Contrasts
For this prompt: https://narami.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/tuesdays-of-texture-week-38-of-2017/
Tuesdays of Texture
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Monthly Archives: September 2017
Nosy Mortal Monologue
Nosy Mortal Monologue
Why is our living just part of our dying
and why must our failures be part of our trying?
Who made up this game and who’s throwing the dice?
Why do we play on, no matter the price?
How can men worship this ultimate gamesman
who gives us our faults and then unfairly blames man
for acting the way he’s created to be?
Why aren’t we given mind power to see
how something so seemingly unfair might tend
to all turn for the best when it comes to the end?
Could it be that our dying is part of our living?
That somehow our getting is tied to our giving?
Does Karma exist? Does Heaven or Hell?
Does the Universe know, and will it ever tell?
A question poem for dVerse Poets
Thunbergia: Flower of the Day, Sept 19, 2017.
I was late to the awards luncheon because I had to stop and take these photos of the wild tangle of tiny orange thunbergia winding around the bird of paradise plant. Please, Pasiano, don’t trim them away. I love the jungle look. These ladies help to create it.
Click on first photo to enlarge all:
For Cee’s prompt: https://ceenphotography.com/2017/09/18/flower-of-the-day-september-19-2017-dahlia/
Snowball in Hell
I just got home from a luncheon where I was surprised to discover I’d received the 2017 Ojo del Lago Award for outstanding literary achievement in the category of best fiction for a short story, “Snowball in Hell.” I don’t believe I’ve ever published it on my blog as it was done as a timed writing for my writing group in La Manzanilla. Since it loosely follows the prompt for today, which is “tentative,” I’ll stretch things a bit and publish it today:
Snowball in Hell
“There’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell,” she snarled at him as he beat a hasty retreat out the door. Everyone knew she was a feisty old dame, but she still felt compelled to prove the fact often enough to remind herself of the truth of it. Lately, she’d been feeling herself mellow. Growing teary-eyed at the sight of kittens on YouTube videos—having little heart-flutters when she glimpsed other women’s grandchildren in photos on cell phones.
When she stood back to consider this strange new course of events, she could only view it as she might view a mysterious disease—look at the symptoms, try to figure out a cure. Surely, being around children or kittens might help. Nothing like reality to pop the bubble of a fancy. Kibbles underfoot and gumdrops in the sheets could surely cancel out cute. Although she had no experience with such cures, since they’d never been necessary before.
Jake had wanted kids long ago. Actually, he’d gone on wanting them for a good twenty years—as long as she might have provided them—but her refusal had been as determined as her response today, when he had asked if she perhaps would be interested in a Caribbean cruise. Her on a cruise ship with old men in madras shorts and women in beauty-parlor hairdos? She tried to think of what she would do on a boat. She had taken a mental oath years before to never play shuffleboard and bridge made her dyspeptic. She’d discovered this in college, waiting for Karen Schuller to play her hand, drumming her long perfectly polished fingernails on the bridge table, screwing her little red cupid box mouth into a perplexed knot.
“Play the damn card!!!” she’d screamed internally, afraid that if the bitch ran one more finger tattoo on the table that she’d slam her fist down on that perfect hand. It seemed easier to give up bridge than to give up the aggression she felt every time she heard the sharp drumming and viewed that pensive mouth.
Cruise ships, she was sure, were full of Karen Schullers, all grown up, with fingernails an inch longer, lips forty years more wrinkled. And they made you eat things like lobster and crabs—giant underwater bugs that no one would ever convince her were meant for consumption. But the truth of it was, that aside from these irritations, being cooped up in a cabin with Jake for a week or more must didn’t carry any attraction for her any more. The old coot got stranger by the day. Just last night, on the couch, watching Ray Donovan, he had tried to hold her hand. Forty years married and like a teenager, furtively reaching over. They’d been done with all that syrup years ago, but now, why was he thinking hand holds and Caribbean cruises?
What month was it? She tried to sort out a reason. Valentine’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas––not that they ever observed any of them. Finally, she gave up. There was no accounting for old men in their first states of senility. She would just have to put up with it, but she didn’t have to go along. She settled herself more solidly into her chair and grabbed the remote, switching on the TV connected to her computer. Millie Perkins had Facebooked her another puppy/bunny video. She tried to resist, but found herself moving the mouse over to the arrow. The bunny had loppy ears and the puppy had very long hair and a little vest. She clicked off the TV quickly when Jake came into the room, but didn’t greet him.
