Tag Archives: Word of the Day

Testing Affection

8 Replies

IMG_5554

Testing Affection

When I booked a sea adventure with a lover, I confess
that traveling together put our passion to the test.
It’s true I grate on people. I’ll attest to this one fact,
but it’s also true at times that my guy could use more tact.

When he kept daily tallies of the cookies on my plate—
a definite statistic I preferred he not relate—
he meant it as a joke, but I considered it as snide.
Comments about my appetite are ones hard to abide.

He maintained a steady pace and told me not to dawdle,
and even though his rapid steps made him sort of waddle,
I should have kept that to myself, but I fear I did not;
and that is why things got as heated as they finally got.

I said I’d zero tolerance for what was going on
and before he knew it, I was off that ship and gone.
And this is often how it goes when new love goes out traveling.
It’s often hard to face new climes without romance unraveling.

 

Full disclosure: Although the imagery in this poem reflects a recent sea voyage taken with my sister, the content is purely fictional. Well, except for the cookies harvested from the abundant buffets, which we both consumed in rather embarrassing numbers, but really, no one took a tally and no one waddled!! Nor did it put sisterhood to the test.

The fact that traveling together can put friendship or romance to the test, however, can be all too true. The first European driving vacation I took with a certain lover, I couldn’t wait to get home so I never had to see the jerk again, and at one point I really did tell him to pull over and I got out of the car and vanished into a forested tract for awhile. Thankfully, he waited patiently and I eventually emerged and got back into the car. Things evened out when we got home and within a year, we were married. Nonetheless, there is a reason for the old adage  that “true love (and traveling together) never did run smooth.”

Guided by the needs of these prompts, I have combined the two stories and the frictional lovers’ driving misadventure has been transformed into a cruise.

 

Prompt words for Aug 25, 2019 are friendship, excursion, snide, attest and zero.

Too Much Information

12 Replies

photo by joel muiz on Unsplash. Used with permission

Too Much Information

Substantiation of your sex appeal is shown in your tattoos—
illustrative options in so many different hues.
It’s true that your charisma is there for all to see,
inscribed upon your body be it thigh or calf or knee.

If I might take a moment, I could read you like a book.
A hieroglyphic record in your body’s every nook.
The snakes around your biceps and thorns circling your neck,
beer bottles on your forearms and the joined hearts on each pec.

All the ladies of your past hidden here and there.
Mandy on your wrist and Susan nestled in your hair.
Lucy on your pinkie and Maxine upon your shoulder—
might you regret them later as you get a little older?

That tear that’s sliding down your cheek, the stars beside your eyes,
that naked lady on your neck—do you think it wise?
I’m thinking of your grandchildren, for when your shirt you doff,
you won’t have any secrets, for your stories won’t come off.

Prompt words for today are charisma, tattoo, options, substantiation and moment.

Scoreless

4 Replies

photo by Ben Hershey for Unsplash, used with permission

Scoreless

As a jock he’s overrated. He’s insipid and a bore.
He dishes out the dirt on all his dates that’s mainly lore.
By their choice a second date is rarely in the works.
They have their radar out for all such predatory jerks.
On the field he’s second rate at passing and advancing.
But those skills are stellar when compared to his romancing!

Prompt words for today are insipid, dirt, jock, overrated and choice.

A Stroll in the Park is not What it Used to Be

6 Replies

 

A Stroll in the Park is not What It Used to Be

This park is overrated. It is not my zone of choice.
One cannot be heard here unless you raise your voice.
The signs are not well-written. They’re curt and brash and rude.
One gets pebbles in one’s shoes when fashionably shoed.
Little dogs are walked here that irritate my nose,
and I don’t approve of the scanty jogging clothes.
If the Queen were walking here, I think she would be shocked,
for not one single passer-by is stockinged, gloved and frocked!
All-in-all, a walk here is not what it once was.
I only visit here because the ice cream vendor does!

Prompt words today are pebble, written, zone, overrated and choice.

Dieting and the Art of Romance

7 Replies

Photo by i yunmai on unsplash

Dieting and the Art of Romance

There’s a scintilla of a chance that I might still be kissed.
His arm around my shoulder, his hand gripping my wrist.
If it were to happen, I just might not take flight,
but claim that kiss with open lips, as though it were my right.
Just in case, I think I might just start on a new diet
so if the chance arises, I will have the nerve to try it.

Prompt words for today are scintilla, diet, flight, wrist.

