Tag Archives: the daily spur

The One Thuosand Dollar Error

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The One Thuosand Dollar Error

It was duplicitous lithography that landed him in jail,
for he found the thousand dollar bill impossible to nail.
Mr. Cleveland’s mustache was a bit askew,
and he messed up the order of the “o” and “u.”

And even though he crows about his quality of paper,
sure he could subsist for life just on this one bold caper,
the first bill that he tried to pass put him in a cell.
If you’re going to be a counterfeiter, best you learn to spell!

 

Word prompts today are crow, duplicitous, lithography subsist and paper.

Bridge Game

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Bridge Game

Free from any adversary, safe from all deceptions,
the captain ruled his ship without yielding to exceptions.
So the cruise proceeded with ease from day to night,
and if any denizen was made to feel contrite,
it was not the captain who was made to feel the shame,
for when upon the water, he was spared from any blame
and so felt no contrition for all that he declared,
no matter how incongruous or how reason-impaired.
He was not held accountable for any misjudged thing,
for within his dominion, he was undisputed king.

 

Prompt words today are adversary, exception, cruise, contrite and safe. Image by Daniele D. Andreti on Unsplash

Cold Snap

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Cold Snap

When Autumn winds its avant course and takes its paint box out,
Winter with its probity pursues another route.
Freezing all connections between the leaves and limbs,
it snaps off all Fall’s paintings crisply at the stems.

It is as though the bourgeoisie has seized the reins at last
and expunged the riffraff artist with a single blast.
If Autumn’s the iconoclast, Winter must seal the norm
by covering its statements with a winter storm.

When Spring speaks out its message through the meadow lark,
stodgy frigid Winter ceases making its mark.
Then after Summer pales Spring’s green and dries the colors out,
it is the turn of Autumn to throw pigment about.

Season after season, the colors build and fade,
every new stage cancelling progress the last one made,
then building up its opposite thinking it might win,
not seeing life’s a painting that all of them are in.

 

Prompt words for today are autumn, course, bourgeoisie, probity and speaker.

The Perfect Man

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The Perfect Man

I know from what his kind is cast.
He’s fearless as he is steadfast.
He does not vaunt his strength or looks,
excels at sports and reads good books.

Sexy and mysterious, 
he’s musically serious—
motivated from within
to play a wicked violin.

He is as solid as a rock.
Nobody needs to wind his clock.
And yet I had to choose another,
for, alas, he is my brother!!!

Prompt words today are fearless, steadfast, digitally, vaunt and wind. Photo by Silas Tolles on Unsplash.

Ill-Matched

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Ill-matched

The oscillation of her mind, intuitive to rational
from personal creations to political themes national
gave her husband mental whiplash. He barely could keep up.
He found her more exhausting than a brand new pup.

As she sat there prattling, he sat there like a stone.
Her frequency of chatter made him want to be alone.
Poor fellow just could not keep up. He had a mind more staid.
He pondered each new thought he had. Opinions must be weighed!

Meanwhile, her thoughts flew here and there, her mind much more creative.
She formed opinions quickly, while his mind was more debative.
How this couple got together was a matter of derision.
Their union, all their friends agreed, must have been her decision.

 

Prompt words today are stone, poor, intuitive, oscillation, frequency, intuitive and grand. Photos by Brooke Cagle and Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

Lost

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Lost

When he said that he would lead the way, she meekly fell behind,
for to point out his meandering she felt would be unkind.
The luxuriant undergrowth clung to them in their passing,
the creeks they crossed edulcorating all they were amassing
in pants cuffs and in pockets: burrs and and leaves and pollen,
as he led the way through ditches and over trees fresh-fallen.

And though he seemed decisive, she knew that they were lost.
She followed to preserve his pride, but at what a cost?
Each quirky decision led them more astray
as she followed in his footsteps even though she knew the way.
When they finally reached their cabin, a shower, brush and comb
would eradicate the proof that they took the long way home!

Prompt words are luxuriant, decisive, quirky, edulcorate (to free or purify by washing) and leading. Photos by Joshua Woroniecki and Kurt Liebhaeuser on Unsplash.

