Tag Archives: the daily spur

Avarice

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Avarice

The clutching maw of avarice devours everything,
like a furnace, burning up all that life might bring.

Alas, there is no medicine to curb its constant need—
for its constant hunger and its consistent greed.

It’s hollow heart cannot  recall what loving may be for,
so when love is given, it just calls out for more

without using what’s been given by returning it in kind—
never using its own heart for what it was designed.

Pity those who take and take without ever giving,
never fully realizing all the joys of living.

 

 

Prompts today are furnace, hollow, avarice, pity and medicine.
Image by Meg Jerrad on Unsplash.

Prediction

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Prediction

In the family photo, Auntie stands with arms akimbo,
glancing over sideways at my cousin’s latest bimbo.
One cultured eyebrow raised and her disgust so thinly veiled,
there’d probably be a small explosion if only she exhaled.

Uncle’s blind to everything and stands with grin on face,
unmindful of his youngest son’s ultimate disgrace.
He has had a little turkey and a great amount of wine
and thinks his son’s new girlfriend is exceptionally fine.

My cousin looks besotted and the girl looks fine to me,
though she wears a lot of makeup and shows a lot of knee.
But if my cousin marries her, I’m sure it will be fine.
With Auntie as her drill sergeant, she’ll soon fall into line.

She’ll polish and distill her ’til the flavor is all gone,
bleed out all her color ’til she’s fashionably wan.
Then, just like Uncle Marty, Cousin Jeb will start to stray,
looking for fresh pastures when the old one turns to hay.

Prompts today are akimbo, everything, culture, veiled and uncle. Disclaimer: the  real lady attached to these legs and shoes is anything but a bimbo–a smart, cool lady. Photo is for illustration purposes only.

Expiration Date

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Expiration Date

Love is a narcotic that makes us think we’re wise-—
nature’s slick conspiracy for matching girls and guys.
It hangs around in barrooms, obscured in eyes and talk,
and before you know it, it makes you walk the walk
down rose-petaled aisles on your way to say “I do,”
in something new or borrowed and something old and blue.

Then love becomes a train wreck, beginning with the pastor
and continuing through daily life until the last disaster
when “I do” becomes “I won’t,” and all love’s vows once-spoken
wind up in love’s dump heap—abandoned, crushed and broken.
Blame it all on Cupid, that chubby little liar,
who never warns us that our love is likely to expire.

Prompt words for today are conspiracy, guys, narcotic, wreck and talk. Image by Niki Sanders on Unsplash.

Holiday Reprieve

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Holiday Reprieve

Do you approach with trepidation
all this Christmas titillation?
When all its plans start to congeal—
the presents, decorations, meal,
all the usual preparations
and the usual perturbations—
perhaps you need to curb frustration
by taking off on a vacation.

Life is short. Don’t hesitate
if you’ve no wish to celebrate.
So much of Christmas’s elation
is a mere regurgitation
of the things, year after year,
we’ve done to try to raise some cheer.
If neither presents opened nor
those Yule carolers at your door
bring you peace and joy and cheer
even at this time of year,

more ways than one to cook a goose.
Open the cage and let him loose,
then pack a bag and take off, too,
to Zanzibar or Katmandu.
Go find a place that is less spangled,
simpler and less Xmas-angled.
Go examine life’s ecologies,
and I’ll make your apologies.

Prompts today are life, congeal, usual, trepidation and celebrate.

Helpers Needed to Organize Studio and Garage!!!

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Black onyx and white enamel pin found in my grandmother’s drawer and given to me by her, along with assorted finds..collected to be assembled into a retablo

I’m sure you want to see all this clutter close up. To do so, click on photos and arrows!! Does anyone need a never-used reverse osmosis system?

Helpers Needed to Organize Studio and Garage!!!

Rummage, rummage, mutter, mutter,
being buried by my clutter.
Do you know some agile sorters
who can straighten out my quarters?
I need helpers on the ball
who can divide and sort it all.
And before I ossify,
I’ll sit here and just bossify!!!

 

I really do have an organization scheme for my art studio, but this couple of years of frenetic activity there during Covid and to get ready for my November show have made me pull things out of storage–and once things are put back into their accustomed space, I somehow need to find more space there . And, need to get the lamps rewired and out of there!

My garage looks organized, but I have teaching files in there from 1971-1981 (when I quit teaching) and my Dad’s ranch records and tax returns from the 1950’s through 1974, when he passed away. Also, every letter anyone has ever sent me and every note passed to me in high school, along with class notes from college classes. How can I throw them away? What if the minute I do, I need them? All  of those fruit crates need to be broken down into slats to wait for Covid to ease so I can use them in art projects with the kids.  Too much, too many. I know.

 

Prompt words today are clutter, recommend, agile, ossify and ball.

A Cautionary Tale

Please click on photos to enlarge and read the tale.

Boats were nestled in among the water hyacinth.
After initial problems stepping into the muck to get into the boat, all started out smoothly enough.
Could it possibly have been due to a series of impossibly low mangrove limbs that because of the high water were only inches above the top edge of our boat? Yes, indeed, we went under at least four trees like this that extended completely across the channel, as well as a low-hanging footbridge. And then got to repeat the experience on the way back. For now, trips through the mangroves are definitely not for sissies. We earned our gin and tonics that night!!! (Look again, now. All of those low-lying trunks of trees pictured were ones we had to fit under!


