Wordgrove Post & Review

Quoted in The Grove:
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier’.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson

And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

End Quote:
Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.
~Wally Lamb

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Harvested from:  BrainyQuote.com
Curated by:  Wordgrove  (the early years)

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Prewritten Prompt:  a picture

The Fence
© Eric Groetzinger, 2019

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Posted from the Grove

Resources Used 2019: Worth it, recommended

A.Word.A.Day:  World’s most treasured site for logophiles

Dictionary.com: Words — comparisons, uses, games, ideas for writing

Daily P’nut: Nuanced daily news abstract

Brainy Quote: Premier quote site by subject & author

Rusty’s Electric Dreams: All things eclectic

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Music:  Doin’ It Different — They Said It Shouldn’t / Couldn’t Be Done

~Bee Gees Parody: Stayin’ Alive (1:03)

~Pharrell Williams:  Happy  PMJ feat: Gunhild Carling playing 10 instruments   (3:35)

~PMJ Mashup:  Just Another Day at the Office   (4:18)

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Odd Bits:

Fry & Laurie:  The Understanding Barman   (3:11)

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First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
~F Scott Fitzgerald

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
~Carl Sandburg

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
~Mark Twain

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© Greg Thweatt, 2019

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Bridal Veil Falls
© Hans Stroo, 2019

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@Writers Platform

Glass Table:

December 25, 2019

Good night my dear mom, Lynne.

Before I go upstairs to sleep, I want to express my gratitude for having you in my life. Today is Christmas, and I’m not only missing you, but my other Mom, Anne.

With your love, you showed me unconditional support, encouragement, and understanding. You took me in, and loved me as if I were your own daughter.

Today is the first Christmas without my birth mom, Anne. I miss her terribly. I want you to know that I wish you were both still alive.

Thirteen years ago on October 17, you took your last breath in a hospital bed, suffering from pain and misery. On May 1, 2019, Mom died suddenly in her chair at the dining room table, only to be discovered hours later by her partner of almost 30 years. They would have celebrated their 30th year anniversary on July 11, 2019. While it was a difficult blending of families, they seemed to stand the test of time.

Love always from your daughter,
Margalo

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Prewritten Prompt:  the camera

~BarTalk:
for the record

eyes blink lose the moment
cameras blink to capture it
shuttered eyes vote and love
the shuttered machine remembers
image matters…
but time is the target

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Selfie

Life plays an opera with full orchestra
A feast for the eyes
Who needs memory
Lens focus better than uvea and retina
Other stories brim
Comedy and tragedy
But my spectacular new lenticular camera
Captures my world in 3D
And it’s me

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ubiquity

green blue grey brown black and hazel
eyes gone nuts for a world of natural beauty
enter onstage the plastic and glass-metal devil
waving goodbye to the now ground in reality

ground lens in the rectangular invasive
embeds an evilly pervasive embalmist
a being machined offensively intrusive
where all is lost but for the eye of an artist

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superlative

kid huggingest
elder caringest
pet dotingest
dark eyes laughingest
women kindly shapeliest
men proudly protectingest
friends touching oftenest
teen love carefree and happiest
families tight-knit in togetherness

camera posingest
picture takingest
selfie embracingest
late night liveliest
dance craze craziest
music held-in-commonest
coffee ubiquitous
cuisine simplest
spiced food tastiest

mountain air healthiest
green grass thickly spongiest
animals free roamingest
shops and cafes tiniest
far vistas loveliest
dreams invitingest
country hard workingest
where love is spontaneous
Colombia

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Quoted in The Grove:
This world is divided roughly into three kinds of nations: those that spend lots of money to keep their weight down; those whose people eat to live; and those whose people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
~David S Landes

To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.
~Norman Mailer

Compassion is not weakness and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.
~Hubert H Humphrey

EndQuote:
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
~Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

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Harvested from:  Wordsmith.org    (A.Word.A.Day)
Curated by:  Wordgrove

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Prewritten Exercise Theme:   the camera

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Posted from the Grove

*Not Too Late For The Christmas
Scroll down to use, much of it in.genious
https://twitter.com/BlossomHacks

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Planet Earth’s Gift to You:  Strange Mysterious Places   (12:39)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahC5SWe79Uw

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*Five Crackling Hours of Fire’s Hypnosis:  The Darth Vader Yule Log
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVJzibVS2YM&feature=youtu.be&utm_source

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~Rowan Atkinson:  Mr Bean Christmas Special    (47:57)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRi_Xrs73yw

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~ BBC: Christmas Curmudgeon’s The Grumpy Guide to Christmas   (1:07)
To be savored the day after the magic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyTYmmkbsjw

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*Thx to:  Rusty’s Electric Dreams

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Winter Solstice
© Greg Thweatt, 2019

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The artist’s musical pairings

