Classic Material from Aug 11, 2018 Breaking Her Diet

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Breaking Her Diet

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Breaking Her Diet

I measure her cat food with care from the vat,
but she has such an aptitude, my little cat
for flushing out lizards and others like that.
With delicate paw thrusts, she gives them a bat
’til they barely know where it is that they’re at,
then unleashes her claws for a more severe pat.

Be it lizard or bird or scorpion or rat,
she defeats it as though it were merely a gnat
and lays it out nicely on my front door mat:
one scorpion sting less or a feather for my hat,
then returns to the stool where she formerly sat,
licking her chops, and that’s why she’s so fat!!!

Jumping Jack Flash for Quadrille 353

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Jumping Jack Flash

Jumping Jimminy, Jumping Jack.
It really seems like there’s no lack
of “jump” in our vocabulary.
Jump a car? Constabulary
will be there within a flash
if you’ve decided to earn cash
to add to your illegal gain
by jumping on the felon train!

For dVerse Poets

Fibs for Friday, Aug 7, 2026

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For Fibbing Friday, the words to define are:

1.  Aurora A loud shout of excitement upon the discovery of gold in them thar hills!
2. Argument  Words of disagreement between pirates.
3. Blessing  The sound that snake with a speech impediment is making.
4. Smack What’s the best fast food hamburger? 
5.  Embarrassment The state of a woman taking a bathroom break in the wild.
6.  Prickle An oriental sour cucumber
7.  Bloat What you are supposed to do to candles on a birthday cake.
8.  Coalition Loud applause when the fuel delivery is made for your fossil-fuel furnace.
9.  Barrel A small lounge that sells alcohol.
10. Zeal Ze aquatic animal most talented at balancing objects on its nose.

 

 

 

Netherworld Chorus, for The Sunday Whirl

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Netherworld Chorus

Bone needles weave the cord that draws us to the underworld–
that pit of desolate terrors where sorrow is unfurled,
in pleas for absolution–– futile as they are  crazed ––
expressed in screams of torment by voices that are raised
in spirals toward a populace just currently recruited
to those nether regions to which they, too, are better suited–
that temple where they’ll have, they think, leisure to simply sin
without blame or sanction, but instead, will join the din.
If my words have sparked your interest, you might come along
to furnish us a chorus  for our infernal song.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 768, the words are: screams desolate they’bone sparks s voices  underworld spiral  current. (Illustration made with assistance from AI.)

“August 8” for the Throwback Edition

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This is the reblog of one of my posts from today’s date in 2016. Still a vaid comment, I think, as much of what I predicted has come about.

Version 2

The Lap

Mothers with children in your lap,
snuggled safely for their nap,
or joggers slowing down their laps
so their sons can fill the gaps
and catch up to take their father’s hands,
consider parents in other lands
as well as children of your own.
Consider what seeds might be sown.

Those who assign Hillary
to whipping post and pillory
bring charges that are spurious
which is especially curious
when the other candidate
who spreads these messages of hate
has led a life luxurious,
exploitative and usurious.

When he claims to be for the masses,
how can we be such senseless asses
to vote for this self-serving fool––
misogynistic, crude and cruel?
How can you listen and not see
how dangerous this man could be?
His fake statistics, groundless rap
spewed from his seat in luxury’s lap?

Please with the election nearing,
consider what you should be fearing.
I hope that every dad and mom
pictures his finger on the bomb.
Do you want this master of derision
making that supreme decision?
This man who overlooks the facts,
and simply rushes out and acts—

could act to end the world for good
and thereby end your parenthood.

Version 2

 

“Lazy Bones” for Friday Writings

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Lazy Bones

The greater portion of the day
had already passed away
by the time she raised her head
and deigned to quit her lonely bed.
She fed the cat and fed the dog,
then hit the button and fed her blog.
The words poured out like kibble, then
she went back to bed again!
It’s true she is a lazy bones,
ignoring doorbells, texts and phones
until it is her choice to rise
to face the possible surprise
that the night might still present—
wondering where the daylight went.
‘”Here sleeps,” her epitaph  will say,
“one who slept her life away.”

In case you are wondering,

(This is not me. I’m up at eight
to answer pounding on my gate.
It is my alter-ego, perhaps—
that side of me that I let lapse—
that draws me into daylight naps
and tempts me to ignore the phone.
That asks for afternoons alone.)

