Monthly Archives: February 2019

Dire Straits

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Dire Straits

It pays to keep a watchful eye out when you are ecstatic,
for it is a given that’s  rather automatic
that you’ll attract a follower who’s overly phlegmatic
who’ll try to bring you down to earth by means rather emphatic.
Every time they visit you, it’s sure to be traumatic.
They’ll wring that joy right out of you, replace your thrill with static.
You can’t escape their diatribes for they are most dogmatic.
They’ll suck away your air until you’ll swear you are asthmatic.
In your efforts to avoid them , you’ll grow ever  more erratic.
You’ll hide out in the basement or may turn acrobatic—
swinging from the treetops to climb up in the attic.
When meeting them in public, you might choose a plan dramatic
and douse yourself with perfume until you’re so aromatic
that they might find approaching you a bit too problematic.
All-in-all, my friend, I would advise you be pragmatic
and devise a strategy that’s idiosyncratic,
for there are times in life when we must be melodramatic!

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/24/fowc-with-fandango-ecstatic/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/your-daily-word-prompt-watchful-february-24-2019/

Plumbago: FOTD Feb 24, 2019

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Thanks to Martha Kennedy for identifying this flower.  Click image to enlarge.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Odd Couple

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Odd Couple

She had a nature most erratic
whereas his was mainly static.
She was a girl who liked to rock.
All day he sat and watched the clock.
Few pleasures did he ever find
in his life work’s daily grind.

When they first met, I must confess,
he questioned how she chose to dress.
High heels with socks were not the way
that ladies dressed back in his day.
She was eighteen and he was forty.
She dressed funky. He dressed sporty.

He liked golf. She loved the clubs.
She chewed her fingernails to stubs
worrying about the planet’s fate.
She slept around. He didn’t date
and worried not about emissions
nor those Save the Earth commissions.

What soul who knew them both would guess
they’d ever meet, or even less
imagine that they’d get along—
he with his pipe, her with her bong?
Let’s put them in each other’s way.
See how they’d act. See what they’d say.

She meanders through the park
in the evening, before dark.
He’s walking home from the ninth hole.
She rounds the corner, he crests the knoll.
They meet soon on the walkway path.
They have to pass. You do the math!

She eyes his clubs. He eyes her socks.
Her expression questions, but his mocks.
He doesn’t nod, she doesn’t greet.
If you were wishing they might meet,
you’ll have to write your own romance.
These two as lovers? There’s no chance!!!

 

Prompt words today were rock and guess. Here are links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/rdp-sunday-rock/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/guess/

Plumbago in Full Sun: FOTD, Feb 23, 2019

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For FOTD

Dream World

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Dream World

My little nephews were quite the rapscallions,
with tinfoil armor and mop handle stallions
they conquered their foes and made off in their galleons
to sail the wild oceans, and then this wild pair
got into their airplanes to sail through the air.
You barely could tell that the swing set was there.

From morning to night, they were batting or pitching,
expounding on hockey and football and itching
to escape the tame lives that they would be ditching
as soon as they grew up. Then they would be soaring
in airplanes and gliders and missiles less boring.
Their engines fired up, the crowds would be roaring

for the heroes they’d be, taking off into space,
vanishing upwards with barely a trace—
off to adventure, intent on the chase.
They would catch up with life and grab onto its tail.
They’d travel each highway and ride every rail,
pass “go” every round and get out of jail!

Life in short would be anything but dull and tame.
It would be a wild spree—an adventurous game
wherein they’d be heroes, ensconced in their fame.
At least this was their theory when they were young,
when adventure was made up in mind and on tongue
and all of their upcoming conquests were sung!

But childhood dreams often go far astray.
They tend to evaporate as day-to-day
we slowly grow up and enter the fray.
Now one’s an accountant, the other a doc,
and there’s little adventure and even less talk
of being an astronaut, pilot or jock.

Yet who knows in the nighttime what sorties are planned?
With their heads on their pillows, do their wishes expand
to soar off to adventures more wild and grand?
Perhaps in their dreams they go back to their youth
and to pastimes less sane—more reckless and uncouth.
Perhaps in their slumbers, their dreams become truth.

The prompt words today were air, theory, rapscallion and itching. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/rdp-saturday-air/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/23/fowc-with-fandango-theory/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/your-daily-word-prompt-rapscallion-february-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/itching/

Moss Rose: FOTD Feb 23, 2019

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For Cee’s FOTD prompt.

Junk Art I Love and Own!!!

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Jan Golik makes art out of junk. Literally.  Stuff she finds in spare lots, in the ditches along the road, in dumpsters as well as broken pottery and other castoff and broken things friends bring to her.  Yesterday I went to her studio and did a shopping spree. About the only place I have left for wall art is in the doggie domain, the room I added on to my house for my dogs to sleep and eat it.  They have their own mini fridge and cupboard unit with bins for dry food, drawers for cans, shelves and drawer for other doggie stuff such as tennis balls, leashes, toys, med. Now they’ll have their own little gallery. I already have two animal masks up. They’ll be joined by these fun pieces by Jan:

(Click on first photo to enlarge all and see full captions.)

Another cat–a memorial to Roo, who disappeared from our world a month ago.
A lost heel becomes an owl. A piece of ripped rubber, a black dog. So fun.
The cat is made of melted and broken CD’s
The two palm people are actually wall pieces and the two little insect creatures will probably roam about in my house a bit.
Friends bring her their broken pottery and she sees worlds in it.

Stuffed

24 Replies

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Stuffed

I lose my glasses, cuss and mutter,
but my worst quality is clutter!
I have a drawer just filled with socks
I never wear.  And pans and woks,
old dishes, fondue pots  and skewers,
a fourteen-year-old bottle of Dewars
not one friend drinks, much less myself,
sitting there upon my shelf.
Everything I buy just clings.
I  can’t seem to part with things!
In boxes on my garage shelves
are all my former castoff selves.

The slides from art shows long ago?
I dreaded sorting them and so
they remain in plastic crates,
labeled with their types and dates.
Old letters, class notes, tax returns?
I’ve heard that paper easily burns
as well as shreds, yet still I wait.
Years pass as I equivocate.
They might be needed someday so,
get rid of them? I must say no!
With finite space in drawer and bin,
I buy new things and stuff them in.

I should destroy, but can’t commit,
those mismatched pan lids that don’t fit,
My studio is filled with things.
My jewelry drawers with bracelets, rings.
My closets stuffed with different sizes,
shelves stacked with future gifts and prizes.
Snow boots although it never snows
anywhere this woman goes.
A safari hat with veil
hangs upon a closet nail
along with wet suit, snorkel, fins,
and other useless hoarding sins.

My kitchen is a spice museum.
So many spices, I can’t see um.
Fenugreek and capsicum
that I was given by my mum
so long ago they have no taste,
green olives and tomato paste
well past the date they should be used.
Yes, my house should be perused
and sorted out, I must admit,
instead, I sit and write of it!
I know some folks clear out their closets,
but me? I only make deposits!

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Prompt words today were security, finite, someday and commit. I admit, I took a poem from four years ago and added lines to include some of the new prompt words.  Still can’t throw anything away but at least I’m repurposing!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/rdp-friday-security/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/22/fowc-with-fandango-finite/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/your-daily-word-prompt-Someday-february-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/commit/

Tonight’s Sunset

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La Manzanilla sunsets are always spectacular, but tonight’s ranked right up there with the best. (Enlarge photos by clicking on them.)

Isolated Objects in Black and White

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Some of these images are small in the collage. Click on them to enlarge.)

For Cee’s “BLACK AND WHITE Isolated Objects” prompt.