After you have read Elizabeth’s essay by clicking on the link above, read her mother, Jan Wilburg’s WP blog HERE. She certainly raised her daughter right!!!!
Upon the Violent Death of a Friend
Bar every window.
Avoid the Dark.
The dart is coming.
You’re on the mark.
Chain up your gateways.
Bar the door.
Whatever evil finds you,
there is always more.
In your life’s highway,
avoid the skids.
Don’t talk to strangers.
Lock up your kids.
Darkness advances
by ticks and tocks.
Take no chances.
Recheck the locks.
Don’t take airplanes
or cars or ships.
Keep what’s private
behind your lips.
Buy a gun and
keep it cocked.
If you knew who’s watching,
you would be shocked.
Lock your bedroom
when you retire.
Life’s a minefield.
Don’t trip the wire.
Wrap your kids in
cotton wool.
Don’t dare send them
out to school.
Mind the playgrounds.
Avoid the street.
Television
is more discreet.
Train your dogs to
attack and kill
whoever enters
against your will.
Limit friends to
a very few.
New ones just might
target you.
Build your walls up
both high and wide.
Then just fester
alone, inside.
The. Thursday Inspiration 304 prompt is Evil.
The Sporting Life
I’ve never had much interest in sports played with a ball.
Of games with pucks or shuttlecocks, I have no need at all.
Gym workouts, laps and chin-ups do nothing for me.
I simply have no talent for touching chin to knee.
The body part I work out with is of a different kind.
I like the sort of games requiring exercise of mind.
Dominoes or Mastermind, Bridge or Chess or Scrabble
are aspects of the sporting life discounted by the rabble.
Yet if you want to hold my interest, team sport is absurd.
Just woo me with a domino, a die, a card, a word.
Lay your mind upon the table, dear, I’ll trump it with an ace.
The contact I like in a sport is merely face-to-face.
The prompt for RDP Wednesday is Shuttle
Hidden Treasure
We are the ones that dwell within,
and what we keep hidden from each other
forms the mystery that keeps us coming back for more.
Like the relish that enhances the main course.
Like the dessert at the end of the meal,
not the real nourishment, but rather
a reward for putting up with the day-to-day
ragtag repetitions, irritations, boredoms
of knowing each other so well.
The loyalties, down to the heart honesties,
those passions held in common, those trials shared
are the meals we feed each other day-by-day.
But what person does not need, as well,
the thrill of the unopened package,
the darkness hidden under the stairs?
“Where we’re going, we don’t need eyes to see” – Sam Neill, Event Horizon (1997)
“We are the ones that dwell within” – The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
“Thrill me” – Night of the Creeps (1986) These are the three lines I chose for dVerse Poets
Above are the three sentences I chose for the dVerse Poets promt. Let’ see which won out.
Halloween Tales
Halloween love stories are not so very thrillin,’
for it’s not romantic to hook up with a villain.
Monsters, ogres, ghosts and goblins don’t excel at lovin’.
Nor do witches have much use for it within their coven.
And so you’ll find that Halloween tells a different story
still filled with thrills that are more gruesome and more gory.
Prompts for the Three Things Challenge are: Monster, Ogre and Villain
Welcome to “The Numbers Game #96”. Today’s number is 218. 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.***
Click on photos below to increase size.
The hurricanes that cause devastation on the coast merely whip our palms, turn off electricity and knock down tree limbs, but more often, the wind is our friend. It swells our sails, keeps flags, balloons and birds aloft and furnishes the electricity that it sometimes, in its excesses, switches off again.
Hurricane or breeze,
the wind does what it pleases—
both our friend and foe.
Rebecca’s Poetry Challenge, we are to write a Haibun on the subject of wind.
Click on Photos to Enlarge!
What Would We Do Without Friends?
*From my neighbor Sergio, who interprets confusing Spanish messages from my insurance company for me and
*David (peeking out the door) who along with Sergio shares his latest culinary triumphs with me via care packages sent over from next door,
*to Pepe who has been coming by weekly for 11 or more years to give me a massage,
*to Brad and Eddie who came to cook me a delicious breakfast a few days ago,
*to my friend Blue who spent the afternoon driving me around on errands yesterday as I am carless while the insurance company holds my car hostage in Guadalajara.,
*to Doug (Forgottenman) who has been sending me links all week long (including this one) to remind me to post to them—
my past week has been filled with the blessings of favors done by friends. Bless them!!!
See Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday HERE.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 