The Real Dirt
Dirt has had, since its inception,
an unfair place in our conception—
a thing for us to rail against
and throw the laundry pail against.
Dirty thoughts are seen as rude,
and yet dirt grows our daily food.
Without it, we would flail and totter.
Impossible to walk on water!
The prompt words today are dirt and inception.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/rdp-sunday-dirt/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/inception/
My vegan concoction
Born-Again Dieter
My corpulent life style I now declare over.
I’ve taken an oath to only eat clover,
apples and carrots and barley and beans.
There will be less of me filling my jeans!
Instead of gorging, I’m going to be grazing.
I know the results will be just amazing.
So if you are willing and if you are able,
be careful, please, what you bring by my table.
Don’t pass near with ice cream or tiramisu
or I’m liable to accidentally waylay you
to survey your provender —those fruits of the cow—
just to “tsk tsk” your choices with holier than thou
dieting lingo in loud fierce bravado,
eschewing your pancakes or your gado gado.
The world should bow down to my menu of choice
and if it doesn’t, in my loudest voice
I’ll be sure that you know what you could have chosen
that’s macrobiotic. That’s never been frozen.
That’s full of good fiber, sans sugar and gluten.
My mouth will be flappin’, my horns will be tootin’.
For now I’ve decided to be dairy-free,
I’ve decided the whole world should diet with me!!!
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/rdp-thursday-corpulent/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/oath/
April Showers
Every April I find that the process of taxation
inhibits my ability to practice relaxation.
Detrimental to my leisure, it plagues my meditation.
The only way I get to sleep is helped by medication.
As scraps of paper flutter down from where they’re stacked in piles,
my friends all note I’m lacking in my usual jokes and smiles.
I’m sorting, adding, searching, piling, muttering and raving,
trying to discover all the receipts I’ve been saving.
It is my c.p.a. who has the easiest task of all
fitting figures into slots, and then he has the gall
to charge at least two hundred bucks for plugging in my numbers,
adding one more bill to disrupt my former slumbers.
It’s true that April floods the world with gentle springtime showers
that mark the end of winter and enable our May flowers.
Thus, others wax poetic dreaming of the April rain,
while I find it too quickly comes around again.
I was ill last night and went to bed early, thus I’m up about 5 hours early as well and the only two prompt words posted are “detrimental” and “relaxation.” Don’t know why this poem floated to the surface four months early, but it was the poem that wanted to be written between the hours of 3:30 and 4:20 a.m. And so, back to sleep, I hope.
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/27/fowc-with-fandango-detrimental/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/your-daily-word-prompt-relaxation-December-27-2018/
proclaimed to be fine,
The Leech
They’ve plugged up their ears to muffle his mutterings.
They’re tired of his self-serving utterings.
He’s an indulgence they’d like to be shed of,
expunge from their sofa and free their spare bed of.
He thinks it’s tradition that they should take care of him,
yet they’d prefer that their house just be bare of him.
He’s a caricature of self-indulgence,
wallowing in familial abundance.
They need to be boxing his ears or possessions
and signing up for codependency sessions.
They’ve supported him well and sent him to college,
imbued him with clothes, with playthings and knowledge.
Now he needs to be kicked out to find his own life—
to be taught by experience, seasoned by strife.
Lest they make a mongrel of a fine pup,
it’s time they encourage their boy to grow up!
The prompt words today are tradition, caricature, indulgence and boxing.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/rdp-wednesday-tradition/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/your-daily-word-prompt-indulgence-December-26-2018/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/boxing/
Intervening with the Solstice
They’re intervening with the solstice. We’re requiring more light,
though adding one more month to summer simply isn’t right.
They’ll put a manmade light up in the sky next to the sun.
We’ll have summer the whole year through once mankind is done!
Next, they’ll augment infinity and make the rain much wetter.
There’s nothing like a mortal man for making nature better!
For another poem on the subject of the solstice, go HERE.
The prompts are solstice, intervene and infinity.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/rdp-friday-solstice/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/21/fowc-with-fandango-intervene/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/infinity/
Collapsed Bridge
The bridge between us is a shambles. Water cascades between us.
John Gray would say that you’re from Mars whereas I am from Venus.
Most of what I treasure you consider superficial.
We are so far apart that we should now make it official.
You go your way, I’ll go mine, with no one to convene us.
It should not be traumatic so let’s just try to wean us
from all those little petty things that once brought us together,
like quince preserves, Scrabble and a fear of stormy weather.
We’d snuggle up and toast some toast and slather on the jelly,
bring out the quilts and Scrabble board and just ignore the telly.
