Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Stating the Obvious

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Stating the Obvious

We’ve hit a cosmic bottleneck and every day I rue it,
for I have the feeling that we will not make it through it.
They’ve indexed the world’s problems, but knowing that they’re there
seems to do very little in solving the nightmare.

We do not yield to pressure to try to cure the ills.
We only seem to kneel before the moneyed class’s wills.
We temper fear with hope that someone else will solve the puzzle
of the fact the whole damn world is staring down a muzzle.

Kids shoot other kids with guns but adults do not care
so long as the NRA sanctions the warfare.
We ban those from our borders who clean up all our messes,
then wonder why we’re drowning here in our own excesses.

Amazon sells refreshments as we all just sit and watch
as climate change keeps shifting the danger up a notch.
Meanwhile, the rich get richer and we ignore the poor
as the ones who need it least acquire more and more.

The polar caps are melting as California burns,
and in between, the drought and floods keep on taking turns.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones mount and mount,
raising the fatalities higher than we can count.

Nobody knows the answer for how to please us all,
yet we forget we all are one on this great blue ball.
If only we could find a way to even out the score
and give up some of what we’ve got so others can have more.

Sacrifice fossil fuel to give the world a chance.
Tear down the oil derricks. Replace them with plants.
Make sure the rich pay taxes on a par with all the rest.
Admit that we don’t own the Earth. We are just its guest!!!

 

Prompts today are temper, index, cosmic, bottleneck, kneel and refreshments.

Demused

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Demused

My muse is on sabbatical. I think she’s feeling surly
from  umpteen years of being awakened way too early
to find a rhyme for “rainbow ” that my readers judge sublime,
only to discover every single time
that I get all the credit for the work she does
each new day in succession. And why? Simply because
she happened to be sanctified and then assigned to me
to insure a steady flow of poetry
without making an agreement regarding who’d be credited
as author of the poems conceived, then written and edited.
So now I seek to rectify my decades-long misdeed
by saying that hereafter, I certify and cede
half the writing credits to my muse of inspiration,
hoping the result will be she’ll come home from vacation,
refreshed, newly-inspired and forgiving of my sin,
full of new ideas and ready to begin.

 

Prompts today are succession, surly, sabbatical, sanctify, arise and rainbow.  Image by j Jo Justino on Pixabay.

 

Unhoarded Treasures

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Uhhoarded Treasures

Those things seen on the surface
form the network of our world—
rain turned into rainbows
with their colors all unfurled.

This greatest spectacle
is spread out for all to see,
for the greatest treasures of the world,
blessedly, are free.

Even the biggest pessimist
among us must admit
that a bit of pleasure
may be derived from it.

Prompts today are surface, unusual, network, pessimistic, fee and rainbow.

Hidden

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Hidden

In youth, it was the supernatural that I found charming.
Sinister and spooky I did not find disarming.
Halloween I yearned for, and I was not daunted
by midnight trips to houses reputed to be haunted.

Ouija boards and seances held infinite appeal—
as popular as Tarot cards in what they might reveal.
In supplementing reason, they brought magic to our world—
revealed that place within us where our own magic lay furled.

 

Prompts today are yearn, supplement, supernatural, sinister, infinite and popular.

Next Step

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Next Step

Life is a conundrum often unresolved.
Every day another sin to be absolved.
from transgression to transgression, mankind’s been known to scuttle,
searching for excuses to use in their rebuttal
of charges that we’ve ruined nature’s sweet confections,
destroying with what we have wrongly seen as our corrections.
With a flippant attitude, missing the wider view
of how we affect everything with each thing that we do.
Thus, impartial in her actions, nature then corrects,
working out solutions to ills that she detects.
How she must be wondering if mistakes in our past
might lead to the solution that mankind cannot last.
And so she’s started over by altering our genes,
thus aiding all mankind to evolve into machines!

 

Prompt words for the day are flippant, rebuttal, conundrum, impartial, correction .

Global Warning

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Global Warning

A yeasted dough that cannot rise higher than its leaven,
the splendid sun climbs up the sky but never reaches heaven.
Blissful nature mystery enough without religions.
Who needs holy doves when they’ve been given carrier pigeons?

Why name the mighty miracle that holds us in its clasp?
By giving it a human form, we thus reduce its grasp.
Nature is not our mother nor the universe our father.
Our presence is precarious and far below their bother.

Tough reality is what we live in day-to-day.
Born under the brutal sun and nourished by its ray,
nonetheless it does not hear us when we pray, simply because
nature only can respond to what mankind does.

Prompts today are splendid, blissful, mighty, precarious, tough and heaven.

Poet Think

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Poet Think

The brain is a contraption that hasn’t any muscle.
It depends on other things for its schemes and hustle.
Our skull makes it impregnable by ordinary means,
but inside it’s fat, salt, water, carbohydrates and proteins.
It can be your enemy or it can be your buddy.
Sometimes it’s filled with thoughts profuse. At other times, it’s muddy.
When it plods along its movement is a bit pedestrian,
but on a good day it begins to move with speed equestrian.
Feed your brain and I am sure it will take care of you,
and if you’re lucky every day think up a poem anew!!!!

 

Prompt words today are muscle, impregnable, equestrian, profuse, mud and contraption. Image by Milad Fakuri on Unsplash.

Working off Calories

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Working off Calories

Once I’ve xertzed down my dessert and licked clean my plate,
I subject my coffee to a similar fate.
And exhausting my sugar and caffeine allowance,
I nonetheless refuse to state my avowance,
for I cannot quit cold either sugar or coffee—
lattes or chocolate or cupcakes or toffee.
I won’t make a pact to take that big leap
to make empty promises that I can’t keep.
I’m suffused with the shame of these terrible truths:
I’m addicted to donuts and adore Baby Ruths.
Then gulps of coffee between every bite
keep me awake, I admit, every night
which means countless trips from my bed to the shelf
where I keep the means for indulging myself!
And it’s true that I scarf down more delectable treats,
but in my efforts to gather more treats,
I get most of my exercise going and coming,
getting in steps  on the way to my yumming.

 

I Prompt words are cold, pact, xertz, suffuse, allowance and empty. Image by Isumi Daizy on Unsplash.

Things My Mother Taught Me

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Things My Mother Taught Me

I’ve used you as a paradigm of what I want to be,
and for those years I had a child, raised her as you raised me.
Used your fine discernment in establishing the rules. 
Taught her to respect herself and not to suffer fools. 
Issued all the necessary caveats and warnings,
tucked her into bed at night and rousted her most mornings. 
Help her when she needed it and then I let her be, 
for the truest gift you give a child is when you set her free.

Prompt words are caveat, paradigm, necessity and discernment.

 

Intimations of Mortality

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Intimations of Mortality

Though I am still active, for sure I’m not my best.
Whereas once I boogied, now I find I’d rather rest.
I know I’m winding down for sure but I feel I must
achieve those things I said I’d do before I bite the dust.
While I’m waiting to be cancelled, I’ve agreed that I’ll  be wise.
My finale bears no stigma, for everybody dies.

 

Prompt words today are  wise, agree, finale, stigma, active and cancelled.

And for NaPoWriMo