Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Ode to a Spider, Best Spinner of All, and to a Mosquito, Caught in its Thrall

21 Replies

 

To the Spider

Insatiable monster, you spin your fine strands,
creating your trap with abdominal glands.
You then cast your nets out into the breeze
that carries them off to the bushes and trees.
With anticipation, you wait in the center
for mosquitos or flies—whatever may enter
your gossamer trap. Then, their prospects are dire,
for one tremor of contact is all you require
to be off in a flash to put them to bed
with  a cocoon of silk wrapped from bottom to head.

To the Mosquito

“I am” says the spider, as she sips out your sap,
“going to have a light lunch, and then take a nap!”

 

The spider pulls the silk created from liquid in its body through its spinnnerets – silk-secreting organs on its abdomen. Once the thread is started, the spider lifts its spinnerets into the breeze. It’s the breeze that is the secret to the spider’s ability to spin a web from one tree to another.

 

Prompt words today are anticipation, insatiable, monster, require, I am and spider.

All in Everything

20 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

All in Everything

My heart as empty as a room the party’s left behind,
I tell myself I am at peace and that I do not mind;
but it may be pertinent, if I am being truthful,
to admit as I say these words, that I am feeling ruthful.

Day-by-day, I improvise, insisting I am free.
‘I” can pursue anything not limited by “we.”
Driving past the railroad tracks, an engine rushing by
reminds me of those trips when I was young and wild and high.

Cheyenne out to Oregon, Sydney to Melbourne town.
Always a new place and new adventure going down.
That local train in Java, stopping a thousand times
at every local village–the hawkers and the mimes 

flooding all the aisles and all the window frames
insistently proficient in their selling games.
All the places where I went teeming with new faces,
constantly observing as life put me through its paces.

Before old age annexed me, I had a brilliant life
as student and explorer, as writer, artist, wife.
Those inevitable things, grave and prompting sorrow
were always covered over by the prospect of tomorrow.

But now that tomorrow is not such a certain thing,
I simply fall in line with whatever life may bring.
Knowing that I can’t flee fate, still I have seized my power
by finding a whole universe in bee and bird and flower.

 

j

 

 

Prompt words today are empty room, pertinent, improvising, annex, railroad tracks and grave.

Back to the Beginning

20 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

Back to the Beginning

When I began my journey, I was jocular and young—
no hardness in my heart and no burrs upon my tongue.
I hadn’t joined the fracas and the chilling of the years.
I had none of life’s baggage—no heartaches and no fears.

Life had not disseminated all her tawdry facts
and I had not encountered them by gossip or by acts.
No tricksters had deceived me. My heart remained intact.
I knew not what I’d missed. I was naïve of what I lacked.

And now that I am older, I’ve returned to what I had
before I had decided I must follow every fad.
The things that I’ve acquired? I am loosening my hold.
I’ve found that satisfaction is not something that is sold.

I have simplified agendas, taking time to see and do
all the things I overlooked while in the human zoo.
The progress of a caterpillar on a hanging vine
as effective as a church in reaching the divine.

The flutter of a wing, the morning calls of birds
reveal as much about the world as news reports or words.
Drawing back into what’s basic and screening the uncouth
has helped me in regaining the lighter heart of youth.

 

Prompt words for today are journey, trick, fracas, disseminate, chilling and  jocular,

Mall Maven

3 Replies

Mall Maven

Before the next party, she’ll cut a wide swath
looking for outfits from trendy to Goth.
Choosing her next style can’t be speculation.
It’s got to be something that prompts adoration.

While stalking her merchandise, she walks the walk
that other girls emulate and the boys stalk.
Though she’ll chance being different—ahead of the herd,
if she goes too far, she might look like a nerd!

She saunters the mall looking cool and sanguine,
ignoring her minions, though she wants to be seen.
She’s nubile and nervy and lissome and lean—
a virtual attention-getting machine.

The other girls try to see what she buys,
but the pieces she chooses are not meant for eyes
that might imitate her before the reveal.
She won’t take the risk that somebody will steal

her next novel look before she has the chance
to stun her admirers at the school dance.
Until her grand entrance, she’ll feel a bit queasy,
Being a trend-setter isn’t that easy!

 

Prompt words today are swath, merchandise, stalk, speculation, different and party.

Casting About for Fame and Recognition

8 Replies

 

Casting About for Fame and Recognition

I’ve never done a single thing of any magnitude.
I’m not in any centerfolds, posed there in the nude.
 I’d love to give a Ted talk, but I simply do not dare.
I’m nervous in the limelight, a stranger to the glare.

