Monthly Archives: January 2020

Hibiscus FOTD, Jan 21, 2020

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For Cee’s FOTD prompt.

Words of Wooing

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Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 8.49.45 AMPhoto by Giovanni Ribeiro on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Words of Wooing

He took her to the movies. He took her to the fair.
He raved about her choice of clothes. He doted on her hair.
He brought his uke and stood for hours strumming at her gate,
riffing on the talents of the lovely Kate.
Was he accurate? Were all his laudatory quips
valid? All those praises of her swan neck and her lips?
Not likely, but it’s lucky that the lady was so vain
that she took verbatim the praises of her swain.
They married in the autumn and by spring the truth was known.
He no longer sang her praises. She had to sing her own!
 

Prompt words for today are movie, valid, riff, accuracy and gate.

Dark Rites of Inheritance

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Dark Rites of Inheritance

What was it you discovered under the Union Jack
packed in Grandma’s quilt chest, way back in the back?
I saw the glowing of your torch as you bore it away,
breaking the rule that all be shared in the light of day.

I find your act egregious, and yet I will not tell.
It’s just my curiosity I’ll ask for you to quell.
I need not share your treasure or regulate your act.
When I give my word, I’m the epitome of tact.

What is that you cradle? Is it a jewel or flask?
One viewing of your treasure is the only thing I ask.
Why raise it there above your head in the moonlight’s glow?
I cannot see what’s in your hand down here so far below.

Your movement now so swift and sure, seconds to stop from start.
I feel a trickling down my chest, a swift pain in my heart.
How cruel that even now you keep your secret all unshared.
Who would expect such evil acts from Grandma’s favored laird?

Nothing disputes you as her heir. It’s yours, castle and land,
except, perhaps, that parchment I see gripped tight in your hand.
My life has not been perfect. You have not loved me well.
How perfect that I’ll be the one you’ll later join in Hell!

 

Prompts today are jack, torch, egregious, regulate and rule.

Dana Point #1.––For Janet

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This is a poem I wrote 39 years ago when I decided to give up my job, sell my house and move from Wyoming to California to write. I wrote it sitting in my car at Dana Point Harbor  south of Huntington Beach, where I sometimes went to write.  Janet, who has mentioned Dana Point several times in her blog, asked to see the poem.  Here it is with all its warts, exactly the way it was first written:

(Oops.. this was in a different form, but WP straightened it all up. Oh well….)

                      Dana Point #1.

Inside these clothes, this car,
inside the hairdo and the
rules,
something lives.
A hand reaches from
the sleeve it lives in. A face lives behind
this face. And only journeys out to walk straight lines on
yellow paper. Freeing words, then
wondering how
to follow.        (if she dares, for
prohibitions do not stay them.)
And who is she if she is not
rules to live by
standards to love by,
codes
morals
laws.

The only way to know
is to follow straight blue lines on yellow.
And it is an empty page.
She is the only one who walks there
the only one who weeps there
the only one who laughs there.

Inside these clothes, this car,
inside this hairdo and the rules,
her company resides
within a crowded mind, to call her home
again––home from the yellow sea.

30 Photos That Prove that Japan Is a Country from Another Planet

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Amazing facts with photos for proof!

Bamboo: Sunday Trees, Jan 19 2020

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For Sunday Trees.

Party House

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Party House

I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors.
Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors.
Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose.
They turn up the music when I want to doze.

Convivial people are really a pain.
Of my existence, they’re really the bane.
I wish I could trade them for sedater folks
who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,

for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution.
I wish I could think of a better solution:
a wall or a device to filter the sound,
but instead I must phone or cry out or pound

on the door that no one inside ever hears.
They just do not care, or so it appears.
I complain to the neighborhood association
that sends them a warning to curb their elation,

but somehow the party just starts up again.
More laughter, more music, more odors, more din.
If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me.
I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!

Prompt words today are can’t, pressure, frivolous, convivial and  nose.

2020

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2020!!!!!!

Don’t you just LOVE typing 2020?  I am hooked on it. Humans have not had that experience for 101 years–since 1919, and there is something much more satisfying in typing 2020. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide, so there may be 300,000 people worldwide who twice in their life would have been able to write twin double digits for the date, but how likely is it that they would have typed it? The first typewriter was invented in 1867 and came into wide usage in offices in the mid-1880’s, but I doubt that anyone younger than 10 would have been using a typewriter, so that means they would have to be 111 this year to have possibly typed both 1919 and 2020 as dates on a typewriter. There are 86 people in the world 111 years old or older, but no one has had the foresight to ask them all if they had access to a typewriter in 1919, let alone even once typed that date. Am I obsessing? No. Just enjoying this nicely-rounded-out year!!!!  (Don’t miss out on the thrill on Feb. 2 of typing 0202 2020.)

Does anyone else feel the same joy in typing 2020 2020 2020???
If so, please confess to it in comments.

Kalanchoe: FOTD Jan 19, 2020

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IMG_4830For Cee’s FOTD

Newborn Hibiscus: FOTD Jan 18, 2020

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For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.