About Halloween
Put your foot in the park
Where goblins are seen
Because it’s so dark
Other ghoulish happenings
Occur on this night
Despite jack-o’-lanterns glaring
Mouths crooked and wide
Possible eyes from scarecrows
Sitting high on their pikes
Children abound with candy they like.
***
W3 Prompt #131: Wea’ve Written Weekly
It might have been the usual
A few drinks, a bed, some fun
Admittedly sounds tawdry
But no harm done
We opened the door
After kisses not light
Then fireworks came
I tried to fight, because
This wasn’t right
I’m free, untethered
My modus operandi
No strings for me
Comes in handy
He surrounded me softly
I wasn’t used to that
And the fireworks
Might be costly
I was the love ‘em leave ‘em type
Now realizing all that hype
Wasn’t…
this.
***
Writing Prompts
I always knew it was a dream
You came to me and then it seemed
We could escape our life’s sad scheme
But reality came knocking at sunrise.
***
Ovi Poetry Challenge 72: DREAM is your inspiration.
Now if Trump gets the win
We’ll pay penance, obey
If he has his own way
Courtesy out!
***
Abhanga Poem: 4 lines, 6,6,6,4 syllables, lines 2and 3 rhyme, title
https://pensitivity101.wordpress.com/2024/10/30/three-things-challenge-m863/Your three words today are:OBEY PENANCE COURTESY
“Trump has promised that if he is elected president he will deport millions of people. There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. And Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to detain and deport non-citizens from an enemy nation during wartime.
🎧 NPR’s Jasmine Garsd says Trump is interested in utilizing local police for immigration enforcement. However, the president cannot legally compel police departments to cooperate with such efforts. During his presidency, Trump attempted to force police to collaborate with immigration enforcement, but it was deemed unconstitutional. Civil rights groups are prepared to challenge Trump’s proposals, including his plan to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to the Southwest border. Some states are working to implement their own immigration enforcement measures. And under a Trump presidency, those efforts are likely to intensify, with his Justice Department likely to support them.
The Biden administration is working to address the low wages of teachers in the federal Head Start preschool program by implementing a new rule. Many Head Start centers have struggled to hire enough staff to keep their classrooms open due to these low pay rates. Nationally, the average salary for Head Start teachers is around $41,000. In perspective, a public school-based preschool teacher earns around $53,000 on average.
🎧 The pay at Head Start, a program meant to help children living in poverty, is so low it forces its staff to live in poverty, NPR’s Cody Turner says. The pay has resulted in, nationally, nearly one in five Head Start teachers quitting last year, according to the Biden-Harris Administration. The rule the administration has created would require these teachers to receive a pay bump of as much as $10,000 per person. The problem is that without new funding from Congress, local programs would have to cover the cost of the pay increases, possibly leading to some programs cutting services.”
***
One lonely seagull, late to the feast, strolls along the water’s edge looking for any leftover snacks from beach parties. Most nights there are bonfires; humans drink and eat and there are always bits of food it can scavenge. It looks back to the blackened wood standing, still triumphant, even though burned. A few other wooden figures left, abandoned to be broken down and cleaned up by the seaside garbage truck. It’s a sad, but usual sight, the seagull thinks, humans use and discard everything, probably mindless of the tragedy of it all. It spies some crumbs and moves on.
***
100 words
1 November 2024
sunsets are magnetic, cannot turn away till sky darkens
***
Monoku Poem
Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – Magnetic
Irregular Ode to Arthritic Confectioners
🥧🍵🍛🍲🍰🥙🥗🧁
you already know of my cooking woes
tried no bake cheesecake next
had ingredients, lemons, garden hose
a grater, with a sharp knife, I’m vexed
can of sweetened condensed milk
everything combined should look like silk
–
trouble started when I squeezed the juice
added lots of zest no flavor to lose
the bowl of these hard wrought two
flew off the counter, I’m not amused
ever tried to pick up lemon zest from the floor?
it took a while, had to replace it with more
–
so again with the grater and hard to get juice
lucky I had more lemons to use
thank heavens I had a crumby crust
not sure I have crumbing actions I trust
remembered to cover the bowl
while whipping the mixture, making it whole
–
delighted the finished pie looked normal and fine
it’s the cleaning of all the messes that is the crime.
***
Poetics: Satiating the Soul
Claytoonz excerpt: https://open.substack.com/pub/claytoonz/p/rotten-republicans?r=482oha&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“It’s easy for a white guy to say people shouldn’t be offended by racist jokes and we should just get over it. That’s what Trump’s running mate, JD Vance said, after the brouhaha over the racist jokes told at Trump’s Madison Garden Nazi rally.
JD lied, saying he hasn’t heard it because he believe America wants a vice president who lives in a bubble. JD said, “Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said; maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it. I’m not gonna comment on the specificity of the joke … but I think that we have to stop getting offended at every little thing in the United States of America, I’m just so over it.”
Even if it’s a racist joke, JD thinks we should just blow it off, or maybe wait until after election day to be offended.”
***
Vance reminds me of a song from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” https://youtu.be/AALREbJZEZk?si=uVrajisfp_MJyXwX
***
I wish he and Trump would be “over it” in a galaxy, far far away…
I never considered myself a horror fan, but when Stephen King started pouring out all of his stories, I read most of his until I couldn’t keep up. Then recently I started listening on audio Jonathan Maberry‘s books, and fell in love with the character Joe ledger. After I had read most of his adventures I went back to read the very first one, “Patient Zero” and because it was about zombies I never had an inclination to read it. But I wanted to see the development of the Joe ledger character and this was the way to do it. After reading that and the rest of the series I went on to read more of Maberry’s books that were true horror …
***
Truthful Tuesday: October 29th, 2024
The Bag Lady 
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