Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

Day of Reckoning for The Sunday Whirl

Leave a reply
A cold hungry dawn ate up the darkness, allowing light to stream in. It was to be a day of reckoning. Evil would f nally be overcome by righteousness, folly with good fortune. There would be few casualities save for the profit margins of those who had long been complicit in bleeding the country dry. Interest rates would drop, gas prices plunge and a new phase begin where rich and poor would blend to reach some middle ground of affluence, shrinking that difference that had flourished in the two recent administrations of graft and corruption.
The Sunday Whirl: Wordle 775 prompts were:casualties phase profit drop folly cold hungry dawn complicit evil stream reckoning

“Grab Bag” for The Sunday Whirl

3 Replies

Grab Bag

A firm wind blows the words around.
It cares not where they go.
They spiral here around my head,
where I seem to know
which words are worth saving
and which should blow away
for someone else to use them
to say what they must say.
Words may be used for good or vice––
either to wound or heal.
The world cares not, it seems to me,
to steer an even keel
when it delivers words to us.
It’s up to us to pluck
the words that form our poetry
and which of them to duck.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 774, the prompt words are: firm vice world wind cares someone worth wound word here seem spiral 

The Sunday Whirl Wordle 773, Sep 6, 2026

5 Replies

Midnight Fantasy

Filtered clouds like plumes of smoke above us gently flow
while threads of mosses weave a layered fabric far below––
filling forest cracks with ruffled tufts of green
that cushion midnight footsteps through this magic scene.

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: plumes tufts mosses fantasy fabric filtering threads forest cracks layer ruffle flow. (Image created with AI)

“Moonshadows” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 772

4 Replies

Moonshadows

The moon casts silver shadows across my pebbled way.
Stones echoing the velvet recesses where they lay.
My heart follows no compass as it weaves its random path.
No drone marks its progress or charts its vagrant math.
A clipped leaf dries upon my chest where it has been thrust
and slowly, in the evening wind, turns from green to rust.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 772  the prompt words are:
velvet compass echo random rust silver shadow pebble stone drone clip dry

“Sole Survivor” For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 771

8 Replies

 

Sole Survivor

The colors flow early, stirring the air,
waves churning stray strands to mix in her hair.
She stands in her spot behind the large cake,
not sure if she is asleep or awake.
Sincere salutations buzz in her ears.
Until all of a sudden, the truth reappears.
She sits at her table, alone and forlorn.
on this 95th year of the day she was born.

For  The Suday Whirl Wordle 771, the prompts are: waves cake strays strand churning spot buzz colors sudden flow early stirring

Night for Day

4 Replies

 

Me, at age 2, journeying into inner spaces.

Night for Day

Night holds me like a basket, shaping answers to my dreams
as all the truths my days have taught leak out of me in streams.
One reality of heart chanting truths that stay,
while truths of badges, guns and sirens slowly pulse away.
Our startled world thus vanishes and for some hours dies
as sleep sweeps over us and soothes day’s agonies with sighs.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle, the word prompts are: siren chanting pulse sighs night basket answers heart shape badge stay

Netherworld Chorus, for The Sunday Whirl

2 Replies

Netherworld Chorus

Bone needles weave the cord that draws us to the underworld–
that pit of desolate terrors where sorrow is unfurled,
in pleas for absolution–– futile as they are  crazed ––
expressed in screams of torment by voices that are raised
in spirals toward a populace just currently recruited
to those nether regions to which they, too, are better suited–
that temple where they’ll have, they think, leisure to simply sin
without blame or sanction, but instead, will join the din.
If my words have sparked your interest, you might come along
to furnish us a chorus  for our infernal song.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 768, the words are: screams desolate they’bone sparks s voices  underworld spiral  current. (Illustration made with assistance from AI.)

“Daily News” for the Sunday Whirl Wordle

2 Replies

 

Daily News

Voices from the underworld weave in spirals through my dreams
like a current passing through my bones, prompting silent screams
that echo through the temples of my former faith,
their desolate chambers now the home of this hopeless wraith.
Sparks of past enlightenment now simply shed sparse light
in this pit of loneliness whose shadows fade to night.
What dreams may I yet follow to light my upward path
Dispelling enough darkness to cancel out my wrath?

for the Sunday Whirl Wordle #768, the prompt words are: screams desolate temples bone sparks pit voices follow underworld spiral weave current

“Successful Crossing” For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767

9 Replies

 

Successful Crossing

I crossed the wilds, my staff in hand,
the first to conquerl this wild land.
My hood in place to combat the sun,
I would not stop until I’d done
the task I’d set to cross this space
that had been the burial place
of so many, from first to last,
who had found their lot was cast
as they had tried, only to find
the task to be a hopeless grind:
trails split by crevasses deep and wide,
cliff ledges with no room to slide
back to cliff, from right to left
across the mountain’s mighty cleft.
As said before, so many failed––
died in the act, or merely bailed.
Only I succeeded, by machination
to cross in my imagination.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767 the prompt words are: wild cross left staff last split burial grind space land room hood

School Reunion for The Sunday Whirl

15 Replies

Back row: Patti Dykstra Arnieri, Val Lecke Halla, Ed Jackson
Front row: Mick Penticoff, Judy Dykstra-Brown and Mick’s granddaughter Melissa

School Reunion

Wind strums the grass
around the Dakota town
where we gather under a prairie sky.

Back home again after sixty years
all the world  constricted to this gymnasium––
forgotten friends are again remembered,
denied loves again brought to mind.

Folklore of the past is stirred up to reveal new truths
as facts and rumors buzz around our heads
like bees that store old stories like honey,
then lie fallow to be stirred up again in 5 years.

We leave each other again, then,
for one more time,
wondering with departing sighs
whether pleas to keep in touch
will be remembered.

For The Sunday Whirl, the prompt words are: home world denied bees pleas forgotten folklore wonder fallow sigh sky strum

I am riding home from my 2-day school reunion in South Dakota as I write this poem wherein I’ve added the restriction of making use of the twelve prompt words above. It was the best reunion ever–the 61st year after my high school graduation, but since the all-school reunions (meaning they are for every class who ever graduated from the school)  for the tiny high school I attended are staged only every 5 years, it was only my 12th reunion, not all of which I’ve been able to attend. It was, however, the best one to date.  (But then my sister says I say that every time.) This time there were lots of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of schoolmates who attended and it was wonderful to see these additions to their lives and continuations of their stories.

More Photos: Reunion Parade combined with 250 year celebration..Horsemen with flags of all 50 states. Photo by Patti Arnieri.