Bellicose

BELLICOSE

–adj.
inclined or eager to fight; aggressively hostile; belligerent; pugnacious.






















Years of living here
Should protect me
Against sudden anger
- Look! A real life Chirico! –
But I still get bellicose
At the sight of dumps.

Inane

INANE

–adj.
1. lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly:
2. empty; void.
–noun
3. something that is empty or void, especially the void of infinite space.



Inane mind:
Listen close to the ear
and hear the sea roar.

Trophy

TROPHY

–noun
1. anything taken in war, hunting, competition, etc., especially when preserved as a memento; spoil, prize, or award.
2. anything serving as a token or evidence of victory, valour, skill, etc.
3. a carving, painting, or other representation of objects associated with or symbolic of victory or achievement.
4. any memento or memorial.
5. a memorial erected by certain ancient peoples, especially the Greeks and Romans, in commemoration of a victory in war and consisting of arms or other spoils taken from the enemy and hung upon a tree, pillar, or the like.























Full of tears
Sodden trophies
Waiting for sunshine.
A victory.

Yahoo

YAHOO

–noun
1. (in Swift's Gulliver's Travels ) one of a race of brutes, having the form and all the vices of humans, who are subject to the Houyhnhnms.
2. ( lowercase ) an uncultivated or boorish person; lout; philistine; yokel.
3. ( lowercase ) a coarse or brutish person.






















A case of mistaken identity;
His look identifying him as a yahoo.
But that bear is a philosopher:
Thoughts are all he has left to escape.

Billow

BILLOW

–noun
1. a great wave or surge of the sea.
2. any surging mass.
–verb (used without object)
3. to rise or roll in or like billows; surge.
4. to swell out, puff up, etc., as by the action of wind.
–verb (used with object)
5. to make rise, surge, swell, or the like























Hairy billows
Greeted him each morning
Waiting to be coiffed
Over and over
Into temporary submission
Until the next wave
Of dreams.

Demure

DEMURE

-adj.
1. characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved.
2. affectedly or coyly decorous, sober, or sedate.



Sitting on my shoulder,
Demure and prim
But for excessive drooling
My inner-monster points out faults,
Phantasmagorical errors,
Implanting self doubt
In a meek ego.

Resentment

RESENTMENT

–noun
the feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult.



This I write
With your blood.
If not your blood,
Your resentment.
Clouding the page
With tight signs
Hiding our escape
Into another
World.


Albertus Seba's squid engraving from his 'Cabinet of Natural Curiosities' appears courtesy of Peacay , of BlibliOdyssey fame.

Pomegranate

POMEGRANATE

–noun
1. a chambered, many-seeded, globose fruit, having a tough, usually red rind and surmounted by a crown of calyx lobes, the edible portion consisting of pleasantly acid flesh developed from the outer seed coat.
2. the shrub or small tree, Punica granatum, that bears it, native to south-western Asia but widely cultivated in warm regions.























There’s a fragile rose inside my window,
Made of pomegranate blossoms and seeds
Ruffled under the hand of antic winds
Turned blue under restoration frosting

Calendar

CALENDAR

–noun
1. a table or register with the days of each month and week in a year.
2. any of various systems of reckoning time, especially with reference to the beginning, length, and divisions of the year.
3. a list or register, esp. one arranged chronologically, as of appointments, work to be done, or cases to be tried in a court.
4. a list, in the order to be considered, of bills, resolutions, etc., brought before a legislative body.
5. Obsolete . a guide or example.
–verb (used with object)
6. to enter in a calendar; register.






















Broken calendar
Singing days long gone
Planning a mockery

Aleatory

ALEATORY

–adj.
1. Law . depending on a contingent event.
2. of or pertaining to accidental causes; of luck or chance; unpredictable.
3. Music . employing the element of chance in the choice of tones, rests, durations, rhythms, dynamics, etc.




Aleatory dreams
Billowing beneath the surface
Glazed his eyes over
Sculpting lions in his mane.

