Raucous Recipe #1
My flashback to a nifty dish of pears and peas and beans
is tastier if one can add olives and nectarines.
The problem is that when these five are ingested enmasse,
they cause indigestion and, I fear, a lot of gas.
So for the interim, until science solves the puzzle,
keep these five ingredients separate when you guzzle.
Prompt words today are flashback, gas, nifty, dish and pear.
Precious Things
When lucky heirs received the shipment of their auntie’s things,
full of photos, pots and pans, old hats and silver rings,
mismatched shoes, a wash tub and an armchair that was armless,
a flintlock rifle that was jammed, ammunition-less and harmless,
they fondly combed the contents of her varied life—
her times as daughter, student, lover, wanderer and wife.
Her time spent in the orchestra, the years that she just wandered,
gypsy skirts and cowboys boots and bride’s dress that she laundered
years ago, then paper-wrapped and carefully put away
high up in a cupboard, just in case one day
one of her sister’s children was in much duress
searching for a favorite vintage wedding dress.
Boxes full of letters, old toys and souvenirs—
all of life’s remainders collected through the years.
What are they to do with these reminders of her living—
memorabilia of her life she took such joy in giving?
Call the second hand store to pick up the armless chair,
the tables and and sofas and all the kitchenware.
Pack away the photos and the eyeless teddybear
and put them in the storage space beneath the lowest stair
along with all their own stuff that they can’t throw away
so they can pass it on to their own kids some future day.
Prompts today are lucky, shipment, orchestra, heir and harmless.
Kids’ Fashion
Ribbons and laces
and scrubbed shiny faces
are often conducive
to acts most abusive
by children who gad
in areas bad
that create messes
of fancy new dresses,
for puddles in paths
and gooey mud baths
wreak havoc, at best
on kids fancily dressed.
Prompts for today are children, fancy, gad, ribbon and conducive.
Born-Again Gourmet
Once I was a candidate for gourmet school flunky,
sporting the dubious honor of number one food junkie.
But now I’m basically looking for a way to curb
my appetite for junk food in favor of superb
cuisine that suits the palates of gourmands and gourmets.
I’ll impress headwaiters with my knowledge of patés,
place orders for obscure foods that will startle and amaze.
Then I can claim my trashy choice in food was just a phase.
Prompt words today are: head, basically, candidate, activate and superb.Image by Mads Eneqvist on Unsplash.
The Building of a Legend
When there’s an event that attracts attention
worthy of notice and worthy of mention,
no matter how silly or boring or gory,
it’s a regional custom to concoct a story
that exceeds pure fact and creates a tale
with additional details added without fail
that with the recital of each new re-teller
becomes much more luminous, sadder or sweller
than at the last telling and so to the credit
of the last person who heard and resaid it,
it reflects the memory and education,
the sense of humor and imagination
of each one who passes the story along
as anecdote, joke or novel or song.
Thus are legends made of the simplest act
by using our fancy to swell out pure fact.
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Today’s prompt words are credit, regional, luminous, exceed and story.Image by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash.
Restorative Rhyme
When life gets too busy and I wish that I had wings
to get me free from obligations and off to greater things,
away from lists, committees and everything that’s pending,
everything that in the modern world seems to be trending,
I fly off in my thoughts instead and write a silly verse
in words I put together, absurd and even worse.
And yet in its reciting, somehow it’s rehabilitating,
wiping out those serious thoughts that were debilitating.
Prompt words are: wings, trend, great, debilitating and busy.
Nuptial Turnabout
The blushing bride’s the instigator of a lot of fun,
and she will have her victory before the day is done.
She’ll outfox her friends and kin with a turnabout,
completing her last antic as the wedding bells peal out.
Trust her to do her business as the rice is thrown,
for in the deep folds of her dress, she has brought her own.
She’ll reach into her pockets to withdraw a sack
and as they they run through showers of rice, she’ll send a shower back!
Prompts for the day are: outfox, trust, business, bride and instigator. Image by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash.
Writer Wannabe
I wish I were prolific and could elevate each word
from general to specific, to astounding from absurd.
As they are ejected from my fingers or my pen,
I wish that they were more profound, more thoughtful and more Zen.
But, alas, their attributes remain to me mysterious.
They verge on the inane when my intent was to be serious.
Prompt words today are prolific, elevate, attribute, eject and mystery.
Easy Love Affair
When I’m atop my sweetheart, everything’s sublime.
My time with her is perfect every single time.
Once I had a sampling of everything she does,
no other loved one of her kind could satisfy because
I needn’t be too active, for she does all the work.
She is not loud or vulgar. She does not yank or jerk.
If you would like to see me put her through her courses,
come out to my stable, for there are lots more horses!!!
Prompt words today are atop, sample, sweetheart, loud and active. Image is a detail from a photo by Sebastian Hermann on Unsplash.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 