Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

Playing with Flowers: Altered Heliconia, FOTD, June 5, 2022

For Cee’s FOTD

Mr. Universe in the Old Age Home

Mr. Universe in the Old Age Home

His life was lovely and bucolic
prior to his anabolic
stage wherein he played the game
of dosing up to gain a name

and a media barrage
descended on the small garage
where he went to lift more weight
than once he could anticipate.

His life became a mad mirage
of barbells, steroids —a barrage
of contests wherein he competed,
going largely undefeated—

a staircase leading to that time
when he, unchallenged and sublime,
ruled without apology,
a miracle of morphology.

Everybody knew his name.
A survivor, fit, top of his game,
in time his will began to flag
and everything began to sag.

His muscles gone to atrophy,
he is not what he used to be.
His bod of steel reduced to puddle,
he is more comfy now to cuddle,

and so he finds at an old age
that happily, he’s still the rage,
for the old ladies that he hustles
still want to feel his former muscles.

 

Prompts today are game, apology, survivor, bucolic, staircase and mirage.

Winter Adventure Tour, for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 555

Winter Adventure Tour

That first chilling sound of the ice’s warning crack
and that slithery pinprick feeling of ice water down your back

are sure to leave you feeling disturbingly distraught.
This is more of an adventure than the one you sought.

It’s the sort of trip you’d like to banish from your thoughts,
one devoid of “wants “and stuffed full of the “nots,”
yet it plays against your eyelids with a frequency you’d like
to round up in your head and tell to take a hike.

Your tour guide? He’s a rascal and they ought to string him up.
He’s a weasel, he’s a rat and he’s a mangy low-down pup.
They should brand him as a felon, this king of thoughtless vice
for selling you an outing to skate on such thin ice!!!!

The prompt words are pinprick slithery chilling distraught felon string yet banish lid trip with miss   For Sunday Whirl Wordle 555  Image by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash.

Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride


Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride

Only one seat left, so I thrust myself within it,
beating out another boarding passenger to win it.
Adjusting all my packages, I didn’t chance to look
at my seat mate, for her face was buried in a book.

I used a lull in traffic to begin a conversation,
but was cut off by the bite of her brutal tongue’s serration.
She sputtered without compromise or mercy or a pause
about what she surmised were my weaknesses and flaws.

Her words sprayed out in spittle, unceasing in their venom.
She criticized my hairdo and my shoe size and my denim.
Not a thing about me pleased her. She was brutal in her spiel.
Had I considered a diet? Was my hair color for real?

At the very next bus stop, I finally took flight.
Miles from where I sought to go, I fled into the night.
It must have been a curse or bad Karma or a hex
that I would end up in a seat next to my boyfriend’s ex!!!

 

Prompts for today are traffic, compromise, flight, serration, spray and please. Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Fuchsia: Cee’s FOTD June 4, 2022

For Cee’s FOTD

Time Holds the Key


Time Holds the Key

The detergent of time washes away
the travail we feel so keenly today,
constantly munching away at our pain,
over and over and over again.

The hemp that was used manufacturing rope
to bind up our hands and tie up our hope
once placed in a pipe, might free up our minds
to journey down roads of alternative kinds.

Life’s journey is kooky. Thus, each generation
achieves some sort of new fenestration
to escape from the bondage of years that are past.
Thus proving that no form of bondage can last.

Freedom and justice must be more than talk,
for though time holds the means to unlock the lock,
there must be a hand turning the key
to open the door that sets justice free.

 

Prompts today are kooky, thrifty, hemp, munch, constant and detergent.

Gloria’s Birthday Flowers: FOTD, June 3, 2022

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Thursday Trios: Sisters, June 2, 2022

Judy, Patti and Betty at Mom and Dad’s place in Tucson. 1970’s?

For Carol Cormier’s Thursday Trios

Implausible Proposal


Implausible Proposal

You know, that ring that you were hurling
that landed in the sink,

set the water swirling

 as it landed with a clink,

then elected to go curling
into inky depths below,

its extemporaneous whirling

too fast to see it go?

I admit it was just sterling,
and yes, the diamond fake.

It’s zirconium or pearling

for the money that I make,

because more expensive girling
is not a piece of cake.

So, if you want me for my money,
better find another guy.

What I offer to my honey
is not something I can buy!

Prompts for today are ink, extemporaneous, sterling, nigh, elect and yes.

Heliconia: FOTD June 2, 2022

I have three blooms on my new  Heliconia now.

For Cee’s FOTD