Tag Archives: #FOWC

Dear John

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Dear John

My kenspeckle lover, well-known for deceit,
you cannot resist every siren you meet.
If you’re depressed, they brighten your day.
Do you think that I’m so naive and fey
that I do not notice the scent you bring home
when you return from wherever you roam?
If I kept a notebook of all of the times
you were unfaithful and caught them in rhymes,
they would be encyclopedic in length,
devoid of affection and brute in their strength.

I’d be better off, they would prove, if alone,
for “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,”
considering all of your dalliance and sin,
if applied to you, would be spread out so thin
that the bone left for me would be naught but a sliver,
my portion of flesh just a scrap of your liver,
the rest of you spread out so far and so wide,
apportioned to lovers you thought you could hide.

I’ve packed up your bags, keeping one of them free
to return the part of you you left with me.
Take it along with you as you depart.
 I’ve already filled that part of my heart
that you have left empty these many long years
with one who’s supplied what you left in arrears.

 

 

Prompts today are: kenspeckle, better, notebook, deceit and depressed.

Kenspeckle: adjective,SCOTTISH, easily recognizable; conspicuous.
“he loved walking in the village, where he was a kenspeckle figure”

In a Spuddle

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Forgottenman is the first to add his photo as one. Then Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen contributetd her feline spuddler. Who spuddles! Next?

In a Spuddle

You may think that “spuddle” isn’t a word,
and I agree that it sounds most absurd.
When unsubstantiated, I agreed
that it was unlikely that I’d ever need
a word whose best rhyme turned out to be puddle
or cuddle or muddle or fuddle or huddle,
but when I embarked on an examination,
I found that it wasn’t a mere fabrication,
and though I admit that it seems an anomaly,
as out-of-date as a needlepoint homily,
if you need a word for when you’re forgetful,
fresh from your dreams and still rather fretful,
when you’re befuddled and  in a slight muddle,
the word you might need to describe you is “spuddle.”

Prompt words today are spuddle, unsubstantiated, forgetful, anomaly and examination.

Spuddle: a useful verb from the 17th century that means to work feebly and ineffectively, because your mind is elsewhere or you haven’t quite woken up yet.

 

So, when trying to illustrate this, I had a bit of a problem finding an adequate photo so I had to stage this one. Can you help me out by contributing one of yourself, fresh from sleep or feeling especially feeble or ineffective? Be warned that I’ll add it to make a gallery above, but could be fun.

Additions: a spuddled cat by Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen. Thanks, Dolly!

Keeping Up

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Keeping Up

Celebrations in one’s seventies require an appointment
with your favorite doctor for a painkiller or ointment
for sprains or aches or bruises from one’s excesses of being
a good sport about camping out or ice skating or skiing.

What once you took for granted may now be an act of will
to engineer that final run or execute that hill.
Trying to be a kid again may put you out of touch.
The x-ray that they’ll take today will indicate how much.!

 

Word prompts today are celebration, x-ray, appointment.

A Lonely Widow’s Lament

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A Lonely Widow’s Lament

She advertised for company and put it on the web.
Discouraged with the “no response,” she felt her patience ebb.
She pined so much for conference and knew that it was wrong,
and yet she vowed she’d make do with whatever came along.

She promised she’d be tranquil, not expect a fast response.
She relaxed and did some weaving, there beneath the garden sconce.
The comfort of the sunlight helped her not to worry.
She’d give a little leeway, no need for any hurry.

A gentle breeze assisted  her in sinking into dreaming.
It didn’t help a widow to spend her day in scheming.
And, soon enough a jerky movement set her heart to beating.
A fly caught in her cobweb meant that she would soon be eating!

Although I have the perfect photo to illustrate this poem, I didn’t want to give away the ending, so I’m leaving it unillustrated. To see the illustration for it, go  HERE.

Prompt words today are conference, assist, cobweb, leeway and comfort.

The Bishop’s Latest Miracle

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The Bishop’s Usual Cap

The Bishop’s  Latest Miracle

Although his past proclivity was to regurgitate,
allow me to encapsulate the bishop’s present state.
He’s rickety and yet he has no tendency to brood.
In fact, against all reason, he’s in a euphoric mood.

And lest you think nobility has anything to do with it,
when he eats, he has a brand new medicine to chew with it.
Since they’ve added magic mushrooms to his omelets of late,
 he’s finishing his breakfast and licking clean the plate.

