Category Archives: Criticism

Cruel Words


Cruel Words

True love may grow petulant and jagged at the edges,
so beware emotion’s vertigo while navigating ledges.
Too-blunt words and thoughtlessness certainly may wreak
a petulance forbidding us to turn the other cheek.

Cupid should inculcate us with presence of mind
to remember that above all else, a lover should be kind.
What love has joined together may be split by just one quip.
Lips that desire kissing should detect just when to zip!!!

Prompt words today are jagged, petulant, cheek, inculcate and join.

The Daily Wait

For some reason, I woke up at 4:30 this morning.  Of course I knew there would be no prompt yet, but as I combed the internet for distraction, tried in vain to write to my own topic, joined NaNoWriMo and tried without success to find a photo for a cover and gave up, (who picks a cover before they write the novel?), tried to find the real website for NaBloWriMo and gave up (only to see,eventally, that they posted it with the prompt this morning).

I finally was reminded of the days I’ve sat for hours waiting for the prompt or have received a timely one only to find the link doesn’t work.  And so those other days of waiting are what inspired the seemingly unreasonable post below.  (Who for God’s sake expects a prompt at 4:30 in the morning?)  Daily Post, we do appreciate your efforts so hope you can have a sense of humor about our complaints.  One thought, though. I just discovered the feature where you can set a post to automatically publish at a certain time in the future.  Could you do this with the prompt so it would consistently be published at a certain time?

The Daily Wait

7:05, and still I wait.
Have you forgotten we have a date?
Without your promise, I might move on,
but in your game, I’m just a pawn.
You move me here and move me there.
You do not even seem to care
that I’m here online, held at the brink
as I wait for prompt or wait for link.
Daily Post, you’ve drawn us in,
addictive now as heroin.
We can’t get on with our day
until you tell us what to say!
Your hook and line is without bait,
yet still we let you seal our fate.
If you’d just post your topics sooner,
we wouldn’t have to pull a nooner!

Okay, fair is fair, so here is the real prompt for today and I promise to write about it as well:

The Prompt: The Spice of Success—if “failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor” (Truman Capote), how spicy do you like your success stories?  (My answer to this is now posted in a different post.)

The Gauntlet

The Prompt: Handle With Care—How are you at receiving criticism? Do you prefer that others treat you with kid gloves, or go for brutal honesty?

The Gauntlet

If brutal honesty’s your thirst,
please don’t throw down the gauntlet first.

I have no need for verbal sparring.
In fact, I find it rather jarring.

So please pick up your gauntlet and
just place it back upon your hand.

Kind’s my material of choice
with which to gird thy hand and voice

as you tell me how I’ve erred,
so please wear gloves and wear them paired!

And then I have one more request.
Other critics have found it best

while telling me how to comport
myself in life, to make it short!