Tag Archives: Wordle

Star-gazing for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 752

Star-Gazing

Eyes stalk the skies for lucky stars, hoping to harness their good fortune, and although those heavenly objects pepper the skies like jewels cast across a black velvet blanket, ribbons of clouds start to obscure their glow. Then, splashed  in layers like fresh paint over a graffiti-riddled fence, the faces of clouds completely obscure their light. We must set our minds to other hopes. The light has gone out on today’s.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle,752, the prompt words are: stalk sky luck harness pepper jewel ribbon splash layers set light face

Last-Minute Menu Changes

Last-Minute Menu Changes

My ravenous cats lurk up on the roof
while my dogs all remind me in language of woof
that they’re hollow with hunger and rattled by need
of kibble and catfood to fulfill their greed
for something to fill up space found in their tummies:
chicken or beef or those jerky stick yummies.
Now the dogs rush the door in their need to be seen,
push open the glass door  and rattle the screen.
With a flicker of tail, they crash once and again
into the door screen ’til they have slipped in,
and both dogs and cats leap onto my bed,
shaming their mom, whose face has turned red
with embarrassment over the fact she forgot
to go shopping for food for the whole furry lot!
So I leap from my bed and run down the hall,
pursued by my dogs and my cats, one and all.
Run into the kitchen and throw open the door
of the fridge, then I spread out all over the floor
the food I’d intended to feed to a guest
whom I had invited with all of the rest
of his family to dine–the roast and the cheese
I had purchased because I knew it would please
all my guests–the potatoes and veggies and flan
and I watched all my animals lick every pan
until it was empty of every food scrap,
then they lay on the floor for an after-meal nap
while I wandered in and climbed into my bed
to try to decide what I’d feed instead
to those guests who’d arrive in just 4 hours more.
Then I dressed and departed to drive to the store
to buy frozen pizzas and ice cream and cake
out of which a quick meal I’d return home and make,
shooing out of the kitchen those pets now sedated
once their fierce hunger was finally  abated.
The floor now licked clean, it was one task the less
I’d have to complete. They’d cleaned up their own mess!
So I mixed up a salad and set a fine table
and completed the meal as best I was able.
Poured tequila, cooked pizza and uncorked the wine.
The guests were well-pleased and my pets lay supine
both on terrace and roof or snug in their beds
while visions of roast beef careened through their heads.
And lest you wonder, I’ll say one thing more.
I bought kibble and cat food while there at the store!

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 751, the prompt words are: ravenous lurked shame space found glass hollow flicker rattled slip red crash

Wheel of Seasons for The Sunday Whirl

 

 

Wheel of Seasons

A morning walk in autumn with warm sun overhead
Is something in the winter that you might approach with dread.
With a hood pulled round your head and chin, although the view is nice,
you’re bound to cross a wonderland of frost and snow and ice.
You pull your cape around you from your shoulders to your knees,
hoping three layers of garments with circumvent the freeze.
Saved by the certain knowledge that the great wheel of the year
will in months give rise to springtime as it slips another gear.

Words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 741 are: wonderland bound morning ice knees hope wheel three cape head cross

Hoarding Pennies, For The Sunday Whirl Wordle (Wordless?) 734

The rain lies hidden in the clouds, ready to rinse from this day my guilt for all of those words I imagined I would finally foster––drawing them out from that thick thicket of memory where they have hung for fifty years, waiting to explode. Sorted  one-by-one into piles, each lies like a single undetonated bomb, barely ticking after all these years, ready for me to sink into them to stage that final act by which they will earn their freedom. I am a criminal of omission––that fake author of the lessons they might teach. Fearing their truth or perhaps their half-truths, I hoard them  now like worthless pennies in their stacks. Too late, too late I fear, to spend them.

