Printable View
Enjoyed this tempest!
Accept challenge:
(music, lake, ring, jolting, thunder, serene)
The lake
No ringlets crease the surface
of the lake,
it´s inaudible music is serene
until
it is jolted
by the dissonant voice of thunder!
Next challenge:
(green, Christmas, roots, enthralling, fishes, intense)
Very nice :)
A Fishy Christmas
Word challenge: (green, Christmas, roots, enthralling, fishes, intense)
A fishy tale to relate of once upon a Christmas
Down, down, deep, deep in the watery below
Out near a jutting isthmus
Enthralled above with bitter snow
The waving deeply green kelpy fronds
Whose roots were anchored firm
Like Christmas trees each corresponds
With nary, nary, a living worm
For the fishys there are intensely voracious
When it comes to their fishy food
So when Santa visits he thinks them most ungracious
He leaves their fishy presents in a sore mood -
Below the green kelpy fronds decorated
With sea stars at the base and urchins everywhere!
Santa leaves the fishy's presents separated
From the waving anemones' and then tarries near
For the anemones leave Santa a snack
That has filtered down into the abyss
Left over from a bull shark's meal of quack
"It's the thought that counts" Santa says in bliss
Santa's greatest challenge is with the hermit crabs
Itinerant little beasties with their houses on the move
Yes, it's very hard for Santa to keep tabs
Using google maps and other apps that prove...
Totally inadequate... So Santa asks the lobsters
Who've temporally taken up residence in traps
"Have you seen the little hermit crabs pass by, monsieurs?"
"Have you word of the little chaps?"
But the lobsters weren't inclined and in a foul mood
For they were pondering their frail existence
So Santa left each one a gift you'd
Think they would've liked for their gruff non-assistance
That of rubber bands to play cat's cradle with
But the lobsters were sore unamused
Santa left them, he knew the hermit crabs weren't a myth
Headed toward a shallow shoal and bid the lobsters be excused
He looked high tide and low tide and then chanced upon
A defenseless sea snail sobbing bereft of its shell
Oh, ho! thought Santa and the thought did dawn
That the hermit crabs were pillaging this noel
And off with current's help they stealthily have withdrawn
Santa gifted the sea snail with a home it could lock
Then followed its directions to find his peripatetic prey
Planning on giving the hermit crabs gifts of schlock
But what did he find but the hermit crabs in full array
Singing hymns to the Almighty and His Son as a child
Christmas carols divine to all who came near
And nearby a buffet for Santa to whom they beckoned and smiled
Santa wept with joy and joined in with the songs of good cheer
The moral of this story dear reader if you've read this far
Is that the spirit of Christmas shines as bright as the brightest star... even for fishys
12/20/2022
Same challenge :)
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
Lol! Wonderful poem!
I have to think something out for tomorrow!
(green, Christmas, roots, enthralling, fishes, intense)
The green Christmas
Christmas in my country
is always green
because it is celebrated
in summer.
It might sound strange
But we use to have pines
for Christmas trees,
a rooted custom in countries
where the cold is intense
and nature covered by snow
is almost barren of vegetation.
As a child I used to be enthralled
by our big green Christmas pine
adorned with real candles.
Today the Christmas pines
are mostly artificial and
covered with led lamps
of all colors.
They aren´t as dazzling
as the real pines
but the natural trees
are more preserved.
And what about the fishes?
They are served as codfish dishes.
Next challenge:
(wood, shower, glass, beckon, quickly)
Enjoyed :) I've never seen a Christmas tree with real candles lit on them, it must be impressive.
Challenge : (wood, shower, glass, beckon, quickly)
beware the woodsman
:shower me with wood chips
said the coquettish young
semiaquatic rodent to her beau
:fill my glass with the freshest
river water and do so quickly
she beckoned with a swishy tail
:return with stout heart and hope
as I consider your token of troth -
tarry not and beware the woodsman
12/21/2022
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
AAIII!
(wood, shower, glass, beckon, quickly)
The Rain
While wandering through the wood
I was surprised by a shower of rain!
The water first poured down,
Than gradually, it fell
as pearls of glass.
Behind a bush, a squirrel beckoned to me:
"Quickly, quickly" he said.
Next challenge: (candels, tower, China, running, evergreen, softly)
Delightful !! :) Just out of curiosity, to whom was the squirrel talking to ?
Reality Check
Browsing thrift stores is a passion -
Looking for treasures overlooked...
