If I ask you ...
“How Does A Watch Work”
And you say ...
“Keep An Eye On The Time”
The anecdote preying
answer naysaying
Pathway to reason
— unrhymed
(Dreamsleep: January, 2025)
Categories:
naysaying, time,
Form: Rhyme
relatives said Mitch’s ideas were preposterously silly
Nonsensical I heard, about my cousin Mitch Willy
He was always entertaining though, a clever sounding cuss.
Ended up writing computer systems; now richer than most of us.
We can’t believe others believed in him, the relatives said.
He seemed crazy to us, farfetched, foolish, fantasy-fed.
But corporations ran with his ideas, and it made them all rich.
Now my naysaying relatives wish they had listened to Mitch.
Categories:
naysaying, relationship,
Form: Rhyme
Donald, the dud of a dude has dudgeon, Denise told me.
dungeon? I asked
she shook her head ‘no”
Dudgeon
I looked it up
Dudgeon
Ill humor
That said a lot
probably means
we will never be friends
because I have dusted the negative Neds
off of my sandals
and it feels terrific
to be free of all that naysaying
and negativity
Categories:
naysaying, 11th grade, 12th grade,
Form: Free verse
A sexy spider? It cannot be done they said.
While Kirk Reinert did it.
Without their approval.
Without their suggestions.
Without worrying about their naysaying at all.
A spider named Ida?
Ida the spide-ah?
Oh, that does fall off the tongue neatly.
Her legs make her seem completely….
marvelous, wonderful, well done.
The creator sits back and smiles.
Glad he does not listen to naysayers.
Categories:
naysaying, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Rhyme
Rainbow banana, we all tried to make the most beautiful one, the silliest one, the most disturbed one.
We used food coloring, all the bowls in my kitchen, and fingers which were soon all kinds of colors.
Our troop was competing in a contest which might lead to a girl scout badge being honored in our name.
“Rainbow” and “banana” were the first two suggestions, and they ran with it, being seven and eight.
This project was a dismal semi-success. The end projects were disgustingly weird, non-appetizing.
The girls did not realize it, they were shrieking and laughing, and loving the dye on their hands.
They were one hundred percent confident, and began designing the rainbow badge in their conversation.
I sat back and wisely kept my counsel, and naysaying opinions to myself as one particularly enthusiastic child announced that we would most undoubtedly be named troop of the world for this terrific idea.
Youth. Nothing like it. The enthusiasm and hilarity continued, as I quieted myself.
Categories:
naysaying, emotions, feelings,
Form: Narrative
After: Harlequin’s Carnival by Joan Miro, 1925.PD
After: Bing Crosby - Swinging On A Star (1944)
I try to apply colors like words that shape poems,
like notes that shape music. - Joan Miro
Listen to the mockingbird rings from ear to ear driven in a
frenzy of delight, naysaying the evil torts of Hieronymus
Bosch’s gardens. Feasting on nature’s foreplay, stringing
leaps of fancy, parading to an oompah-pah, lured by a rendez-
vous with Dali and melted timepieces.
to fly
to soar
soar unconfined
soar scored
scored notes
scored lines
The bliss of true tones, winged squirmings,
dancing snakes, acrobatic merfolk swinging on stars,
the ensemble gestates.
Cues coil, ping, the clocks tick; let your
wired heart purr. Jack-in-the Box to Jack outside,
take a spoonful of sugar with your medicine, & twirl
your partner round and round.
First published by illumen 2016
Categories:
naysaying, allusion, art, beauty,
Form: Free verse