Adolescence and Anorexia
When I was a teenager, I thought that I was fat.
I felt that I must be obese if I wasn’t flat.
To look like Twiggy was our goal, but we never achieved it.
The media said curves were bad, and dumb us, we believed it!
Normal flesh felt flabby and we feared cellulite pebbles.
and though in other matters, we felt like we were rebels,
when it came to body image, news and fashion led us.
Thankfully, in retrospect, they weren’t the ones who fed us!
Mr. Wordy
If you have any questions, he’s there for you to query.
It’s rumored he’s a veritable walking dictionary.
Phrases pile up around him, Paragraphs drift like snow.
He simply has to put in words all that he claims to know.
If you’re breaking the rules of grammar, he’ll put you in your place,
and if you mispronounce a word, he’ll tell you to your face.
He’s a pain to talk to, a vain and tiresome man.
So if it’s possible, I’d say avoid him if you can.
He leaves his words behind him, tracking nouns right down the hall.
Adjectives and participles fall where they may fall.
As rotund in his rhetoric as in his derriere,
if words were spoor, I’m sure that we could track him anywhere!
Prompt words are rhetoric, rotund, breaking, spoor and dictionary.
Turning the Tables
The turtle stuck his neck out to see where he was going,
but might have hidden in his shell if he had means of knowing
that the chef had plans for turtle soup, so caught him at the threshold
and put his hands around his neck so he could gain a flesh hold.
But such plans “gang aft astray.” The turtle put a spin on
and designed a different course from one that he had been on.
He dragged that gourmet chef along and headed for the sea.
Their noise of battle was the thing that awakened you and me.
We put our vinyl raincoats on and fiddled with the locks,
scooting feet into our shoes, devoid of any socks.
No moonlight eased our journey, for rainclouds obscured all,
and amidst the raindrops, we commenced to slip and fall.
Around us, many turtles were streaming towards the sea,
intent upon their journey. Ignoring you and me.
So we turned back homeward, to sit upon our stoop
imagining those turtles enjoying human soup.
Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: turtle neck shell hidden
but design no spin fiddle amidst noise vinyl
For Wordle 542 Image by Dusan Veverkolog on Unsplash.
Click on first photo to enlarge, then click on it to enlarge next photo, ad infinitum!
1 P.M. and She’s Talking About Her Dog Again!!!!
My pesky new apprentice assists me in my writing
with tugging and with growling and with nuzzling and with biting.
She sees my busy fingers as toys for her to play with
that no matter what I need them for, she’s sure to have her way with.
She demands my attention with her robust barks,
then sits upon my keyboard, leaving puppy marks.
She’s not a mere disturbance, but a 24-hour duty.
I’d do something to change this, but she’s such a little cutie.
In the area we’ve made for her, she has no urge to pee.
She prefers the dining room for her morning wee.
There’s no way to out-wait her and monitor her poops.
Why do it where Mom wants you to when you can prompt an “Oops?”
She’s such a cagey customer, there is no way to catch her.
When she is determined, no force on earth can match her.
When I slip out of my shoes, she slips her teeth into them.
Instead of learning to eschew, she chooses just to chew them.
I’ve tried to write my daily poem since roughly 6 a.m.
Which was the hour she chose to use me as a jungle gym.
With push-ups on my face, then tug-of-war using my hair,
she was my canine alarm clock extraordinaire.
First there was the feeding, then the pee and pooping,
the washing, disinfecting, the blotting and the scooping.
Then hours in the backyard with the other dogs.
With so much activity, who has time for blogs?
Then the screening of the porch so I can keep her close.
Otherwise, I know that her intention’s “Vamonose!!
Whether perky little houseguest, scavenger or daughter,
In spite of changes in my life, I’m so glad that I got her!
Prompt words today are apprentice, robust, oops, cagey and disturbance.
If Nothing but the Truth Was Possible
Your child is not as charming as you think he is.
Perhaps if you just said, “No!” to him now and then?
I’m allergic to dogs. Could you get your St. Bernard off my lap, please,
and lock him out of the room where we’re sitting?
As much as I enjoyed the first hundred of your family photos,
could we perhaps move on to conversation of a less familial theme?
