Wild Open
The spacious room is open to the clear blue sky.
Waves of grain sway drowsily with a distant sigh.
Somehow, things seem simple in this open place,
everything instilled with a sort of easy grace.
If what you seek is quiet, listen to what I say,
There is no better place to choose to spend your day.
Prompt words today are spacious, open, room, blue, say, grace, waves, plains, simple, drowsy, clear, seek. Photo by Forgottenman.
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle prompt
“That” Friend
My friend is amenable, but she is clueless.
If memories were sticky notes, hers would be glueless.
It seems like her calendar’s up for debate,
and if she shows up, she is, chronically late.
She’s always slow to get the ball rolling
for our monthly date for dinner and bowling.
Her memory’s airy. It blows where it blows.
Her socks are unmatched. There are tags on her clothes.
Her hair is disheveled, and It’s often the case
that traces of night cream are left on her face.
In short, she’s a space case. Her life’s in arrears.
If she were a car, she’d be missing some gears.
We gave up long ago in trying to change her.
We can’t straighten her out or fix or arrange her.
Over the years we’ve become less perplexible
figuring she’s here to keep us more flexible.
Prompts for the day are amenable, late, clueless, airy and bowl. Photo for illustrative purposes only. The friends in this picture are anything but clueless. Not necessarily so for the person in the foreground, however! ;o)
Wedding Dalliance
Though it’s a lovely wedding, after the seventh toast,
you’re tired of the well-wishing and each new smart riposte.
You’ve had too much champagne. You can’t face another bubble,
so you ask for a martini and say, “Make it a double!”
You’re fatigued by the spectacle and need to get some air,
so you wander to the terrace to view the cloudscapes there.
Your shoes are less than comfortable, so you slip them off,
and find that you are lost in dreams when you hear the cough
of an interloper who has joined you in escape—
another wedding attendee who’s come outside to gape.
He joins you at the railing and elbows you for room,
and before you know it, you are flirting with the groom!
When you feel his arms around you, you take it in your stride.
You’ll have no regrets later, for luckily, you’re the bride!
Prompt for today are cloudscapes, attend, spectacle, riposte and comfortable. Image by Marcus Lewis on Unsplash.
Biography of a Rain Puddle
A snowflake fell upon my nose.
I don’t know why it missed my clothes,
because, of course, it soon unfroze.
It dripped onto a snowbank where
exposed to colder space and air
as nippy as a Frigidaire,
it froze to crystal, I suppose.
When sun came out to warm the day,
that crystal caught an errant ray
that found the place wherein it lay
and so into the sky it rose.
As a vapor it was reborn
to float upon the sunlit morn.
Unto the heavens it was borne,
in that new state that nature chose.
Months later, it came down again
in a new form, as summer rain,
and winter’s loss was summer’s gain—
a celebration for my toes!
The dVerse prompt today is to write a Zéjel Here is the form: 
Then I asked Forgottenman to give me a prompt for the subject and he gave me Snowflake.
Leftover Nightmares
Sharp teeth of moths that daily fray the fabric of my dreaming
through the faulty screens of youth continue to come streaming.
Will nothing seek to stop their flights and free me from my dread
of lines of dusty millers that by rights should now be dead?
I try to curb my memory—the dull sheen of their eyes
as they fly slowly toward me in their moth disguise.
All those evil prairie spirits, rising from the grass
to find me after midnight and fill my dreams enmasse.
This poem is partially memory, partially fiction. The flutter of Miller moths, the adult form of the cutworm, are so much a part of my growing up on the prairies of South Dakota that I named my first book, “Prairie Moths.” Then when I built my own house in Wyoming, moths again rose to swarm around me–so many that I had to light ceiling bulbs at night and put large bowls of sudsy water under the lightbulbs to trap the moths by the hundreds to free my house from them. So, although the surviving nightmares of moths are completely exaggerated, the theme is authentic, brought out by this week’s Wordle prompts. Prompt words today are daily, sheen, rights, try, nothing, sharp, moth, fray, free, line, seeks and streaming.
For The Sunday Whirl Weekly Wordle Prompt 519
Impromptu Shopping Trip
Drop everything you’re doing and come with me boutique-ing.
They have a drop-dead sparkling gown like the one you’re seeking.
Change your dress and grab your lipstick, mascara and a comb.
Dishes can wait and dust will still be there when you get home.
Luckily the shop I found isn’t very far.
You can put your makeup on while I drive the car.
Looks can kill, you know, and you’ll be lethal in this gown.
It’s sure to make a smile of any fellow’s frown.
There’ll be no vestige of the housewife when you wear this gown.
Your spouse will want to take you out dancing on the town.
When he sees you in it, his objections will be nil.
Just make sure he sees you first before he sees the bill.
Prompt words for the day are: lethal, boutique, sparkling, vestige and drop. Photograph by Hush Naidoo Jade on Unsplash.
