Tag Archives: #MVB-PROMPT

Scorpion in the Sacristy

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Scorpion in the Sacristy

Minuscule but powerful, it causes us to shake.
The most masculine among us have been known to quake
and to seek protection whenever one is seen,
for it is rumored that their punch is wicked mean.
They inspire colorful language from the subjects of their strikes,
because it’s understatement to simply scream out “Yikes!”
when stricken by a scorpion. The occasion calls for more,
and that is why the village priest was pardoned when he swore
as he removed the host veil and was stung upon the hand,
for though the Holy Father issued a reprimand
for the sin of taking the name of Christ in vain,
since the priest was still in shock and reeling in his pain,
not one of his parishioners, it’s said, has censored him,
for each and every one of them thanked God  it wasn’t them!

Prompt words today are colorful, minuscule, punch, quake, protection and seen.

Spring Picnic

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Aunt Stella being silly at a family picnic. I was imitating her.

Spring Picnic

That first tidbit of food
swallowed—
that morsel of potato salad
or that sip of lemonade—
activates what April picnics
are fated to attract
as surely as ants—
afternoon rains,
predicted as a slight chance
for this vicinity,
but now diluvial
in their force.

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link. Night  and also making use of these six prompts from different sites: food, vicinity, diluvial, tidbit, activate and afternoon.

(Hover over the photo for a second to read the caption.)

Man Vs. Machine

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Man Vs. Machine

It is expedient that we convene
to discuss this new machine.
With teamwork, could we not achieve
all our higher-ups believe
needs to be done by this contraption
that according to its caption
can do the work of many men,
perhaps, it says, the work of ten?

Farewell to manpower, hello panic.
Made obsolete by things mechanic!
While ensconced in our cocoons,
it seems that corporate buffoons
have been brisk to seal our fate
and, alas, we’ve learned too late
that man by man, we’ll be ejected
by this means today detected.

And this is why I’m doubly keen
on dealing with this damn machine,
for men have brains but robots don’t.
If we retaliate, it won’t,
I think that we should make the hit
and simply throw a wrench in it!
Thereby persuading all our bosses
of better ways to stem their losses.

Word prompts today are cocoon, brisk, teamwork, expedient, discuss and farewell.

Bucket Listless

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Bucket Listless

Before I have to face the heavenly ordeal—
(perhaps discovering that what I’ve scoffed at is for real.)
Before I kick the bucket, and while I’m still alive,
I’ve been told I have to choose a thing or five
and label them my “bucket list,” a practice I abhor,
(and even if I did, I can only think of four
things that might elate me as I shuffle toward the door.)

If I had the energy, I’d surely take to wing
and fly to foreign spaces to see everything
I didn’t see the first time, when I was in my youth
and as short of brains as  I was short of tooth.
Something about youth draws fortune to our side,
and when you bring up adventure, I think of ones I tried
and shake my head in wonder, surprised that no one died.

I’d like to go to Ireland or on a last safari,
or maybe back to India to replace the sari
I buried my dear cat in because he loved it so,
yet I fear my energy is at an all-time low,
so I will spend my dotage sitting in my chair,
thinking of adventures that I do not dare
pursuing, for I find I dread their wear and tear!!!

Prompts today are: bucket list, elated, heavenly, ordeal, alive and wings.

Stating the Obvious

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Stating the Obvious

We’ve hit a cosmic bottleneck and every day I rue it,
for I have the feeling that we will not make it through it.
They’ve indexed the world’s problems, but knowing that they’re there
seems to do very little in solving the nightmare.

We do not yield to pressure to try to cure the ills.
We only seem to kneel before the moneyed class’s wills.
We temper fear with hope that someone else will solve the puzzle
of the fact the whole damn world is staring down a muzzle.

Kids shoot other kids with guns but adults do not care
so long as the NRA sanctions the warfare.
We ban those from our borders who clean up all our messes,
then wonder why we’re drowning here in our own excesses.

