Monthly Archives: April 2015

Poetry Pays!!!

Poetry Pays!

Quatrains for carrots, couplets for peas,
I’m writing out haiku whenever I please
for rib eyes and cheesecake and chili and cheese,
to visit the doctor whenever I sneeze,
to buy a new sweater to ward off the breeze,
to buy a new car and a ring for its keys,
to barter for kneecaps when I’m out at the knees,
and cartons of cigarettes until I wheeze.
I’m lucky to have a profession well-paying.
Poetry’s lucrative. Ignore what they’re saying.
If you are planning on going to college
for profit as well as for wisdom and knowledge,
if you want to live well in this difficult time,
be sure that you learn how to scan and to rhyme!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/barter-system/

Mundane Objectification: If Helpmates Could Speak– (NaPoWriMo 2015, day 26)

Mundane Objectification: If  Helpmates Could Speak

I’m the first to tell her what to do,
though each morning she pushes my button, too.
“Get out of bed,” I order her,
come back to reconnoiter her.
When she refuses to rise at once,
I sit in the corner like a dunce
and nag and nag until she’s up
to shower and dress and feed the pup.

I keep her clothing crisp and neat
with water mist and searing heat.
I’m a dangerous helper and she knows it.
Dire results if she ever blows it
and fails to heed my hiss and cough
and forgets to turn me off.

When my workday starts, I have no say.
Always ready as she greets the day,
I perk her up and fuel her drive.
She says she needs me to feel alive.
She takes some of me with her when she leaves.
When she kills the rest, nobody grieves.
I’m strong and flexible and black.
Cause eyes to open and lips to smack.

She holds me tightly every morning–
cussing, yelling, pleading, warning
others who get in her way
as she speeds into her waiting day.
She pushes my buttons and wheels my wheels
with clicks and groans and grinds and squeals.
I carry her inside of me
to take her to where she needs to be
and wait outside until she’s done
in rain and snow and baking sun.

I wait at home in the cold and dark
wondering when she’ll light the spark
that relieves me of my lonely plight–
chilly  environs and unlit light.
I hear her footsteps across the floor,
light up as she opens my door.
She reaches in and relieves me
of can or bottle, then goes to pee
restoring me to isolation.
I don’t complain. It is my station.

She turns me on most every night
to wallow in my sickly light,
staring at dramas I provide.
Never does she go outside
to jog or run or bike or walk,
to meet the neighbors and have a talk,
to mow her grass or trim her tree–
she seems to live her life through me.

When at night she seeks her rest,
she always favors me the best.
I cushion her at end of day,
listen as she has her say
about her travails, aches and pains
her setbacks and all her gains.
All her secrets I will keep
As she covers me, then goes to sleep.

The Prompt: write a persona poem – a poem in the voice of someone else. Your persona could be a mythological or fictional character, a historical figure, or even an inanimate object.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/barter-system/

The Blurb Absurd

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The Blurb Absurd

The book here penned by your friend Judy
was written while she felt most moody.
To make up for good spirits it’s lacking,
we’ve Scotch taped miniatures to the backing.

The Prompt: Write a blurb about yourself for the dustjacket of a book you plan to write.  (Since the NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a clerihew, I think I’ll do it in clerihew form.)
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/byobookworm/

Clerihew, Two-on-Two–NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 25

Clerihew  Two-on-Two

The word is out that Geoffrey Chaucer
never bothered with a saucer,
for though he raised many a couplet,
he always held them fully uplet!

Some have charged Truman Capote
with writing that is too emotey.
but though he was no macho stud,
I know that he wrote in cold blood.

The prompt today was to write a clerihew. A clerihew has the following properties:

  • It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it mostly pokes fun at famous people
  • It has four lines of irregular length and metre (for comic effect)
  • The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English languages[2]
  • The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject’s name. According to a letter in the Spectator in the 1960s, Bentley said that a true clerihew has to have the name “at the end of the first line”, as the whole point was the skill in rhyming awkward names.[3]

Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd, anachronistic or commonplace setting, often giving them an over-simplified and slightly garbled description (not unlike the schoolboy style of 1066 and All That). The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick, and the clerihew in form also parodies the eulogy.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/byobookworm/

“Plain” Geometry: CEE’S BLACK WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE-GEOMETRIC SHAPES

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http://ceenphotography.com/2015/04/23/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-geometric-shapes/

Motion

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I love catching water in motion. In this case, this was water flowing into my pool from volcanic hot springs.

