Ode to Sugar, for the Ragtag Daily Prompt

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Ode to Sugar

Hey, Sugar Sugar, you’re the one for me.
I enjoy each calorie.
Smooth or frozen with chocolate on top,
washed down with a glass of pop.
Pile on the sprinkles and roll in nuts.
You’re the best, no ands or buts.
My little Sugar is smooth and dreamy.
My little Sugar chewy, creamy.

Shortbread, brownies, chocolate chip––
in my coffee, I like to dip.
But cheesecake, pie––other forms of sin––
I put on the table and dive right in.
Swim to the middle with my teeth,
see what there can be beneath
the icing or cream or chocolate sauce.
When dessert arrives, Sugar’s the boss.

Hey Sugar, Sugar, you’re the one
in snow or rain or blistering sun.
I don’t care if you’re hot or cold.
Baked Alaska is great, I’m told,
but I also like a big old cone
just piled with ice cream, all alone.
Don’t touch my Sugar, don’t you dare!!!
When it comes to Sugar, I don’t share!!!

The prompt for Ragtag Daily Prompt is “Calorie.”

“Saudade,” Companion Poem for The Numbers Game

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In a comment on someone else’s photo gallery for The Numbers Game, I challenged him to write a line prompted by each photo, then to rearrange them into a poem. Then I decided to take my challenge myself. Here is the resulting poem. Go HERE to see the rest of the photos that prompted the lines. (After you read the poem, I invite you to do the same. Use as many photos to prompt lines as possible, but you need not use them all. I omitted a few in the poem. Then link your poem or story to this page.)

Saudade*

In these weeks before Christmas,
I take solitary morning walks along the tideline
capturing photos along the way.

I am wedded to a communion of senses:
the scent of dried kelp on the sand,
the mist of sea spray,
the orange blossom
of a crown of thorns,
my pants cuff held prisoner
by its barbs.

Drumbeats
of the dancers on the beach,
green fronds swaying in the wind
and a cormorant
on a branch reaching upwards
as though in supplication.

My eyes are captured by the shadow
of the coral succulent blossom
against a rock rolled into a perfect sphere
by the ocean tide.

Closing the garden gate,
I am greeted by
one open-palmed white hibiscus,
tongue extended,
fenced off from the field of wildflowers
that stretch down to the sea.

My ear perks to the purring
of abandoned kittens
in a pile on my couch,
and I move to my bed––
its serpentine twist of sheets
the remnants of a torturous night.

  • Saudade is a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia.

Heather Cox Richardson Comments on Trump’s Most Recent Irrational Behavior

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There are signs the political game has changed in the United States since Hungarian voters rejected Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s leadership on Sunday, April 12. His party’s loss of control of the government to a supermajority of its opponents undermined the belief that right-wing authoritarianism was an unstoppable force in world politics. Since MAGA Republicans had tied themselves to Orbán and his movement, his loss also weakened their own claims to inevitable victory over those trying to protect democracy.

On Sunday night, President Donald J. Trump appeared to melt down on social media. In The Atlantic today, Tom Nichols noted that Trump’s “emotional state seems to be fraying: This weekend, he attacked Pope Leo XIV, presented himself as Jesus Christ, and then jabbed at his phone until dawn.” Nichols notes that after Trump attacked the Pope and portrayed himself as Jesus, he posted an AI version of a Trump Tower on the moon. (“Sure,” Nichols writes. “Why not?”)

Then Trump posted a meme of how senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former president Joe Biden all look old—unlike Trump—and then posted clips from Newsmax. The postings continued throughout the night. “This is not the behavior of a stable, healthy leader,” Nichols writes. “The American people must not look away…. They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration, and insist that the House and Senate start acting like functioning branches of the government by asking the White House to explain what is happening, without insults or evasions, before the eyes of the country and the world.”

You can read her full commentary on her Substack “Letters From an American”.

“African Love Story” for dVerse Poets

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African Love Story

In this day and age
Almost everyone has a tropical love story.

Show of hands–
How many here?

There was a war.  Danger.
And there were disapproving fathers
And careers.
And yes, I know that some
Love stories survive them all.
But ours didn’t.
And he didn’t.

So just for a year and a few months
We were in love in a warm climate.
A torn love story with a sad ending
With me as its only living remnant.

Imagine yourself
In that story
Full of hormones and atmosphere

It is a meditation remembering
Sand and moonlight under the Southern Cross.
Or cocks crowing before you fell asleep
Long rolling nights in a village
Where almost no one spoke your language.

