Tag: W3

family · Life · poetry

Genealogy

SallyLeave a comment

It started with a phone call
“Who are you again?”
The letter arrived yesterday
I was full of curiosity

“Who are you again?”
His answer meant nothing
I was full of curiosity
Slowly the pieces fell into place

His answer meant nothing
I scribbled down some names
Slowly the pieces fell into place
Somehow we were related

I scribbled down some names
She mailed the letter with photos
Somehow we were related
She took me up the family tree

She mailed the letter with photos
She wrote stories of people I knew
She took me up the family tree
Naming people, naming places

She wrote stories of people I knew
The letter arrived yesterday
Naming people, naming places
It started with a phone call

This is my submission for this week’s W3 prompt. PoW Reena challenged us to “to explore the music of repetition by writing a pantoum on any theme or subject.

A pantoum unfolds in four-line stanzas, with each stanza carrying two lines into the next:

  • The second line becomes the first line of the next stanza.
  • The fourth line becomes the third line of the next stanza.
  • Add new lines in the second and fourth positions, letting the repeated lines gather fresh meaning in their new surroundings.

Continue for as many stanzas as you like. To bring the poem full circle, the final stanza traditionally uses the opening stanza’s third line as its second line, and the poem’s opening line as its closing line.

This is a true story. I got a strange phone call at work one day with someone asking me for my home address. We chatted for a while. I had no idea who he was — but I did eventually give him my address. I knew this could end badly and even joked with him that at least he wasn’t asking for my social security number or credit card information.

Just the other day the letter came from a distant relative. She had actually found me through this blog! She was out of the country, but wanted to send me something regarding a relative we had in common — so she recruited a friend to call and get my address.

aging · elderly · family · Life · poetry

The Bath

Sally9 Comments

I ran the water
Helped her get into the tub
That was when I knew

She who had bathed me
Could no longer bathe herself
Our roles had reversed

This week’s W3 prompt: Choose one specific object or place from your childhood—a bedroom doorway, a schoolyard swing, a favorite toy, a familiar street—and write about the moment when it began to feel different: when you sensed that childhood was receding and something else had begun.

Does it count if I was in my 50’s when this happened?

Mary Cassatt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Life · poetry

Low Tide at the Bay of Fundy

Sally7 Comments

Shadows fall upon us all
Currents carve, water erodes
Creating cliffs strong and tall
Wisdom worn bears heavy loads

For this week’s W3 , we are challenged to write a tanaga inspired by the theme “Life and Wisdom.” Explore the lessons we learn from living, the choices we make, and the experiences that shape us. Even a simple image from nature can become a metaphor for a deeper truth or moral lesson.

The tanaga is a traditional Filipino poetic form, similar in its brevity and depth to the Japanese haiku. It often uses rich metaphor, or talinghaga, to offer wisdom, advice, or vivid imagery.

Your tanaga should follow these guidelines:

  • Write exactly four lines.
  • Use seven syllables in each line.
  • Follow an AAAA rhyme scheme. Modern variations such as ABAB or AABB are also welcome. (I used a modern variation)
  • Traditionally, tanagas are untitled, allowing the poem to speak for itself — but my inspiration and the photo are from when I visited the Bay of Fundy about this time last year
poetry

One Candle

Sally10 Comments

created using AI

(For clarity sake — the picture was created using AI. The poem is 100% me.)

Deep inhale
Seventy-eight years travail
For what to wish? A new roof?
[poof]

I’m confused
One candle still lit! Excused
Not extinguished. Did I goof?
[Foof]

Voice speaking
From the flame. Eerie. Creaking.
“ElAinE” – glimpse of frilly rouche
[SWoosh]

If even
I blow harder, believing
It will work, I hear “SHhhHsh“
[WHOosh]

Oh, terror!
Who is this message bearer?
She speaks again — one word — “iF“
[WHIFF]

“iF ToDaY“
TODAY?? Today is my day?
My lungs are squeezing for breath —
Death?

[gasp weakly]
NO! It can’t end so bleakly!
At once — candle smoke, voice spoke
“jOkE!“

This week’s W3 is an interesting prompt:

An old woman blows out 78 candles on her birthday cake, but one refuses to go out, no matter how hard she blows. It burns with a blue flame and whispers a name she hasn’t heard in 40 years. Your poem is her conversation with that candle. What does she decide to do: let it keep burning, or pinch it out?

