Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

Agastopia

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Agastopia

I simply cannot reconcile that glimmer in your eyes
with any look that I’ve received from any other guys.
My friends say you’re perfidious, yet I don’t get that message.
“Danger” is an ending that your gazes do not presage.
If the frustration that I’m feeling is transmitted in my gaze,
perhaps you will decipher it while wandering its maze.
For every time you’re present, I’m a prisoner of pondering
that question in your eyes that always sets my mind to wandering
down pathways we meander, walking hand-in-hand.
So long as you are in my thoughts, my heart is in remand.
We need a kind interpreter to set our looks aright.
Perhaps there’s a happy ending for him to expedite.

 

Prompt words today are frustration, reconcile, agastopia, perfidious and message.

Agastopia: Admiration of  or a fixation on a particular part of someone’s body.

Emily

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Emily

An introspective traveler, my trips are of a kind
wherein I follow footsteps left there by my mind.
They are a kind of loving, these journeys that I take—
the only sort of antics that I ever make.
Outside of them, I squirrel away, hidden in my rooms,
but oh, my friends, within my mind, my next adventure looms!

 

If you are an Emily Dickinson fan, you might enjoy this other poem I wrote, inspired by one of her poems.

Photo of Emily Dickinson from the Emily Dickinson Museum. Prompt words today are footprint, introspective, loving, antics and hide.

Stay of Execution

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Pardon by Way of a Higher Power

There was  a stay of execution, and the prisoner was relieved.
The executioner, in a turmoil, was sorely aggrieved.
If he couldn’t fire incessantly, it put him off his game.
And yet he couldn’t argue with the one who was to blame.
Sometimes it was the law that won, and sometimes the sinner.
He cut his prisoner free and then shuffled off to dinner.
“Does Jimmy want to stay to eat?” his mom was heard to say,
“I can call his mom to ask her, if he wants to stay.”
But the sheriff told his mom that since he wasn’t ichthyophagous,
a tuna sandwich wouldn’t make it past his friend’s esophagus!

Prompt words today are stay, incessant, ichthyophagous, turmoil and game. What travesties of plot these prompts sometimes force upon us!!!

Do-It-Yourself!

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Executing

Do-It-Yourself!

He’d written the definitive how-to-do-it guide,
but needed a good editor, so I had applied.

He was a woodsy sort of bloke, self-confident and curious,
but once I got to know him, I found him to be spurious.

Though he seemed independent, when I asked him to replace
a light bulb in its socket, he did a turn-of-face.

He balked and had a certain emergency of bladder
when asked if he would simply climb up on a ladder!

It seems the very sort of jobs he taught us to be doing,
due to his acrophobia, were ones he was eschewing!

When it came to home improvement, he was words upon a shelf,
giving literal meaning to the term “do-it-yourself!”

Prompt words today are woodsy, replace, independent, editor and spurious.

Honey This and Honey That

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Your honeyfuggling habits will not work with me.
Your foreplay is of no effect—just makes me want to pee.
If you want to romance me, you’ll have to get more physical.
This flittering and buzzing just makes me slightly quizzical.
You promise that your tactics will become more auspicious,
but then you call me “Honey” and make me more suspicious.
Your strategies of courtship are too fluttery and free.
I fear that our love story was just not meant to “bee.”

 

 

The prompt word for word of the day is honeyfuggle.

Missed Shot

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Missed Shot

He was not noted for his charm, much less for his amenity.
Although he had been praised a bit for success at serenity.
He found spectator sports to be relaxing and most riveting
those times when he was not intent on shooting hoops or divoting.

His interests were not widespread, his hobbies not eclectic.
He simply spent his time at hoops and golf—both actual and electric.
But because a dance or movie caused him great travail,
his attempts to woo fair maidens were to no avail.

