Tag Archives: #FOWC

Weddings Banned–Market in a Tailspin

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Weddings Banned–Market in a Tailspin

They’re banning marriage in America. The vote has just come in.
Such illicit gatherings are now declared a sin.
No flower-littered church aisles. No presents neatly wrapped.
Ring bearers are now passé, honeymoon routes unmapped.

Parsons and priests are limited to un-bridal functions:
baptisms and funerals, sermons and  extreme unctions.
Department stores will probably have to cut back hours
when they feel the drop in sales from no more bridal showers.

The diamond market has gone bust as have sales of cake.
Bakeries are trying to think of other things to make
like maybe first-date cookies or three-tiered valentines,
make-out brownies, passion pies or set-up clementines.

Nationwide, each future bride is busy now, I’m certain,
altering her bridal veil into a window curtain.
The only positive result is no more bridesmaid dresses
of nylon net or taffeta or other gauche excesses.

No reason has been given for this bizarre decision
that’s met with voter outrage and the whole world’s derision.
The press without exception declares this law as dastardly,
declaring that an entire generation will be bastardly.

Kids will not bear fathers’ names. Connections will be lost,
with only mothers being the ones to bear the cost
of doctor bills and dental bills and clothes and vaccinations,
of summer camp and prom dresses and college educations.

The men will all be free to sleep with any random hottie
and spend their dough on gambling debts or a new Maserati.
Perhaps that is the secret of why nine out of ten
legislators voted for the law–they are all men!

Prompt words today are illicit, gathering, unction, flower and wrapped, Image by Ben White on Unsplash.

“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

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“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

When there is a wrinkle, she works fast to smooth it out.
She loves to plug the iron in and move it all about.
Steam wafting all around her, she executes arm action.
She finds it scintillating dealing with each new infraction
of the rule that each garment should hang seamless and true,
without a single furrow dividing it from you.
She feels no reluctance in relieving clothes of wrinkles—
no puckers and no creases. No scrunches and no crinkles.
Because of her I’m faultless. My wardrobe is sublime,
for in Yolanda’s view, a wrinkled garment is a crime!

 

Yolanda has been my housekeeper, accomplice and friend for twenty years now. She rearranges my belongings, leaving little jokes, removes dust and fingerprints and generally rules the roost when it comes to the state of my house. In addition, neither I nor any houseguest can leave the house without meeting with her discerning eye. and if she spots a wrinkle, you can be sure she’ll whip the iron out and insist that it be dealt with. I’ve never yet won an argument to the contrary.

Prompt words today are scintillate, smooth, waft, reluctant and fast.

Family Christmas Visit

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Family Christmas Visit

“Halleluiah” she cried when I walked through the door.
It was clear I’m the sister she tends to adore.
My mercurial rise to the top of her list
began on the day that I chose to exist.
In particular, days when she finds her life taxing,
she finds me essential to aid her relaxing.
It’s tempting to say it’s because I’m so cool,
but I don’t think it’s that as a general rule.
I think that my charm is that I’m so familiar.
The power of my presence is merely familial.

After 24 hours with no sleep and a crazy two and a half hour trip through Guadalajara airport and still nearly missing my plane, it was a blessing to finally arrive in Phoenix and to eventually
sink into a bed for a four-hour sleep. It took another hour or so to get online, where these prompts awaited me. Now it is 7:23 at night—twelve hours after I arrived—and I’m finally getting my prompt poem written. I showed my sister the five prompt words and asked her to give me the first line, which I changed a bit and used as the first line of this poem. Blame her, partially, for prompting the rest.

Prompt words today are hallelujah, mercurial, essential, relax, tempting.

Forgottenman suggested I add a few photos of Patti and me from the past and I always mind, so here they are. Click on photos to enlarge.

With our Xmas dolls, in Betty’s green checked bedroom.
First day of school.
Patti and I under the rose trellis.

Help Decorating

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Irresistible Red.

Help Decorating

Rendered breathless by the product of my hours of decoration,
Roo and Kukla must approve my gorgeous presentation.
How can it be a hindrance if they rearrange a few
of the lower ornaments? Perhaps just one or two?
Christmas is a family time and there should be a law
that the positioning of ornaments may be by hand or paw!

 

Prompt words today are decorate, hindrance, presentation, breathless, product.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

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Click on photos to enlarge.

An Innovative Approach to Weed Control

My former spouse seems not to feel a similar elation
to what I have been feeling ever since our separation.

He feels invested in the gardening and wants to poke and sow.
Every other day he comes and says he has to mow.

