Irresistible Red.
Help Decorating
Rendered breathless by the product of my hours of decoration,
Roo and Kukla must approve my gorgeous presentation.
How can it be a hindrance if they rearrange a few
of the lower ornaments? Perhaps just one or two?
Christmas is a family time and there should be a law
that the positioning of ornaments may be by hand or paw!
Prompt words today are decorate, hindrance, presentation, breathless, product.
Click on photos to enlarge.
An Innovative Approach to Weed Control
My former spouse seems not to feel a similar elation
to what I have been feeling ever since our separation.
He feels invested in the gardening and wants to poke and sow.
Every other day he comes and says he has to mow.
It’s a bit of an enigma, for this farming bent is new,
and I can’t corroborate what’s causing him to do
all these acts of digging and furrowing and tilling.
If he wants me to reciprocate, I fear am not willing.
But my garden sure has flourished since I asked my spouse to go,
which goes to show I really should have done it long ago!
Prompt words today are enigma, corroborate, poke, reciprocal and separation.
Beneath the Covers
Books are cemeteries where old thoughts go to die—
landscapes of words spread out under a variegated sky.
Bright children might discover them ‘neath covers in the night,
searching for new universes where the erudite
join them undercover to whisper down through time:
literature, history, philosopy and rhyme
Prompt words for the day are variegated skies, bite, erudite, bright and cemetery. Image by Klim Sergeev on Unsplash.
Lactose Intolerant
If you’re intent on becoming maternal,
I’m hopeful your plans include turning nocturnal.
For babies claim most of your time, night and day,
but their favorite time to entice you to play
is when you have finally collapsed in a heap
and obtained REM sleep, so blessedly deep
that you swim towards the surface with collections of dreams
that shed off you like water as you waken to screams
of your recent dependent who’s hungry and wet,
needing all the attention that there is to get.
Since you went through the nausea and gained all the girth,
acquired all the stretch marks and endured the birth,
though you love this dear bundle with skin smooth as silk,
how you wish that their father could provide the milk!
Yet you search for your robe and for your other shoe,
for that wholesome nutrition provider is you!
Prompt words today are hopeful, claim, nocturnal, wholesome and collection. Image by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.
Love on Line
These
nocturnal visits
over Love.Com
require no suitcase,
bring no human feet
over my threshold.
Only conversation
hollow in its lack
of pulse beat
echoes through it.
Too much of our world
absent from the other parts.
Too many empty chambers
with great sound systems.
Too many tapping fingers.
Waiting eyes.
Prompts today are suitcase, hollow, bring, nocturnal.
Vernacular Confusion
When he says I have puissance he means I have power.
Why must he go on like this, hour after hour?
I don’t understand his schoolbook French.
In Yiddish, I cannot tell shiksa from mensch.
I fumble with Spanish and flunked at Italian.
An onion’s an onion. When you call it scallion,
it’s all Greek to me and I don’t have the energy
to combine languages. What’s with this synergy
that creates Tex Mex, Pig Latin and Spanglish?
I have enough problems just pronouncing Anglish.
I don’t catch your meaning when you say “Que tal?”
This method of talking means nothing at all
to one not versed in languages. So, when you call,
please don’t say,”Salut!” Just say, “Howdy, y’all!”
Prompt words today are fumble, synergy, catch, puissance and method.
Remembering Grandma at Christmas
The years have chosen to abrade
the paper angel Grandma made
that year when Christmas cheer was thin,
because for weeks we were snowed in.
Even Santa ceased his action
for his reindeer had no traction.
Weeks of snow and sleet and fog
even kept the catalogue
from providing a Christmas doll
when Santa couldn’t come at all.
And so the holidays that year
did not reflect our usual cheer.
No tree, no lights, no heavenly choir,
our only heat a roaring fire.
We kids complained to Mom and Dad
and by Christmas Eve, they’d had
as much of kids as they could stand
and that’s when Grandma took a hand.
