For Cee’s FOTD
Update Fatigue
I’m frenetically trying to dance to the beat,
determined that I don’t become obsolete.
I try not to repeat the historical me,
but I fear I’m as modern as I’m going to be.
This deluge of new things to learn and to do—
updates to look up and new settings to view—
leaves me no time for just simply living,
for petting the cat and for chatting and giving.
There’s no app for real life and so I’m less queasier,
finding my off-line life to be much easier.
Rules don’t change in a confusing whirr.
Positions don’t shift. Things remain where they were.
I’m simply not fit for the internet crew.
Too often I’m swamped over what I must do
to keep up with the changes and so I’m retiring.
All my accounts are slowly expiring.
Amazon, Facebook, WordPress and Skype
I’ll leave to the more agile changeable type
of online explorer who likes daily derangements,
frequent repositionings and rearrangements.
I’ll sit here on my porch that remains where it was
with my laptop unopened simply because
without viruses, hackers and updates and spam,
I can just rest and remain who I am!
So my instant updatesI think I’ll turn off.
imbue view queue cue do dew few hue Jew knew loo moo mew new pew rue sue too view woo eschew sue two too to view whew woo you zoo
Word prompts today are deluge, repeat,frenetic, obsolete and plea.
Upon Running into a Former Best Friend
Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my profession or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!
Prompt words today are inveigle, lament, reunion, cussed and reaction.
For Cee’s FOTD
Rain, Rain
The yearly rains extinguish the cauldron of the sun—
gunmetal sky, one wisp of cloud like a smoking gun.
When our prayers for rain to cease go without an answer,
once again, we voice vague threats to hire a necromancer.
A cosmopolitan traveller, rain roams the thirsty world
allaying drought and hunger with silver bullets hurled
to break apart hard-crusted earth, allowing plants to grow—
cornstalks pushing through the dirt, fresh fields of hay to mow.
With every living creature dependent on the rains,
still we cannot help but silently repeat the strains
of “Rain, rain, go away and come again some other day,”
when for weeks the rain pelts down from skies sunless and gray.
Prompt words today are cauldron, cosmopolitan, prayer and allay.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos on this site are by me.
Leftovers
I’m feeling bodacious and pregnant with thought.
I’m ready to share everything that I’ve got.
Words weighty, bodacious and perhaps erogenous—
all of the parts of me rare or homogenous—
furnish the page when I’m in writing mode
and equipped to dig into the old mother lode.
I’m fertile with words and with erudition,
all my great plots coming into fruition,
but give me some room at this time of the day
for discarded words to get out of the way.
Don’t read this blog lest it turn you morose,
for you’ll trip over words if you follow too close.
Words abandoned and spurned lie below, broken-hearted—
disjointed phrases that I merely started—
I know it seems silly. Totally absurd,
but please give a small glance at a phrase or a word
that’s left over below, for words have feelings, too.
Steal a few for yourself from this discarded queue
if you should find any appealing to you
and write your own poem when you feel in the zone.
It’s the least I can do to try to atone
for my failure to launch them in poems of my own.
Otherwise, they will lie here abandoned, alone,
with no flesh around them. Words stripped to the bone!
Prompt words today are erogenous, pregnant, furnish, bodacious and mode.
audacious bought bode
tuition darted started. do glue imbue
few hue queue.
cue rue stew sue two
come into view whew you zoo
verbose
code goad lode node rode toad
phone hone alone stone
shone tone bone
Cruel Games
Tonight I am impervious to your charming lies.
They float like a conglomerate behind your velvet eyes.
Save your naughty bedroom tricks for your other hotties.
They hide like buried hatchets under buried bodies—
taloned falcons you disguise as the grip of love,
but I know the difference between raptor and dove.
Cruel actions are not love just because you name them so.
For me love is warm currents and not the hidden undertow.
The game you play may be enough for your other fools,
but the game of love I crave is played by other rules.
Prompt words today are conglomerate, impervious, tonight and bury hatchets under buried bodies. Image by Parker Gibbons on Unsplash.
Last Preteen Summer
Lemonade days and popcorn nights,
mosquito hums and chigger bites,
stars like bullet holes in the sky
and meteors like years gone by.
On our backs in summer grass,
we buried childhood en masse,
obsessed with coming teenage years
and all our questions and our fears.
Cars passing in the still-warm night
held our expectations tight.
Eavesdropping, we heard the cries
of older girls and older guys
cruising the town unaware
of prepubescent listeners there
sheltering in my backyard,
watching stars and trying hard
to imagine teenage joys
like nighttime rides in cars with boys.
For the Tuesday Writing Challenge: Lemonade Days.
Cropped image from Diego on Unsplash.
And, since I’ve just been informed that this is last week’s Tuesday prompt, I’m posting to their ‘Promote Yourself Monday‘ link as well.
I’m not saying Forgottenman is lazy. I much admire his activity in getting out to mow his lawn once a week in the heat and humidity of the boot heel of Missouri, but let’s just say that otherwise, he is somewhat exercise-challenged, save for trips to Walmart for provisions, to the P.O. for mail or city hall to pay taxes or sauntering from bed to desk, desk to kitchen or laundry room and back again.
Other than those activities, his main exercise has for years been mental, save for a few trips where I’ve jogged his getalong a bit. Thus, I’d like to share with you this brief Skype conversation last night which led to a silly poem this morning:
Exercising Lethargy
Exercising lethargy? In that I am well-versed,
so pay attention to these moves that must be oft-rehearsed.
Use your pointer finger to call over the waiter.
Then point it at your forehead to jumpstart your debater.
Should you have the catfish or should you have the shrimp?
Do those mental pushups to show you aren’t a wimp.
When you bend down to pull up socks it is a major feat.
Not to mention leg extensions, for they can’t be beat
while slipping into loafers, so appropriately named.
Not to mention hitting targets where the feet are aimed.
Push away from tables when you are fully sated,
for the benefits of arm extensions cannot be debated,
Practice tactics that I’ve taught and I promise you’ll see
what benefits may thus be wrought perfecting lethargy.
I went out to the garden to try to find a flower to photograph for today’s FOTD prompt. A slight misty rain cooled the air and the almost constant precipitation over the past 24 hours had jeweled the leaves and flowers. As you will see from the photos below, I couldn’t stop.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 