A Cautionary Tale

As you paddle down life’s dreams, 
beware of hazards in its streams.
Currents quicken and their speed
may your expertise exceed.

Beware of whirlpools or of bogs,
floating hazards: moss and logs.
All the pretty scenery—
the mountains, flowers, greenery,

might distract you from the task,
so this one promise I must ask.
Agog with all of life’s sweet treasures,
please mind the thorns within its pleasures.

Prompt words today are paddle, hazard, quicken, agog and speed.

I’ve shown these photos before, but they fit in so well with the theme of this new poem that I just had to use them again.

Last Leaf

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Last Leaf

I’m losing all my scruples, in fact, it’s true. I sold
my gram’s old cornucopia, so lovely and so old.
If this is a measurement of how I’ve come to scorn
all those family heirlooms to which I have been born,
I guess I must admit you’re right.  Something inside of me
has made me forsake memories of the family tree.

Too many leaves have fallen. That tree is stripped and bare,
and those family treasures all show such signs of wear
that seeing them depresses me, thinking of all the hands
that they have been passed  down from, and all the foreign lands
they have been transported through to make their way to me—
the single stubborn leaf that clings persistently

to the branch they all were part of before their final fall,
so now I am the final remnant of them all.
That’s why I’m selling all the things that bind me to their line,
refining my possessions down to what’s just mine,
shedding off my past in a selling spree frenetic,
thinking if I rid myself of all those ties genetic,

that perhaps the past that draws me will lose its hold on me
and that giving up what joins us will finally set me free.
Then I’ll flutter here forever, almost weightless on my branch,
hopeful that this freedom of possessions is a chance
to become immortal, unencumbered by the vast
downward force of  gravity that pulls me from the past.

Today’s prompts are scruple, sold, measurement, cornucopia. I‘ve been waking up earlier and earlier with the result being that some of the prompts are not yet posted, so one of these prompts is a prompt I missed earlier in the week for the same reason and another prompt seems to have stopped posting, so  I am minus one prompt. if anyone reading this knows of a different prompt site, I’m looking for another one. Ones I’ve been using are Ragtag Daily Prompt, Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, The Daily Spur, Word of the Day Challenge and Your Daily Word.

Protected Zone

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Protected Zone

Our new pet’s experimental—
its domain an environmental
zone that’s been declared protected
ever since the kids detected
the cobweb that is stretched out there
between the wall and etagere.

The spider that constructed it—
every gossamer sticky bit—
and its process of mastication
is the object of much fascination.
Though I’d like to be done with it,
the kids have too much fun with it.

The spider, finished with its knitting,
spends the rest of its time sitting
surveying new bugs caught in it,
then eating what they’ve got in it.
And though I find this plot most grim,
it seems it’s more than just a whim.

We’ve been told we’re not to maul it
since Sis found a name to call it.
And that is why we’ve been adjusting
areas that we’ve been dusting,
and the web that’s stretched from shelf to picture
has become a permanent fixture.

Prompt words today are cobwebs, experimental, maul and picture.

Also, for dVerse Poets Open Link.

The Afterlife

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The Afterlife

When it comes to thinking about the afterlife,
differing opinions are likely to run rife.
Norse warriors were rewarded by a ticket to Valhalla.
Muslims aspire to Jannah after judgement day by Allah.
In order to prepare for it, a Catholic confesses,
hoping to atone in time for all his Earthly messes.

A protestant believes in heaven but not in confessing.
He deals with sins within his prayers and leaves his preacher guessing
about what he’s been up to, storing misdeeds in his head,
atoning for his weaknesses in private, before bed.
He fears if he’s a sinner or a selfish reprobate,
access might be denied to him at the pearly gate.

Atheists are cavalier, not needing a solution
to the ills they do on Earth, fearing no retribution.
The good they do in life is not for heavenly reward.
The charity they practice, done of their own accord.
Whether there’s an afterlife, they don’t pretend to know.
Comminatory actions limited to life below.

Afterlife or not, however, animals don’t worry.
They graze and swim and procreate, swim and fly and scurry,
unaware there’s anything wrong in what they do.
They do not pray on bended knee nor frequent any pew.
They live the lives they’re given, just following their nature,
not fretting over afterlives of any nomenclature.

 

Prompts today are afterlife, cavalier, coalesce, comminatory and weakness.

Marriage of Mind

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Marriage of Mind

You weave between the spaces that the world has left—
The filler to my emptiness, the warp to all my weft.
I’m made stronger by your presence. You always have my back—
solving all my puzzles and lessening the flak
of the world’s abuses in between its pleasures.
You share its grief just as you’ve helped me celebrate its treasures.
We weave a pretty story, devoid of plan or theme.
We play the game together without joining any team.
Our story is unwritten. It’s not epic or historical.
The union that I talk about is merely metaphorical.

Prompt words today are team, weft, flak, historical and abuse.