Tag Archives: Word of the Day

A Halloween Bedtime Story

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Click on photos to increase your terror!

A Halloween Bedtime Story

There’s a world that is intangible except at Halloween.
It teems with banshees and with ghosts at other times unseen.
Strange monsters with long fingers and pumpkins for a head
lurk inside your closet, hang out under your bed.

When they finally emerge, it does no good to shout.
They’ll grab you in their mighty grasp and turn you inside out.
Put your arms outside the covers or one foot on the floor,
and you’ll provide a tasty lunch the monsters will adore.

For once they have a single limb securely in their clench,
they’ll have you all in seconds. Your destruction is a cinch!
Though Halloween is much beloved by all you candy lovers,
Once at home and snug in bed, best stay beneath the covers!

Prompt words today are  pumpkin, mighty, intangible, banshee, cinch, inside out.

Cat and Mouse

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Cat and Mouse

My cat is feeling obdurate and that is no surprise.
I see it in extended claws. I see it in his eyes.
His back is hunched into an arc. His hair all stands on end.
His lips are stretched back in a hiss, his teeth ready to rend.

When he lets go a loud remark, it sounds more like a chatter.
I look up from my magazine to see what is the matter.
The prism on the windowsill reflects a flashing gleam
and he springs into action to try to catch its beam.

Like an arrow, straight and sure, he shoots across the room,
but when he does, his target’s gone. Vanished in the gloom.
It seems his prey has vanished. It’s nowhere to be found.
He’s wasted all his energy: his speed, his stealth, his bound.

The cat door closes with a swish. He’s off to other pleasures.
Out in the sultry cloud-swathed world, he’ll resort to other measures.
He saunters by the hen house, hungry, but it’s no use
He still bears the scars of the rooster’s last abuse.

While the men are busy milking, he’ll crouch there in the dirt
hoping if he’s lucky to receive a friendly squirt.
He’ll troll the barn for mice and rats, then comb the prairie grass
for game that’s more digestible than prey that’s made of glass.

Prompt words for today are prism, scream, sultry, obdurate, letting go and cat.

The Littlest Zombie

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The Littlest Zombie

Three small travelers, each attired in a different disguise
observe the  lambent candlelight filling the pumpkin’s eyes.
Its outside is a Jack-o-Lantern, while all its insides 
were scooped out for the candle, and then turned into pies.

A lurching small cadaver reaches out a hand,
intent on trick-and-treating, though he can barely stand.
He’s had a whiff of candy, which has made him come alive.
He’s seen the tiny Hershey bars. He hopes they’ll give him five!

Leaving, he now remembers to walk with legs unbent.
He breathes hard through his mask where his sister cut a vent.
He imitates the groans and huffs of the walking dead,
though if he’d had his druthers, he’d have been a dog instead.

But brother said a dog just barks and never moans and groans
and that barking trick-or-treaters are only given bones!
And so he screws his face up and puffs on down the block,
scaring all the littler kids with his zombie walk! 

 

Prompt words for today are whiff, imitate, cadaver, lambent and candy and also for OctPoWriMo.

 

Quiet Zone

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Quiet Zone

I don’t like loud music and fireworks are scary.
Loud noises, in fact, make me nervous and chary.
So though I find music within a dog’s howl,
Loud barking’s a noise that my ears find most foul.
And although I like lullabies, ballads and hums,
I do not like tubas or cymbals or drums.
I like noises with dignity. What I am after
is whispers and titters, not shouts and loud laughter.
So if you’re my friend, this advice must be outed:
words with real wisdom don’t need to be shouted.

Prompt words for today are scary, howl, dignity, firework and chary.

Advice to Myself at 73

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It’s never too late to experience growing pains. If it is our onus in life to grow and to change, with no cutoff point after which we are absolved of this duty, then why are we dumbfounded when those pains of adolescence occur again and again at each stage of life? We perhaps grow more serious over the years, but need we become less sensitized? Does the snub, the willful wounding, the being overlooked, the derision become less important? If so, why? Perhaps it is a mark of self-worth, and that is good, but if it is merely the building of a cocoon around ourselves, except in the direst of circumstances, it becomes more of a punishment than a defense.

