Tag Archives: RDP

Cyber Tragedy

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Cyber Tragedy

Much as they wished that she would wander, their child was otiose,
Glued to her computer, growing tissue adipose.
They wistfully imagined a life where they were free
to wander on their own in perpetuity.
In vain her parents waited, but their freedom never came.
They watched her eat and then begin one more computer game.
Her mother darned her hose and her father worked to feed her.
If she were a plant, there is no doubt that they would weed her.
They’d raised a human vegetable, capable of more.
If only they had earlier rushed her out the door!

 

Prompts today are hose, wander, wait, wistful and otiose.

Suspicious Coloring

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                          Suspicious Coloring

If those of foreign ethnicity around our sacred nation
are being questioned over their passport identification,
are others far more grandiose being questioned, too?
Are those of nordic extraction locked up in a human zoo?
If chain migration must end now, will the extraction rope
extend around the family of our grand misanthrope?
Or is there exemption for folks of wide renown?
Are these rules only extended over people who are brown?

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/405017-with-trump-administrations-denial-of-passports-to-latinos-in-south-texas

Prompts today are nation, ethnicity, identify, grandiose and rope

Nose Job

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Nose Job
The precipitant of my angst is this macro of my nose.
I didn’t vie for this when my friend asked me to pose.
I thought she’d use my profile in a locket or some token,
not knowing that she’d use it for purposes unspoken.
If she had told me earlier what the shot was for,
I would not have been compliant. I’d have shown her to the door.
It’s true my nose is cone-shaped, but no one has ever rated it,
disparaged it or laughed at it or scoffed at or debated it.
So, her dad’s a plastic surgeon and what did he use it for?
Someone else the “after,” and my nose the “before!!!”
Yesterday a letter came–inside two hundred bucks
for my rights to the photo from the clinic mucky-mucks.
I’ve discovered I’m no beauty, and yet I’m charmed in life.
I just got a “nose job” without suffering the knife!!

 

Today’s prompt words are macro, profile, precipitant, cone and unspoken.

Backdoor Sliders

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Backdoor Sliders

I take a break from my last chore
to peer through glass, ceiling to floor.
For though a view I never lack,
my house’s eyes are all in back.
I watch the gardener cut and trim,
the locksmith to the right of him.

One scrubs the algae from the pool—
a craftsman polishing his jewel.
A man on ladder repairs the wall,
the tree-trimmer the highest of all.
See how we tend her outer skin–
they without and we within?

Yolanda sweeps the terrace floor,
then comes inside to sweep some more.
Inside I watch and labor, too,
for there are many tasks to do.
I dust and gather detritus,
smooth out wrinkles, straighten muss.

Three days a week we labor so
until I wonder if I know
which is the owner and which the thing
that luxury and comfort brings?
Dear house, is it you that harbors me,
or am I here to maintain thee?

 

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The Boss:↓↓

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RDP’s prompt for today is looking out of my backdoor. Since I did this prompt three years ago, I decided to reprint that post today. I had forgotten it. Hopefully, if you’ve been following me for that long, you have, too.

Verse for a Reclusive One

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Verse for a Reclusive One

I refuse to say goodbye. I’d rather say hello
if you should ever come back from where you have to go.
In the interim, I’ll let my memories be my guide.
Sometimes they are the safest places to abide.
You decried my frivolous gestures, yet ate up all the cake
those birthdays when you swore festivities were a mistake.
Oh, my reclusive loved-one, why do you hide away?
You do not have the answer. That’s why you never say.

Prompts for today are goodbye, refuse, guide, frivolous and cake.

Words of Wooing

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Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 8.49.45 AMPhoto by Giovanni Ribeiro on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Words of Wooing

He took her to the movies. He took her to the fair.
He raved about her choice of clothes. He doted on her hair.
He brought his uke and stood for hours strumming at her gate,
riffing on the talents of the lovely Kate.
Was he accurate? Were all his laudatory quips
valid? All those praises of her swan neck and her lips?
Not likely, but it’s lucky that the lady was so vain
that she took verbatim the praises of her swain.
They married in the autumn and by spring the truth was known.
He no longer sang her praises. She had to sing her own!
 

Prompt words for today are movie, valid, riff, accuracy and gate.

Dark Rites of Inheritance

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Dark Rites of Inheritance

What was it you discovered under the Union Jack
packed in Grandma’s quilt chest, way back in the back?
I saw the glowing of your torch as you bore it away,
breaking the rule that all be shared in the light of day.

I find your act egregious, and yet I will not tell.
It’s just my curiosity I’ll ask for you to quell.
I need not share your treasure or regulate your act.
When I give my word, I’m the epitome of tact.

What is that you cradle? Is it a jewel or flask?
One viewing of your treasure is the only thing I ask.
Why raise it there above your head in the moonlight’s glow?
I cannot see what’s in your hand down here so far below.

Your movement now so swift and sure, seconds to stop from start.
I feel a trickling down my chest, a swift pain in my heart.
How cruel that even now you keep your secret all unshared.
Who would expect such evil acts from Grandma’s favored laird?

Nothing disputes you as her heir. It’s yours, castle and land,
except, perhaps, that parchment I see gripped tight in your hand.
My life has not been perfect. You have not loved me well.
How perfect that I’ll be the one you’ll later join in Hell!

 

Prompts today are jack, torch, egregious, regulate and rule.

Party House

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Party House

I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors.
Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors.
Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose.
They turn up the music when I want to doze.

Convivial people are really a pain.
Of my existence, they’re really the bane.
I wish I could trade them for sedater folks
who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,

for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution.
I wish I could think of a better solution:
a wall or a device to filter the sound,
but instead I must phone or cry out or pound

on the door that no one inside ever hears.
They just do not care, or so it appears.
I complain to the neighborhood association
that sends them a warning to curb their elation,

but somehow the party just starts up again.
More laughter, more music, more odors, more din.
If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me.
I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!

Prompt words today are can’t, pressure, frivolous, convivial and  nose.

Once by Ice and Once by Fire

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Once by Ice and Once by Fire

Once by ice and now by fire, erasing her mistakes,
Mother Earth must wonder how many times it takes
to finally get the world planned right, for once the lot is cast,
how can she watch sufficiently  a planet that’s so vast?

Her hope is that but rarely she must resort to extinction
to control a species risen to such great distinction
that it uses up more resources than it can provide.
How many times must she restore a planet that has died?

She casts a might yawn and then breathes fire once again—
cancelling out excesses that they can’t see as sin.
Caught in a clinch as they resist all means of education,
perhaps the only answer is mankind’s eradication.

 

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Prompt words today are extinct, rarely, clinch, vast and hope.

Dreams

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Dreams

My dreams always end before some big climax—the revelation of what is behind the wall or who is behind the spread cape, ready to turn around and solve the mystery. Dreams are a wonderland we dive into unaware—a little surprise some part of us produces every night. A vast world composed of images real and false. Bits from our past or present scrambled up with fantastic elements perhaps remembered from our youth. Dreams where we can fly. Sinister alleys and unknown streets we wander through, at first with a false assurance that they will lead to somewhere. It is with regrets or a heartfelt “hurray!” that we awaken from these dreams—either saved  or disappointed by the awakening—our lives somehow sorted out by the weird realignment of facts and fantasy that they accomplish, like shuffled cards, rearranging our past by mixing it in with the future or with fantasy. Dreams are a surreal world we enter every night, no less real than the world we live in every day. Just different, made up of different parts of ourselves. A second chance, perhaps. Or a sorting out of problems, worries, regrets.

Prompts today are dive,  wonderland, false, hurray, vast.