~Katzenmammer, Øystein Dolmen og Det Norske Jentekor:  Den lengste natten   (3:23)
Charming & disarming, a Christmas without borders

~The Drifters:  White Christmas   (2:48)
With Santa & his Reindeer,  animated

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@Writers Platform

Prewritten Theme:   the city

~BarTalk:
Enter The Center

Tempted by the glitz and the glamour of Broadway
Threatened by the harrowing Narrows of low pay
Unraveled by the bustling hustle of frayed nerves
Endless hassles for the dreamers who do serve
Building towers to the stars furthering mankind
Remembering the lost the forgotten and left-behind
Scraping gutters to salvage the lowly deplorables
The unappealing the sick and less adorables
The story of each is the study of all of us
The amorous the gory and glorious
The greedy who steal from the needy
The entirety of our race call it humanity
This totality our secret unfathomable sanity
The census of lives under the City’s rich panoply
Where excluding just one is the only profanity
AnyOne less than the whole fails at our deity

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city synopsis

break into theater
halls of music and drama
the demand is for talent
no need for diploma
the smell of success
the only accepted aroma

where the dollar decides
small change is a curse

streets claiming fame
promote long term identity
abandon roads to abodes
and second place family
boulevards for awards
ward off ruinous anonymity

when the dollar decides
then change is a curse

churches build altars
each the one true exalter
reined saddle and halter
science unable to alter
when doubt is the assaulter
then faith starts to falter

if the dollar decides
any change is a curse

high rising spires
in honor of commerce
mean praise for the coin
enhanced powers of purse
the privilege to coerce
the authority to enforce

where the dollar decides
spurring change is a curse

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5-7-5 x 6

streets paved with pot holes
stoplights herd the mavericks
compost for the arts
~
city and mountain
long climb up the great fall down
views worthy the trip

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chance reach for success
toxic air and attitudes
the burg never sleeps

too little too much
endlessly entertaining
the town never sleeps

beating like a heart
day and night in the jungle
village never sleeps

ruthless in judgement
decides a win for the world
plays hard ball for keeps

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Quoted in The Grove:

Most men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed off wings where he never ventures.
~Fran Mauriac

The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives.
~Florence Luscomb

Travel is necessary to scrub and abrade your mind against the certainties of others.
~Michel de Montaigne

EndQuote:
When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.
~Langston Hughes

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Harvested from:  Wordsmith.org   (A.Word.A.Day)
Curated by:  Wordgrove

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Prewritten Exercise Theme:   the city

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Posted from the Grove

How To Write a Meaningful Holiday Card
https://www.dictionary.com/e/how-do-i-write-a-holiday-card/

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~U2’s:  Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For   PMJ Feat: Rogelio Douglas, Jr   (3:36)

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~Kid President:  Pep Talk   (3:27)

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RAW
©2019 Chris Bule

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@Writers Platform

Prewritten Prompt:  the race

~BarTalk:
In Lieu of Camera

Before life makes them mothers
A girls choir dances with their hands
Makes magic from hours of practice
Before adults make adult music for adult feet

A bride radiant with hope
In maiden white next unpicked flowers
Her portrait before the ceremony
Knows she is beautiful

Families against the gusting breeze
Light twelve colored finger candles
Melt the wax blood to stand them
Devout arrays of aging Christendom

Flowing staggered radiating banded lights
White walled chapel’s buttery strands of light
Climbing dripping shooting stars of light
Silhouette toys mangers a zoo angels all in lights

Kaleidoscopic sounds sights lights inaugurate
Highlight joys display toys as ecstatic children chase
From Noel’s grace to New Year’s Eve’s last embrace
Nights of patterned lights vie with chaos’ doomsday race

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Disallowed

Best at sports
Then sportscasters
Beat the best
At setting records
Supreme as singers
Great-voiced actors
Among the best
At selling records
Famed orators
Framed malefactors
Culture’s envied
Benefactors
Then the black man’s
White detractors

Battles fought
Over ebony skin
Three fifths a man
Before the laws amend
Black dyed red
White and blue
Shed their blood
Died it’s true
Paid their dues
But then again
A swinging rope
A black life ends
Portends their future
Closed voting booths

Doctored history
What might have been
Had stolen lives
Worn different skins

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Same Difference

Young and old same race alike
Full of fire unruffled ice
Plashing fountain reflective pool
Up to date and old school
Both alive as daughter mother
Yet only one has been the other
 
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Champeein‘

Bloated bloke
A joke on skis
Pedigreed pure
Snow white mountain
Feigns a claim
All the best moves
Swears by god
Knows he’s got them
Downhill race
No sense of grace
Just one sure-fire
Way to win
Short a contest
Sin and spin
Set up camp and inhabit
Rule the race for
From the bottom

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All of life is a foreign country.
~Jack Kerouac

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