Below is a photo of the manuscript I started 50 years ago, at its present stage. Behind are piled the research, letters, notes and timelines I have assembled to attempt to bring the manuscript up to the present. I have come to an isolated spot in Quintana Roo for a month to do so, but I fear the daunting deed might go undone! Laziness or an inability to face the truths and to deal with them again, after all these years? Three weeks to go. Time will tell.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 734, the  prompts are: rinse days still thicket bomb fake criminal imagine foster lies sky sink First two images done aided by AI, third photo my own.

Sunset of Memory for The Sunday Whirl Wordle

 

Sunset of Memory

This lack  of memory plagues my world:
words I can’t remember,
Ideas that once fired my life
have faded down to ember.

It is a cruel injustice
that my thoughts have been arrested.
They escape me daily
as my memory is bested.

So, although throughout my life,
my strength has been the word,
suddenly they desert me
and my life’s become absurd.

My faith in unity of words
and mind has come undone,
and, I fear, is fading
with the setting of the sun.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 730 the prompt words are: ideas remember words plague escape faith strength unity through arrest cruelty injustice

And, for Times Change prompt, as well.

Graffiti, for The Sunday Whirl

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

Graffiti

Some viewers lift their glasses and drink to genius that
gave birth to every brush stroke. Each dribble and each splat.
They say these shocking images awaken us to see
much more than just one artist’s route to immortality.

Others blame the artist who has had the gall
to spray art uninvited upon a public wall.
They say raw art does nothing to put out raging fires.
Solutions to world problems are not what art inspires.

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: drinks fire wake catastrophe shocking say social drastic world art raw blame

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 721, Aug 31, 2025

Lady in Waiting

A rush of faith has roosted somewhere in her heart––
a spot where shame has luckily never had a start.
But now her heart beats wildly, blood rushing to that place
where passion peaked, but oh too soon, was forced to slow its pace.
An orb of moon projects a strip of light across the road 
by which he has departed to search out the Motherlode,
trading riches of the heart in an action bold.
Her ruby lips forsaken in his quest for gold.
Somewhere on the fringe he wanders in his search,

as her faith roosts steadfastly, on its accustomed perch.

 

 

Prompt Words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle are: roosted fringe strip orb ruby rush beat shame faith peaks spot heart

First Flight Jitters, for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 720, Aug 24, 2025

 

 

First Flight Jitters

He lingers on the runway, doing a little dance
as though he has a virus living in his pants.
Bounds right up the plane steps, wishing they were shorter,
reaches in his pocket and tips the stew a quarter.
Rugged he-man that he is, he cannot veil his terror
over the coming takeoff, for he is is no brave wayfarer.
He quavers as he finds his seat, hoping that it’s right.
Notes its number on his ticket , listed just under his flight.
His fear of flying preys on him, his hands and shoulders shaking.
The papers in his suit pocket are rustling with his quaking.
When the plane lifts off the ground, he fears that he is dying.
The next time, he will take a train. No more will he be flying,

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle the prompt words are: virus dance name note lingers runway rugged quaver paper prey veil wish

“Life” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 719, Aug 17, 2025

 

Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: spiral craft signal draft shallow rule dense send shell sham slapping laugh

“Family Stories” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 718, Aug 10, 2025

Ben Dykstra (My dad) age 13.

Family Stories

My father’s stories were not tales of moral principles or prophecy,
but rather reenactments of his roots—
tales of the open endless prairie
and the characters who peopled it.
Mirrors reflecting what seemed to me
to be a distant past:
forays to neighboring town dances
(told in the voice of  Deafie Sterner)
to “See the leetle women.”

Tales of Hank Jarneck, Cousin Louie
and Grandma’s liniment cake.
Accounts of gray wolves, prairie fires,
children lost in winter blizzards
and reenactments of the  voices of the wind
whistling through wall planks
and around the door during a winter blizzard.

In those days of my childhood before travel,
they presented a way to journey through time—
leading me back to my father’s roots—
allowing him to make those memories last
through another generation.
The debris of his life’s past
thus building the foundation
of mine.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 718 the words are: voices time story debris present
lead doors roots prophecy last mirror