Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Do

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Do

This is the perfect climate. Now is the perfect time
to do all that you can to make your world sublime.
No more empty promises. No rain checks or excuses.
No masking of reality to obscure your abuses.
Look back in your history to see the full extent
of all the possibilities that in the past you meant
to “see about” tomorrow. Then tomorrow never came,
for when it did, it seems that you made it just the same
as the day that came before it, so now you’ll never know
what your life may have turned into if you’d only let it grow.
Relaxation’s fine if it’s used as a reward––
but it should be an end result that we are heading toward.
It cannot replace doing. Doing is what life is for.
Without learning and accomplishing, existence is a bore.

 

Prompt words today are promises, sublime, history, extent, relax and mask. (The captions on the photos below may seem disjointed, but I decided to leave all the captions from earlier times I’ve used these photos. They do, in a disjointed way, create a little story all their own.)

Paint your flower, or if you prefer, paint the strips before you cut them apart. I prefer to do the individual flowers because you don’t have to wait for the paint to dry.
Wonderful art cards made by the kids at LCS
This little girl may be one of the friendliest in camp, at least when it comes to the counselors. She has a hug and a kiss for me every morning and when she leaves in the afternoon.
Fill pan with enchiladas and if you wish, put a narrow stream of sauce down the middle of enchiladas and top with scallions, grated cheddar and black olives.
Young artist
Getting down to business.
Possible addition to the center of the east facing wall. See the blank spot?
Planning

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

 

Memory

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Memory

Life is like a labyrinth. Things may be just fine,
yet we don’t know what awaits us farther down the line.

We can’t discern our futures, so we must enjoy today
so at least we’ll have a past to remember, come what may.

Changes of perspective are bound to come with time.
We may not have the passions that we had in our prime.

We are changeable creatures. So nature has intended.
If we hold onto earlier goals, our lives may get upended.

In times of adversity, we still possess rare treasures.
Our recollections are where we can hoard our former pleasures.

 

Prompt words for today are down the line, adversity, labyrinth, discern, change of perspective and creature.

Cats Trump Dogs: Oct 14, 2020

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Cats Trump Dogs

My dogs are perspicacious with insights most profound.
They’re aware of every flutter, on top of every sound.
Their vigilance professional, with duty it is fraught.
Nary a squirrel has crossed the yard without being caught!

No passerby is overlooked, no lizard, snake or newt.
Their senses are omniscient, their judgments most astute.
They keep my backyard creature-free, pristine for lawn and blossom.
They will not suffer gopher or mole or vole or possum.

Guard duty’s not a hobby. They see it as a task
that they were truly born for. I need not even ask.
The cats they see as horrors—wily and uncouth.
They cannot bear their presence. They see it as the truth

that cats are unorthodox. Not banished to the ground,
they roam the roof and wall and trees, rambling all around.
They tease the dogs from far above, safe from all their fury.
Sauntering off slowly, for they aren’t in any hurry.

Prompt words for the day are professional, unorthodox, hobby, perspicacious, truth and horror.

Foxes Under Moonlight

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Foxes Under Moonlight

The phantasms rise in tandem as they seep out of their boxes
to caress the bats and tantalize the foxes
by swooping through their caves and pulling at their tails.
Of all the foxes’ problems, they cause the most travails.

On Halloween they haunt the world, including you and me,
but in the interim, they aren’t allowed to wander free.
They’re restricted to the meadows, the byways and those places
where they are not likely to encounter human faces.

Phantasms are not cordial. They harry and they tease.
They seep into the smallest crack and travel on the breeze.
They stir up other spirits and agitate the fleas,
causing havoc everywhere and doing what they please.

So though they might harass your world every Halloween,
and though they might be spine-tingling and horrible and mean,
it is the one night of the year they leave the foxes be,
so the foxes are beholding to the likes of you and me.

If you should dare to wander through the forest and the trees
on this All-Saints evening, get down on your knees
and peer into the burrow of the soundly sleeping foxes
curled up in a ball with their noses near their soxes.

See them sleeping soundly, undisturbed within their dreams—
twitching in contentment under the moon’s full beams?
Your one night of terror is the fox’s only break.
Be grateful for your haunting, if just for the foxes’ sake!

Word prompts today are interim, cordial, phantasm, tandem, outside the box and dusk. Ghosts may take it easier on foxes on Prince Edward Island, as is evidenced by this fox that I observed spending a good half hour or so basking in the sun of the yard of my friends Dianne and Andy. Or perhaps it was the sunlight that drove the phantasms away. Or our presence.

Dem Bones

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Dem Bones

The skeletons are all tucked in, safely in their beds
with naughty vitriolic dreams swirling through their heads.
Their atrocious behavior saved for another day,
they will not raise a ruckus. They’re holding it at bay.
They’re resting up for Halloween which is the night that they
will throw aside their covers and come out to play!

 

Prompt words today are ruckus, vitriol, atrocious, play and skeleton.

Bored of the Rings

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Bored of the Rings

I admit I am incurious about matters Uchronian.
When it comes to fantasy, my thoughts tend toward draconian.
Fiction is my genre but I like it more realistic—
my interest not quite stretching to themes that are more mystic.

