Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

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“Why Don’t You Let Me Iron That for You?”

When there is a wrinkle, she works fast to smooth it out.
She loves to plug the iron in and move it all about.
Steam wafting all around her, she executes arm action.
She finds it scintillating dealing with each new infraction
of the rule that each garment should hang seamless and true,
without a single furrow dividing it from you.
She feels no reluctance in relieving clothes of wrinkles—
no puckers and no creases. No scrunches and no crinkles.
Because of her I’m faultless. My wardrobe is sublime,
for in Yolanda’s view, a wrinkled garment is a crime!

 

Yolanda has been my housekeeper, accomplice and friend for twenty years now. She rearranges my belongings, leaving little jokes, removes dust and fingerprints and generally rules the roost when it comes to the state of my house. In addition, neither I nor any houseguest can leave the house without meeting with her discerning eye. and if she spots a wrinkle, you can be sure she’ll whip the iron out and insist that it be dealt with. I’ve never yet won an argument to the contrary.

Prompt words today are scintillate, smooth, waft, reluctant and fast.

Family Christmas Visit

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Family Christmas Visit

“Halleluiah” she cried when I walked through the door.
It was clear I’m the sister she tends to adore.
My mercurial rise to the top of her list
began on the day that I chose to exist.
In particular, days when she finds her life taxing,
she finds me essential to aid her relaxing.
It’s tempting to say it’s because I’m so cool,
but I don’t think it’s that as a general rule.
I think that my charm is that I’m so familiar.
The power of my presence is merely familial.

After 24 hours with no sleep and a crazy two and a half hour trip through Guadalajara airport and still nearly missing my plane, it was a blessing to finally arrive in Phoenix and to eventually
sink into a bed for a four-hour sleep. It took another hour or so to get online, where these prompts awaited me. Now it is 7:23 at night—twelve hours after I arrived—and I’m finally getting my prompt poem written. I showed my sister the five prompt words and asked her to give me the first line, which I changed a bit and used as the first line of this poem. Blame her, partially, for prompting the rest.

Prompt words today are hallelujah, mercurial, essential, relax, tempting.

Forgottenman suggested I add a few photos of Patti and me from the past and I always mind, so here they are. Click on photos to enlarge.

With our Xmas dolls, in Betty’s green checked bedroom.
First day of school. I think I was in the 2nd grade
Patti and I under the rose trellis.

Beneath the Covers

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Beneath the Covers

Books are cemeteries where old thoughts go to die—
landscapes of words spread out under a variegated sky.
Bright children might discover them ‘neath covers in the night,
searching for new universes where the erudite
join them undercover to whisper down through time:
literature, history, philosopy  and rhyme

Prompt words for the day are variegated skies, bite, erudite, bright and cemetery. Image by Klim Sergeev on Unsplash.

Lactose Intolerant

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Lactose Intolerant

If you’re intent on becoming maternal,
I’m hopeful your plans include turning nocturnal.
For babies claim most of your time, night and day,
but their favorite time to entice you to play
is when you have finally  collapsed in a heap
and obtained REM sleep, so blessedly deep
that you swim towards the surface with collections of dreams
that shed off you like water as you waken to screams
of your recent dependent who’s hungry and wet,
needing all the attention that there is to get.
Since you went through the nausea and gained all the girth,
acquired all the stretch marks and endured the birth,
though you love this dear bundle with skin smooth as silk,
how you wish that their father could provide the milk!
Yet you search for your robe and for your other shoe,
for that wholesome nutrition provider is you!

Prompt words today are hopeful, claim, nocturnal, wholesome and collection. Image by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.

 

 

 

 

Love on Line

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Love on Line

These
nocturnal visits
over Love.Com
require no suitcase,
bring no human feet
over my threshold.
Only conversation
hollow in its lack
of pulse beat

echoes through it.
Too much of our world
absent from the other parts.
Too many empty chambers
with great sound systems.
Too many tapping fingers.
Waiting eyes.

 

Prompts today are suitcase, hollow, bring, nocturnal.

