Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Vanity Mirror

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Vanity Mirror

Your grace leaves courters spellbound and at a slight impasse,
for they’d like to woo you, but they do not have the brass.

Ordinary fellows feel they’ve not the right
to ask you for a date in fear they may incite

a cacophony of laughter revealing your disdain
at their misguided efforts—that they would even deign

to think that they were worthy of such a one as you,
deserving of the honor to stoop and kiss your shoe.

Do you feel the portrait that I sketch deserving of your buzz?
Or do you get the message: pretty is as pretty does.

Prompt words today are grace, spellbound, cacophony, impasse, ordinary and sketch.

Christmas: A New Rendition

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Christmas: A New Rendition

That the papers had a field day is totally explicable,
“Santa Stuck in the Chimney and for Hours Inextricable!”
So now he’s on a diet. No more cookies, no more milk.
He’s restricted to mere salads and others of their ilk.

He’s feeling way less boisterous. No more “Ho ho ho’s!”
So there’ll be fewer miracles in our stockings’ toes.
That year the Grinch stole Christmas  just might  be repeated
and socks hung on the mantel might have to be re-feeted.

Prompt words today are field day, inextricable, fireplace, boisterous, miracle and rendition.

Exclusion

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Exclusion

Those who stage conniption fits
throw in the towel and call it quits
whenever things get hard and crusty
or the road gets steep and dusty.

When plans convene, they’re totally for them,
but when things get rough, abhor them.
They pick on each rut and slant
as an excuse to rave and rant.

Each plotted road’s slightest digression
is a cause for their aggression,
giving reason for the pause
in their former wild applause.

Would that they would live and learn,
but progress is a thing they spurn.
So it is best, without a doubt,
when plans are made, to leave them out!

Prompt words today are conniption, slant, aggression, convene, pause and dusty.

Avant Garde

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Avant Garde

I fear that this designer puts good taste to the test.
I’m flabbergasted at his color scheme and all the rest.
He is my boss, so if you will, kindly do not quote me.
The last thing that I need is for the fool to demote me.

In spite of any influence that I might have exerted,
It seems that in the end, the plans have all reverted
to the plans he started out with, so the building has been skirted
in lattice and in felt. Alas, it has been yurted!!!!

Prompts today are: rest, flabbergasted, designer, poise, quote and inserted.

 

Camp Out

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Camp Out

Gathered around a campfire before a tiny hut,
they try to find a pathway out of their parents’ rut.
Like each new generation, they must grow out of their roots,
stubbornly insisting they won’t fill their parents’ boots.

They flounder in their greetings. Are you he or she or they?
So many other choices than straight or bi or gay.
Their paltry experience seems to them uncouth,
so they are determined to spice up unseasoned youth.

They embark on new adventures, treading warily at first,
grasping opportunities to quench their every thirst.
They pass around the bottle, then share the smoking pipe,
place proffered pills on questing tongues, imaginations ripe

for each new experience, finding every mode
of travel that might lead them all to the mother lode.
Every generation finding their own route
to strike out on their own to see what life’s about. 

Prompts today are roots, flounder, greetings, youth, hut and paltry. Image by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

Disgruntled

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Disgruntled

When I try to crack the whip and get the world in line,
somehow it turns fractious and starts to buck and whine.
Electrons turn to protons and refuse to whirl about.
The sun refuses to come out and stays inside to pout.

Berries stain my shirt front and seeds stick in my teeth.
Feral felines storm my bed and find solace beneath.
Friends offer consolation that is but a token.
There is little impact in the words that they have spoken.

If only things would go the way I’ve formed them in my mind,
there would be fewer problems in his daily grind;
but the world won’t listen and goes about its day
with very little interest in what I have to say.

No one will believe me when I say that I’ve evolved
to the point where the world’s problems I have mainly solved.
They go about their business like before I came along,
doing things without me and doing most things wrong.

They prefer those idiots who have run the Earth
slowly bleeding all of us as they increased their girth.
So until the world at large decides to meet my terms
and decide to love me, I guess I’ll go eat worms!!!!

Prompt words today are electron, token, fractious, impact, stain. I know I need a new disgruntled photo as I’ve maybe overused this one, but it’s a busy day and  this one just seems to work, so….

Seasonal Bribery

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Seasonal Bribery

Santa’s elves are in the workshop wrapping caramel kisses
to put in the stockings of little boys and misses
whose lofty thoughts are centered on baseball gloves and dolls—
hopes whispered into Santa’s ear in numerous city malls.

But my premonition is that though your needs are captivating, 
there’s a likely chance that Santa’s been equivocating
about giving you the puppy that you’ve been asking for
every day and every night for a year or more.

I’ve heard Santa’s considering the possibility
that you might be lacking in responsibility.
Would you fill his food bowl and pick up puppy poop?
Would you train him not to raid the chicken coop?

Everything about a puppy is not cute and nice.
He might bring you baby birds or even wiggling mice!
Tear up favorite clothes you leave upon the floor,
chew up all your Barbie dolls and Teddy bears and more.

You’d have to learn to clean your room and put your things on shelves—
all the things observed by Santa and his elves.
Do your chores the first time requested by your mother.
If you can’t do your present chores, could you handle another?

It’s not too late to change your ways. Come help to dry the dishes.
Santa might be watching and decide to meet your wishes.
You have another month or two in which you could grow up
enough so you can handle caring for a pup!!!

Prompts today are caramel, workshop, premonition, lofty, responsibility, captivating.

Monolingual

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Monolingual

Your language is not plain enough.
I do not get this “jibbing” stuff.
It angers me to have to look
these sailing terms up in a book.
Perhaps you are too lofty for
a small town landlocked jungle girl?

Prompt words today are jib, plain, anger, lofty, jungle.

Just for the fun of it, I wrote this poem line-by-line as I looked up the new prompt word without knowing what the next one was. I sort of got led down the proverbial password path!

Men in Trees

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Men in Trees

If you took an expedition to my favorite tree,
you’d find it’s convoluted as a tree can be.
It’s encrusted with lichen, but I’ve found that for a fee
an ornamental arborist can scrape it lichen-free.
They’ll do artful jobs of trimming off the deadwood if they’re hired
   by removing extra branches that look too dried-out and tired.

And if those earmarked branches contain nests of birds, perchance,
I’ve heard the trimmers merely move them to another branch.
In defense of ecology, no single squirrel has died
in this trimming of the branches, for they are safe inside,
nestled most securely with their babies and their kin,
thankful for the tree hollows that they take shelter in.

Prompt words today are lichen, convoluted, expedition, defense, and tired.

Ocean Truths

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Ocean Truths

The oceans teem with sterling fish that stream above the sands,
working their ways through currents beyond the landward strands.
Particles of plankton sift down through the brine
giving all the silver streaks something on which to dine.

Stingy bit by stingy bit unites to make a feast,
for tiny flashing fish up to the ocean’s largest beast
that slams the surface of the sea to leap into a scene
far above the plankton that streams through its baleen.

Since those depths that nourish it do not provide breath,
that which brings it life may also bring it death.
So while tiniest fishes float safe within their lair,
the giants of the ocean must come up to find air.

 

Prompt words today are sterling, work, particle, teem, slam, stingy. Image by Todd Cravens on Unsplash.