Tag Archives: spur

Holding on and Letting Go

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Holding on and Letting Go

Invariably, our enemies will become more surreal,
flushed into our memories—consigned to how we feel.

Every niggling worry and each old friend who’s lost
added to dreadful feelings that leave us tempest-tossed.

Life seeks remuneration, be it justified or not,
and we pay with guilt for sorrows that we might have wrought.

Time renders us more docile but our guilts become much stronger,
until we decide that we can deal with them no longer.

Then life slips away with one long slide and then a gasp
as all that we’ve held onto is released from our tight grasp.

 

Prompt words today are flush, surreal, docile, remunerated, enemy and invariably.

Fleeced and Avenged

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Fleeced and Avenged

When first my antagonist burst upon the scene,
he was an enterprising human sales machine.
I was his favorite client, an accomplishment for sure—
innocent and gullible and open to the lure.
I had little experience foreshadowing the end.
No idea at all what lay waiting ’round the bend.
But I fear his achievement was unduly brief,
because Daddy called the sheriff, declaring him a thief.
Now he’s living in the jailhouse and his board and room is free.
He’s living on the county now—not on little old me!

 

Today’s prompts are achievement, foreshadow, antagonist, enterprise, burst and accomplishment.  Image from Pinterest.

Uphill Climb

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Uphill Climb

Wind decries my progress on this uphill trail—
any ingress I might make impeded by the gale.
Moths whip against my shoulders. Birds soar far over head.
On days like this I feel as though I’d rather stay in bed.

But blessings spiral downward once the sun begins to rise
and another glorious day appears before my eyes.
Dull thoughts dry up in morning light and inspiration dawns—
all struggles of this waking up dispensed of with my yawns.

 

 

Prompt words today are decry, dull, wind, ingress, downward and moths.

Kissing With Eyes Closed

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Kissing With Eyes Closed

Though she was not disappointed by the fervor of his kiss,
 in fact it was misguided, for it was a total miss.
It landed on her lash extensions, eyelids to the tips, 
but it would have been more piquant if planted on her lips.

He mopped his sweaty forehead, which was damp from the exertion,
then went in for another kiss in spite of her assertion
that he needn’t do an update. One kiss was quite enough.
Perhaps they could go for a walk or do some other stuff.

Thus ended their first date which could have been a fine romance,
if only she had thought to give the chap a second chance.
Kissing with eyes opened, he was sure that he would kill,
but, alas, I’m fairly certain that he never will.

 

Prompts today are mop, fervor, bereft, piquant, extension and update. Click on prompt links if you want to read other poems to the same prompt or to discover the source to play along yourself.

Wet Alibi

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Wet Alibi

Two thunderous bolts of lightning split the midnight sky.
No one was here to hear them. Only the dogs and I.
The priggish cats were nestled in a knot deep in their bed,
stomach against stomach, inverted tail to head.

Rain fell down in buckets. Lights flickered off and back,
then off again and all the world descended into black.
When some derelict wiring succumbed to the first drop,
I tried to phone a report  to the electricity cop,

but not a person answered at the guard house or Con Ed,
so I finally accepted that the whole world had gone dead.
No wifi meant no internet. No music. No TV.
A twelve-hour outage led to nil blogging activity.

And that is why the phone just rang with an inquiry.
Forgottenman was wondering what had become of me.
Was I not going to post? So I hastened to the job.
The lights are on. It’s time to feed the hungry blogster mob!


True story, all of it., except for the poetic license of calling the Mexican electrical commission (CFE)  Con Ed.  The rhyme, you know….Over 16 hours without electricity. My story and I’m sticking to it. Actually, half of the house was in brownout and the rest totally without electricity. Evidently this was an area-wide outage, but just in spots. All the houses around me were dark. Below me there were lights and this was true in all the villages along the lake. Weird.

Check out this post if you want to see some hard rain: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/08/17/sudden-hard-rain/

 

Prompt words today are thunderous,  active, derelict, prig,
accept.

Face Off!

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Face Off!

It’s always there in front of me, greeting people first.
With having to live up to it, I always have been cursed.
When I want to look pious, it breaks out in a grin
revealing that within me there is a bit of sin.

