Writer’s Block
Rip up your notebook and throw it away.
At heart, you know you have nothing to say.
The cadre of writers who came on before you
wrote legions of words guaranteed not to bore you.
They composed solid volumes of bountiful wit.
Their number of sales will verify it.
The drivel you write is mere uninspired lore,
so better you read what they wrote than write more.
Prompt words today are notebook,solid, bountiful, cadre and number.
Bedbound
I have pain in my back and water on my knee
and not one single friend has expressed sympathy!
I’ve called every doctor in town to explain
my aches and my ills, but it’s all been in vain.
Not one can discover what it is that ails me.
Each remedy that I’ve sought out simply fails me.
The sun hurts my eyes and the rain brings depression.
It hurts when I walk but bed rest brings compression
that freezes my spine so I’m forced to just lie here,
seeking assistance from all who walk by here.
And although I’ve no appetite, still I must eat,
so there’s one request that I have to repeat.
If you’re going to town, could you help me out, please,
and bring me a pizza? Sausage. Extra cheese.
Because I’m so thin, the doctor prescribes beer.
and since there’s a Quik Stop that’s really quite near,
could you pick up a six-pack, some ice cream and chips?
For I simply must add some flesh to my hips.
My bones are protruding so far that they hurt
from the weight of the sheets and the thinnest night shirt.
I’m under the weather, headachy and thin.
I cannot convey the bad shape that I’m in.
My offspring don’t care and my spouse says I’m making it
hard to stay with me because I’m just faking it.
I have to complain because I must confess it
is impossible when one is ill to repress it.
Although all my friends say I’ve bats in my attic,
these ills you can’t see are not psychosomatic!
Prompts today are under the weather, offspring, flush, repress and stay.
Zombie Ball
Slice of liver, ooze of spleen—
add them to the soup tureen.
See all the pallid corpses preen?
They seek to woo the zombie queen.
Complexions chalky white or green
through the haunted house careen,
much rowdier on Halloween
than all the holidays between.
For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Careen
Wheeler Dealer
Our precocious daughter, swathed in leather, first tattoo
in view below her crop top, reached out and grabbed a few
peanuts from the table and demanded, “Amirite?”
Crumbled off the peanut shells and took a hungry bite.
She had argued that a motorbike was the best solution
to getting her to school with minimum pollution.
(Our driving her to school, consuming so much gas,
creates carbon monoxide at a level that’s most crass.)
“Umitebee” said her father, and I nodded my accord.
As her sole benefactors, just what we could afford
influenced our decision, and instead of motorbike,
we simply told our daughter to go and take a hike!
Prompt words are benefactor, leather, precocious, and amirite,
am·i·rite: exclamation ,INFORMAL, US am I right? (used to invite confirmation or assert that one’s previous statement is correct) “not much point to it now, amirite?”
Web
Please do not procrastinate when walking ‘neath these wires,
for one who does so may not get that for which he aspires.
Trick or Treat acquires more meaning . Must I even mention
that straying too close to this web may bring unsought detention?
Heed well my warning for tonight what seems to be is not.
As you look for treats you seek tonight, you also may be sought.
This spooky spider is not fake, in fact it is too real.
It will abet your progress and make of you a meal.
This spider, viewed in my friends Beck and Lach’s yard, was HUGE. It’s body alone was three inches long. Just in time for Halloween. No need for other decorations.
Prompt words today are procrastinate, trick, spooky, abet and detention.
The Haunting
When bells toll at midnight, the chiming of each bell
signals that the scarlet one has begun the knell
to release the ghoulish souls and all the bats of Hell!
They seep up through our floorboards and wait for light of day,
twist themselves into our minds as we helpless lay,
toying with our dreaming as they pause along the way.
They seek out the damp corners everywhere they go,
trying to relieve the parch of the fires below,
cooling off scorched spirits in the river’s flow.
As a sort of trial, they may choose a wild horse,
winding bony fingers through its mane, they guide its course,
streaming through the heather and leaping over gorse.
