Tag Archives: Word of the Day

The Sesquipedalian’s Absolution

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The Sesquipedalian’s Absolution

When we use ostentatious words,  most folks are not forgiving,
so the perspicacious reader might have a slight misgiving
and greet such words with sideways looks—a sneer, a frown, a cough—
feeling I pontificate, just trying to show off.
Words like “moon” and “June” and “spoon,” ” flowers” and “zephyrus vapors”
are thought more suitable to poems and literary papers
than words like “perspicacious” which might have made you wary,
but—I, too, had to look it up in the dictionary!!!
If you must extract vengeance, please direct it to its source,
for I rely on daily prompts to help me plan my course.
Words like “and” and “but” and “the,” are words that I might cite,
but you can blame “Ragtag” and “FOWC” for words more erudite!

 

 

Words for the day are perspicacious, pontificate, flower and vengeance Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/rdp-wednesday-perspicacious/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/10/fowc-with-fandango-pontificate/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/your-daily-word-prompt-flower-april-10-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/vengence/

Retribution

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

They’ve been building a monstrous three-story house across the street for months, the noise level increasing each day, but yesterday, my neighbor down below also started power-washing his house. They’ve continued today, and in addition, my neighbors on the other side have had gardeners operating unbelievably LOUD leaf blowers and chain saws.  It really is unbearable.  Only just now did all the men stop at once for their lunch break, enabling me to plan my revenge while writing today’s poem. Perfectly timed, just as I am typing this last line of my introduction, the power washers have started up again.

Retribution

Brain jarring poundings and drillings and sputterings
give rise to my angry cantankerous mutterings.
Construction on one side, leaf blowers over there.
High pressure power washers shatter the air.
From every direction, I’m besieged by noise.
It’s destroying my brainpower, shredding my poise.
No brilliant solution tops up my mind.
Sabotage is illegal and murder unkind.
I’ve turned up the music, closed windows and doors,
but still I can hear their mechanical roars
and grindings and crashes and rumblings and banging.
I contemplate suicide. Pills, gun or hanging?
Why aren’t my neighbors disturbed by the clamors
of chainsaws, cement mixers, trucks and jackhammers?
After all, it’s their property where men are working.
Yet none of my neighbors seem to be lurking.
They’ve probably all gone away for the day—
finding a quieter place they can stay.
They’ll return in the evening when noises decrease
hungry for dinner and a little peace—
and that’s when I’ll open each window and door,
turn my music amps up and even the score!!!!!

 

Prompt words today are hungry, cantankerous, brilliant and tops.Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/rdp-tuesday-hungry/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/09/fowc-with-fandango-cantankerous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/your-daily-word-prompt-brilliant-april-9-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/tops/

“The Fix”

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“The Fix”

–a difficult or awkward situation from which it is hard to
extricate oneself; a predicament.“how on earth did you get
into such a fix?”
predicament, plight, difficult a, difficult situation, awkward
situation, spot of trouble, bit of bother, corner,
ticklish/tricky situation, tight spot
–a dose of a narcotic drug to which one is addicted.
   “he hadn’t had his fix.”

Although you assure me you are strictly on the level,
your very need to do so makes me think you are the devil.
I find your ethics tenuous, they’re there and then they vanish.
Your motives start out lily white but end up rather tannish.
You’re fine at razzle-dazzle. You expertly shoot the breeze.
You flatter and finagle, you smile and flirt and tease,
but have you really done the job or were you merely acting?
Is your expertise for real or merely reenacting
what you saw in movies or surveyed on the TV?
Has fiction finally managed to replace reality?

Did you get your medical knowhow from college texts you’ve read,
or learn your bedside manner viewing Chicago Med?
Do you really know the way to set a joist or beam?
Can you really hem a skirt or sew an even seam?
Do you know how to fix my brakes, change oil and do a lube
or did you merely look it up last night on You Tube?
TV is our Bible and whatever we may view
becomes the thing it is okay to become or do.
We put our idols in office, be they hero, fool or rogue.
What is most entertaining becomes what is in vogue.

Why has the world fallen into this state of dereliction?
Simply because we cannot—distinguish fact from fiction!!!

The words of the day are dazzle, tenuous, breeze and level. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/rdp-monday-dazzle/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/08/fowc-with-fandango-tenuous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/your-daily-word-prompt-breeze-april-8-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/level/

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem based on a slang word or phrase or acronym specific to a certain job. Hmmm. That’s a corker!!! Mine seems to work on so many different levels lately, but particularly when it comes to politics.

Unplanned Sighting

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I had driven Yolanda home after giving her the gift for Yoli, which was too fragile to hand carry down the hill, and the day too hot as well. Her street is a long one with no guaranteed fast exit to the carretera as side streets are  usually plugged with trucks parked in their middle or chairs and canopy out for a funeral visitation or children playing soccer or neighbors gathered in front of a makeshift tienda—table spread with crisp snacks or candies or huge jug of horchata. So after leaving her off, I drove the long blocks to the main street that leads down to the malecon—and the glorious monstrous magnolia tree that is home to dozens of huge snowy egrets—most of whom bedeck its top branches like glorious white magnolias. Maddening that in my rush I didn’t grab my camera, as one particular egret was putting on an incredible show. If it was a mating ritual, no creature other than myself seemed to be noticing, but, in lieu of a camera, I have to try to share it with you.  The photos above are of previous viewings and none of them present the incredible performance I saw today.  Oh, that I had been able to show you that glorious long neck snaking out in an expanding “S,” again and again against the unbroken blue of the sky, then the whipping of the fragile long  feathers of the underwings!                    

 

Unplanned Sighting

Delicate white fan,
glorious in its expanse,
puffed chest expanding upwards,
    above it sinuous long neck expanding, roiling upwards
as though in supplication, or crowing splendor,
wing fanning and then whipping out, again and again
that S of neck from the top of the
biggest tree in town
majestically
jeweled with the glorious bedecking
of egrets at rest, tucked into themselves,
unlike you, glorious worshiper of calm blue sky,
spreading your feathers as though seeking to be the envy
of all those others whose gazes seem to be
directed inwards, to private memories.
     Only I, human observer of your world, to witness
caught helpless, without camera,
­­­­only an eye and tongue
to try to convey
your lovely
fragile
swaying

ballet of puffed
             pride or
grooming?

 

Only three prompt words today. One of the sites didn’t post.  The words are chest, envy and gaze. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/rdp-sunday-chest/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/07/fowc-with-fandango-envy/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/gaze/

 

If

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If

 

 

Prompt words today are coast, natural, aghast and venturesome. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/rdp-saturday-coast/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/06/fowc-with-fandango-natural/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/your-daily-word-prompt-aghast-april-6-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/venturesome-2/

The NaPoWriMo post is: Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.

Past Due

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Past Due

No laundry can remove the lipstick stains from all your collars,
and you can’t buy atonement with all your guilty dollars.
I won’t condone your straying or ease one guilty thought.
My trust in you can’t be restored. Forgiveness can’t be bought.

You’ve plenty of excuses backed up with your regret,
but your tears won’t get you anything but wet.
I’m tired of all your stories, unaffected by your tears.
Fidelity is something you can’t pay for in arrears.

 

Prompt words today are laundry, condone, plenty and collar. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/rdp-friday-laundry
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/05/fowc-with-fandango-condone/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/your-daily-word-prompt-plenty-april-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/collar/

Rewind

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Rewind

Cast-off loves better unmet,
daredevil acts you’d best forget—
so many choices in your past
that people said would never last
Prescient in part, their words are sage.
It’s true that you have turned the page
on all the foolishness of youth,
and yet, it must be said in truth
that memories of all that’s past
will last and last and last and last.

You’ll play them over in the dark,
your mind the screen, as you embark
upon that nightly rerun of
each painful unrequited love.
Foolish decisions you once made
reemerge in dream’s charade.
All mixed together, puzzling, dense—
a mire that defies good sense.
Until there, in your deepest being,
you’ll find the truth of what you’re seeing.

 

Prompt words for today are cast-off or cast off, prescient and daredevil. And, for NaPoWriMo: write your own sad poem, but one that, like Teicher’s, achieves sadness through simplicity.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/rdp-thursday-cast-off-cast-off/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/04/fowc-with-fandango-prescient/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/daredevil/

 

Little Sins: NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 3 Plus Multiple Prompts

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Little Sins

Lynnie Brost and I, washing our sins away in the bathtub
and singing of it to the strains of holy music
from The Back to the Bible Broadcast
on the radio in the living room.

My older sisters stretched out on the porch
reading Photoplay and giggling
at our penitent antics,
feeling no need
to confess the sins
of Vivian dances
and the back seats of cars.

At the age of five,
How could we articulate our sins?
The tiny plastic sword—a wingless caduceus
I’d filched from a junk drawer where hundreds resided,
rewards for the cancer drive her mother supervised.
My mother head of the Sister Kenny Polio
drive, where rewards were merely
of the conscience.
How I had wanted
one of those
tiny swords.
Why

had I not just asked for one?

We
worried most
back in our innocence—
back when our sins were the least.
Back when in our minds, the value of what we wanted
was linked as much to how much we wanted it
as to its material value.

That two-penny sucker taken from the open jar
in the Peck family’s remodeled basement.
My mother asked where I’d gotten it.
My ashamed confession,
that long trip
next door
to
confess again.
No problem. That’s what they were there for.

But my mother,
knowing the power of the little sin,
was teaching me the dangers
of its contact.

What could it hurt,
sugar packets pocketed at Starbucks,
extra ketchup and mustard scooped by handfuls into purses?
Little sins overshadowed by the big sins of this world
and yet, somehow, shameful in their pettiness.
Drenched in these small sins,
what contracts do we,
unknowing,
make?

To steal from the rich and give to the poor,
then display our generosity on our lapels
by the scarlet badge of the caduceus?
Noble Robin Hoods, we justify
by our assurance that
they’ve stolen
from us
as
well.
and thus,
those who need most to learn
become instead our teachers,
educating us that their own sins are justified—
what we ourselves would do
if only we had
their power.