It blushes when that boy walks in that I don’t want to know it.
I’m trying to be mysterious, and then I go and blow it!
It heats up and blushes when I’m trying to be cool.
How can something a part of me break every single rule?

When I doll up in my finest, then spend an hour on it,
adding shadow, blush and lashes, it decides to grow a zit!
I’m tired of facing up to its erratic bad behavior.
It seems to be my enemy when I most need a savior.

I’d like to go before it to decide what people see
before my face inserts itself, claiming to be me.
Then Covid comes along and gives me everything I ask.
Ironic that it takes a plague to furnish me a mask.

 

Prompt words today are faces, heat, pious, erratic, doll.

Brutal Truth

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Brutal Truth

Fresh as they come, you’re the pick of the litter.
Though too young for pathos and too soft for bitter,
how can I describe what fate has in store
later in life as the innocent lore
of your earlier life is exposed as just part
of what might affect your innocent heart?

Prompt words are soft, describe, pathos, later and young. Image by Alex Gomes on Unsplash.

Mirror Image

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Mirror Image

She’s a dingy sort of doppelganger, lackluster and fretful,
and when I’ve caught a glimpse of her, she seems to be forgetful.
She looks surprised to see me and although it should be magic,
when she catches sight of me, it seems she finds it tragic.

It’s a shame she never catches me when I am at my peak,
and so I seem to be an image that she’d like to tweak.
We both look in the mirror and we don’t like what we see,
the irony of that being that both of us are me!!

 

Prompt words today are doppelganger, tragic, forgetful, dingy and peak.

About the assemblage:

              “After Picasso: Self-examination” 

The watch part that serves as the womb to the woman beats with the pulse beat of the child within, whereas the mirror reflection contains no moving parts.  An antique “Tabu” powder tin  is imprisoned in an old  pocket watch case.  A tiny portrait of a woman is framed by one of the watch parts that make up the rest of this collage.

Mr. “Do It Myself”

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Mr. “Do It Myself”

The manifold reasons I love you are these.
Though you puff and you pant and you groan and you wheeze,
recruiting much help from your back and your knees,
nonetheless, my piano you managed to squeeze
up the stairs to the tower, saying it was a breeze.
So as I snap a photo, be sure to say, “Cheese,”
then promise me, dear, for I’m down on my knees.
If we move it again, hire a moving crew, please!!!!

 

 

 

Prompt words today are recruit, piano, manifold and tower.

She’s Talking About Her Dog Again!!!!

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Click on first photo to enlarge, then click on it to enlarge next photo, ad infinitum!

1 P.M. and She’s Talking About Her Dog Again!!!!

My pesky new apprentice assists me in my writing
with tugging and with growling and with nuzzling and with biting.
She sees my busy fingers as toys for her to play with
that no matter what I need them for, she’s sure to have her way with.

She demands my attention with her robust barks,
then sits upon my keyboard, leaving puppy marks.
She’s not a mere disturbance, but a 24-hour duty.
I’d do something to change this, but she’s such a little cutie.

In the area we’ve made for her, she has no urge to pee.
She prefers the dining room for her morning wee.
There’s no way to out-wait her and monitor her poops.
Why  do it where Mom wants you to when you can  prompt an “Oops?”

She’s such a cagey customer, there is no way to catch her.
When she is determined, no force on earth can match her.
When I slip out of my shoes, she slips her teeth into them.
Instead of learning to eschew, she chooses just to chew them.

I’ve tried to write my daily poem since roughly 6 a.m.
Which was the hour she chose to use me as a jungle gym.
With push-ups on my face, then tug-of-war using my hair,
she was my canine alarm clock extraordinaire.

First there was the feeding, then the pee and pooping,
the washing, disinfecting, the blotting and the scooping.
Then hours in the backyard with the other dogs.
With so much activity, who has time for blogs?

Then the screening of the porch so I can keep her close.
Otherwise, I know that her intention’s  “Vamonose!!
Whether perky little houseguest, scavenger or daughter,
In spite of changes in my life, I’m so glad  that I got her!

 

Prompt words today are apprentice, robust, oops, cagey and disturbance.