Family Roster
I wonder, did you ever know
that the mighty buffalo
and the bison (but not the sow)
are qualified to join the cow
as animals that we opine
should be listed as bovine?
Goats and sheep are also cast
as Bovindae, as is the last
animal in this family,
which is the oxen. So you see
all the animals the cow
shares its family name with now!
The prompt word, of course, was bovine!
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/bovine/
image by Diana Parkhurst via Unsplash
A Bi-lingular Education
If you’d like to speak of tongues, a creature that is singular
is the arboreal lemur that is said to be bi-lingular.
One tongue is used for grooming another lemur’s hide
to sort out all the hairs from the delicious bugs inside.
Bugs provide fine nourishment but hair of course does not.
That smaller underneath tongue traps the hairs that it has caught
and arranges their expulsion, while the top tongue gets to savor
all those juicy bug parts that deliver so much flavor
combined with all the flowers and the fruit that it is able
to gather to provide the meal for a lemur’s table.
So when it comes to dining, when lemurs eat, it seems
that it works much better when they work in teams.
They form a culinary guild with very simple dictums.
One provides the appetite. The other provides victims!
(All true, by the way!!!)
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Prompts today were lingular, victim, guild and team. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/rdp-tuesday-lingular/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/05/fowc-with-fandango-victim/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/your-daily-word-prompt-guild-march-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/team/
She finds your fawning chivalry to be rather monotonous,
your brain quite adolescent and your physique quite neotonous.
Your compulsion to be healthy to her seems dull and boring,
which prompts my speculation that you likely won’t be scoring.
jdb Photo: Photo is for illustration only. In no way is the poem intended to represent the two lovely young people it depicts. The prompts today are speculate, health, chivalry and monotonous. The links are:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/rdp-monday-speculate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/04/fowc-with-fandango-health/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/your-daily-word-prompt-chivalry-march-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/monotonous/
Made Over
Back when we were fragile and our love was first on trial,
I was seeking to enchant you with trickery and guile.
I feared that final reckoning when one day you’d wake up
before I had the chance to do my hair and my makeup.
My mental alarm clock never seemed to fail.
I’d haul me to the bathroom, looking snarled and pale—
smooth my hair and draw the me you knew upon my face,
until the real me was obscured—vanished without a trace.
How many years did I go on with that sad charade,
trying to restore in me what nature chose to fade?
Now that all I am is finally written on my face
with lines and wrinkles scored so deep that you can easily trace
all of my imperfections, what a wonder that you see
what you describe as beauty in this face that’s only me!
Prompt words today are trial, reckoning, enchant and fragile. Links below.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/rdp-sunday-trial/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/03/fowc-with-fandango-reckoning/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/your-daily-word-prompt-enchant-march-3-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/fragile/
Transmogrification
Time marches on. It has no instinct to appease.
It will not stop for anything. It has no need to please.
Young girls who start out radiant eventually dim.
Dreams that were fantastical turn nightmarish and grim.
Aging is a truth of life that can’t be circumvented.
It seems we do not own our lives. They simply have been rented.
One day the lease will lapse on them and we’ll have to go
back into the vapors to join the ebb and flow.
That’s how nature plans it. We cannot break the chain.
Our only hope is being recycled again.
Prompt words today are march, radiant, fantastical and appease. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/rdp-friday-march/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/01/fowc-with-fandango-radiant/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/your-daily-word-prompt-fantastical-march-1-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/appease/
Oldest Friend
She is my very oldest friend—I met her as a child.
Then she was the feisty one while I was shy and mild.
Diametric opposites, still we are never parted—
one of us the loner, the other open-hearted.
She makes friends everywhere we go. I’d rather be alone.
For all my hermit tendencies, she stirs me to atone.
She thinks up the parties and though loath to go along,
I give up my solitude to join the social throng.
We have coexisted throughout a lengthy life.
I thrive when I am single. She wants to be a wife.
When we are together, one must devour the other.
One at a time we make the choice: single girl or mother?
One succeeds the other in a continual chain.
As soon as one’s exhausted, the other shows again.
Our relationship is infinite. Neither can break away.
While she drinks all the shooters, I am the one to pay.
When I am the diligent student, she shares in all my glory.
I get to write the manuscripts. She gets to live their story.
One-by-one we take our turns determining our fate—
one of us always timely. The other always late.