DSC09983  I’m a terrible judge of distance, but the palm trees being trimmed in this picture are at least 80 feet high. When I moved into my house, I could touch the top of them with my hand.  Two men were up in the trees trimming them.  Two more were on the ground hauling the branches away. The captured motion is the palm frond falling.
DSC02364These birds are a small part of the freeding frenzy that accompanied a visit by millions of sardines to the waters of La Manzanilla Beach.  I have wonderful videos of more of the gulls, pelicans and frigate birds feeding which I will try to post later.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/motion/

Less Spice is Nice

Less Spice is Nice

Once I liked my dishes spicy,
but lately it is getting dicey.
As time progresses, I find it’s not
advisable to dine on “hot.”

Somehow, my tastes have seemed to tame
It’s all those extra years I blame,
that turn me once more into child.
Please, make my taco extra mild!

 

The Prompt: Ring of Fire: Do you love hot and spicy foods or do you avoid them for fear of what tomorrow might bring?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/ring-of-fire/

“Stopping by Friends”–NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 24

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Stopping by Friends Enroute to California

Whose house this is I surely know.
I’m sleeping on their sofa, though
And did not see that table there
And so I stubbed my little toe.

Their monstrous dog must think it queer
To find a stranger sleeping near
And yet no fuss he seems to make.
Golden retrievers are most dear.

He gives his collar tags a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
And wakens me from where I sleep–
A task that is a piece of cake.

The morning’s early, dark and deep,
But now I won’t return to sleep,
for I have schedules to keep
And miles to drive before more sleep.

 

The NaPoWriMo Prompt: Write a parody of a famous poem.

The Magician: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 23

The Prompt for NaPoWriMo was to choose a card & write a poem about it that applied to my life.  I chose to select a Tarot card at random. What came up was the Magician:

The Magician

Through what I choose and where I give in,
I create the world I live in.
If I’m a trickster, I trick myself
and lay my talents on a shelf.
Seize control and I gain the world,
all my inner self unfurled.
Magic’s not a thing without
or a thing to sell or flout.
It’s simply using the strength within
to play the game of life and win.

*

San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

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Our Greeters in Mazatlan–just outside our hotel room.

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How could they resist those skies?

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Our room in San Carlos. Fancy concrete headboards built into the wall included reading lamps.

DSC00125I loved this backdrop to the town.

DSC00123View from our second floor patio of pool and ocean across the street.

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I fell off my bar stool trying to get this picture. The Mexican lady at the next table looked at me with some disgust. I’m sure she thought I must be a drunk and disorderly Gringo. In reality, I had barely tasted my pina colada and was merely clumsy. (I  don’t know why the younger musician held his guitar up so high.  Perhaps he was accustomed to a higher tide.)

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Blue would like me to inform you that contrary to yesterday’s post, she is not a wino! She just enjoys a glass of wine before bed. Tonight we are in Peoria, Arizona at my sister Patti’s house and she and Jim poured a very fine vintage, so all was made up for in the end.

DSC00124 DSC00131  DSC00155 DSC00158 DSC00143DSC00146DSC00144 DSC00145 I never did figure out what was sticking out of this gull’s head.  It looked like a toothpick or porcupine quill that had grown into his skull.  He didn’t seem to be in any duress and he spent some time surveying our totopos from close proximity.  We didn’t throw him one because when we had done so for another gull earlier, within seconds, 20 or more gulls were swooping in for their portions.  We hadn’t realized we were the objects of such close attention, and I’m sure the waiters, pictured above, must not have appreciated it, but they were too gracious to comment.  We showed appreciation by throwing no further chips, although a man next to us did.  I got a wonderful shot of him eye-to-eye with a gull, but then realized my camera was on movie setting so will perhaps publish it at a later date. Tomorrow, on to Ontario, California to see Jeff and Debbie–my much-appreciated but not often seen stepson and his wife.


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