Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Trump Tower II

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Trump Tower II

The architecture of the house takes his needs to heart.
To create a perfect climate in every single part
was a top priority, so when the north winds blow,
within, he feels no ill-effects from gale or rain or snow.

He’ll find the ambient temperature is perfect day and night.
Summer, winter, spring or fall, be it day or night,
his family will not feel the cold, succumb to summer’s scorch
In the bedroom or the living room, the basement or the porch.

The sound control in every room functions without a hitch,
so when he whispers secrets, the staff can never snitch.
Noise produced in one room is not heard in any other.
He’s protected from Ivanka’s soaps and rock played by her brother.

All-in-all the ambience surrounds them like a glove—
be it balmy climate or all the sounds they love.
Bird song or the ocean or mixtures of the two.
What animal sounds they might crave—an auditory zoo.

Species may vanish off the earth but he will always hear them.
It’s nice to enjoy species without having  to be near them.
Doves cooing, elephants trumpeting, a lion’s hearty roar
might persuade a burglar to remain outside his door.

What cares he if the oceans rise and masses do not love it?
His house converts into a boat so you can float above it.
The whole world may freeze stiff or burn for all that he may care,
for he’ll be protected safely, tucked up in his fine lair.

Prompt words today are architecture,  ambient, succumb, snitch.

Red-Tailed Hawk

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Red-Tailed Hawk

Through the air high up above the graceful soarer weaves,
his shadow cast against the wall and stones and grass and leaves.
Without a modicum of sound, he drifts and circles ’round.
If those below detect him, it will not be by sound.

He seems to simply levitate, on wings lacking in motion,
betraying not one sign of his means of locomotion.
Below small dirt volcanoes betray presence of prey.
Small denizens of tunnels emerge from them each day.

Opting for the light after so many hours below,
darting back to safety when a human comes to mow,
they steal the seed corn, sheer the roots, consume the tender shoots.
As often as the mounds are  pressed flat by heavy boots,

the next day there’s another to take each burrow’s place.
Always another obstacle for opponents to face.
What act is fair for man to take in thinning nature’s riches?
What will I do to rid my lot of undersurface ditches?

The neighbors mount a protest, asking for an end
to creatures that usurp their space, and still I do not bend.
But here there is a creature who merely by its will
has the means to swiftly dip and fall upon its kill.

When the Red-Tailed Hawk dips low, watching from above,
I shudder as the claws surround the vole’s form like a glove.
Wings flapping for the lift-off, caught in sun’s early ray,
the bird with prey in claw now lifts and opts to fly away.

Their shadow soars onto my lawn over the wall between,
the prey it’s holding as it lifts too tiny to be seen.
Nature will deal with nature. It needs no intervening.
It is a way that our world has to deal with its own gleaning.

Image from Unsplash. Prompt words today are weaves, modicum, opt, blame and levitate.

Mother-to-Daughter

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Mother-to-Daughter

My mother had a tranquil life the years before my birth,
when I increased her headaches in addition to her girth.

I was a question-asker—a most  impertinent child,
and my ever-present inquiries drove my mother wild.

The preponderance of these queries got greater year-by-year.
Why was my reflection backwards when looking in the mirror?

Where did babies come from and where were they before?
When she and daddy went to bed, why did they lock their door?

It wasn’t until later that we seemed to trade places
and then it was my mother who put me through my paces.

Why was I coming home so late? Why was my lipstick smudged?
By the time that I was seventeen, I was the party judged.

Thus did life do a turn-about concerning endless questions,
with the one who was interrogator now doling out confessions.

 


Prompt word today are preponderance, impertinent, tranquil and birth.

Christmas Cancelled!!!

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Christmas Cancelled!!!

Lower the pinãta. Bring the party to a halt.
Cease your roar of protest, for I’m not the one at fault
for curbing your frivolity and quashing all our fun.
If you need a scapegoat, Father Christmas is the one
who turned Rudolph out to pasture and retired his sleigh to blocks.
while Gaea, Christ and Santa Claus have some major talks.
The Christ child won’t be crowned this year. The elves are on vacation.
Santa will stay a figment of your imagination.
The only Santas left are those “Ho ho” ing for their wages.
St. Nicholas gave up the ghost when we put kids in cages.

He sold off Donner and Blitzen when we turned our backs
on nature’s other creatures: the elephants and yaks.
All the endangered creatures in the forest and the seas,
those crippled by pollution, global warming and disease.
He closed up his workshop as we squandered nature’s gifts,
deserted the North Pole as the glaciers formed their rifts.
Now bad boys won’t get presents and, alas, the good ones either.
We’re being banished to our rooms while nature takes a breather.
Will Christmas come another year? I guess we’ll wait and see.
Next year will we be perched on or turned over Santa’s knee?

