Tag Archives: #FOWC

Bridge Game

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Bridge Game

Free from any adversary, safe from all deceptions,
the captain ruled his ship without yielding to exceptions.
So the cruise proceeded with ease from day to night,
and if any denizen was made to feel contrite,
it was not the captain who was made to feel the shame,
for when upon the water, he was spared from any blame
and so felt no contrition for all that he declared,
no matter how incongruous or how reason-impaired.
He was not held accountable for any misjudged thing,
for within his dominion, he was undisputed king.

 

Prompt words today are adversary, exception, cruise, contrite and safe. Image by Daniele D. Andreti on Unsplash

May-December Marriage

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May-December Marriage

Your insistence that I swallow three times between each bite
is just one small example of directives that incite.
All your protective rules that others find adorable,
on the receiving side of them quickly turns deplorable.

Whatever you may label them by your own nomenclature,
your “loving” rules are symptoms of extreme controlling nature.
So I’m galvanized to action. Since I’m tired of your caring,
I’m making a decision that’s both personal and daring.

I’m going out without you for a little drive alone
and I’m not taking my pager and I’m not taking my phone.
I might drive without a seatbelt and who knows what else I’ll do.
If I see some flowers by the road, I’ll stop and pick a few

without worrying about the fact a passerby might see
and park his car behind me and decide to kidnap me.
I will talk to every stranger and eat in greasy spoons,
drive out to the ocean and walk barefoot in the dunes

forgetting the sharp objects that might lurk beneath the sand,
neglecting to wear sunscreen and if I get deeply tanned,
I won’t worry about wrinkles or cancer or a burn.
All your careful rules for once I’m going to spurn.

I’m going to eat sugar and perhaps get round and fat,
enjoying all the broken rules involved in doing that!
If you treat me like a kid, then guess I’ll be a teen
and when you tell me what to do, I’ll stage a little scene.

I’ll get home when I want to and go out with whom I wish.
I’ll dine alone on Szechwan food and order every dish.
When you ask when I’ll get home, I’ll shrug and say “Whenever!”
And if you do not change your ways, the answer will be “Never!”

 

Prompts for the day are swallow, between, symptomatic, galvanize and adorable.

Cold Snap

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Cold Snap

When Autumn winds its avant course and takes its paint box out,
Winter with its probity pursues another route.
Freezing all connections between the leaves and limbs,
it snaps off all Fall’s paintings crisply at the stems.

It is as though the bourgeoisie has seized the reins at last
and expunged the riffraff artist with a single blast.
If Autumn’s the iconoclast, Winter must seal the norm
by covering its statements with a winter storm.

When Spring speaks out its message through the meadow lark,
stodgy frigid Winter ceases making its mark.
Then after Summer pales Spring’s green and dries the colors out,
it is the turn of Autumn to throw pigment about.

Season after season, the colors build and fade,
every new stage cancelling progress the last one made,
then building up its opposite thinking it might win,
not seeing life’s a painting that all of them are in.

 

Prompt words for today are autumn, course, bourgeoisie, probity and speaker.

Hallofourthofvalenmas: How It Came to Be.

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Okay! Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence. What in the world would you do with a combination of words like that? Think of that before you  judge me for this:

Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas

This festival’s the weirdest of any that I’ve seen—
a crazy combination of Christmas and Halloween.
The hire-a-Santa in the mall wears bear paws on his feet
and when the kids climb on his lap, they mutter, “Trick or Treat!”
Below the Christmas wreaths above, door knockers are kept busy
as grandmas baking Yule logs are kept in a fine tizzy 
by swarms of little carolers who can barely reach
the door knockers, who gather with arms up to beseech
the homeowners for candy after every song,
then stuff it in the Christmas stockings that they brought along.

Scores of scavengers dressed  up like shepherds or like kings
as well as Virgin Marys or angels sporting wings
abandon Christmas pageants to Trick-or-Treat instead.
You might ask me by what edict the world was made to wed
Halloween and Christmas? What legislative body
chose two celebrations equally over-gaudy
and mixed them both together to try to regulate
the number of occasions  on which we celebrate?

I think it was the W-H-O that thought up this solution
to try to deal with Covid and to try to curb pollution,
then issued this weird sentence and made us all comply
to celebrate all holidays on the fourth of July!
And so in combination with the skeletons and holly,
as witches and small ghosts are enjoined to act more  jolly,
fireworks are exploding in the sky far up above,
and as they trick-and-treat they also express love
by handing out their valentines—kill two birds with one stone
by trading hearts for Hershey bars with a ghostly moan.
And that’s how Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas has come to be
the only time when we’re allowed a group festivity.
And since part of it’s Halloween, without being asked
every guest, no matter what their politics, comes fully masked!!!

Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence.

The Perfect Man

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The Perfect Man

I know from what his kind is cast.
He’s fearless as he is steadfast.
He does not vaunt his strength or looks,
excels at sports and reads good books.

