Tag Archives: prompts

Penultimate/Ultimatepen, For The Daily Prompt, Jan 5, 2024

Penultimate/Ultimatepen

He said they couldn’t fence him for he liked to roam free.
No sty could ever hold him. No captive pig was he.
That he was a wild pig was true without a doubt.
As soon as they would pen him in, in seconds he’d break out.
But the farmer, too, was resolute. As his prize pig departed,
he vowed that he’d contain him. He wouldn’t be outsmarted.

He built a sturdy metal fence, and then he strung it higher—
woven fine and tight of the premium barbed wire.
Then he caught Porky and closed him in, determined that he’d win,
for it wasn’t up to any pig to refuse his fencing-in.
But indeed the pig devised again a means by which he left,
leaving the farmer feeling defeated and bereft.

Once more caught and then re-penned and taking his repast,
the pig had not a clue that this meal would be his last.
This escape his penultimate, now the die was cast.
His days of glorious freedom, alas, were in the past.
Then, his last meal finished, he made his next advance
toward a fence reconstructed, ready to take his chance.

But, alas, he’d met his match. Escape would never be,
for the farmer had infused the fence with electricity.
This time not the penultimate, it was the ultimate pen,
for Porky has been seen, I fear, just one more time since then.
Spread out on a platter, an apple in his jaws,
his final feat a foolish one, bound to give one pause.

When he said they couldn’t pen him in, I fear poor Porky lied,
for when he hit the fence this time, in minutes, he was fried.
Ham that he was, I fear that poor Porky’s lot was cast.
For the pen after the penultimate turned out to be his last.
Probably not the first time a pig who was a sinner
paid the price for it by turning into Easter dinner.


For The Daily Prompt: Penultimate

What are These??? For Fibbing Friday, Jan 5, 2024

Toecover: My attempt at remembering the word for socks now that I am at a certain advanced age.

Scurryfunge: A form of mildew found on rodents.

Dutch Feast: Edam and stoopwafel.

Iktsuarpok: An expression of revulsion over a walking companion who walks at a too- slow rate. (Icks! You are poke!!!  (As in slowpoke.) I admit, it is a stretch.  How about, Someone agreeing that people named Katy make good contortionists? (Aye, Katies, warp okay!! ) This is a redo because Derrick took occasion to my first answer. Must admit, I don’t blame him. This one is a real stretch!  Let’s blame it on Pensitivity.

Rakefire: When the boss terminated your employment for jilting his daughter

Hufflebuffs: An affectionate synonym  for bare bottoms

Quafftide: Skinny-dipping at high tide.

Kalopsia: An involuntary nap brought on by over-eating

Cover Slut: The Kardashians’ tongue-in-cheek endearing nicknames for each other

“Wonder”clout: Using one’s seniority to get to the head of the “bread”line at the homeless  shelter.

For  yet another Fibbing Friday. I can’t resist.

Prompted, Aug 23, 2023

So, late last night, ForgottenMan commented on the fact that I was practically blogless for the day. I commented that if he felt the need for a poem that he might furnish some prompts, which he took literally and promptly supplied. They were: effective affective (in)effective elective selective invective.

By the time he had supplied them, I was already asleep, but I awakened at 4:30 AM and after doing Wordle, Quordle, Quordle Sequence and Blossom, I accepted his challenge. Here is my feeble effort in satisfying his prompt:

Prompted

My task is totally elective
and my choice of words selective,
so I will rouse no invective
if I turn out unreflective
concerning words he found effective
but that I brand ineffective
in causing me to be reflective!!!!

All That Glitters

All That Glitters

Be mindful of your wishes lest fate should smite thee down.
What you think might bring a smile sometimes brings a frown.

Nowhere is it written happiness can be bought.
Too often excess riches are a trap wherein we’re caught.

Sometimes pristine palaces can turn into a cage
for those who sell contentment for a daily wage.

If fairy stories are the tales on which your hopes you gauge,
remember that their characters are prisoners of the page.

Those in ivory towers far above the earth
may not smell the flowers or recognize their dearth.

It’s one thing to be hungry, ill-provided for and flustered,
but once you have enough and your daily needs are mustered,

if you want to win the game of life, be sure to share the ball.
Just relax. Enjoy your life. You do not need it all.

Prompt words today are mindful, smite, pristine, fluster and nowhere.
Image by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash, used with permission.

Poetic Research

Poetic Research

My dictionary slips off its perch,
so I leave it lie and ask Google to search
for the meaning of “farctate,” a word that sounds farty
when what I had wished for was words far more arty.
But I find even after it’s screened,
I forget to remember what I have gleaned.
Then, when I check “precept” to see if its meaning
is what I think, I find it demeaning
that I have to check and do not just know,
but in the end, I am right on, and so,
I get to the task and I screw up my lips
and type out this poem without any slips.
Still and all, don’t we wish they made prompt words more easy,
so we could pursue them without feeling queasy?

