Tag Archives: Word of the Day

Ta Ta and Good Riddance

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Ta Ta and Good Riddance

He wants to know what’s all this fuss
about being unscrupulous.
Honor to him is just a fable—
His every act meant to enable
a law or bill or legal tort
as a means to then exhort
his cronies to increase his fame
to pad his pockets and laud his name.
His vacant eyes contain naught
of what he did for  what he’s got.
A patriot for sure he’s not.
If I were forced to make a list
of all the ways he is not missed,
I fear the list would stretch so far
as Katmandu or Zanzibar.
And though I know them all by heart,
I do not have the time to start
at the beginning and reach the end.
So I’ll just say, here and anon,
that I’m relieved that he is gone.

 

Prompt words today are enable,  scrupulous, vacant, list and exhort.
Photo by Srikanta from Unsplash, used with permission.

Eulogy

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Eulogy

Men whistle, catcall, stare and stalk
and even vagrants stop and gawk.
Old ladies cluck their tongues and talk,
but I can’t help the way I walk.

My talent was not learned of late.
It’s rumored that it is innate.
My mom, a flapper in her day,
was zany, silly, clever, gay.

And now I ooze with her pizzazz,
her craziness and all that jazz,
or so Dad says. And long-dead embers
spark in his eyes as he remembers.

She’s only stories heard, a name,
a face within a silver frame
on the nightstand of my dad—
the mother that I never had.

She never held me in her arms
or schooled me in feminine charms,
but I have her spirit and her butt.
In this I am most fortunate.

So I resurrect her daily,
imagining her as I gaily
sway and flirt. It is a token—
a eulogy with no word spoken.

Prompts for today are pizzazz, fortunate,  vagrant, innate and frame. The photo really is of my mother, but the poem is fictional. My mother taught me lots of things, but not how to walk seductively!!! ;o)

Bobcat

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Bobcat

You stroll across the road in front of us
as though you do not notice us.
Astonished, we capitulate our right of way
and sit in the car, digesting our wonder
at your incursion into this tame neighborhood
spread like a blanket
over the wildness of the desert.

It is no wonder
that life in this place
seems to be laden
with occasional visits
of rattlesnakes and bobcats
such as yourself,
but it is by chance that,
like a brief vacation from our own banality,
we bear witness to your incursion.

Even given your languid stroll,
I cannot move quickly enough to record it,
but providence provides,
and minutes after we pull into the garage and come inside,
an email arrives from the neighbor
that records your incursion
into his backyard.

He stalked you with his camera,
and we with our eyes
as you strolled serenely
in between your own stalkings.

Oh, bobcat,
beautiful element
of that wild nature that surrounds
and enriches us
and which, in spite of
evidence to the contrary,
we are a part of—

If I were religious,
these words
of your sighting
would be my prayer.

Prompts today are chance, capitulate, digest, lade and astonished. Photo by Paul Brown. Thanks, Paul, for capturing what I could only try to capture in words. Photo taken on Friday afternoon, April 16, 2021. Location: Trilogy at Vistancia, Peoria, Arizona.

Pludged Doze

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Pludged Doze

When she’d clipped and arranged and with water anointed
the roses I’d brought her, she  looked disappointed.
“These roses aren’t flagrant,” my lady-love said,
but she suffered a horrible cold in her head, 
and recently testy, lately each word
she uttered was also slightly absurd.

She was given to certain extreme mis-pronouncements
Like “Dode wad adudder” and other announcements
when I offered a hot and whisky-laced toddy
to coat her sore throat and to comfort her body.
The simplest of pleasures may be greeted with dread
by a bellicose lady with a cold in her head.

And her talent with words, be it poetry or prose,
doesn’t work orally with a plugged nose!

Prompts for the day are comfort, flagrant, talent, bellicose and simple.

Sneaking Up On the Muse

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Sneaking Up On the Muse

My verses are not perfect. I’m no Dickinson or Byron.
My words are rough and crumpled, in need of a hot iron.
My reasoning is stifled, obscured by feeble brain.
I often have to write a line again and then again.
My successful lines are stealthy. They just creep up on me,
perhaps because my muses hang around insistently.
If I could take a stealthie, perhaps you’d see one hovering
there over my shoulder, inspiring and mothering.
In short, on those occasions when my inspiration’s slight,
and I cannot find a poem, likely my muses might!

