Monthly Archives: April 2023

Global Warning

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Global Warning

A yeasted dough that cannot rise higher than its leaven,
the splendid sun climbs up the sky but never reaches heaven.
Blissful nature mystery enough without religions.
Who needs holy doves when they’ve been given carrier pigeons?

Why name the mighty miracle that holds us in its clasp?
By giving it a human form, we thus reduce its grasp.
Nature is not our mother nor the universe our father.
Our presence is precarious and far below their bother.

Tough reality is what we live in day-to-day.
Born under the brutal sun and nourished by its ray,
nonetheless it does not hear us when we pray, simply because
nature only can respond to what mankind does.

Prompts today are splendid, blissful, mighty, precarious, tough and heaven.

Plumming Issues

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Plumming Issues

Plumming Issues

My disgruntled spouse surveyed the plum,
squeezed it between palm and thumb,
saw that there were plenty more
in the tree that grew next door,
and though the crop was most abundant,
merely saw it as redundant.

There were no grapes for him to filch.
Bananas? It had proffered zilch.
No oranges or apples to
seed and peel and slice and chew.
No limes or lemons to produce
a glass of fresh-squeezed zesty juice.

It made him sad and rather glum
to see plum after purple plum
hung on the tree. Could I dispute
his  claim that we’d have to commute
to steal instead various fruit?
I felt his argument was moot.

One must make do with what might come.
The progeny of plum was plum.
If he required figs or berries,
peaches, kiwi fruit or cherries,
he’d have to head out to the store
or plant a a dozen trees or more.

He’d have to mulch and trim and spray,
water every other day,
and wait for years for fruit to grow,
but he was hungry now and so
he went outside and picked him some
plum after plum and plum and plum.

For NaPoWriMo 2023,Day 17

Hibiscus, FOTD Apr 17, 2023

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For Cee’s FOTD

“Nightmares,” for Wordle 601

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Nightmares

One night out of ten I ride these ghostly horses.
They toss their heads and whinny as they take me through their courses.
They are the wandering skeletons of a bygone life
when I was a child or when I was a wife.
They remind me of my promises and break them once again,
replay all the suffering of places I have been.
They point out what I wanted and what I didn’t get,
relate every failure and recall every debt.
They nightly make me prisoner and make me walk the walk.
They bring me to my knees, my head upon the block
as my past life streams before me and I listen to the chatter
of all those bygone comments I was convinced didn’t matter.
How I dread their hoofbeats, these horses of the night,
and how glad I am they vanish with the coming of the light.

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 601 the prompts are: block call promise dreams stream life wandering skeletons want knees suffering listen

Not a Love Poem for NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 16

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Not a Love Poem

This is not a love poem. I will not relate those charms
you’ve displaced from earlier boundaries to someone else’s arms.
You no longer fill my daydreams and every random thought.
I’ve cleared my mind of schemes with which it formerly was fraught.
You are not the one I reach for to fill out the night.
Not the one I quote to friends. Your wisdom I don’t cite.
I’ve ripped up all the old words and replaced them with these:
bounder and philanderer, liar, cheat and sleaze.
And now that I have located the words that better fit,
whatever is the opposite of love poem? This is it.

For NaPoWriMo today we are to write a poem that talks about what something is “not.” Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash.

Poet Think

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Poet Think

The brain is a contraption that hasn’t any muscle.
It depends on other things for its schemes and hustle.
Our skull makes it impregnable by ordinary means,
but inside it’s fat, salt, water, carbohydrates and proteins.
It can be your enemy or it can be your buddy.
Sometimes it’s filled with thoughts profuse. At other times, it’s muddy.
When it plods along its movement is a bit pedestrian,
but on a good day it begins to move with speed equestrian.
Feed your brain and I am sure it will take care of you,
and if you’re lucky every day think up a poem anew!!!!

 

Prompt words today are muscle, impregnable, equestrian, profuse, mud and contraption. Image by Milad Fakuri on Unsplash.

Tradescantia: FOTD Apr 16, 2023

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Flowerinng Tradescantia or “Wandering Jew.”

For Cee’s FOTD

Love’s Illusions for NaPoWriMo Apr 15, 2023

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Love’s Illusions

I fear that my Adonis became an Achille’s heel.
His charms were an illusion. He wasn’t the real deal.
His bombastic bearing was one I could not bear.
I plumbed his deepest psyche and found it wasn’t there.

His attempts to woo and win me were perfectly rehearsed.
We were Samson and Delilah, but the ending was reversed!
I was the one who lost my head. Thank God it was not literal,
for when he sought to wield his sword, his target was just clitoral.

My romantic Odysseys give precious little peace.
At times I’ve felt like Jason, seeking the Golden Fleece.
A female Don Quixote, with endless optimism,
If I’d met Dr. Jekyll, I’d have overlooked the schism.

I’ve felt passion ignited via heroes from the telly,
but then found out that my Clark Kent turned into Machiavelli!
Bat Man became a vampire, which was most disillusioning.
So at least for the present, I swear off romantic fusioning!

 

For the NaPoWriMo prompt today, we are to think of a person – real or imagined – who has been held out to you as an example of how to be of live, but who you have always had doubts about. Write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of the person in a way that exposes your doubts. Illustration by King Lip on Unsplash, Used with permission

Working off Calories

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Working off Calories

Once I’ve xertzed down my dessert and licked clean my plate,
I subject my coffee to a similar fate.
And exhausting my sugar and caffeine allowance,
I nonetheless refuse to state my avowance,
for I cannot quit cold either sugar or coffee—
lattes or chocolate or cupcakes or toffee.
I won’t make a pact to take that big leap
to make empty promises that I can’t keep.
I’m suffused with the shame of these terrible truths:
I’m addicted to donuts and adore Baby Ruths.
Then gulps of coffee between every bite
keep me awake, I admit, every night
which means countless trips from my bed to the shelf
where I keep the means for indulging myself!
And it’s true that I scarf down more delectable treats,
but in my efforts to gather more treats,
I get most of my exercise going and coming,
getting in steps  on the way to my yumming.

 

I Prompt words are cold, pact, xertz, suffuse, allowance and empty. Image by Isumi Daizy on Unsplash.

Fresh Kalanchoe: FOTD Apr 15, 2023

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For Cee’s FOTD

Click on photos to enlarge.

I can’t decide which I like best so I’m including them all. Why not?  

Again, I went to buy soil and ended up with an entire trunk full of plants. It started with these lovely kalanchoes. Two plants–you can see a bit of the yellow one in one of the photos. There is such a variety of colors even from plant to plant. One yellow is not exactly the same as the other. I love this unbrash creamy color of yellow as opposed to lemon yellow plus the variation of the orange which unfolds from its blush peach fist to the more vivid orange flower.

I went out to snap a few new photos of flowers and ended up trimming all of the plants in the entire back porch plus the lower level around the studio and the side of the terrace. Two hours later, I came up to post this!  You can hardly pass for the heaps of weeds and dry leaves and branches in the pathways and corridors. A surprise for Pasiano on Monday. I trim, he clears away and bags up.