Fantasy’s not toothsome. It’s lacking in its juice.
Give me fantasy or suicide, and I will choose the noose!
These plots I am averse to seem to have a different muse.
Werewolves in the moonlight? Characters I must accuse.

A Game of Thrones and Narnia are not a fit for me.
J.R.R. Tolkien is not my cup of tea.
I prefer Jane Austen, the Brontes and Anne Tyler.
But Ursula Le Guin? Please forgive if I revile her.

 

I beg forgiveness from science fiction/fantasy fans, as I know there are many I admire in this group, but I simply am not engaged by fantasy as I am by reality—even fictionalized reality (which I acknowledge as an oxymoron.) I must admit that I don’t really revile Ursula Le GuIn. It was either that or “file her,” which didn’t quite work as well. There are some limitations in rhyming, so I admit “revile” is harsh. And, to be fair, my husband and I once listened to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on a trip back and forth across the U.S. and when we arrived home after that six-week trip, we sat in our driveway in our motor home for an extra half-hour to hear its end, but nonetheless, I was not motivated to wander farther along the paths of fantasy. And, to be fair, give a person a word like “Uchronia” as a prompt word and what do you expect?  Revenge was in order.  ;o)

Prompt words for the day are juice, fit, Uchronia, incurious, muse and moon. 

Better Off Friends

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Better Off Friends

A study of your phenotype reveals that something’s missing—
a fact that I have noticed in our hugging and our kissing.
You seem not to be happy while following desire.
If you were a crematorium, they’d have to stoke your fire.
So although you are not lacking in gaiety or fun,
when it comes to sex appeal, I fear, my dear, you’ve none.

Prompt words for today are phenotype, study, crematorium, gaiety and following desire.

 

 

the set of observable characteristics of an indiv. resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment

On a Bench in the Park on Sadie Hawkins Day

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On a Bench in the Park on Sadie Hawkins Day

It seems there is a plethora of libidinous misses,
and with one on either side, it is a rivalry of kisses.
Their exuberance is catching. He’s handling it well,
This type of encounter is one where he’ll excel.

So many social interchanges don’t go far enough.
They’re simply superficial or blustering and bluff.
But he knew this one was different. He knew it from the start.
Communication’s different when created from the heart.

Prompt words for the day are handle, rivalry, catching, excel and creating from your heart.

Martyred by The Camino de Santiago

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Martyred by The Camino de Santiago

I’m jabbed by thorns and scratched by hay, and we have barely started.
I must say this hike you planned is not for the fainted-hearted.
I never was a nature girl, in spite of what you think.
With just this amount of moving, I’m already at the brink.

It isn’t even noon yet, and we began at dawn.
“We’ll laugh about this later,” you say as I trudge on.
As we approach the cliff face,  I worry about falling.
This mountain-climbing business is simply not my calling.

You say it’s a mere hillock, but to my exhausted eyes,
a hillock’s just a mountain in another guise.
Are we coming back this way? I ask, hoping the best,
thinking I’ll just wait here as the others mount the crest.

But alas, my hopes don’t gel. This trail leads to another.
Inside, I swear a bloody streak. Aloud, I mutter, “brother,”
as I lift my pack again and leave my comfy rock
to walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk.

When the day is finally done and in my bed I’m lying,
I am not laughing much at all, in fact, my dear, I’m crying!
I’ve grown blisters on my blisters and bruises on my bruises.
You can have your damn “Camino.” In the future, I’ll take cruises!!!

 

Word prompts for the day are: moving, laugh, jab, trudge, falling and hay.

First Child

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First Child

When it comes to good midwivery,
for sure, ease in delivery
is ranked high on performance scale.
But nonetheless, the baby’s wail
creates a pleasure so insane
that it wipes out mom’s earlier pain.

Folks question dad’s sobriety
judging from the variety 
of gifts he brings for wife and son.
A rolling pin? A bee bee gun?
A negligee? A fishing pole?
A cowboy hat? A casserole?

When he ran out of gifts to buy,
his philanthropy then went awry.
He bought the hospital a broom
purely for use within their room
lest dust and dirt from other places
land upon his loved-ones’ faces.

Once home, their baby care routine
was like a well-oiled machine
that wove through bike and hobby horse––
a toy department obstacle course.
If it’s true that chaos has its beauty,
then this young dad had done his duty

in spreading beauty wherewithin
it’s probable you’ll bark your shin
or hit your head or stub your toe––
on toys piled everywhere you go.
If you looked closely, then just maybe
you might be able to locate baby.

Stocked for life, he’s unaware
of all the loot piled in his lair.
He’s content if he is changed
and fed and cuddled, rearranged
and left to sleep the day away.
He will not see his daddy play

with all the toys he wished that he
had to play with when he was three
and  five and eight and seventeen,
when kids weren’t heard, but only seen.
Back then, it’s true, he had his pick.
His ball a stone, his bat a stick.

 

Prompt words today are variety, delivery, switch, philanthropy,  beauty in chaos.