The Emperor of Chocolate
I am the emperor of chocolate. I conquer every bar.
I can detect its presence in wrappings or in jar.
When there’s no chocolate to be found, I simply can’t abide it.
I can find it anywhere—wherever you might hide it.
My tendency toward chocolate is a tale I hate to tell;
but I cannot help it, for it is congenital.
My mother abused substances—namely, Russell Stover.
She could not close the box lid until eating them was over.
She couldn’t resist chocolates, though she was not a glutton
when it came to other foods like hamburgers or mutton.
She received a box of chocolates on every holiday—
on her birthday and for Christmas, and for sure on Mother’s Day.
When it came to appreciation, my mother never failed them,
for when it came to chocolates, she always just inhaled them.
One time my dad decided that he would have some fun.
He bought my mom some chocolates to dole out one-by-one.
He hid them underneath the cushion of a chair
to give her one piece daily, but she knew that they were there.
She ate the whole box in two days. It really was disgraceful.
Every time I saw her, it seemed she had a face full.
Only with my father did she manage to save face,
For she bought chocolate-covered cherries and put one in the place
of every chocolate that she stole. My father never knew.
She was not tempted by the cherries—a taste she could eschew.
My father always thought he’d pulled one over on my mother,
although I’ve always known that the true jokester was another.
When the box was only cherries, and he offered them to her,
she’d say, “I’ll save it for later,” or sometimes she’d demur.
To resist chocolate cherries, she was fully able,
and I was fully loyal to preserving mother’s fable.
That’s how my addiction was learned at Mother’s knee,
because the chocolate-covered cherries? She gave them all to me.
For dVerse Poets we are to write a poem about fruit. I hope it counts if it is covered with chocolate. This, I also admit, is a poem I wrote four years ago. Go HERE to read more fruity poetry on dVerse.
May-December Marriage
Your insistence that I swallow three times between each bite
is just one small example of directives that incite.
All your protective rules that others find adorable,
on the receiving side of them quickly turns deplorable.
Whatever you may label them by your own nomenclature,
your “loving” rules are symptoms of extreme controlling nature.
So I’m galvanized to action. Since I’m tired of your caring,
I’m making a decision that’s both personal and daring.
I’m going out without you for a little drive alone
and I’m not taking my pager and I’m not taking my phone.
I might drive without a seatbelt and who knows what else I’ll do.
If I see some flowers by the road, I’ll stop and pick a few
without worrying about the fact a passerby might see
and park his car behind me and decide to kidnap me.
I will talk to every stranger and eat in greasy spoons,
drive out to the ocean and walk barefoot in the dunes
forgetting the sharp objects that might lurk beneath the sand,
neglecting to wear sunscreen and if I get deeply tanned,
I won’t worry about wrinkles or cancer or a burn.
All your careful rules for once I’m going to spurn.
I’m going to eat sugar and perhaps get round and fat,
enjoying all the broken rules involved in doing that!
If you treat me like a kid, then guess I’ll be a teen
and when you tell me what to do, I’ll stage a little scene.
I’ll get home when I want to and go out with whom I wish.
I’ll dine alone on Szechwan food and order every dish.
When you ask when I’ll get home, I’ll shrug and say “Whenever!”
And if you do not change your ways, the answer will be “Never!”
Prompts for the day are swallow, between, symptomatic, galvanize and adorable.
Cold Snap
When Autumn winds its avant course and takes its paint box out,
Winter with its probity pursues another route.
Freezing all connections between the leaves and limbs,
it snaps off all Fall’s paintings crisply at the stems.
It is as though the bourgeoisie has seized the reins at last
and expunged the riffraff artist with a single blast.
If Autumn’s the iconoclast, Winter must seal the norm
by covering its statements with a winter storm.
When Spring speaks out its message through the meadow lark,
stodgy frigid Winter ceases making its mark.
Then after Summer pales Spring’s green and dries the colors out,
it is the turn of Autumn to throw pigment about.
Season after season, the colors build and fade,
every new stage cancelling progress the last one made,
then building up its opposite thinking it might win,
not seeing life’s a painting that all of them are in.
Prompt words for today are autumn, course, bourgeoisie, probity and speaker.
Ill-matched
The oscillation of her mind, intuitive to rational
from personal creations to political themes national
gave her husband mental whiplash. He barely could keep up.
He found her more exhausting than a brand new pup.
As she sat there prattling, he sat there like a stone.
Her frequency of chatter made him want to be alone.
Poor fellow just could not keep up. He had a mind more staid.
He pondered each new thought he had. Opinions must be weighed!
Meanwhile, her thoughts flew here and there, her mind much more creative.
She formed opinions quickly, while his mind was more debative.
How this couple got together was a matter of derision.
Their union, all their friends agreed, must have been her decision.
Prompt words today are stone, poor, intuitive, oscillation, frequency, intuitive and grand. Photos by Brooke Cagle and Usman Yousaf on Unsplash
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 