Tag Archives: #RDP

A Bi-lingular Education

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image by Diana Parkhurst via Unsplash   

A Bi-lingular Education

If you’d like to speak of tongues, a creature that is singular
is the arboreal lemur that is said to be bi-lingular.
One tongue is used for grooming another lemur’s hide
to sort out all the hairs from the delicious bugs inside.
Bugs provide fine nourishment but hair of course does not.
That smaller underneath tongue traps the hairs that it has caught
and arranges their expulsion, while the top tongue gets to savor
all those juicy bug parts that deliver so much flavor
combined with all the flowers and the fruit that it is able
to gather to provide the meal for a lemur’s table.
So when it comes to dining, when lemurs eat, it seems
that it works much better when they work in teams.
They form a culinary guild with very simple dictums.
One provides the appetite. The other provides victims!

(All true, by the way!!!)

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Prompts today were lingular, victim, guild and team. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/rdp-tuesday-lingular/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/05/fowc-with-fandango-victim/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/your-daily-word-prompt-guild-march-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/team/

Overheard In the Home for Retired Musicians

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Overheard in the Home for Retired Musicians

I’m stymied by your crepitus. Your embouchure’s divine.
If you don’t have your own tune, would you harmonize with mine?
Your tonality is breathtaking, your rhythm right on beat.
Your syncopation’s perfect. I fear I can’t compete.
As we play, our joints keep time. My knees snap, crackle, pop.
If our music were to lead to love, you’d have to be on top!

 

The prompt words today are crepitus, stymie, breathtaking and embouchure.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/rdp-tuesday-crepitus/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/08/fowc-with-fandango-stymie/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/breathtaking/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/your-daily-word-prompt-embouchure-january-8-2019/

New Again

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New Again

So, one more number to remember
now that we’ve escaped December.
Drop an eight and add a nine.
So far, I am doing fine.

But I can’t anticipate
what will come to be my fate.
Will I be skinnier or bolder?
What new duties will I shoulder?

What new enigma to be pursued?
Will I be shunned? Will I be wooed?
What new Kardashian of late
will they want me to emulate?

I cannot predict anything.
No telling what the year will bring.
All its mystery is free
and that is simply fine with me.

No resolutions will I make.
Whatever comes, I’ll simply take.
Cross my fingers, cross my toes
and hope its pleasures outweigh its woes.

This year will spin out as it will
Until we all have had our fill,
and just when we feel we’ve had plenty,
it will change to 2020! 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/anticipate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/01/fowc-with-fandango-enigma/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/resolutions/

Life in the Abstract

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Life in the Abstract

. . .  has more temptations,
fewer rules and more vacations.
Responsibility’s not a goal.
It has more texture, has more soul.
Life, as imagined, has more shiver.
More tiramisu and less liver.
More giggling and foolishness.
Less lecturing and mulishness.
Oh, that life could be less literal.
More exciting and more clitoral!

The prompt words today are abstract, responsibility, goal and temptation.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/rdp-saturday-abstract/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/your-daily-word-prompt-responsibility-December-29-2018/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/goal/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/29/fowc-with-fandango-temptation/

Stop and Go

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Stop and Go

My goals in life were nebulous. I didn’t know quite what
it was that I most wanted—except out of my rut.
A picket fence and cottage were never my dream.
I didn’t want to produce children by the ream.
I only wanted travel and to see who I could be
if I could search far enough to discover me.

I finally found a part of me everywhere I went,
but had to keep on traveling to know the full extent
of who I wished to grow into—how much I wished to find—
how much I could reveal of me and still have peace of mind.
But now I’ve seemed to settle. I’m content with what I’ve found.
The place where I have come to seems like holy ground.

Perhaps true wisdom really comes from knowing when to stop—
knowing when we’ve climbed enough because we’ve reached the top!

 

The words today were nebulous, cottage and goal. Here are the links:
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/your-daily-word-prompt-nebulous-December-28-2018/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/rdp-friday-cottage/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/goal/

No Peaceful Kingdom

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No Peaceful Kingdom

The dogs are in the backyard where they don’t molest the cats.
The cats are in the front yard where they monitor the bats
but do not dine on birds because the birds have given up
and all moved to the back yard where the young cats never sup.

The younger cats stay outside and the old cat lives within
and should the outside cats ever escape from where they’ve been,
when they’re inside, they’re  bullies and steal her food and tease her.
Although, since I can’t find a type of cat food that will please her,

it’s no problem for the old cat, yet those cats are getting fat
while every day there seems to be less of the older cat.
True, the older cat is crabby and swats the young cats first,
so it’s hard for me determining which cat is the worst.

I’m tired of these war zones. I wish they’d coexist,
and I wish that I could simply tell them to desist.
Yet with man and other animals, more often you will find 
they can’t exist in harmony with those who aren’t their kind.

 

Annie the crabby cat woke me up before Ragtag was online today, so they get their own individually prompted poem.  Their prompt was “harmony.” Here’ their link if you want to play along:  https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/rdp-sundayharmony/

I’m Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

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I’m Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

I’m not dreaming
of a white Christmas
bedecked with tinsel
and mistletoe.

That bougainvillea spilling down the wall
is festive enough.
Who said a Christmas had to be 
composed of personal memories decades old?

I like a little sand in my Christmas,
good friends and not a holly sprig in sight—
our memories being made,
not dwelled upon.

Where was the snow in Bethlehem?
On what day did Santa finally arrive,
bag laden with gifts more frivolous
than gold, frankincense and myrrh?*

What we celebrate at Christmas
is more than anything
Bing Crosby
might have devised.

The warmth of friendship.
Finding those things,
in spite of our many differences,
that are the same.

That first Christmas
celebrated in the desert,
there was a star.
The animals were its first celebrants.

Only afterwards
came those wise men
who in their gifts
predicted its ending.

*The three gifts had a spiritual meaning: gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense (an incense) as a symbol of deity, and myrrh (an embalming oil) as a symbol of death. This dates back to Origen in Contra Celsum: “gold, as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to a God.”

The word prompts today were white, compose, bedeck and festive.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/rdp-saturday-white/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/22/fowc-with-fandango-compose/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/bedeck/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/your-daily-word-prompt-festive-December-22-2018/
https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-22-18/