Culinary Timing

3 Replies

We reached Corfu this morning and are now 8 hours ahead of my usual Central Standard Time in Mexico.  This can wreak havoc with both maintaining contact with friends back home, sleep and appetite. This morning as I ate breakfast at what would have been midnight back home, I wrote a poem that had nothing to do with this subject. Unfortunately, I unthinkingly ripped it up and threw it away later after I used the same paper to record our scores for a dice game, so here is a substitute on the subject of what big time changes do to the psyche as well as the appetite.

Culinary Timing

I’m in trouble with reason.  My time’s taken flight.
I don’t know the difference between day and night.
My head can accept we’re eight hours ahead,
though my body prefers to stay longer abed.

The diet they serve us now we’ve reached Corfu
agitates me with a troubling snafu.
When it’s breakfast time here, I am taken aback,
for my palate’s desirous of a midnight snack.

Time’s not in contention. I know I am wrong.
As they change the time, I should go along.
All day, it’s my stomach that keeps on resisting.
Shrimp cocktail? I’d rather they desist insisting.

Whatever they’re serving is not what I wish.
I’m ready for pancakes. They want to serve fish.
The meal I desire is not what they’re makin’.
They want to serve lobster when I prefer bacon.

I truly like visiting different places,
seeing strange sites and different faces.
Yet, I may give up traveling merely because
they cannot keep time the way that it was!

 

 

 

Words for today are agitate, diet, flight, contentious and trouble.

Ode to the Shipboard Buffet

14 Replies

IMG_4988

Ode to the Shipboard Buffet

In the hierarchy of buffets, spaghetti is the king
no matter what competing dishes they may bring
to grace the laden, groaning boards: rich soups and shrimp and cheeses.
They advocate for salads, but somehow no Caesar pleases
half as much as pasta, well-laden with rich sauce:
ground beef, basil and parmesan, tinged with just a toss
of fennel and oregano. It simply has no peer.
We gobble it with cabernet, chianti or a beer.
We leave the smorgasbord serene, replete and full and sated.
Our emptiness has been fulfilled, our appetites abated.
No hunger pangs outlast thin noodles topped with smashed tomatoes.
Spaghetti beats out hamburgers and crisp French fried potatoes.
It beats out cured Virginia  ham. It beats filet mignon.
It beats twice-baked potatoes and things put thereupon.
I’m sorely tempted by ice cream and pastries, cookies, tarts,
but such things aren’t exclusive of main courses that are starts.
A plate piled with spaghetti deserves a proper ending.
Just plan when loading up your plate. Dessert is also pending!

IMG_0762

 

Words for the day are serene, advocate, hierarchy, outlast and spaghetti.

Defection

5 Replies

 

photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash, with permission

Defection

Her endless tries to civilize her wild Wyoming grin
and the crooked chipped-off tooth that resided within
did nothing to dispel its authentic cowgirl charm
or its endless talent in working to disarm
any reticent cowboy who thought he would resist it
then ended up admitting that he wished that he had kissed it.
So when at last those lips were kissed, alas it was no drover,
but instead a city boy who won our wild girl over.
And, because they took no chance in winning her affection,
it was in fact the cowboys at fault for her defection.

 

Prompt words for today are acerbic, authentic, endless, civilize and grin.

Once Again

9 Replies

 

Once Again

The grass is always greener in another town or state.
Perhaps being a newbie she can start with a clean slate.
She’ll improve her deportment and for sure she will begin
to dress much more sedately. She’ll be neat as a pin.
She’ll insure her own wellbeing by befriending saner folk.
No more life of the party. No more a standing joke.
The other times she pulled up stakes were only practice for
this time, when she swore to them, before she slammed the door,
that she’d make something of herself. They should just wait and see.
This time she’d fall much farther from the family tree.
We hope that she is right and that she doesn’t change her mind
And ask along the self she keeps trying to leave behind.

 

Prompt words today are grass, newbie, wellbeing, improve and pin.

Nightly Ritual

12 Replies

Nightly Ritual

A fleeting shadow on the wall, what do you make of that?
Another and another joins this swirling mass of bat.
Fortuitous destruction, they swarm across the lake.
What an impressive undulating constant stream they make.
They go to eat mosquitos in the farther fields they roam,
leaving only guano here closer to their home.
The wellbeing they foster, I fear is far afield.
Here at home there’s not a single benefit  they yield.
They sleep by day then hurry off on nightly winged weavings,
leaving me, with broom and scrub brush, dealing with their leavings.

Prompt words  today are fortuitous, shadow, wellbeing, destruction and bat.
Also, for Granny’s BOTD.