Tag Archives: FOWC

Poised

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Poised

My past retreats in the rear vision mirror
while in the windshield the future draws nearer.
Gliding along, sometimes I go slow,
fearing what the future will choose to bestow.
Ahead a small cove offers shelter from stress:
security, housing and a wedding dress.
But if I veer off and drive over the hill,
I may never stop again until, until—
I’ve encountered adventure like stories I’ve read
while curled up in the hammock or lying in bed.
All of those lives there lined up on a shelf,
each one revealing a part of myself.
One eye trained behind me and one on the highway,
will I choose the known road or opt for a byway?

Prompts today are rear vision mirror, glide, bestow, cove and housing.

 

Helpless: Scene Viewed Through the Locked Glass Front Door of the Kitchen

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Helpless:
Scene Viewed Through the Locked Glass Front Door of the Kitchen

There’s insurgent action at the rear kitchen door.
First one unrepentant rebel and now I see one more.
My houseguests didn’t secure the periphery completely
and now one paw has breached the screen and opened it completely!
A dog’s whole avarice is culinary. Now they seek it out.
That pork roast on the counter? Gone without a doubt!
That carrot cake I cherished? Demolished in a flash.
The potato salad vanishes. And now a furry dash.
They depart the opened doorway and soon they’re over yonder.
Their tummies adequately filled, I think they do not ponder
what the rest of us will dine on. Dogs are not endowed with guilt.
Should have factored in housebreakers when that sliding door was built!

Prompt words today are cherish, avarice, yonder, insurgent and potato.

Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering: My First Two Excuses.

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Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering:
My First Two Excuses

I’ ve run out of storage for all the provender
I bought in advance, thinking chances were slender
that in a month there’d be staples enough.
I thought that the going was going to get tough.

So with my freezer full and no cupboard space free,
the only place left to store food in is me.
I forage on fudge and I’m gorging on chips—
storing them here on my waist and my hips.

Please come to my rescue. I’m tortured by guilt.
Last year at this time I was pleasantly built,
but this forced isolation obliterates “no”
as an answer to chocolate and cookie dough.

You may be amused by my failure at coping,
but I am not drinking and I am not doping.
It isn’t my fault. I’m a victim of fate.
It’s my body that’s yearning to assimilate

cookies and candies and pastas and pies.
It’s my body’s fault that I’ve grown a size.
With no one to stop me, I’ve just given in.
I guess you’d describe me as formerly thin!

Words for the day are rescue, torture, obliterate, assimilate and amused.

A Penny for Your Thoughts (Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

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A Penny for Your Thoughts 
(Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

A penny for your thoughts, my dear, in this time of recession.
They’re only worth a pittance, since you’re in deep depression—
perhaps the worst since man evolved from the primordial slime.
If I cared less, I’d offer zilch, but now is not the time
to be looking for bargains, with your love so newly won.
If only we could ditch our masks and have a little fun—
a little kiss, a little hug, a cuddle and a snuggle—
it might be easier to woo without these rules to juggle.
But from day-to-day, I fear, we never can know whether
we’ll spend the day alone again or spend the day together. 
So here’s a penny for your thoughts. Oh hell, it’s worth a nickel
to know whether your heart is true or if it has turned fickle.
It’s been said before that absence makes the heart grown fonder.
I wonder if you feel the same sequestered over yonder.

Prompt words today are zilch, slime, newly, pittance and depression.

 

At Sixes and Sevens

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At Sixes and Sevens

East is east and west is west,
but some say north and south are best.
Thoughts on this are bound to vary.
Righteous folks from Tucumcari
say the south is best, whereas,
folks from Chicago say no town has
Chicago’s flair and wit and jazz.

Rancorous California folk
think East Coast people are a joke,
whereas upper class New Yorkians
crack jokes about the Kavorkians.
Ordinarily, I’d say
that I’m a gal who’d  like to stay
out of the north-south-east-west fray.

But when it comes to the siesta,
Mexico must be the besta.
That’s south, if New York’s home to you,
but north if you are from Peru.
Thus, this bit of wisdom I’d like to give:
Direction’s always relative
to where on Earth you choose to live!!!

 

Prompt words today are siesta, ordinary, rancor, righteous and east.

With Science

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con·science:  Origin Middle English (also in the sense ‘inner thoughts or knowledge’): via Old French from Latin conscientia, from conscient- ‘being privy to’, from the verb conscire, from con- ‘with’ + scire ‘know’.

