Tag Archives: FOWC

Raw Truth

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Raw Truth

Some think this holy gift of life should be lived as austere,
while others make a game of it, maintaining that it’s clear
that life’s to be enjoyed in all its possibilities,
and so as long as no one’s harmed, you should live it as you please.

Still others think life consists of all that you can glean.
Leaving nothing for the others, they pick the landscape clean.
Prone to public office, they’re suffused with artifice,
content that the dull masses will not see their avarice.

Considering their blindness, do folks get what they deserve—
growing ever leaner as the masters that they serve—
the very ones who should serve them get rich and ever fatter—
focused on the truth that they’re the only ones who matter?

The prompts today are clear, holy, austere and game.

Verse for a Reclusive One

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Verse for a Reclusive One

I refuse to say goodbye. I’d rather say hello
if you should ever come back from where you have to go.
In the interim, I’ll let my memories be my guide.
Sometimes they are the safest places to abide.
You decried my frivolous gestures, yet ate up all the cake
those birthdays when you swore festivities were a mistake.
Oh, my reclusive loved-one, why do you hide away?
You do not have the answer. That’s why you never say.

Prompts for today are goodbye, refuse, guide, frivolous and cake.

Words of Wooing

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Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 8.49.45 AMPhoto by Giovanni Ribeiro on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Words of Wooing

He took her to the movies. He took her to the fair.
He raved about her choice of clothes. He doted on her hair.
He brought his uke and stood for hours strumming at her gate,
riffing on the talents of the lovely Kate.
Was he accurate? Were all his laudatory quips
valid? All those praises of her swan neck and her lips?
Not likely, but it’s lucky that the lady was so vain
that she took verbatim the praises of her swain.
They married in the autumn and by spring the truth was known.
He no longer sang her praises. She had to sing her own!
 

Prompt words for today are movie, valid, riff, accuracy and gate.

Dark Rites of Inheritance

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Dark Rites of Inheritance

What was it you discovered under the Union Jack
packed in Grandma’s quilt chest, way back in the back?
I saw the glowing of your torch as you bore it away,
breaking the rule that all be shared in the light of day.

I find your act egregious, and yet I will not tell.
It’s just my curiosity I’ll ask for you to quell.
I need not share your treasure or regulate your act.
When I give my word, I’m the epitome of tact.

What is that you cradle? Is it a jewel or flask?
One viewing of your treasure is the only thing I ask.
Why raise it there above your head in the moonlight’s glow?
I cannot see what’s in your hand down here so far below.

Your movement now so swift and sure, seconds to stop from start.
I feel a trickling down my chest, a swift pain in my heart.
How cruel that even now you keep your secret all unshared.
Who would expect such evil acts from Grandma’s favored laird?

Nothing disputes you as her heir. It’s yours, castle and land,
except, perhaps, that parchment I see gripped tight in your hand.
My life has not been perfect. You have not loved me well.
How perfect that I’ll be the one you’ll later join in Hell!

 

Prompts today are jack, torch, egregious, regulate and rule.

Party House

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Party House

I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors.
Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors.
Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose.
They turn up the music when I want to doze.

Convivial people are really a pain.
Of my existence, they’re really the bane.
I wish I could trade them for sedater folks
who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,

for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution.
I wish I could think of a better solution:
a wall or a device to filter the sound,
but instead I must phone or cry out or pound

on the door that no one inside ever hears.
They just do not care, or so it appears.
I complain to the neighborhood association
that sends them a warning to curb their elation,

but somehow the party just starts up again.
More laughter, more music, more odors, more din.
If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me.
I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!

Prompt words today are can’t, pressure, frivolous, convivial and  nose.

Once by Ice and Once by Fire

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Once by Ice and Once by Fire

Once by ice and now by fire, erasing her mistakes,
Mother Earth must wonder how many times it takes
to finally get the world planned right, for once the lot is cast,
how can she watch sufficiently  a planet that’s so vast?

Her hope is that but rarely she must resort to extinction
to control a species risen to such great distinction
that it uses up more resources than it can provide.
How many times must she restore a planet that has died?

She casts a might yawn and then breathes fire once again—
cancelling out excesses that they can’t see as sin.
Caught in a clinch as they resist all means of education,
perhaps the only answer is mankind’s eradication.

 

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Prompt words today are extinct, rarely, clinch, vast and hope.

Dreams

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Dreams

My dreams always end before some big climax—the revelation of what is behind the wall or who is behind the spread cape, ready to turn around and solve the mystery. Dreams are a wonderland we dive into unaware—a little surprise some part of us produces every night. A vast world composed of images real and false. Bits from our past or present scrambled up with fantastic elements perhaps remembered from our youth. Dreams where we can fly. Sinister alleys and unknown streets we wander through, at first with a false assurance that they will lead to somewhere. It is with regrets or a heartfelt “hurray!” that we awaken from these dreams—either saved  or disappointed by the awakening—our lives somehow sorted out by the weird realignment of facts and fantasy that they accomplish, like shuffled cards, rearranging our past by mixing it in with the future or with fantasy. Dreams are a surreal world we enter every night, no less real than the world we live in every day. Just different, made up of different parts of ourselves. A second chance, perhaps. Or a sorting out of problems, worries, regrets.

Prompts today are dive,  wonderland, false, hurray, vast.

Hard Knocks

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Hard Knocks

That first triumphant journey of a toddler on a trike
predicts his future conquering of a two-wheel bike.
Despite his mom’s temptation to grab his overalls
to whisk him off from crisis and save him from his falls,
nothing can be gained from this. He needs to face his spills.
Part of education is dealing with the ills
that he’ll be called upon to deal with in his future life.
We cannot live our children’s lives or guarantee no strife.

 

Prompt words today are nothing, crisis, temptation, triumph and bike.

Wild Oats

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Wild Oats

What he is up to, nobody knows.
He bought a new sports car and wears flashy clothes,
but all his good judgment seems to have died.
He’s capricious and willful and daffy and snide.

The smile on his face seems lacking inside.
If he’s passing by and you ask for a ride,
he’ll go off on a tangent and then leave you stranded
with no idea of where you have landed.

I thought midlife crisis was only in books,
but judging by clothes and behavior and looks,
it’s something he’s caught, albeit quite late,
for if humans were stamped with an expiry date,

I think you would find his nearly expired.
He should be feeble and mostly retired,
but instead, he’s determined to have a new life
minus perspicacity,  minus his wife.

Not one can tell him what’s fun in one’s forties—
the boozing, carousing and other wild sorties—
Can be lethal at eighty, for it’s the truth
that youthful behavior’s best done in one’s youth!

 

Prompt words today are daffy, tangent, complete, caprice and ride. Photo used for illustrative purposes only. 

Absolution

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Absolution

A pen her only weapon, she brandished it at life.
From within her cave of thoughts, she used it as a knife.
Cutting out the sadness, filleting the pain,
she served them out on pages sacrificed to rain.
Let the press of water wash them clean again.

 

Prompt words today are press, brandish and cave.