Tag Archives: escape

Two Lives for The Word Garden Blog Prompt, May 14, 2025

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    Two Lives

My childhood dollhouse was a helium balloon,
caught in a tornado with a flock of flying squirrels,
equal novices in these midnight adventures
soaring out into the world away from horses,
wheat fields, henhouses and unpaved roads.

Escape was a constant theme in that jumprope, hopscotch life
where costumes were for Halloween and dreams kept silent under wigs.
Sailing rainwater rivers down deep ditches,
wearing vestigial vernix as protection against inevitable dunkings,
my uncle’s porkpie hat my umbraculum against hot prairie skies.

The only exit from that world I escaped in time was too often an ossuary:
tunafish Catholics buried under Papal supervision in one part of the cemetery,
Methodists in another, lily-white in their observance of the rules:
Sunday morning church a prerequisite for Saturday night dances.
Jazz nights under covers, Jesus Loves me in the light of day.

Inner tube boats traded for planes and ocean liners,
orange juice traded for absinthe, I sailed and flew into the world.
Using my first world as a grounding place,
I seized chance’s fortune as well as its mistakes––
to venture out and earn a life.

For this prompt, we were  to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. I used all 20!!!
absinthe
costumes
dollhouse
flock
flying squirrel(s)
helium
henhouse
horse
jazz
jump rope
lily
ossuary
Papal
porkpie hat
rainwater
tornado
tuna fish
umbraculum
vernix
wig

 

https://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/

for Sunday Whirl Wordle, Sept 22, 2024

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Escape

Quiver me timbers and shiver me limbs.
The once yellow sun first scatters, then dims.
Hearts twirl in the darkness beneath a faint moon.
Three long howls in the night–are they canine or loon?
My heart, nearly broken, deserves a respite,  
so, unwilling to  face  the moon at its height,
I pick up my bags and streak into the night.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle the words are: quivers limbs scattered yellow twirl hearts streak faint bags three howls long

“Static” For the MVB Prompt on Aug 29, 2024

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Static

Your life catches in its static house
until nothing but the lightest footfall
betrays its presence.
The door to escape, the ocean’s edge,
tempts you to leave yourself and enter.
This echo of the ocean is the dove in you
that carries the message that you want to fly.

Motionless dove, I want to flush you
to the crack of sunrise.
Forget your lonely compulsions.
Leave your comfort.
Desert the false logic that has frozen you.
If you could let this still time pass,
Time’s ricochet might drive you to the canyon’s rim,
revealing to you that you no longer fear the fall.

For MVB the prompt is Static.

“Liberty” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 659

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Liberty

Birds find an opening in clouds to cross a languid sky,
their shadows sparking hope as I trace them with an eye
searching for some method, be it holy or black magic,
to dispel the shadows of an outcome I find tragic.

One waiting in the shadows by the font of holy water,
advances, clear in his intent to wed my father’s daughter.
Clear in my resolution that I will not have it so,
I ‘m resolute my troth to him would birth a life of woe.

As he greets me at the altar, I turn my foot to run
down that selfsame aisle, out into the streaming sun.
Let my father wed him if he’s so set in his plan
to bring into his family this workhorse of a man

so like himself that I well know that he would likely smother
all my dreams, just like my father did to my sweet mother.
In the woods there waits for me one other who can see
all those other selves I have it in my dreams to be.

Fleet of foot, I shed my heels and speed in my advance
ahead of those pursuers who would choose to foil my chance
of living my own life in the manner I would choose.
Thus fueled by my determination that I will not lose,

I speed into the forest where my lover waits,
my final summation to a lifetime of debates
about who rules my life expressed in action as I reach
to mount my waiting stallion and make off toward the beach

where his boat is waiting for my true love and me
to set out for our lives across a welcoming sea—
a new land for us both where we can come to be
whatever we might choose in a land of liberty.

Note: I’ve been waiting for 6 years to find an opportunity to use this photo I took from my porch at the beach in La Manzanilla.  Finally!

Words for The Sunday Whirl  Wordle 659 are: spark languid opening magic hope cross clear cloud holy birds 

@notebookmusical

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♬ original sound – The Notebook Tour

The Escape

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The Escape

Her horse is cinched and saddled up,
ready to be ridden,
and yet she cannot make herself
do as she is bidden.

Over the heath and meadow,
they would have her go,
but even though she’s seized the reins,
her starting has gone slow.

She does not wish to marry.
She does not love her chosen.
Her heart that should be warm with love
in defiance has been frozen.

Her ride will not be ended where her father has decreed.
She will not sacrifice her life to his selfish greed.
So that heath and meadow, where he would have her go,
she will forsake, to follow where the winds of fate might blow.

 

Another early morning prompt from guess who:

01.57 AM These  lines just now came to me . “Her horse is cinched and saddled up. She settles in…” Is that a prompt for you, or for me?
01:58 AM you
01:59 AM Maybe. But please write the rest as well.

 

Prompt by ForgottenMan, Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Grandma’s Escape Note

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Click on photos to enlarge.


