Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

An Apple a Day, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle, Jan 19, 2025

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An Apple A Day

Witches use them for enchantment.  Kids give them to their teachers.
Trees dangle them from tree limbs to turn passersby to reachers.
Everyone craves apples at one time in their life.
Even Adam reached for one offered by his wife.
Latchkey kids  would miss them as a snack when home from school.
We’d miss them in our stocking toes if absent from our Yule.

It would be a small catastrophe if apples were not able
to snuggle with bananas and peaches on the table
or for folks with bows and arrows to use cucumbers instead
of apples for their targets, balanced on the head
of some trusting  assistant who surely would be pissed
if that smaller target meant that the archer missed!

Wouldn’t it cause chatter? The story would take wings
It would become that ballad that everybody sings
About the gifted archer whose limits were revealed
when he struck an unplanned target which alas, has never healed!
And, alas, no catalyst has ever been suggested
to solve the riddle of just how an apple might be bested!!!

(While posting this poem, I looked for an illustration in my photo file, I finally found the photo of the cored apple I had taken in the past so I used it.  Then I went out to the beach and found this apple lodged under the support of my beach chair. How it came to be there, I have no idea. I needed an apple and nature provided! So I had to post it as well.)

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the prompt words are: enchantment latch apples chatter crave catalyst catastrophe wings gift sing miss limit

Gossip at the 50th Class Reunion, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 689, Jan 12, 2025

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Gossip at the 50th Class Reunion

The ghosts of teenage memories flutter and alight,
recalling card game  marathons that lasted through the night,
revealing ruinous secrets—spilling all the dirt.
After all these decades, how much could they still hurt?

Alluring little tattle-tales,  spinning out their webs,
sully reputations of aging former debs.
whose glittering reputations are maligned in manners ruthless,
by stories pulled out from the past that they insist are truthless.

Their former chastity like glass, cracked, broken and shattered
fifty long years afterwards–as if it even mattered!
We’ve strayed so far from our old roots, why is it we demur
when someone tries to alter what we insist we were?

Note from the author: Pure fiction, folks! Only the photo is of my real class reunion. I was led to this rhyme by the prompt words, not the past! For the Sunday Whirl Wordle the prompt words were: ruinous cards glass alluring spin dirt flutter secrets roots ghost glitters web 

“Spooks” for the Sunday Whirl Wordle Prompt, Jan 5, 2025

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1953

Spooks

As hidden as a splinter and welcomed even less,
the ghosts slip out like shadows with bedsheets for their dress.
They hide behind behind our mirrors and come out when we gaze
to edge around our shoulder as the steaming haze
from the hot water of our shower fades out and we see
a figure in the mirror that isn’t you or me.
We think when we get older they will ossify to stone
and will no longer rise to scare us when we’re all alone.
But honey, I must tell you, sure as the cock must crow,
A ghost is born to haunt you as I’m born to tell you so!

The Sunday Whirl Wordle prompts are: splinter steaming shadows old mirror rose honey crow edge gaze stone ghosts 

Prophecies, For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 687

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Just the vestiges of sunset.

Prophecies

Some say the constellations
foretell our narrow fate—
that the evils of our future
they are able to relate.

But if tea leaves swirling in a cup
can reveal the knocks and blows
of the future’s mean misfortunes,
and its undertows,

It is also true a shooting star
can predict a brighter future
as good fortune stitches up each rend
with its healing suture.

With three circles scribbled in the dirt,
I predict future glories—
a psychic precognition
of happier life’s stories.

Curses once faced and overcome,
flames doused with timely rains—
create a reckoning of ashes
that smother fire’s pains.

For The Sunday Whirl  the prompt words are: curses reckoning ashes three circles scribbled flames constellations narrow blows once future 

The first and third photos of Orion and the shooting star are public domain photos downloaded from the internet.

For Sunday Whirl Wordle 686

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This strand of freshwater pearls, knocked off the table where a beach vendor was displaying her wares to us, looked so good there,

Night Thoughts

Words strung like pearls on memory’s thread
merely repeat what has often been said.
Whispers of heartaches, sparks of regret,
prick at our senses so we’ll not forget.
Then the witching hour joins us, ringing her bell,
shaking earth from her shoes she has tracked  in from Hell.
An herbed wind shifts vines to whip overhead,
sending stray sojourners straight to their bed.
Then sweeps over cobbles, whisking away
unresolved problems of the past day.

 

For the Sunday Whirl  this week, the words are:

earth herbs cobbled vines thread spark heart whispers witches shifts pearls words

Different Strokes, For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 685.

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Different Strokes

Some strum the strings. Some scrape the bow. Some cannot sing a note
and so they sit upon the couch and manage the remote.
Dark nights and misty mornings, candles light the way
down stairs and slippery sidewalks deprived of light of day.
The dust of dreams , collected, is spun out by some as art.
Others create fresh music—magic language of the heart.
This poem that I write for you is in a minor key,
for only rather different notes choose to follow me.
So rather than take to my couch and idle life away,
I comb my mind to find these words to see what I might say.

For the Sunday Whirl, word prompts are: remote misty scrape slippery candle fresh dust magic minor strum string follow

Snowfall, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, Dec 8, 2024

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Snowfall

My breath leaves footprints on the window as I watch the fallen snow
holding as its prisoner all that lies below.
The wind shrieks out a warning for humans that might dare
to brave the ever-deepening drifts that they should beware
the captivating mounds of flakes that have drifted down
to spread blankets of reverie over the silent town.
For now, all problems frozen, covered up, put out of mind,
for how can we worry about that we cannot find?
The gale now howls release as it blows the snow away,
removing all that festers to return another day.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle the words are:
human captivating drift fallen release now shrieks howl festers reverie breath prints

Requiem for a Tyrant, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle Dec. 1, 2024

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Requiem for a Tyrant
(Guess Who?)

He will wander from the wide-eyed world into that sacred cave
where past memories assault him—wave on wave on wave,
bringing back on him the agonies, maneuverings and strife,
shattering the safety that cushioned him in life.

Harsh currents froth around him and spray into his eyes—
all his evil actions, his cheating and his lies
strung out to swirl around him, shifting power once again
so he becomes the object of all his former sin.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the word prompts are:frothed waves string face cave spray sacredshift shattered safe wide-eyed world  

Word Salad for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 682

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Word Salad

I salvage stories from my history and take them for a walk,
measuring their power as I try them out in talk.
But some words are frayed and tattered by rampant overuse, 
their colors dimmed and emptied of their vital juice.

Fresh fruits plucked from my garden feed a hunger in my soul, 
filling up my spirit’s vast collecting bowl,
yet this garden of the world does not belong to me.
I simply walk its corridors while waiting to be free.

Until that time, my body makes do with what it finds––
plucking out the fruit of words from their obscuring rinds,
mixing them together and hiding them away
to create fresh word salads to serve another day.

 

for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 682 the prompt words are: hungers until garden frayed tattered belonging spirits body salvage history walk stories

The Power of Words, for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 681

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The Power of Words

Words stretch the edges of our brains,
nudge our minds toward outer space.
Unrelenting stirs to reason,
presenting thoughts we have to face.
Reason’s scent obscured by magic,
one more sense stretched to its end.
Does its vapor lull or stir us?
What sort of message does it send?

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 681  the prompt words are: stirs scents unrelenting nudged magic stretch face words space edge sense end