Fake News
Soon enough real journalism
will become anachronism.
Cretins overly ambitious
will decide that it’s propitious
to forever go online
quoting “truths” most asinine,
overlooking elemental
wisdom that is fundamental,
adding to the whole tableau
with things they “think” but do not “know,”
and God have mercy on the masses
who vote to reelect these asses.
Prompt words today are anachronism, fundamental, propitious, asinine, mercy and tableau. Image by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash.
Poetic Quandaries
Prompts can be unpredictable. Of that you can be sure—
if not impossible to use, then probably obscure.
It’s hard not to exaggerate when words are such a stretch.
Hard not to bitch about them. Hard not to whine and kvetch.
We march in lock step in these blogs, so penitent we’re not.
It is the prompters who weave tangled nets in which we’re caught.
It’s hard for us to devise plans that make use of each word
and add alliteration? Folks it is absurd!!!!
Frost never had such rules to follow–and such provocations.
No such tribulations and no such vacillations.
No trying to put up with a prompt that was absurd,
but on the other hand, he had to think up every word.
Prompts are unpredictable (You can say that again–ha!!!), plan, penitent, march, exaggerate and alliteration.
For another poem for today’s alliteration prompt, go HERE!!!
Postcard from an Old Work Buddy
Shifted my focus,
turned 45 degrees to the right,
began walking.
Ended up near the equator,
removed my shoes,
wiggled free toes in the sand.
Plucked new fruit from an unnamed tree.
Suffered no ill-effects.
New life, suits me fine. Wish you were here.?
For dVerse poets Quadrille Prompt: Shift
To see other Quadrilles on this topic go HERE.
Father at the Fridge
Even though our fridge is huge since we chose to embiggen it,
everything worth munching or gulping down or swiggin’ it
seems to always be in back or buried in a pile
at the bottom of a stack of foods that we revile.
Of course all of us realize it isn’t too judicious
to hide in back the very foods that we find most delicious.
We’re in receipt of evidence yet judgement’s been suspended
about the guilty family member who’s been apprehended
burying the good food, for though there is no doubt
of who hid all the cookies behind the sauerkraut,
while we’ve been eating lettuce, the guy who has been “pie”ing it
is the selfsame person who, alas, is the one buying it.
Prompt words today are embiggen, receipt, suspended, judicious, refrigerator and doubt.
In the Sunday Poser, 124 Sadje asks if we believe in luck. Here’s what I had to say about luck eight years ago: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/11/27/lucky
Image by Amy Reed on Unsplash.
Media Memorium
I derive full pleasure from binge watching television,
even though it earns me my friends’ complete derision.
I’m crazy about mysteries, game shows and romances—
all those “cute meets,” chance encounters—all those furtive glances.
Outside bluegrass concerts draw my interest, but the air
is full of pollen, so I prefer watching from my lair
with a bathroom close at hand that I don’t have to share.
Somehow camaraderie’s more comfy from my chair!
For my memorial, when I die, be sure that I am there,
ensconced in front of my TV on my derriere.
Prompt words today are memorial, bluegrass, mystery,derive, full and binge watching. Image from Pixabay
What She Had Cookin’
A wizard in the kitchen, she performed well her thaumaturgy
by transforming porridge into fine cuisine for me.
Each dish she served just seemed my hunger to inflate
as she put spells on my stomach and magic on my plate.
Her stew pot made by blood boil, her milk pudding made me purr,
every single dish a symbol of my love for her.
Then lying in her oaken bed, my hunger still intact,
She finally quenched my appetite. And that, folks, is a fact!!!!!
Prompt words today are: oak, intact, stomach, thaumaturgy, symbol and porridge.
*Pronounced thaw’ muh tour gee, with the accent on the first syllable, thaumaturgy is the performance of miracles; specifically : magic.
Say hey, good lookin’ – what ya got cookin’?
How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me?
Hey, sweet baby – don’t you think maybe
We can find us a brand new recipe?
I got a hot rod Ford, and a two dollar bill
And I know a spot right over the hill
There’s soda pop and the dancing’s free
So if you wanna have fun, come along with me
Say hey, good lookin’ – what ya got cookin’?
How’s about cooking somethin’ up with me?
I’m free and ready, so we can go steady
How’s about savin’ all your time for me?
No more lookin’, I know I been tookin’
Hows about keepin’ steady company?
I’m gonna throw my date book over the fence
And buy me one for five or ten cents
I’ll keep it till it’s covered with age
Cause I’m writin’ your name down on every page
Say hey, good lookin’ – what ya got cookin’?
How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me?
Spray-paint and Poetry
Written as calligraphy or scrawled upon a wall,
a book tucked in our pocket or extending down the hall,
expressed as tight couplets or as an angry stew,
words impart great insight and volunteer a view
into minds of wisdom or the hapless few
who unfortunately have little else to do
but to spray-paint imprecations of gender or of race
here in public places where all of us must face
those dark spots of the soul brought into public view
so volunteers of vitriol can share with me and you
those murky muddy sentiments better buried deep
instead of out here in the world to cause us all to weep.
If left to steep within the soul perhaps some inner magic
might turn them into poetry—profound and deep and tragic.
Some inner mental chemistry performing that gestation
that makes insight of vitriol, transforming imprecation
into understanding to write upon the pages
of potential misanthropes transformed now into sages.
Or, in a nutshell:
Metamorphosis
imprecation
perturbation
emanation
vacillation
gestation
germination
education
equation
mutation
anticipation
excitation
elation
maturation
new creation
True, probably more graffiti is about love than hate,
but these poems are written in response to the latter.
Guiding words today are hapless, imprecation, insight, volunteer, mud and calligraphy.
Escargot
I am an ally of the truth, which lives the whole world over,
hiding beneath leaves of grass or hyacinths or clover.
A tiny snail detective, sliding slowly with no sound,
scoping out a food source over every edge and mound—
with its single jaw at work, nature’s innovation
cleans up all her messes with its constant mastication.
Cutter ants march by like time, disposing hour by hour,
of beauty we aren’t finished with, flower after flower,
but the snail goes gliding by, almost beyond detection,
eating everything in sight—less picky in selection.
From animal waste to fungus, and even other snails,
the appetite of gastropods seemingly never fails.
And then, ludicrous humans, knowing not what they do,
themselves devour these creatures who deign to dine on poo!
Prompt words today are snail, innovation, detective, march, ally and clover.
Process of Elimination
The child asked her grandpa to teach her how to spell,
and he could not deny her, though he knew good and well
that spelling class for him had been a different sort of Hell.
They had not been his forte, the chalk board and the book,
and so this was a challenge he timorously took.
He had to find a method to help, by hook or crook!
He said to make a menu of all the words she sought
and he would make a list of all the spellings they were not—
a reverse teaching method that, thankfully, she bought!
So, she gave her assent to all his ballyhoo,
discounting his misspellings of “tuthbrush” “taribul” “hoo,”
on her route to finding spellings that were new.
Thus she learned to overlook solutions that he sold her
in the loving ill-contrived way he sought to mold her
and used the dictionary, ruling out spellings he’d told her.
Prompts today are: timorous, toothbrush, ballyhoo, assent, spell and menu.
