Tag Archives: your daily word

Convocation

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Convocation

I’m hiding in my broken self, couched down deep inside,
in concord with those secret parts I find it best to hide.
The most appealing sides of me are ones I choose to show
while the shattered rest of me finds somewhere else to go.

We often come together. We conspire in my dreams
when who I really am comes out to join with whom she seems.
It’s a convocation of past selves and of present—
all my selves from bratty kid to other selves more pleasant.

That part that takes the smallest piece of cake comes face-to-face
with parts that want the biggest piece and put her in her place.
Those selves that were once bullied confront their sense of loss,
face up to the bully and for once end up the boss.

Broken hearts are mended and pride put in its place.
In dreams I deal with all my faults that I’m meant to face.
It’s there I meet with former selves that weep or laugh or rage,
and then when I awaken, I put them on the page.

Prompt words for the day are appealing, broken, hiding and concord.

Rice-Burns

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Rice-Burns

After the engagement and the wedding bash,
after opening the presents and putting out the trash,
the groom fell into reverie, staring at the dark
waiting for revelation to ignite a spark.
All his cache of memories no longer served their function.
He longed to hear his bride murmuring words of tender unction.
But she retired early, exhausted from the stress
of all the machinations since she had answered “Yes!”
Thus did another wedding night turn out to be a dud
as wedding over-planning nipped romance in the bud.

 

Prompt words for today are spark, reverie, groom and cache.

“That” Girl

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“That” Girl

I imagine her a gabble-ratchet, such a vocal child—
talkative and stubborn, clever, loud and wild.
Loyal to her friends, solid without a glitch.
It was not her way to waffle or to snitch.
All who entered her domain followed where she led.
If they were her arms and legs, surely, she was their head,
ruling her world with personality and *wit.
All her minions swarmed around to be part of it.
If her town had had a castle, she’d have been its resident.
Instead she had to just make do with Vice-president!

 

*”Why is KamalaHarris the only person that laughs at her jokes… always way to long and way too hard?” Mr Trump’s son asked. “You wouldn’t know a joke if one raised you,” she wrote back.

Prompt words today are president, snitch, gabble-ratchet and personality. Image by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash, used with permission.

GABBLE-RATCHET. As well as being an old English dialect word for a noisy child, a gabble-ratchet is any nocturnal bird (particularly geese) that makes a lot of noise at night, once considered to be an ill omen.

Knowing

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Knowing

We cast long shadows in the sun,
but shorter as the day is done,
and when we shrink into our selves,
placing  our souls upon their shelves,
what shadows last? Are our souls
made of  Teflon or are they bowls?
The world’s vendettas should be left
back in the wide world lest their heft
leave our spotless souls bereft
and our inner natures cleft.

Those whom we honor with boundless fame
and lionize in face and name
might sport a very great divide
if we were to see inside—
their nature split  between what they
profess to be—what they might say
and what their true intentions are.
Their true motives might be far
from what we perceive as their intentions.
We cannot know a soul’s dimensions
except by looking at the facts
of how the outer person acts.

What they profess that they believe
may often be used to deceive.
But heart-to-heart, it is absurd
to think truth is conveyed by word.
Some part of us knows deeper meaning
devoid of boasting, strutting, preening.
The soul requires no advertisement,
seeks no excess aggrandizement.
In our soul of souls we know
what is authentic and what’s for show.
That shadow that we cast without
within has very little clout.

 

This poem is both a commentary and assessment of those who have lately been much in the arena and about ourselves–including myself.

Prompt words today are long shadows, vendetta and lionize.

Ta ta, Mr. Trump (Heading South)

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Ta ta, Mr. Trump (Heading South)

Pundits agree that during transition
wit will be sharpened in the position
of the oval office whereas farther South
statements that issue from the orange guy’s mouth
might lower the level of logical statements,
bringing on overall massive abatements
of logic and reason, of wit and good will
formerly missing up there on the hill.
We’re forming a queue to bid him good bye,
as we trade him for a more logical guy
who lacks his baloney and blustering ways.
We’re headed, we hope, for happier days.
And we wish for the happiest final conclusion:
that his family joins him in his seclusion.

