For Fibbing Friday, Oct 2, 2026

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For Fibbing Friday, Oct 2, 2026, the assignment is:

1. What is a calibre? A bachelor who lives in the longest state situated on the West Coast of the U.S. 
2. What is citrus?  The muscle that holds an eye in its socket.
3. What is phlebotomy? The removal of biting insects from a dog or cat.
4. What is pumpernickel? What you do when your coin gets caught in the gumball machine.
5. What is meant by nimbus? What an Irishman says to the bus driver when the wrong bus pulls up and opens its door.
6. What is a sea monkey? What you use to get into the men’s restroom.
7. What is an ambassador? A fisherman who gets up early in the morning to cast his rod.
8. What is a flywheel? One of those spinning devices put in the center of the table at restaurants that shoo flies away. (See illustration above.)
9. What is a catacomb? A feline grooming implement.
10. What is flamboyant? An oil slick aflame.

 

CHUY

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Bedtime Story

Here’s the new one curled up tight
ready for another night
in the one place on my bed
where I like to put my head.
Lucky I know what to do
to maneuver room for two.
I push him over, snuggle in
so our slumbers may begin.
And this is how my canine smartie
engineers our slumber party.

This is Chuy, who sneaked into the hotel garden where I was about to read to a twice-monthly reading group.  He made the rounds of the tables, then came home with me after devouring a packet of dog food I always keep in my car for starving doggies I chance upon  and then a trip to the vet for a checkup, shots, deworming and de-fleaing. After a very necessary bath to remove whatever was matting and crusting his coat and skin, he fit very quickly into the hustle and bustle of our house. He’s put on a needed pound or two and his coat is looking shinier and curlier every day. He gets along well with both cats and other dogs who reside in my house and is the favorite at the local dog park where they all go every day with my houseguest Julie and recently myself as well.

Present animal tally at my house: 4 dogs, 2 cats, 2 humans.

For Let’s Hit Rewind, Oct. 1

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Beholding Beauty (Oct. 1, 2021)

Beholding Beauty

You are the Burmese cat, stepping high
over the small sculptures
on the wall where he is fed,
his tail curving into a delicate hook.

You are vibrating leaves on the hibiscus tree
adding the contrast of green
to the one exquisite yellow bloom
with its fuchsia sunset middle.

You are a child whose violet eyes
open wider to each wonder––innocent,
never knowing yourself to be more beautiful
than what you observe.

You are music, harmonious, played
on the spur-of-the-moment with no rehearsal,
fingerpaints on the wall in an incredibly wild pattern
that could not have been planned.

You are the gourmet meal
made of leftovers from the fridge,
the wonderful costume gathered
from hangers at the thrift store.

You have a beauty
you were not born to––
one that is an amalgam
of every choice you make in life.

Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder, many say,
but it is impossible to imagine
a beholder who couldn’t see it in you.

Lacking Vision, for dVerse Poets

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(Lacking) Vision

Whereas in leaders, we seek vision,
alas, in ours, we got division!
His rich cronies buy support
for policies that they purport
are for us, because he cares..
but profit only billionaires!!!!

The wall, the pool, the usurpation
of earlier tributes that our nation
made to presidents we revered
are proof our ship of state he’s steered
into waters perilous,
good for himself, but bad for us.

Healthcare and social security?
Safety in our maturity?
Clearly, things not necessary!
His policy of cash and carry
meant only for his personal coffers
to pay for new investment offers.

Our ship of state, mentioned before
has become a ship of war
whereas our president of late
has a new conveyance of state––
a plane much more luxurious
furnished by China, not by us!.

So we’ll be seeing by and by
where his allegiances will lie.
His vision firmly fixed upon
his fortunes and the art of con.
Too many citizens, I’m afraid,
still thirsty for the Kool-Aid!

Ooops. I got carried away and forgot this was supposed to be a haibun. Mea culpa. Please forgive….

.For dVerse Poets, the prompt is “Vision.”

“Prairie Grass” for Word of the Day

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                                                            Prairie Grass

IMG_0108Prairie grass waves over the spot where my parents’ house used to be. Its roof was blown away in a tornado years ago and the house leveled, the basement filled in. What physical remnants of my past remain beneath this dirt I’ll never know as members of the family were all far-distant when the tornado hit and no one ever went to clear out items stored in the basement. I’m told townspeople came in and scavenged in the basement before it was filled in.  A friend took my childhood books for her children.  I have no idea where other letters, books, trophies and assorted treasures from my past ended up. Perhaps they are buried there.

IMG_0105
Across the dirt road is the cemetery where we all will lie beneath prairie grass one day. Yes, I was moved to tears both by the beauty and the inevitability that all our fuss and bother will result in this simplicity. We rise from the earth, feed on it and in return are fed upon. No person is so special as to survive the inevitable leveling force of nature.

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The Word of the Day prompt is “Grass.”