Sexy and mysterious, 
he’s musically serious—
motivated from within
to play a wicked violin.

He is as solid as a rock.
Nobody needs to wind his clock.
And yet I had to choose another,
for, alas, he is my brother!!!

Prompt words today are fearless, steadfast, digitally, vaunt and wind. Photo by Silas Tolles on Unsplash.

Ill-Matched

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Ill-matched

The oscillation of her mind, intuitive to rational
from personal creations to political themes national
gave her husband mental whiplash. He barely could keep up.
He found her more exhausting than a brand new pup.

As she sat there prattling, he sat there like a stone.
Her frequency of chatter made him want to be alone.
Poor fellow just could not keep up. He had a mind more staid.
He pondered each new thought he had. Opinions must be weighed!

Meanwhile, her thoughts flew here and there, her mind much more creative.
She formed opinions quickly, while his mind was more debative.
How this couple got together was a matter of derision.
Their union, all their friends agreed, must have been her decision.

 

Prompt words today are stone, poor, intuitive, oscillation, frequency, intuitive and grand. Photos by Brooke Cagle and Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

Lost

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Lost

When he said that he would lead the way, she meekly fell behind,
for to point out his meandering she felt would be unkind.
The luxuriant undergrowth clung to them in their passing,
the creeks they crossed edulcorating all they were amassing
in pants cuffs and in pockets: burrs and and leaves and pollen,
as he led the way through ditches and over trees fresh-fallen.

And though he seemed decisive, she knew that they were lost.
She followed to preserve his pride, but at what a cost?
Each quirky decision led them more astray
as she followed in his footsteps even though she knew the way.
When they finally reached their cabin, a shower, brush and comb
would eradicate the proof that they took the long way home!

Prompt words are luxuriant, decisive, quirky, edulcorate (to free or purify by washing) and leading. Photos by Joshua Woroniecki and Kurt Liebhaeuser on Unsplash.

And here is my favorite Tom Waits song, “The Long Way Home.”  Seems appropriate to include it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCk-f03o6aA

Peckish

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Peckish

Just a slight off-center peck on each proffered cheek
is all urbane society ever seems to seek.
First at “Hello,” then “Goodbye,” it’s only a dry token
of all  of the emotion that might be shown or spoken.

It’s as though a more demonstrative form of recognition,
some heartfelt hug or sincere words of fond admission,
some scrumptious soppy kiss on lips or action more revealing
might upset the applecart by showing our real feeling.

We love “love” in the movies or the pages of our books.
We desire seductive actions and long and smoldering looks—
kisses full of passion and genuine elation—
yet our own dry hand shakes are devoid of titillation.

I’m craving real emotion in place of mere air-kisses—
some lips that meet their mark, not just these weak near-misses.
It’s time for modern science to come up with a potion
that puts action in reaction and more motion in emotion!

 

Prompt words today are action, scrumptious, urbane, goodbye and recognition. Image by Limor Zellermayer on Unsplash.

 

Some Truths about the Jellyfish

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Some Truths about the Jellyfish

The fact is that the jellyfish
will never be a deli fish,
for when one tries to catch their goo
in nets, they’ll find it slips right through.

Their choreography includes
frequent oozing interludes,
the ramifications of this being
that the jellyfish you’re seeing

might be prone to disappear.
So for a moment he is here
and then he’s gone and over there
peering at you from his lair.

A kaleidoscope of colors that
sometimes look skinny, then look fat—
expanding to a great extent.
Shrinking and swelling is their bent

So if you seek a belly fish,
please rule out the jellyfish,
for though I know they look delicious,
they simply aren’t edible fishes.

Prompt words today are kaleidoscope, choreography, ramification and jellyfish. Photo by Maxime Bouffard downloaded from Unsplash.

Disciplinary Action

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Disciplinary Action

Lately, my life is like a fresh peach
at the end of a limb, slightly out of reach.
With an air of foreboding, I reach out to pluck it,
then choose not to pick or bite into or suck it,
fearing fate’s censure if I choose to buck it.

The joy of communion seems lately to dissipate.
Events come and go but I do not participate.
Whereas once I said, “Yes,” now I always say “No.”
The presence of friends is a joy I forego,
for there seem to be dangers wherever I go,

Bamboozled by nature, what choice do we have?
This seems like a wound for which there’s no salve.
Each of us suffers, apart and alone
as if there are sins for which we must atone,
our closest communion carried out via phone.

We sit at our windows viewing the parade
of all of the glories that nature has made.
We Skype and we Facebook, we tweet and we Zoom,
feigning good cheer as we contemplate doom,
all of us children sent to our room.

Will there be an end to this long isolation?
If we mend our ways, will there be consolation?
If we clean up our oceans and clean up our sky,
can we address our sins , having figured out  why
mankind has  been chosen to sicken and die?

Prompts for the day are foreboding, bamboozle, peach, dissipate and presence.