Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

New Years Eve: Wordle 586

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New Years Eve

Scraps of mindless party chatter
whispered behind backs don’t matter.
Clink of glasses, passed hors d’ouvres,
mastering those party nerves.

Which old boyfriend is a rat?
Which college roommate got so fat?
How have you handled life so far?
What new degree? What brand of car?

Be you in hut or stately castle,
lift your glass or raise the wassail.
Quit petty talk and ribald laughter
and in the silence that comes after,

cash in on the quietude,
of this less ribald interlude
to give your thanks for what has passed
and pledge your petty gripes won’t last!

For Wordle 586 The Sunday Whirl the prompt word are: back chatter laughs glasses champ scrap cash rat handle master pass castle

Colloquy

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Colloquy

If you want to float my boat, when you speak your piece,
know when you have made your point and preserve the peace
by resisting going on once you’ve reached your peak.
It’s always best to stop and give others time to speak.

It’s often a consensus that brings matters to right.
Like oil on fire, those who know it all only ignite
conflagrations that make bringing matters to a close
impossible as they attempt their theories to impose.

As tempers flare and anger mounts and epithets are hurled,
as in a drive-by shooting, rank chaos is unfurled.
Pure reason makes its calm retreat, waiting for the day
when each one speaks and then allows others to have their say.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 585  the prompt words are: boat preserve speak resist oil fire drive fly shoot matter close right.

Moonshine, Wordle 584, Dec. 25, 2022

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Moonshine

Lustrous moonshine goddess slipping through the stars,
heading off for liaisons with Jupiter and Mars,
songs written in your honor spread moon dust in their lines.
Moonflowers crane their necks and twist upon their vines.

Eyes that scan the heavens as you grow pale and wan
grow stony charting courses where you may have gone.
At the stroke of midnight, they too will fade away—
pale bodies spread upon their cots under the moon’s faint ray.

bwarren posted these prompts on The Sunday Whirl: Wordle 584
star scan body dust follow grow stroke stony moonshine goddess song slip

Egg Carton Flowers: Art Day at Judy’s House–Wordle 582

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(Click on Photos to enlarge.)

Egg Carton Flowers: Art Day at Judy’s House

Fairy breath and greedy flush, scissors, paper glue—
they go about the mutual task of everything they do.
Twin sisters, they spill out in life, perpetually torn
apart since that rude splitting the day that they were born.

One demands the pink paint, the other requests blue—
their lips stained orange by Cheetos, fingers covered by goo.
Voices raspy with excitement, they call each other’s bluff
as their grandma hisses fondly, “Girls, that is enough!”

The yellowing sun descends to orange as they end their day
out on the back terrace where they have gone to play.
Safe now that frisky littler dogs are locked behind the screen,
they pet the Scottie’s matted hair, soothed by his gentler mien.

Inside, their older sister helps us clear away their messes.
Not the first time, right? I ask, “No, not quite,” she  confesses.
She fondly rinses paint brushes and points out the incredible—
blue fingerprints on cookies that someone had turned inedible.

The prompt words are bluff torn spill yellowing fairy breath greedy flush soothed safe hiss raspy for Wordle 583 on The Sunday Whirl
Last photo by Harriet Hart. Others by me.

When my good friend Harriet asked if I’d think up a project for her visiting grandaughters, I was pleased to have an excuse to get to know these lovely young ladies. Egg carton flowers it was!!!!

Ruins: The Sunday Whirl Wordle 581

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Ruins

The walls of my world are numb to touch.
Split with longing, they stand alone,
the only light inside, my own.

That burning flame that lit my youth
reduced to ashes, has left a gap
to which this poem is a map.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 581 prompt words are: walls world numb touch spilt longing own burning flame gap light ashes. Image of burned house by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash.

Childhood Games

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Childhood Games

Hide-and-seeker, breathing hard, pressed up against the ledge,
her tracker stealing closer around the garden hedge.
“Allie-allie-oxen-all-in-all-in-free”
releases other hiders from behind rock and tree.

