Tag Archives: The Sunday Whirl

Double Reversal, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 665

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Double Reversal

The silhouettes of leafless branches of the jacaranda tree
sketched by the sun upon the surface of the wall
recall the windswept tangle of your hair.

Call back the edges of memories long buried in a deep back room.
Stolen kisses made illicit by your ex’s change of mind.
Senseless posturings and  unsuccessful reversals.

Finally coming back to what we were before.
You were the prize hard fought for,
and I, the inevitable ending.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 665, the prompt words are:  tangle surface call back deep room kisses edge sense sketches silhouette windswept

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 664, July 21, 2024

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Daunting Pilgrimage

The raucous calls of prophet crows warn us of our error
in traveling down this moonlit road, thus augmenting our terror.
Our minds connect as voices recite their trembling prayers—
all our former evening plans now peeling off in layers
as one-by-one we zigzag from our predetermined path,
our former plans forgotten in the aftermath
of dreams of ghosts and goblins that await us up ahead.
The woods are dark and scary, adding to our dread
of the moving shadows and that macabre song
that trembles on the wind’s voice to hurry us along.
The silken touch of terror sends fingers down our spines,
reducing some among us to sniveling and whines.
Of the ten of us who started out, just five of us still here,
our group reduced  one after one as our goal grew near—
an aged house much worn away with one feeble light
glowing through the darkness of this frightening night.
But as its door swings open, all five of us repeat
the words that break the horror of our journey, “Trick or treat!!!!”

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 664  the prompt words are: sing trembling zigzag connected mind silk dreams moon prayers crow road prophets Image by Simon Berg on Unsplash.

Twilight For The Sunday Whirl #663

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Twilight

Our turtle years are speeding up as though there’s sparse time left,
distorting all our reveries and leaving us bereft.
All that vanished life that fades into the mist—
those pearls of perfection like the first time we were kissed—
all the names and faces of those we once embraced—
dissolve into the air as though they’ve been erased.

All those former altars once bedecked with flowers,
garlands of celebration that vanished with the hours,
days and then the years now gathered in our past,
all those lives we built, not engineered to last.
Soon we will just be a name carved upon a stone,
to join with other spirits in the twilight zone.

Twilight

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 663  the prompt words are:air embraced pearls perfection turtle altar garlands reveries vanish name built mist

“The Approach” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, 662

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the pink clouds,
Clouds above
\

The Approach

The edges of my wishes wrap around my mind
over expectations of another kind
curling over “To Do” lists, jerking at their edges,
causing piled paper work to fall off bookshelf ledges,
breathing life into that void—that gap left in the middle
of all those daily tiresome tasks to leave some room to fiddle.
To look at curling banks of clouds that sail across a sky
so vast that I can’t count them, so I don’t even try.

Everything in life need not be a tiresome task.
Every day presents a time when I take time to bask
for at least a moment, or ten or twenty more,
in other natural treasures that lie outside my door.
Life seems to be speeding by, rushing toward its brink—
once stretched out before me, but soon over in a blink.
Ever conscious of those acts that I will leave behind me,
I wonder what life choices in the end will have defined me.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 662 the words are: jerk void breath gap vast blinked curling sky wish wrap edge ever

Judgment Day, For Sunday Whirl Wordle 661, June 30, 2024

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Judgment Day

I bury ominous secrets in a locked box, lose the key.
In their secret grave, I know they await me—
barren bits I’ve buried lest they clutter my life,
knowing, once revealed, they’d cut me like a knife.
Those riddles that most humans choose to drop into a grave,
each like a hibernating beast sleeping in its cave.

No one knows where to hunt for them except for just that one
who carries only memories now that that deed was done
and buried deep. The thud  it made dropping into its nest
its one and final murmur as it joined the teeming rest
 of hidden acts of anger, temper, greed and lust.
Dirty little secrets now turning into dust.

Buried and forgotten until that judgement day
when, perhaps, we all will be called upon to pay
for simply being human, and as humans must,
making bad decisions others might judge unjust.
But our severest critics might better atone
for those buried secrets of the past that are their own.

 

For Wordle 661 the words are: riddle hunt barren bits ominous thud grave keys box drop temper secrets

“Adventure’s End” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle, June 23, 2024

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Adventure’s End

“Holy smoke!” the young man cries, pulling on the reins,
his heartbeats quickened, sending blood surging through his veins.
This glorious adventure—this quest across the plains,
fording raging waters, swollen by the rains,
seems  to have turned against him as the arrow whizzes by,
shaving off his hat brim just inches from his eye.
He cradles fear, as weeping, he whips the plodding team,
prodding them to frenzy as though within a dream.

The bitter taste of panic, one brief surge of regret,
causes him to finally accept his sobriquet.
When his mother named him Chauncey  which his dad shortened to “Chance,”
it signaled wild adventure and dangerous romance,
and as he set out on his travels to find fortune and fame,
not once did he consider the two sides to his name.
Now he rests forever beside that lonely road
that in his youth he thought would lead him to the mother lode.

 

For Sunday Whirl Wordle 660 the words are: holy plains waters beats travel weeping veins cradle rained taste brief glorious Image from Unsplash.

“Liberty” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 659

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Liberty

Birds find an opening in clouds to cross a languid sky,
their shadows sparking hope as I trace them with an eye
searching for some method, be it holy or black magic,
to dispel the shadows of an outcome I find tragic.