Amazon sells refreshments as we all just sit and watch
as climate change keeps shifting the danger up a notch.
Meanwhile, the rich get richer and we ignore the poor
as the ones who need it least acquire more and more.

The polar caps are melting as California burns,
and in between, the drought and floods keep on taking turns.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones mount and mount,
raising the fatalities higher than we can count.

Nobody knows the answer for how to please us all,
yet we forget we all are one on this great blue ball.
If only we could find a way to even out the score
and give up some of what we’ve got so others can have more.

Sacrifice fossil fuel to give the world a chance.
Tear down the oil derricks. Replace them with plants.
Make sure the rich pay taxes on a par with all the rest.
Admit that we don’t own the Earth. We are just its guest!!!

 

Prompts today are temper, index, cosmic, bottleneck, kneel and refreshments.

Demused

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Demused

My muse is on sabbatical. I think she’s feeling surly
from  umpteen years of being awakened way too early
to find a rhyme for “rainbow ” that my readers judge sublime,
only to discover every single time
that I get all the credit for the work she does
each new day in succession. And why? Simply because
she happened to be sanctified and then assigned to me
to insure a steady flow of poetry
without making an agreement regarding who’d be credited
as author of the poems conceived, then written and edited.
So now I seek to rectify my decades-long misdeed
by saying that hereafter, I certify and cede
half the writing credits to my muse of inspiration,
hoping the result will be she’ll come home from vacation,
refreshed, newly-inspired and forgiving of my sin,
full of new ideas and ready to begin.

 

Prompts today are succession, surly, sabbatical, sanctify, arise and rainbow.  Image by j Jo Justino on Pixabay.

 

Hidden

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Hidden

In youth, it was the supernatural that I found charming.
Sinister and spooky I did not find disarming.
Halloween I yearned for, and I was not daunted
by midnight trips to houses reputed to be haunted.

Ouija boards and seances held infinite appeal—
as popular as Tarot cards in what they might reveal.
In supplementing reason, they brought magic to our world—
revealed that place within us where our own magic lay furled.

 

Prompts today are yearn, supplement, supernatural, sinister, infinite and popular.

Writer’s Block

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Writer’s Block

This poem will go unspoken, unwritten, unconceived.
It will have no mentor by which it’s been received.
It won’t be manufactured to become a hot bestseller,
in fact it won’t be read by you nor any other feller!

This poem’s an ice-blocked river with words jammed up inside it—
each word imbricated with a word stacked up beside it.
I just don’t have the wherewithal by which I can procure them
and turn them into poems where you might have to endure them!

 

Prompt words today are imbricate, procure, river, mentor, manufacture and unspoken. Image by Anomaly on Unsplash.

Global Warning

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Global Warning

A yeasted dough that cannot rise higher than its leaven,
the splendid sun climbs up the sky but never reaches heaven.
Blissful nature mystery enough without religions.
Who needs holy doves when they’ve been given carrier pigeons?

Why name the mighty miracle that holds us in its clasp?
By giving it a human form, we thus reduce its grasp.
Nature is not our mother nor the universe our father.
Our presence is precarious and far below their bother.

Tough reality is what we live in day-to-day.
Born under the brutal sun and nourished by its ray,
nonetheless it does not hear us when we pray, simply because
nature only can respond to what mankind does.

Prompts today are splendid, blissful, mighty, precarious, tough and heaven.

Poet Think

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Poet Think

The brain is a contraption that hasn’t any muscle.
It depends on other things for its schemes and hustle.
Our skull makes it impregnable by ordinary means,
but inside it’s fat, salt, water, carbohydrates and proteins.
It can be your enemy or it can be your buddy.
Sometimes it’s filled with thoughts profuse. At other times, it’s muddy.
When it plods along its movement is a bit pedestrian,
but on a good day it begins to move with speed equestrian.
Feed your brain and I am sure it will take care of you,
and if you’re lucky every day think up a poem anew!!!!

 

Prompt words today are muscle, impregnable, equestrian, profuse, mud and contraption. Image by Milad Fakuri on Unsplash.