Tag Archives: #MVB-PROMPT

Dearly Missing Diego, Oct 29, 2022

31 Replies
First there was Frida, then Diego
He loves his cage and enters it willingly for a little snooze or just for comfort.
Diego has had a few embarrassing periods he thought unbecoming to a top dog.
I leave to go grocery shopping, but Diego remains to inspect that all goes well in the pool repair..
Then there was Morrie,luckily, to join our family, for a few years later, Frida passed away..
In spite of Diego’s best efforts to win me away from Morrie, Morrie had the advantage of being small enough to lie in the hammock with me. Once he tried to jump up with us, which created a lot of excitement.
Cousin Kirk and Diego, bonded.
When Zoe arrived in February, Diego proved to be a good nursemaid, stopping herwhen she got remotely close to the pool.
In spite of my worst fears that they’d think she was a rat or opossum, they were never once more than watchful and tender with her.
After a few hours of active Zoe duty, I think Diego has run out of energy. I took Zoe into the hammock with me….
and surprise, surprise, Diego sorta missed her..
Schmoozes with Little Duck,
Waiting for breakfast.
2022

Dearly Missing Diego

No amount of paranormal could make this holiday worse.
It carries with it sadness I don’t have to rehearse.
I do not fear the skeletons who wander far and near
Has-been-dearly-departeds are not the ones I fear.

Made-up horrors all take flight and vanish o’er the hill
as I recall his silent passage over the kitchen sill
to steal three dozen cookies that no doubt he found yummy
since when he next passed over it, they were in his tummy.

Whole chickens and entire plates of Christmas eats
vanished as he made them his own personal treats.
For eleven years, he upgraded my life
with gentle affection that mitigated strife.

Life oscillates between the pleasure and the pain
as I have to lose a much-loved one again.
Dear Diego passed from us this morning suddenly,
with a brutal speed that I did not foresee.

R.I.P. my lovely friend. Milk Bones are piled up
under your altar picture, just there for you to sup.
My neighbors say when I drive up after it is dark,
they will not know I’m safe at home without your greeting bark.

You won’t be there to moderate Zoe and Morrie’s spats.
And there will be one fewer to bark at owls and bats.
No one will nudge my hand for pats quite the way you do,
and you’ll be missed forever in the family queue.

R.I.P. Diego, Oct 29, 2022

Prompt words for today are oscillate, flight, hill, paranormal, upgrade and fear.

Art and Acquisitions

10 Replies
Bob Brown, Artist
Carol Lopez, artist
DePaul Durham, artist
Art Studio
Jan Golik, artist
Pablo Picasso
Bob Brown sculpture and visitor
Young artist
Accumulated
Tree House Art Studio
Art Studio
But, to be fair, the root of all evil is also what feeds the artists who create so much beauty in the world.

(Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.)

Art and Acquisitions

Those who patronize fine art
start out congenial at the start
but then upset the apple cart
by arriving early at the mart
and increasing rate and pace
so they can win the prestige race
by obstinately using cash
to win the collector’s ten-yard-dash.

Marble statues and fine oils
are thus simply used as foils
used within the competition
between those whose one ambition
is to amass all those things
that a pile of money brings.

But in fact, it is the making
of great art, and not the taking
that produces joy in living.
Buying can’t compete with giving.

Prompt words for today are congenial, race, marble, obstinancy,   patronize,  art

Food for Thought?

10 Replies

Food for Thought?

Waiting for the words to prompt that thrill of excitation
that produces more words that lead to motivation,
I clutch my loose leaf binder, hoping for a new addition
that will bring another poem to final fruition.

Yet no gleam of insight shines within my brain.
All the words that join the prompt words seem to me inane.
So, though today a profound poem I probably won’t carve,
I don’t work for payment, so at least I will not starve.

Today, prompt words were culled from five different sites. Click on each word to find its site: gleam, payment, produce, motivation and loose leaf.

Father/Daughter Discourse

33 Replies

Dear Daughter:

Your frenetic new admirer is not my cup of tea,
for even though I told him that he’d have to let you be,
he resorts to tactics like climbing that big tree
to gain visual access to our property.

You, too, must be incisive in telling him to cease
if you’d like his constant efforts to come to a surcease.
For though I am your father, he allots to me no power
but simply remains stubbornly in his leafy bower.

His persistent efforts prove that he is from that faction
that they label OCD, for he shows no reaction
to my constant pleas, so do you agree with me
that it’s necessary to just cut down the tree?

Dear Papa:

Alas, though my new suitor is not your cup of tea,
I find that his flavor is agreeable to me.
I am not your teenage daughter, for I’m almost thirty-three.
So please do not molest him, and do not cut down his tree.

It is a fact, dear parent, I’m of marriageable age.
So cease with your obsession and curb parental rage.
It’s time to cut the apron strings and set your daughter free,
for I prefer another perch to my father’s knee!

 

Prompt words are frenetic, incisive, faction, allot, and almost.