He’s ordered a new upper plate and hopes that what he’ll do with it
is to exercise his jaws by learning how to chew with it.
Then he’ll have special omelets morning, noon and night
and justify it, saying he’s practicing his bite.

 

The Bishop’s New Cap

Today’s prompt words are encapsulate, euphoria, rickety, noble and regurgitate,

Logorrhea

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Logorrhea *

You’re wearing out our neurons with your tedious lengthly screed.
You’ve made us weep with boredom and you’ve made our eardrums bleed.
Please cease your tedious lectures about people we don’t know.
We’re tired of your illnesses and other tales of woe.
The remnants of our patience grow dangerously thin.
We’ve seen your family pictures and know everywhere you’ve been.
Have you heard of asking questions and surrendering the floor?
Have you ever thought of stopping while your listeners want more?
Do you realize that others have stories to relate?
This is a truth, my boring friend, not open to debate.
We’d like to share a secret that isn’t very tough, it
is to take your next comment and this is where to stuff it!!

 

 

   * Logorrhea: a pathological inability to stop talking. (Diarrhea of the mouth.)
   * Screed: a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious.

The prompts today are neuron, remnant, screed and wear.

 

By Association

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By Association

The tale she told was cautionary. Her hypnotic flame
scorched the Earth, contributing to her epic fame.
The parts she played as villainous, scheming shrewish dame
lapped over into her life, where she was held to blame
for legendary bad girls who, though fictional in name,
her fans were sure depicted her nature all the same.
So, though her personality was kind and mild and tame,
those who knew her only from the movie game,
from her roles as Jezebel, The Wicked Witch and Mame,
believed that she herself was as evil as they came.

 

Prompt words today are scorch, hypnotic, cautionary, blame and part.

The Confessions of a Halloween Candy Hoarder

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The Confessions of a Halloween Candy Hoarder

I do not accept your recent accusal
as anything but an attempt to bamboozle
me out of the vestiges of my collection
of Halloween candy that’s skipped your detection.

I’m thankful that I’m neither trustful nor dumb
enough to be functioning under your thumb,
for I find repugnant your plans to abscond
with all of the candy with which I’ve grown fond.

For though you gobbled your candy down quickly,
going through all of it lickety-splickly,
I like to keep my candy yield near
and eat one piece a day for the rest of the year!

When days are balmy, butterscotch is nice.
I save all my chocolate for snow days and ice.
And when the campfire sparkles and flickers,
I like to devour my Halloween Snickers.

If it annoys you, you’ll have to make do
with a few M&M’s that I hid in my shoe.
The rest of my candy is where I have hidden it,
to be consumed when only I’ve bidden it.

Prompts for the day are vestige, repugnant, bamboozle, balmy and thankful.

The Proposal

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The Proposal

Under the star-spangled night I espy
a woman in love and her regular guy.
He has resolved it’s the night to propose,
and safe in his pocket’s the ring that he chose,
but her physical closeness so comfortably huddled
close up to his side has him slightly befuddled.
What if he was swindled and the diamond’s not real?
It was such a big stone and such a good deal!

He fingers the box and tries to decide
how best to convince this girl at his side
to accept his offer to become his bride.
He swears to the heavens, so splendid and wide
that he’ll do his best to furnish a life
befitting the one that he makes his wife.
Then his nervousness done, he falls on one knee,
to turn his whole life from “I” into “We.”

Word prompts for the day are star-spangled, resolve, swindle, espy and physical.Image by Trevin Rudy on Unsplash.

Open Reading at the Nueva Posada

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Open Reading at the Nueva Posada

They gather at their tables in the heat or in the cold,
ears perked for the errors in the stories they’ll be told.
They’ll be listening for the puerile and and the grisly and the trite,
jotting down their notes for the misstatements that they’ll cite.

Then, their criticism over, they’ll play another game,
giving their approval and voicing their acclaim
for a perfect metaphor or meter that is tight. 
How you built the tension and got it all just right.

Thus do we meet to ebb and flow, to criticize and praise.—
to inform, amuse, maybe to bore or to amaze.
This is how we come together first to teach and then be taught
by sharing with each other the best that we have got!

Prompt words today are cold, table, grisly, puerile and criticism.