Tag Archives: #FOWC

It Can’t Go On Without Us!!!!

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It Can’t Go On Without Us!!!!

Moss will not grow on a stone if someone’s there to spin it.
The genipapo needs a hand to squeeze the ink within it.

No finish line is ever crossed in one proverbial minute
without those legs that join the race and set a goal to win it.

No job has ever botched itself unless a human blows it.
Knowledge is not knowledge until somebody knows it.

A car without a human foot can’t pick up any speed.
What good are pears or apples without a mouth to feed?

No tail’s pinned on a donkey without a hand to pin it.
What transgression could exist without a man to sin it?

Even guilt would not exist without human compunction.
In short, the Earth’s in need of us to fulfill every function.

The Gods must be mistaken when they censure us and cuss us.
In truth, we make the world go ’round. Where would it be without us?

Prompts today are moss, minute, genipapo, botch and speed.

Poem inspired by the film “Don’t Look Up.”  Too, too close in its depiction of our present day world.

Protest or Assent?

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Protest or Assent?

The ratio between dissent and absolute compliance–
the odds that we’ll react with order or with strong defiance—
depends on several factors, but the stats insinuate
a majority of people will just equivocate.

If they feel one or the other will work out in their favor,
they’ll take the medicine dished out, no matter what the flavor.
Or if there is a bargain to be gained by compromising,
or a sure advantage that’s outlined by advertising,

they will sublimate their feelings and just go with the flow.
If to do so bends their ethics, well, who will ever know?
Thus, our ethical behavior may change from day to day
depending on temptations that fate may send our way.

 

Prompt words today are insinuate, medicine, bargain, dissent and ratio.

Gestalt and the New Year

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Gestalt and the New Year

Sweep out twenty twenty-one with a mental broom.
Don’t let it be a harbinger of dissent and of doom.
Accept a new beginning. Set out looking for the light.
Don’t rate the whole dinner by your initial bite.

Life is a varied banquet of bitter, sweet and salt.
Those who succeed best at life fall in with its Gestalt.
We must season what is in our heads with what is in our hearts.
The whole of anything, it’s true, is greater than its parts.

 

Prompt words today are light, harbinger, beginning, dissent and dinner. The illustration was made using LunaPic. Start the year out right and try it out. It’s free!!! I like using the Art editor.

2022

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2022

In every corner of the globe in far-flung civilizations
I imagine folks are planning tonight’s celebrations.
This finale of the year will bring a brilliant end
to last year’s resolutions that we saw fit to bend.

This year we will get it right. There will be no debate.
We’ll resolve to start again. We won’t equivocate.
We’ll get pally with old friends we haven’t seen for years,
clean out stuffed closets and pay debts that are long in arrears.

This year as midnight approaches and we sing “Auld Lang Syne,”
the mistake that we made last year in drinking too much wine
will not be repeated, for we’ll avoid the bars
and start our New Year resolutions under the brilliant stars.

Spread out under Orion, we’ll construct our list of “do’s”
to become perfect in those ways that only we can choose.
We won’t eat so much chocolate. We’ll exercise each day
and weigh each night to see how many pounds have slipped away.

We will not play loud music so won’t be held to blame
and hope that all our neighbors will resolve to do the same.
We’ll keep our yards trimmed neatly and repaint all our shutters,
relieved that for this year at least we won’t hear neighbors’ mutters.

We’ll take bags when we walk the dogs and bring their poops all home
so folks for blocks around will not dread it when we roam.
We’re not perfect now, but in twenty-twenty-two,
we’re weeding out bad habits and starting out anew.

 

 

Prompt words today are finale, brilliant, auld lang syne, pally and civilization.

They’ll Be Sorry!!!

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They’ll Be Sorry!!!

She’s stuffing Mommy’s reticule with necessary stuff,
putting on her bunny coat and leaving in a huff.
All the sundry items contribute to its thickness—
pajamas for her dolly and candy pills for sickness.

She’s packed her favorite nightie and her dolly and her bear,
a pair of extra panties and a hairbrush for her hair.
She grabs a sun umbrella as she passes by the rack,
squishes up her raincoat and stuffs it in her sack.

