Tag Archives: Word of the Day

Dream World

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Dream World

My little nephews were quite the rapscallions,
with tinfoil armor and mop handle stallions
they conquered their foes and made off in their galleons
to sail the wild oceans, and then this wild pair
got into their airplanes to sail through the air.
You barely could tell that the swing set was there.

From morning to night, they were batting or pitching,
expounding on hockey and football and itching
to escape the tame lives that they would be ditching
as soon as they grew up. Then they would be soaring
in airplanes and gliders and missiles less boring.
Their engines fired up, the crowds would be roaring

for the heroes they’d be, taking off into space,
vanishing upwards with barely a trace—
off to adventure, intent on the chase.
They would catch up with life and grab onto its tail.
They’d travel each highway and ride every rail,
pass “go” every round and get out of jail!

Life in short would be anything but dull and tame.
It would be a wild spree—an adventurous game
wherein they’d be heroes, ensconced in their fame.
At least this was their theory when they were young,
when adventure was made up in mind and on tongue
and all of their upcoming conquests were sung!

But childhood dreams often go far astray.
They tend to evaporate as day-to-day
we slowly grow up and enter the fray.
Now one’s an accountant, the other a doc,
and there’s little adventure and even less talk
of being an astronaut, pilot or jock.

Yet who knows in the nighttime what sorties are planned?
With their heads on their pillows, do their wishes expand
to soar off to adventures more wild and grand?
Perhaps in their dreams they go back to their youth
and to pastimes less sane—more reckless and uncouth.
Perhaps in their slumbers, their dreams become truth.

The prompt words today were air, theory, rapscallion and itching. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/rdp-saturday-air/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/23/fowc-with-fandango-theory/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/your-daily-word-prompt-rapscallion-february-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/itching/

Stuffed

24 Replies

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Stuffed

I lose my glasses, cuss and mutter,
but my worst quality is clutter!
I have a drawer just filled with socks
I never wear.  And pans and woks,
old dishes, fondue pots  and skewers,
a fourteen-year-old bottle of Dewars
not one friend drinks, much less myself,
sitting there upon my shelf.
Everything I buy just clings.
I  can’t seem to part with things!
In boxes on my garage shelves
are all my former castoff selves.

The slides from art shows long ago?
I dreaded sorting them and so
they remain in plastic crates,
labeled with their types and dates.
Old letters, class notes, tax returns?
I’ve heard that paper easily burns
as well as shreds, yet still I wait.
Years pass as I equivocate.
They might be needed someday so,
get rid of them? I must say no!
With finite space in drawer and bin,
I buy new things and stuff them in.

I should destroy, but can’t commit,
those mismatched pan lids that don’t fit,
My studio is filled with things.
My jewelry drawers with bracelets, rings.
My closets stuffed with different sizes,
shelves stacked with future gifts and prizes.
Snow boots although it never snows
anywhere this woman goes.
A safari hat with veil
hangs upon a closet nail
along with wet suit, snorkel, fins,
and other useless hoarding sins.

My kitchen is a spice museum.
So many spices, I can’t see um.
Fenugreek and capsicum
that I was given by my mum
so long ago they have no taste,
green olives and tomato paste
well past the date they should be used.
Yes, my house should be perused
and sorted out, I must admit,
instead, I sit and write of it!
I know some folks clear out their closets,
but me? I only make deposits!

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Prompt words today were security, finite, someday and commit. I admit, I took a poem from four years ago and added lines to include some of the new prompt words.  Still can’t throw anything away but at least I’m repurposing!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/rdp-friday-security/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/22/fowc-with-fandango-finite/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/your-daily-word-prompt-Someday-february-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/commit/

Phases of the Moon

9 Replies

Phases of the Moon

When you whispered you’d be leaving with the waning gibbous moon,
I let your words escape behind the music of the loon.
I let the truth go bankrupt in the lapping of the wave.
Underneath the full moon, it was easy to be brave.

Beneath the waxing gibbous and the first quarter moon,
I seldom thought about the truth that you’d be leaving soon.
I turned my back to moonlight to ward off future pain.
My joy could not be sabotaged by its wax and wane.

Under the first quarter, I stifled my duress
lest memory of your leaving undermine your fond caress.
And though the new moon brought again reminders you’d be leaving,
I sealed my eyes against the truth to circumvent my grieving.

Under the waning crescent, resolution slipped away.
I pleaded for our meeting to be done in light of day.
I was wan beneath the moonlight as our time as one grew shorter.
How I dreaded what was coming as we viewed the moon’s last quarter.

Tonight I greet the moon again, standing all alone,
listening to your whispers over the telephone.
In spite of my avoidance, your leaving came too soon.
I finally face its truth beneath a waning gibbous moon.

