Monthly Archives: September 2022

Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

Since they garnisheed Dad’s wages, we’ve been bleary-eyed and passive.
The influence on our diet, in short, has been most massive.
Sister has a headache and mother’s getting thin.
My football playing brother has no energy to win.
His lack of skill’s been vindicated by the fact that he
was relegated to a diet riboflavin-free.
For since Dad has no wages, there’s no money to buy bread,
so dandelion greens are what we’re grazing on instead.
Since vitamin g is what we have been missing in our diet,
if you don’t like that sandwich, do you think that I could try it?

I know. A really bad poem, but hope I am “vindicated” when you view what the prompt words were: Prompt words for today were bleary, passive, win, vitamin g, vindicated and garnishment.Illustration thanks to Chic Young.

Note:

Vitamin G isn’t a term you’ll hear very much anymore. It’s actually an outdated name for riboflavin (also known as lactoflavin and vitamin B2), a micronutrient found in bread and pasta. Riboflavin is an easily absorbed micronutrient that plays a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is required for a wide variety of cellular processes and is very important in getting energy from the foods we eat. Studies have shown that riboflavin may play a role in the prevention and/or treatment of iron-deficiency anemia, carpal tunnel syndrome, cataracts, migraines and rosacea (a skin disease). And recent research has found that riboflavin is one of three vitamins involved in the regulation of circadian (daily) rhythms, because it helps to activate some light-sensitive cells in the retina of the eye and synchronize our daily biological rhythms with the light.

Jam and Toast for Dinner

  Wishful thinking.

Jam and Toast for Dinner

She could not stand to touch a worm,
for squiggly things just made her squirm,
and so she cast a naked hook
into the waters of the brook.
You might have guessed she was not able
to provide protein for our table,
thus proving that old axiom
forgotten by our squeamish mom.
“When you go out fishing, best do it by the book.
No one ever caught a fish with an unbaited hook.”

For the dVerse Poets prompt: aphorisms.

I believe this is a new aphorism to add to your list!

Teenage Hibiscus: FOTD Sept 9, 2022

Not quite fully unfurled.

For Cee’s FOTD

Texture for CBWC

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

For CBWC, Texture.

Wind

Wind

The breath of the world blows tendrils of hair,
turns windmills and dries white sheets upon a line.
It  twists into a tornado
and lifts a house off its foundations,
sets it down in a mountain meadow
where zephyrs stir the trees.

The breath of the world blows a bee from its branch,
inhales its pollen and puffs it into nostril hairs
that launch a hurricane of sneezes,
sending a whirlwind of powder
from a powdered sugar donut out the window
onto the shoulder of a passing immaculate black tuxedo.

The breath of the world launches sailboats,
   then sends them into safe harbors as it swells into a typhoon.
     As it exhales, it lifts kites high into the air
              and as it inhales, sends them plummeting to earth.
                   It fuels our lungs to blast a wind of words: expletives or adamant prayers,
                              anthems or a tyrant’s raves, benedictions or cheers for a favorite football team.

Windy cities draw their nicknames from the breath of the world.
Wind in the Willows names our books.
Woodwinds breathe out melodies
Wind gives a name to our direction as we struggle windward.
Hurricanes quench our thirst in airless bars.
Breezes give monikers to our dispositions.

Whirlwind, breeze, zephyr,
hurricane, gale, draft, blow,
tornado, crosswind, cyclone—
from gentle puff to wild tornado,
it is  the world’s breath 
that sets everything into motion.

 

 

For the Fake Flamingo September Poetry Challenge  hosted by Rebecca, which was to write a poem about the wind making use of anaphora (a repetition of lines.) Image of sheets in the wind by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash. All other images by me.

Bad Zoey!!!! (Traviesa)

If I had to collect photos of things Zoey has destroyed in my house since February, it would take a good amount of work and a sizeable amount of space in my media file to share them with you. So, I’ll only show what I just discovered upon walking into my bathroom. I had a brief foreshadowing in the way she zipped out of the room, into my bedroom and out the door onto the terrace as I got up to walk to the bathroom. This is what I discovered:

It was my favorite Tarahumara basket from Copper Canyon, which I used as a Kleenex holder. She had to jump up and get it off my bathroom counter. I don’t know how. My purse strap was also hanging over the side, down to the floor, so I’m sure it would have been next. Remember the last time she completely destroyed a 200 pesos bill? I’d been so careful to keep the bathroom door closed, but one lapse creates results. My friend Brad is going to Copper Canyon later this year. Perhaps he can find me another pine needle basket like this one. So much prettier than a cardboard Kleenex box. The half box of Kleenex that I’d placed in the basket was more easily replaced.

India Shot Lily Seed Pods: FOTD, Sept 8, 2022

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Forced Celebration

Forced Celebration

As they frogmarched their prisoner into the room,
uncountable candles dispelled the gloom.
A pervading odor of sugar and wax
was entrenched in the air around piles and stacks
of brightly wrapped boxes of variable sizes,
yet she was not swayed by potential surprises.
Soothing smiles of friends and the song they were singing
were tangential to thoughts that were wildly zinging
through her mind, for in short, she did not find it nifty
that this was the day that she would turn fifty!!!

Prompts today are frogmarch, variable, soothing, entrench, pervading, candle and tangential. Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash.

Nature, for CFFC

 

For CFFC: Nature

Imitating Grandma

Imitating Grandma

In my grandma’s pleasant house,
dressed up in her peasant blouse,
a towel stuffed in to form a lump
to imitate her dorsal hump,
I tried to imitate her waddle
and her propensity to dawdle,
offering morsels from her cookie jar,
as she watched me from afar.

With not a filament of shame,
I went about my childish game,
beaming as I played the gimp,
miming her arthritic  limp.
In my innocent portrayal
was the cruelest betrayal.
The family knew the shame was mine,
but as I toddled down the line

of people who filled up the room,
I gloried to the cheerful boom
of Grandma’s laugh as she piped up
to save this youngest clueless pup
from the shame I might have felt
if she had not approached and knelt
down next to me, gathering in
this cruel mime, absolving sin.

And though I thought the final line
would surely be a quip of mine,
aping her halting foreign speech
as I tried to avoid her reach,
she gathered me in loving hug
and giving an indulgent shrug,
said, “Forgive her, for she’s only three
and gets her sense of humor from me!”

 

Prompts today are dawdle, (love that word) mine, peasant, filament, morsel, beaming and portrayal. Image from the internet.