Tag Archives: the daily spur

Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering: My First Two Excuses.

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Lack of Willpower During the Coronavirus Sequestering:
My First Two Excuses

I’ ve run out of storage for all the provender
I bought in advance, thinking chances were slender
that in a month there’d be staples enough.
I thought that the going was going to get tough.

So with my freezer full and no cupboard space free,
the only place left to store food in is me.
I forage on fudge and I’m gorging on chips—
storing them here on my waist and my hips.

Please come to my rescue. I’m tortured by guilt.
Last year at this time I was pleasantly built,
but this forced isolation obliterates “no”
as an answer to chocolate and cookie dough.

You may be amused by my failure at coping,
but I am not drinking and I am not doping.
It isn’t my fault. I’m a victim of fate.
It’s my body that’s yearning to assimilate

cookies and candies and pastas and pies.
It’s my body’s fault that I’ve grown a size.
With no one to stop me, I’ve just given in.
I guess you’d describe me as formerly thin!

Words for the day are rescue, torture, obliterate, assimilate and amused.

A Penny for Your Thoughts (Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

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A Penny for Your Thoughts 
(Love in the Time of Coronavirus)

A penny for your thoughts, my dear, in this time of recession.
They’re only worth a pittance, since you’re in deep depression—
perhaps the worst since man evolved from the primordial slime.
If I cared less, I’d offer zilch, but now is not the time
to be looking for bargains, with your love so newly won.
If only we could ditch our masks and have a little fun—
a little kiss, a little hug, a cuddle and a snuggle—
it might be easier to woo without these rules to juggle.
But from day-to-day, I fear, we never can know whether
we’ll spend the day alone again or spend the day together. 
So here’s a penny for your thoughts. Oh hell, it’s worth a nickel
to know whether your heart is true or if it has turned fickle.
It’s been said before that absence makes the heart grown fonder.
I wonder if you feel the same sequestered over yonder.

Prompt words today are zilch, slime, newly, pittance and depression.

 

At Sixes and Sevens

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At Sixes and Sevens

East is east and west is west,
but some say north and south are best.
Thoughts on this are bound to vary.
Righteous folks from Tucumcari
say the south is best, whereas,
folks from Chicago say no town has
Chicago’s flair and wit and jazz.

Rancorous California folk
think East Coast people are a joke,
whereas upper class New Yorkians
crack jokes about the Kavorkians.
Ordinarily, I’d say
that I’m a gal who’d  like to stay
out of the north-south-east-west fray.

But when it comes to the siesta,
Mexico must be the besta.
That’s south, if New York’s home to you,
but north if you are from Peru.
Thus, this bit of wisdom I’d like to give:
Direction’s always relative
to where on Earth you choose to live!!!

 

Prompt words today are siesta, ordinary, rancor, righteous and east.

With Science

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con·science:  Origin Middle English (also in the sense ‘inner thoughts or knowledge’): via Old French from Latin conscientia, from conscient- ‘being privy to’, from the verb conscire, from con- ‘with’ + scire ‘know’.

With Science

This word conscience–that pull from deep within us to do what’s right for the world? If we look at the original meaning of the root word “con,” it means  “with science or knowledge.”  And if science is the study of the natural world, then look to nature to understand yourself. Be cognizant of the fact that we are interdependent. Begin to hear the echoes of your own well-being in the state of nature. It uses what ammunition it can to bring its truths to our notice: flood, fire, more violent hurricanes, a rise in temperature, Coronavirus.

As much as we search for truth in the laboratory, it is in the wilderness that we find our answers. We cannot create anything except from the materials of nature, for that is all there is. We are a part of it, not its end. In choosing to blithely destroy the patterns of nature, we destroy ourselves.

Prompt words for today are wilderness, cognizant, begin, conscience and echoes.

Biker Wedding

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Biker Wedding

Though I’m just your uncle and backward at that,
I’m exceedingly fond of my sister’s sweet brat.
I hear there’s a  biker you’re eager to wed
and though I’d suggest  a nice banker instead,
I’m here not to alienate, but advise
(since I am your kin who’s most apt to be wise.)

Instead of a veil you’ll be wearing your patches
and learning his lingo by listening to snatches
of biker bar gossip and those conversations
spawned over road talk and major libations.
You’ll be in your flannels and Kevlar-lined denim
(I’m sure that no bride ever looked better in ’em.)

You’ll whisper “I do” and then exchange your patches
before you head out for a ride down to Natchez.
But, first things being first, you have asked me to aid
in getting your wedding invitations made.
I’ve checked out your spelling. The words are all fine.
Only the printing may be out of line.

Though responsible service may not be impossible,
are you quite sure that leather is embossable?

