Monthly Archives: May 2018

Pen and Ink

 

Pen and Ink

The pen that stands, clipped and inert
in the pocket of your shirt
has no power on its own
so long as it is left alone,
but once held upright in your grip,
free of cap and free of clip,
it forms a partnership of sorts
that spews out pithy, smart retorts.

It snaps the present into line
with words that, effortless, combine
in sentences that, once unfurled,
have the power to change the world.
I ask you, who would ever think
that two joined objects—pen and ink—
could form a perfect synergy
to spew out jokes or tragedy?

Guided by a hand like yours,
a pen can open many doors.
A simple point, an ink-trailed line,
could link your heart with one like mine.
Unclip it now. Uncap its point.
Let paper now that ink anoint.
Let words turn somersaults and caper.
Let words flow from your heart to paper.

Let ink flow rampant from its cage
to dance across the naked page.
No telling what it might report
as words go wild and cavort.
“I” and “love” and “you” might do
a sort of line-dance or soft-shoe.
Words just might and words just may
leak out and give your heart away.

The prompt word for Tourmaline’s One Word Photo Challenge is pen.

Cornhusk Flowers: Flower of the Day, May 13, 2018

 

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Still struggling to try to get all the flower photos from my phone to my computer. In the meantime, here are some  flowers made from cornhusks by the ladies on the other side of the lake. I love them!

See Cee’s raindropped iris HERE.

Core Identity

Judy's new haircut and thin lips

Core Identity

Whoever really gets to see
what is at the core of me?
Neither my mother nor my lover
gets to see beneath my cover.
No surgery has extracted it.
It’s not exposed in ire or wit.
It’s in a corner still unlit,
buried in identity’s pit.

Even I have not exhumed it, for
I’ve never found my very core.
Some say it’s found in meditation,
prayer or true love’s exaltation,
but I have journeyed into each
merely to wind up on the beach
of what I know must be the sea
of my soul’s identity.

Perhaps it is the world’s distractions––
all its toys and fine abstractions,
its petty jealousies and fears
regarding family and careers
that get me lost while searching for
that ladder, passageway or door
that will lead me to the root of me––
that seed of my identity.

Perhaps in death we’re rejoined with
the part of us that is our pith.
Could it be what life is for—
this striving toward identity’s core?
Perhaps the lonely death I fear
will finally serve to bring me near,
away from all those things I’m not
to that whole self I’ve always sought

 

The WordPress prompt today is core.

 

Skewed Liberty (This Country for Sale)

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Skewed Liberty

Everything is tilted. Slightly unaligned.
The constitution set askew. Liberty maligned.
Some of the well-heeled citizens think that this is fine.
They cannot see that everything is slightly out of line.
All the pretty Philistines queue up at their tees
while their flunky lawyers determine what to seize.
Contracts with the Russians. Schemes to sell off national land.
Cronies helping cronies. Off-shore drilling by demand.

Rivers being sullied and oceans compromised
while insuring rights to bear arms are exercised.
Certain pious preachers line up behind the svelte,
proclaiming to the masses that they know what Jesus felt.
Indeed, the smallest sparrow  no longer matters much
so long as all the mighty increase their greedy clutch––
all the moneychangers, corrupt to the core,
filling all their pockets with the money of the poor.

Surely it is clear that at ruling they’re inept,
and if he was watching, surely Jesus wept
as all the pearls of liberty were cast before the swine
with each self-serving libertine declaring  what is “mine.”
What is true no longer matters. What “they” say is now what now counts.
They say it’s holy scripture as they settle their accounts.
People, take off your blinders. Consider what is real.
One nation, under God, was not set up for them to steal!

The WordPress prompt today was skewed.

Thursday Doors, May 10, 2018

Click on photos to enlarge.

Opening Doors

We click them open, pull them shut.
We shine their locks and dust them, but
when we leave a house to roam,
a turned key doesn’t make it home.
Ownership is not the thing
that crowns you as your house’s king.
If you want your house to fit,
you need to put some life in it.

For Thursday Doors prompt.

To view other doors or add your own door photo, go HERE.

Garden Layers: May 11, Flower of the Day

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Plumeria, papyrus, cactus, bougainvillia, yucca and palm form the layers in this garden collage. I need to go our and see how much remains after the colossal storm last night.

Do not miss Cee’s iris bud after rain today.  Here it is.

Forest Rounds

Round upon Round

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The nourishing environments of still water and the forest floor both bloom in circular beauty.  Whether the tiny orange “flowers” were flowers, mushrooms or another type of fungus, I couldn’t determine and I was too far behind our guide to ask.  The forest floor is in a Lacandon Reserve in Chiapas, where one of the few remaining members of this purely Mayan village led us though the forest. The cycle of nature is clearly portrayed as life springs forth from decay.  The still pond is actually a still inlet of an Amazon River tributary in Peru.

 From a 2014 post. The prompt today was forest.

 

Rebel Without A Clause

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These ladies and young ladies are certainly not without causes or clauses! The same is not true of me today.  Mental lapse.  

Rebel Without a Clause

I forgot to write my post today. It simply slipped my mind.
It was not done on purpose, for I’m not the rebel kind.
I do not flaunt convention. I do not break the rules.
I am polite to everyone. I gladly suffer fools.
So I don’t know the reason why it slipped my mind today
to look the daily prompt up and then to have my say.
So since I have not written, no poem exists because
I guess you’d have to say I am a rebel without a clause!

Phew! Just in the nick of time. If I hadn’t realized 15 minutes ago that I’d forgotten to write to the WordPress daily prompt, it would have been the first time in four years that I hadn’t done so!  Thanks to forgottenman for finding an appropriate photo to post with it.  The prompt today was rebel.

Lantana: Flower of the Day, May 10, 2018

I love lantana, which sometimes grow to tree size here, but I had to remove all of them from my backyard because my dogs were eating the berries, which are very poisonous for dogs.  I took a stroll outside my wall today and was delighted to find this lantana, which I had forgotten I had planted there.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Quote of the Day, Day 3: “Serenity Prayer for Parents”

This quote by  Mojo is so hilarious and topical that I had to share it with you for my last quote of the day.  Anyone who wishes to, please hop on the bandwagon and share your quotes.  HERE are the rules. Thanks, Rugby, for nominating me.