photo by Ben Hershey for Unsplash, used with permission
Scoreless
As a jock he’s overrated. He’s insipid and a bore.
He dishes out the dirt on all his dates that’s mainly lore.
By their choice a second date is rarely in the works.
They have their radar out for all such predatory jerks.
On the field he’s second rate at passing and advancing.
But those skills are stellar when compared to his romancing!
Prompt words for today are insipid, dirt, jock, overrated and choice.
A Stroll in the Park is not What It Used to Be
This park is overrated. It is not my zone of choice.
One cannot be heard here unless you raise your voice.
The signs are not well-written. They’re curt and brash and rude.
One gets pebbles in one’s shoes when fashionably shoed.
Little dogs are walked here that irritate my nose,
and I don’t approve of the scanty jogging clothes.
If the Queen were walking here, I think she would be shocked,
for not one single passer-by is stockinged, gloved and frocked!
All-in-all, a walk here is not what it once was.
I only visit here because the ice cream vendor does!
Prompt words today are pebble, written, zone, overrated and choice.
We reached Corfu this morning and are now 8 hours ahead of my usual Central Standard Time in Mexico. This can wreak havoc with both maintaining contact with friends back home, sleep and appetite. This morning as I ate breakfast at what would have been midnight back home, I wrote a poem that had nothing to do with this subject. Unfortunately, I unthinkingly ripped it up and threw it away later after I used the same paper to record our scores for a dice game, so here is a substitute on the subject of what big time changes do to the psyche as well as the appetite.
Culinary Timing
I’m in trouble with reason. My time’s taken flight.
I don’t know the difference between day and night.
My head can accept we’re eight hours ahead,
though my body prefers to stay longer abed.
The diet they serve us now we’ve reached Corfu
agitates me with a troubling snafu.
When it’s breakfast time here, I am taken aback,
for my palate’s desirous of a midnight snack.
Time’s not in contention. I know I am wrong.
As they change the time, I should go along.
All day, it’s my stomach that keeps on resisting.
Shrimp cocktail? I’d rather they desist insisting.
Whatever they’re serving is not what I wish.
I’m ready for pancakes. They want to serve fish.
The meal I desire is not what they’re makin’.
They want to serve lobster when I prefer bacon.
I truly like visiting different places,
seeing strange sites and different faces.
Yet, I may give up traveling merely because
they cannot keep time the way that it was!
Words for today are agitate, diet, flight, contentious and trouble.
Ode to the Shipboard Buffet
In the hierarchy of buffets, spaghetti is the king
no matter what competing dishes they may bring
to grace the laden, groaning boards: rich soups and shrimp and cheeses.
They advocate for salads, but somehow no Caesar pleases
half as much as pasta, well-laden with rich sauce:
ground beef, basil and parmesan, tinged with just a toss
of fennel and oregano. It simply has no peer.
We gobble it with cabernet, chianti or a beer.
We leave the smorgasbord serene, replete and full and sated.
Our emptiness has been fulfilled, our appetites abated.
No hunger pangs outlast thin noodles topped with smashed tomatoes.
Spaghetti beats out hamburgers and crisp French fried potatoes.
It beats out cured Virginia ham. It beats filet mignon.
It beats twice-baked potatoes and things put thereupon.
I’m sorely tempted by ice cream and pastries, cookies, tarts,
but such things aren’t exclusive of main courses that are starts.
A plate piled with spaghetti deserves a proper ending.
Just plan when loading up your plate. Dessert is also pending!
Words for the day are serene, advocate, hierarchy, outlast and spaghetti.
photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash, with permission
Defection
Her endless tries to civilize her wild Wyoming grin
and the crooked chipped-off tooth that resided within
did nothing to dispel its authentic cowgirl charm
or its endless talent in working to disarm
any reticent cowboy who thought he would resist it
then ended up admitting that he wished that he had kissed it.
So when at last those lips were kissed, alas it was no drover,
but instead a city boy who won our wild girl over.
And, because they took no chance in winning her affection,
it was in fact the cowboys at fault for her defection.
Prompt words for today are acerbic, authentic, endless, civilize and grin.
