This week let’s write a poem with the words add, essential and give in it. This is another of those prompts where I randomly choose three words from a list of the top 1000 words in the English language plus a few of my favorites. I couldn’t come up with a good image for those three words so here’s a picture of a cat in a hat. Post your poems in the comments below.
Living Poetry 
One Month Late
The sky lights up
showers of flame and steel
add the night mare
to give chase to dreams
the coming dawn
life as they know it
gone
And now war has come
to a far off land
as near as the 4k image
on my large flat screen
99% sRGB color gamut
at 400 nits
safe
I say nothing
I write nothing
a lump in my being
overwhelmed in the moment
dammed behind
the carnage on that screen
the carnage in my mind
Like water
words cannot be long stopped
braking all bonds
stripping all down
baring the painful and essential
the dam will be smoothed
again
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Posted by Chris Clarke | March 25, 2022, 12:18 AMThe sympathy for these world events is made more clear by the pause in words, the poet has reported. Sometimes power lies in the lacuna between feeling and expression, as in this work, it seems to me.
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Posted by ts19page | March 25, 2022, 3:10 PMWater, the universal solvent. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | March 25, 2022, 5:13 PMEssential
—
I am
tempted
to add
to essential
as if
my self
might
give it
any more
content
in my
present
it is
defying
a universal
principal
“all
means all
and that’s
all
all
means”
content
within
content
essential
through
the essential
does add
when it
does not
for it
does give—
to be
content with
content
is to be
in my
present
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Posted by william h mollohan | February 27, 2022, 4:18 PMGreat word play there. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 27, 2022, 9:16 PMfun to see a new contributor – welcome William Mollohan! Here is my contribution https://2ndactblogger.wordpress.com/2022/02/25/white-collar-parachute/
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | February 25, 2022, 11:23 AMThe joys of being non-essential. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 25, 2022, 6:51 PMWorthless
Before my essential needs are met
Even I give you all that I am
My attempts only add to your devastation
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | February 23, 2022, 6:39 AMA worthwhile haiku. Thanks!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 23, 2022, 5:18 PM☺
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | February 23, 2022, 5:49 PMI wasn’t sure if it’s a haiku, didn’t count the syllabus
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | February 23, 2022, 5:49 PMIf it’s three concise lines, it’s a haiku in my book. Who cares about syllables?
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 23, 2022, 5:53 PMI am with you Bartholomew.
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | February 23, 2022, 5:56 PMso sad!
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Posted by JeanMarie | February 25, 2022, 2:32 PMAuguries
Herons were to blame,
learning they had been essentially the same
for thirty million years
we were no longer happy.
The lake was one mile wide
at summer sunset on the end of the dock
we saw the herons come
alighting to stand motionless.
They bend, skinny-legged, to the task;
we make no difference to them,
standing still we are
invisible.
Being invisible seems
a step in the right direction.
In Nebraska each year humans watch herons
come to mate in their thousands,
Attention, is a kind of love,
the being behind binoculars
is there to observe;
we humans love to love.
Herons follow pecking order,
essentially first are first,
whereas,
for us the first shall be last.
They do not change,
flying over land that shifted,
grinding over millennia,
herons do not mourn change.
They find snails, spear wriggling fish,
leave starburst footprints on the sand
and, for those who wish to be unseen,
they oblige.
Humans, creatures come lately,
may find invisibility
a grounded state
out of sight, a resting place,
At last we give up longing,
already having the heron’s life,
flying over the world, fishing the waters,
eating all manner of things.
Walking with majesty
along the shore, with nothing to add
to lives taken on the wing,
skirting volcanoes.
We sell the second car,
nest up at night,
hold each other a while longer,
and bring forth plates of food.
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Posted by ts19page | February 22, 2022, 1:34 PMLove the penultimate stanza! (And Herons, of course.)
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 22, 2022, 5:59 PMEssential the essential 02 21 2022
does add
I am it is content when it
tempted defying within does not
to add a universal for it
to essential principal content does give—
as if “all to be
my self means all essential content with
might and that’s content
give it all through is to be
any more all essential
content means” essential with
essential
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Posted by william h mollohan | February 22, 2022, 12:58 AMCryptic but I like the rhythm. Thanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 22, 2022, 6:04 PMMysterious-er and mysterious-er..I wonder if the word “through” was meant to be “though”?? Very nice hissing with all those “S’s”. Sort of slithers down the page…interesting.
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Posted by ts19page | February 27, 2022, 6:26 PMThings We Might Say Without Serious Consideration
Add me to your mailing list
It’s essential that I know right away
Would you like to round up your total to give to…
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Posted by Lisa Tomey | February 21, 2022, 9:51 AMVery nice!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | February 21, 2022, 7:16 PMgreat!
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Posted by JeanMarie | February 25, 2022, 2:35 PM