Peak climbing is too vigorous, so I avoid Mt. Everest.
I don’t compete in spelldowns for I’m simply not the cleverest.
Each autumn when the leaves turn, I swear I’ll turn one, too.
I’ll examine all my talents and find one that I’ll do.

I’ll write the next great epic tale. I’ll sail to Zanzibar.
But writing isn’t easy and that voyage is too far.
I’ll buy paints and a canvas and combine the two,
I’ll find out if great artistry is what I’m meant to do.

Or maybe I’l adopt ten kids and have a try at mothering.
See if I can show the correct interest without smothering.
If I approach this task with correct energy, less fear,
perhaps I can obtain my fame as mother of the year!

Prompt words today are strange, magnitude, nervous, vigorous, something you’ve always wanted to do and leaves.

November 3

17 Replies

November 3

Since we first crept out of the primordial slime,
evolving from a past when our words were only mime,
since the time we clothed ourselves in dresses and in britches,
we took our world for granted–its beauties and its riches.

We’ve jeopardized our future by burning fossil fuels,
courted war and pestilence, led on by greedy fools.
How do we show our gratitude for all nature’s provision?
We frack and turn, pollute and burn to fuel the world’s division.

Blind to impending disaster, we rush foolishly on,
letting those we’re led by continue with their con.
Buoyantly, we bob along, soothed by drugs and boozing,
not realizing all the ills in life are of our choosing.

What will it take to stem the tide? Who will arrive to lead us?
Who will heal our ravaged Earth, restore our souls and feed us?
Will this be an election that brings us ’round the bend
or will it just propel us more quickly to our end?

 

Image by Ella Evanescu on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words for the day are impending, jeopardize, creep, buoyant, gratitude and slime.

Patterns of Light

16 Replies
Yes, a candle has a tail, too.
Twilight

Click on photos to enlarge.

Patterns of Light

Time devours candles as twilight dines on day.
There is no way to change this, for it is nature’s way.
Vivid colors fade to night, alleviating need
to be about day’s business and to bring the rest we need.
But this change of light to dark another change is spawning.
Black turns to grey and grey to blue in a new day’s dawning.

 

 

 

Word prompts today are grey turns to blue,alleviate,vivid,, devour,  business and candles.

Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

30 Replies

Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

My taste in decoration eschews cute and adorable.
Cutesy hearts and  animals—designs I find deplorable.
When I choose to accentuate, fantasy is out.
It’s simply an esthetic that I choose to flout.
Whimsy in embellishment is not a problem for me.
It’s only sticky sweet that will irritate and bore me.
So keep your big-eyed children, your fairy, elf and gnome.
Their plaster effigies will never decorate my home.
My garden will not sport them. My butterflies are real.
Garden gnomes are merely things for passers-by to steal.

Photo by Sarah Brink on Unsplash,Used with permission. Prompt words today are fantasy, accentuate, elect, eschew, taste and decoration.

Overextended

12 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge.

Overextended

I’m swamped with obligations, let alone what I like doing.
If it were Halloween, I would have no time for booing.
Gargoyles in the garden would have no satisfaction.
They could haunt me all they want, but they’d get no reaction.
I don’t have time for feeling, for music or for fun
until all of the tasks I face are finally through and done.
I can’t finagle time to merely mess around,
for I fear it is my habitude to be completely bound
by my check-lists and my calendar, and no, I don’t know why.
It’s simply in my nature to do and do or die!

 

A “friend” once told me with great irritatIon, “If you’re going to do all these things, Judy, just do them, but don’t for God’s sake talk about it!” I fear I’ve broken her injunction, finally, after all these years. This poem is tongue-in-cheek. All things I enjoy doing…but I do know how to make a mess.

Prompt words today are swamp, finagle, gargoyle, habitude, feel and music.

One No Trump

17 Replies

One No Trump

It seems that any smartie would
have questions of the hardihood
of one who can’t control his urges,
but opens mouth and simply purges!
It’s anything but recondite
that he is less than erudite.

He stammers and he mispronounces
as he proudly mis-announces
facts and figures he’s invented,
letting out hot air that’s pented
up inside his roiling brain.
The scuttlebutt? This man’s insane!

For the present, we’re stuck with him,
but (we hope) his future’s grim.
In the future, perhaps a cell—
a domain that would suit him well.
No more oval office for
this vain and posturing dimwit bore!

If they ever choose to make
a movie of this shyster flake,
casting’s bound to be a bummer—
choosing between “Dumb” and “Dumber.”
Which will most aptly replicate
our soon-to-be ex “Fool of State?”

Prompt words for today are hardihood, scuttlebutt, urges, recondite,  the present and movie.