Tag Archives: RDP

At a Distance

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At a Distance

In these months of social distance, it seems lazy does not matter.
We grow our hair and fingernails and stir the cookie batter.
The main excitement in our lives is whether gravy’s thickening
and when our waistlines do the same, the truth of it is sickening.

Out in the world there’s conflict when factions take to task
the all-consuming question: to mask or not to mask?
Confined to home, we find conflict in books or television
or when we try to teach the kids the facts of long division.

Our galas are all in the past as are the school fetes
as social life is narrowed down to children and to mates.
Whether our lives have changed for good is open to debate.
The only way to know for sure is just to sit and wait.

Prompt words for today are lazy, matter, sickening, gala and conflict.

A Fine Fit

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A Fine Fit

I’m enamored of the morning. I am giddy with myself.
The rain is nearly over and the bowls up on the shelf
cry out to me for oatmeal. Steam is dancing in the pot,
and I am so content with the blessings that I’ve got.
I need no fine adornment and diamonds have I none.
I have dogs and cats and nature, and when the day is done,
swinging in the hammock with a small dog for my covering,
cats mewing from the roof and the big dog closely hovering,
the world seems good enough. In fact, it feels just fine.
Nobody else’s life would fit me half as well as mine!

Prompt words for today are dancing, nearly, giddy, adorn and self.

Struth

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Struth

The world is swathed in horror. It vacillates between
ridiculous pronouncements both uninformed and mean.
Truth seems to be moveable. We store it here and there,
but rarely in an orange creature with unruly hair.
It seems he has no access to lexicon or brain
as everything he says is impossibly inane.

 

Prompt words today are horror, vacillate, moveable, ridiculous and access. Photo on Unsplash, used with permission. 

And A Little Child Shall Lead Them

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Click on photos to enlarge. All photos used with permission from Unsplash.

And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
(For Greta Thunberg)

When it comes to children, upper classes can be haughty.
Even normal kid stuff they consider to be naughty.
They send them off to private school to simplify their keep
and their favorite time when they are home is when they are asleep.

The words and thoughts of children are rarely heard at table,
for it might upset the apple cart if they were only able
to introduce hot topics like the way this world is headed.
But, alas, they’re fed and watered and then promptly bedded

without asking what they’re thinking and of course they don’t insist.
They’re patted and they’re smiled at and they’re talked at and they’re kissed,
but their parents don’t consider how they are dissembling
and it’s their children’s future that they are disassembling.

Trashing up the oceans, melting the North Pole,
ruining the air with oil and gas and coal—
it’s the parents who are unruly and should be sent to bed
to see if kids could run things better in their stead.

 

Prompt words today are cart, asleep, hot, word and naughty. Photos from unsplash.

Film Legend

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Film Legend

Once I was unstoppable, but now my moves are tentative.
My tones once sweet and wheedling have now turned argumentative.
My salad days gone limp, “cute as a penny” turned to brass,
people take as vitriol what once they saw as sass.
My image has been shattered. When I look in the mirror,
I prefer to view me far away instead of standing nearer.
I once was an ingenue with all the roles I wanted.
I faced the cameras brazenly, unfiltered and undaunted.
But now I find the only lenses on my face
are trifocals. The cameras? Gone without a trace.

 

Prompt words today are brass, tentative, unstoppable, benefit and shattered. Photos from Unsplash and other free sites.

Nervous Nibbling Prior to the St. Patrick’s Day Party

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Nervous Nibbling Prior to the St. Patrick’s Day Party

I’ve secured the decorations and I’ve bought the party food.
I’ve put out all the shamrocks and soon the whole damn brood
will descend en masse for the St. Patrick’s celebration.
I fear that by the end of it I’ll need a small vacation.

Green salad and green curry, green bean casserole, green beer.
Every single  item of refreshment that is here 
seems to be of verdant hue. I’m finding it most shocking,
and soon there will be over-drinking and much over-talking.