And so he forfeited a life of conjugal felicity
for a single life of what was unrelieved simplicity.
And  though he thought that chances for love had passed him by,
it wasn’t just a stroke of fate, but more a lapse of eye,

As he shot hoops with brothers on a public knoll,
a lady he’d admired before out on an aimless stroll,
paused to watch their antics, and especially to watch him
as he lofted up the ball and put it through the rim.

But when the lady winked, he traded one pass for the other
by simply pivoting to throw the ball on to his brother!
He thought that chance had passed him by. He had no luck at all,
when in fact the problem was he only watched the ball!

 

 

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words for the day are serenity, riveting, eclectic, travail and simplicity.

Delusions of Athleticism

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Delusions of Athleticism

Since I’m loyal by habit, it’s hard to explain
my quick burst of laughter in spite of the pain
you must have experienced in your hard fall
as you reached your foot out to kick back the ball
that had escaped the children at play,
rolling out of the street and into your way. 
but my dear, you aren’t known for athletic ability—
your speed or your aim or your grace or stability.
Yet again, please excuse my unrestrained snicker
making light of your dreams of being a kicker.

Word prompts today are again, excuse, laughter, loyal  and habit. Image by Afa Ah Loo on Unspash, used with permission.

Fresh Prizes: For Marilyn and Garry

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Fresh Prizes

Even though she thinks she knows him to the bone,
another little detail comes forward to be shown.
Like a little prize, presented for her viewing,
after all these years, he’s not finished with his wooing.

No fact  inconsequential as he unveils his life,
so even after decades as a man and wife,
new mysteries are still revealed in words coined charismatically.
Each new revelation, an avowal made emphatically.

 

This poem is in answer to Marilyn Armstrong’s comment about her husband, Garry:

Marilyn Armstrong

We still are discovering things we didn’t know about each other. You’d think we’d know it all by now, but we keep surprising each other. It’s kind of cool.

Prompt words today are prize, drain, emphatic, inconsequential and bone.

The Hunt

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The Hunt

They primp and they posture and leave parts uncovered.
Few parts of their bodies are left undiscovered.
Pitching their assets, they rip off small parts
of their form-hugging Levis to capture the hearts
and the libido of young men in passing.
It’s part of their flirting and tongue-in-cheek sassing.
Euphoric and giggling or slightly aloof,
they are every boy’s fantasy, out on the hoof.
Equality isn’t their goal or their pleasure,
for the power they yield is more than full measure.

Their cups runneth over. With their charms, it’s a cinch.
If birds were their quarry, no more than a pinch
of salt would be needed to capture their tail.
Their fish have been caught and just writhe in their pail.
Young huntresses all, yet each young man they meet
no doubt finds them guileless–innocent and sweet.
They are slightly misguided—naive in their Dockers,
thinking that they are the ones who are stalkers.
We will not inform them that hunters they’re not.
They just follow the bait until they are caught!

Prompt words today are posture, covered, euphoric, equality and pitch. Illustration downloaded with permission from Unsplash.

Masked and Unmasked

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Masked and Unmasked

Would you please exonerate me from my daily task
of hourly disinfectant and this horrid mask?
They’re needed for survival and using them is wise.
I believe the truth of it. I don’t believe the lies
that Donald tries to feed us about things getting better.
The west coast’s burning up as our southern coast gets wetter.
His conniption fits don’t reach me. I know he’s just selected
any random facts and words for getting reelected.
The only way to free us is to get some wiser folks
to  replace these charlatans that are merely jokes.
Self-serving puppets of the rich, they posture and they bluster.
They proudly go out maskless as they gather in his cluster.
The only way to save us is to vote these fools out.
It’s done no good to protest, to riot and to shout.
The finest weapon that we have is easier to tote.
Just put your mask and gloves on and hurry out to vote.
We’ll wear these masks forever until we pass away
if every single one of us doesn’t have our say.
If you’re my friend, please go and vote. It’s not much of a task.
And maybe in my lifetime I can get rid of this mask!!!!

 

Prompts today are lies, survive, conniption, exonerate and feed.