Tag Archives: Word of the Day

A New World’s Morning

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Click on any photo to enlarge all and view as slide series.

 

Ubiquitous networks of  highways crisscross the face of Mother Earth–lines that age her fresh face. Pockmarks of potholes question their durability, whereas Earth lives on, in one form or another.

Dams crack and spill their water freshly across lake beds parched for centuries.
Bones of dinosaurs peek out from eroded banks of clay. Plants spread from potholes in gouged pavement. Somewhere in the arctic ice, the past lies thawing, ready to be reborn.

Who knows but that the
nightfall of mankind may be
a new world’s morning?

 

I don’t know what I did this week.  I seem to have collected prompts from a different week for each prompt site.  Perhaps I’ve been at it too long and should retire. The prompt words  I somehow collected were highway, durable, ubiquitous and morning. The form is for dVerse Poets haibun challenge.

Darn! I now find even the comments and Mr. Linky for dVerse are closed, even though they say they are open all week.  I guess this just isn’t my day, or I am as cracked as the pavement above…..Here are the “wrong” links I used:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/01/fowc-with-fandango-highway/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/durable
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/ubiquitous/
https://dversepoets.com/2018/09/03/haibun-monday-good-morning/

 

If We Listened to the Birds

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On the dive,

Click on any photo to enlarge all.

If We Listened to the Birds

If I were a mighty bird,
fluent in both voice and word,
when the weather shifted colder,
I’d wing myself to royal shoulder,
have a perch and, I confess,
use all the powers I possess
to loosen up and leave my mark
on that stodgy matriarch,
to feel my presence and touch of wings
and know what necessary things
each creature in nature brings with it.
How each thing comes together to fit.

This I would find exhilarating.
By my presence, educating
the powers-that-be to think of nature
as more than just a nomenclature.
Perhaps I’d tell the president
that I have been heaven sent
to tell the powers that abide
that God’s not really on their side.
God would have us guard our earth
There’s more than money that marks its worth.
All of nature, without a doubt,
makes the world of man work out.

If those large personalities
who run our world would only, please,
take heed of what I have to say,
we’d survive to live another day,
another year, another eon.
We’d have a peaceful planet to be on.
The brother eagle that guides their flight
knows too well extinction’s plight.
The symbol there that marks their seal
is anguished over the ordeal
that fellow creatures of nature face
because of loss of living space.

Our national parks sold off for oil,
waters from which fish recoil,
oceans plugged with plastic waste
we idly cast off in our haste.
While politicians rail and bicker,
our society grows sicker.
Hospitals far out of reach,
schools encouraged not to teach
science, but religious fable
that makes the politicians able
to pull the wool over the eyes
of those who believe their disguise.

It’s true that often what we get
is exactly opposite
of what they promise, their rhetoric
stirring us to moods euphoric
when in fact they’re empty words
meant to bilk admiring herds.
Look deeper at what they profess.
They promise more, but give us less.

The prompts for today are bird, royal, exhilarating, possess. Here are the links, in case you want to play along:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/rdp-saturday-bird/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/08/fowc-with-fandango-royal/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/exhilarating/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/daily-addictions-2018-week-35/possess

Manifesto for the Midterms

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Manifesto for the Midterms

Mere pontificating will not win my trust.
Words with no fair justice fade away to dust.
If greed and ambition are part of what you teach,
move on to another. I’m far beyond your reach.
But if you seek a balance and fairness for posterity,
rightness for the earth and a sharing of prosperity.
If you do not seek to govern by appealing to false fear,
then climb up on your bandbox.  I’ll give your words an ear.

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/05/fowc-with-fandango-balance/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/pontificate/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/daily-addictions-2018-week-35/ambition

Interwoven

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Interwoven

Life is like a tapestry, warp giving strength to weave.
Each birth’s celebration a potential loss to grieve.
We might wrangle living’s fairness, its giving and its taking—
one soul giving into sleep as a new soul is waking.
Its weave may seem circuitous, beginnings onto leavings,
all the energy of life–its lovings and its heavings,
yet the flaw within the tapestry is what gives it its beauties.
The pleasures of the life we live are leavened by its duties.

 

The prompts today are energy, tapestry, circuitous, wrangle.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/rdp-tuesday-prompt-energy/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/04/fowc-with-fandango-tapestry/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/circuitous/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/wrangle

Lazy Man’s Creed

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Lazy Man’s Creed

How I loathe a hard day’s labor at the furrow or the stile.
It makes me cross and angry. I become volatile!
A sage once gave me this advice: what’s earned will serve thee best,”
but I quipped back with, “Any labor undone is the best!”