Excerpt

EXCERPT

–noun
1. a passage or quotation taken or selected from a book, document, film, or the like; extract.
–verb (used with object)
2. to take or select (a passage) from a book, film, or the like; extract.
3. to take or select passages from (a book, film, or the like); abridge by choosing representative sections.



History made excerpts
Of its own story
To puzzle historians
And dreamers alike.

Selkie

SELKIE

–noun
Scot.
a mythical creature that looks like a seal in water but assumes human form on land.



Here we are
Looking into each other’s minds
The selkie who has forgotten about being human
The human who has forgotten about being a seal
Land and water locked
By a moment’s mind lapse
Yet her eye is my eye
And my heart beat is hers by right

Counterfoil

COUNTERFOIL

–noun
Chiefly British .
a part of a bank check, money order, etc., that is kept by the issuer and on which a record of the transaction is made; stub.




Broken ruins
History counterfoil
Or puzzle?

Enervate

ENERVATE

–verb (used with object)
1. to deprive of force or strength; destroy the vigour of; weaken.
–adj.
2. without vigour, force, or strength; languid.




Moss.
Moss
And Time
Green sickness
Enervating stones,
Statues, into languid poses.

Oscitant

OSCITANT

-adj.
1. Yawning, as with drowsiness; gaping.
2. Drowsy or inattentive.
3. Dull, lazy, or negligent.






















Oscitant macaque
Makes for grooming
(Or snacking)
Opportunity

Crumb

CRUMB

–noun
1. a small particle of bread, cake, etc., that has broken off.
2. a small particle or portion of anything; fragment; bit.
3. the soft inner portion of a bread ( distinguished from crust).
4. crumbs, a cake topping made of sugar, flour, butter, and spice, usually crumbled on top of the raw batter and baked with the cake.
5. Slang . a contemptibly objectionable or worthless person.
–verb (used with object)
6. Cookery . to dress or prepare with crumbs.
7. to break into crumbs or small fragments.
8. to remove crumbs from




I have learnt
To scrub my memory
For crumbs of our story
Shaking them loose
To be lost to the drafts of times


The background picture is copyright of Willow of Willow Manor, who has put it forth as a writing prompt.
Join the writing fun at Magpie Tales.

Pluvial

PLUVIAL

-adj.
Of or relating to rain, especially much rain.






















Pluvial
Lime deposit
Bitter cries history
Scribbling stories over the stones
For keep.

Virga

VIRGA

-noun
Rain or snow that evaporates before hitting the ground.




Let's get
Soaked in ghost rain
Virga that teases our lips
And then deserts us
Leaving plants
Gasping for life

Blank

BLANK

–adj.
1. (of paper or other writing surface) having no marks; not written or printed on.
2. not filled in, as a printed form.
3. unrelieved or unbroken by ornament, opening, decoration, etc.
4. lacking some usual or completing feature.
5. (of a recording medium) containing no previously recorded information.
6. void of interest, variety, results, etc.
7. showing no attention, interest, or emotion.
8. disconcerted; nonplussed; speechless.
9. complete; utter; unmitigated.
10.Archaic . white; pale; colourless.
–noun
11.a place where something is lacking; an empty space.
12.a space in a printed form, test, etc., to be filled in.
13.a printed form containing such spaces.
14.a dash put in place of an omitted letter, series of letters, etc., especially to avoid writing a word considered profane or obscene.
15.Metalworking . a piece of metal ready to be drawn, pressed, or machined into a finished object.
16.Archery . the bull's-eye.
17.the object toward which anything is directed; aim; target.
18.blank cartridge.
–verb (used with object)
19.to cross out or delete, especially in order to invalidate or void (usually followed by “out” ).
20.Informal . to keep (an opponent) from scoring in a game.
21.Metalworking . to stamp or punch out of flat stock, as with a die.



I went to take a write
On a smooth blank sheet
But smoothness can be deceptive:
It swallowed me whole.
On white, no one will see me scream.

Philippic

PHILIPPIC

-noun
A bitter condemnation, usually in a speech.






















Lemur
Philippics
Come out full of teeth
And spit