Tag Archives: #FOWC

Exculpatory Failure: The Cookie Caper

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Exculpatory Failure: The Cookie Caper

My sister can’t explain the fate
of cookies missing from the plate.
A generous portion merely vanished
to unknown realms furtively banished.

Here, for instance is an example
of why she couldn’t take a sample:
she couldn’t reach the cookies there
so high above her tangled hair—
an argument I must impeach,
for they are not beyond her reach.

And so I cannot exculpate
her innocence in this debate.
The cookies have indeed gone missing.
The coffee pot is gently hissing
and I can’t accept her bluff
of why there are not cookies enough
for all my mother’s friends to chew
even one, let alone two!

My mother baked hour after hour
so they’d have plenty to devour,
yet now there are a paltry few.
I guess they’ll have to just make do
with a cookie each or less.
Good for their dieting, I guess.

Who can the guilty culprit be?
My sister hopes they’ll think it’s me
who stole said cookies from the plate
and not that tiny reprobate
with chocolate crumbles on her lips
and frosting on her fingertips.

My little sis, so innocent,
admits not where those cookies went.
Yet that bonanza clearly resides
somewhere within her own insides.

Today’s prompt words are bonanza, example, generous and exculpate.

The Vile Effects of Cabbage

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The Vile Effects of Cabbage

I love eating cabbage, but its end results are crass.
It may affect digestion with propensity towards gas.
Between you and your closest friends it may create a scism
as you rival wild leaves in the wind with your psithurism.

Prompt words today are cabbage, propensity, psithurism (the sound of the wind in the trees and the rustling of leaves) and affect. Illustration thanks to Ibuki Tsubo on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Detritus

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Detritus

Not given to unicorns and eloquent language,
my melodrama is fueled with common things:
more bad news from the media,
a baby possum murdered by the cats,
the shattered precious wine glass from a dwindling set.

Friends fall like drying petals from a bougainvillea vine,
      the world grown more cruel 
           not only from the brutalities of age,
                         but by the decisions of short-sighted power-brokers
                                              throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

                (The choice of that inelegant, time-worn phrase
             the result of too many months of isolation—
            giving up first the makeup and the hairbrush,
             then the bra,
                 then the bother of digging
                      for the perfect unique metaphor.)

Cities of books and projects                                    
started but not finished,
albums full of photos I mean to scan,
pile up on tables                                     
  and the floor.                                    

                         Bougainvillea petals
scattered
over the terraza
                                                        by the still-laid table,
                               obscuring tiny shards
of delicate glass.

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Prompt words today are eloquent, unicorn, media and melodrama.

Shelter in Place

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Shelter in Place

I’m balanced on the precipice. Should I plunge or not?
I don’t know how to fly, and for sure I won’t be caught.
I’ll be disappointed if I don’t, but frightened if I do.
One says to remain while the other prompts adieu.

Every life decision is a choice between
leaving to see more or staying with what I’ve seen.
Both choices irresistible. Which one do I chose?
Either way I win and either way I lose.

Time and time again I’ve chosen the same choice.
“Be off to your future self” speaks with the loudest voice.
Only now does nature make my choice for me—
instead of changing places, to stay and explore “me.”

 

Words of the day are adieu, plunge, disappointed and precipice.

Non-inherited Tendencies

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Non-inherited Tendencies

I am forty-three years old. Why is it that my mother still feels it is her purpose in life to educate me?

She stands in front of the junk drawer in my kitchen, “There is no excuse for anyone to have a drawer like this in their house,” she says. With one finger, she rifles through the drawer, moving a pair of pliers closer to fifty peso bills for the water vendor  that are piled to its left, sending loose screws rolling across the bottom of the drawer.

I reach around her to hand her the pair of scissors she seeks. Then, once again, I careen into the precipice of self-doubt. Surely, others less-perfect than my mother have drawers such as this one.

My qualms deteriorate as I readjust my thoughts to coincide with the actual world, but as I restate mentally and silently my oft-repeated mantra. “What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter,” my mother, briskly and methodically, starts arranging the drawer. 

 

Word prompts for today are What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter, deteriorate, educate and precipice.