Vernacular Confusion

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Vernacular Confusion

When he says I have puissance he means I have power.
Why must he go on like this, hour after hour?
I don’t understand his schoolbook French.
In Yiddish, I cannot tell shiksa from mensch.
I fumble with Spanish and flunked at Italian.
An onion’s an onion. When you call it scallion,
it’s all Greek to me and I don’t have the energy
to combine languages. What’s with this synergy
that creates Tex Mex, Pig Latin and Spanglish?
I have enough problems just pronouncing Anglish.
I don’t catch your meaning when you say “Que tal?”
This method of talking means nothing at all
to one not versed in languages. So, when you call,
please don’t say,”Salut!” Just say, “Howdy, y’all!”

Prompt words today are fumble, synergy, catch, puissance and method.

Drone Study

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Drone Study

When it comes to a crunch, you’ll find he’s not there,
for he’s sleekit and stealthy and silent as air.
Indignation won’t faze him. If you say he’s to blame,
he’ll suggest you mature and get back in the game.

He won’t give you a hand when you’re down on your luck.
He’ll just say you lack courage, endurance and pluck.
If you peel back his surface, there’s not a next layer.
All out for himself, he’s not a team player.

When it comes to friendship, he hasn’t a clue.
He’ll ask for a favor, but will he help you?
It’s not likely for when it is time to repay you,
you’ll usually find he was just out to play you.

So get rid of this fellow—this slick opportunist.
It’s best if done quickly, in fact at the soonest.
How to get shed of this ultimate jerk?
Just produce a shovel and ask him to work.

Prompt words today are sleekit, silence, crunch, indignant and mature. Image by Sammy Williams on Unsplash.

First Date Optimism

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This week, the prompt words were doozies. It might help a bit to explain that the incredibly obscure word “demesne” (which is a piece of land one has sole title to) is pronounced to rhyme with “pain.” I’ll leave it up to you to determine the meaning of “whiffle” and “obfuscate” from the context in which they are used. Not my fault, folks. It was in the prompts!!!!!

First Date Optimism

You exaggerate the matter if you say I’m your demesne.
That untruthful statement is purely most insane.
What started out a whiffle, you’ve made into a gale
by weaving our first date into a fairytale.

But I must take exception to your bending of the truth.
You are not my Boaz and I am not your Ruth.
If you think I’ll marry you after our first date,
As I said in the beginning, I fear you obfuscate!!!

 

Prompt words for the day are obfuscate, except, whiffle, demesne . Image by Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash.

Winter Doldrums

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Winter Doldrums

Crimson is reserved for autumn, December is spartan and white.
Frosty and slippery and frigid. Paled by the icy air’s bite.
Folks could be certified crazy for taking a walk on a day
when thermometers hit below freezing. You can freeze off your butt in that way.

Give me a balmy June morning or a sweltering hot afternoon
with a sunshade to keep me from baking  and sinking away in a swoon.
It’s certainly better than winter with snowshoes and mufflers and chains.
If I’m going to have weather, I’d rather contend with spring rains.

Snow has the gross disadvantage of freezing off parts of your nose.
It means going out almost fully obscured with every part wrapped up in clothes.
I can put up with sneezing in springtime and all of the parching of summer.
Leaves falling in autumn don’t irk me, but winter is always a bummer!!!!

 

 

Prompts today are crimson, certify, frosty, spartan and reserve.

Christmas Mayhem

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Christmas Mayhem

No holly’s hung, no lights are lit.
The whole kingdom’s in a fit.
The castle’s dark without a tree.
No decorations there to see.
Warn the palace. Call a jury.
We’re indicting them of worry.
What’s the source of their reserve?
What has quenched their Christmas verve?

What has caused the royal court’s
spirit to be out of sorts?
Is it the Prince or Queen or King
that’s robbed them of their royal zing?
One parlor maid revealed the cause
of their neglect of Santa Claus.
Their tree’s not up or decorated
because they’re all addlepated.

Reticent of jingle-jangle,
for their lights are in a tangle.
The queen’s all thumbs, the king has gout
and cannot sort his tree lights out.
The Prince is spoiled so won’t help.
They should dethrone that royal whelp.
But it’s the truth, there is no doubt
that someone has to sort them out.

Send in a tailor, schooled in string,
to come untangle everything.
Get a lumberjack to see
if he can cut them down a tree.
Hang on candy canes and balls.
Toss on their tinsel, deck their halls,
for royalty undecorated
will for sure be under-rated.

Prompts today are worry, palace, jingle, reticent and reserve. All photos courtesy of Unsplash.