Tag Archives: #FOWC

Treasure Hunt

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Treasure Hunt

At Rudy’s Scrap and Salvage, you’ll find the junk of dreams.
Sewing machines with treadles and pants burst at the seams
that you can mend upon them.  Dining sets with mismatched chairs.
In his clothing section, shoes seldom come in pairs.

Lovely one-eyed dollies and lop-eared careworn rabbits,
uniforms and costumes, surplices and habits.
Little pails of misplaced parts like nuts and bolts and widgets.
Chairs fit for a giant and little chairs for midgets.

Crankshafts, axles, handlebars for 50’s era Schwinns.
Housegoods by the bushel and tools by the bins.
Whoever was responsible for making all these things
would barely recognize them with their scratches and their dings.

It’s a place for dreamers, for artists or inventors—
those a few steps out of time who lack corporate mentors.
Those bent on handing back our junk with which we tried to part
as startling new inventions or else objets d’ arte.

Taking worthless bits of junk and making priceless treasures
is, I must admit, one of my most primary pleasures.
You can keep your Bergdorfs, Neiman Marcus or your Saks.
I prefer my treasures in orange crates or gunny sacks!

 

The prompts:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/rdp-56-salvage/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/responsible-july-26-2018/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/26/fowc-with-fandango-dreamer/

A Vindication of Single Life

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A Vindication of Single Life

I will not love for comfort. I will not love for gold.
I will not love for custom nor approval of the fold.
The handsomest of profiles will not win my hand.
Fair face alone will not insure I’ll wear a wedding band.

Those whom others seek to wed are not my man of choice.
I want a man gentle of heart but bold of word and voice.
One with an eye for beauty written in other places
aside from what the world demands in figure and in faces.

That certain novel contour molded by his hand.
A forearm strongly muscled. Sinewy and tanned.
Serious in nature, but not too melancholy.
Capable of fine reasoning, but also fun and jolly.

A man who carries others securely in his heart.
A man I am a part of even when we are apart.
An oddball twist of humor. A unique bend of mind.
Someone glib in rejoinder, but also fair and kind.

I am by no means perfect in demeanor nor in form.
My face is not the fairest and my habits aren’t the norm.
I am not the world’s best dancer nor a very sexy dame,
but  I bet someone exists whose imperfections are the same!


Written for these two prompts.  Check out their URLS and come play along:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/rdp-50-gold/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/20/fowc-with-fandango-melancholy/

Blind Potential

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Blind Potential

This trail of salt reveals to me you’re led by superstition.
Eyes shut tight, you stumble on, following tradition.
Like a deer in headlights, you are blinded by the light
that others cast, refusing to be guided by insight.

There is a light inside you that will lead you much more surely.
That little nudge that prompts you will guide you more securely.
Trust that spark within you to tell you what to do.
You need not fear those  instincts you carry within you.

They are the wisdom of the universe, trying to get out.
If you do not heed their whisper, you may later hear their shout.
What you deem as accidents might be communication
from that inner part of you, prompting your education.

Although those outer voices may continue to deride,
trust your inner voices. They are firmly on your side.
What you find within you may be genius that’s unknown
that won’t come to fruition until it has been sown.

You are its only guardian. Only you can plant and tend
and bring these new world miracles to their fruitful end.
Do not let superstition or fear of the what could be
keep you from that within you that is your destiny.

 

The Ragtag prompt is superstition.
Fandango’s promt is fear.

Quintessential Gentleman

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Quintessential Gentleman

He was the quintessential gentleman with tie correctly knotted.
Whenever he entered a room, the women were besotted.
Every Grande Dame had him on her dining list,
while all their daughters secretly were yearning to be kissed.

Little girls adored him and their mothers preened and fussed.
When they knew he’d be there, even  grandmas showed up trussed.
Artists painted his portrait. Sculptors sculpted his form.
Everywhere he went, slavish attention was the norm.

Every woman on the subway seemed to hope he would accost her,
and every social circle had him topmost on their roster.
All in vain, for every single mother, grandma, sister
was not even in the running, for he preferred a mister.

 

Fandango’s prompt word today is quintessential.

Volatile

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Volatile

As reliable as fireworks on the 4th of July,
you ignite. Over what? Who could guess?
We shield ourselves as if from floating embers,
ward off the sting for others and ourselves.
You bright shooting stars leave your aftereffects.
We, below, contend with them, 
and never fail to show up for your next grand display.

 

FOWC’s prompt is fireworks.
The Daily Addiction prompt is reliable.

The Suspect

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Who, Me????