A Tinder Rebuttal

6 Replies

A Tinder Rebuttal

Stranger conversations may have taken place,
presenting arbitrary details with vehemence and haste.
With insubstantial logic spouted too close to my face,
the slab of beef in front of me was sure to go to waste.
I rued the day I’d made the swipe on Tinder to the right.
I knew that if I answered it would end up in a fight,
but if I was too lenient in pointing out the flaws
in his conspiracy theories, it might be worse, because
one inch given, one foot taken with such crazy sorts of gents,
and so I shoved my plate away and jumped down from the fence,
packed my steak into my go-bag and decided not to linger,
shoving back my chair to leave, I proffered him my finger.
With folks like him, I’d realized, logic is absurd,
so I made my rebuttal without a single word!

 

 

Prompt words are stranger, insubstantial, arbitrary, lenient, slab and conversation.
Image by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash.

Sobriquet

14 Replies

Sobriquet

He is an aficionado of all things fine and rare.
He judges friends on what they eat as well as what they wear.
His taste is never arbitrary. He knows what is right,
and contrary preferences are sure to cause a fight.

Intricate directions are issued to his staff
and any omission is a fireable gaffe.
So, though he showers every day and his name is Jack,
Everybody calls him “Old Sour Balls” to his back.

 

Prompt words today are aficionado, intricate, , arbitrary, contrary, bathroom and sour balls. Image by Yerling Villalobos on Unsplash.

Mutable

34 Replies
1949
1953
1955
1958
1963
1974 Addis Ababa
1987
2022

Mutable

No matter how we grovel, time marches staunchly on.
You do not need to call it, for it will come anon.
Moment after moment, we can’t avoid its flight.
It segues from each morning to afternoon and night.

We can’t exceed its time limits, for it determines when
we pass from pretty newcomer to become a has-been.
It is the plan of nature. We can’t escape the way
that time chooses to change us day to day to day.

Prompts today are flight, grovel, pretty, exceed, moment and segue. This post, I realize, seems a bit self-centered, but I couldn’t find photos of anyone else that showed this many stages. I had more photos that included people from different stages, but unfortunately I forgot to save it so after an hour of work, lost it. These are hurried photos briefly illustrating the mutability of life.

Idara

8 Replies

Idara

Her very name meant organization. She exceeded all the rules
for unity and order. She didn’t allow curls
to pop up on her hair ends. Her locks hung lank and straight .
It was with trepidation that she allowed a date
to disturb their perfect order when venturing a kiss.
She could not help but worry something would go amiss.

Daily she checked her batteries, fearing one would fail.
She doubled her insurance for avalanche and hail
and taking due precautions, she exceeded sound and reason,
preparing many months ahead for every change of season.

She flinched at lights and shadows, expecting the worst—
some tragedy or danger for which she’d not rehearsed.
Her parents thought it their fault for giving her the name,
wondering if they’d named her Hope if she’d turn out the same.

 

Prompts today are lights and shadows, trepidation, battery, exceed, organization and name. The name “Idara” really does mean organized. Stock Photo.

25th Anniversary

13 Replies

Silver Anniversary

Cut glass, silver and fine linen stowed away unseen
in my mother’s attic, remnant of the queen
she knew as a mother. From it I extract
a latent innuendo that I construe as fact
that my mother finds within her something of the same—
some hidden possibility she, too is a grand dame

who might one day need niceties like crystal goblets and
napkins hand-embroidered by a genteel hand.
I hear the screen door closing in the kitchen down below,
close the trunk lid. Swiftly down the attic stairs I go.
But when I greet my mother, though I’m sure my manner’s normal,
I start to plan an anniversary dinner that’s more formal

than their usual getaway for movie and a meal
at a local diner that is hardly a big deal.
I’ll have dad distract mom with some ordinary chore,
then cook a special dinner, buy flowers and what’s more,
resurrect my grandma’s china, silver, linens and her glass
and show my mom that I for one recognize her class!

Prompt words today are stow, extract, screen, latent,glass linen, attic. Image. by Jamie Coupaud on Unsplash.

Fishermen

5 Replies

 

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Fishermen

On platforms built over the bay,
the fishermen begin their day.
In spite of last-night’s sordid fun,
they’re up before the day’s begun,
ready to join their fishing fleet
so later we can leave replete
with fish from platters piled high
with clams and shrimp and codfish pie.

Wild fishermen of bar or tavern,
in days of old in inn or cavern
drank their wine and emerged bleary
to their boats, hungover, weary.
Simon and Andrew were the first
to leave their fishing nets and thirst
for cups of wine filled to the brim
to change their lives and follow him.

Joined after by the other ten,
they all became fishers of men.
And even though eons ago
they, too, had their wild oats to sow,
these fishermen would be surprised
that since then they’ve been canonized,
thus feeding souls with other than
can be dished out in dish or pan.

 Prompt words are platform, sordid, bash, canonize, fleet and platter.