Tag Archives: Gossip

Gossip at the 50th Class Reunion, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 689, Jan 12, 2025

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Gossip at the 50th Class Reunion

The ghosts of teenage memories flutter and alight,
recalling card game  marathons that lasted through the night,
revealing ruinous secrets—spilling all the dirt.
After all these decades, how much could they still hurt?

Alluring little tattle-tales,  spinning out their webs,
sully reputations of aging former debs.
whose glittering reputations are maligned in manners ruthless,
by stories pulled out from the past that they insist are truthless.

Their former chastity like glass, cracked, broken and shattered
fifty long years afterwards–as if it even mattered!
We’ve strayed so far from our old roots, why is it we demur
when someone tries to alter what we insist we were?

Note from the author: Pure fiction, folks! Only the photo is of my real class reunion. I was led to this rhyme by the prompt words, not the past! For the Sunday Whirl Wordle the prompt words were: ruinous cards glass alluring spin dirt flutter secrets roots ghost glitters web 

Gossip Girls for MVB

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Gossip Girls
 
Those mean girl rumors may seem unrelenting,
but trust me their spreaders will soon be repenting.
Only fools spread secrets they know are untrue,
spreading rumors whose sharing for sure they will rue.
Their bony butts should be soundly spanked.
Their cheeks should be pinched and their hair should be yanked. . .
 
 
(for rest of poem, go here:https://judydykstrabrown.com/2022/08/21/gossip-girls/?page_id=135693   Image by Vitolda Klein on Unplash. 
 

The Building of a Legend

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The Building of a Legend

When there’s an event that attracts attention
worthy of notice and worthy of mention,
no matter how silly or boring or gory,
it’s a regional custom to concoct a story
that exceeds pure fact and creates a tale
with additional details added without fail
that with the recital of each new re-teller
becomes much more luminous, sadder or sweller
than at the last telling and so to the credit
of the last person who heard and resaid it,
it reflects the memory and education,
the sense of humor and imagination
of each one who passes the story along
as anecdote, joke or novel or song.
Thus are legends made of the simplest act
by using our fancy to swell out pure fact.

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Today’s prompt words are credit, regional, luminous, exceed and story.Image by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash.

Loose Lips

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Loose Lips

Your tongue is loose, it has been said,
and though you swear “Better off dead
than tell your secret,” still, it’s true
you’ll find someone to leak it to. 
So though you did it without knowing,
I fear, my dear, your slip is showing.

 

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Slip 
I hope you don’t mind that I used this photo I took of you a few years ago, Erin, and Pat. In no way is the poem about you. it was just the perfect illustration!!  xoxo

New Man at the Opera

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New Man at the Opera

With his head held at this angle, in the cape of a magician,
it’s true that he looks noble, but he’s merely a technician
in a laboratory where I fear they are uncouth—
where they dissect small animals and magnify the truth.
They then sell us the results at an inflated price.
Although he looks a gentleman, he isn’t very nice.

They say his former conquests are piled to the roof.
You’ll be his next small animal if you don’t stand aloof.
He distilled all their beauty into a fine elixir
that promises eternal youth. It is indeed a fixer
of wrinkles and of attitudes gained throughout a life
of the constant labor of motherhood and wife.

Thus goes all the gossip at the opera today
as the local ladies inspect, dissect and weigh
the assets and the defects of the newest man in town.
They titter and they bug their eyes. They giggle and they frown.
And by the end of the first act, they still don’t have a clue
about the way that they should act. What is it they should do

if they attract his interest? Should they snub or should they charm?
Each single lady fantasizes clinging to his arm.
The gossip after all may be a slight exaggeration
based loosely on the truth but still with no verification.
By interval, they’ve thought it through and make repeated passes
past the box he sits in, or view him through their glasses.

And early the next morning, they begin their primping—
their lipsticking and powdering, their combing, curling, crimping.
They line up on the sidewalk, waiting for their turn
to enter through his doorway to have their chance to learn
the truth about his mystery. In all, they numbered ten,
those maidens who there entered, and were never seen again!!!

 

 

The prompt words today are angle, noble, laboratory and magnify.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/rdp-tuesday-angle/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/22/fowc-with-fandango-noble/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/your-daily-word-prompt-laboratory-january-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/magnify/

Living in Sin

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Living in Sin

Marriage is “legal tender,” a permit to fuse—
a government license for a couple to amuse.
Some cohabit without it, in a sort of ruse
which causes all the neighbors to gossip and accuse.
If they were more nondescript, perhaps they could just use
masks or garments to disguise, to obscure and confuse
their detractors, but alas, there’s no means they can use.
At six foot six, identities aren’t possible to lose.

I think my cousin’s sons might be taller than six foot six, actually. Next to my sister Patti, they seem to tower. Their photos are used for illustration purposes only.  Neither to my knowledge has committed any action to make the neighbors gossip.

The words of the day are tender, neighbor, nondescript and fuse.
And the links, in case you want to play along, are below:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/rdp-81-tender/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/20/fowc-with-fandango-neighbor/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/nondescript/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/fuse

Neighborhood Pot Luck

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Neighborhood Pot Luck

The fellows speak of seasonal sport—
a topic wives cannot abort;
but they have topics of their own—
gossip with facts much overblown.
A bit of this, a bit of that
as the ladies chew the fat.
Any neighbors not invited
have their lives fully recited.

What ghastly illnesses are cured,
what wisps of conversations heard
over the fence or from another–
potential breakups or what new mother
driven too far by nightly crying,
bottle-warming, diaper drying?
Whose children can’t hit the mark?
Whose dog has that awful bark?

Who the widow had for dinner
now that she is so much thinner.
She’s looking great, they must confess.
Did you see the label on her new dress?
That new reverend, single still.
Is his girlfriend on the pill?
Or does she not need to be?
Does he just woo her reverently?

How do I know the tales they tell?
Their themes and topics told so well?
It’s because I never miss
those potlucks where they dish and diss.
It’s not their pot roast that I’m craving,
nor their nitpicking or raving.
It’s because when I missed a few,
I was the fat they chose to chew.

 

 

The prompt word today was “heard.”

Tete a Tete

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Tete a Tete

She seems to have made a career
out of practicing “sincere.”
Her trembling lip, her balanced tear
as she murmurs, “Oh, my dear,
I’m sorry, I know how you feel,”
work better when they’re meant for real.

In fact, she only lends an ear
because of what she hopes to hear––
shocking, scandalous or queer.
And oh, my dear, she’ll persevere.
Huddled over a drink or meal,
she can hardly hide her zeal

as she brings up your greatest fear––
your erring child or spreading rear,
the lover who’s been gone a year,
that bank loan that’s now in arrear.
She only asks because, you know—
just because she loves you so!

In patience, she is without peer.
She’ll face you, rapt, her face thrust near,
and ply you with another beer.
She is your confidant—your seer.
And though she says her lips are sealed,
her oath will too soon be repealed.

Her parting kiss, it would appear,
is offered to the ionosphere.
It makes no contact.  Does not adhere.
It seems like she’s shifted a gear.
The next time she dines out, it’s true,
she’ll be dining out on you!!

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The prompt word was “sincere.”

sincere.