The Suspect

I suspect you are the guilty one. The evidence is clear,
and as a further indication, you’re acting rather queer.
Those pork chops just left in the pan a short while ago
are nowhere to be seen now, though I’ve looked both high and low.
I don’t know where the bones have gone, but I have a suspicion
that when you last entered the house, those chops were your ambition!
I left the room for minutes and came back, much perturbed,
to find the skillet empty, albeit undisturbed,
still centered on the burner with not even one chop.
So now I fear my dinner guests are going to have to stop
to pick us up a pizza as they drive here from town,
for when I left the pork chops on the stove top to get brown,
SOMEONE helped himself to them. Mind, I’m not pointing fingers,
but as you skulk out of the room, still, my suspicion lingers.
You are a likely felon, dear little doggie mine.
I think you’d have no chance in a doggie suspect line!

 

True story.  Six pork chops!!! Skillet still centered over the flame, not one inch out of alignment. Later on, a mysterious stash of pork chop bones found by the gardener in the lower garden behind the studio.

Fandango’s prompt today is suspect.

Word Pie

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DSC09231

Word Pie

I take them as a milestone, these long afternoon naps
that make my late nights possible by filling in the gaps
between compulsive writing sessions to meet the assignment
of all these daily prompt words coming to us by consignment!

Blogging’s become a nightmare that’s turned me slightly manic.
Prompts have me fully frustrated and in a mid-life panic.
(To be truthful, only “midlife” if one forty is my lifespan,
which, if I had my druthers, really would become my lifeplan!)

Prompts now come like a waterfall that’s turned on every morning.
I might have just ignored them if I’d only had a warning
that I’d become obsessive in using one and all.
(I have them in my bookmarks and must daily heed their call.)

That WordPress prompt now seems like poverty. One short month ago
we only had one daily prompt site where all of us would go.
Every day, we waited for it like the early morning sun,
but now we face a heat wave for there isn’t only one.

Ragtag and Fandango have become Daily Addictions—
not to mention other Word Prompts that demand our daily fictions.
Cee’s Share Your World still tempts us, as does that dVerse Poet.
We could have stuck to only them. Alas, we did not know it!

Now we are all scrambling to fill  all their demands.
It keeps our poor brains busy, not to mention how our hands
cramp up from all this typing as our lives all go awry
as we all line up to get each daily slice of prompt site pie!

This poem is an attempt to meet all of the below prompts..Ooops, sorry “Heatwave,” I slipped a photo prompt in without realizing it.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/rdp-29-milestone/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/poverty/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/29/fowc-with-fandango-nightmare/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/27/word-prompt-frustrating/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/23/photo-challenge-heat-wave

https://ceenphotography.com/2018/06/25/share-your-world-june-25-2018/

 

https://weeklyprompts.com/prompts/

https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/06/27/word-prompt-frustrating/

Preposterous Vision

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“Peyote Dream” Painting by Jesus Lopez Vega

Preposterous Vision

My friend Chuy says
it is peyote leached into the soil
the corn grows from
that gives Mexicans
such a remarkable sense of color.
The bright pigments of imagination
flood his canvasses.
His peyote dreams leak out into the real world
and wed it to create one world.
“Peyote dream” becomes its opposite—
a freight train taking us into the universal truth.
A larger reality.
This stalk of corn, this deer,
this head of amaranth,
all beckon, “Climb aboard.”

So when you bite into a taco
or tamale, when the round taste of corn
meets your tongue, and pleasure flows
in a lumpy river down your throat,
look up at what is standing in the shadows
and see that it is light that creates shadow.
See the many colors that create the black.
Follow where the corn beckons you to go—
into the other world of poetry and paint
and dance and music. Hot jazz with a mariachi beat.

Chew that train that takes you deeper. Hop aboard
the tamale express and you will ride into your
new life. It will be like your old life magnified
and lit by multicolored lights and the songs of merry-go-rounds
and when you bite into your taco, it will taste
like cotton candy and a snow cone
and your whole life afterwards will be a train that takes you nowhere
except back into yourself—a Ferris wheel
spinning you up to your heights and down again, with every turn,
the gears creaking “Que le vaya bien.”
I hope it goes well with you
and that you see the light
within the shadow
and the colors
in the corn.

For Fandango’s prompt: preposterous

Proddings

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Proddings

I guess that it took gumption to stray so far from home.
Who knows why certain people are driven so to roam?
For certain, curiosity plays a part in it—
a proclivity to action, a resistance to just sit.
A passion to be accurate in finding all their pieces.
A need for further education after school ceases.
But I can’t help but feel that there is more to it than this.
It isn’t only fearing those things that we might miss.
There’s always that small feeling that we do not belong––
that sense of isolation from the local throng.
It is a bit like pushing the odd fledgling from the nest
who does not belong. The other fledglings may know best
who would belong best elsewhere, and speed them on their way.
Odd ducks who display gumption or creative ones must pay.
And in becoming targets, they are prodded to depart
to find other places where they can make their start
to finding who they are in life—places where they can see
all those different people that they might be meant to be.

East Timor, 1973. Off on a long adventure

These word prompts were made use of in the above poem:

RagTag: https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/rdp-16-target/Target
Daily Addictions:https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/: Accurate
FOWC: https://fivedotoh.com/: Gumption
Weekly Prompts: https://weeklyprompts.com/: Home