So now she’s set for sun or rain as she sets off to roam.
She’ll make her parents sorry when she runs away from home!
The hall clock ticks its countdown as she sets off on her lark.
She’ll have to run away right now to be back before dark.

 

Prompt words are reticule, sundry, countdown, cohere and sickness.
Image by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash

New Year Resolutions

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New Year Resolutions

When the new year zaps us with our last year’s reflection,
it brings up all our defects and flaws for our detection.
It goads us to be better and to bend our crooked way
to plot a straighter game in life than we’ve been prone to play. 
It’s January 1st that prods our consciences to make them,
giving us a whole long year in which to go and break them.

 

Word prompts are zap, play, reflection, goad and bend. Image, Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash.

Make Mine Tanqueray

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Make Mine Tanqueray

A gin and bubbly with a twist?
Sufficient reason to exist.
As integral to daily life
and in deferring pain and strife
as a good psychiatrist.
Better, in fact, I must insist,
than thrusting all one’s problems on
some overworked Freudian don.
On days when feeling near-demonic,
nothing soothes like gin and tonic!!!

 

 

Prompts today are twist, integral, bubbly defer and thrust.

Peace on Earth in ’22

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Peace on Earth in ’22

If only we could clear the world of every tragic issue
as though we’d wiped the slate clean with one gigantic tissue.
If Pollyanna ruled the world, there’d be no end of cheer.
There’d be no hungry children, no drunks crying in their beer.
But in our potential Shangri-La, perfection’s not to be.
The playing field’s not even and there is no guarantee
that things will all be equal regarding happiness.
In fact with every passing year, the world’s more of a mess.

Yet before we shed this mortal coil, there’s something we can do
to try to bring some happiness to this human zoo.
Before this year is over, it would be stupendous
if each and every one of us could do something tremendous
like deflect a bit of gossip or curb a caustic quip,
 resist an impulse to defraud or cheat or bilk or gyp,
 see a foreign culture as exotic, not as wrong,
 join hands with the universe and try to get along.

As this old year’s winding down, if we could make a pact
not to steal or plunder, not to blame nor to react
in anger to each other. Treat each woman as our mother
and try to view each man on earth as our potential brother,
then maybe things would straighten out and throughout the Earth
our population would be healed and all would feel their worth.
Warfare would be abolished and kindness seize the day.
Oh that this was reality and we could find our way.

 

Prompt words today are coil, stupendous, cheer, caustic and tissue. Image thanks to the New York Public Library on unsplash.

December 26

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December 26

We’re all mindful of the date. Christmas has been done.
Jingle bells are now passé. “Noel” has had its run.
Mall Santas can be irascible for another year
until Christmas season once again draws near
and they must again be jovial, mindful of the tykes
who must be assuaged with their promises of bikes
or quantities of other toys as parents hovering near
make lists of wished-for plunder they’re meant to overhear.
Cash registers the whole mall through will jingle jangle jingle
as crowds of Christmas shoppers brave the crowds to mingle
and provide their little darlings with all that they desire.
So do stores and Santa Claus every year conspire
to insure our economy continues to expand.
So as he bows and leaves the stage, give Santa Claus a hand!

 

Prompt words today are jovial, mindful, bow, irascible and quantity. Images by Chris Murray and Mike Arney on Unsplash.

The Great Reveal

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

The Great Reveal

When it comes to Christmas gifts, I hope you get a passel
and you find unwrapping them to be a task most facile.
Every bound up package, may it be in bow or tassel,
a rip-roaring pleasure instead of any hassle.

And though we are adults now, let them be mementos of
all those bygone childhood years that all of us just love
to retain with pleasure in our memories—
how we would  prod and finger gifts and ogle, guess and squeeze.

Then, finally, on Christmas morn, we’d wake up like a shot,
barreling downstairs at dawn to see what we had got.
Before the church bells drew us out, we had to do our duty
and reveal just what Santa had left us for our booty.

Thus however much we’ve tried maturity to hone,
at Christmas time we find how very little we have grown.
As we untie ribbons, rip off paper, pry off lids,
we discover in our hearts that all of us are kids!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!!!!

Prompts today are gift, memento, bells, facile and shot.