Question and Answer
When all our colors fade to white
and night is day and day is night,
and I am you and you are me,
erased for perpetuity,
when spectral is our whole domain,
when death obtrudes, what will remain?
When death obtrudes, what will remain?
When spectral is our whole domain,
and all our colors fade to white,
when night is day and day is night,
we will be one—our you and me
erased for perpetuity.
Prompt words today are perpetuity, erase, spectral, obtrude and white.
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.
Worst Nightmare
I stood without a podium,
alone there in the odeum.
The lantern light was odious,
the theater commodious.
My stomach tied up in a knot,
I realized that I had not
even seen a single script
and therefore I was ill-equipped
no matter how hard I was driven,
to say the words that I’d been given.
And furthermore, how crass and rude
that I was standing in the nude,
center stage, in full display,
without a clue of what to say,
before an audience, all staring
at the body I was baring!
And here I brought the curtain down
and awoke to find a dressing gown
draped around me in a heap,
relieved to find I’d been asleep!!!
For those of you who will ask, this is not fiction. This is a dream I’ve dreamed a number of times during my life. Prompt words for today are lantern, knot, Odeum and without. Image by Velizar-Ivanov on Unsplash.
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?”
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.
Tryst
The smell of his aftershave, his looks and wit,
the chemistry, passion, charisma and fit
of her putative lover had gained such renown
that his legend was spoken all over the town.
Through her bedroom window he climbed after dark
as she stilled her dad’s dogs–their bite and their bark.
With scraps of her dinner she lured them away
as her lover sneaked into the bedroom where they
would make love to the music that swelled on the breeze
of her imagination, there on her knees
playing out that wild scene in her hopes and her dreams,
through want of reality, stretched to extremes.
No passion, no music, no lover’s embrace,
her only caresses, the moon on her face
as it slowly rises, extending its beams,
and creeps through the window to enter her dreams.
Prompts today are the bedroom window, music, wit, putative and smell.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Forgottenman is the first to add his photo as one. Then Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen contributetd her feline spuddler. Who spuddles! Next?
In a Spuddle
You may think that “spuddle” isn’t a word,
and I agree that it sounds most absurd.
When unsubstantiated, I agreed
that it was unlikely that I’d ever need
a word whose best rhyme turned out to be puddle
or cuddle or muddle or fuddle or huddle,
but when I embarked on an examination,
I found that it wasn’t a mere fabrication,
and though I admit that it seems an anomaly,
as out-of-date as a needlepoint homily,
if you need a word for when you’re forgetful,
fresh from your dreams and still rather fretful,
when you’re befuddled and in a slight muddle,
the word you might need to describe you is “spuddle.”
Prompt words today are spuddle, unsubstantiated, forgetful, anomaly and examination.
Spuddle: a useful verb from the 17th century that means to work feebly and ineffectively, because your mind is elsewhere or you haven’t quite woken up yet.
So, when trying to illustrate this, I had a bit of a problem finding an adequate photo so I had to stage this one. Can you help me out by contributing one of yourself, fresh from sleep or feeling especially feeble or ineffective? Be warned that I’ll add it to make a gallery above, but could be fun.
Additions: a spuddled cat by Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen. Thanks, Dolly!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 