David Wright - Daily Quordle Poem

Stranded 2

JUICE. His parched dreams are jumble of guava, berries, citrus.
SPRIG of negligible shrub, its fibrous leaves make for lunch.
FAITH in a rescue at times waxes, mostly wanes. He fantasizes simple fare:
PENNE pasta in an Arrabbiata sauce.

Note: this is continuing yesterday’s theme (see: https://dailyquordlepoem.com/2023/03/08/stranded/): a chef who somehow has gotten stranded on an atoll. Funny that today’s words lent themselves to extending mine from yesterday. These are among my more slender efforts, imo, but they demonstrate some of the serendipitous fun of DQP: happy accidents in the succession of words, even across days.

Stranded

ATOLL, stranded chef paces. He’d rather be making
SAUCE. Instead he must
BROOK matters existential. How long can he last? When rescuers arrive, can he yet
CRAWL toward them. Will food ever be a luxury again?

The Gift of Morning

ANNOY!–it seems your vocation. First
FLUSH of dawn, you let loose upon the
ISLET your cock-a-doodle-dooing. We stir
AWAKE, contemplating the gift of morning.

Grace

GRACE is not always mild, like a cool breeze in summer; it can be like a
LATHE, locking down subject, rotating, setting up the needed cuts.
HENCE grace can be unwelcomed, as though something easier than the hardest miracle could turn
STONE hearts to living ones.

Weighty Thought

LAGER goes down easy on the deck,
FINCH warbles sweetly in the trees.
MARRY? That gives pause–a thought meant to last, meant to weigh,
CREPT into an inattentive life. Perhaps it’s time to measure the passing moments, make them count.

Phantom’s Calling Card

SLYLY he places the glove in the empty vitrine, then climbs away.
ABOVE he waits for guards to pace away, flits between shadows. An
OUNCE of feathers is louder. Diamond pouch around his neck, he
CRAWLs parapet, down pipe, then strolls out through the garden.

The Phantom's monogrammed glove from the Return of the Pink Panther

Back on the Ground

FLYER landed, hope against hope,
HOTLY fought passage at icy heights,
FREED from deadly dream of soaring freedom,
RALLY now and ask, is an earth bound life enough?

Taken from a story where soaring free became an imprisoning fear: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-23-sp-638-story.html

Hermione

FLAIR for study, for depth of thought, yet frail to fear.
EVOKEs question, how will you age, will you thrive?
OTTER: clever, bold, and playful. Will the
WRIST that swishes spells also grow into an otter’s paw?

Note: for those whose cup of tea the Harry Potter books are not, Hermione is one of the most important characters in the books. Her magical patronus animal–a creature that can help in dire circumstances, and which often has a deep and complexly symbolic relationship with its individual–is an otter. Will Hermione grow fully into what the otter represents? She is fiercely smart, clever in the best sense. But bold and playful are not so much her strengths.

Sheep Shear

SHEAR of sheep, in the Australian Outback, hot day.
ORGAN of sight: my imagination, sifting alternate lives:
MURAL of scene rises vividly to the mind’s eye.
COUCH traveler, free to roam,
while his hair grows long and his body too unfit for a sheep shear.

Shearing a sheep that was wild in the outback for several years. It has almost double its regular weight from extra wool. — My imagination tends to go big.
image from Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/sheep-lost-wild-years-unrecognizable-57lb-wool-sheared-1717556

Amberthal

AMBERthal, the name of the find. Caveman encased in largest
LAYER of tree sap ever seen. Some think him lucky. Could have been
CRUDE tar pit that got him. Or a saber tooth. Was he humming a
DITTY when resin blobbed from above? Or contemplating abstract fate?

Picture of an ant encased in amber — The Amberthal find was like this, but much bigger.
Image by Anders L. Damgaard, www.amber-inclusions.dk