1574 - Off One's Tree

 The Sunday Whirl has a set of words, for a Wordle:
flutter, cage, hanger, cold, try, tree,
deny, womb, wish, finish, stray, eager.


Off one's tree.

When bold opportunity knocked
And offered to grant them their wish
Their hearts denied them a flutter,
Cold and rather brutish:
From womb—
The next stop is tomb.

They mutter
But most prefer it that way.
While their chosen cage is not locked
Few are eager to stray.

When bold opportunity knocked
And offered to grant them their dreams
They pulled the hanger door shut—
Caution hates extremes.
Why try?
Just to finish thereby?

Clear cut—
And most prefer it that way.
While their chosen cage is not locked
Few are eager to stray.
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1573 - Don't mention the Page 3 girls

 

The Sunday Whirl has a set of words, for a Wordle:
fun, Florida, girls, unify, news, middle,
scandal, hard, lie, run second, spray.

Don't mention the Page 3 girls

The news runs lies,
Broadcast at all hours;
Anger, shock and scandal.
No middle ground to unify,
The morals of a vandal.
A venomous spray
Is no fun way to start the day.
But it titillates the flock—
I really wonder why.

◊

A second try—
Good news is still hard to see...
But wait!  "Florida" means full of flowers.
Well, that was news to me!

 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1572 - Sign in, Clock off.

 

The Sunday Whirl has a set of words, for a Wordle;

sign, lame, chime, tethered shine, game, erotic, card, tame, soft, found.

 

Sign in, Clock off.

Pick a card!  Go on, any card!
Did you win?  Of course not.
The game is fixed.
What starts as a sweaty coupling,
Erotic or cold, functional,
Has its own rules, I’ve found.
Nothing you can anticipate,
Nothing tethered to logic.
It’s a racket.  It’s a con.
It’s barely here before it’s gone.
The fates roll the dice, it’s loaded,
Spin the wheel, it’s rigged,
Shuffle the deck and stack it.
Nothing matches, nothing rhymes.
Sitting, lordly, the Gods, watching, amused.
Visiting their whim upon the fit and lame,
The wild and tame,
The timid and game.
Soft option, or hard, it’s all the same.
Daily, the rise, the shine and set.
People live and die, eat and work, beget.
Time marches, relentlessly forward,
Until it strikes the hour.  Your hour.
Can you hear the chimes?
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1571 - Through a Glass, Darkly.

 

Sunday Wordle prompt:
Fiery, color, hand, catwalk, casualty, glass
rhythm, flow, blow, three, unity, furnace.

 

Through a glass, darkly.

The response is immediate:
The clenched hands,
The face’s fiery colour too,
The temple’s rhythmic flow
That beats out the base tattoo
Of raw intent.

A red veil descends,
The unity of reason and passion ends
In a furnace of anger and pride.
Intent to return pain for pain,
Hurt for hurt (if the past is any guide).

They strut, as on a catwalk,
Openly displaying their mission,
Unwilling to concede or even talk.
Base emotions drive them to strike a blow,
A three-pronged spear of retribution:
Revenge, vengeance, hurt, willing slaves.

In these heated moments
Reason is the first casualty.
Consequences, the second.

Best dig two graves.
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1570 - A Sailor from Spain

 Mad Kane's limerick prompt: main.

 A Sailor from Spain

 Pedro was a sailor from Spain
And, while quite discrete on the main,
An indecent passion
For bondage and lashin'
Got him keelhauled again and again.
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1569 - Or Not

 

Or not.

Life is a series of turns
where we choose a direction
Often unconscious of the eddies
and turmoil that follow.
Chaos theory.  Butterflies.
The slightly delayed trip that resulted in a chance meeting.
Or not.
The battle valiantly fought.
Or not.
The offense taken.
Or not.
Where would the alternative path have gone?
Or not.
Sitting on the fence.
Or not.
We make a choice and can never know
What we miss.
Or not.
Ignorance is bliss.
Or not.
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1568 - Terra Nullius

A wordle, using 

world, play, plan, divided, untethered, clothes, hurt, travellers, fresh, future, speak, text.

 Terra Nullius

Can the world, will the world, survive untethered greed?
How will constant growth play out
If we don’t heed the warnings plainly given?
How much can we hurt the planet and still be forgiven?
How do you plan a survival package if the people are divided
Into rival tribes on just about everything?

Freshly scented politicians in their smart new clothes
Tell us it will be just fine, that our future is rosy.
But here is the subtext:
Re-elect us, we don’t care,
We won’t be there.

What if time travellers were really possible?
But no-one has come back to speak to us
Because there is no-one there in the future to return?
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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1567 - Of Distant Lands

 

My first Wordle for a long time; the words provided are
Vicious, justice, cheers, settle, sway, shelf, chain, tell, call, web, send, month.

 

Of Distant Lands.

She is a fluid,
A liquid expression of power and grace
Contained in a vessel, not with chains
But with walls, and ditches and shelves.
There are cheers when she moves
Pacing the enclosure, watching and yet not really there.
Unformed, phantom images fill her mind:
Grasslands on a sweeping Savannah.  
Gazelles.  
The hot west wind.  
The cooling wells.
The images send a shiver and yet she knows not what they are.
Or why.
She stands, looking at the jeering faces, puzzled.
They too watch and wait,
Posting never to be viewed photos to the web,
Hoping for a snarl or a growl.
The sign, after all, says ‘vicious’
And so they express their wishes, a primal need for fear,
And yet her heart aches for a primal justice, unclear and undelivered.
She watches, swaying.  They watch, praying.  God knows why.
By and by she settles in the shade and the crowd murmurs its disappointment.
Some call out to get her to move about.
Months pass.  She paces, lies, dreams of places she can’t quite understand,
Cannot tell why or what are these troubling images
Of distant lands.
 .
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© 2021  J Cosmo Newbery
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