 

The prompt words were wan, undermine,bankruptcy and seldomly. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/rdp-thursday-wan/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/21/fowc-with-fandango-undermine/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/your-daily-word-prompt-bankruptcy-february-21-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/seldomly/

Changing Places

2 Replies

 

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Changing Places

When I was just a little sprout,
I liked to boss my world about,
but now that I am old and gray,
I’m merely keeping it at bay.
Howbeit that life I used to rule
when I was a kid in school
has come to be the boss of me—
determining what I hear and see?

One-by-one, each faculty
just seems to be deserting me.
I find I’m often in the clutch
of a world that doesn’t listen much.
I’m less intrepid in my demands
as joints and organs, bones and glands
furnish surprises, glitches, quirks.
It’s sufficient if my body works!

 

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https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/rdp-wednesday-sprout/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/20/fowc-with-fandango-intrepid/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/your-daily-word-prompt-howbeit-february-20-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/clutch/

 

Midnight Tryst at the Horticultural Society Ball

10 Replies

Midnight Tryst at the Horticultural Society Ball

In spite of our earlier indecision, when our eyes met in passing on the dance floor, they sealed the tacit agreement that we would slip into the garden at the set hour. Later, we would try but fail to furnish an adequate excuse to our spouses of the reason for our mutual midnight escape. Even our shots of the night-blooming  cereus could not adequately explain our defection. It was as though we carried the scent of our desire-—as heady as the scent of that rare flower-—back to the hall with us. A universal blanket of dispraise settled over the crowd, in spite of the excitement over our viewing of the rare bloom. Everyone knew. Our mutual fate was sealed.

The prompt words for today are garden, tacit, dispraise and desire. I also made use of Cee’s FOTD flower prompt.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/rdp-tuesday-garden/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/19/fowc-with-fandango-tacit/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/your-daily-word-prompt-dispraise-february-19-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/desire/
https://ceenphotography.com/2019/02/18/fotd-february-18-2019-crocus-2/

Evolution

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See how tiny he is? He’s in the corner two bars over from the right.

Click on first photo to enlarge photos and see as series.

Evolution

If we took every advertisement
that we saw under advisement,
envisioning ourselves in cars
filled with TVs and guitars,
food choppers and Barbie dolls—
everything we saw in malls—
we might buy it all and after,
fill every house to every rafter.

Blenders, stereos and blouses
would pile up in our many houses.
Consumerism would be the key
to  how happy we would be.
Lethargic children would sit about
staring at phones in hands, not out
into the world their windows face.
Imagination would replace
a reality no one could cotton.
Our old world would be so rotten—
all it was so ill-begotten
that it had to be forgotten.

Our present world now so diluted
(nature being so polluted)
that the animals our kids would see
would not be out and roaming free
but in some zoo with air protected
and no fluorocarbons detected.
All these things that we could buy
would be what caused our world to die.
Plastic world and plastic lives
would seal us into plastic hives
where we could buzz around in cells
creating our own private hells.

How hard would it really be
to imagine this reality?
How close are we to it already—
Our brains scrambled into spaghetti
by barrages of consumerism?
Could we even heal the schism
that our plastic world has wrought?
Would we give up all we’ve got
for the greener simpler earth
of our great-grandfather’s birth?

Man will speed on toward his doom
in his air-conditioned room
that screens the poisons out while he
sits rapt in front of his tv.
His children, who can no longer stand,
sit, each with eyes glued to his hand.
Only robots will go out
to shop for us and walk about
in air that’s suited only for
machines to venture out the door.

They’ll greet each other in the street,
smiling at each bot they meet.
Perhaps the plastic revolution
was the next step in evolution.
They’ve locked us all within their lairs.
The world they sought is finally theirs
as every human sits and stares
at the unreal world he shares
with every other other fleshly being
that gave up doing for simply seeing.

The prompt words today were key, lethargic, advertisement and envision.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/rdp-monday-key/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/18/fowc-with-fandango-lethargic/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/your-daily-word-prompt-advertisement-february-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/envision/

Toilet Paper Blues (and Greens and Yellows)

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Toilet Paper Blues (and Greens and Yellows)

Once paper for the toilet came in every hue—
green or blue or yellow to wipe away our poo.
And though we all liked paper that was soft and squeezable,
most people felt that color wasn’t very feasible.

Hue was always optional, for you could still find white,
which had the best capacity for capturing the light.
Of all the other choices, white was still the best
to help you find the toilet on your midnight quest.

Now in the tissue aisle, no color meets our sight.
Green and blue and yellow seem to have taken flight.
We use our toilet paper for what it’s created for
without the added problem of matching our decor.

My poem isn’t delicate, it mentions words like poo.
I hope this does not put off such proper folks as you.
You will perhaps forgive me for my word choice this one time,
for feces’s not poetic and caca doesn’t rhyme!

Prompt words for the day are color, optional, squeezable and quest.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/rdp-sunday-color/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/17/fowc-with-fandango-optional/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/your-daily-word-prompt-squeezable-february-17-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/quest/

Doling out the Punch

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Doling out the Punch

If you construct your paradise at the cost of others—
build it on the suffering of children and of mothers—
do you really think that it is worth the cost
of creating your own heaven on what others may have lost?

