck so many boys
take so many drugs,
to work hard,
to be herself.
If I could I would tell
that wild child to do
as I say
not as I did.
But she would not listen.
She would say, It's what
everyone
is doing. What
do you want me to do?
I want to fit in.
I was that
proverbial
square peg in the round hole
of '60s hippies,
tried too hard,
jumped off high cliffs
meant for slow climbs, pounding
that peg so hard it
burst into
destructive shards.
If I could do over
those formative years
things would be
different, but
I cannot. What
do you want me to do?
I think all of us were a bit wild as teens and we practically raised ourselves in some ways because we were all rebels with a cause. You wrote a beautiful poem about a lovely rebel. I don't think you tried to fit in with everybody just the rebels. I liked "Jumped off high cliffs meant for slow climbs..."
Deleteawesome write and oh so true... if only... but what we did as young people formed who we are today and I think you are one awesome person. and you're right the younger you would never listen to the you of now :-)
DeleteLoved it! You did a great job of your portrait of yourself as a teen, and in my opinion perhaps a bit hard on yourself then from his standpoint. You would not have been who you are today, I agree with Tad, were it not for who you were then. I too have done things I could regent if I judged them, yet I was experimenting and learned much in the process, both about myself and about others.Good read!
DeleteI like this a great deal. But I'd like to stand up for your teenage self. I think she would have had a better answer, more flippant, less self-justifying.
ReplyDeleteWhere poetry trumps truth huh? LOL. But on the other hand, I DID think it was an awful lot of fun. I guess that's what you mean?
DeleteNo, I meant she would have said something less defensive than that's what everyone else is doing. I bet she didn't care all that much what everyone else was doing.
DeleteYou are right. Looking back, I realize I did a lot of what I did because that's what "everyone else" was doing, but at the time, I was just having fun.
DeleteI'd like to see her a little more wiseass.
DeleteThere's a great Next Generation episode where Picard goes back to the night he got in a barroom brawl and got stabbed in the heart. This time he's not stupid, he plays it safe, he avoids the brawl. Back to the present - he's now a lowly second lieutenant with no chance of advancement. The wild and wiseass Victoria is the one who made you who you are today.
DeleteOh, and who you are today is pretty terrific.
Deleteswing with me
ReplyDelete(on your swings)
let's play school!
now, let's sing songs
then we'll read fairy tales
let's play hop scotch
get your chalk
we'll do it on your sidewalk
how about hide and seek
do you have your jacks?
I want to play jacks
now we can roller skate
at least till supper time
after we all eat we can swing
and sing again
till it grows dark...
one whole summer of Sandy
then, she moved...
At first it felt empty
without her telling me what to do
then we realized
we were free!
free from tyranny...
LOL. I had a friend like that too. But I don't think I ever minded being told what to do. It was easier than figuring it out on my own.
Deletelmbo! was she really that bad? yeah, I remember now. good write and the images you convey bring back memories.
DeleteNice poem, you tell the story so well. Wow! Kudos! You convey the entire experience just with the few words Sandy speaks. Well done!
DeleteTasha, I commented on your darkness poem!
Delete