Prompt words today are register, lips, farctate, precept and search. Definition of “farctate” copied from the Merriam Webster Dictionary.

Silly Answers: Friday Fibs: March 12, 2021

Okay, here are my answers for this week’s silly questions!!! Please forgive.

1. Who, or what, is will o’ the wisp?
A very good hairdresser.
2. What is a noggin?
A thimble full of egg nog.
3. What is a bobbin?
An over-active robin.
4. What are otherwise known as crows feet?
Blackbird tootsies.
5. What is jerky?
A wagon ride over train tracks.
6. What is aplomp?
The past tense of Aplomb
7. What is a caricature?
A cartoon drawing of an automobile.
8. What is a misdemeanor?
The orneriest girl in my high school class.
9. What’s the difference between a blimp and a blip?
The letter “M.”
10. What is an arctic roll?
Also called a ski slope: a thin crust covered with icing and a fine powder.

 

For the Fibbing Friday prompt.

Fibbing Friday, Feb 5, 2021

For the Fibbing Friday prompt, here are the questions and my answers:

  1. What is Groundhog Day all about? Some people just take up more than their fair share of space on this earth. This is our chance to tell them what we think of them.
  2. What is déjà vu? Every Thanksgiving Meal of your life.
  3. What is meant by the phrase, “Hindsight is always 20/20”? From this day forward, our past memories are going to be fixed on the year 2020. Much as we wish it were not so, we won’t be able to help ourselves.
  4. What are reruns? The second and subsequent ladders in silk stockings. Now a passé term.
  5. What does it mean to be redundant? Dying the roots of gray hair previously dyed brown.
  6. What word describes unnecessary repetition? Mississippi
  7. What is the name given to TV shows when they are shown again after their original air date? I Love Lucy
  8. What phrase is used when you you can look back at a situation and clearly see what should have been done? “Been there, should have done that!”
  9. What is the feeling that you have been somewhere or done something before called? “Been there, redone that!”
  10. What day supposedly determines how long winter will last based on a particular animal seeing or not seeing its shadow? October 13, Pet Obesity Awareness Day. For a wild animal, its shadow is its only mirror and can be a shocking sight after a winter of no exercise. Many a chubby beast, faced with the truth, retreats underground again.(Yes, it is a real holiday.)

 

Five Little Words

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Today’s post is dedicated to all of you who labor every day to post your prompts and to read our responses. You and your predecessors have been my motivation for seven years now, every day, and I have probably rarely thanked you, so for Ragtag Daily Prompt, Fandango, Your Daily Word, Word of the day and The Daily Spur, this one is for you. And Ragtag, your prompt today wasn’t meant to be taken personally, right?

Prompt words today are windbag, (Hope this one isn’t personal,) begrudge, futile, inspire and ease.

Five Little Words

Lest you think I’m a windbag and lest you begrudge
my words meant for chuckles, to inspire or nudge
for social reform and for giving the boot
to public servants who pillage and loot
our public coffers and fill up their pockets
with money or spend it on guns, walls and rockets.

Better the money be spent on our own
in stead of a POTUS who sits on his throne
dreaming of golf games and bragging of pussies,
berating mask-wearers as alarmists and wussies.
OK see how I’m off on a whim or a breeze,
raving again with remarkable ease?

I can’t seem to stop, even though I’m retired.
I simply can’t shut off the words when inspired.
So long as the world is so stupid and brutal,
efforts to stifle my words would be futile.
Just five daily words will inspire the rest.
I write all the others at their behest.

Cat in the Window Winner’s Charity Paid.

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She kept us hanging in there for a few days, but the winner of the drawing for the “Cat in the Window” prompt just got in touch and I’ve sent a dollar for every person who entered to her charity of choice, “Reading is Fundamental.”  Thanks, Tammy, from Tammy’s Reading Life

Pursuing the Wild Prompt

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Pursuing the Wild Prompt

This blog’s teeming with challenges by the day or week.
I seem to find a new one everywhere I seek.
This leads to combinations of words that are deplorable.
At times the stories that they tell, admittedly are horrible.
Still we keep on churning out this poetry and prose
using all these silly words that other people chose.
Why do we use these words that they give us fully blown?
Because the alternative is thinking up our own!

 

The prompts are week, challenge, teem and deplorable.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/rdp-friday-week/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/19/fowc-with-fandango-challenge/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/daily-addictions-2018-week-41/teem
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/deplorable/