Perhaps antiques from Imperial China
that one sees popping up on the news
on occasion auctioned at Sotheby's,
the ivory tower of riches, for a mint
Lowering my expectations I was sur-
prised to find a festive faux evergreen
sprig wreath with pine cones - perfect
for hanging on my front door, and some
running shoes suitable for softly sneak-
ing up on my neurotic cat Candlewick
12/22/2022
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
re: Lol! "Behind a bush, a squirrel beckoned to me/"Quickly, quickly" he said (to me).
re: Enjoyed! "neurotic cat Candlewick"-reality or fiction?
(candles, tower, China, running, evergreen, softly)
The Spirits of Christmas Past
When I was a child
We used to have a "real' Christmas tree
Out of a towering pine
and adorned with baubles, chocolates and candles.
Ornamenting the ever green tree
was an important pre Christmas activity
The baubles had to be handled softly
the candles carefully.
A misplaced candle could set
the whole array on fire.
In some years I provided also
a self made manger.
Out of cotton head and body
marked by a single silken thread
a flock of running sheep
was quickly made.
Put into the lower part
of an empty box of matches
the cotton figure would represent the Holy Child himself.
Maria was a small blue cloth,
Joseph a red one with a match for a stick?
None of them had a face.
In some years I modelled the Holy Family and visitors
Sadly some of these primitive "China" figures
Soon began losing their heads,
on account of being made
of garden earth and not of clay.
My parents kept these headless kings
for years.
Next challenge: ( ice, aquarium, sloths, meandering, regular, sound)
re: "neurotic cat Candlewick"-reality or fiction?" - fiction.
Enjoyed your poem very much :)
Challenge: (ice, aquarium, sloths, meandering, regular, sound)
taking it slow
slender icicles melting in winter
their languid regular dripping
sounds muffled in powder snow;
sloths in nearly all that they do;
me meandering an aquarium,
planetarium, or zoo: taking it slow
12/24/2022
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
Enjoyed! Enormous cold wave in US was in the news. Hope things are getting better and you are not too affected by it.
(ice, aquarium, sloths, meandering, regular, sound)
The intergalactic ice air ship
It went meandering through Via Lactea
The small ice air ship
It looked like a gigantic closed aquarium
With sloths in it instead of locks.
Not a sound came from the people
That one could glimpse.
The ice air ship
pursued its regular route...
meandering through the universe.
New challenge: ( book, flowers island, forward, gleefully, chiming)
A Sci-fi poem :)
Challenge: (book, flowers, island, forward, gleefully, chiming)
I Chanced Upon a Book
I chanced upon a book of art with
works in Gauguin's grand style while
did he in islands preoccupied imagine
then the absinthes of Van Gogh ? -
coaxing green færies in a forward
manner - they who wore red passion
flowers in their hair - the lightness of
their being chiming gleefully as these
pages turned bell, book, and candle
12/26/2022
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
Enjoyed the lightness of the poem.
(book, flowers, island, forward, gleefully, chiming)
While the bells...
While the bells chime in the new year
I open the book of 2022.
Turning the pages back
I encounter islands immersed in the see called time.
Islands gleefully cowered with flowers
but
also deserted islands hailing the errant ships.
Forwarding the last packages of the closing year
the genius of time may well ask:
"What will 2023 bring?"
(Next challenge: word, foam, frontier, beguiling, smiling, nasty)
Enjoyed ! The future awaits !
Challenge: word, foam, frontier, beguiling, smiling, nasty
future past perfect
beguiling frontiers, tie dyed dy-
nasties smiling await our words
of foam to decipher in the future
12/28/2022
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
Enjoyed this economical take! And the "nasty" solution was quite sly :D.
(word, foam, frontier, beguiling, smiling, nasty)
Words
Words spill over frontiers
like the foam of the sea.
Sometimes they wear
a beguiling smile
sometimes they are just nasty
But when they are sublime
frontiers disappear.
Next one: Suggesting a change in the rules. Each user suggests a new challenge for the next one.
Here is mine: artist, clay, moon, secretive, hiding, blissfully.
All too true... enjoyed :)
Challenge: artist, clay, moon, secretive, hiding, blissfully
Celestial Proceedings 12.27.2022
Weaving a gossamer veil of ice crystals this ev'n
the moon appeared a large crescent from Earth's
view to partake of Jupiter's counsel as Venus,
Mercury, Saturn, and red Mars flanked by Capella
and Aldebaran completed this rare celestial court
Men hiding in their homes of clay and wood and
steel this cold chill night were blissfully unaware
of this secretive conclave - where only Uranus and
Neptune deigned to abstain; Pluto having given full
proxy to Jupiter for having dealt with rogue comets
Only an artist and a poet were made privy to the
celestial seriousness this tapestry availed to men
other than the veiled moon who communicated to
them through dreams that indeed celestial scales
still tilt in man's favor - but much less than before
12/28/2022
My challenge: photograph, clash, spectrum, ice, meadow, speculate
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor