Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

“Dear Jane” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle, Feb 16, 2025

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Dear Jane

I hold your letter in my hand as the sun like a crimson dragon claws  through the thinning clouds––spreading its sunset colors against a sky bruised with the remnants of an earlier fog. It casts a halo around your head–a spell broken by what you have just repeated to me in person––those words that have hollowed out my heart, now empty of all those past promises gone without a trace.

You are bound for the glory of that new career, far off in a golden land. No mention of my coming along. So I will remain, formerly yours, broken-hearted, in this place where the sun has now set for you, ready to rise again, as you will, on the other side of the world.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle #694 the prompt words are: hollow clawing bruised broken spell spiralingfog halo bound trace dragon crimson

 

Snow-Bound, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 693, Feb 8, 2025

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Snow-Bound

When I saw the prompt words, I knew it would be topical
to talk about a climate that was anything but tropical.
Truly, in the past I have trudged through sludge and snow,
my socks sodden and water-soaked by the fire’s glow.
Despite those still-clear memories, I have some reservations––
a few inner thoughts about those former titillations
felt while swooping down a ski hill, zooming up the rise
of the hill that rose again at the old hill’s demise.
For sure, snow is a despot. It chills and then it freezes,
leaving souvenirs of grippe, sniffles, coughs and sneezes.
But oh what memories we might have, in fact I’m sure we will
of strapping on those sticks just meant for zooming down the hill,
and even though we started at various reckless paces,
somehow, some (and I was one) landed on our faces.

The prompt words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 693 are: past climate water trudge sludge sodden despite despot rise demise few inner

“The Rock Star’s Lament” for the Sunday Whirl Wordle # 591

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The Rock Star’s Lament

I scan the shadows for lurking fans,
as staff surveys surrounding vans.
We know their tricks, know where they gather,
and what gets them in a lather.

Their heads snap back at full attention
when they hear the very mention
of my name and flashbulbs flash.
They ask for autographs and cash.

They reach to touch or cast me gifts.
They corner me on stairs or lifts.
They feign a faint or hum a song
I’ve just recorded as they walk along

the path they know I daily walk,
hoping for a little talk.
I should feel flattered, except that it’s
exhausting to be loved to bits!!!!

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle today, the prompt words are:
touch hum flash faint gather staff tricks head snap bits cast shadows
Thanks to Sam Moghadam on Unsplash for the image.

“Shore Leave” for The Sunday Whirl # 691, Jan 26, 2025

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Shore Leave

Calm cliffs rise up from beastly seas to soothe a sailor’s mind,
and rolling hills make memories of a different kind.
Though blades of grass may mimic the sway of restless swells,
more timid winds shake music from a string of tiny bells
woven through the tree limbs and stroke music from thin bars
sticking up out of  the earth, topped off by tiny jars
that lips of breezes play like flutes to create harmony
under the stars that sets the hearts of land-bound sailors free.
These scenes that meet their gazes dispel dark memories
of months of troubled dreaming on tempest-tossed wild seas

Painting by Juan Antonio Pérez Ayala

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 691  today’s words to use are: bell mimic blade gaze hills jar soothe mind stars timid beastly sea

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