You may feign indifference as you sally back and forth,
but do you really think that your soul’s increased its worth?
Do you even think of things like this as you amass
your fortune or is the very core of you this crass?

Heaven can’t be heaven, in fact it’s really wrong
if you don’t want to pull the least of us along
on your pilgrim’s progress toward riches and toward fame.
Life’s composed of more than making wealth a game.

It should be so obvious that it does not need telling
that happiness cannot be found in buying and in selling
so long as what you’re selling is the suffering of another.
Every nationality and race is still your brother.

How can you enjoy  riches and revel in it all
then seek to keep it for yourself by building up a wall,
hoarding all your plenty behind your man-made ridge?
Instead of building fortresses, we should build a bridge.

I know this has been said before, but still I must relate
all of this just one more time to our dense heads of state.
Some of us cannot believe that you have the nerve
to still be insisting that you are there to serve

as you grab all the pie and say there’s not enough
to share with the others because times are so tough.
What’s more, you try to get us to build your wall for you
so you can keep on doing all those shell games that you do,

insisting that we’ll profit by tax cuts for billionaires,
assisting all the bloodsuckers to become zillionaires.
Making up the deficits by cutting our security
and calling it entitlement? We question your maturity!

Are you simply spoiled boys playing with our nation?
Have you made a private playground of your God’s creation?
Do you get to pour the punch, determining the ration?
One percent is what you dole out for our satiation.

While you “one percent” gulp down all the ninety-nine
portions of the elixir that you find mighty fine,
children thirst and suffer. The homeless face the cold.
Have no doubt.  It’s our security that’s being sold!!!!

!

The prompt words today were lost, paradise, indifference and worth.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/rdp-saturday-lost/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/16/fowc-with-fandango-paradise/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/your-daily-word-prompt-indifference-february-16-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/worth/

Venetian Dreams

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Venetian Dreams

The year we did the Grand Canal,
I came home feeling humble.
My own life just seemed so banal.
My dreams began to crumble.

My life was filled with piety
of very little note.
None of the notoriety
could my First Baptist quote

compared to all the beauty
I’d seen in St. Mark Square.
I felt it was my duty
to be living over there.

I needed no incitement.
My life here seemed so rote.
I needed the excitement
of traveling by boat.

Though it seemed an overindulgence,
I sought to be alone.
I needed the effulgence
of sun shining on old stone.

I could sell my small red Honda,
put my jewelry in hock.
(I had visions of a gondola
waiting at the dock.)

I imagined a “For Sale” sign
in front of my small home.
It seemed a “Get out of Jail” sign.
This housewife sought to roam.

If it sold within two fortnights
I could take off, traveling solo.
I could trade in Sunday sportnights
for a flight to Marco Polo!

I would feel I was at home again.
I’d missed the sights of Venice.
I wanted to be where I’d been,
free from all the menace

of getting three kids off to school
and ironing hubby’s shirts.
I sought to trade the Golden Rule
for romantic nights and flirts.

I’d give up school bake sales
for pannetone and gelato
eaten with Italian males.
“Me First” would be my motto.

I tried to conjure the Rialto,
but I saw the Bridge of Sighs
as my sound track’s rich contralto
assumed a different guise.

“Mommy, Mommy! was the chorus
of my shattered dream.
My stone fantasies were porous,
issuing a frantic stream

of nightmare shrieks and pleadings.
I started down the hall.
My daughter’s midnight needings
my most urgent call.

The canals were left in shambles
as verity flooded in.
So much for fantasy gambles.
My real life won again!

The prompt word today are canal, overindulgence and humble.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/rdp-friday-canal/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/your-daily-word-prompt-overindulgence-february-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/humble/

February 13

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February 13

This morning, upon waking,
I kissed my pillow and imagined it was you.
There was no sadness in the act.
It was a simple act of adulation.

If there had been a real person here,
I would wish that it were you,
but I’m content here in my solitude—
writing tributes to past lovers—

a bit puffier (me, not you)
than even that last time we met,
when I waken, joints are stiffer.
The cat more crabby in demands for food.

I wouldn’t say time marches on.
It turns its pages, shifts its screens.
The world, more innovative since the Internet,
spins us a new tale second by second.

Vicariously, we speed through life.
Other people’s lives become our own.
We feed ourselves and perform daily functions,
our minds in one world and our bodies in another.

In that manner,
one thing substitutes for the other.
Over and over, like shuffled cards.
This reality and that one.

Tomorrow the busy street outside my bedroom window
will be full of vendors: hearts and flowers
marking half the world’s celebration
of romantic love.

Upon awakening, I kiss my pillow—
not a conscious act. Not one I will repeat.
A simpler act and one unplanned
to remind myself, perhaps, what’s in my heart.

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

The prompt words today are innovative, tribute, adulation and puffy.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/rdp-wednesday-innovative/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/13/fowc-with-fandango-tribute/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/your-daily-word-prompt-adulation-february-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/puffy/