Monthly Archives: April 2023

Sculpted

13 Replies

Sculpted

These lines upon my face are ripple marks that represent
all of my life’s ebb and flow, those tides that life has sent.
Calligraphy defining those advantages provided
along with life’s misfortunes that somehow I abided.

Life gives and takes away, sometimes in equal measure—
pain spicing our life as surely as the pleasure—
smile lines as well as creases left by frowns.
Surely, there’s no shortage of life’s ups and downs.

It is the hand of nature sculpting animal and flower,
altering and remolding hour after hour.
From dinosaur to newborn babe—fish and bird and tree,
there is no end to our world’s originality.

Time is the finest sculptor of everything we see.
It is the very master of creativity.
Animal, vegetable, mineral—no two things quite the same.
Constant alteration is evolution’s game.

 

Prompt words today are ripple marks, represent, spice, definition, shortage and advantage.

Succulent: FOTD Apr 27, 2023

4 Replies

For Cee’s FOTD

If Only I Could Play Guitar

8 Replies

This is one of three guitars I decorated for the “Guitar Gallery” in Ajijic. It was covered in mirrors and silver ornamentation. It was purchased by a gallery in Montana. If you ever see it, please let me know where its new home is.

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to talk and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

 

The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a poem about music. I admit that this is actually a poem I wrote nine years ago so I am guessing few who now read my blog have seen it before.

To read more poems on this subject go HERE.

Multipurpose Wheels For CFFC

5 Replies
Policia Wheels in Peru
Wheelies. Just loved capturing it at the exact correct moment.
I really can’t remember what this wheel was for
Wheel Chairs?
Ferris Wheels
MyFirst Wheels
Hot Wheels
Merry Go Round Music
Wheels Repurposed as Stairs
Wheels as Boat Bumpers
Hard Labor Wheels
Wheels for Rough Rods
Wheels as Art
Wheels as planters
More wheels as planters
Wheels on Kiddie Taxis
Motorcycle revs
Cool at Any Age.
Organ Grinder Wheels
Portable Clay Oven Wheels
Doggie Taxi Wheels

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

For Cee’s CFFC:Wheels

Man Vs. Machine

6 Replies

Man Vs. Machine

It is expedient that we convene
to discuss this new machine.
With teamwork, could we not achieve
all our higher-ups believe
needs to be done by this contraption
that according to its caption
can do the work of many men,
perhaps, it says, the work of ten?

Farewell to manpower, hello panic.
Made obsolete by things mechanic!
While ensconced in our cocoons,
it seems that corporate buffoons
have been brisk to seal our fate
and, alas, we’ve learned too late
that man by man, we’ll be ejected
by this means today detected.

And this is why I’m doubly keen
on dealing with this damn machine,
for men have brains but robots don’t.
If we retaliate, it won’t,
I think that we should make the hit
and simply throw a wrench in it!
Thereby persuading all our bosses
of better ways to stem their losses.

Word prompts today are cocoon, brisk, teamwork, expedient, discuss and farewell.

Crown of Thorns: FOTD Apr 26, 2023

3 Replies

 

Click on Images to Enlarge

Crown of Thorns

For Cee’s FOTD

Bucket Listless

20 Replies

Bucket Listless

Before I have to face the heavenly ordeal—
(perhaps discovering that what I’ve scoffed at is for real.)
Before I kick the bucket, and while I’m still alive,
I’ve been told I have to choose a thing or five
and label them my “bucket list,” a practice I abhor,
(and even if I did, I can only think of four
things that might elate me as I shuffle toward the door.)

If I had the energy, I’d surely take to wing
and fly to foreign spaces to see everything
I didn’t see the first time, when I was in my youth
and as short of brains as  I was short of tooth.
Something about youth draws fortune to our side,
and when you bring up adventure, I think of ones I tried
and shake my head in wonder, surprised that no one died.

I’d like to go to Ireland or on a last safari,
or maybe back to India to replace the sari
I buried my dear cat in because he loved it so,
yet I fear my energy is at an all-time low,
so I will spend my dotage sitting in my chair,
thinking of adventures that I do not dare
pursuing, for I find I dread their wear and tear!!!

Prompts today are: bucket list, elated, heavenly, ordeal, alive and wings.

Love Story After Rain, for NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 25 and Wordle 319

8 Replies

Love Story After Rain

If I had a penny for each
of all my thoughts of you,
my dear, I’d buy us lollipops
for one hand,
yellow tulips for the other

and as the rainbows disappear,
replaced by brighter clouds,
stay near—
together
as we have been wont to do,

everybody else
disappearing
except us,
your sunshine drying
up the puddles.

Do not seek to join us,
world,
We are enough—
sticky-tongued

with pollen
clinging
to our lips and fingers,
silly grins.

Love story after rain.

For Wordle 319 the prompt words are: sunshine lollipops rainbows disappear join stay near penny together brighter cloud everybody

Also, for NaPoWriMo, the prompt challenges us to write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.

Plumeria Near Water: FOTD Apr 25, 2023

8 Replies

Click on photo to see the reflections in the water move.

For Cee’s FOTD

Stating the Obvious

22 Replies

Stating the Obvious

We’ve hit a cosmic bottleneck and every day I rue it,
for I have the feeling that we will not make it through it.
They’ve indexed the world’s problems, but knowing that they’re there
seems to do very little in solving the nightmare.

We do not yield to pressure to try to cure the ills.
We only seem to kneel before the moneyed class’s wills.
We temper fear with hope that someone else will solve the puzzle
of the fact the whole damn world is staring down a muzzle.

Kids shoot other kids with guns but adults do not care
so long as the NRA sanctions the warfare.
We ban those from our borders who clean up all our messes,
then wonder why we’re drowning here in our own excesses.

Amazon sells refreshments as we all just sit and watch
as climate change keeps shifting the danger up a notch.
Meanwhile, the rich get richer and we ignore the poor
as the ones who need it least acquire more and more.

The polar caps are melting as California burns,
and in between, the drought and floods keep on taking turns.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones mount and mount,
raising the fatalities higher than we can count.

Nobody knows the answer for how to please us all,
yet we forget we all are one on this great blue ball.
If only we could find a way to even out the score
and give up some of what we’ve got so others can have more.

Sacrifice fossil fuel to give the world a chance.
Tear down the oil derricks. Replace them with plants.
Make sure the rich pay taxes on a par with all the rest.
Admit that we don’t own the Earth. We are just its guest!!!

 

Prompts today are temper, index, cosmic, bottleneck, kneel and refreshments.