Pepperoni pizza and rum and Cokes and cards
once kept our crystalline affair from shattering to shards.
But since we’re both on diets from pizza and each other,
the blanket that once comforted now only serves to smother.
I’ll go my way, you go yours, as though we never met,
and if I’m craving Scrabble, I’ll use the Internet!
Prompt words today are bridge, treasure, shambles and cascade.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/rdp-tuesday-bridge/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/18/fowc-with-fandango-treasure/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/shambles-2/https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/your-daily-word-prompt-cascade-December-18-2018/
Your Dishwasher’s Advocate
Cycle after cycle, they clean our dirty dishes
yet do we ever think about acceding to their wishes?
Maybe they, too, have appetites, and I sometimes think perhaps,
they were patiently waiting for their favorite scraps.
A bit of rich spaghetti sauce, a dollop of our mousse,
a little bit of buttered bread or rib eye’s savory juice
might have fulfilled their evening’s dreams or might have made their day,
But instead we diligently swab it all away!
No rich reward for faithful servants waiting for our scraps.
No satifsfactory searches for tidbits left in gaps.
And so they go another day, our faithful old machines,
without a taste of hamburgers or beets or nectarines.
They cannot live on water alone. Those soapsuds have no savor.
And so the next time when you scrape, please do your pal a favor.
Leave a few scraps on the plate. Don’t clean too well those tines.
Think about your faithful friend who oh too rarely dines.
Leave your dishwasher a tip—something on which to sup.
Leave wine dregs in your goblets and leave them facing up!
Leave rice grains in your rice bowl. Do not clear that sauce away.
Being less efficient, will make your Maytag’s day.
If your wife makes a kerfuffle over the job you do,
remind her it is you that’s here scraping off the goo.
Take her by the shoulders and deflect her view.
Your dishwasher is grateful for it every time you do!
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/16/fowc-with-fandango-cycle/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/16/wish/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/16/your-daily-word-prompt-kerfuffle-December-16-2018/
It’s hot summer in the teeming city with tenements piled room-on-room. With narrow hallways and nonexistent grassy plots, where’s a kid to play?
Home Plate: Sweet Victory
They’re playing baseball in the street again, forcing cars to wait,
restless in the intersection, ’til they see the fate
of the ball the bat just cracked, rising in the air
to land in someone’s flower pot or on the tenement stair.
They make such a brouhaha, loud boys and louder cars,
that Grandma rises up a bit to clutch at window bars.
It is a large commitment, for she can’t sit down again
without some help, but still she is attracted by the din.
Are car horns blaring for the inconvenience or a homer?
The batter’s mad dash down the street and back a slight misnomer,
for first base is the red car and second base the yellow.
Cross the street and third base is the stair stoop of the fellow
who exits from his doorway, briefcase in his hand,
who seems in a great hurry and yet chooses to stand
to see the runner execute his skipping zigzag run
homeward toward the batter’s plate that holds a sticky bun.
Horns blaring as he executes his mission, ends his flight,
bends over, grabs his trophy, and takes his winning bite!
Prompt words today were play, intersection, commitment and brouhaha.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/rdp-saturday-play/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/15/fowc-with-fandango-intersection/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/commitment/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/your-daily-word-prompt-brouhaha-December-15-2018/
No Energy
When he made his overture on electronic media,
it read as though he’d copied it from an encyclopedia.
Each sentence was incongruous with the one before,
his transitions nonexistent and his details all a bore.
He was indubitably boring, so she gave the guy a miss.
Judging by his message, imagining his kiss.
The prompts today are overture, electric, incongruous and indubitable.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/rdp-friday-overture/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/14/fowc-with-fandango-electric/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/incongruous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/your-daily-word-prompt-indubitable-December-14-2018/
Coterie
Are you in my coterie or am I in thine?
I’d find it much more stimulating if you were in mine.
If I’m the leader of the pack, the one who’s picked to shine,
I admit, my friend, that I would find it most divine.
When folks pulled out their cameras, I would stand in the center.
At every social gathering, I’d be the first to enter.
I’d be the first to order when our group went out to dine.
I’d have prime place at table. I’d get to choose the wine.
It would become tradition that I would be the star.
All the handsomest of men would eye me from afar.
But after this conjecturing, of course I could be wrong.
If I am in your coterie, I’d only tag along!
The prompt words today are coterie (love that word,) camera, stimulating and tradition. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/rdp-wednesday-coterie/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/12/fowc-with-fandango-camera/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/stimulating/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/your-daily-word-prompt-tradition-December-12-2018/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 