Boys and girls together, playing a childhood game.
He tosses up a basketball, showing off his aim.
She braids a dainty daisy chain and lays it on his head.
He shakes it off and tosses it to ring her locks instead.

Each meadow is a jungle, each brook a raging sea
within these childhood cravings, these yearnings to run free.
That house they think is haunted and face with certain dread—
will entry show an empty room or the walking dead?

Some pleading not to open it, others saying, “pull!”
with excitement and with terror, their hearts equally full,
thrilled with excitations or with terrors fraught,
opposite emotions crowd their every thought.

Do you not remember when you felt the same?
How many other childhood games are you able to name?
Red Rover and Parcheesi, Jacks and Kick-the-can—
memories like this reveal the boy within the man.

Prompt words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle # 580 are: ledge dead chain boys doors will crave sea free games steal

Little Nightmares: For The Sunday Whirl 579

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Little Nightmares

Dreams spin and whirl and crack and spark,
little fireworks in the dark
that bring to light flashes that last,
glimpses of a far-off past
that grip our memory, strain its seams,
to creep back in and stain our dreams.
They loom above us every night,
waiting for the end of light.

Lords of dark, nightmares of wonder,
wait their turn to clutch and plunder.
Minds gone slack in slumber’s whirl,
they enter in to clutch and curl,
smothering pleasant thoughts of day,
inviting past regrets to play
through our minds, to live anew
little foibles seen in review.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 579 prompt words today are: spin, creep, loom, whirl, crack, light, grip, stain, curl, glimpse, slack, lord, wonder

The Nature of True Friendship: Wordle 577 for The Sunday Whirl

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The Nature of True Friendship

Guard yourself from thoughtless friends
with egos based on their own ends
who won’t forgive your need to grow
in areas where they won’t go.

The pot calling the kettle black,
they say that loyalty you lack,
not trusting that new paths you find
do not mean you’ll leave them behind.

That willow’s breath of inspiration
brought to us by education
shifts our focus here and there,
like a hound who sniffs the air

and desiring game of a new kind,
forsakes old spoor to track the hind.
But, given time to track and roam,
returns back to his hearth and home.

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl this week are: yourself guard trust pot thought kind  ego focus end forgive. Image by Jessica Anderson on Unsplash.

The Elopement: Wordle 571 for The Sunday Whirl, Sept 25, 2022

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Elopement

The sky liquid amber and the hills mushroom brown,
we sail on love’s vapors right over the town.
Once we felt dirty, but now we feel free,
released from the rules learned at the knee
of parents who left us with nothing but scars
of guilt over kisses in back seats of cars.

We vow to forget all we’ve heard of their lies
as we flee solid earth to escape through the skies.
What was once key we admit has no power
as passion bursts out to bud and then flower.
Those flickers of guilt we shed as we fly,
leaving mere earth to soar up to the sky.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 571 the prompts are: mushrooms key liquid admit dirty felt flicks hear  amber solid  Image: Marc Chagall’s “Over the Town.”

Lalibela: For Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568

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Lalibela

I kiss the map where memories lie in the vast stillness of the past.
Your broad laugh silenced so long ago that no remnants of it last.
What I had felt and hoped to see mirrored on your joyful face
was demonstrated as you drew me into our first long embrace.

Sparrows swoop those ancient halls where we loved and laughed and talked,
but only whispers of our love echo the chambers where we walked.
That holy place where we first kissed—the ancient pulpit that we found
buried deep within the earth—religious zeal gone underground.

Corridors carved from living stone that could not check the carver’s zeal
foretold my resolution to resist denying what I feel
so many long years afterwards, when lacking sense and reason,
I remember those short months when love bloomed out of season.

 

Prompt words for Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 568 are: sparrows vast stillness hope face silent check pulpit lack whisper kiss map