Words of the day are stealthie, slight, rumpled, stifle and iron.

(A stealthie is defined as a picture taken by someone, usually a girl, that is clearly a selfie but contains a cute animal or object of interest in order to curb the backlash of it being a selfie, or a picture taken without the subject’s knowledge, especially using a smartphone. Retrieved from “https://en.wiktionary.org/ and the Urban Dictionary. This imaginary stealthie is of my mother, hovering over my left shoulder. She was my first inspiration and conspirator  in rhyme and still, it is her voice I hear every time I write a rhymed poem.)

Marital Disagreement

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Marital Disagreement

When anguish becomes volatile and without your prior detection,
things are lofted toward you–lamps thrown in your direction.
As frying pans and glasses come at you through the air,
take my advice, it would be best if you were still not there.
You’d better listen to my words, for I’ll not tell you twice.
With such items sailing toward you to “Duck!!!” is good advice.
It’s best to listen to our friends for help when times get tough.
You need not express gratitude. Your friendship is enough.

Prompt words today are duck, direction, anguish, volatile and gratitude.

A Speedy Release

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A Speedy Release

A fellow by the name of Kurtz
never sipped when he could Xertz.
No matter what the size or name
of liquid, it was just the same.
Milk or water, Coke or beer
took just seconds to disappear.

When asked to give an interview,
He said, “Please meet me in the loo,”
and when he rose, most resolutely,
the news reporter said, “Absolutely,”
hustling after as Kurtz sped
out of the barroom to the head,

whereupon he caused to pass
that liquid lately in his glass.
Thus did the newsman get his lead.
To simplify, he said, “Kurtz peed,
beating his record for fast sipping,
by three seconds, stream to dripping!

 

Prompt words today are interview, simplify, resolute, xertz (to gulp down quickly and greeditly) and size.

Coup de Coeur

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Coup de Coeur

You have built a tunnel—a channel to my heart.
I should have seen it sooner, should have known it from the start.
Now you foment discord to make me feel unrest.
None of the others calm the storm. I know you are the best.
It is a sort of power. Therefore, I must not fall.
Yet I cannot resist it, for I love you most of all.
I might have wed for power. Now I must wed for love.
How can I rule somebody who fits me like a glove?
My friends find it hilarious I’ve let my defense down
to substitute a bridal veil for my royal crown.
I guess I’ll have to settle for a democracy
now that you have staged a coup on my monarchy.

Prompt words today are tunnel, therefore, hilarious, channel and foment.

Skywriting

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Skywriting

Invisible patterns are there, nonetheless,
and they are what write my poems, I confess.
That’s why they’re birthed without any strain
and what brings me back again and again
as a surrogate mother for verses and stories
that repeat life’s foibles, beauties and glories.
Varied in humor and import and skill,
they may display failure or conquest or will.
Some may tell truth and others small lies.
They instigate laughter or irrigate eyes.
But however, once birthed, my expressions may fare,
they were there all the time–right out in the air
for anyone to arrange or abuse them.
I’m just the one who elected to use them.

Prompt words today are invisible, pattern, foible, variable and strain.

The Sponsor

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The Sponsor

He’s the mafia of sobriety with eyes in every bar.
If you try to buy a six-pack, you won’t get very far.
You’ll be waylaid at the corner and he’ll confiscate your glow.
When it comes to who is tippling, he is always in the know.

His methods may be dodgy, but they seem to work.
His strategy’s to follow you—to tattle, spy and lurk.
You won’t see him in the the shadows. He is tricky and uncouth,
but your sponsor’s only doing it for you, and that’s the truth.

Do unto others only what you’ve wanted done to you.
He’s had it done to him and now he’ll do and do and do.
The path that you have taken is one he knows too well.
He knows this particular demon that you have to quell.

The bottle has long been your friend, but now here is another.
One was a two-faced comrade, but this one is a brother.
Two hands held out to you and it is up to you to choose.
Will you choose the brotherhood or will you choose the ruse?

Prompt words today are mafia, glow, sobriety and uncouth.