Prompt words today are uncle, alienate, backward, responsible and service.

Hisssstory

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Hisssstory

He oozed into the room with a sibilant sigh,
scraping up cobwebs as he slithered by.
The risks of survival for this little guy
I must admit would not be very high.
He’d end up on a spit or perhaps in a pie
if it weren’t for one factor, and I’ll tell you why.
This is where all of his courage must lie:
for if he embedded his fangs in your thigh,
you would have to act quickly or else you might die.
That’s why he is joyous though just an inch high,
and why he soars by with a gleam in his eye.

 

In case you are interested in what sort of snake this is, HERE is an earlier post I made about it. Thanks to Forgottenman for reminding me about it.

Prompt words for the day are sibilant, risk,joy, courage and survival.

The Comfort of Old Men

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Photo by Jan Abellan for Unsplash. Used with permission

The Comfort of Old Men

Children are sleeping sound in their beds,
inured to the missiles launched over their heads.
They’re used to the discipline of a cruel world
where bullets are served when the flag is unfurled.

They call it allegiance their country to serve
Old men sit at tables displaying their nerve
by setting out battle plans whereby the young
provide the chests where the medals are hung

that they earn facing death so the old men can gain
more gold that the young men pay for with their pain.
They posture and pose. They salute and they brag.
They call it a privilege serving your flag,

but none of the old face the bullets and fire.
It is not the aged men marked to expire.
Their rigors of battle are all of the head.
None twist to the impact of napalm or lead,

but war’s golden rewards are amassed in their pockets.
Munitions and guns and bullets and rockets
are the fruit of their plunder and part of the fun
they will buy from the profit they make from each gun.

This generation’s blood sweat and tears
will pay for the yachts of the rich and the gears
of the factories smudging the skies with their waste.
Air chokes on their vapors, the oceans all taste

their lethal remainders and sicken and die.
We have poisoned our water, our earth and our sky.
What is left once the old men have all had their say?
They will live life in splendor and the future will pay.

Prompt words for today are inure, twist, golden, privilege and discipline.

Jumping to Conclusions

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Photo by Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Jumping to Conclusions

She’s a lady of distinction. You can tell it by her walk,
in her whole deportment—her manners and her talk.
It seems it is a given, since she has a lot of dough
just where, in November, her vote is bound to go.
She lies back on her chaise, even graceful while recumbent,
but quickly springs erect when you mention the incumbent.  
If you ask her about politics, she’s apt to tell the truth.
She will not give allegiance to the stupidly uncouth.

 

Prompt words today are distinction, apt, allegiance and walk.

America’s Burning

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America’s Burning

Count the faces. Take a tally
of the peaceful protest rally.
Their routine is most well-planned,
masks in place, placards in hand.

Enter police. Down on belly!!!
Enter newscasters for telly.
Teargas in the people’s park.
Truckloads arrive after dark.

Rioting and smashing glass.
Other dark deeds come to pass.
Using protest for excuse
to bring discord and spread abuse.

Violence becomes routine.
Authority a cruel machine.
A whole nation comes to grieve
the loss of what most folks believe.

An orange bigot, Bible raised,
pontificates, posturing, crazed.
A landmark of our country’s pride,
struck by a flash as freedom died.

Has our nation come to this?
This puffed-up, prideful bag of piss?
Shame on a country who listens to
a fool who’s rotten through and through.

Let sane men take the lead  and bring
some sanity to everything.
Equality and fairness reign
under a government more sane.

People stand up. Demand the best.
Do not give up. We cannot rest.
Seize back the country we have sold
to men who only care for gold.

Give succor to the halt and lame.
Do not play the money game
subsidizing rich man’s greed
instead of helping those in need.

Color is just an outer skin
and not a mark of shame or sin.
Use these sad times to make a start
to start to recognize the heart

that unites men from every nation,
every interest, every station.
Save our earth and save mankind.
Restore justice, and make her blind!!

Prompt words today are belly, landmark, grieve, rally and routine. I swore I’d write about something other than the rallies and violence that are tearing at the flesh of the whole world, but impossible to follow these prompt words anywhere except back to the current matters at hand.

Adulation and Lamentation

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Adulation and Lamentation

Held captive by your luscious smile, I state the total truth
when I say you are perfection, both in lip and tooth!
Your hair’s no less than gossamer. Your figure scores a ten.
No greater beauty’s lauded by any poet’s pen.
 
Thanks to both your parents for creating such perfection.
Hereafter we must ostracize beauty of less confection.
It’s clear they scored a victory when they created you,
so why stop at one instead of making us a few?

 

Prompt words for the day are luscious, thanks, victory, ostracize and captive.