With Science

This word conscience–that pull from deep within us to do what’s right for the world? If we look at the original meaning of the root word “con,” it means  “with science or knowledge.”  And if science is the study of the natural world, then look to nature to understand yourself. Be cognizant of the fact that we are interdependent. Begin to hear the echoes of your own well-being in the state of nature. It uses what ammunition it can to bring its truths to our notice: flood, fire, more violent hurricanes, a rise in temperature, Coronavirus.

As much as we search for truth in the laboratory, it is in the wilderness that we find our answers. We cannot create anything except from the materials of nature, for that is all there is. We are a part of it, not its end. In choosing to blithely destroy the patterns of nature, we destroy ourselves.

Prompt words for today are wilderness, cognizant, begin, conscience and echoes.

Biker Wedding

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Biker Wedding

Though I’m just your uncle and backward at that,
I’m exceedingly fond of my sister’s sweet brat.
I hear there’s a  biker you’re eager to wed
and though I’d suggest  a nice banker instead,
I’m here not to alienate, but advise
(since I am your kin who’s most apt to be wise.)

Instead of a veil you’ll be wearing your patches
and learning his lingo by listening to snatches
of biker bar gossip and those conversations
spawned over road talk and major libations.
You’ll be in your flannels and Kevlar-lined denim
(I’m sure that no bride ever looked better in ’em.)

You’ll whisper “I do” and then exchange your patches
before you head out for a ride down to Natchez.
But, first things being first, you have asked me to aid
in getting your wedding invitations made.
I’ve checked out your spelling. The words are all fine.
Only the printing may be out of line.

Though responsible service may not be impossible,
are you quite sure that leather is embossable?

Prompt words today are uncle, alienate, backward, responsible and service.

Hisssstory

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Hisssstory

He oozed into the room with a sibilant sigh,
scraping up cobwebs as he slithered by.
The risks of survival for this little guy
I must admit would not be very high.
He’d end up on a spit or perhaps in a pie
if it weren’t for one factor, and I’ll tell you why.
This is where all of his courage must lie:
for if he embedded his fangs in your thigh,
you would have to act quickly or else you might die.
That’s why he is joyous though just an inch high,
and why he soars by with a gleam in his eye.

 

In case you are interested in what sort of snake this is, HERE is an earlier post I made about it. Thanks to Forgottenman for reminding me about it.

Prompt words for the day are sibilant, risk,joy, courage and survival.

The Comfort of Old Men

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Photo by Jan Abellan for Unsplash. Used with permission

The Comfort of Old Men

Children are sleeping sound in their beds,
inured to the missiles launched over their heads.
They’re used to the discipline of a cruel world
where bullets are served when the flag is unfurled.

They call it allegiance their country to serve
Old men sit at tables displaying their nerve
by setting out battle plans whereby the young
provide the chests where the medals are hung

that they earn facing death so the old men can gain
more gold that the young men pay for with their pain.
They posture and pose. They salute and they brag.
They call it a privilege serving your flag,

but none of the old face the bullets and fire.
It is not the aged men marked to expire.
Their rigors of battle are all of the head.
None twist to the impact of napalm or lead,

but war’s golden rewards are amassed in their pockets.
Munitions and guns and bullets and rockets
are the fruit of their plunder and part of the fun
they will buy from the profit they make from each gun.

This generation’s blood sweat and tears
will pay for the yachts of the rich and the gears
of the factories smudging the skies with their waste.
Air chokes on their vapors, the oceans all taste

their lethal remainders and sicken and die.
We have poisoned our water, our earth and our sky.
What is left once the old men have all had their say?
They will live life in splendor and the future will pay.

Prompt words for today are inure, twist, golden, privilege and discipline.

Jumping to Conclusions

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Photo by Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Jumping to Conclusions

She’s a lady of distinction. You can tell it by her walk,
in her whole deportment—her manners and her talk.
It seems it is a given, since she has a lot of dough
just where, in November, her vote is bound to go.
She lies back on her chaise, even graceful while recumbent,
but quickly springs erect when you mention the incumbent.  
If you ask her about politics, she’s apt to tell the truth.
She will not give allegiance to the stupidly uncouth.

 

Prompt words today are distinction, apt, allegiance and walk.