Tag Archives: boken love affair

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 721, Aug 31, 2025

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Lady in Waiting

A rush of faith has roosted somewhere in her heart––
a spot where shame has luckily never had a start.
But now her heart beats wildly, blood rushing to that place
where passion peaked, but oh too soon, was forced to slow its pace.
An orb of moon projects a strip of light across the road 
by which he has departed to search out the Motherlode,
trading riches of the heart in an action bold.
Her ruby lips forsaken in his quest for gold.
Somewhere on the fringe he wanders in his search,
as her faith roosts steadfastly, on its accustomed perch.

 

 

Prompt Words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle are: roosted fringe strip orb ruby rush beat shame faith peaks spot heart

Empty Hearted, for dVerse Poets, June 10, 2025

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Another lost heart and someone in the background who looks like she could have been its model. SCULPTURE BY ISIDRO XILONZÓCHITL.

EMPTY HEARTED

All those long years ago, it was you who begged me to give you a chance to prove how much you loved me. In the end, I did, opening my heart against the advice of everyone we knew. And when I surrendered that very last part of it, opening myself fully, you proved them right and left. For fifty long years, I have been feeling the lack of your love. “Find someone else to give your heart to–someone worthier than him,” my family and friends have been insisting all that time. But I have no heart to give. When you took back your heart, you took my heart with it. To hurt is to steal.

The dVerse Poets prompt was to write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words, including the line “to hurt is to steal” from the song “Mysterious Ways” on U2’s studio album Achtung Baby.

Go HERE to see flash prosery written by others to this prompt.

Borrowed Words for dVerse Poets, Jan 29, 2025

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MAGA

Nose to nose,
we meet as one.
Our cause?
To hide
the smoking gun.
We have not even
half begun!

WISH

If I were more than
a toothless crone,
I’d  gnaw our summer
down to the bone.

THE DEATH OF JUSTICE

Attempts to name it
were of no use.
Its means were silenced
by a swinging noose.
Justice arose
and is swinging loose.
Its long neck stretched
by long abuse.

On Track

Those nearest to us
cannot remove
that sure belief
in our mutual groove.

National Anthem

We crow its verses
to try to see
if they’ll renew
our liberty,

Lone Rider

We can’t assume
what we once knew.
Our van’s life passengers
(that sum of two)
no longer number
both me and you.

Buried Wisdom

We hide awareness
in deep dark caves.
The sea obscures them
in rushing waves.
The cream of sea foam
roars and paves
a ceiling over
truth’s buried raves.

 

The prompt for dVerse poets was to write a poem using one or all of the lines of words below, in the  order in which they appear. I composed a different poem for each set.

nose – one – cause – even
were – crone – our – summer
name – use – means – arose
near – can – remove – sure
crow – verse – see – renew
assume – once- van – sum
aware – caves – sea – cream

 

To read other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

 

Shipwreck, for Wordle 621

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Shipwreck

In spite of your deep dark eyes and your other charms,
I fear I won’t be spending anymore time in your arms.
Wind and rain and reckless tides have scarred our ocean’s shore,
shifting channel stones, a dead sea denizen and more
to bar our access to that place where once we calmly drifted.
Our sea of love’s grown stormy and  the sands of love have shifted.
If you had just honored that pledge you once recited,
perhaps this shipwreck of our love might somehow have been righted.
But, alas, the time is past that we can sail together.
I’ll cast my lines to mooring places safer in their tether.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 621 the prompt words are: rainy channel stone ocean bar scar shift drift honor dark eyes charms.  Photo by Eileen Flynn on Unsplash.

The Professor Joins E Harmony

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The Professor Joins E Harmony

On his first round of internet daming,
sure he was intent on shaming,

his blind date stirred up such a fuss
when he called her pulchritudinous,

that it proved a barrier to fun
as she announced their date was done!

His mistake was simply ’cause he
didn’t know her brain was fuzzy

and unaccustomed to such words
that more literary birds

might realize were a compliment
in fact, a word meant to augment

the chance that he might marry her
instead became a barrier

of misunderstanding that
made her think he’d called her fat!!!!

The lesson learned from this brief story
is that blind dating can be gory.

What a guy has got to do
before he makes a swipe anew

is to ascertain his date’s I.Q.
before he chooses words to woo!

Prompt words for today are rambunctious, augment, fuzzy, pulchritudinous, shaming and barrier. Illusration from the Nutty Professor Site. No attribution.

Hindsight

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Hindsight

I admit I was a casualty of your new addition
as you engineered your life into its new rendition.
How could I not have known that there would be a repetition
of the mess you left behind in our love’s fruition?

You drew me like a magnet. I was brazen, cruel and bold.
Reveling in the heat of you, I overlooked the cold
wasteland that you left behind—family, wife and kids—
our new life an adventure that left their lives in the skids.

Now the present situation repeats what once was,
with me the one who’s left behind. Most fitting, though, because
I saw the whole thing once before in a rear vision mirror
as you put the car we fled in into a higher gear.

Prompt words today are brazen, repetition, casualty and magnet.

Monolingual

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Monolingual

Your language is not plain enough.
I do not get this “jibbing” stuff.
It angers me to have to look
these sailing terms up in a book.
Perhaps you are too lofty for
a small town landlocked jungle girl?

Prompt words today are jib, plain, anger, lofty, jungle.

Just for the fun of it, I wrote this poem line-by-line as I looked up the new prompt word without knowing what the next one was. I sort of got led down the proverbial password path!

Lalibela: For Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568

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Lalibela

I kiss the map where memories lie in the vast stillness of the past.
Your broad laugh silenced so long ago that no remnants of it last.
What I had felt and hoped to see mirrored on your joyful face
was demonstrated as you drew me into our first long embrace.

Sparrows swoop those ancient halls where we loved and laughed and talked,
but only whispers of our love echo the chambers where we walked.
That holy place where we first kissed—the ancient pulpit that we found
buried deep within the earth—religious zeal gone underground.

Corridors carved from living stone that could not check the carver’s zeal
foretold my resolution to resist denying what I feel
so many long years afterwards, when lacking sense and reason,
I remember those short months when love bloomed out of season.

 

Prompt words for Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568 are: sparrows vast stillness hope face silent check pulpit lack whisper kiss map

 

She Passes By

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She Passes By

Each variation in your eyes
betrays their normal veiled disguise.

Wistfully they follow one
by whom you have been undone.

As they follow, hither and nigh
each time your former love walks by,

she who trampled on your heart
once more upsets the apple cart

and affection tumbles out
and draws you like a waterspout,

wistfully to tumble there,
your tender hopes high in the air.

But false illusions must fall to earth
where they discover their true worth
as they are trampled into earth.

Prompt words today are eyes, tender, trample, nigh, variation, wistfully.

Foolish Pride

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Foolish Pride

He folds his arms.
She seals her mind.
Their last contact
back-to-back.
Each sure the other
meant to wound,
pride seals their futures.
Sad ending remembered
for a lifetime.

For The Things Unsaid, 30 words or less
Painting by Ron Hicks