Tag Archives: Wordle

The Arms Race (Becoming Grandma) for Wordle 627, Nov 5, 2023

When I look in the mirror, I sometimes feel like I’m becoming my mother, but when I look at my arms, it is also revealed that I am becoming my grandmother.  By the time she passed away at age 96, any effort to assist her in rising or sitting up by grasping her lower arms could result in the skin actually tearing off in pieces like tissue paper, and although not quite at this stage,  At 76, I have grown fragile. My skin has become translucent, showing off deep blue or purple bruises from below  given birth to by slight bumps or scrapings against even smooth surfaces—the edge of a table or a door. Small beads of blood flow out from tears of skin caught in a cat’s claw or a dog’s questing paw, and the skin of my lower arms is dappled with these signs of affection left by even the most furtive advances of the smallest of my dogs.

At night, in bed, I am a highway for dogs jumping into bed to snuggle down for the night and likewise for the same dogs springing from the bed to investigate the slightest noise in the backyard or the street.  One bound, using me as trampoline, propels them to the floor, and one more, in a flash, shoots them out the door. Any stray possum or other late night intruder into their domain not driven off by their initial loud growls and following barks is dealt with in a snap of the jaw. No furtive ingress into my nighttime garden goes unnoticed. Then, the intruders dealt with, back into bed they bound, usually landing on one arm or the other, leaving yet another mark of their affection. They are my protective angels, these small warriors of the night, but I fear they are loving me to pieces, as one glimpse of my arms will attest to.

The words for Sunday Whirl Wordle 627 are: caught pieces snap flash angel stray furtive dappled flow skin translucent blue

Vixen

Vixen

You are a crafty sorceress who holds men in your spell.
You clutch their hearts within your grasp where you squeeze them well,
then drain their living hearts of blood and leave them with a shell
with which to fend off, for a lifetime, loves which may be true,
but which they do not trust at all simply because you
have branded them for life with doubts  perpetually new
each time they try to ply love’s trade to find something’s amiss
as, still again, a rueful fog envelops each new kiss.
Thus, with sketchy prospects, loves two, three, four, five, six,
are extinguished by that first cursed love that blows out all their wicks!

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 625 the prompt words are:  sorceress sketchy life , you, brand six, still, fog hold spell fend ply

Retablo  by Judy Dykstra-Brown

 

Jail Break: For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 623

Jail Break

All these words are borrowed. They are not really mine.
They came all neatly packaged in an orderly line
where they were held hostage, gathered up and wrapped—
a lexicography in waiting with its power oddly sapped.
Words slack with grief, all gathered in a long veiled sigh,
as though lined up like prisoners, scheduled to die.
Bare pockets empty of bare change, stripped of all their worth,
words that once soared to lofty heights were now brought down to earth.
But here I am their savior, for it’s been left to me
and other hero poets to set their power free.!

The words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 623 are: slack grief hostage gather bare heights wrapped words pockets long veiled sigh

Shipwreck, for Wordle 621

Shipwreck

In spite of your deep dark eyes and your other charms,
I fear I won’t be spending anymore time in your arms.
Wind and rain and reckless tides have scarred our ocean’s shore,
shifting channel stones, a dead sea denizen and more
to bar our access to that place where once we calmly drifted.
Our sea of love’s grown stormy and  the sands of love have shifted.
If you had just honored that pledge you once recited,
perhaps this shipwreck of our love might somehow have been righted.
But, alas, the time is past that we can sail together.
I’ll cast my lines to mooring places safer in their tether.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 621 the prompt words are: rainy channel stone ocean bar scar shift drift honor dark eyes charms.  Photo by Eileen Flynn on Unsplash.

Grandma’s Birthday Confessions (For Sunday Whirl Wordle 620)

 

This might have been a better choice for Grandma’s Birthday Cake.

