Monthly Archives: February 2020

Night Counselor

4 Replies

DSC09520

Night Counselor

There is some little magic thing that whispers in the night,
smoothing out our former fears and setting them aright,
forever taking on the problems of the day,
righting them and sending them blithely on their way.
Settling our nerves with some alchemy of sleep
that somehow deals with worries, however wide and deep.
Though travails may be frequent, overwhelming in their numbers,
at least we have partial relief, nightly, in our slumbers.

 

Prompt words today are magic, forever, frequency, nerve and wide.

Color Your World Gold

7 Replies
Waitin’ in the Gold Zone
Gold Oriole
End of Golden Days

Click on Photos to Enlarge

 

For Tourmaline’s Color Prompt: Gold

Very Early Morning Orchids: FOTD Feb 4, 2020

3 Replies

 

Very early morning orchids. Up for the day.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Tanks or Tankas

3 Replies

A tanka is a verse form of five lines following the pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. This poem consists of nine tankas that deal with the question, “Does might make right or does write make might?”

Tanks or Tankas?

It is such pleasure
lying in my morning bed,
I forsake those “shoulds”––
pool aerobics and the gym––
save them for another day.

As I exercise
that switchboard of all muscles,
the marvelous brain,
ideas are pumped like barbells
to create a well-toned verse.

Iron man or sage––
which will win and which will lose?
Is it brain or brawn
that moves our species forward
to survive this crazy race?

Our laptops used for
what––as pens or weaponry?
Which serves us better
in this age’s lethal match
for survival, power, wealth?

Which moves us forward?
Philosopher? Iron Man?
Poet? Soldier? Jock?
Which insures our progress toward
a place as Darwin’s fittest?

Physical fitness
in contemporary thought
wins most of the points
to insure a lengthy life
(and a husband or a wife).

but:

They also serve who
sit and wait upon their bums,
writing out their odes
by recording just what comes.
So now you need to tell us

which of these will win:
the muscle man or soldier
or the poet’s pen?
If muscle is your power
If you think that it will win,

please now consider:
the leg may be the longest
of your muscles, but
the largest strongest muscle
is the one you sit upon!

 

For Colleen’s Tues. Tanka prompt–poet’s choice.

Fresh Produce

9 Replies

 

Star

 

Fresh Produce

I lived in an era before eggplant or Swiss chard,
with fruit that mainly grew up from our own back yard.
Cherries and strawberries. Watermelon. Plums.
No passionfruit or mangoes passed across our gums.
One day avocados would become a revelation.
Papayas and fresh guavas discovered on vacation.
But artichokes back then were thought the product of the devil.
We kept our veggies smooth and round and strictly on one level.
Exchange with foreign countries back then was truly rare.
So many foods from far off climes we’d had no chance to dare.
These days all our grocery stores are filled with all this stuff,
but long ago potatoes, beans and carrots were enough!!

 

Prompt words today are eggplant, exchange, devil and revelation.

Red Orchid: FOTD 2/3/2020

10 Replies

 

For Cee’s FOTD Challenge.

Eleventh Hour

13 Replies

Eleventh Hour

It’s true the groom was old and gray,
a cane or walker his mainstay,
and the one he called his child bride
was just as tall as she was wide.

Her bathing schedule so erratic,
she was rather aromatic,
but since he’d lost his sense of smell,
they were suited very well.

If they had cause to take a journey,
he’d simply push her in a gurney
in lieu of walker. It worked well.
Her needs and his were seen to gel.

Centuries later, folks will recall
the evening of their wedding ball.
The dance they chose was rock and roll—
as practical as it was droll.

He rocked, she rolled, then one dance done,
he wheeled her off to have some fun.
For the groom, so aged and furry
was nonetheless in a great hurry

to address their wedding bed.
Fearing that he’d soon be dead,
he rolled his roly poly mate
out of the ballroom, through the gate,

down the hall and  to their room,
an act, I fear, that sealed his doom,
for once his ardor was diminished,
alas, the groom’s long life was finished.

But in the end? A bit of magic,
for the ending was not tragic.
Nine months later his game was won
when posthumously, he had a son!!!

Prompt words are aromatic, century, journey, mainstay and wide

Still Life with Bag of Cement

15 Replies

IMG_9300

How is it that cats know how to pose no matter how unlikely the props? In this case, it is a bag of concrete Pasiano brought to fasten Frida’s memorial down with. Always fun to see what pose they will be in when I drive into the garage. Here are some further poses from the past .

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Damning Science

11 Replies

Damning Science

Wisdom newly learned or tribal,
from Koran or Scroll or Bible
demarcates a line between
what shouldn’t or what should be seen
or said or listened to or done.
No matter how seemingly fun,
some things cannot be integrated.
No masterpiece is tolerated
if banned by the censor’s tool.
Thus do bigots thrive and rule
spouting truths long since belied—
asserting them as bonafide.


These half-truths to reason’s sorrow
may dictate how we live tomorrow—
our whole world screwed up by some fools
who bend the laws to their own rules,
spouting words skewed to their favor,
creating slogans dullards savor.
There is one rule for what the zealots shout.
After you have heard them out,
use your good sense to judge the acts
of those determining the facts.
Use your powers of reason to test
those who rule at our behest.

Prompt words today are masterpiece, tribal, integrated and demarcate

Symmetry

12 Replies

IMG_9139

This little orchid, although not perfectly symmetrical, seems more or less to fill the bill.

For One Word Sunday: Symmetry