A bit of late-night reading in the hammock. Luckily, there is an overhead light.
For Bushboy’s Last on the Card, Aug, 2025
Last on the Card, Aug, 2025
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Monthly Archives: August 2025
The Numbers Game #88, Please Play Along! Sep 1, 2025
Welcome to “The Numbers Game #88”. Today’s number is 210. To play along, go to your photos file folder and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.
Click on Photos to Enlarge and View as Gallery.
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Flip side of the stitched finger slammed in the door.
Peek at the man shoeing the horse.
Lovely flora of Morrie’s own personal relief station.
Just Desserts for Cellpic Sunday
For Cellpic Sunday
Actually, I ordered waffles this morning and the last photo shows what I was served. Do you agree it belongs in the dessert category with the rest of the photos I’ve taken in the last month or so? No, all of these desserts were not my own. Some went on the hips of friends…not mine. I just snapped the pics.
Flight of Fortune, for the MMM Challenge, Aug 31, 2025
Flight of Fortune
Aisle seat in the third row–
a next door neighbor I do not know.
I put my seat belt on and then
look up to her all-knowing grin.
“May I tell your fortune?” is her request,
(It is not made at my behest.)
A pastime really not my choosing,
still, with nothing more amusing
to pass the time, I give consent
and this is how our time is spent
in those first minutes of our flight,
until the ground is out of sight.
My fortune told, I sit and think,
ordering another drink,
pleased by some of her predictions
but finding others contradictions
to how I’ve planned my life to be.
I worry fingers upon my knee.
Does she concoct or does she see
these things that she relates to me?
Some things she mentions have happened, still,
I hope that others never will.
Yet I fear, if I reject
the things she says, I might deflect
the good things so they’ll never be.
This is the choice that faces me.
Can the good that she foretold––
of feats accomplished and love and gold––
be accepted without the rest?
I want the warmly-feathered nest,
but do not desire everything
she tells me that my life will bring.
The illness, sadness, loss of friends?
I don’t like how my fortune ends.
I warmly press her proffered hand,
take off my seat belt and quickly stand.
Perhaps if I just change my seat
and find a seat mate more discreet,
I’ll change my life as easily––
and react less queasily
to conversation that is not rife
with details of my future life!
Strange. This prompt somehow came up and I thought it was a current one, so answered it, but when I tried to pingback, it turns out it is just a few days shy of a year old and comments are closed. I’m going to go ahead and post it since it took me about an hour to find and alter this poem written many years ago.. For the MMM Challenge
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 721, Aug 31, 2025
Lady in Waiting
A rush of faith has roosted somewhere in her heart––
a spot where shame has luckily never had a start.
But now her heart beats wildly, blood rushing to that place
where passion peaked, but oh too soon, was forced to slow its pace.
An orb of moon projects a strip of light across the road
by which he has departed to search out the Motherlode,
trading riches of the heart in an action bold.
Her ruby lips forsaken in his quest for gold.
Somewhere on the fringe he wanders in his search,
as her faith roosts steadfastly, on its accustomed perch.
Prompt Words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle are: roosted fringe strip orb ruby rush beat shame faith peaks spot heart
A Twilight Walk in The Garden
With the recent rains, the garden is especially lush. Lots of flowers pop up overnight.
“Toast” for SOCS (Here’s to the Bride) Aug 29, 2025
Here’s To The Bride
The groom’s family was titled and a bit anachronistic.
So when they saw the bride, I fear they went a bit ballistic.
Instead of white she wore a dress of scarlet oddly draped.
The mother of the groom grew faint. Her husband merely gaped.
She wore something archaic instead of merely old—
her grandma’s feather boa—a bridal statement bold.
Around her neck, a python, and her arms were densely bangled.
Her veil pinned to a tractor hat of satin, oddly-angled.
The brim turned back as though she were an umpire at a game.
In short, the bride’s ensemble was anything but lame.
As she hip-hopped down the aisle to a tune by Kanye West,
the groom stood fondly watching her in morning coat and vest.
Her lipstick blue, her bustier was borrowed and conditional
on return to its owner in a manner most traditional.
To complete her fashion statement, her combat boots were blue,
and if you’ve paid attention, you could guess that they were new!
Her bouquet was fresh dandelions bound up with some chives.
She held it in one hand and with the other, gave high fives
to friends all up the aisle as she jerked her way on by.
The groom’s mom gave a shudder and his father gave a sigh.
So did this modern wedding forsake the antiquated
with customs much less stuffy, less predictable and dated.
The wedding fare was tacos, Cuban sandwiches and chips,
jelly beans and donuts, crudités and dips.
No caviar or salmon. Just ribs and Tater Tots.
The toasts to bride and groom were made with Jello shots.
The wedding cake was chocolate with custard between layers.
Good wishes voiced by ministers, gurus and namaste’ers.
In place of rice the bride and groom were showered with quinoa.
In short, it was a wedding to rival mardi gras!
The SOCS prompt is “toast.”
“Chickening Out and More” for Fibbing Friday, Aug 29, 2025
Today’s Fibbing Friday prompts are:
1. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was being egged on to do so.
2. Why are eggs oval in shape? Because they are formed in a Mama Chicken’s ovalries.
3. Who said Humpty Dumpty was an egg? I don’t know, but he said it in September or some other day in the fall.
4. What is fumigate? A scandal involving a Chinese restaurant famous for its egg fu young.
5. What is a wuss? Past tense of iss.
6. What is a spotter? An un-housetrained puppy.
7. What is the speed of light? Certainly a lot faster than the speed of heavy.
8. What is a hangover? The amount of bottom on three sides of an occupied bar stool.
9. What is a grammy? Grampy’s wife
10.What is lycra? Question asked of a best male friend by an Australian male who wants to flirt with a girl he suspects his friend likes, too.–– “Like ‘er, aye?”––(Did I spoil it by over-explaining?)
Scattered Dreams, for RDP
Scattered Dreams
Scattered Dreams
She mourns the loss of everything as the crescent moon
fades away to nothing this putrescent June.
Orange blossoms drooping in their wedding urns,
an empty flag of wedding veil wafts outward and then turns
to fall from spinning fan blades where it has been tossed—
all its beauty shredded, its inspiration lost.
Her hopes and dreams now fatuous, their ending is now lore
written in tattered satin and petals on the floor.
The RDP prompt today is “Scattered.”
Hot off the Presses
My new book “If I Were Water and You Were Air” is hot off the presses. You can buy it in soft cover or ebook HERE.
Like water that nourishes life or brings destruction, love can be both a blessing and a curse. This memoir in verse spans five decades and three countries with poems that reflect on love, loss and life’s complexities, drawing from personal experiences and emotions. “How many loves, senora?” my helper in Mexico asked me wistfully, during my first months after my move to Mexico. “Oh many,” I had answered. “I was nearly 40 when I married and I had traveled the world,”
If you’d like to hear 10 of the poems now, capture the the QR code in the upper right of this cover with the camera on your phone. Double click, and It will take you to Youtube. Click the youtube rectangle on your phone and then the “tap to unmute” rectangle that then appears on your phone. You’ll hear me reading 10 poems from the 105 pages of poems in the book. You can do this from the image here..or by doing the same to the cover of the actual book.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 