Grandma’s Birthday Confessions

A trick of fate has caused my skin to rumple, thin and bruise.
My limbs are merely spindles and my breasts simply refuse
to remain in their stations!  My locks once shiny gold
have dimmed to dullest silver, thus making me look old!
Of late, I find the edges of things have grown less clear.
I bump myself on door frames and on table tops. I fear
I may have a slight problem with my peripheral vision
which upon occasion has created much derision
on the part of youngsters, whose laughter, I suppose
has something to do with the lipstick on my nose.
And if you wonder why my bangs are so oddly fringed,
please don’t blame my hair stylist. I fear that they were singed
when I tried to blow the candles out on my birthday cake.
Who knew they’d use one candle for each year, for heaven’s sake?

The words for Sunday Whirl Wordle 620 were: late edge spindle skin rumple  fate trick slight singe dim limb

Back-fence Whispers: For Wordle 619

Back-fence Whispers

Since I heard the rumors that my love is leaving,
unproven fears extend their claws and set my heart to grieving.
Still fluid memories of our love rush in to calm my mind,
shoring up belief that he’s not the roaming kind.

Still, those hurtful whispers breathed behind cupped hands
warn me that he’ll soon be off to foreign lands.
Thus, I sit and worry about what the truth may be.
Which love has he chosen? Is it the world or me?

 

The words today are hurt heard whispers since roams clawing rush still fluid grieving shore breathe  : for the Sunday Whirl  Wordle 619  Image by Ben White on Unsplash.

S.O.S.: For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 618

S.O.S

Debris that’s caught up by the wind swells and rips and surges,
then falls to blanket ponds and fields and fill up roadside verges.
We trace its patterns in the woods, caught up along the trail.
We try to overlook it in the passing, but we fail.

It rolls down meadow pathways formerly pristine.
We trace its ugly progress through every canyon scene—
in a plastic bag’s graffiti plastered to a cavern wall.

Who will come to rescue our world before its fall?

Is any wiser culture listening for the call
from out there in the Universe, far from this spinning ball
that we are all trapped on, choking in the air
created by our progress, as we strip it bare?

 

The Sunday Whirl  Wordle 618 prompts today are: call, trace, rescue, debris, wind, swell, rip, surge, pass, rolls, trail, woods

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 617

True Confessions

Drag your dreams to paper.
Slam them on the page.
Let loose your bones of worry.
Release your screams of rage.

With all your senses humming,
drive away each care
by sharing it with all the world.
Be truthful if you dare.

Nonsensical or rational,
each fresh fear that you share
will drive your worries all away,
so tell us if you dare,

what secrets you have left to tell.
Run every dread fear by us.
If you need an audience
take a chance and try us!

For Wordle 617 the words are: nonsensical drive left humming fresh loose bones slam run paper dream drag

Same Genes, Separate Tables: For Wordle 89

Same Genes, Separate Tables

My brother joined a commune where they live on rabbit food.
They find hamburgers shallow and people who eat them rude.
He has said that he’ll guide me into a better life
and save me from the rushing, the chaos and the strife.

He says I’ve build a fort around my inner self
and put all my emotions safe upon a shelf.
Slowing down will help me—give me a brand new chance
to escape the world’s battles and join him in its dance.

I love my  brother deeply and hold him in my heart,
yet when it comes to life styles we’re sadly far apart.
I cannot give up cheeseburgers and french fried potatoes
for a life of tofu, kohlrabi and tomatoes!

For the Sunday Whirl, Aug 12, 2023  the prompt words are: guide shallow people chance fort held brother join food rabbit slow rushes

To be truthful, hamburgers and french fries no longer really taste good to me, but neither does most food outside of chocolate and Cheetos! So still not a good candidate for good health and contentment.

Reclaimed Words, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 611

Reclaimed Words

I fall victim to your shallow spell,
shattered by your drifting gaze
that catches on me, then drifts on,
to mingle with the gathering haze.

The damp roils in and sunlight dims,
night mingling with the fading day.
The shattered call of evening birds
echo and then fade away.

When I call out, words split in two,
spilling their meaning to the sand.
When I attempt to gather them,
they fall again from twitching hand.

As you retreat, your power fades
and I reclaim each scattered word,
change their order and intent
into phrases less absurd.

Words once wasted assume power
directed at another ear.
Amazing how the selfsame words
gain power with a loved one near.

 

For The Sunday WhirlWordle 611 the words are: mingled dim damp shallow spell gaze drifts shattered call twitch words split