Perhaps our friends are tired of not knowing which will show—
the one who’s energetic or the one of us who’s slow,
but our very oldest friends will simply wait to see,
knowing that whoever shows, either will be me.
Prompt words today are diametric, chain, infinite and devour
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/rdp-thursday-diametric/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/28/fowc-with-fandango-chain/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/your-daily-word-prompt-infinite-february-28-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/devour/
What’s Wrong with Your Mom?
My husband’s language is so curt that lately I’ve been wondering
if these moody epithets that he has been thundering
have anything at all to do with my consistent blundering.
Ashtrays in the ice box and ice cubes in a puddle
on the shelf where glasses go? I fear I’m in a muddle.
I see him with the children, over there in a big huddle.
Now and then, they look at me. I think they are suspicious.
It’s me they are discussing, and their looks are not auspicious.
But still they feel that questioning me would not be judicious.
Why don’t they remember that I’ve been this way before
exactly three times in the past, and this is number four?
By now I am surprised it hasn’t become family lore
that mother always gets this way during a certain time
when thinking gets confusing and moods turn on a dime,
but in the end it’s worth it as the outcome is sublime!
It seems I cannot count on them to interpret the clues,
so I think that it is time that I give them all the news
that will solve the puzzle and resolve Daddy’s blues.
They see me coming towards them and it looks like they might scatter,
but they realign their faces as though nothing is the matter
until they hear these words that I contribute to their chatter:
“The secret that I’ve kept from you is worrying as a blister.
This surprise that I’m carrying might be our first young mister,
although I know you would not mind if it were a fourth sister!”
Prompt words today are language, puddle, auspicious and wondering. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/rdp-wednesday-language/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/27/fowc-with-fandango-puddle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/your-daily-word-prompt-auspicious-february-27-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/wondering/
A dozen fatal flaws forgiven seems to be a fair number to allot to anyone. It’s that thirteenth misdeed that is unforgivable!
Baker’s Dozen
(Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)
I forgive you for hogging the covers
and eating the last cookie, too.
I forgive you for doing the crossword
that I was intending to do.
I forgive you for all of the dogs you brought home
that you’ve never walked even once
and for donating genes to our children
that turned them each into a dunce.
I don’t mind your poker night forays
or the damage you do to my car,
or the fact that your minimal salary
really can’t stretch very far.
Your spare tires and the fact that you’re balding
really don’t bother me much.
I’ve grown used to your slobbery kisses,
and the foreplay no more than a clutch.
But there’s one thing that you always do, dear,
that rouses my most primal scream,
for I had made plans for a tryst with
that last pint of chocolate ice cream!
The Heel
Rumors are abroad that you don’t know how to act.
You like to dig the needle in and haven’t any tact.
If you don’t reverse your ways and learn to get along—
if you stubbornly refuse to right your recent wrong—
I won’t be held responsible for trying once again
to cover up your misdeeds and atone for your sin.
For once you’ll have to face up to your social gaffes—
your misogynistic humor and inappropriate laughs.
When you’re lying bruised and bloody, helpless on the floor,
you’ll finally discover what high heels are really for!!!
Prompt words today wre needle, reverse, abroad and act. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/rdp-monday-needle/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/25/fowc-with-fandango-reverse/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/your-daily-word-prompt-abroad-february-25-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/act/
Dire Straits
It pays to keep a watchful eye out when you are ecstatic,
for it is a given that’s rather automatic
that you’ll attract a follower who’s overly phlegmatic
who’ll try to bring you down to earth by means rather emphatic.
Every time they visit you, it’s sure to be traumatic.
They’ll wring that joy right out of you, replace your thrill with static.
You can’t escape their diatribes for they are most dogmatic.
They’ll suck away your air until you’ll swear you are asthmatic.
In your efforts to avoid them , you’ll grow ever more erratic.
You’ll hide out in the basement or may turn acrobatic—
swinging from the treetops to climb up in the attic.
When meeting them in public, you might choose a plan dramatic
and douse yourself with perfume until you’re so aromatic
that they might find approaching you a bit too problematic.
All-in-all, my friend, I would advise you be pragmatic
and devise a strategy that’s idiosyncratic,
for there are times in life when we must be melodramatic!
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/24/fowc-with-fandango-ecstatic/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/your-daily-word-prompt-watchful-february-24-2019/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 