Tag Archives: Tourmaline’s Halloween Challenge

The Fallen

23 Replies

 

The OctPoWriMo prompt today, in addition to the first two words in the list below, is to devise a new poetic form. The form I’ve created is one of dual rhyme. The first part of each line must consist of two rhymed halves. In addition, the last word in each line must rhyme with all the ending words of each line in the poem.  I hereby declare the name of this new poetic form to be “The Forced Rhyme Two-Step.”
Word prompts today are stretch, disorder, topple, allegation, forest, awe.

 

The Fallen

Though the forest is my florist, it is locked in hibernation.
It’s my belief there is no leaf throughout the whole damn nation.
There’s no pollen. Leaves have fallen, and a further allegation
is an order that the border be locked up in litigation
lest the thieves of the leaves are a foreign delegation.
Word of mouth? They’ve fled south, so we’ll need a stronger station
to stop theft of what’s left of next year’s reforestation.
Yet the disorder at our border is a cause for jubilation.
Those not in awe of the law find it cause for much elation,
for the bloke is a joke who stirred up the population
when it’s galling that the falling is just due to maturation!
It’s a stretch, but the wretch who’s in need of education
is the chump, name of Trump, who’s in need of a vacation.
Fare thee well, POTUS from Hell, for we feel no reservation.
Your ablution’s the solution to our country’s renovation!!
“Vote him out!!” we all shout. End four years of reprobation!!
And when he topples, we’ll hear Koppel’s sincere felicitations.

 

 

Casting About for Fame and Recognition

8 Replies

 

Casting About for Fame and Recognition

I’ve never done a single thing of any magnitude.
I’m not in any centerfolds, posed there in the nude.
 I’d love to give a Ted talk, but I simply do not dare.
I’m nervous in the limelight, a stranger to the glare.

Peak climbing is too vigorous, so I avoid Mt. Everest.
I don’t compete in spelldowns for I’m simply not the cleverest.
Each autumn when the leaves turn, I swear I’ll turn one, too.
I’ll examine all my talents and find one that I’ll do.

I’ll write the next great epic tale. I’ll sail to Zanzibar.
But writing isn’t easy and that voyage is too far.
I’ll buy paints and a canvas and combine the two,
I’ll find out if great artistry is what I’m meant to do.

Or maybe I’l adopt ten kids and have a try at mothering.
See if I can show the correct interest without smothering.
If I approach this task with correct energy, less fear,
perhaps I can obtain my fame as mother of the year!

Prompt words today are strange, magnitude, nervous, vigorous, something you’ve always wanted to do and leaves.

November 3

17 Replies

November 3

Since we first crept out of the primordial slime,
evolving from a past when our words were only mime,
since the time we clothed ourselves in dresses and in britches,
we took our world for granted–its beauties and its riches.

We’ve jeopardized our future by burning fossil fuels,
courted war and pestilence, led on by greedy fools.
How do we show our gratitude for all nature’s provision?
We frack and turn, pollute and burn to fuel the world’s division.

Blind to impending disaster, we rush foolishly on,
letting those we’re led by continue with their con.
Buoyantly, we bob along, soothed by drugs and boozing,
not realizing all the ills in life are of our choosing.

What will it take to stem the tide? Who will arrive to lead us?
Who will heal our ravaged Earth, restore our souls and feed us?
Will this be an election that brings us ’round the bend
or will it just propel us more quickly to our end?

 

Image by Ella Evanescu on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words for the day are impending, jeopardize, creep, buoyant, gratitude and slime.

Patterns of Light

16 Replies
Yes, a candle has a tail, too.
Twilight

Click on photos to enlarge.

Patterns of Light

Time devours candles as twilight dines on day.
There is no way to change this, for it is nature’s way.
Vivid colors fade to night, alleviating need
to be about day’s business and to bring the rest we need.
But this change of light to dark another change is spawning.
Black turns to grey and grey to blue in a new day’s dawning.

 

 

 

Word prompts today are grey turns to blue,alleviate,vivid,, devour,  business and candles.

Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

30 Replies

Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

My taste in decoration eschews cute and adorable.
Cutesy hearts and  animals—designs I find deplorable.
When I choose to accentuate, fantasy is out.
It’s simply an esthetic that I choose to flout.
Whimsy in embellishment is not a problem for me.
It’s only sticky sweet that will irritate and bore me.
So keep your big-eyed children, your fairy, elf and gnome.
Their plaster effigies will never decorate my home.
My garden will not sport them. My butterflies are real.
Garden gnomes are merely things for passers-by to steal.

Photo by Sarah Brink on Unsplash,Used with permission. Prompt words today are fantasy, accentuate, elect, eschew, taste and decoration.