For Poets & Storytellers United, the prompt was “Bones.”

Paint Theory

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Paint Theory

Stubborn as a . . . . for “Classic Material” Prompt

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This blog was published on Aug 6 ten years ago.


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Stubborn as a . . . .

I must admit I’m stubborn, argumentative and such.
All these adverse qualities have me in their clutch.
But my mother’s from Missouri and my dad’s family is Dutch,
so they’re  the ones to blame for it, thank you very much!

If you call it tenacity it ends up sounding better.
I go from being mulish to being a go-getter,
and my stubborn tendencies cease to be a fetter.
They serve me as an asset instead of as a debtor.

As dogged as a pit bull,  determined as a cat.
A bull can be most bullish, you can’t argue much with that.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,
and nothing’s stubborn as a pig, no matter what you think.

So if you say I’m mulish, it’s neither here nor there.
Stubborn is one quality that’s not so very rare.
And when you point a finger and say I’m being rancorous,
the animal you’re channeling might be just as cantankerous!

“Unscheduled Visitor ” for : Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule for Aug 5

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This blog was posted  on this date (Aug 55) in 2017. I am reposting it for the prompt,”Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule.”

 

Unscheduled Visitor

I hear a rapid rapping and I’m wondering, “Who is it?”
It’s too early in the morning for a casual drop-in visit.
I’m still in my pajamas and the dogs and cats aren’t fed.
How can company be calling while I’m still here in bed?

The knocking is insistent but I have no way to spy
upon whatever passer-by refuses to pass by.
My intercom is broken, so I call out from the door,
“Who is it?” but it’s obvious they aren’t there anymore.

I wander back to bed again, feeling somewhat tense.
Only when I’m sleeping does the knocking recommence.
“Who is it?” I scream out again, accenting every vowel.
The dogs sense my frustration and they begin to howl.

My bedroom sliders are open, so my voice soars over the wall.
Any passerby could hear if they could hear at all.
But still nobody answers. This Saturday morning’s still.
There are no other noises up here on my hill.

No car horns and no dog barks. No children’s noisy play.
No birdcalls. No construction to mar this quiet day.
Except for my invectives as the rappings start again—
louder, oh much louder than they have ever been.

As I charge out of my front door, I grab for an umbrella—
in case I need a weapon to fight off some unknown fella
intent on ruining my day, but when I turn the key
and open wide my front wall gate, there’s no one there but me!

I roar in my frustration. The whole town must hear my wails.
I throw that damn umbrella. Over the wall it sails.
I stalk back to my room and pull the covers over my head,
praying for more silence, but what I get instead

is the steady rat-tat-tatting that now upon reflection
seems to emanate from a different direction.
I draw aside my bedroom drapes and wonder, “What the heck?”
sweeping my sight across my yard, I finally crane my neck

and see it far up in a palm—an industrious woodpecker
whose ruthless drilling is the thing that’s been my sleep-in wrecker!
I cannot throw a shoe at him for I can’t throw that far.
If I tried to knock a golf ball up, I’d be far over par.

At last I view with humor this ridiculous affair,
and so I pull on Levis and smooth my ruffled hair.
I shuffle off to feed the dogs, the kittens and the cat
and just accept as music this rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

 

The prompt today is casual.

12 comments
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    I Love this! Beautiful writing!!!
    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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    lifelessons
    

    

    lifelessons
    

    

    

    

    

    Thanks so much. After I finished the poem he/she continued his knocking into the afternoon.
    

    

    

    

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    Christine Goodnough
    

    

    Christine Goodnough
    

    

    

    

    

    One morning a woodpecker aroused me from my comfy recliner by hammering intermittently on the steel chimney cap of our wood stove. I thought someone was banging on the pipes!
    

    

    

    

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    slmret
    

    

    slmret
    

    

    

    

    

    It’s a long time since I’ve heard a woodpecker! This is a wonderful poem, and a great photo of your visitor!
    

    

    

    

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				Hesitation, for dVerse Poets
			

										

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Hesitation




As I recite my Sunday Psalms,

two butterflies alight like balms

upon the leper’s outstretched palms.


Thus nature intervenes and calms

the remainder of my qualms.

I fill the beggar’s hands with alms.


 


For the dVerse prompt today, Merril inspired us to write about butterflies.

See how others responded to the prompt HERE.