I found the prompt challenging and didn’t exactly follow it.

The form I used was Deibide Baise Fri Toin, an Irish form. It is written in quatrains with the following syllable count per line: 3-7-7-1 . The rhyme scheme is aabb, with the first two lines rhyming on a two syllable word and the last lines rhyming on a one syllable word.

The last word in the first five stanzas is supposed to be the sound of her attempting to blow out the candles.

Leaning In · poetry

Again

Sally8 Comments

It seems natural, so simple
Impulsively holding
Hands — an honest symbol
Nimble fingers folding

Intertwining; act of sharing
Bearing with a person
Touch that asks, how are you faring?
Caring lest things worsen

Could be a sister or a mother
Hovering and steady
Or a new romantic other
Druther — am I ready?

Feeling again perhaps tingles
Mingles with fear sincere
[oh dear!] back among the singles
Fingers, hands — meet, cohere

2014 — When my father told my mother that my brother had died, he reached for her hand.

The week’s W3 prompt is to use the word “again” in a very specific context: Write a poem about experiencing something familiar as though it were happening for the first time again.

I thought about the act of taking or holding a hand, the simple spontaneous touch between two people who care for each other.

The dechnad mor is an Irish poetic form that employs quatrains with these guidelines:

  • Four-line stanzas.
  • Lines one and three have eight syllables and end rhyme with each other.
  • Lines two and four have six syllabes and end rhyme with each other.
  • Each end rhyme is a two-syllable end rhyme.
  • Each line features alliteration between at least two words. (I did not do this one)
  • The end of the first line rhymes with the beginning of the second line.
  • The end of the third line rhymes with the beginning of the fourth line.
Life · poetry

A Presidential Weave

Sally24 Comments

At 80 Mom “rested” her eyes
As did Joe Biden — no surprise
Trump “rests” his in many places
Meetings1, funerals2 — sans disguise

Trump weaves a lot (not string or laces)
Mixes lands for US bases3
Iceland? Greenland? Does it matter?
Pinky? PeeWee?4 Meh – same faces

Tic Tac, Tik Tok5 — chitter, chatter
Covfefe6 served on a platter
Would you drive down The Hormuz Street7?
Hormuz Strait all bombs and splatter8

Dumb has a “b”.9 Who knew? How neat!
Dumocrat10 — such a silly tweet
Islamic Republic — Japan11?!?
Defeat him? No! Obvious cheat!

Shithole countries12 we ought to ban
Not Norway, places African
Discuss terms telephonically13
Big nuclear button14. Oh man.

So rest your eyes; the world can see
We’ve become a hostile country
You’re all about making money
This is not who I want to be

Feel free to fact-check me —

1 – One example: at a cabinet meeting on December 2, 2025, Trump was photographed with his eyes closed while various cabinet members spoke. The cabinet members said that he just blinked.

2 – Trump was caught on camera with his eyes closed at Lindsey Graham’s funeral on July 28, 2026

3 – Trump confused Iceland and Greenland at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2026

4 – At a rally in Marietta, GA on July 24, 2026, Trump compared Jon Osoff to Pinky Herman.

5 – On July 28, 2026, Trump declared himself Number 1 on Tic Tac. I think that’s a pretty small platform. He might have meant Tik Tok.

6 – What exactly is covfefe? He has never told us since he coined the word May 31, 2017.

7 – On July 22, 2026, while addressing students in metro Atlanta, Trump refered to the Hormuz Street.

8 – On February 28, 2026 the Strait of Hormuz was closed by Iran after they were attacked by the USA

9 – On July 16, 2026 (and multiple other times), Trump explained, “Dumb. You take the the B out. Most people don’t know that dumb has a B.” I feel like this is a case of pots, kettles, and the color black.

10 — Trump first used this term in May 2026 at a speech in New York.

11 – Yes, on July 8, 2026, at a NATO summit, Trump refered to Japan in this way. He probably meant Iran.

12- January 11, 2018 in the Oval Office, thus spake the president, who is strongly backed by conservative evangelical Christians, in the beautiful language of noble world leaders.

13 – On April 30, 2026, Trump stated that negotiations regarding Iran were being conducted “telephonically,” noting that this approach eliminated the need for lengthy 18-hour flights for in-person meetings.