Word prompts today are sharpened, pundit, queue and transition. All images from Unsplash, Used with permission.

Here is an article about Mr. Trump’s new “home”–or so he wishes: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/home-decor/a7144/mar-a-lago-history/

And here is an article about the wishes of his new neighbors in Florida: Florida:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/17/trump-mar-a-lago-club-neighbors-florida

Bill Blass Blues

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Bill Blass Blues

My wife is unfaithful.  She’s out most every night
with another famous man—out in open sight.
She doesn’t want to hide it. She wants her friends to see
that she’s at every swish affair, clad fashionably.
Every Hermes bag and pair of winklepicker shoes
has contributed its bit to my costume blues.

Countless Dior dresses and each Givenchy blouse
added up to why we had to sell the house.
I’d taken out my equity and sold off all my stocks,
I locked her in her room, but she only picked the locks.
When I cancelled all her cards, she just applied for others,
and when I closed out all of those, she asked to use her mother’s.

I am a closet pauper. As you might suppose,
challenged by my wife’s outlandish lust for clothes.
If only her love affairs were with lesser men
than Michael Kors or Givenchy, Dior or Ralph Lauren.
If only she could lighten up and buy her clothes at Ross’s
perhaps I could pay off my loans and modify my losses!

 

 

 

Prompt words today were lighten, challenge, winklepicker and equity.

At Sundown

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At Sundown

My day is winding down to its mellow end,
trailing the burnt-off ash of its dissipated energy.
Once-wild winds, trapped by the cooling night,
curl into hollows, exhaling trails of mist through the trees, 
nourishing the night air with tomorrow’s dew.

 

Prompt words today are mellow, nourish, wildly and energy.

Still on the Nickel?

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Still on the Nickel?

Four hundred thousand for a pension, a million for his travel.
More for his security, McConnell, pound your gavel.

Give him not a penny. Not a nickel nor a dime.
He deserves no further payment for his life of crime.

May the senate use its Trump card to deal out his comeuppance.
When it comes to a pension, he should get nary a tuppence.

We’re tired of his finagling, the lies and all the trouble.
It’s time we drew the needle out to burst his four-year bubble.

If I may be pauciloquent, I’ll simply say, “IMPEACH!!!”
Finally do the right thing. Kick out the sonnofabeach!!!!!!

Prompt words today are comeuppance, trouble, pauciloquent (terse, using few words) and finagle.
“On the Nickel” in this context means “On the dole.” The Nickel is a street in San Francisco where a lot of homeless hang out. That Trump should have his hand out for further entitlements after his term is over just seems unconscionable to me. Let him earn his own nickels from now on. Impeachment will insure this. Here is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs that I drew my title from.

Immodest Proposal

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Immodest Proposal

The busy restaurant suddenly as silent as a tomb—
my “No” resounding clearly all across the room.
It was this blunt refusal that brought him to his knees,
begging my forgiveness and finally saying “Please!”
Tenderness exuding from his every word,
he repeated his offer in a manner less absurd.
His sangfroid left behind him, he presented me the ring
with proper reverence as though it was a sacred thing.
It was a better proposal than the first one he had pitched
when he tossed the ring box at me and said, “Wanna get hitched?”

Prompt words today are sangfroid, instead, tenderness and lapse.

First Friends

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Click on photos to enlarge.

First Friends

Friendship need not be dazzling at every bend and turn.
It can be a placid river, devoid of roil and churn.
It can merely listen—a sympathetic ear
can be enough to cancel out sorrow, anger, fear.

Friends are one of life’s delights that nothing else replaces—
initials in a school desk that nothing else defaces.
School assignments dreaded, but then attacked together,
countless outings faced as one in mild or stormy weather.

Dazzling feats accomplished: sports, exams and proms. 
Secrets shared together that we’d never tell our moms.
Giggling under covers, far into the night,
regretful tears and tight embrace after a childish fight.

What can replace a friendship in which every secret’s known?
Even after years apart, when we’re matured and grown?
In every single mother, grandmother or wife,
there are those kernels of  memory of the first friends of her life.

 

Word prompts for today are assignment, delight, dazzling and friendship.