Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

New Stone Age

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New Stone Age

We construct a life, then fate takes it away,
constructing its own plan it changes day-to-day.
All that man constructs it conspires to pull down.
Everything will vanish—every roadway, every town.

Our most intricate circuits will be ripped to shreds—
our efforts all discounted for what comes in their stead.
It seems we’ve done our least to save the world we’ve hexed,
so nature gets to try again to see what it builds next!

Prompt words today are vanish, least, discount, circuit, construct and fate. Image by Pavel Nexnanov on Unsplash.

Murphy’s Law

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Murphy’s Law

An ambivalent lawyer cares hardly a jot
about whether he wins your law case or not.
An optimist one day, pessimistic the next,
if he’s your advisor, I fear you are hexed.

In the legal arena he just mills around.
His decisions are iffy, his judgement unsound.
An unusual confidant, when in a bind,
he’ll find it convenient to just change his mind.

So taking all factors into account,
as the trial goes on and the legal bills mount,
wrap up the case and accept your defeat
as a legal disaster you’ll never repeat!!

Prompt words today are optimist, arena, unusually, ambivalent, lawyyer andjot. Image by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash.

Morning Menu

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Morning Menu

If you desire a breakfast that’s full of health and crunch,
that will cast away your hunger from awakening to lunch,
lay a corn ear perpendicular and mash it all to bits,
relinquishing it’s former shape to turn it into grits.
No one will guess its origin. They will not have a hunch,
but it will solve their appetite if they eat a bunch.

 

Prompts today are crunch, origin, castaway, perpendicular, breakfast and relinquish.

Poetic License

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Poetic License

Pejorative words will not be allowed,
for poetry folk don’t assent to be cowed.
They want to feel wistful and somewhat romantic,
so they won’t put up with language pedantic.

Demur is acceptable. Artsy is cherished,
but flowery’s been banished and stilted has perished.
Inscrutable language is also passé
as is predictable. So déclassé!!!!

Step carefully, then, through the poetic world.
Take care before your words are unfurled.
For poetic license does not give permission
for outright acts of verbal sedition!!!

Prompt words are demur, pejorative, inscrutable, cherished, and wistful. Image by David Beale on Unsplash

 

Book Worm

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Book Worm

My friend is loose but I’m demur.
She has more fun, you can be sure.
Her blinding smile can motivate
a guy to ask her for a date.

She’s best when she is center stage,
but I prefer the written page—
a square hole with a rounded peg
when I am asked to shake a leg,

I got the brains, she got the looks.
She parties on. I hit the books.
One of us was born to party,
but I’m the one who is the smarty.

Prompt words today are demur, loose, blinding, motivate, shake and stage. Image by Prasanna Kumar on Unsplaxh.

Old Photographs

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Old Photographs

Dark shadows that were yesterday 
in flashbulb’s glare have given way
to images where we are kept
on pages where for years we’ve slept.

They apprise us of the past,
employing images that last
to dominate in blinding light
the past that otherwise takes flight.

Prompt words today are glare, dominant, blinding, apprise, employ and yesterday.

A Marital Discourse on The Subject of Light Exercise

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A Marital Discourse on The Subject of Light Exercise

You breakfast, lunch and tea and sup,
hardly ever getting up.
I say that we should take a ride
just to get us both outside,

and thus do I precipitate
a lively marital debate—
you flummoxed by my rude suggestion
that interferes with your digestion.

So I employ another means
to distract you from your franks and beans.
Feeling youthful and impulsive,
I chance your finding it repulsive

and suggest that we go dancing
and perhaps do some romancing,
whereupon you rise and shriek
that your demise I surely seek.

Dancing at our advanced age?
You spit and sputter, in a rage,
and since for minutes you don’t pause,
at least you exercise your jaws.

Prompt words today are precipitate, flummoxed, shriek, impulsive, employ and ride.

Simple Inspiration

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Simple Inspiration

I’ll verify a dozen ways that  I’m in the pink,
but I’m not as together as some folks may think.
The course I plod is littered by words I’ve thrown away,
hoping that I’ll come across some better ones some day.

I use no means nefarious to prod words into being.
My syllabic yield is rather based on what I’m seeing.
And so I am a plagiarist of wind and rain and flowers,
recording what is sweet in life and also much that sours.

 

 

Prompt words today are nefarious, yield, course, verify, dozen and pink.

Self-Improvement

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Self-Improvement

I can magnify with optics or reduce with diet pills,
but there is no solution to another of my ills.
When I’m feeling challenged by a flurry of activity,
overwhelmed and harried due to my proclivity
to stave off any tedium by means of overbooking,
with one too many bubbling pots on my stovetop cooking,
there is one solution that is valid and concrete.
I need to find a method to turn down the heat!

Prompt words today are magnify, optics, flurry, tedium, concrete and when.

Wayward Duck

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Wayward Duck

A wayward duck up on a hill.
He don’t come down and never will.
He invents reasons to stay up.
Comes down to buy his food to sup.
Recharges rum, then up he goes
to computerize and then to doze.
Seeks neither censure nor promotion.
Tries to fend off gross emotion.
Keeps himself up on a shelf.
Communes with no one but himself
except online where he comports
with on-air folks of different sorts.
For though he might seem misbegotten,
here on air he’s not forgotten.

Prompt words today are recharge, promote, wayward, invent, duck and hill.