Nightly Ritual
A fleeting shadow on the wall, what do you make of that?
Another and another joins this swirling mass of bat.
Fortuitous destruction, they swarm across the lake.
What an impressive undulating constant stream they make.
They go to eat mosquitos in the farther fields they roam,
leaving only guano here closer to their home.
The wellbeing they foster, I fear is far afield.
Here at home there’s not a single benefit they yield.
They sleep by day then hurry off on nightly winged weavings,
leaving me, with broom and scrub brush, dealing with their leavings.
Prompt words today are fortuitous, shadow, wellbeing, destruction and bat.
Also, for Granny’s BOTD.
Unlikely Pairing
One ungainly orphan elephant, wandering and uncertain
of where his journey’s leading him, comes upon a curtain
of mist that rises from the plain, shimmering, evanescent.
The stars now muted overhead, the moon a fuzzy crescent.
He splits the curtain, comes upon a lone and lost impala
split off from the herd during some wild stampeding gala.
They form a duo and plod on, each looking for a herd.
Such an unlikely couple. Impossibly absurd.
And yet they struck a certain chord, each one with the other.
She was the sister that he lacked, and he her missing brother.
One thing led to another. She fit him like a glove,
and before they knew it, the two were fast in love.
When the baby came, it looked a bit like a nyala,
a bit like a rhinoceros––an elephantiala!!
Prompts today are intent, orphan, elephant (good grief) and evanescent. Add this one, too: curtain.
The Other Side of the Story
I think it’s just fair dinkum that you suffer repercussions
from the things you said to me during our last discussions.
I grant that breaking up is something that is hard to do,
but for sheer brutality, I give the prize to you.
I must say it’s unfathomable that you have forgotten
all those infidelities to which you’d never cotton.
I hate to raise old issues that we’d both rather ignore,
but before you pick your suitcase up to storm out of the door,
I feel I must remind you that the suitcase that you’ve packed
does not belong to you but is my favorite, in fact.
And the car you might intend to drive away in in a huff
packed with all “your” furniture and other handy stuff,
is registered to me, in fact, and all that’s packed inside
was paid for by my paycheck, and so it will reside
right here with me as you embark on your lonely shuffle
out into the cold with your belongings in a duffle.
Ta ta my dear malingerer, I hope that you do well
as you descend from easy street down to your private hell.
Prompt words for today are repercussions and dinkum,
and, since Your Daily Word hasn’t published their August prompts yet, I’m going to use the three prompts of theirs that I missed on the 26th, 27th and 28th while I didn’t have internet connection for three days: Raise, ignore and unfathomable.
Aroma Therapy
There’s a distinctive odor coming from your shoe.
I don’t know what is causing it. I’m sure it isn’t you.
An acquisitive vampire might pay big bucks for it
to augment the fetid odor in his burial pit.
When it comes to hygiene, I have very little tact,
so I have used hyperbole to illustrate the fact
that from the big toe of each foot right over to its pinky,
the fact is not debatable. Your feet are very stinky!
Prompt words today are odor, vampire, illustrate and acquisitive.
Premature Delivery
I can’t defend or explicate the reason for my ardor
for that triple-decker cake residing in my larder.
Tomorrow was its due date, the delivery premature.
Now I have a compulsion for which there’s just one cure.
My love is unrequited. That torte has neither lips
nor anything but calories to slip around my hips.
At this extravaganza they’ve planned to celebrate
my forty-second birthday on my birthing date,
there must be a cake to eat. I must be resolute
to not pre-sample one small bite. I am of fine repute
and do not want it known that I’m unable to resist
cake with chocolate icing, and so I must insist
that you call a locksmith to secure the door
with deadlock and with padlock and perhaps with one lock more.
If my cake survives past midnight and a few hours tomorrow,
I will defray embarrassment and a good deal of sorrow.
For minute after minute and hour after hour,
I fear resisting chocolate cake is far beyond my power.
I was born to greatness—to talent and to fame,
but when chocolate comes up missing, it’s likely I’m to blame.
Prompt words for today are extravaganza, resolute, unrequited and explicate.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 