Tag Archives: Word of the Day Challenge

“TO DO BLUES” Feb 10, 2023

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I got home from being gone all day (first at the dentist for a dental implant and then ferrying houseguests around) to find this message from Forgottenman: You must be up to yer ears in company, so here’s something to save a bit of time – prompts with links for today.

Here is my message back to him: You are such a sweetie. Finally got home at 7:33 tonight and this is such a nice gift not to have to look up and link prompts. I owe you six.

Prompts for today are Uncertain,  Pessimist, Entrance, Huddle, Paraphernalia and Risk. Image by Glenn Carstens Peters on Unsplash.

“To Do” Blues

With too many deadlines, appointments and tasks,
I’m uncertain that I can do all that life asks.
I admit I’m a pessimist when it comes to
whether I’ll do all I’m scheduled to do.
There’s paraphernalia that needs to be sorted,
obligations to fill and guests to be courted.

Huddled in bed with Coco and Morrie,
I try to come up with my usual story.
They huddle around me and lick at the keys,
taking the risk that they will displease.
Then Zoe makes an entrance and plops on my lap,
curls in a circle and commences to nap.

The other two spread out as close as they can,
thereby complicating my original plan
to complete all my blogs and then finish my Wordle,
Word Huddle and Blossom and finally my Quordle.
This may happen still for this poem is finished
and thus my “To Do” list is now diminished.

When Right is Wrong

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When Right is Wrong 

You always were too holy for our motley crew.
No way could we ever be quite as straight as you.
We questionable artists and musicians and the ilk
could not approach your holiness absorbed with mother’s milk.

You postulate your future at heaven’s pearly gate,
while at the same time uncertain of our sinners’ fate.
Will we be subject to your God’s retaliatory rages,
or will he ask you to atone for locking kids in cages?

Prompts for today are motley, straight, postulate, questionable, artist and uncertain.

Neighborhood Security

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Neighborhood Security

The siblings from Hell bike over the hill,
ravage my apple tree and eat their fill.
Pernicious young visitors—prophets of doom,
they deadhead my flowers, purloin their perfume.

I postulate ways that I may be rid
of each malevolent disastrous kid,
but threats don’t deter them and their parents don’t care.
They’re just grateful these Hellions are out of their hair.

Should I kill them with kindness? Prepare them ice creams?
Bake them a pizza that’s the stuff of their dreams?
Buy them new toys or enfold them in arms
that have forgiven their previous harms?

Would this turn them loving and mindful and meek?
Will it work if I turn that proverbial cheek?
Or should I turn the dogs out to drive them away?
Lock all my doors and again hit the hay?

It’s six in the morning. I could use some more sleep.
They are such bratty kids. My resentment runs deep.
So I walk down the hall and open the gate,
release my Great Danes and thus seal their fate.

They’ll pursue them with vigor and though they might run,
they’ll soon overtake them and when they are done,
revise your opinion if you’ve judged me as cruel,
they’ll divert them with kisses and subdue them with drool.

Prompt words today are pernicious, perfume, postulate, questionable, bike and siblings. Image by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash.

Visiting Mom in Jail

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(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Coco has a new bad habit of reclining on the terrace table. As I was getting ready to do this prompt, I decided to try to incorporate her into the poem, using these photos as a further prompt.

Visiting Mom in Jail

If it were up to me, we’d both be off and hiking,
but as you can see, this is not to her liking.
You are instrumental for the reason she is balking,
for Instead of hiking, her fingers do the walking.

Clearly, I don’t fancy this. I see no plusses to it.
I denounce this action and I’ll tell you why I rue it.
My phrases you’ll find piquant . They’ll clearly break your heart.
But when they come to moving her, they will not make a start.

As you can see from shots above, they keep Mom behind bars
and only let her out at night to swim beneath the stars.
We feel so sorry for her that when she goes in to bed,
we all stream in behind her and cluster ’round her head.

We’re sure she craves as company the doggies she adores,
though she complains that Zoe farts and brother Morrie snores.
As for me, I lick her face and hands and arms and neck.
She says she does not like it, but I just think, “What the heck?”

As long as we are all on the same side of the bars,
we need to reassure her we consider her as ours.
Meanwhile, in the daytime when we clearly are not able,
I’ll stay as close as I can be by lying on the table!!!

Prompts today are denounce, fancy, plus, piquant, hike and instrumental.

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.