Tag Archives: FOWC

Off Course

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IMG_2737

Off Course

For those who cannot fathom the changes time has wrought,
tomorrow will be better, or perhaps it will be not.
Those who have championed progress, thinking it is for our betterment
might come at last to fathom that it’s been to our fetterment.
Why do we study science and waste our time at college
only to find out that we’ve been ruined by our knowledge?
We have been so quickly smart and sadly too late wise.
All our grand inventions seem to lead to our demise.
Can we make things better? Can we veer off to the light?
Or will we blindly keep our course, attracted to the night?

The word prompts today are: better, tonight, champion, fathom and college.

Morning Ritual

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Morning Ritual

For NaPoWriMo Day three we are to do pretty much what I’ve been doing every day for the past six years, so I’m combining it with my usual five prompt sites, whose words of the day are: online, lackluster, help, haze and wonder. (When I tried to add five more words to use this for the NaPoWriMo prompt as well, my computer went crazy and the editor turned everything pink and started flashing off and on and erased the first line of the poem, so I guess  WP doesn’t want me to combine prompts, but I’m going to try again. I’ll pick 5 more words at random from sheets of paper scattered on my desk: beginners, solving, developed, warm and milk. Instead of using the rhyming dictionary, I’ll use the one in my head, which works better for me. Okay, here I go again…..)

If your online life’s lackluster, let me help to clear the haze.
It’s no wonder that beginners might feel somewhat in a daze.
Solving all these NaPoWriMo prompts can be a chore.
You develop one poem and next day, must write one more!
Warm wishes I send out to you and others of your ilk.
If I were your mommy, there’d be cookies and warm milk,
but, alas, I’m miles away and locked up in seclusion,
dealing on my own with this confusing ten-word fusion!

online √
lackluster √
help √
haze √
wonder √
beginners √
solving √
develop √
warm √
milk √

 

Couple-ets: April 1, 2020

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“Couple-ets”

The path I thought was straight and easy has developed swerves.
This trick-or-treat relationship is getting on my nerves.

One day you bring me sweets and roses—all my fond heart seeks.
The next you end up ghosting me and disappear for weeks.

Our bond I once thought perfect is showing signs of wear.
Too often I’m a single whereas once we were a pair.

That love once thought infrangible now sports a widening crack.
Don’t show up as who you’ve become. I want the old you back!

Where once I published love poems, now I tell how my heart aches.
Where once I wrote of how love grows, now I tell how it breaks.

 

Prompt words today are infrangible, publish, ghosting, trick and sweet. The jar pictured is a wedding jar I purchased in Chiapas. The idea is for the bride and groom to each drink out of their own spout of the communal cup. Lovely imagery. I put black beans in it to hold the plants upright as they developed roots and filled it full of water. A few weeks later I came out to find that the beans had soaked up the water, expanded, and burst the cup. What a metaphor!!! Perfect for this poem…

 

Why us?

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(Click on first image and then arrows to enlarge all.)

Sadly, Frida left us, leaving Morrie and Frida to tussle it out over who was top dog.
I only hope she is watching and knows.

Why Us?

How pedestrian my life has become––this human zoo narrowed down to one cage, the only fortune now available—bad fortune. The modern plague is now upon us and we are all engaged in this one big gamble: to live our former lives or to be safe. Do we chance a girlfriend or a boyfriend? Risk a grandchild’s health by one short encounter?  We treat this threat as though it is a new one, whereas it has been always with us, with lesser odds.

The birds call just as loudly outside with equal variety as before the onslaught. Cattle in their fields mill and low. The bats swarm out each night and sneak back under roof tiles without my detection as I lie slumbering ten feet away.

The world has not changed that much except for us, cowering in our safe and comfortable caves. Why us? Why only us? The question we should consider.

 

Words of the day are pedestrian, gamble, zoo, fortune and girlfriend.

Coronavirus Reflections

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Coronavirus Reflections

I’m exploring my options now that I’m alone,
my only distraction my blog and my phone.
Well, sure, I have dogs and cats I can tickle.
to ease, if you will, this sequestering pickle.

Yet I’m a pariah to humans I know,
so my social life is a little bit slow.
That it’s undeserved may be undisputed.
Nonetheless, unless I show up Hasmat suited,

none of my friends want to hug or shake hands, 
and when I explore, not anyone stands
closer than ten feet away from my hips.
Even my lover forgoes my hot lips!

Slick politicians may emphasize how
our social distancing affects the Dow,
saying, perhaps the stock market is mendable
so long as we declare seniors expendable.