The prompt words today were labour, loathe, sage and volatile. Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/03/rdp-monday-prompt-labour/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/03/fowc-with-fandango-loathe/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/03/volatile/volatile

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/sage

Family Vacation

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Version 6My dad in a slower mode of conveyance.

Family Vacation

My father on vacation was robotic in his thrust.
His modus operandi was to get there or to bust—
another hundred miles or so before we stopped to sup,
and we rarely got a room before the moon was up!

When he hit the highway, he became another man.
No mere roadside attraction could deflect his driving plan.
In those days of two-lane traffic and a speed limit of fifty,
he thought five hundred miles a day sounded rather nifty.

Fathers prone to threaten, who hit and rage and cuss
are, I fear, too often too ubiquitous.
But this was not my father. Rage was not his style.
He simply had addictions to mile after mile!

My dad was generous and fun. He told a story well,
but to take a trip with him was nothing short of Hell.
 His proclivity to “get there,” I fear was never curable,
and so family vacations were just barely endurable!

 

Version 2
My sisters and I with my dad.  He didn’t usually look this grim!

The prompt words today are highway, durable, robot and ubiquitous. Here are the links:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/01/fowc-with-fandango-highway/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/durable

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/rdp-saturday-robot/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/ubiquitous/

In Absentia

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In Absentia

Although you may be absent, thoughts of you still linger.
I think you have my memory wound around your finger,
for though I find the lack of you totally endurable,
my memory suffers from a need that’s totally incurable.
Friends may think the distance between us is a pity,
and yet with one so erudite, so pithy, loyal and witty,
it seems you linger on even after you are bound
off to other regions— your presence a mere sound
heard over the telephone, imagined o’er the keys,
so I may have your company ‘most any time I please.
Relationships are more, my dear, than a simple presence.
Sometimes merely words suffice to conjure up your essence.

 

If you are still curious about this untypical relationship, read more about it HERE
and then HERE.

I have followed an additional prompt today, as you might notice below. The prompt words today are absent, linger, bound, pithy, durable. (I mistakenly recorded “pithy” as “pity” in my word chain, so you get both as a bonus.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/friday-rdp-absent/

https://okcforgottenman.wordpress.com/linger

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/31/fowc-with-fandango-bound/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/pithy/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/durable

The Fan Letter

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The Fan Letter

Granted, my heart did flutter at the words of adulation
in the fan letter that came while I was on vacation.
Accepted by my mother, who suffers from dementia,
yet deals with all deliveries while I am in absentia,
it said that I was handsome, clever, brave and cuddly,
with a stellar presence and a figure that was studly!
It is not any statement that stirs me to demean it,
yet if I were home I think I never would have seen it.
I am not parsimonious, yet usually eschew
these laudatory letters that come with postage due!

The prompt words are due, parsimonious, flutter and adulation. (The word wasn’t posted yet for Ragtag, so I used the other word from the 26th, when two were posted.) When I searched my media file using the word “handsome,” this picture of my friend Dave was the only photo out of thousands that come up.  The WordPress media file has spoken, Dave. You are the “it” boy of this poem!!!!

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/29/fowc-with-fandango-due/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/parsimonious/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/flutterhttp://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=795401

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/rdp87-adulation/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/wednesday-prompt-oeuvre/

When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us

4 Replies

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When We Let Our Leaders Fail Us

Way back in my innocence, I thought the world was fair.
My biggest daily decision was what I chose to wear.
The probability of danger then was very rare.
The world, not yet insidious, was still one I could bear.
I knew I could accomplish all that I would dare.
I didn’t fear the water or anguish o’er the air.
The very thought of fire did not move me to despair.
But as men work to turn the dream of nature to nightmare,
most of those in power do not seem to care,
letting some wreak damage as others simply stare,
mouths open in horror over  the whole affair.
Protestors standing in the street, protestors on the stairs,
poets writing poetry, crouched within their lairs,
looking at what God hath wrought and tearing at their hair.
Will our help come from heaven or approach us through the air,
coming from other galaxies to see how we might fare,
finally making contact not to conquer but to share,
setting down amongst us not to pillage, rape or tear,
but rather as our saviors, bent upon repair.

The prompts today were fair, probability, insidious and approach.  Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/rdp-tuesday-prompt-fair/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/28/fowc-with-fandango-probability/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/insidious/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/ approach

Random Travel

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Random Travel

There’s precious little rectitude in knowing where you’re going.
Straight lines are only called for when you’re writing or you’re sewing.
I think there’s room in travel for a little ingenuity
so long as you don’t coddiwomple on in perpetuity.

The words today are ingenuity, rectitude, precious and coddiwomple. Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/monday-prompt-coddiwomple/
(To coddiwomple is “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.)
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/27/fowc-with-fandango-ingenuity/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/rectitude/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/daily-addictions-2018-week-34/precious