Nightmare.
Come here, my dear.
Those dangers near,
though they appear
to mock and leer,
will not come here.
So dry each tear.
Danger’s jeer,
it’s truly clear,
is just sheer
groundless fear.
The prompt for SOCS is to grab the book closest to you, open at random and use the first three words of the first full sentence on that page to start your post. Here goes….The book was The Blue Butterfly by Leslie Johansen Nack. The three words, Come here, my. . . .
Image by Paz Z on Unsplash.
Magic Circle
Ring around a Rosie
safe within a hoop.
Mommy drew a circle
around the chicken coop.
When the fox jumped over it,
the hens began to squawk,
voicing their alarm
in raucous chicken talk.
Mommy grabbed a broom
to drive the rascal out,
punctuating every swing
with an angry shout.
Now the fox is sulking,
hungry little pest
while each hen is settled
securely in her nest.
The ring around this Rosie,
our most prolific hen,
means that we’ll have scrambled eggs
more than now and then!!!
For the Three Things Challenge
The three words today are:
RING
CIRCLE
HOOP
Same Genes, Separate Tables
My brother joined a commune where they live on rabbit food.
They find hamburgers shallow and people who eat them rude.
He has said that he’ll guide me into a better life
and save me from the rushing, the chaos and the strife.
He says I’ve build a fort around my inner self
and put all my emotions safe upon a shelf.
Slowing down will help me—give me a brand new chance
to escape the world’s battles and join him in its dance.
I love my brother deeply and hold him in my heart,
yet when it comes to life styles we’re sadly far apart.
I cannot give up cheeseburgers and french fried potatoes
for a life of tofu, kohlrabi and tomatoes!
For the Sunday Whirl, Aug 12, 2023 the prompt words are: guide shallow people chance fort held brother join food rabbit slow rushes
To be truthful, hamburgers and french fries no longer really taste good to me, but neither does most food outside of chocolate and Cheetos! So still not a good candidate for good health and contentment.
Leaf Fall, Snow Fall
Voracious winds split open to spill their crumbled spoils,
unfurling leaf confetti in airborne swirls and coils.
They empty them on lawn and deck, a sign of what is coming
when winter drops its glittering load—beautiful and numbing.
I do not fear chill prospects, for I’ll be warm and snug
as my house wraps arms around me in its protective hug.
For the Sunday Whirl 615 the prompts are: grim glittering crumble empties confetti voracious unfurls wind split mind sign deck
Why I Dine Alone at Burger King
I’d like a single cheeseburger with pickles on the side,
cheese but no tomato—a fruit I can’t abide.
Be sure there is no pink to see. I like my burgers brown.
You can also skip the cardboard hat. I do not need a crown.
Grilled onions on the cheeseburger and easy on the goo.
Give me a diet Coke with that. I’d like some French fries, too.
I sit down at a booth to wait, my number on the table,
but if I could, I’d supervise—that is, if I were able.
My sandwich comes. I have a bite. I see no pink or red.
I start to take a drink of Coke but have a fry instead.
It’s hot and oh so crispy. Redolent of grease.
I feel a surge of appetite. My hunger pangs increase.
I alternate the bites I take between the fries and meat.
As regular as clockwork. I do not miss a beat.
For when it comes to fast food, I do not equivocate.
My ratio of fries-to-burger I must calibrate.
I plan it down to the last fry. I don’t allow for glitches,
and woe to folks who borrow one. I do not abide snitches.
If you want a French fry, please buy some of your own.
I have plans for all of mine. I am not sharing-prone.
With one more bite of burger and only two more fries,
the ratio is one-to-two. I plan to synchronize.
I have it all planned out, my friend, so if you’re chancing by,
keep your fingers off my French fries, or somebody’s gonna die!
For: https://alwayswrite.blog/2023/08/02/wq-31-alone/
And HERE is a link to other poems and quotes on this subject.
Number 9 Blues
Those eyes,
that song,
A bird the color
of the moon
we met under.
The wind
a ribbon of sadness.
Cold hands,
broken heart—
all the hue
of a trumpet’s lonely staccato.
Vidalia Onion Dicer. No More Tears!
Sauerkraut and mustard, ketchup, onions, relish—
a hotdog was created merely to embellish.
The tears came later, when the bill came. Go HERE to read the story of the thirty dollar hot dog. And you’ll just have to imagine the story of my my recent forty-dollar corn dog eaten at a hotel in Billings, Montana. Pictured below, its story is too painful to relate. No onions, this time.
Here is the link for the prompt, and here are more poems on the subject for dVerse Poets: Vidalia Onions
For the new 2 writing Poetree Prompt
If you can’t read the poem above, here it is in larger form:
Tree of Faith
In
another
country,
I could be beheaded
for what I most believe in.
Personal. Unique.
A creative faith that rules my life––
religion an organic thing
grown from a communication
between my heart and mind to shade me.
No pews or choir lofts.
No creeds or ayatollahs or muezzins.
No pentecostal dunkings
or annointments
other than fresh falling rain.
No prayer stick more holy than a paintbrush.
No well-thumbed hymnal
declaring faith more clearly than my fingers on a keyboard
or my gooey glue pot or a frame filled with my art and thus my soul.
If God is the creator,
then what prayer could be more elemental
than one’s own creation,
reading like a holy book of who you are?
Where is that creation drawn from
other than that first creator of it all?
We are still in the process of being created.
Genesis not a book already written but the very lives we live.
Yet in another country, this most elemental mysticism of the self–
stated, is punishable by death.
Hide not your flame under a bushel unless it is necessary,
oh brother poet, sister artist, fellow fanner of a personal flame.
You have been branded in your country by that fire
that should cure.
In many countries, perhaps all,
there have come times when what is personal
must remain so for survival’s sake.
Yet what has seeded change is martyrs such as yourself,
facing 800 lashings, years in prison if fortunate,
crucifixion if you’ve drawn the short straw
picked for you by old men wanting never to be judged themselves.
In another country, this simple act of putting words like mine upon a page
enough to end a life for.
That old geriatric communal faith
being so fragile that letting one person have their own faith
might bring about
that
first
seed
of its
shadow.
Moths
They lift their wings
to float, then pump.
Slower than flit,
faster than slump.
Not content with loll and putter,
moths prefer to sail and flutter
through the air
from here to there.
The Weekend Writing Prompt is to write exactly 34 words making use of the word “flutter.” My word count includes the title.
Words
By their adjustment,
I change their drift,
but when I alter their lilt,
I am as transformed by them
as they are by me.
I am inebriated by words.
I reel in their power
as they call my bluff.
They reflect the changes in me
I would otherwise not know.
I can float in their buoyant comfort
or shoot the rapids of emotion.
Words are my river and my raft,
my cushion and that daredevil conveyance
into a new stream of thought
from which I never return
to the exact same world
I left from.
Why Do We Write?
We write to share that part of us that might not otherwise be shared. The page is like a Fibber Magee and Molly closet where we store all those leftover parts of ourselves. Open the page and everything comes spilling out: organized, disorganized, jovial, sad, rational or irrational. Everything gets crammed into the page. We may not be lionized for it. Our words may be stolen and presented as someone else’s, but the important thing is to write them. Words are like a pressure valve, freeing pent-up emotions. They furnish a release that is somehow part of the solution to the problems they describe.
For the W3 65 Prompt: Inspiration (What inspires you to write poetry?) To read other poems written for this prompt, go HERE.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 