It’s a bit of an enigma, for this farming bent is new,
and I can’t corroborate what’s causing him to do

all these acts of digging and furrowing and tilling.
If he wants me to reciprocate, I fear am not willing.

But my garden sure has flourished since I asked my spouse to go,
which goes to show I really should have done it long ago!

 

Prompt words today are enigma, corroborate, poke, reciprocal and separation.

Beneath the Covers

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Beneath the Covers

Books are cemeteries where old thoughts go to die—
landscapes of words spread out under a variegated sky.
Bright children might discover them ‘neath covers in the night,
searching for new universes where the erudite
join them undercover to whisper down through time:
literature, history, philosopy  and rhyme

Prompt words for the day are variegated skies, bite, erudite, bright and cemetery. Image by Klim Sergeev on Unsplash.

Lactose Intolerant

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Lactose Intolerant

If you’re intent on becoming maternal,
I’m hopeful your plans include turning nocturnal.
For babies claim most of your time, night and day,
but their favorite time to entice you to play
is when you have finally  collapsed in a heap
and obtained REM sleep, so blessedly deep
that you swim towards the surface with collections of dreams
that shed off you like water as you waken to screams
of your recent dependent who’s hungry and wet,
needing all the attention that there is to get.
Since you went through the nausea and gained all the girth,
acquired all the stretch marks and endured the birth,
though you love this dear bundle with skin smooth as silk,
how you wish that their father could provide the milk!
Yet you search for your robe and for your other shoe,
for that wholesome nutrition provider is you!

Prompt words today are hopeful, claim, nocturnal, wholesome and collection. Image by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.

 

 

 

 

Love on Line

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Love on Line

These
nocturnal visits
over Love.Com
require no suitcase,
bring no human feet
over my threshold.
Only conversation
hollow in its lack
of pulse beat

echoes through it.
Too much of our world
absent from the other parts.
Too many empty chambers
with great sound systems.
Too many tapping fingers.
Waiting eyes.

 

Prompts today are suitcase, hollow, bring, nocturnal.

Vernacular Confusion

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Vernacular Confusion

When he says I have puissance he means I have power.
Why must he go on like this, hour after hour?
I don’t understand his schoolbook French.
In Yiddish, I cannot tell shiksa from mensch.
I fumble with Spanish and flunked at Italian.
An onion’s an onion. When you call it scallion,
it’s all Greek to me and I don’t have the energy
to combine languages. What’s with this synergy
that creates Tex Mex, Pig Latin and Spanglish?
I have enough problems just pronouncing Anglish.
I don’t catch your meaning when you say “Que tal?”
This method of talking means nothing at all
to one not versed in languages. So, when you call,
please don’t say,”Salut!” Just say, “Howdy, y’all!”

Prompt words today are fumble, synergy, catch, puissance and method.

Remembering Grandma at Christmas

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Remembering Grandma at Christmas

The years have chosen to abrade
the paper angel Grandma made
that year when Christmas cheer was thin,
because for weeks we were snowed in.
Even Santa ceased his action
for his reindeer had no traction.

Weeks of snow and sleet and fog
even kept the catalogue
from providing a Christmas doll
when Santa couldn’t come at all.
And so the holidays that year
did not reflect our usual cheer.

No tree, no lights, no heavenly choir,
our only heat a roaring fire.
We kids complained to Mom and Dad
and by Christmas Eve, they’d had
as much of kids as they could stand
and that’s when Grandma took a hand.

Her silver scissors nipped and flew
creating something that was new—
a Christmas angel feathery light
that floated that December night
above our heads in fire glow,
hung by a string, rotating slow

around the room with wafting wings
descending from above on strings.
And from the dark a heavenly song
prompted us to sing along.
My Grandma led, with timorous voice
that song that always was her choice:

“Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, and all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.”

One by one, we entered in,
our voices first halting and thin,
but when my Grandma chimed a bell,
our family choir began to swell
up to the ceiling, throughout the room,
dispelling darkness, cold and gloom.

Mom made cocoa on the coals
while Dad made popcorn, filling bowls
we strung on thread to deck our halls
from curtain rods to lamps to walls,
along with paper snowflakes that
twirled on their strings to tease the cat.

In the firelight’s magic glow,
they made things magical and so
every normal Christmas since,
we love our turkey and pies of mince,
Christmas presents to poke and squeeze,
bubble lights and towering trees,

but what’s most special is when Pop
puts Grandma’s angel on the top
of the tree covered in flakes
and popcorn strings the family makes.
And when we sing her special song,
if angels sing, she’ll sing along.

Prompt words today are angel, lover, abrade, traction.