words
Prompt words today are encephalopathy, such, cattywampus, comminatory and partner.
Bad Words!!!!
I’m feeling vengeful toward “comminatory,” a term I find absurd.
Fatigued by “encephalopathy.” Who heard of such a word?
Has the world of prompts gone “cattywampus?” Have you all gone mad?
Can such words be shaped into a poem that isn’t bad?
How can one partner such weird words? What’s a scribe to do?
Except to face the challenge and write a poem she’ll rue!
How My Life Story Wound Up in the Sentinel
Startled awake by the end of the rain,
I rise to the quiet push of air
against my face and brain. I light the fire,
then lie on the couch under quilts.
One gray cat lies on top of me,
and the other jumps up soon after;
so for this long time before full light,
I am a warm bed for cats.
They fit themselves along the curves of my body,
pressing into the empty spaces.
My shoulder and arm are tucked
and held in place by the large male cat,
my folded knees and legs
pinned by the smaller yet heavier female.
As I reach for yesterday’s Sentinel
and the crossword puzzle pen clipped to it,
the male cat spills from my shoulder and arm
and moves to my hip.
Forsaking the Sunday puzzle,
I instead stroke his soft fur—
this stroke becoming an addiction
to both me and the cat,
who butts my hand with his head when I quit.
With my other hand,
I squeeze words into the margins of the newspaper—
the only paper within arm’s reach.
I have filled the margins of page one and I am writing
over the picture of a Maine house with no power.
My ink partially obscures the name of the female cadet
who has dropped out of the Virginia Military Academy
as my pen nudges closer to the comic pages.
I am telling my life story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Over Dear Abby, my pen sails like a schooner.
When she says to practice tough love,
my words are over her words and my words say,
“I let the cat out
to the cold morning that fills the spaces
between the redwood trees.”
Five minutes later, he’s back again
crying at the door,
and I tell of it,
crossing the obituaries with details
of life in the mountains with cats
and a husband still sensibly in bed.
I write of rain that sits like a box around us
for five months of every year,
pressing our minds down to crossword puzzles
and mystery novels until,
huddled in bed under the electric blanket,
we find each other curled up
in the same cocoon.
His body spooned to my body
like a cat,
under the covers of rain,
we draw again into
the small bit of magic that powers
our crowded lives.
Outside, crisp air stands still, expectant,
as from very high above, a squirrel
drops cone shards like confetti
from a swaying redwood branch,
her crooning forest calls
falling with them.
The sun is rising
and clear air beckons me to walk
to the end of our long rain-soaked driveway
to retrieve today’s paper.
In the long hours spent awaiting dawn,
I’ve filled up with these words
the margins of yesterday’s paper.
I’ve crosshatched the want ads
and the “Bay Living” section
and the comics,
So that a gray squirrel
zips across Blondie’s nose,
and a redwood tree spills its needles
onto Hagar the Horrible.
Somehow, my spouse ends up
nestled into bed
next to Dagwood,
and Cathy is almost obscured
by the curled bodies of cats.
Moving away from, then settling back into
this safe nest we’ve made,
I add one last description of my journey
down my driveway
and a life that for this moment
is released from rain.
And that is how my story—
what fills up my life—
came to fill up
the pages of the Sentinel.
The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow.
(Prompt words today are glass, never, hectic, tyro (novice) and rebirth. For the NaPoWriMo Prompt “Past and Future.” we are challenged to write a poem using at least one word/concept/idea from each of two specialty dictionaries: Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary and the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.)
Image by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash. Used with permission
“To Do” List for a New Roommate
*If you value this abode,
please plan to shoulder half the load
to keep it lovely, clean and neat.
This rule, I will not repeat.
*Underwear should not be seen
on chair or floor or in-between.
(To insure I’m a happy camper,
dirty clothes go in the hamper.)
*If, on occasion, you feel you might
have a lover spend the night,
lest my ire you might incite,
please have him leave by morning light.
*No mongrels, kittens, fish or birds
or other denizens of herds
may cross my doorway, now or ever.
In short, are pets allowed? No. Never!!!
*If personal details you recite,
please insure they are not trite,
for next to messiness and snoring,
I most dread roommates who are boring.
* Don’t steal my cookies or my chips.
My food should never pass your lips.
Don’t steal my leftover knishes,
and when you cook, do your own dishes.
*If these requests you can’t abide,
just pack your bags and move outside!
Follow my rules, or it’s your loss,
for in this house, I am the boss!
Prompt words today are shoulder, underwear, mongrel, trite and love. Image by Sincerely Media on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Also, for NaPoWriMo, Day 9, Make a To-Do List
Keeping Abreast
If I were made the ruler of
this universe I rue and love,
the one thing I would not let “be”
is the force of gravity
in respect to just one issue.
Namely––my mammary tissue!
For, though you may feel dubious,
each year, I grow more boobious!
I do not like them hanging there
where once they used to thrust the air.
Where once each strained against its cup,
It seems like now they’ve given up.
Listless and flat, downward they droop.
Sad Sack replaces Betty Boop.
They have no personality.
They’ve lost elasticality!
The result is truly tragic,
so this is why I need some magic.