14 – On January 3, 2018, Trump tweeted that his “Nuclear Button” was “much bigger & more powerful” than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s.

This week, the W3 challenge is to write a funny roast or a strong complaint about a government leader or another person who has power. I don’t know how funny this is. I mostly feel angry.

The poem should use a form called an interlocking rubaiyat.

Here is how the form works:

  • Write between 4 and 8 stanzas.
  • Each stanza has 4 lines.
  • Each line should have 8 syllables.
  • The rhymes link one stanza to the next.

The rhyme pattern looks like this:
AABA / BBCB / CCDC / DDED

poetry

The Creativity Cure

Sally12 Comments

Whatever became of Sir Swellimpedeedoo?
Though his fingers were swollen, he needed something to do —
So he crocheted a chicken
And his thumbs ceased to thicken
Soon the rest of his hands slimmed down too

He didn’t change his diet
Nor did he sit quiet
This much is true!
Idle hands lead to riots
While creativity is so good for you

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge.

POW, Matt Snyder, challenged us to write a nonsense poem with a specific structure:

The poem must have two stanzas of five lines each.

​Stanza 1 (Limerick)
Whatever became of Sir Swellimpedeedoo? (A)
____________________________ (A)
__________________ (B)
__________________ (B)
____________________________ (A)

Stanza 2
He didn’t ______________________
Nor did he _____________________
This much is true! (C)
____________________________
____________________________ (C)

The italicized words must appear exactly as they are written. The picture is to serve as inspiration.

poetry

Sunscreen

Sally9 Comments

Fair and freckled skin have I
Is sunscreen really necessary?
Just one more cream that I must buy
Fair and freckled skin have I
Forgot the sun block; cloudless sky
I look like maraschino cherry
Fair and freckled skin had I
Sunscreen really is necessary

This week’s W3 challenge is to write a Triolet.

In a triolet, the rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB. The first line repeats as lines four and seven, and the second line returns as the final line. We were further challenged to choose a summer moment or a summer theme.

My first question was “Does triolet rhyme with violet or chalet?” I tried to look it up. Three out of four you-tube pronunciation experts opted for the -et ending instead of -ay. There was one tree-oh-lay. Then then options were tree-oh-let vs. try-oh-let vs. trial-et. Go figure.


family · poetry

Gravy

Sally10 Comments

I learned from my mother
Who learned from her mother
Who presumably learned from her mother
How to make gravy
The finishing touch to a homemade family dinner

On the Starship Enterprise
The crew got their food from a replicator
They could order anything they wanted
It came out piping hot or cold, cooked to perfection
3-D printed nourishment

But
Replicated gravy
Made without love
Won’t taste
Right

Star Trek replicator

This is my response to W3 Challenge. Here are the rule which I sort of bent.

Write one three-line stanza poem that brings together a cultural tradition and modern technology.

Your poem can be playful, thoughtful, imaginative, or personal. Each line stanza may contain any number of syllables, so feel free to follow your own natural rhythm.

Structure

  • Line Stanza 1: Mention something traditional from your culture, such as a craft, art form, festival, song, food, or dance.
  • Line Stanza 2: Connect that tradition with technology, such as AI, an app, a digital tool, a virtual space, or a smart device.
  • Line Stanza 3: Show how the tradition and technology can work together, inspire one another, or create something new.

Most importantly, enjoy exploring how the past and the future can meet in just three lines stanzas.

poetry

WYSIWYG

Sally7 Comments

I never speak with candor
My words are lies — not some words, every
I am selfish to my core and care naught for any man
Look! It’s obvious that I’m not who I pretend to be!
Gah! People choose to be blind —

This is my response to the W3 Challenge, which this week is inspired by Emily Dickinson’s famous poem:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

For this prompt, write a poem in which every line is a lie — except one.

You may take this playfully, seriously, mysteriously, or emotionally. Your “lies” might be obvious falsehoods, gentle self-deceptions, exaggerations, masks, evasions, myths, dreams, denials, or things the speaker wishes were true. Somewhere in the poem, however, let one line tell the truth plainly.

Extra credit: Try writing your poem as a Golden Shovel.

A Golden Shovel poem borrows a line from an existing poem and uses each word from that borrowed line, in order, as the final word of each line in your new poem. For example, if you use Dickinson’s line “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” your poem would have eight lines, ending with: Tell / all / the / truth / but / tell / it / slant.