Prompt words today are articulate, contacts, drench and penitent.

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that “involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time, focusing on imagery, sound or emotional content.”
Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/rdp-wednesday-articulate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/03/fowc-with-fandango-contacts/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/penitent/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/your-daily-word-prompt-drench-april-3-2019/

 

 

 

 

 

Why Me? NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 2

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Why Me?

Today I have the doldrums. My smile is upside down.
I cannot go to meet my cronies in the town.
My misery is absolute, I’m coughing and I’m sneezing,
and all this blowing of the nose is definitely unpleasing.

My bones could use some stretching, but I fear this will not be,
and Sandy, Harriet and Glen today I will not see.
I’ll try to talk to Gloria on the telephone
explaining why it’s best today that I am alone.

Why in fifteen minutes, as they shoot the  breeze.
will I be forced to lie abed, to blow my nose and sneeze?
Almond croissants and coffee and congeniality
are theirs while I am sentenced to echinacea tea!

The world just isn’t fair, my friend. I’m such a sorrowful wretch.
The only pleasure left in life to lie here and to kvetch!
It is life’s  idiosyncrasy that nine times out of ten
when I most want to paint the town, instead I must stay in.

What master of the universe sees that such a function
turns out to be a flop as a method of conjunction
with busy friends  that for two months I haven’t seen together
and in the one time we can meet, keeps me on such short tether?

 

The prompt words today are stretch, idiosyncrasy, absolute and upside. In addition, the NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that ends in a question. Here are links to all:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/rdp-tuesday-stretch/
FOWC with Fandango — Idiosyncrasy
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/your-daily-word-prompt-absolute-april-2-
2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/upside/
NaPoWriMo 

Facing the Inevitable. Alone.

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Facing the Inevitable. Alone.

Tilting at windmills or slaying dragons is too retro for my taste. I’d rather just have a man who tickles my funny bone, or at the very least one who tickles my fancy. At my age, I am between vulnerable stages. I don’t need anyone to save me financially or ego-wise. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to house and feed myself for the twenty or so years I have left and unless I have a serious decline in mental and physical power, I will always have blogging to salve my ego–a few loyal followers who still want to hear what I have to say.

Whatever I have made of my life, it is a pickle of my own choosing. I have not been jinxed or done ill to—at least recently. What I have I deserve. What I don’t have, I deserve. I don’t look forward to that day when fate will serve me a bitter dish, but that part of me that has to binge-watch *”After Life” or listen to an Audible book to get to sleep at night knows it one day will. In spite of my niggling lifelong conviction that I’ve been left on this planet by some foreign species and that I’ll be picked up soon and whisked off to a life unending, that part of me that needs constant distraction knows that I am human and therefore vulnerable.

Those with partners may think my title here sad, but there is another way of looking at it. Those of us unmatched and “unespoused” have only one inevitable death to face. We need fear no phone call when parted or unwelcome discovery when together. The only death we need fear is our own.  We have half of the dread that the happily paired must face as they approach a certain age.

With increasing regularity, when with friends my own age, after we have hurriedly (I hope) gone over the ills of today—knee replacements and hip replacements and intestinal disorders and the ilk—we eventually get around to discussing various methods of insuring the end we desire over Alzheimer’s or stroke. I have a high bridge picked out. Various friends have pill stashes. Everyone knows which friends, in spite of their obituaries, have already made this choice.

What we fear most is waiting too long and forfeiting the choice and spending the rest of our days in some repository for the walking dead—those antiseptic storehouses where they partition off residents unlucky enough to have not experienced a swift death—those cursed either with an active mind trapped in a body turned to stone or the reverse. What living hell is this, that so many of the aged are now preserved in part who in an earlier age would have been afforded a dignified death?

There is something about writing to multiple prompts that takes us into a part of our brain where otherwise we might have not gone. So it is with this seemingly pessimistic rambling into the dark side of my brain. Although nothing I say is fiction, still, perhaps the balance is wrong. Here is no discussion of the birds outside my early-morning sunlit curtains or the components of my morning smoothie that await my hand in compiling them. It does not mention friends that still stimulate and amuse, relatives that still fill my heart.

It overlooks those twenty potential years that I hope will lead up to whatever end I face. These are just words that I shed during a side trip through consciousness. Do not call me or consult with mutual friends, worrying about my state of mind. I am in no way suicidal. I am not morose. I am simply wandering through a few alleys where I think we must all wander from time to time, and as we grow older, where we wander more frequently. For in spite of my title, I don’t really think I wander here alone.

* “After Life” is a new show on Netflix, written and played by Ricky Gervais. A bit dark, but worth binge-watching if you’re in the right frame of mind. Along with the four prompt words, it is perhaps what put me in the mood to write this piece. I have a feeling it is more Ricky Gervais’s attitude than my own.  Well, maybe a wedding of the two.

 

Prompt words today are pickle, retro, dragon and jinx. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/rdp-sunday-pickle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/your-daily-word-prompt-dragon-march-31-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/jinx/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/31/fowc-with-fandango-retro/