We are born into this world to experience and therefore, are given defenses to deal with the negative, but when those defenses grow to isolate us, then they become more than protective blankets. They become walls which become our prisons. We were meant to experience and to be vulnerable to changes. And lest we atrophy, from the cradle to the crematorium, we need to fight to keep ourselves open to those experiences that invite change.

 

Prompt words for today are: serious, dumbfounded, cremate, onus and growing pains.

Few Regrets

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Image from front cover of Veils, Halos and Shackles : International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women

Few Regrets

The widow’s true feelings belie her black veil,
for the eulogy prompts no tears or no wail.
She remembers his fury and his raised fist,
so his mouth and his hands will never be missed.

That sustained keen from the front of the church
comes from his mother–a black crone on her perch.
Sitting alone in the very front row,
she continues to sob and to moan and to crow.

Hers the only wet eyes, most likely because
she was the reason he was as he was.
No person comforted to ease her pain,
for all felt her loss was the wider world’s gain.

Later, at the grave site, as they commenced queueing
to pay last respects during the final viewing,
the single men agreed the corpse was a louse
and dreamed of becoming the widow’s next spouse.

Word prompts for the day are fury, eulogy, sustain and belie.

Last Dance

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Last Dance

It’s taxing my limits, this spirited dance.
I’d like to sit down if he’d give me a chance.
If I were more candid I’d say it’s enough,
but finding an opening to do so is tough.

He spins me and whirls me and then grabs my hips
as though he is plotting some aerial flips.
Ensconced in the music, he hasn’t a clue
that my hair’s come undone and I’ve only one shoe.

He seems not to notice that I’ve grown more frantic
as each new maneuver grows more corybantic.
I’m so exhausted, I fear I might drop,
and I pray for the band to finally stop.

I’m tired of following, tired of dips.
I can take no more swirls, no maneuvers or flips.
When I land on my feet, I bolt from the floor,
I retrieve my shoe and I make for the door.

I sprint down the street, and when I find my ride,
I lock all the doors once I’m safely inside.
And since that day, I’m relieved to report,
I’ve vowed to make dancing a spectator sport!

 

Prompt words for the day are tax, ensconced, corybantic and candid.

Verbless

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Prompt words today are unperturbed, antipathy, quixotic and trophy.
(And, sadly, for the third day now, no prompt from The Daily Spur.)

Verbless

Today I am anything but unperturbed,
for the prompt words, I find, seem to be under-verbed.
We’re over-adjectived and over-nouned,
but is there a single verb to be found?

It’s hard to accept this sudden antipathy
displayed by prompt-sites’ crass lack of empathy
in shunning action words. I find a line
that is lacking in verbs, overly supine—

just lying there motionless, lacking in verve—
a mere trophy sentence, no guts and no nerve!
Perhaps if the Daily Spur came out of hiding,
heeding this gentle but most sincere chiding,

together, the prompt sites could conspire to curb
their Quixotic attitude towards that lost verb.
But, in the meantime, can anyone curb
my agitation by suggesting a verb????

 Image by Matt Walsh on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Forecast

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Forecast

The frugal rays of winter’s sun, sifted through the trees,
seem to have lost their power. They can’t dispel the freeze.
We watch the speckled darkness to try to find a sign
that promises the advent of a weather more benign.
The purity of winter, frigid and refined,
is melted in the heat of a summer sort of mind.
We stretch out on the beaches of our memory,
viewing with our minds that baked futurity.
Wound up in our mufflers, sealed snuggly in our gloves,
we sit on benches in the park, recalling summer loves.

 

 

Word prompts today are darkness, frugal, watch and refine.

Early Morning Ecstasy

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Early Morning Ecstasy

That surge of elation when I awaken
is because the next hours have not yet been taken.
No obligations, no duties or meetings.
I can follow my heart—pay heed to its beatings.
I follow my thoughts wherever they please.
I milk them for meaning, fingers on the keys.
Does my mind correlate with the sound of the birds,
Or are the birds harmonizing with my words?
The climate is perfect right here in my head,
computer on stomach, stretched out on my bed.

 

 

The word prompts for today are: Elation, Awaken, Climate, Correlate and milk.