Tag Archives: your daily word

Seasonal Bribery

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Seasonal Bribery

Santa’s elves are in the workshop wrapping caramel kisses
to put in the stockings of little boys and misses
whose lofty thoughts are centered on baseball gloves and dolls—
hopes whispered into Santa’s ear in numerous city malls.

But my premonition is that though your needs are captivating, 
there’s a likely chance that Santa’s been equivocating
about giving you the puppy that you’ve been asking for
every day and every night for a year or more.

I’ve heard Santa’s considering the possibility
that you might be lacking in responsibility.
Would you fill his food bowl and pick up puppy poop?
Would you train him not to raid the chicken coop?

Everything about a puppy is not cute and nice.
He might bring you baby birds or even wiggling mice!
Tear up favorite clothes you leave upon the floor,
chew up all your Barbie dolls and Teddy bears and more.

You’d have to learn to clean your room and put your things on shelves—
all the things observed by Santa and his elves.
Do your chores the first time requested by your mother.
If you can’t do your present chores, could you handle another?

It’s not too late to change your ways. Come help to dry the dishes.
Santa might be watching and decide to meet your wishes.
You have another month or two in which you could grow up
enough so you can handle caring for a pup!!!

Prompts today are caramel, workshop, premonition, lofty, responsibility, captivating.

Monolingual

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Monolingual

Your language is not plain enough.
I do not get this “jibbing” stuff.
It angers me to have to look
these sailing terms up in a book.
Perhaps you are too lofty for
a small town landlocked jungle girl?

Prompt words today are jib, plain, anger, lofty, jungle.

Just for the fun of it, I wrote this poem line-by-line as I looked up the new prompt word without knowing what the next one was. I sort of got led down the proverbial password path!

Men in Trees

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Men in Trees

If you took an expedition to my favorite tree,
you’d find it’s convoluted as a tree can be.
It’s encrusted with lichen, but I’ve found that for a fee
an ornamental arborist can scrape it lichen-free.
They’ll do artful jobs of trimming off the deadwood if they’re hired
   by removing extra branches that look too dried-out and tired.

And if those earmarked branches contain nests of birds, perchance,
I’ve heard the trimmers merely move them to another branch.
In defense of ecology, no single squirrel has died
in this trimming of the branches, for they are safe inside,
nestled most securely with their babies and their kin,
thankful for the tree hollows that they take shelter in.

Prompt words today are lichen, convoluted, expedition, defense, and tired.

Ocean Truths

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Ocean Truths

The oceans teem with sterling fish that stream above the sands,
working their ways through currents beyond the landward strands.
Particles of plankton sift down through the brine
giving all the silver streaks something on which to dine.

Stingy bit by stingy bit unites to make a feast,
for tiny flashing fish up to the ocean’s largest beast
that slams the surface of the sea to leap into a scene
far above the plankton that streams through its baleen.

Since those depths that nourish it do not provide breath,
that which brings it life may also bring it death.
So while tiniest fishes float safe within their lair,
the giants of the ocean must come up to find air.

 

Prompt words today are sterling, work, particle, teem, slam, stingy. Image by Todd Cravens on Unsplash.

Open to Doubt (The Breakfast Caper)

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Open to Doubt
(The Breakfast Caper)

Your dubitable alibi concerning the French toast
that vanished when I turned my back to play the perfect host
and pour you one more coffee is hard for me to swallow
That the kitten snatched it simply doesn’t follow.

The rhythm of your fingernails moving on the table
betrays your anxiety concerning your small fable.
The kitten looks so innocent and you’re the one that’s doing
all that heavy swallowing and that excessive chewing.

When I served the French toast, I made sure to give you four,
and give myself two slices, because I had no more.
So, to steal my slices was surely in poor taste,
not to mention how you might have choked in all your haste.

So, while I’m cooking me a waffle and pouring me the dregs
of this pot of coffee, please don’t commandeer my eggs!
I find your manners lacking and your ethics purely awful,
but if you lay off my breakfast, I’ll cook you your own waffle!

 

Prompt words today are moving, anxiety, alibi, dubitable, rhythm and French toast. (Images from Unsplash.)

Grandpa’s Stories

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Grandpa’s Stories

She smelled of gin and jasmine and was a lovely sight,
with her intricate maneuvers as she engineered her flight
out the back door of the restaurant and then over the hill
to escape the sure appearance of her dinner bill.
The leadership of angels led me on my quest
to pursue over hill and dale with muffler and with vest,

for it was a winter evening, swathed in ice and frost,
and I feared that she would freeze or at the very least, get lost.
When I found her in the forest, I offered her the garment,
told her that I’d paid her bill and kicked the snarling varmint
that dashed at her from bushes, and therefore saved her life
and that is how I came to meet up with my wife!