One waiting in the shadows by the font of holy water,
advances, clear in his intent to wed my father’s daughter.
Clear in my resolution that I will not have it so,
I ‘m resolute my troth to him would birth a life of woe.

As he greets me at the altar, I turn my foot to run
down that selfsame aisle, out into the streaming sun.
Let my father wed him if he’s so set in his plan
to bring into his family this workhorse of a man

so like himself that I well know that he would likely smother
all my dreams, just like my father did to my sweet mother.
In the woods there waits for me one other who can see
all those other selves I have it in my dreams to be.

Fleet of foot, I shed my heels and speed in my advance
ahead of those pursuers who would choose to foil my chance
of living my own life in the manner I would choose.
Thus fueled by my determination that I will not lose,

I speed into the forest where my lover waits,
my final summation to a lifetime of debates
about who rules my life expressed in action as I reach
to mount my waiting stallion and make off toward the beach

where his boat is waiting for my true love and me
to set out for our lives across a welcoming sea—
a new land for us both where we can come to be
whatever we might choose in a land of liberty.

Note: I’ve been waiting for 6 years to find an opportunity to use this photo I took from my porch at the beach in La Manzanilla.  Finally!

Words for The Sunday Whirl  Wordle 659 are: spark languid opening magic hope cross clear cloud holy birds 

@notebookmusical

no thoughts, just @Joy 🌞 performing #mydays from NotebookMusical. you’re welcome 💙 #joywoods #TheNotebook #notebookbroadway #ingridmichaelson #mydayscover

♬ original sound – The Notebook Tour

Misnomer, For The Sunday Whirl, June 9, 2024

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Misnomer

Red dragon of my garden, ascending walls and rocks,
seeking out a birth chamber on your extensive walks.
Your strategy is lethal, for the shelter you find best
proves you as an enemy—a thief of life and nest
of bee or wasp or other insect where you’ll lay
your eggs where larvae of your host will become the prey

of your eggs when they have hatched into larvae too,
long after you have left to resume adventures new.
Wingless wasp, you never soar aloft in air,
but your vivid color hints at the despair
of any who receive your sting, so painful that you’ve earned
the title of “Cow Killer Ant” as victims have soon learned.

Cool water will not stem the pain, nor will anything
soothe the throbbing torture of your defensive sting,
but unlike your insect victims, humans will not face
a fate more dire than pain that is extensive as you race,
channeling your power into a new direction,
tunneling into the ground to escape detection.

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 658 are: strategy enemy thieves red dragon air hint water rock nest face channel

Although commonly referred to as the cow killer ant or red velvet ant, this insect is actually a wasp. They get the “velvet” part of their name from the fuzziness of the females, which are wingless and often brightly colored, appearing like a red and black ant. The powerful red velvet ant sting is what has led them to be nicknamed “cow killers”. The female will enter the ground nest of a host species, typically a wasp or bee species, and lay her eggs near the host’s larvae. As D. occidentalis’ larvae develop, the species’ true parasitoid nature is shown. The larvae grow and develop by feeding on and killing the larvae of the host species. [13] Velvet ant larvae will continue to feed until they enter the pupal stage. In this stage, larvae continue to grow into adults. Pupation typically takes 23 days, and most velvet ants are mature and ready to reproduce themselves after this. [15] Velvet ants have an interesting mating style compared to other Hymenopteran species. The male has no parental care responsibilities and the female leaves as soon as she lays her eggs. This is not out of the ordinary for a Hymenopteran species, but velvet ants are though to be monogamous and semelparous. This means females mate just once in their lifetime with only one male. Many entomological organizations suspect velvet ants to mate only once in their lifetime.[16]

(Thanks, Wikipedia, for furnishing research on these insects. I think I’ve seen three in the past 23 years and did an earlier post on the orange and black variety I discovered on my wall many years ago. This one I found near my kitchen door just a few years ago.)

“Unruly Words” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 657

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Unruly Words

This poem wants to dangle or take a giant leap.
I can hear it whirring as it wakens me from sleep.
I think that it’s been restlessly dancing in my dreams,
clicking on its castanets and bursting at its seams.

It may want to be a song, and thus the castanets.
Let’s hope this is the noisiest that this poem gets!
I like my poems whimsical and gentle like a sneeze.
Instead of words that storm and fuss, I prefer a breeze.

I grant that poetry has stirred others to their fate,
but poems that are too preachy tend to irritate.
Please talk to me in gentle words that put me at my ease,
for in this angry world it’s harder to find words that please.

For The Sunday Whirl the prompt words are: clicking whimsical leap poetry songs be whirring dangling fates talk grant storm (Image from a free image generator–couldn’t resist, but I promise not to get carried away with this!)

 

 

“Final Payment” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 656

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Image by Vitaly Taranov on Unsplash

Final Payment

Bees hum and die in brambles, hidden from our sight, 
and scrawled across the sky, untethered in their flight,
are birds swept by a tempest, urged on by its blast,
as down below, the earth cracks, and our future’s cast
in hurricanes and fires and climate change so vast 
that mankind’s ancient rituals no longer work their magic.
Our cut-down trampled forestlands foretell a future tragic.
We leap ahead to our own end, speed it on its way,
waiting for that reckoning for which we’ll have to pay.

For The Sunday Whirl the prompt words are: trample crack swept untethered hum urge scrawled bees sky ritual leap brambles