Please, gods of nature, give a cure.
There must be some way to inure
my breasts from force of gravity.
Now that I rule, hear my plea!
Tell gravity that it is best
to loose its hold upon each breast
so they are perky once again,
thrusting out below my chin
instead of hanging in two vees
somewhere down around my knees!
Restore my pride. Dispel my frown.
I want them hanging out, not down!
Is it cheating that this is a poem I wrote six years ago? More true now than then!!!!
Line of Reasoning
His baleful eye and mawkish grin
reveal the sort of state he’s in.
Anybody can see he wields
an attitude that never yields
to any view different from his.
He’s up on everybody’s biz.
On world matters bacterial
and all things managerial
he knows more than the experts do
and gladly shares his point of view
with doctor, scientist or crew.
He’ll educate them all anew
by sharing truths that only he
in his superiority
has figured out. He is so clever
that even though, in truth, he never
went to university,
still, surely, all the world can see
it’s simply common sense that how
he sees things is a sacred cow.
In fact, you need not go to school.
Just listen to this puffed-up fool
to hear how science has it wrong.
He’s known the true facts all along.
How much more proof is there to get?
He heard it on the Internet!
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from people’s inability to recognize their lack of ability.
Prompt words today are bacterial, crew, mawkish, wield and anybody. Image by brandi ibraho on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Love’s Blindfold
The sunset painted you and me
against a bright raspberry sea.
My eyelash pressed against your lips,
I missed the passing of three ships.
Such freedom does enchantment bring
to cancel every other thing.
to pull the wool over our eyes,
all else but love to exorcise.
Here is the NaPoWriMo prompt that led to the above poem:
And now for our prompt. This one is a bit involved, which is why I’m giving it to you on a Saturday. Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the “Personal Universal Deck” originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.
Don’t agonize over your word choices. Making the deck should be fun and revealing, as you generate words that sound “good” to you. The fact that the words are mainly divided among the five senses should be helpful in selecting words that you like the sound of, and that have some meaning personal to you. For example, my deck contains “harbor,” “wool,” “murmur,” “obsidian,” and “needle.”
Once you have your deck put together, shuffle it a few times. Now select a card or two, and use them as the basis for a new poem.
In lieu of choosing just two cards, I kept drawing more cards and choosing one of the words on it, front or back, to include in my poem.The words I chose were paint, raspberry, eyelash, lips and sea. For
Ode to My Doctor, Who Has Done Little to Curry My Favor
Each of these foods you suggest for my diet
has not one feature to urge me to try it.
The chard is too leafy, the kale makes me gag.
I will be affianced to naught in this bag.
This fluffy green spinach would be best in a dip
with sour cream and onions and served on a chip.
I have not one vestige of an urge to consume it
raw in a salad, so do not assume it
will ever pass lips as selective as mine.
I need carbohydrates and meat when I dine.
Do you get the message that I’m on the outs
with arugula, collard greens, beet greens and sprouts?
My palate’s impavid when it comes to spice.
A molé is lovely and a curry is nice,
but please put some meat in it. I’m a contrarian
when you attempt to turn me vegetarian.
Prompt words for today are sprout, vestige, impavid, affiance and chip.
Secondary Research
She found tales of chivalry wholly outlandish.
Her dates wore suspenders. No swords did they brandish.
She, in return, was no sexy lithe lynx,
her love-life devoid of any hijinks.
In short, she was prim and her suitors the same,
her romance as mainstream as romances came—
dates for the movies or dinner or trips
to the local tea room for crumpets and sips.
No passionate kisses. No secret elation.
Visual thrills were her sole titillation,
for secretly, she was addicted to porn.
She viewed it at midnight. Sometimes in the morn.
Although she’d never do the things that they did,
it was the single thing that she hid.
Everything else was there to be seen:
decent and wholesome and saintly and clean.
It was her belief that a life meant for viewing
should consist more of thinking of things than of doing,
and so she kept private her secret adventures,
safe from derision and gossip and censures.
As the town’s sole librarian, she was aware
that this was a side of her she’d never dare
to reveal to the world, and yet she pursued it,
knowing that no one else knew that she viewed it.
Like high adventure, such sexual fun
was best viewed from afar, but never done.
When it came to things sensual, sticky and hairy,
she preferred that her research remain secondary.
Prompts today are jinx, visual, prim, outlandish and mainstream. Image by Damla Azkan on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Note: While primary research involves active participation from the researcher themselves, secondary research involves the summary or synthesis of data and literature that has been organized and published by others.
Photo by Simon Goetz on Unsplash, used with permission.
Craft Maintenance
Love is like a speedboat, threatening disaster
as we plummet toward our fate, going ever faster.
In youth, insecurity helps to fuel the pace
as our fear of failure keeps us in the race.
Thus is our pursuit of love fueled by the chase,
but as we proceed in life, this may not be the case.
Our boats fill up with children and the race soon ceases.
The boards begin to shrink and paint curls off in pieces.
Still, since marriage is a boat we need to keep afloat,
love is our incentive to renovate the boat!
Photo by Anne Nygard on Unsplash, used with permission.
Prompt words today are pursuit, renovate, incentive and boat.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 