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Oops.. I got mixed up and thought “Paint it Black” was a photo prompt. When I tried to link it, I found it was a short short writing prompt. I couldn’t find a comments section to link it to anyway, and since it is clear I was not meant to complete the link, here is my response to “Paint it Black” in pictures.
Process of Elimination
The child asked her grandpa to teach her how to spell,
and he could not deny her, though he knew good and well
that spelling class for him had been a different sort of Hell.
They had not been his forte, the chalk board and the book,
and so this was a challenge he timorously took.
He had to find a method to help, by hook or crook!
He said to make a menu of all the words she sought
and he would make a list of all the spellings they were not—
a reverse teaching method that, thankfully, she bought!
So, she gave her assent to all his ballyhoo,
discounting his misspellings of “tuthbrush” “taribul” “hoo,”
on her route to finding spellings that were new.
Thus she learned to overlook solutions that he sold her
in the loving ill-contrived way he sought to mold her
and used the dictionary, ruling out spellings he’d told her.
Prompts today are: timorous, toothbrush, ballyhoo, assent, spell and menu.
For Cee’s FOTD
Boss
I.
Do I belong to my body or does it belong to me?
II.
When I guard its health and safety, I am its owner.
III.
But when it fails, I am its slave.
For dVerse Poets: Three-Way Split: Bodyguard, body, guard
See how others responded to the prompt HERE.
Improving on the Masters
Surreptitiously, I raise the quill to make a thin gray line
to festoon the drawing that is not even mine,
then tuck my small utensil securely in my purse.
Nightly I make this journey, and nightly I rehearse
what I will say if caught at last, imagining the worse.
The art museum’s climate—chill and dry and dark
gives way to summer’s damp heat as I hurry through the park,
find my car and drive away, speeding ever faster
lest I be finally detected, improving on a master.
Prompt words today are festoon, surreptitiously, quill, utensil, thin, climate.
Love Objects
others find committed love as something they find risible.
With no direct object, love’s intransitive to some.
Instead of one love interest, they relish what may come.
Holy men may meditate on all that love can be,
while lesser men make light of it and take it on their knee
with a chortle and a crass approach that says they’ll have a look,
but don’t intend to be the one strung up on a hook,
captured and rebranded as a certain lady’s mister,
as he has equal feelings for her best friend and her sister.
Such men prefer to spread their light of love throughout the earth.
For them their love is dappled, a thing of fun and mirth.
Gurus, priests and bon vivants can’t settle on just one.
They’ll spread their love throughout their world before the day is done.
Prompt words are intransitive, meditate, risible (provoking laughter), chortle, look and dappled. Images of wedding scene, guru and partiers are from Unsplash.
Sunshine in Winter
The sun casts its apricity against the bitter wind,
trying to convince us that it is our friend.
And though it cooks us in the summer, in winter, I admit,
when it warms us with its rays, I pray it will not quit.
Frozen in the wilderness, I resume my plea
that the rays of father Sol will manage to find me.
Once they desert their provenance, do those rays remember he
gave them clear direction to be sure to shine on me?
Prompt word are apricity (the warmth of the sun in winter, obsolete) cook, provenance, bitter, wilderness, resume.
For Cee’s FOTD
Thanks to BACK ROADS AND OTHER STORIES for identifying this plant as a Mother of Thousands for me! What an appropriate name. It is a variety of Kalanchoe.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 