I’ve guarded her from varmints and paid her bills since then,
kept her warm and safe and supplied her with her gin.
You know her now as Grannie, old and soft and pale,
but you should know your grandma was not always so frail.
When you go out partying, feeling wild and free,
those are traits you got from her, and certainly not me!!!

Prompt words today are frost, offer, leadership, intricate, bill and jasmine. I never knew either of my grandpas, but if I had, I hope they would have told silly stories like this one!!

Elefante

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Elefante

In spite of the excrescence on my spaniel’s snout,
he seems to have no problem in sniffing danger out.

When he has an inkling that a cougar or a bear
is within a mile of us, his nose extraordinaire

indicates a warning with a sniff and then a snort,
signaling that it would be a good time to abort

previous plans in order for me to begin musing
about a route more suitable for less dangerous cruising.

He’s a canine Dustin Hoffman or a man’s best friend Durante,
so excessive in proboscis that I’ve named him “Elefante.”

A prince of nasal warning, he’s the hero of my life,
so I’d never dream of yielding him to the surgeon’s knife,

for unlike other species, dogs are not subject to vanity—
another indication of the extent of their sanity.

 

Prompt words today are *excrescence, dangerous, musing, inkling, prince and responsible. *An excrescence is a distinct outgrowth on a human or animal body or on a plant, especially one that is the result of disease or abnormality. As you might have guessed, “elefante” is Spanish for elephant. Image from Unsplash.

Speed Dating

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Speed Dating

Leaning on the table, you taste your glass of wine,
enact acts of seduction that in truth should have been mine.
Your fingers on my elbow tap a light tattoo.
High on wine and romance, I lean over to kiss you,
but this invigorating juncture ends before we’re able
as the bell sounds and each of us is off to a new table.

Prompt words are leaning, wine, invigorating, enact, tattoo, high. Image by Jiawei Zhao on Unsplash.

The Proposal

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The Proposal

He’s economically trustworthy, but has a humdrum mind.
He’ll never write a sonnet, for he’s more the right-brain kind.
He’ll never sculpt a fountain or create a work of art,
but he’s brilliant at accounting, numerically smart.
So he won’t paint your masterpiece, but if you ever spy it,
if he’s the one you married, you can bet that he can buy it!!

Prompt words are sonnet, fountain, humdrum, economic, trustworthy. Image by Andra Jackson on Unsplash.

Coco’s Tale

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Coco’s Tale

This frisky little mongrel, rescued off the street,
jumped up at once to greet me and wove around my feet.
We were meant to be together, I thought. What better proof
than her goofy antics—her lick and growl and woof?

I didn’t need another dog. My friends would all concur.
In my home there was no lack of yowl and bark and purr.
Would a new arrival agree with dog and cat?
Would my spectacular surprise fizzle and fall flat?

Would Morrie accept her? Would Zoe object?
Would the cats say “That’s enough!” and finally defect?
I had no proof that she’d fit in, and yet part of the weaving
together of a family is in the believing.

That potent pull of heartstrings exchanged at the first glance
somehow won over reason, so I thought I’d take the chance.
When we got into the car, she jumped up on my lap,
curled herself into a ball and took a little nap.

Cats hissed at her arrival and approached her fully armed,
so her feline siblings clearly were not charmed!
But to Zoe and to Morrie, she is a long-lost friend,
and though our story is not over, for now this is “The End!”

 

I’ve had a terrible bronchial infection for the past two weeks and indications are that I’m allergic to Coco. I tried making Zoe and Coco sleep out in the doggie domain with Morrie, but they cried for two hours, so they are back inside but somehow, Coco seems to realize my problem and she has shifted from sleeping right beside my neck to getting as far away from my face as possible while still touching me, so she sleeps pressed up against my leg, knee to ankle, or with her chin over my foot.  Zoe has switched down to sleep in her own little bed right next to the bed. Fingers crossed that this will work. They are so dear. Zoe and Coco are constant companions and Morrie sometimes joins in the chase. I feel bad, knowing he is missing Diego, so I’ve been putting the girls out all day to keep him company and sometimes he sleeps on a comfy lawn chair right outside my bedroom door that I leave cracked a bit so the dogs can get out if they need to.  Peaceable kingdom. The cats still don’t like the new intruder, but they have their own safe area out in front that is not accessible to the dogs.

Prompt words today are spectacular, concur, believing, potent, proof and exchange.