Tag Archives: spur

Paper Star

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Paper Star

Born to a family with great clout,
endued with fame, there was no doubt
she, too, would take the world by storm.
Yet, she went against the norm.

Coached in wit and charm and fame,
she didn’t want to play the game.
Sure of herself, without a doubt,
she felt no need to preen or flout.

She renounced usage of the name
and chose a lifestyle much more tame.
Given a choice, selected knowledge,
studied hard and went to college.

Took lifelong sabbatical
from being brash or radical.
Did not grace the silver screen.
Lived out her life private, unseen.

Avoided fame and tabloid papers,
forwent scandal, Oscars, capers.
Became a mother and a wife.
Gave up fame, but had a life.

Word prompts today are radical, coach, usage, endue and doubt. Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

By All Means

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By All Means

Grandmother Air, Grandfather Tree,
forgive our eccentricity
in doing what we’ve done to thee.

The parricide that we have done
is more than just a smoking gun.
If it’s a war, chaos has won.

By burning, we’ve killed both of you.
Nature’s response should be our clue
that our end, too, is well in view.

No prankster when you make your threat,
you state explicitly, and yet,
still your message we fail to get.

An accurate interpretation
is that man’s manipulation
has resulted in great agitation.

Everything’s off-balanced and
gotten rather out of hand.
So nature has to make a stand.

Her arsenal is most minute.
and though mankind is most astute,
ironically, hard to refute.

Fools will say that we have won,
but still, when all is said and done,
we still hold the smoking gun.

If we don’t change our reckless course,
and solve our problem at its source,
she will respond with greater force.

Be it virus, fire or wind,
if our ways we do not mend,
we’ll be the means to our own end.

Prompt words today are eccentric, air, accurate, prankster and grandfather.

Music of the Spheres

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Music of the Spheres
“What tears us apart can bring us together.”

Music dips a candle and lights it at the wick,
spilling notes like light out, full and round and thick.
It builds a room around us, brick by brick by brick,
shedding shards of ditties sharp enough to nick
our inflated sensibilities, popping those balloons
of our inflated selves to turn us from buffoons
into sentient beings, open to romance,
and filling out our lives with more than circumstance.
Anger, joy, nostalgia, need or fear or wonder
can unite us in experience or tear our world asunder.
All these warring sentiments are meant to coincide
in human hearts where all of them are destined to abide.
Music is the language that gives us each a tether
that unites individuals and ties us all together,

Prompt word today are music, note, crumbs, coincide and brick.

Bella Shuns the Tube

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Bella Shuns the Tube

Bella never takes mass transit. She walks another path.
She hitchhikes every day to work from Chippenham to Bath.
For years, it’s true that she has harbored quite a misconception.
I know because I happened to be there at its inception.

She was just a little girl when her father Rube
drove her by the underground and labeled it “the tube,”
She had visions of sink drains, sucking people down
from somewhere in the country to disgorge them in the town.

As a father teaches, so a daughter will be taught.
A plethora of worries overcame her at the thought.
So, as to travelling in the tube? Unlikely that our Bella might.
for when it comes to subways, I fear she is a thelemite!

 

Prompt words today are misconception, plethora, thelemite (one who does as he or she pleases,) transit and path. Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Infinite Variety

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Click on photos to enlarge.

I guess I’ll figure it out when I get older.

 

Infinite Variety

Some cling to what’s affordable, others to what is queer.
What one finds most deplorable, another might find dear.
No matter what opinion you may choose to hold,
one friend will think you’re crazy, another find you bold.

There’s an incredible range of palates in this human bunch.
What one regards as garbage, another eats for lunch.
What touches one by someone else may seem sentimentality.
And what another finds profound to others is banality.

From rap to opera to rock, we sing our various tunes,
from the crudest of rap lyrics to moons and croons and Junes.
Infinite variety might be the perfect label
for the various personalities humans bring to the table.

Prompt words are cling, affordable, queer, opinion and touch.

2021

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2021

This is a pretty kettle of fish,
a quagmire that we’re caught in.
You only need to take one sniff
to know that something’s rotten.

We thought we’d amble on through life
as lively as we pleased,
but then someone got a fever
and another someone sneezed.

Suddenly, we all slowed down,
imprisoned in our houses,
devoid of underwear
and wearing nightgowns for our blouses.

Watching TV all night long,
avoiding lowlife dives,
reduced to just our families,
we floundered in our lives.

That’s how we came to beg for it,
to scheme and plot and wheedle.
Who thought we’d be so grateful
for the nose swab and the needle?

Prompt words are kettle, quagmire, sniff, amble and lively.

“Far from the Madding Crowd”:

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Solitary Confinement

My world is a clam with me gathered up in it.
With no one else to arrange it or spin it.
I do not deviate, wander or travel.
No complications for me to unravel.
Life proffers no parties and no invitations.
No drop-in guests and no visitations.
Gatherings are not my present domain,
so if I were invited, I’d surely abstain.
I’m sealed in my world— happily, sublimely,
for group celebrations are simply not timely.
Lately for me, the crowds are not madding.
It’s taken a virus for me to stop gadding.

Prompt words today are clam, deviate, timely, proffer and gather.

A Way Out

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A Way Out

He thinks he is inexorable, but he’s only temporary.
His expiration date reveals that he is just contemporary.
He’ll go down as a buffoon in the annals of our nation,
and his exit from the White House will bring great jubilation.
When greed combines with vanity and thirst for power and fame,
then achieves the oval office, the whole nation is to blame.
Would that he’s vivified our populace from living room to coffice
to get their butts out and to vote this charlatan from office!
May justice thus be vivified and liberty brought home,
and a sense of the rational be restored to the dome.

I’VE VOTED. HAVE YOU, OR WILL YOU????

Word prompts today are exit, inexorable, collide, vivify and temporary.

Stay of Execution

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Pardon by Way of a Higher Power

There was  a stay of execution, and the prisoner was relieved.
The executioner, in a turmoil, was sorely aggrieved.
If he couldn’t fire incessantly, it put him off his game.
And yet he couldn’t argue with the one who was to blame.
Sometimes it was the law that won, and sometimes the sinner.
He cut his prisoner free and then shuffled off to dinner.
“Does Jimmy want to stay to eat?” his mom was heard to say,
“I can call his mom to ask her, if he wants to stay.”
But the sheriff told his mom that since he wasn’t ichthyophagous,
a tuna sandwich wouldn’t make it past his friend’s esophagus!

Prompt words today are stay, incessant, ichthyophagous, turmoil and game. What travesties of plot these prompts sometimes force upon us!!!

Why Bakeries Were Invented

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Why Bakeries Were Invented

I’ve baked the cake, but cannot get the damn thing from the pan—
the problem being, mainly, that sticky layer of flan.
My daughter had demanded it, persnickety like her dad.
How had she ever heard of flan? I guess it was a fad.

I poured the custard in the pan and covered it with batter,
not sure whether the flan went first or if it was the latter.
Ten minutes in the oven and the glop began to rage
as though it was an animal, intent to leave its cage.

It roiled and fluxed, formed bubbles and spouted like fresh lava.
I lit a cigarette and poured another cup of java.
Although it was her birthday, I rued the day I’d asked
what kind of cake she wanted, for in this I’m sorely tasked.

But surprisingly, this devil cake did not escape its boundaries,
in spite of all my puzzlements and all my gross confounderies.
Now that I’ve finally got it out, I really am exhausted—
only to hear her next request. Now she wants it frosted!!!

Prompt words for today are exhausted, cage, flux, persnickety and cover.