Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Split

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Split

They gather round the pool for a glass of wine—
their voices soft as butter with a continental whine.
Their conversation heady. She’s finally arrived,
running from that castoff life that she barely survived.

She changes personalities according to her whim.
She became a baroness the moment she met him.
Tonight in the wine bar, perhaps she’ll be a waif.
In such low localities, a title isn’t safe.

The fantasies of childhood have certainly paid off.
One day she is a Renoir, the next she’s a Van Gogh.
One face follows another with a costume change.
Her various identities show an extensive range.

Being so many people is her brand of fun.
You’d call her a chameleon if you knew more than one.
But she is very careful. One identity per friend.
She saves her next identity for those met round the bend.

 

Prompt words today are butter, heady, glass, pool.*This poem was not written about the girl in the photo. I love this photo I took of my niece and although I felt the image worked to illustrate the poem, it is not illustrative of her personality.

Dear John

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Dear John

Your sardonic humor and your endless cynicism
has, in truth, created such a deep and boundless schism
that I can let it slide no more. I simply can’t deflect
the fact that you are losing all our friends’ respect.
I’ve finally had enough and so you’ll see my face no more.
You’ll have one more brunt for your jokes as I walk out the door.
I take this way to say ta-ta and bid my fond adieu.
Perhaps this way you’ll finally see the final  joke’s on you.

Further prompts today are cynicism, endless respect and slide.

We Have Met the Enemy, and It Is Us

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We Have Met the Enemy, and It Is Us

Three years of fear and loathing? The world has turned surreal.
News programs sanctify our fear, our horrors the real deal.
A man once enigmatic tweets himself too clearly.
Those truths that we held evident and came to hold most dearly
were fictions in our history books. Our empire’s like the others––
built upon the backs and bones of those we call our brothers.
Who is guilty of these sins? We all are, one by one
for watching TV movies and not the smoking gun.
Our leaders, all fine actors, draw their princely wages
While madmen fire on schools, it’s children we put in cages.
America, unite as one and see the truth about you.
See what the whole world now sees that causes them to doubt you.
If you hold religion as your reason to support
this man who isn’t really all that he might purport,
what religion really is, please take the time to see:
“What you do to the least of my children, you have done to me.”
Whatever else might profit you, this is the bottom line.
God’s children aren’t all born within the borders you define.
“Give me your tired and weary, your yearning to be free.”
Must we scrape these words off the statue of Liberty?
Open your eyes. We are no longer saviors of all.
Perhaps we never were. We turn our backs and build a wall.

 

Prompt words today are fear, surreal, sanctify, enigmatic and program.

How to Write a Poem

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How to Write a Poem

Only a fool waits for a poem to come to him.
You have to call for it like a proper blind date,
knocking on its door
and seeing beauty in whatever opens it.

Take it dancing.
Twirl it around the floor,
letting words fly off in all directions.

Leave what flutters off alone.
Someone else will pick it up
and dance with it.
No word is a wallflower,
although some are chosen more frequently to dance.
Those are the words to avoid.
 
Do not always choose the prettiest words.
In the dance of the poem,
the ugliest of words acquire a charm.

Do not insist that you yourself lead.
Let the poem, instead, draw you
off the dance floor,
out the door
and down the path
to deep woods
where all the wild words live.

Gather them in bouquets
or weave them into chains
to crown your head––
that head of the poet
who follows where the poems go
and collects them by armfuls to share with the world.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem about how to do something. Three of the other four prompts I follow had the word “fool” as the prompt. No surprise. The fourth had the prompt “down.” Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/rdp-monday-fool/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/01/fowc-with-fandango-fool/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/your-daily-word-prompt-fool-april-1-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/down/

Phonetics!!!

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Phonetics!!!

My neighbor wears her clothes too tight
which wins her dates most every night.
They do not mind her overbite
or that she’s not too erudite.

Her life just seems to hum along—
nothing too right, nothing too wrong.
And though her life is over-bitten,
No part of it is overwritten

except for the incessant drone
of her ubiquitous telephone.
As annoying as a megaphone,
it never ceases its loud drone.

The admiration of her crowd
of callers should not be allowed.
We wish they’d call less on the phone,
thus lessening its constant moan.

If just one suitor would ease our plight
and remain there overnight,
perhaps she’d take it off the hook.
We crave our peace by hook or crook!

A night without its incessant trilling
would, I must admit, be thrilling.
We do not have as many fears
for her morals as for our ears!

The prompt words today were hum, megaphone, overwrite and admire.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/rdp-tuesday-hum/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/05/fowc-with-fandango-megaphone/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/your-daily-word-prompt-overwrite-february-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/admire/

Journeys

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

 

Journeys

Every conversation is a quest two people enter
from opposite  directions to converge at its center.
The hard part of the journey commences with their greeting—
an intricate endeavor not completed with first meeting.

With each new associate, we visit a new land.
With each conversation, our horizons expand
into lands exotic, tragic or entertaining.
Perhaps enemy territory—often with no training.

Do we take umbrage with their words or enter, unprotesting,
the world that they offer—experimenting, testing
new mental mountains, jungles where vivid birds might call,
beckoning us onwards, or do we meet a wall

that offers us no access—sealed up, rigid, cold—
closed to all explorers, nearly obscured with mold?
What journeys do we offer ourselves to those we meet?
Do we offer easy access or promise sure defeat?

Life was designed for journeying. Daily, new vacations.
Some conversations novels and others mere quotations.
Some trips an experience you wouldn’t choose again—
just another whistle stop on life’s commuter train.

 

The prompt words today are quest, umbrage, intricate and associate.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/rdp-wednesday-quest/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/16/fowc-with-fandango-umbrage/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/intricate/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/your-daily-word-prompt-associate-january-16-2019/

Basking

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Basking

Cats love of apricity is more than just a fluke.
It is a vital tendency and so we can’t rebuke
our cats for lying prone a lot in any ray of sun.
A cat’s in need of toasting as much as any bun.
If you can imagine a Kardashian without
the flash of any flashbulb, you will without a doubt
be able to imagine a cat without the rays
filtered through venetian blinds, or fully in the blaze
of a scorching summer sun. A cat can withstand all
the heat that we can give them, in summer, winter fall.
And if there is no sun at all, a cat can just make do
with the full attention of a surrogate like you!!!

(Enlarge all photos by clicking on any one.)

Prompt words for today are vital, rebuke, apricity and imagine.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/rdp-monday-vital/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/14/fowc-with-fandango-rebuke/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/your-daily-word-prompt-apricity-january-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/imagine/