Accountability

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Accountability

You excel in tendencies of aplomb and civility
and I’ve had no complaints about your overall virility.
You aren’t a complainer. I admit you aren’t a mooch.
I love your chili verde and I love the way you smooch.

I adore your sense of humor—your playfulness and jive,
your artistic fervor, your energy and drive.
In short, you are a paragon of fun and versatility,
and in our years together, you have had accountability.

But, your claim to innocence when I begin to holler
due to my discovery of lipstick on your collar,
leads me to declare that my past trust in you is over
now that you have turned into a liar and a rover.

You would truly have to turn into a necromancer
to convince me that you aren’t a cheat and a romancer.
Though your sex appeal’s an asset here in your abode,
it became grounds for divorce when you took it on the road!

Prompts for the day are accountability, drive, mooch and jive. (I think this is the first time in seven years that I’ve written to two prompts that happen to rhyme with each other.)

“Comeuppance Rears Its Ugly Head–Again!”

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“Comeuppance Rears Its Ugly Head–Again!”

I’ve an issue with these prompts that give us words that are obscure.
Any more weird words will be more than I can endure.
I yearn for words more ordinary so my poem can shine.
Shame on you for choosing words that stand out above mine

like a boil on proboscis or a zit on a smooth cheek.
A prompt word should suggest a theme, but never prompt an “Eeeek!”
A prompt word should strike lightning but not burn down all the trees.
Think before you prompt, dear friends. No more “comeuppance,” please!

* “Comeuppance” has been the prompt word for two of the four prompt sites I use in the past week and one suggested it twice, withdrawing the earlier prompt after I’d already written my poem, so I rewrote the line, thankfully, only to have the word pop up a few days later in another prompt site, then again in this one a few days later! Now, if you want to see “comeuppance” for a fourth time, click on the link for “obscure.” I hereby give the word its own comeuppance by means of this poem.

Prompt words today are lightning, issue, obscure and yearn. Illustration thanks to DP on Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Hopscotch

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Hopscotch

One foot, two feet, doing fine.
Do not stray over the line.
This childhood game of balanced action
far in the past, a mere abstraction—

a metaphor far from unique
for the balance that you seek
as you advance as you are able,
moving forward, sometimes stable

on two feet. balanced and steady,
resting there and getting ready
for that time when one foot only
rests on firm ground, feeling lonely.

One leg, balanced in the air
is enough to curl your hair
but two firm squares are there ahead,
so you hop up to them, instead—

balanced on one foot or two
in each adventure offered you.
So life advances, hop after hop
No choice except to never stop.

 

Prompt words today are forward, unique, ulotrichous (curly-haired), abstraction. Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Been There, Don That!!!

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Been There, Don That!

I wouldn’t give a nickel, I wouldn’t give a tuppence
to save our expired president from his earned comeuppance.
His service contract’s over. He will not get another.
And hopefully Ivanka won’t, nor will her older brother.
They’ll no doubt muddle on in life, spending their father’s millions,
living on a credit line, maintaining they have billions.
A new guy’s in the White House and we hope he might
prompt a more irenic phase to save us from our plight.
He doesn’t shoot endangered species or found charities to plunder—
proof that future national elections need not echo our past blunder!!!

Prompt words today are muddle, service, comeuppance and irenic. (Irenice=prompting peace or reconciliation.) Image by Jose M. on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Convocation

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Convocation

I’m hiding in my broken self, couched down deep inside,
in concord with those secret parts I find it best to hide.
The most appealing sides of me are ones I choose to show
while the shattered rest of me finds somewhere else to go.

We often come together. We conspire in my dreams
when who I really am comes out to join with whom she seems.
It’s a convocation of past selves and of present—
all my selves from bratty kid to other selves more pleasant.

That part that takes the smallest piece of cake comes face-to-face
with parts that want the biggest piece and put her in her place.
Those selves that were once bullied confront their sense of loss,
face up to the bully and for once end up the boss.

Broken hearts are mended and pride put in its place.
In dreams I deal with all my faults that I’m meant to face.
It’s there I meet with former selves that weep or laugh or rage,
and then when I awaken, I put them on the page.

Prompt words for the day are appealing, broken, hiding and concord.