Tag Archives: RDP

Fertile Fashion

 

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Fertile Fashion

She had a verdant sort of glamour unabated by machine.
Thus all of her garments were a vibrant shade of green.
Her bodice made of leaves and her skirts all made of branches
interwoven with fresh grass from her father’s ranches.

She knew she would inherit all his forest land and grass
which would be sufficient for covering her ass
for throughout her lifetime except for those long winters
when the grasses withered and the branches turned to splinters.

That’s how she came to following the sun to warmer places
where  grass was always greener and with no wintry traces.
She had a fleet of weavers and they developed followings
that started up a fashion trend based on nature wallowings:

women picking grass and leaves for home-woven duds.
Embellishing with tiny bees that burrowed in the buds
that they wore for earrings and the sheep and cattle that
followed them in twos and threes to feed on purse or hat

woven from green grasses and embellished with fresh leaves.
They nibbled on their hemlines and fed upon their sleeves.
And this is how the world came to accept the final crudity
of fashionistas who evolved from verdancy to nudity!!!

Today’s prompts are glamour, following, verdant and inherit. All illustrtions harvested from the internet.

Query for a Backseat Driver

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Query for a Backseat Driver

Your directional demands are wearing rather thin.
They’re wearing out my eardrums. Getting beneath my skin.
Must you demand in public? Must you always nag?
Have you all the answers in your Mary Poppins bag?
Must you simply always be so self-sure and so stolid?
Is there no effervescence in your dependably solid?
You always quote statistics, so I would like to hear
what is the percentage of the facts you know, my dear,
that you think would fit if you stuffed them up your rear? 

Prompt words for today are directional, percent, stolid and public.

 

Side Effects: June 6, 2019

Photo by Josh Coleman on Unsplash.  Used with permission.

Side Effects

Why does all that’s happening continue to astound us?
We’re doing penance for the plenitude that is around us.
Plastic on our beaches, pollutants in the air,
temperatures grown so extreme that we can hardly bear
the world we’ve grown around us. The hurricanes and flooding
that are just the start of things—the poison flower’s budding.
All the miracles of science with which we seek to heal
bring along their opposite as payment in the deal.
We dabble in our nurturing while majoring in our skills
of what we manufacture that ultimately kills.
Cancer in our Teflon and all the poisonous chrome
building up around us everywhere we roam.
Mercury and fluoride, lead and styrofoam
contribute to our comfort but construct a lethal home.
Science often cures us. It comforts and it saves,
but all its buried side-effects may finally dig our graves.

 

Prompt words today were nurture, dabble, plenitude and penance.

Townsfolk

Words of the day are exchange, hustle, and instigate.

Rope


Rope

They’ve dispelled my excitement with a coiled line of rope—
imprisoning my fantasies and murdering that hope
that fairies really do exist with dragons and magicians.
Using scientific words and proofs of the tacticians,
they’ve put the rope around the neck of childhood and jerked
and I admit the strategy of reason really worked!
I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I don’t believe in fables.
They’ve ruined Cinderella and lynched Anne of Green Gables.
Pure reason is my only friend now that they’ve slain the rest.
They’ve installed stark reality but murdered all the zest.
I’ll welcome second childhood when silliness again
replaces stark reality to cushion the world’s pain.

 

Prompt words for today are line, dispel and rope.
The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a quadrille (44 words only) making use of the word dragon.

Empty Praise

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Empty Praise

There was a time when awesome really meant ”inspiring awe”—
events like the moon landing that made one drop one’s jaw,
sights of numbing beauty or achievements of great skill,
art pieces by the masters or achievements of great will.

Yosemite is awesome and so is Everest.
Those climbing it are “awesome.” You know they are the best.
But today the word has fallen into widespread use—
ubiquitous right to the point where it’s become abuse.

Rap music is most awesome, as is that way-cool blouse.
You drive an awesome car and live inside an awesome house.
My neighbor’s kids are awesome. So are her dog and cat.
Her tummy tuck is awesome, as is my purse and hat.

You might have guessed by now that awesome’s not my favorite word.
I think the overuse of it is frankly quite absurd.
This pizza is not awesome, though you may find me petty
for saying it is merely good, and so is the spaghetti.

Your child is lovely, so’s your dress, your silverware and smile.
But none of them are awesome—that word brings up my bile.
Please use some other word for it—some adjectival jaw full.
Because in my opinion, using awesome’s simply awful!!

Fandango’s prompt word for today is awesome, Since I wrote a poem five years ago about this very word, I’m reprinting it here with some minor changes.

Retirement?

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Retirement?

My future is amorphous. It has no shape or plan.
Up the creek without a paddle, I have no job or man.
My freedom? It is ludicrous. I’m well out of the chase.
All my time is leisure time. I live a slower pace.
Who named this phase re-tirement? There’s nothing that is tiring.
If they want to tire me out again, they’d best replace my wiring.

 

Prompt words today are chase, ludicrous, amorphous and paddle.

First Love

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First Love

That frisson of excitement that I once knew so well—
that doubling of my pulse rate that rang me like a bell.
Back when there was no contest over which would win
when impulse clashed with custom. Back when passion was no sin.
The sum of all that feeling sent us crashing into life—
before you were a husband, before I was a wife.

Remember how exciting those first love wanderings were?
Those first stirrings of passion that made us stretch and purr
like felines on that blanket stretched out on the grass?
Our love was a religion and each touch a holy mass.
Our loving was eternal up until the time we parted
and each became a memory of when loving first started.

Prompts today are sum, double, frisson and contest.

Travel Grump

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Travel Grump

Look at all those spendthrifts paying for the view
as though it is a contest to spend their cash anew
on hotel after hotel, on safaris, tours and cruises–—
climbing up Mount Everest, amassing scrapes and bruises.
I’ll keep my money in my pocket. I’ve worked for it too hard,
and simply do my viewing here in my backyard.

Prompt words today are view, spendthrift , and contest.

Manual for a Sales Position

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Manual for a Sales Position

Follow commands verbatim. Be quiet, graceful, prompt!
He fired a predecessor who shuffled, tripped and stomped.
Only idiots are bashful. You should look him in the eye.
Do not pad expense accounts. Do not cheat or lie.
Do not applaud suggestions merely on a whim
unless they are suggestions that were made by him.
You are the very first product that you have to sell,
so follow these few rules and I think you will do well.

 

The prompts today are verbatim, prompt, bashful and applaud.