My husband has seen enough of your cleavage for one evening. Could you cage them?
Your poem’s triteness is only equaled by its misspellings.
I can see why you would want to be a swinger. Someone as gross as you are
should not expect his wife to shoulder all the responsibility.
Walmart art does not really count as a collection.
Whether your rocks are cubic zirconium or diamonds, they are still ugly!!!
When people back away from you, there’s a good chance
they don’t want you to advance on them again.
A good way to check for bad breath is to lick your wrist.
Have you ever wondered why only beautiful women want you to ask them to dance?
If you expect things in Mexico to be just like they were in the U.S., please remember
that there is a country just north of the border that is the U.S.!! Why don’t you go there?
No I am not ill. I’ve just spent two years starving myself and spent a fortune
on appetite suppressants. Couldn’t you just tell me I look fabulous?
Be honest now. Would you ever have thought to eat raw fish if it weren’t all the rage?
Your life depends on telling the truth. Do you you really, truly enjoy opera?
Just what is it you find enchanting about Paris? Oh, right. It must be the friendly people!
The adage I chose as inspiration for my poem was, “The truth shall set you free.” John 8:32
Image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash. To see more poems based on adages, go HERE.
And HERE is a link to the prompt itself.
No Chip Off His Block
He cannot get a rise out of his insouciant daughter.
A woman on a tightrope, he cannot make her totter.
Cool as a cucumber, a lamb chop with no gristle,
teasing does not faze her. No insult makes her bristle.
He sees her as a puzzle he’s determined he will solve.
Where did she get her backbone and her strong resolve?
He’s had too many beers, but when he goes to get another,
it’s clear to everybody else she takes after her mother!
Prompt words today are gristle, mimic, insouciant, totter and tease.
Fatal Obsession
My father is an ogre and rather hard-of-hearing,
but I had the silly idea I could rise above my rearing.
All my friends were human and I had a strange obsession
for screening them from tendencies I had in my possession.
The result was that I scored a beau inimitably grand—
the sort of perfect boyfriend I thought I’d never land.
Vibrant, handsome, wealthy and inordinately smart,
he was the sort of catch that would melt any ogress heart.
In short, I could barely believe that Avery was mine,
but when I brought him pridefully home with me to dine,
after the aperitifs, the soup and the tossed salad,
I noticed that my father was looking somewhat pallid.
I stepped into the kitchen to find him food more savory,
only to return to find that dad had eaten Avery!!
I cried, “How could you do this to one who’s so indelible?
“I tried to prove you wrong,” he said. “I thought you said inedible!”
Note: An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster usually depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, Ogres are closely linked with giants and with human cannibals in mythology.
Prompt words for today are vibrant, indelible, inimitable, possess and pride.
Payback
When Hal at the feed store hired a new clerk,
he was friendly enough, but a bit of a jerk.
He quickly filled orders for packets of seed
of a kilo or so, but he didn’t accede
to requests for help out with a heavier sack.
He had an excuse as he claimed a bad back.
Then later that rascal would go to the gym
and work out with weights far heavier than him.
Of course word got around and was cause for his layoff.
Good news for his back which now has every day off!
Prompts today are layoff, rascal, friendly, accede and clerk. Image by julian-andres-carmona-serrato on Unsplash.
Squirreled Splendor
Why this crazy diadem so intimately curled?
How quizzical you’ve seen it fit to be completely squirreled.
If I decide to follow suit to don a furry coif,
will you claim a copyright and make me take it off?
Prompt words today are decide, diadem, copyright, quizzical,
New Puppy
She’s distracted in a heartbeat by a petal or a stone.
No errant tuft of grass is ever left alone.
She does battle with the gate, makes fairy trails through sand,
makes a complicated plaything of a single human hand.
The spill of lacy shadows by the sun above the trees,
the ticking of a clock or the slightest little breeze
all demand attention. There’s no limit to the things
that become her playthings: bottles, fingers, strings.
Only sunset brings a finish to frenetic hours of play.
There is a certain surcease, finally, at the end of day.
But 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. and 6.a.m. again
mark hours when new playtimes are scheduled to begin.
Prompt words today are: sunset finish string spill heartbeat trails tick stone gate
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 