August 1, 2021 Sunday Whirl: Wordle

2 Replies

Advice to Self and Others

If your writing is inciting
civil discord and inviting
calls to action
by reaction
of one faction
or another, become a brother
by listening to one another.

Try a blend
of words that mend.
Work upon a pending rending
of ill thoughts you’ve been extending.
Try to start a happy ending.

Choose a task that takes you higher.
Shed your mask and bend your ire.
Anger’s such a bitter pill
that words can poison, bite and kill.

Still your vitriol and follow
kinder thoughts into that hollow
where the gentle grass is waving,
where we go to still our raving,
heeding nature’s gentle call
to save ourselves before our fall.

Here to raise the cup of peace.
That fragile glass that brings surcease.
And by that small sip that you sample,
you can be the good example
that draws another to slake their thirst
and start the journey to best from worst.


Oops.. nearly missed last week’s Wordle prompts. Here they are: writing, civil, bend, pill, mask, follow, glass, still, call, save, blend, sample.

Putting the Bucks in Starbucks

17 Replies

Putting the Bucks in Starbucks

First they grind the beans and last they add the foam
to create the very coffee that you could have at home.
Countless cups thrown in the trash adding to the glut
of paper cups collected from every coffee hut.

How can I articulate the excess that I find it?
How prudent is this mania when you could simply grind it
and put it in a cup you save to use again tomorrow
to save a tree and save a planet reeling from the sorrow

of all the disposables thrown daily in the trash
in a world that’s populated by the blindly rash?
Every time you buy a cup of fad-inflated joe,
remember where the cup it’s in will ultimately go.

Then think about the money that you’re using up
simply by your refusal to brew your daily cup.
If you don’t believe me, read the facts below
before you leave for Starbucks to have a cup of joe!

 

“Depending on where you live and how you prefer to take your hot caffeine water, if you’re buying coffee, you’re spending between $1 and $5 per cup. Meanwhile, brewing a cup of coffee at home costs you between 16 and 18 cents per cup.”

The average cost of a cup of coffee purchased at Starbucks is $3.15 and, while $3.15 a day may not seem like much, what if I told you that cup really costs $13?   Read on: https://avgjoefinance.com/surprising-amount-starbucks-costs/

 

Prompt words today are grind, foam, articulate, prudent, trash.

Moss Roses: FOTD Aug 6, 2021

5 Replies

Flower boxes and hanging planters along Main Street are filled with flowers, including these moss roses.

For Cee’s FOTD

Mulberry

15 Replies

After reading Dwight Roth’s ekphrastic poem on Vincent Van Gogh, I had to consider it as a challenge. I wrote this poem over 25 years ago. Couldn’t resist publishing it as an answer to his.


Mulberry

Vincent, who scratched your sky
And put tormented souls into your tree?
Who pushed white waterfalls
From gray granite
and ran white water purple down to these words,
etched into a marker by the stream.

Vincent, who scratched your sky
And fired the dying branches of your tree?
Who carved white steps
From living hillside?
What figure yellow-robed ascends
To cast a scribbled shadow down to green?

Vincent, who scratched your sky
and set the worm to work your tortured tree?
Who hid the bad boy
In the brush,
Then set his white soul down
To weather on the gravestone of a frozen dream?

 

For dVerse Poets

Entente

13 Replies

 

Entente

In recrimination’s marathon, we must forge an accord
to cease our constant bickering and pass the drinking gourd.
Sustain our forgiveness and forget ills of the past.
To pass around the platter and share a fine repast.

So many ills done to each other but to stem the scarlet flow
of blood we’ve spilled for ages, we must find that place to go
where brother meets with brother in spite of faith or creed.
We must put away our prejudice and put away our greed.

What we share in common must supplant our differences.
We must concentrate on styles that take us over fences.
With all of our advances in technology and mind,
surely we can find a way to unite humankind.

Prompt words for the day are accord, scarlet, sustain, forgiveness and marathon.

Monster Petunias: FOTD, Aug 5, 2021

13 Replies

Very small woman or very large basket of petunias?

For Cee’s FOTD

Gone to Root: Sunday Trees, 477

7 Replies

 

For Becca’s Sunday Trees.

Enjoying the Fall Colors: FOTD, Aug 4, 2021

3 Replies

Since moving to Wyoming, Precious isn’t allowed outside. She has to enjoy her fall colors where she can find them.

For Cee’s FOTD

Wasted Youth

22 Replies

Dressed up by my sister in her clothes, just for fun. For sure, not my usual fare!

Wasted Youth

It is too late to try to tone
my skin and muscle, fat and bone.
When I walk, they sway and jiggle,
protest at my every wriggle.
Arm and neck and waist and thigh
are not as bad as I imply.

Nonetheless, I do not dare
attempt bikinis or clothes that bare
great expanses of leg and skin.
I will not brave it, the shape I’m in.
Oh to relive days back when
I was taut and smooth and thin.

And could convince my young self that
I was neither plain nor fat.
If I had known, I now confess,
I would have concealed me less.
Shown more skin, gone a size smaller,
pulled back my shoulders, stood up taller.

That youth is wasted on the young
way back then were words unsung
and so I wasted all those years
peering into bathroom mirrors,
wanting to be better because,
as I look back, I see I was!

Prompt words today are question, bone, jiggle, imply and brave.

A Photo a Week Challenge: Parallel Lines

7 Replies

 

 

For the  Photo a Week Challenge.