Overextended

12 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

Overextended

I’m swamped with obligations, let alone what I like doing.
If it were Halloween, I would have no time for booing.
Gargoyles in the garden would have no satisfaction.
They could haunt me all they want, but they’d get no reaction.
I don’t have time for feeling, for music or for fun
until all of the tasks I face are finally through and done.
I can’t finagle time to merely mess around,
for I fear it is my habitude to be completely bound
by my check-lists and my calendar, and no, I don’t know why.
It’s simply in my nature to do and do or die!

 

A “friend” once told me with great irritatIon, “If you’re going to do all these things, Judy, just do them, but don’t for God’s sake talk about it!” I fear I’ve broken her injunction, finally, after all these years. This poem is tongue-in-cheek. All things I enjoy doing…but I do know how to make a mess.

Prompt words today are swamp, finagle, gargoyle, habitude, feel and music.

One No Trump

17 Replies

One No Trump

It seems that any smartie would
have questions of the hardihood
of one who can’t control his urges,
but opens mouth and simply purges!
It’s anything but recondite
that he is less than erudite.

He stammers and he mispronounces
as he proudly mis-announces
facts and figures he’s invented,
letting out hot air that’s pented
up inside his roiling brain.
The scuttlebutt? This man’s insane!

For the present, we’re stuck with him,
but (we hope) his future’s grim.
In the future, perhaps a cell—
a domain that would suit him well.
No more oval office for
this vain and posturing dimwit bore!

If they ever choose to make
a movie of this shyster flake,
casting’s bound to be a bummer—
choosing between “Dumb” and “Dumber.”
Which will most aptly replicate
our soon-to-be ex “Fool of State?”

Prompt words for today are hardihood, scuttlebutt, urges, recondite,  the present and movie.

Do

14 Replies

Do

This is the perfect climate. Now is the perfect time
to do all that you can to make your world sublime.
No more empty promises. No rain checks or excuses.
No masking of reality to obscure your abuses.
Look back in your history to see the full extent
of all the possibilities that in the past you meant
to “see about” tomorrow. Then tomorrow never came,
for when it did, it seems that you made it just the same
as the day that came before it, so now you’ll never know
what your life may have turned into if you’d only let it grow.
Relaxation’s fine if it’s used as a reward––
but it should be an end result that we are heading toward.
It cannot replace doing. Doing is what life is for.
Without learning and accomplishing, existence is a bore.

 

Prompt words today are promises, sublime, history, extent, relax and mask. (The captions on the photos below may seem disjointed, but I decided to leave all the captions from earlier times I’ve used these photos. They do, in a disjointed way, create a little story all their own.)

Paint your flower, or if you prefer, paint the strips before you cut them apart. I prefer to do the individual flowers because you don’t have to wait for the paint to dry.
Wonderful art cards made by the kids at LCS
This little girl may be one of the friendliest in camp, at least when it comes to the counselors. She has a hug and a kiss for me every morning and when she leaves in the afternoon.
Fill pan with enchiladas and if you wish, put a narrow stream of sauce down the middle of enchiladas and top with scallions, grated cheddar and black olives.
Young artist
Getting down to business.
Possible addition to the center of the east facing wall. See the blank spot?
Planning

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

 

Everything in Everyone

10 Replies

Everything in Everyone

Wild haunted rhythms sail the night as we lie supine,
thinking thoughts unbidden that are far from the divine.
All Hallows is that time of year that causes us to ponder
all those fearful yearnings that we conceal and launder
as we get through the daylight world, hiding our duress
of all those hidden thoughts and dreams we labor to suppress.
Everything in all of us, to honor or accuse.
And it’s up to each of us what we will pick to use.

Prompt words for today are: divine, ponder, duress, sails, haunted,  wild rhythm.

 

 

A Halloween Bedtime Story

14 Replies

Click on photos to increase your terror!

A Halloween Bedtime Story

There’s a world that is intangible except at Halloween.
It teems with banshees and with ghosts at other times unseen.
Strange monsters with long fingers and pumpkins for a head
lurk inside your closet, hang out under your bed.

When they finally emerge, it does no good to shout.
They’ll grab you in their mighty grasp and turn you inside out.
Put your arms outside the covers or one foot on the floor,
and you’ll provide a tasty lunch the monsters will adore.

For once they have a single limb securely in their clench,
they’ll have you all in seconds. Your destruction is a cinch!
Though Halloween is much beloved by all you candy lovers,
Once at home and snug in bed, best stay beneath the covers!

Prompt words today are  pumpkin, mighty, intangible, banshee, cinch, inside out.