This chain of reason sounds bogus to me.
I’d like to remain on my family tree
labeled as living for as long as possible.
I soundly reject being labeled as tossable!

Prompt words today are slick, tickle, undeserved, explore and chain.

Dagwood

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473fef2d0018fdef47b61a3b0c92686f--dagwood-sandwich-dinner-recipesphoto from Pinterest

Dagwood

After my pizza and after my knish
I have just one more edible wish.
I’m building its fantasy here in my mind:
a spectacular sandwich of a unique kind.

A little pastrami, baked beans and some cheese,
pickles and mustard and if you please
some mayonnaise lightly spread over the bread.
(Miracle Whip?  I’d rather be dead!)

Some avo and onions sliced thin would be nice,
and if you have it, a green pepper slice.
Some olives and beets would add a good zing,
and then I’d like one more additional thing.

Some chips to add crunch––put them right there inside.
(Only a ninny would place them outside.)
Then slice it diagonally if you will,
with a pickle beside it––a big kosher dill.

Then you can leave, please, so I can I start
greedily ripping that sandwich apart.
For though I needed help, perhaps, in its construction,
I need no further guidance in its destruction

Prompt words today are sandwich, fantasy, ninny, vanquish and guidance.

Plaza Scene in the Time of the Coronavirus

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Plaza Scene in the Time of the Coronavirus

Birds pick at rice
gone stale on the steps of the church.
Doors closed,
no choir sings matins
on this Sunday morn.

Rolling over in their beds
or gathered around the breakfast table,
the faithful listen to the mass
broadcast over speakers
loud enough to be heard a mile away,

while belligerent teens, sabotaging
their parents’ careful advice,
make the green benches
in the plaza across the street
their communal habitat.

 

Prompt words for today are belligerent, care, sabotage, rice and habitat.

Oh, if Only

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Oh, if Only

Folks from the east and folks from the west
are going to parley to see what is best.
They’ll quiz the offenders and empty them out
to see what this deception has all been about.
If they empty their dark souls and spill their confessions,
at the end of all of these fact-finding sessions,
we can correct their corruption and sin
and really make America greater again!

Prompt words today are empty, confession, quiz, parley and west.

Bird Chorus

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and came closer to the bait

Bird Chorus

Birds perch on countless branches, each a separate bell
ringing out the cadence of stories they must tell.
Around them, eerie silence, for no other sounds compete.
No calls of children playing. No pattering of feet

up and down the pavement. No playing girls and boys,
for all the busy humans, infamous for their noise,
are staying in their houses and no amount of blustering
from their scattered leaders is bound to stop their clustering.

Families draw in closer as friends all fade away
into their particular intentions for the day.
Offices turn cyber. Schools are merely screens.
Mothers sit at kitchen tables, perusing magazines.

Fathers pace on carpets and worry about money.
How are they to make it now that the world’s gone funny?
Now and then, the silence split open by a bell
tolling for the human race who haven’t done too well

at going with the scheme of things. They prefer to take over,
making malls and parking lots out of fields of clover.
Trashing up the landscape. Peppering the tide
with their plastic mountains grown too big to hide.

Is it any wonder how nature responds?
We’ve held her prisoner long enough. She’s sloughing off her bonds.
She’s given us broad hints, but still we do not mind her.
So she’s erasing her mistakes and putting us behind her.

 

Prompt words today are countless branches, amount, eerie, infamous and bell.

Good Riddance?

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Good Riddance

They’re trying to railroad us, set us adrift
so we’ll never close this incredible rift.
They’ll write our obituaries, every one
It started the day that reason was done .
We surrendered control to the men who let cash
prompt their decisions most foolish and rash.

The delicate balance of nature upended,
they pillaged the earth until it grew offended
and began to fight back through hurricanes, fire,
droughts, floods, marine deaths and then acts more dire.
When all these disasters failed to inspire us,
her weapon became the coronavirus.

Now they flounder on, our greedy politicians,
less leaders than they are our nation’s morticians.
They stew about markets, fuss over the Dow.
As ever, cash profits are their sacred cow.
While those who must vote to try to defeat them
are all prisoners of home with no way to unseat them.

Can you not see the end with wildlife in the streets,
stampeding down pavement, their hollow hoof beats
like drums that announce humanity’s end?
What messages might they possibly send?
The earth isn’t dependent on mankind to thrive.
When we are long gone, nature will survive.  

Words for the day are delicate, dependent, obituary, adrift and railroad. https://reflectionsofanuntidymind.blog/

Animals Invade Cities As People Quarantine Themselves At Home.
Read the Story Here:  https://www.boredpanda.com/animals-in-streets-during-coronavirus-quarantine/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic