Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

Tick-Tock, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 729

15 Replies
My Grandmother’s clock

Tick-Tock

Back when there was magic,
before the world was broken,
in my childhood’s comfy nest,
the major language spoken
is remembered as a ghost of words
blown in on a breeze.
Life was one great treasure,
set out for us to seize.

The last war newly over, 
the news of the time
seemed to tell of happenings
peaceful and benign.
No need for bomb shelters
or ICE or interventions.
My childhood passed most peacefully,
mainly free of tensions.

Time seemed to drag on slowly
from birthday to Halloween.
There seemed to be a hundred years
between toddler and teen.
But now that I am 78, life whizzes by as though
it’s making up for all those years when it passed by so slow.
And peace that in my innocence I thought would always last
has become just a memory of an idyllic past.

 

 

 

for The Sunday Whirl 729  the prompt words are: magic back broken nest seems drag news breeze life ghost need tell

New Führer, for The Sunday Whirl

Leave a reply

Getty Image

Given the task of writing with no set prescribed topic, my mind always goes to stories of the past. It serves them up like medicine—a treasured dose that blows away the control of a world too bent on bad news. They trigger gratitude for a simpler world that had recently dispensed with Hitler’s threat. Our country had regained control of the world, along with a union of nations bent on peace and the worth of every man, no matter what color or nationality or faith—practices seventy years later again considered something to prompt a shooting match with bigger guns as a new führer (this time our own) practices his strength, his guns aimed at whom? Next time, perhaps you. Perhaps me.

Words for the Sunday Whirl were: serve medicinal gratitude mind triggers blow control shoot practice treasure you stories

Dream Diary for The Sunday Whirl

6 Replies

 

Dream Diary

Tattered strips of memory are so easily forgotten,
be they draped in velvet or wound in filmy cotton.
Yet moments revealed in our dreams may spin us back in time
to an earlier period when we were in our prime.
The sound track of our dreaming, be it jazz or rock or rap
be it lullaby or roar, may serve us as a map
putting us in touch with times we’ve chosen to forget—
showing just the tip of an iceberg we’d regret
to see the submerged truth of, preferring to recall
just what we have chosen, not remembering it all.

 

 

Words for the Sunday Whirl are: draped moment velvet reveal tips jazz touch back roar filmy strips forgotten

Graffiti, for The Sunday Whirl

17 Replies

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

Graffiti

Some viewers lift their glasses and drink to genius that
gave birth to every brush stroke. Each dribble and each splat.
They say these shocking images awaken us to see
much more than just one artist’s route to immortality.

Others blame the artist who has had the gall
to spray art uninvited upon a public wall.
They say raw art does nothing to put out raging fires.
Solutions to world problems are not what art inspires.

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: drinks fire wake catastrophe shocking say social drastic world art raw blame

Minds Like Mine, for The Sunday Whirl, Sept 14, 2025

6 Replies

Minds
like mine
are bound to
slip away into the
swells, blown away
through cracks in time
to  where a poem dwells.
Fans of verse   may lure me
into sitting on a  fence picking
bones of words that together make
no sense. I sort them into towers, then
grasp more words to  build trapped words
in frosted pyramids with messages well-chilled.

The Sunday Whirl words are: bound slip swells fan luring fence cracks bone tower frosted trap grasps

The photo, taken by me, is of a snow-covered venting volcano.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 721, Aug 31, 2025

2 Replies

Lady in Waiting

A rush of faith has roosted somewhere in her heart––
a spot where shame has luckily never had a start.
But now her heart beats wildly, blood rushing to that place
where passion peaked, but oh too soon, was forced to slow its pace.
An orb of moon projects a strip of light across the road 
by which he has departed to search out the Motherlode,
trading riches of the heart in an action bold.
Her ruby lips forsaken in his quest for gold.
Somewhere on the fringe he wanders in his search,
as her faith roosts steadfastly, on its accustomed perch.

 

 

Prompt Words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle are: roosted fringe strip orb ruby rush beat shame faith peaks spot heart

First Flight Jitters, for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 720, Aug 24, 2025

4 Replies

 

 

First Flight Jitters

He lingers on the runway, doing a little dance
as though he has a virus living in his pants.
Bounds right up the plane steps, wishing they were shorter,
reaches in his pocket and tips the stew a quarter.
Rugged he-man that he is, he cannot veil his terror
over the coming takeoff, for he is is no brave wayfarer.
He quavers as he finds his seat, hoping that it’s right.
Notes its number on his ticket , listed just under his flight.
His fear of flying preys on him, his hands and shoulders shaking.
The papers in his suit pocket are rustling with his quaking.
When the plane lifts off the ground, he fears that he is dying.
The next time, he will take a train. No more will he be flying,

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle the prompt words are: virus dance name note lingers runway rugged quaver paper prey veil wish

“Life” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 719, Aug 17, 2025

11 Replies

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: spiral craft signal draft shallow rule dense send shell sham slapping laugh

“Family Stories” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 718, Aug 10, 2025

11 Replies

Ben Dykstra (My dad) age 13.

Family Stories

My father’s stories were not tales of moral principles or prophecy,
but rather reenactments of his roots—
tales of the open endless prairie
and the characters who peopled it.
Mirrors reflecting what seemed to me
to be a distant past:
forays to neighboring town dances
(told in the voice of  Deafie Sterner)
to “See the leetle women.”

Tales of Hank Jarneck, Cousin Louie
and Grandma’s liniment cake.
Accounts of gray wolves, prairie fires,
children lost in winter blizzards
and reenactments of the  voices of the wind
whistling through wall planks
and around the door during a winter blizzard.

In those days of my childhood before travel,
they presented a way to journey through time—
leading me back to my father’s roots—
allowing him to make those memories last
through another generation.
The debris of his life’s past
thus building the foundation
of mine.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 718 the words are: voices time story debris present
lead doors roots prophecy last mirror

“Souvenirs” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 717, Aug 3, 2025

8 Replies

 

Souvenirs

Not all souvenirs are ones that we can touch––
statues, postcards, T-shirts, baskets, rings and such.
We buy such things to crack the windows to the past
to try to free those memories that we know won’t last.
Yet memory itself is a siren that can free
remembrance in melodies that we cannot see
except in mental echoes that come wave after wave,
showing us for free what our mind chooses to save.
Whether they prompt nostalgia to excite or soothe or sting,
deep within our minds are souvenirs of everything.

 

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 717, the prompt words are: souvenirs free touch know cracks siren window waves sting show ring give. Image by Bianca Ackerman on Unsplash.