And here is my favorite Tom Waits song, “The Long Way Home.”  Seems appropriate to include it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCk-f03o6aA

Peckish

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Peckish

Just a slight off-center peck on each proffered cheek
is all urbane society ever seems to seek.
First at “Hello,” then “Goodbye,” it’s only a dry token
of all  of the emotion that might be shown or spoken.

It’s as though a more demonstrative form of recognition,
some heartfelt hug or sincere words of fond admission,
some scrumptious soppy kiss on lips or action more revealing
might upset the applecart by showing our real feeling.

We love “love” in the movies or the pages of our books.
We desire seductive actions and long and smoldering looks—
kisses full of passion and genuine elation—
yet our own dry hand shakes are devoid of titillation.

I’m craving real emotion in place of mere air-kisses—
some lips that meet their mark, not just these weak near-misses.
It’s time for modern science to come up with a potion
that puts action in reaction and more motion in emotion!

 

Prompt words today are action, scrumptious, urbane, goodbye and recognition. Image by Limor Zellermayer on Unsplash.

 

Some Truths about the Jellyfish

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Some Truths about the Jellyfish

The fact is that the jellyfish
will never be a deli fish,
for when one tries to catch their goo
in nets, they’ll find it slips right through.

Their choreography includes
frequent oozing interludes,
the ramifications of this being
that the jellyfish you’re seeing

might be prone to disappear.
So for a moment he is here
and then he’s gone and over there
peering at you from his lair.

A kaleidoscope of colors that
sometimes look skinny, then look fat—
expanding to a great extent.
Shrinking and swelling is their bent

So if you seek a belly fish,
please rule out the jellyfish,
for though I know they look delicious,
they simply aren’t edible fishes.

Prompt words today are kaleidoscope, choreography, ramification and jellyfish. Photo by Maxime Bouffard downloaded from Unsplash.

Disciplinary Action

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Disciplinary Action

Lately, my life is like a fresh peach
at the end of a limb, slightly out of reach.
With an air of foreboding, I reach out to pluck it,
then choose not to pick or bite into or suck it,
fearing fate’s censure if I choose to buck it.

The joy of communion seems lately to dissipate.
Events come and go but I do not participate.
Whereas once I said, “Yes,” now I always say “No.”
The presence of friends is a joy I forego,
for there seem to be dangers wherever I go,

Bamboozled by nature, what choice do we have?
This seems like a wound for which there’s no salve.
Each of us suffers, apart and alone
as if there are sins for which we must atone,
our closest communion carried out via phone.

We sit at our windows viewing the parade
of all of the glories that nature has made.
We Skype and we Facebook, we tweet and we Zoom,
feigning good cheer as we contemplate doom,
all of us children sent to our room.

Will there be an end to this long isolation?
If we mend our ways, will there be consolation?
If we clean up our oceans and clean up our sky,
can we address our sins , having figured out  why
mankind has  been chosen to sicken and die?

Prompts for the day are foreboding, bamboozle, peach, dissipate and presence.

Total Recall

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Total Recall

The world of our grandmother has been subsumed
by modern conventions but is exhumed
when remembering the cabin where all our relations
 joined us each year for summer vacations.

Ping-pong and campfires and dunks in the lake.
Muddy dirt beaches on which we would bake
and turn brown in the sun, turning over in turns
to inspect our tan lines and moderate burns.

S’mores over campfires and mulligan stew
cooked on the coals and trips to the loo
making our way in the moonlight at night,
battling mosquitos and all things that bite.

Slapping our necks and our arms and our knees
at chiggers and ticks and horseflies and fleas.
Such glorious penance to pay for the fun
of cousins and swimming holes, horses and sun.

Vacations contemporary just don’t equal
those trips of our youth that have no modern sequel.
They live in our memories where we remember
Pleasures of July we recall in December.

 

Prompt words today are ping-pong, contemporary, cabin, subsume and grandmother.
Again, this is fiction. The camping memories were actually from church camp in the Black Hills
where I went every year. Loved it.