Everyday on March 17th, I find it is the same.
If we run out of green cuisine, I am the one to blame.
Every other day of March, I’m totally secure.
It’s only the 17th day I find hard to endure.

This green ice-cream is melting and I fear it will be wasted.
It cannot last much longer. It’s a shame it’s gone untasted.
It looks so delicious. There are bowls there on the shelf.
Do you think it would be callous if I ate it all myself?

Words for the day are ice cream, callous, shamrock, secure and everyday.

Evolutionary Miracles

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Evolutionary Miracles

It’s the birthday of feathers! The dinosaurs grew them.
Who knew evolution was going to do them?
They wished for relief from plodding the earth,
so they lightened their bones and depleted their girth.
As they worked on their balance, were they assuming
that soon they’d be soaring and swooping and zooming?
It’s true evolution gives gift after gift,
but nothing more magic than providing lift!

Prompt words today are feathers, assume, wish, balance and birthday.

Fallen Star

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Fallen Star

Is it love or obligation? I am driven to inquire.
It’s the sort of information that I’m not going to acquire
unless I ask you bluntly. He’s a noxious sort of fellow—
shriveled-up and cranky, and his fingernails are yellow!

He’s a worn-out western movie star, but  I swear his past
is not the sort of glamor that’s been shown to last.
Marry a guy for former fame? My dear, it isn’t groovy.
If you want to see him at his best, may I suggest a movie?

Prompts today are shrivel, acquire, obligation, noxious and western. Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash. Used with permission.

King of Fools

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King of Fools

It’s a virtual world we sink into for fun
now that our worldly contact is done.
Facebook is our friendship and Skype our salvation,
Zoom our replacement for kids’ education.
It’s our succor in sadness, replacement for sport,
when others malign us, our means of retort.
Our childrens’ frondescence confined to Twitter,
how can they resist being surly and bitter?

We’re culpable, all of us, I must confess.
How could we let things get in such a mess?
Money our God and diverted by pleasure,
we sacrificed a more vital treasure,
giving up liberty, we were distracted
by a buffoon who reenacted
presenting reality just as a show—
impressing with posturing, bluffing and dough.

And those for whom books were replaced with a screen?
They couldn’t tell the difference between
what entertained and what was for real
and that’s how he managed to posture and steal
liberty—both on a scale that was national
making decisions stupidly irrational,
and our own liberty, now that we’re trapped
within our boxes, trussed up and wrapped

with only the foolish wandering round
making decisions, unmasked and unsound,
the dupes of a Mother who’s finally decided 
that all of these humans whom she has abided
for thousands of years are on their way out,
aided by their foolishness, without a doubt,
and by their leader, that king of all fools
who will bring down the world with his asinine rules!!!

 

Prompt words for today are frondescence, culpable, virtual, succor and sink. All photos thanks to Unsplash, used with permission.

Animal Nature

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Animal Nature

She had a penchant for excitement but discretion was a must,
for how her family worried and how her family fussed—
fingers tearing hair and both palms shielding eyes.
Was bungee-jumping safe? Did she think sky-diving wise?

They’d have her clipping coupons and baking cherry pies,
so she only did her favorite things shrouded in disguise.
A person in a chicken costume jumping from a plane
might have been seeking notice, might have seemed inane

if the chicken ever took off her feathers or her mask.
If she ever answered the questions they might ask.
But she only shed her feathers once safely in her home,
arranging them with fingers and a broad-toothed comb.

Snow-boarding in her fox costume, she knew they’d never know
how she banged up her left elbow, fractured her little toe.
She’d said it was at tennis—that family-sanctioned sport,
as they happily imagined her on golf course or on court.

They found other sport unseemly, inappropriate at best
when associated with their spotless family crest.
Thus did she live her life according to her nature
while never bringing shame to her family nomenclature!

Words prompts for the day are: eyes, penchant, excitement, discretion and coupon. Illustration from Pinterest.