Grandma’s Escape Note

I’m juggling my remembrances of all you said and did
way back in the past when you were just a kid,
when I was so uptight and the scalawag was you,
causing all my looks of disapproval and of moue.
But now that I am seventy and you’re a kid of fifty,
the fact that things are changed around is somehow sorta nifty.

I’m the one who’s acting up while you are disapproving.
You registered your angst when you heard that I was moving
off to wild Mexico, away from kith and kin,
leaving far behind me all the things that I have been.
The stuff stored in the attic? I’ll leave it all to you.
I don’t have time to deal with it. I’ve still so much to do.

The house is up for sale, so you’ll want to get right to it.
I’ve planted a surprise up there. You’ll know it when you view it.
I’ve cashed out the investments that your dear dad and I
saved up for the future—he was such a frugal guy.
But now that he is gone, I want to be off, too,
so I split up all the money, some for me and some for you.

My part is for my future—a small sweet  hacienda
and provisions and comestibles I’ll buy at the tienda.
Your dinero’s in the attic, some tucked here and some tucked there
to insure that you look closely and make sure that you take care
in examining the past and all those years I cared for you
so you do not dispute what I’m about to do.

If I have twenty years left, I’ll be lucky, so it’s fair
that I have another chance at letting down my hair.
I want to go out dancing and drink shooters and get wild.
I’m tired of a life that is grandmotherly and  mild!
And so I don’t embarrass you, I’m moving farther south,
away from prying eyes and away from word of mouth.

I’m doing you the favor that you didn’t grant to me
all those years you got in trouble and I was there to see.
Now I’ll be the adolescent and you can click your tongue,
for I’ve waited all these years for me to be the one who’s young.
Kiss my grandkids and your grandkids and tell them it’s from me,
but that I can’t stick around because I’m off in search of me!!

Prompt words for today are moue, scalawag, juggle and remembrance.

Escape?

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photo with permission by Adam Stefanca

Escape?

Tourists of every size and shape
visit the zoo to stand and gape
at lion, leopard, tiger, ape.
They eye its thickness as they gape
at chainlink, conjure up the scrape
of claws on metal, then on nape.
What is their likelihood of escape?

 

 

Today’s prompt word is escape.
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/escape/

Short Vacation

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Short Vacation

Just for today, repress advice
that the world is not so nice.
For just one day, forget the slime.
Pretend the world’s once more sublime.
Let’s hop aboard our little dingy,
grab that picnic hamper thingy
and simply sail our fears away.
Escape the news, just for today.

 

Prompts today are sublime, dingy, repress and advice. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/rdp-monday-sublime/
http://FOWC with Fandango — Dingy
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/repress/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/advice

Rope Ladder

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Rope Ladder

You call out from the island of your sleep,
each word at first garbled,
as though caught in quicksand.

Beside you in this room,
I waken to your shouted words:
“Is there any window in this room?”

and I am given ingress to your dreams,
even as each new early morning declaration
becomes a strong sure stroke towards your escape from them.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/island/

We Are Headed North

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“We Are Headed North”

Tell the ones who need to know, we are headed north.
A restless wind begins to blow. It’s time to sally forth.
Pack the wagons, grab the kids. The dogs can run behind.
We’re off to seek our fortunes where’er the road will wind.

Kiss your solemn mother’s cheek, for you’ll see her no more.
Your youth sealed up far in the past behind her closing door.
You are my wife, your life’s with me and ever it should be.
We’re off to find whatever future’s there for us to see.

See how the dogs never look back but run forever on?
What comes for them is what they seek and never what is gone.
So be my bonnie bride again and dry your sodden cheek.
We’re off into the rest of life—that golden life we seek.

Tell your mirthless father we’ll see him nevermore,
for all the truth he has professed is nothing more than lore.
The riches that he promised you never came to be.
So cast your lot with chance, my dear, and come along with me.

We’ll take our budding family to regions fresher still.
See the promise that awaits there on yonder hill?
We have another family waiting for us there.
A better life is yours to have if you only dare.

See how our children shout and smile ––reach out for their new kin?
That is my mother running out to wave them all within.
For every mother lost to you, you will find another.
My sister I will share with you, and mine will be your brother.

Come wipe the tear from off your cheek and gaily enter in.
For here in my house there is talk of other things but sin.
My father plays the mandolin and I will play the fife.
And then I know quick as a song, I’ll have a happy wife.

All the crying taught to you by sister, brother, father
will be forgotten. In this house, there is no fuss or bother.
Our children will not learn what you once learned at your ma’s knee.
My love step down and you will see how happy we will be!

Oh, step down my dear and see at last how happy we will be!

This is meant to be a song. Does someone want to set it to music for me???

The Prompt: Take the third line of the last song you heard, make it your post title, and write for a maximum of 15 minutes. GO! (My song was “I and Love and You” by the Avett Brothers. I took exactly 19 minutes, not 15, to write this poem.)https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cant-drive-55/