Tag Archives: Forgottenman’s Prompt

“A Bone to Pick––Versed Versus VerSED” Prompt from Forgottenman, July 31, 2025

Yesterday, I phoned Forgottenman from my bed in the frigid prep room of the hospital I’d gone to in Phoenix for a bone marrow biopsy and told him that although I’d be conscious during this operation that two years ago I’d had done fully-sedated and unconscious, that this time I’d just be administered a weak dose of Versed and Fentanyl to relieve anxiety. He of course did his usual “thing” and researched both of the drugs thoroughly, and when I got back to my sister’s house after this 5-hour process–most of it spent in registration, waiting and preparation–I found the blog you will read below drafted in my blog, along with a challenge that I answer it.  The following section in italics is his. My response to him in bold print is below it:

Not sure you’ll recall my mention of this with all the twilight drugs you are/were on, but somehow, “Versed Versus VerSED” sounds like some first-year Latin student was trying to convert “Veni Vidi Vici” to a past participle (or some such grammar thingie) like “I will have come, I will have seen, I will have conquered.” I had to look it up, and in case you don’t know what it is either, here’s a definition from Wikipedia of the drug VerSED. 

And although I had texted him after the operation, describing it, I hadn’t seen his above draft in my blog, which he suggested I answer. Here is my response to Forgottenman’s above posting:

Versed in VerSED

Now that you’ve read
my text A to Zed,
of that place I’ve been led
by the reins of this med
that I have been fed
through a tubular thread
meant to remove a dread
that had long gone unsaid,
have you “got” what I said?

Fears have been put to bed
in my well-VerSED head!

In short, it was not at all as bad as I suspected.  After the initial insertion of the needle, the only way I can describe it was a sensation for a minute or two of someone sipping something with sharp edges up out of my bone through a soda straw. 

Sorry for this rather contrived poem. I simply cannot turn down a challenge and it was the best I could do, given my own nature. Too late to blame it on the drugs!

Long Before, for Forgottenman’s Poetry Prompt, June 22, 2025

 

Long Before

Long before our years began,
before the mind of nature had conjured man,
the artists of the universe,
(artists that they were)
that started it all,
started imagining a combination of science and art,
imagining its form and actions and its thoughts.
Its beginning a particular straying of atoms,
beginning that parade
that at its tail end––
at its possible tale’s end––
its greatest creation or its
greatest, perhaps, mistake.
Perhaps that last thing that ended its own being,
that humanity-declared champion of creation:
Humanity.

(Would that we had lived up to our name.)

 

Please go HERE to read ForgottenMan’s poem that introduced the prompt.

The Escape

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.