Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Terrible Valentine Sonnet

Occasionally I post nonsense verse as comments on blogs such as on Esther Chilton’s Laughing Along With A Limerick or Chel Owen’s Terrible Poetry contests.

One day I might repost some of those limericks. Today I’m reposting what I submitted to Chel’s Terrible Poetry Contest: Valentine’s 2025.

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A sonnet is too long for me to write.
Besides I can’t remember how one goes.
Though rhythm, rhyme and such might bring delight
I cannot write another one of those.

Be happy, for a change, is all I ask.
Is it too much for smiles to bless your face?
A frown is such an ugly sort of mask,
so smile a teensy bit and show some grace.

We’ll soon be dead and then some say we’re gone,
but others say we’ll have to face a hell.
If heaven’s not the road we’re fighting on
we probably should repent of that as well.

In hell we might be roommates, don’t forget.
So smile, my dear, we haven’t got there yet.

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At the Shoreline

Dale offers the prompt “at the shoreline” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.

Some of our friends visited us last week. We took them to the Atlantic Ocean.

Here are a few photos of the beach.

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Royal Terns facing into the wind which was strong that day

The ocean with a sailboat, swimmers in the distance and stuff that washed in from the sea on the shore

Does Starlight Take Billions of Years To Reach Earth?

I posted the following as a comment on this video:

This is the clearest presentation of the distant starlight (non)problem that I have heard to date. We cannot use distant starlight to tell us how old the universe is given relativity physics. So, we will have to find other evidence to estimate the age of the universe. Radioactive decay might be one, but those rates aren’t reliable based on conflicting erosion rates, the discovery of soft tissue in fossils and the rates of dispersion of decay particles from zircon crystals. What we are left with is historical evidence, but that takes us back only about 5000 years which is surprisingly close to the time of the flood in the Septuagint chronology.

The video is almost two hours long, but John Hartnett does a good job of describing three rejected solutions to the distant starlight problem to arrive at the anisotropic synchrony convention proposed by Jason Lisle.

Door in the Wall

I was planning to take some photos of a wooden wall to use as a backdrop upon which I could paste formatted Bible verses.

Once I got close to the wall, I realized there was a door in the wall and I had something I could also post to Thursday Doors.

The first photo shows what I was planning to photograph. The second photo shows the door. The third photo shows how I planned to use the first one.

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The first photo used as a background for Psalm 23:1

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Linked to Thursday Doors.

Ovi Poetry Challenge: Gossip

Beware the words that devils say.
Their whispers haunt the soul by day
with wondrous news put on display –
just tell that darkness, “Leave!“

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Ronovan Hester offers the inspiration “wonder” for this week’s Ovi Poetry Challenge. Also posted on Poet’s Corner.

James 1:26 KJV – If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

1 John 2:20-21

Linda G. Hill’s One Liner Wednesday.

*Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com*

Six Sentence Story: Jeffrey

Jeffrey’s reactions were like those of a corpse in an open coffin. No matter how you insulted him, no matter how harshly the wind of cursing blew across his face, he didn’t respond.

And they did insult him accusing him of this and that while lying about that and this. They gave him as much hell as their trapped imaginations could come up with. However, the service Jeffrey and his team agreed to perform demanded that they focus exclusively on the assignment.

They only had a brief period of time to free those brainwashed hostages before the missiles arrived.

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Denise offers the prompt word “wind” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Romans 12:1 KJV – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Old Buildings

Dale offers the prompt “old buildings” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.

From the Charles Bridge in Prague looking at an old church

At the Prague Castle there is the St. Vitus Cathedral

Here is another view of St. Vitus Cathedral in the distance across from the Vitava River

Drawbridge Door

While walking across the drawbridge connecting Normandy Isles and Treasure Island in the Miami area I noticed a door on the drawbridge mechanism right in the middle of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Waiting for the bridge to close so I can cross

The door where I would have least expected to find one

View heading back across the bridge from the other direction

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Linked to Thursday Doors.

Ovi Poetry Challenge: Health

True health is focused on His rest.
With will aligned the body’s blessed
and should the devil come to test,
remind him he’s defeated.

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Ronovan Hester offers the inspiration “focus” for this week’s Ovi Poetry Challenge. This poem also appears on Poet’s Corner.

Hebrews 2:14-15 KJV – 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.