Prompt words for today are crown, roar, fault and figment.

Hubris

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Hubris

The amber glow of candle light reflects against the wall,
but caught up in your hubris, you don’t notice it at all.
You seize the chance to prattle on about your newest deal,
overlooking table settings and this tender veal
I’ve cooked just to your liking. The asparagus grows cold
as you expound on how intelligent you are, and bold.
While I, my dear, think my own thoughts concerning your bombast,
of how this anniversary might well be our last.

 

Prompt words for today are amber, hubris, candle and seize.

Thanksgiving with the Neighbors

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Thanksgiving with the Neighbors

Rendered farctate by turkey and gravy and dressing,
I overindulged, I am hereby confessing.
When they pressed more upon me, I didn’t demur.
I ate all the turkey that I could endure,
but then when they asked if I’d have a bit more,
although  I was already stuffed to the core,
I said, “Maybe a little,” and with no compassion,
they piled on potatoes in an equal fashion.

More gravy, cranberries and more candied yam,
and lest they discriminate, a bit more ham.
So in that yearly paradox, they proceeded to stuff
first the turkey, then me, until I’d had enough.
And though I declared  I was ready to burst,
when they brought out the pie, although I had rehearsed,
“None for me,” in my head, when they asked, “mince or peach?”
I’m embarrassed to say that I had one of each!

Then I lay on the floor and simply digested
as some guests told stories that other guests bested.
But since I had already been over-fested,
I admit my attention was under-invested.
I tried to moan silently, but fear I failed.
In the end, I complained and I groaned and I wailed.
Yet my friends showed no mercy, but proceeded to laugh
and inquire if I’d rather have caf or decaf!

Then they rolled me next door to my own waiting bed,
where I passed half the night feeling overly-fed.
But by the the next morning, I was ready for toast
some bacon and eggs and a lovely French roast.
And I was bemoaning when time came for lunch
that there were no leftovers on which to munch—
No turkey and stuffing. No leftover pie,
so I had to make do with carry-out Thai.

 

 

Prompt words today are compassion, paradox, demur and farctate.

Overdone

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Overdone

All our schemes for summer fun now require healing.
We spent too long out in the sun and now our backs are peeling.
We need to hail a cab and find someplace in the shade
to wait for all our unplanned scarlet hues to fade.

Word prompts today are summer fun, hail, scheme  and healing.

Shoe-in

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Shoe-in

Love is not contractual. It is not trite or buyable.
It’s not dependent on reason to render it as viable.
It depends on qualities more visceral than seeable—
makes one’s considerations more  youable than meeable.

In its beginning stages, love may seem aleatory
as though the price of love is to squirm in purgatory.
Waiting by the telephone, in an abject state,
love wonders, “Will or won’t he ask me for a date?”

But this abject terror sometimes gives way to calm
as our object of affection furnishes the balm
that soothes our rash and fearful hopes and turns them to reality,
refining hopeful crushes into mutual love’s  finality.

True love is always waiting to drop the other shoe
as “Will he? Will she? Dare we?” finally gives way to “I do.”

Word prompts for the day are visceral, trite, aleatory and abject.

Restoring Qi

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Restoring Qi

Standing on the corner waiting for my qi
to recognize my face and get in touch with me.
I could use its help in restoring my zing,
for I haven’t had exuberance for much of anything.

All the troubles of the world seem to cling to me,
provoking pain and worry. I just can’t let them be.
My need for an infusion of qi has grown so dire
that I fear without it I’ll probably expire.

I hear the bells a-ringing. Could they be a clue
that my chi’s catching up to me to infuse me anew?
But since it’s the good humor truck coming into view,
I guess a double-decker cone will simply have to do.

Photo from Unsplash used with permission. Word prompts today are qi, exuberant, cling, provoke.
Chi, (Qi or Ki) is the energy of life itself, a balance of Yin and Yang, positive and negative, electromagnetic energy which flows through everything in creation. So Chi can possibly be described as an electromagnetic phenomenon, as a form of light energy, as a form of bio-electromagnetic energy or electricity.

Different Strokes

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Different Strokes

She was a paradigm of leisure, a role-model of laziness.
For her, excess mobility was just a sign of craziness.
She thought the act of exercise simply bore no credence.
In short, in her life, exercises had no antecedents.

She thought that the whole fitness craze was simply a vile plot
within which, in all her wisdom, only she had not been caught.
And so while all her neighbors put their bodies to the test,
she just exercised her option to remain at rest.

Prompt words for the day are mobility, paradigm, credence and plot.