Perhaps you were a prisoner of love
As I was years ago.
Non-protesting, dizzy and dumb for passion.

Would I have stayed for love if I’d known
It was the whole business of love I’d leave behind,
And not just my beloved?

Would you?

 

 

The dVerse prompt is ‘Where Does Love Go?”

The Numbers Game #120. Come Play Along!!

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The Numbers Game #120. Come Play Along!!

Welcome to “The Numbers Game #120. Today’s number is 242. To play along, go to your  photos file folder and type the number 242 into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. 

Here are my photos for today. Click on photos to enlarge.
See a companion poem written based on these photos HERE.

Yoli’s Confirmation Cake
1 1/2 ” round stone formed by the wave action in Lake Michigan. Found in a little stand by the side of the road
On the sofa….
Harriet’s centerpiece of Santa in a fishing boat that occasioned much conversation and a half dozen shopping trips and final success
See a companion poem written based on these photos HERE.

Star-gazing for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 752

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Star-Gazing

Eyes stalk the skies for lucky stars, hoping to harness their good fortune, and although those heavenly objects pepper the skies like jewels cast across a black velvet blanket, ribbons of clouds start to obscure their glow. Then, splashed  in layers like fresh paint over a graffiti-riddled fence, the faces of clouds completely obscure their light. We must set our minds to other hopes. The light has gone out on today’s.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle,752, the prompt words are: stalk sky luck harness pepper jewel ribbon splash layers set light face

“Avoidance” for Sadje’s Sunday Poser #281

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Avoidance

I’m tired of enlightenment, bored with my muse.
I give up on all topics that spur and enthuse.
I think I’ll be lazy for the rest of my life,
avoiding all effort and dodging all strife.

For what do I worry and ponder and seethe?
What care I for clean water and air we can breathe?
Let fools be our guides. Let them rule us all.
Let other fools follow them until they fall.

Let scientists fuss over theory and fractal.
I’ll deal with endeavors more sensual and tactile.
I’ll plot games of solitaire, fiddle with flowers,
play video games for hours and hours.

I’ll torment the cat and worry the dog,
lie in the hammock, my mind in a fog.
Let other folks solve all the world’s ills.
I’ll keep myself busy with vodka and pills.

Use avoidance to overcome all of my worries.
Let torpor eradicate all of my hurries.
I’m overlooking the problems in which the world’s mired.
If I need an excuse, It’s that I am retired.

The Sunday Poser question is “What do you always try to avoid?”

“Damsels in Distress” for Word of the Day Challenge

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Damsels in Distress

Each myth, legend or fairytale
from “once upon” to “fare thee well”
shares some elements of story
be they sad, uplifting, gory.

Always a damsel in distress—
Rumplestiltskin’s name to guess,
straw to spin out into gold,
or another story to be told.

Too much sleep may be her curse,
ugly stepsisters, or worse:
murder, treason, sloth and pox
emptied from Pandora’s box.

These troubles spread from near to far––
one solved by wishing on a star,
then Zeus forgave Pandora’s shame
and the imp revealed his own strange name.

But the other women described above
were saved by cleverness or love.
Scheherazade escaped the hearse
with stories, legends, tales and verse.

Cinderella rose from hearth and ashes
and Sleeping Beauty opened lashes­­––
both maids saved by daring-do:
one by a kiss, one by a shoe.

So whatever might have been their fate:
loss of child or murderous mate,
wipe tears and fears away with laughter.
They all lived happily ever after.

 

The Word of the Day Challenge prompt word is Stress. Image generated with the use of AI.

Solo Saturday Night (For the “S” Word Prompt)

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I am starting a new prompt named The “S” Word Prompt. Today’s “S” word is Solo. Please send your own story, poem or photo that shows your response to the word. Here is mine:

Solo Saturday Night

Half lonely, half happy I have no agenda,
I doctor my coffee with creamer and Splenda.
Tapping the keys to put letters together
with fingertips pressing as light as a feather,
I confront my computer and I never fail
to pound out a poem in my own brand of Braille.

I empty my heart of all of its ills––
better than pot or liquor or pills.
It is the prescription I write on my own
to relieve my regrets and stifle each moan.
I confide in myself, then type out what I think––
therapy with no recourse to a shrink.

A Little Twilight Exercise

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I think I should leave it to their eventual families to name these girls, but in the meantime, any idea what we should call them?