“Gradual Justice” For Blast from the Past, Sept 28

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Gradual Justice

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Gradual Justice

Life metes out a gradual justice that we may not  see.
Not choreographed for one lifetime, not designed for you or me,
but rather, for the planet or the universe.
There’s no way to avoid it, circumvent it or rehearse.
We’re a part of something larger even as we make mistakes
as nature compensates for all  the snafus mankind makes.
Great men may be jaunty––swelled up with their great plan,
but nature has more problems than looking after man.
She has the heart of all within, seeing a scope broader
than the needs of man or any other great marauder.
There is just so much for any of us. When we grab for more,
we can be pretty sure we may be headed out the door.
What species will replace us, or how will we evolve
if we don’t act quickly our problems to resolve?
Even all technology is part of nature’s plan.
Perhaps it’s written that robots will take the place of man.
Micro chips for healing and mechanical hearts
are only the beginning. They are only the starts.
Species that overgraze domains bring about their endings.
So it may be with us with all our diggings and our vendings.
Machines spewing toxins in our air and putting poisons on our shelves
may only be the means of making more room for themselves!

“Blast from the Past” prompt asks that we post a prompt made on this date in an earlier year. This was my post on Sept 28, 2018.

The prompts today are justice, heart, jaunty and gradual. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/friday-rdp-justice/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/28/fowc-with-fandango-heart/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/jaunty/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/daily-addictions-2018-week-38/gradual

“Feline” for Throwback Edition

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Feline

On the savannah or on my knee,
the difference is one of degree.
That resolution of feline will—
the stroke, the purr, the spring, the kill.

Only the size and prey may change—
the speed of spring, the chase’s range.
Stalking over rock or rill
or perched upon the window sill,

large or small or maned or not,
they are exactly as God has wrought.
Wild or domestic, the fact is that
simply put, a cat’s a cat.

 

This throwback is from Sept 27, 2020

“First Dance” Wordle 776 for The Sunday Whirl

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First Dance

Delerium o’er music swelling, 
trumpet blaring, cymbals belling,
audience with senses throbbing,
swallow tears, and suspend sobbing.
In a spell, just listening to
first one song, and then a few.
Faces pale with knowing glances
tag secret crushes for first dances.
Find the nerve and are rewarded
when the wishes they once hoarded
are now shared with people who
they now enjoy a spin or two
and finally begin to woo.

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 776 are: swallow tag find music swelling bell 
delirium spell pales knowing just senses

This is a prompt I just can’t resist most weeks. Here is my solution to the word challenge.

 

 

 

Autumn Schmautum for dVerse Poets

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Autumn Schmautumn

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Autumn Schmautumn

The only colored leaves I see are going to be faux,
for autumn never visits in my part of Mexico.
In fact, those piles of autumn leaves are far back in my past.
Green on the leaves in Mexico just lasts and lasts and lasts.
It’s true that each leaf everywhere must one day be defeated,
but down here where I live, the only way leaves are unseated
is not by frigid temperatures. There’s no cold to unglue them.
Our only leaf-removal means is cutter ants that chew them!
The ones who cut them down are all the bravest and the best.
Their comrades wait below to carry them all to their nest.
Their robberies completed without the slightest peep,
their piles of leaves depleted in the nighttime while we sleep.
Our guard dogs doze on soundly as ants pass by in the dark,
letting all these thieveries go on without one bark.
And so I fear that this far south no autumn colors are viewed.
Our trees create no spectacle. They go from green to nude!
And though ants harvest all our leaves—just chew them off and take them,
at least they grant us favors in that we don’t have to rake them!

for Dverse Poets, the theme is Autumn.

 

Should I or Shouldn’t I? for Lets Hit Rewind, Sept 26

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Should I or Shouldn’t I ?!

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The word prompts today are inspire, surmount, enthralling, mistrust and today I’m adding Matt’s new prompt site to my inspiration list.  His command is that we invent a new punctuation mark and write a post inspired by it. What would you do if you were given four words and a situation and told to use them in a poem or story? You’d probably wind up with a poem as ridiculous as this one is!!

Should I or Shouldn’t I?!

I am plagued by indecision.
Should I choose that vain incision
leading to the skin division
that might lead to the derision
of those who might choose nature’s pace
written on their neck and face?

I must admit I do mistrust
those who deal with jowls and bust
by removing parts of them,
and so I hem and haw and hem.
As enthralling as it would be
to be confronted with less of me,

I can’t surmount the fear that I
would be the first face lift to die!
Or,  lovely as other ladies look,
I fear I’d end up in a book
of great disasters and that mine
would be a face most leonine!

Or if I had a chest reduction,
all the cutting and the suction
would lead to results most distressing.
What would happen, I am guessing,
is that the surgeon would have the gall
to leave me with no breasts at all!

If I had need to punctuate
a sentence that concerns my fate,
I think that it would culminate
with a mark that had a mate.
Although I am inspired to do it,
another part seems to eschew it,

?! would be the punctuation
designating consternation.
It’s what  I’d have to use until
I decide if I won’t or will.
Half of it anticipation,
the other half, my hesitation!