But when dusk comes to dim the sun and tuck away the light,
it is the time for spirits to begin their fearsome flight
and the frightening of humans will become their main delight.
Then as children mime their horrors while going trick-or-treating,
when they see a darker shadow or hear a wild heart beating,
they may feel more evil presences in spirits they are meeting.
As they go door-to-door or wander a dark lane,
they may detect the real creatures that they seek to feign,
and feel a certain horror that they can’t explain.
So, children out on Halloween, heed each one that you meet.
Be sure the ghoulish one you pass really just wears a sheet,
and remember that a human ghost will be possessed of feet!
These are the prompt words for Wordle 525: ring, scarlet, light, damp, fright, trick, chime, bat, floor, ghoulish, trial.
The More the Scarier
When a single apparition tried to haunt the candy store,
they just admired his costume and gave him one treat more
than all the trick or treaters who’d appeared before his visit.
I wonder if his timing isn’t very good or is it?
When he planned his visit, he was counting on horrific,
but when the owner simply said his costume was terrific,
his esteem somehow defrayed his disappointment that
the only creature that he seemed to scare was just the cat.
He returned to the graveyard and stirred his sleeping mate,
insisting on their return—this time as double date.
And their double-haunting in fact turned out so well,
next year they’re showing up with all the denizens of hell!!!!
Prompt words today are apparition, costume, horrific, esteem and mate. Image by Kevin Escate on Unsplash.
Degrees of Possession
When a ghost is newly dead and lacking in his knowledge,
is it perhaps required of him to go to haunting college?
Does he become a boogeyman, thereby saving face
only when he’s studied hard and learned to glide with grace
up the stairs and down the stairs and way down to the basement,
polishing his scary moves and practicing debasement?
Will he then earn the esteem of every other ghoul
who passed his apprenticeship at apparition school?
Prompt words for the day are haunting, college, boogeyman, esteem and grace.
Yes, that’s me scaring my sis Patti way back when I was trying to earn my spook degree. If you can think of a better name for this poem, please suggest it. This was as good as I could do.
Trick
On Halloween, every child has faith
that if they show up as a zombie or wraith
and say “Trick or Treat!” and hold out their hand,
that simply by making this threatening demand,
the folks will produce a sugary treat.
Then quick as a whip, they’ll make their retreat.
Impelled by the promise of one reward more,
they’re off to pound on another closed door.
Without maps, without compass, they’ll all zero in
on former houses where they have been
that give the best treats, like whole Hershey bars,
their parents all sitting, resigned, in their cars,
monopolized drivers one night of the year—
giving independence, yet hovering near,
and perhaps making sure that the threat clearly stated,
if the treat’s not a good one, though surely debated,
never comes true. No car windows soaped,
no trees that are left gaily toilet-roll-roped.
Over decades, this holiday’s earned such renown,
that it’s the same in town after town.
Small ghosts and small ghouls and witches and fairies
go house-to-house restating their queries
and as though it is magic, no one can resist
a candy-filled pumpkin hung from a small wrist.
Prompt words today are: compass, monopolize, wraith, impel and hand.
Dear John
My kenspeckle lover, well-known for deceit,
you cannot resist every siren you meet.
If you’re depressed, they brighten your day.
Do you think that I’m so naive and fey
that I do not notice the scent you bring home
when you return from wherever you roam?
If I kept a notebook of all of the times
you were unfaithful and caught them in rhymes,
they would be encyclopedic in length,
devoid of affection and brute in their strength.
I’d be better off, they would prove, if alone,
for “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,”
considering all of your dalliance and sin,
if applied to you, would be spread out so thin
that the bone left for me would be naught but a sliver,
my portion of flesh just a scrap of your liver,
the rest of you spread out so far and so wide,
apportioned to lovers you thought you could hide.
I’ve packed up your bags, keeping one of them free
to return the part of you you left with me.
Take it along with you as you depart.
I’ve already filled that part of my heart
that you have left empty these many long years
with one who’s supplied what you left in arrears.
Prompts today are: kenspeckle, better, notebook, deceit and depressed.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 