Her silver scissors nipped and flew
creating something that was new—
a Christmas angel feathery light
that floated that December night
above our heads in fire glow,
hung by a string, rotating slow
around the room with wafting wings
descending from above on strings.
And from the dark a heavenly song
prompted us to sing along.
My Grandma led, with timorous voice
that song that always was her choice:
“Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, and all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.”
One by one, we entered in,
our voices first halting and thin,
but when my Grandma chimed a bell,
our family choir began to swell
up to the ceiling, throughout the room,
dispelling darkness, cold and gloom.
Mom made cocoa on the coals
while Dad made popcorn, filling bowls
we strung on thread to deck our halls
from curtain rods to lamps to walls,
along with paper snowflakes that
twirled on their strings to tease the cat.
In the firelight’s magic glow,
they made things magical and so
every normal Christmas since,
we love our turkey and pies of mince,
Christmas presents to poke and squeeze,
bubble lights and towering trees,
but what’s most special is when Pop
puts Grandma’s angel on the top
of the tree covered in flakes
and popcorn strings the family makes.
And when we sing her special song,
if angels sing, she’ll sing along.
Drone Study
When it comes to a crunch, you’ll find he’s not there,
for he’s sleekit and stealthy and silent as air.
Indignation won’t faze him. If you say he’s to blame,
he’ll suggest you mature and get back in the game.
He won’t give you a hand when you’re down on your luck.
He’ll just say you lack courage, endurance and pluck.
If you peel back his surface, there’s not a next layer.
All out for himself, he’s not a team player.
When it comes to friendship, he hasn’t a clue.
He’ll ask for a favor, but will he help you?
It’s not likely for when it is time to repay you,
you’ll usually find he was just out to play you.
So get rid of this fellow—this slick opportunist.
It’s best if done quickly, in fact at the soonest.
How to get shed of this ultimate jerk?
Just produce a shovel and ask him to work.
Prompt words today are sleekit, silence, crunch, indignant and mature. Image by Sammy Williams on Unsplash.
Winter Doldrums
Crimson is reserved for autumn, December is spartan and white.
Frosty and slippery and frigid. Paled by the icy air’s bite.
Folks could be certified crazy for taking a walk on a day
when thermometers hit below freezing. You can freeze off your butt in that way.
Give me a balmy June morning or a sweltering hot afternoon
with a sunshade to keep me from baking and sinking away in a swoon.
It’s certainly better than winter with snowshoes and mufflers and chains.
If I’m going to have weather, I’d rather contend with spring rains.
Snow has the gross disadvantage of freezing off parts of your nose.
It means going out almost fully obscured with every part wrapped up in clothes.
I can put up with sneezing in springtime and all of the parching of summer.
Leaves falling in autumn don’t irk me, but winter is always a bummer!!!!
Prompts today are crimson, certify, frosty, spartan and reserve.
Christmas Mayhem
No holly’s hung, no lights are lit.
The whole kingdom’s in a fit.
The castle’s dark without a tree.
No decorations there to see.
Warn the palace. Call a jury.
We’re indicting them of worry.
What’s the source of their reserve?
What has quenched their Christmas verve?
What has caused the royal court’s
spirit to be out of sorts?
Is it the Prince or Queen or King
that’s robbed them of their royal zing?
One parlor maid revealed the cause
of their neglect of Santa Claus.
Their tree’s not up or decorated
because they’re all addlepated.
Reticent of jingle-jangle,
for their lights are in a tangle.
The queen’s all thumbs, the king has gout
and cannot sort his tree lights out.
The Prince is spoiled so won’t help.
They should dethrone that royal whelp.
But it’s the truth, there is no doubt
that someone has to sort them out.
Send in a tailor, schooled in string,
to come untangle everything.
Get a lumberjack to see
if he can cut them down a tree.
Hang on candy canes and balls.
Toss on their tinsel, deck their halls,
for royalty undecorated
will for sure be under-rated.
Prompts today are worry, palace, jingle, reticent and reserve. All photos courtesy of Unsplash.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 