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Jan 3, 2021 Sunset
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Author Archives: lifelessons
Pop Culture: Zoom Reading
Here is the link for the Zoom launch for The Poeming Pigeon’s Pop Culture Edition. I have two poems in the book and I’m reading at the 22 minute mark. Please overlook my flubs!!! Judy
Selective Memorabilia
Selective Memorabilia
Leftover bits of brilliant past acts
help enliven today’s less illustrious facts.
In avoiding the present, we can overlook
the unplanned digressions that our lives took.
Memory’s like an expandable shelf
where we can stack up our reminders of self.
We can keep all the good stuff and throw out the bad—
all of the upsets and down times we’ve had.
We can tack up our ribbons, trash each demerit
and just hoard a memory if we can bear it!
Prompt words for today are leftover, avoid, brilliant and enliven. The photo is a detail from one of my mixed media collages.
Hibiscus: FOTD, Jan 3, 2021
Morning Ritual
Morning Ritual
Boy cat awakes at six o’clock
to begin his morning walk
across my former sleeping self,
then jumps down from my bedside shelf
to continue his aggressive sass.
Wrestles the rug, then bats the brass
light cord, yowls and kneads the sheet
until I rise. Admit defeat.
He leads me to the kitchen door.
I let him out , but do no more.
I don’t renew his empty dish.
No new beef and no new fish
adorn its naked metal sheen.
It’s six o’clock! I’m feeling mean.
Back to bed until at eight
the dogs begin their loud debate.
The girl cat’s where the boy cat’s been,
taunting them from here within.
She jumps up on the headboard table,
disconnects my laptop cable,
turns off its screen and then what’s more,
knocks the lampshade to the floor.
Jumps down and then attacks the rug—
A slide-attack, a pull, a tug—
until once more it’s hillocked, rumpled.
twisted, skewed, distressed and crumpled.
Now the dogs both go ballistic
and I, alas, become realistic.
Thrust myself up from my bed,
and after both the dogs are fed,
I give in to the cats’ loud din—
one cat out and one cat in.
One says good-bye, one says hello. One seeks to come, the other go!
When I shop, I buy the flavor I know their highnesses most favor.
Walk barefoot over the cold floor,
open up the outside door,
and, stepping out to feed the cats,
I open up the cupboard that’s
located by the kitchen door,
to grab the cat food can, but then
as one cat exits, one rushes in!
I spoon the goop into one dish
to tail-swaying and whisker swish.
Pour kibble in another one,
step back inside and watch the fun.
Seeking nutritional renewal, they fall upon their kitty gruel
Sharing a dish, cats bob and sway
in graceful pas de deux display.
Alternating, dish-to-dish
from wet to dry, whate’er their wish.
And finally, the herd all fed,
exhausted, I go back to bed!
Prompt words for today are goodbye/hello, brass, renewal and favor.
Ringing in the New Year
May this be the happy one we’ve been longing for! oxoxox
Bougainvillea Sunset: FOTD, Jan 1, 2021
How I Spent My New Year’s Eve
Susan was very enthusiastic about breaking out the chanpagne, but Blue insisted we make do with wine (and gin and tonic for me) until dessert,
and an assortment of dippers.
One of each for each. Well, perhaps more than one?
Annie was feeling a bit left out, chocolate being a no-no for pooches,
But a hug from Susan made up for the culinary neglect.
And finally, we saluted the New Year,
But a bit early, as this was how Blue was feelingby 9:30. By 10, we had all retired. We’ll do better next year. 2020 wore us out.
Happy New Year! Hope you all were able to bid a successful adieu to 2020. ( We also had cheese fondue for beginners. A naughty ending to a naughty year.)
Stating the Obvious
Stating the Obvious
Though we make new resolutions for this fresh year that’s been born,
let no laurel wreaths be woven, our foreheads to adorn.
Renewing hope won’t work unless we also prove our worth
by stemming global warming by cleaning up our earth.
By curbing population growth and making room for all
of nature’s other species on this great blue ball.
If we have learned nothing from past foibles, then I fear
there’ll be no improvement over our last dreadful year.
Prompt words for this first day of the new year (Yay!) are fresh, adorn, resolution and renew. Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Used with permission
The Legend of Aunt Annie
The Legend of Aunt Annie
Every family has one—she’s above the daily fray.
She’s excessive in her grooming—perfect in every way.
Her complexion is unblemished. She is seamless, smooth and pale.
She dare not lift a finger, lest she break a fingernail.
But her understated elegance had galvanized our wishes
that for one time in our lives, we’d see her do the dishes—
put on a kitchen apron over her silken ruffles
and rid sticky hors d’ oeuvre plates of anchovy paste and truffles.
It was our New Year’s resolution to see sweat upon her brow,
so at our family gathering, we made it our vow
to extract some elbow grease from languid Auntie Annie
by urging her to heft herself up off her dainty fanny
to assist us in the cleaning up, for though we all just loved her,
we would not be satisfied until we’d rubber gloved her!
Before the clock struck midnight on this New Year’s Eve,
we’d create a family legend no one absent would believe.
We’d get her drunk on cordial and execute our plot.
We installed her on the sofa and brought her her first shot.
Then we began our web of lies as we spun out the story
of a family legend as old as it was gory
of a New Year’s curse found on parchment cracked and old
stuck in the family Bible, caked with a crust of mold.
It told of an ancient act too lurid to retell—
so vile its perpetrator was consigned to Hell
and forever afterwards, this family had been cursed.
(By what I just had to ad lib, for we had not rehearsed
the details of the story, so off-the-cuff I said
that gone unatoned by midnight, one of us would be dead.)
The family roiled and tutted and feigned a great duress.
Meanwhile, dear Aunt Annie smoothed the wrinkles from her dress
and held her small glass out for another wee small taste,
lest the remaining cordial should simply go to waste.
The rest of us continued with our impromptu telling
of the misdeed and the cursing and the dying and the Helling.
“If every one of us does not atone by midnight,” I then said,
“by the final toll of midnight, our eldest will be dead!!!
Someone jabbed Aunt Annie with an elbow to point out
that she, indeed, was eldest, without a single doubt.
“Quick, Auntie, to the kitchen. You must wash your hands of blame!”
shouted all of us, complicit in this New Year’s game.
“And while you are at it, perhaps you could wash some dishes,”
said the youngest one of us, expressing all our wishes.
Whereupon our auntie heaved herself up to her feet,
strolled into the kitchen, and without missing a beat,
put her plate under the faucet, swabbed it with a sponge,
and the oil of fish and mushroom managed to expunge.
Then she dried her hands and turned around, the best to face us all.
drew her lips into a line, her fists into a ball,
and told us that for years now she’d been longing for just this—
to wash her hands of all of us, and with a final hiss,
she turned upon her heel and marched out of the front door
got in her car and drove away–straight into family lore!
We don’t know what became of her but ever since that night
whenever, at clan gatherings, the kids begin to fight
about who should do the dishes, you can bet someone will tell
the story of how Annie escaped the jaws of Hell
by taking her turn at dishes, and it’s true that not a kid
believes the story any more than our Aunt Annie did!
Word prompts for the last day of 2020 are understated elegance, galvanize, wishes and resolution. Image by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash, used with permission.