“Clara?” he asked tentatively. She pretended not to hear. “Honey?” In his hand was an envelope that looked sort of crumpled and a bit dusty, like he’d been hanging onto it for awhile. “Remember your last checkup? The results came a few days ago.” She looked up at him, and his face looked soft––like the face of the bunny. Something was written on it––a different sadness that she hadn’t seen before. He sat down beside her on the couch and risked once more taking her hand. And this time she let him.
http://chapala.com/elojo/index.php/218-articles-2017/september-2017/3872-snowball-in-hell
The prompt today was tentative
Murder at Midnight
This was originally just written as a fast silly poem to forgottenman to explain why I hadn’t yet gone in swimming. He insisted I blog it which meant taking photos, but alas, no camera was to be found. Phone not charged. So, I used my Kindle, but couldn’t get photos mailed to myself so I emailed the pretty bad photos to him..but couldn’t reduce them enough to get them back by email. A good 45 frustrating minutes later, I went down to the studio, thinking I’d left my camera there, but alas, no camera. I did, however find my other computer that needed to be up in my house to download some things he was sending me. I also found and killed a scorpion in the hall on my way out of the house. Back to the house to look once more in every room for my camera. Emptied my purse. No camera. Decided to go out to the garage to look in the car, I opened the front door and all 4 kittens flooded into the house. I’d forgotten to shut the gate between the front garden and the kitten domain! They immediately spread to the four corners of the house after each first going immediately to inspect the dead scorpion, which I then quickly disposed of. Finally corralled three and confined them in their sleeping room, but Kukla wasn’t to be found. Went out to garage. No camera in the car. On a hunch, I opened the back door and there it was on the floor of the backseat. It must have fallen out of my purse. Came back in, checked kittens, went out to take more photos in the back yard–of the subject of this poem–came back and heard Kukla crying, sealed in my bedroom. Let her out, tried to put her in with her peers and she ran off. She’s now purring on my lap as I type this. Photos now in the blog. Tried to put this explanation at the end but WP won’t cooperate and let me put anything below the last photo, so here we are, giving this long boring explanation when what you really want to get to is the:
Murder at Midnight
Went out to dip my toe in water,
thinking that perhaps I oughter
swim if it was not too hot
or if I found that it was not
cool enough, I’d blog some more;
but just a few feet from my door,
I found two obstacles depressing,
both of them, it’s true, more pressing
than my pool aerobics were.
The first, a snag of chewed-up fur
that turned out to be a dead rat.
The second was leaf cutter ants––
determined in their chained advance.
Thousands of them in a line,
carrying leaves on which they’d dine
later in their snug abode
outside my walls, across the road.
Unless I made a quick advance,
my trees and flowers would have no chance.
“I must be strong, I can’t demur.
I must play the murderer,”
I thought as I sprinkled a line
of poison pellets on which they’d dine.
Thus did I join my canine friends
in bringing creatures to their ends.
Fate may forgive our murdering ways,
but it won’t end our murdering phase.
(Photos may be enlarged by clicking on first photo.)
Offender #2 (and, ironically, as I type this, a hitchhiking leaf cutter ant just bit me on the neck! Murder number three. I hope. I took a swat but can’t find him. He may yet exact another revenge.
Happy Anniversary to Me
I just received notification from Word Press that I registered my blog five years ago today. It’s very strange, because although I set it up on September 18, I didn’t post a blog until March 27. Either I was trying to figure out how to do so or I was waiting for our book to come out, as I thought I was setting it up to promote the book. Little did I know!
I posted daily throughout April, when I joined NaPoWriMo and wrote a poem a day. I backslid after that and only started posting daily again the next April. I’ve posted every day since then. This is my 3,455th blog. Yes, if you are thinking it is an addiction, you are probably right, but a quite benign one. If you are curious, HERE is the first blog I ever wrote. What I’ve been doing since then is quite a departure from what I thought I’d be doing. Thanks to all of you who have kept me here, reading your blogs and reciprocating with mine.
My readership has increased by leaps and bounds (literally) since someone “gifted” me with four kittens. They take a very active part in my blogging life.
Including a bit of blind unauthorized editing.
OKCforgottenman even sent me a celebratory cake!!!
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Cats are the best imitators of all. Their natural curiosity and herd instinct makes them just have to investigate everything, including everything their siblings are investigating.
Please click on first photo to enlarge all and see captions.
Queued for takeoff.
I see a bear! Where? Over there! I see a bear! Where? Over there! I see a bear! Where? Over There! I see a bear! Where? Over there!
For Paula’s Thursday Special blog challenge: Imitation.
Canna Lily: Flower of the Day, Sept 18, 2017
Patterning Sunset
jdbphoto
Patterning Sunset
Nights out I once found glorious,
exciting and uproarious,
I now just find laborious.
Without a doubt,
it is more fun
when day is done
to mime the way the sun
goes out.
Instead of donning dancing gown
and going to light up the town,
to drink and dance, to get it down
’til I perspire,
I brush my teeth, gargle and cough.
My clothes I shed, my shoes I doff.
I find the light switch, turn it off,
and just retire.
For a bit of a contrast to this poem you may want to go here:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/02/10/first-steps/
The prompt today was glorious.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 