Remember the flower that vanished a few weeks ago between the time I first saw it and two hours later when I returned with the camera? This is the newest flower on that bush. Finally, my patience has been rewarded, but not my curiosity over where it could have vanished to in a back yard behind locked gates with only me there!
For Cee’s FOTD
Front door mural completed
Some of you have seen my newly-muraled front door, but it seems so perfect for this prompt that here it is again. The artists are Jesus Lopez Vega and his son Eduardo.
Cee’s challenge is to publish a photo of the cutest thing on your desk. This is the little Bobble Head in the shape of a steer that Ollie batted off the shelf in the guest bedroom and bit the leg off last week. I’ve inserted a toothpick in lieu of the lost leg but haven’t painted it yet. The paint is down in the studio and I keep forgetting to take this down or bring paint up. He has been sitting on my desk trying to remind me to finish his transformation but meanwhile is the cutest thing on my desk.
Hisssstory
He oozed into the room with a sibilant sigh,
scraping up cobwebs as he slithered by.
The risks of survival for this little guy
I must admit would not be very high.
He’d end up on a spit or perhaps in a pie
if it weren’t for one factor, and I’ll tell you why.
This is where all of his courage must lie:
for if he embedded his fangs in your thigh,
you would have to act quickly or else you might die.
That’s why he is joyous though just an inch high,
and why he soars by with a gleam in his eye.
In case you are interested in what sort of snake this is, HERE is an earlier post I made about it. Thanks to Forgottenman for reminding me about it.
Prompt words for the day are sibilant, risk,joy, courage and survival.
For Cee’s FOTD
Click on photos to enlarge.
What reflects our personalities more than what we put on our heads?
Photo by Jan Abellan for Unsplash. Used with permission
The Comfort of Old Men
Children are sleeping sound in their beds,
inured to the missiles launched over their heads.
They’re used to the discipline of a cruel world
where bullets are served when the flag is unfurled.
They call it allegiance their country to serve
Old men sit at tables displaying their nerve
by setting out battle plans whereby the young
provide the chests where the medals are hung
that they earn facing death so the old men can gain
more gold that the young men pay for with their pain.
They posture and pose. They salute and they brag.
They call it a privilege serving your flag,
but none of the old face the bullets and fire.
It is not the aged men marked to expire.
Their rigors of battle are all of the head.
None twist to the impact of napalm or lead,
but war’s golden rewards are amassed in their pockets.
Munitions and guns and bullets and rockets
are the fruit of their plunder and part of the fun
they will buy from the profit they make from each gun.
This generation’s blood sweat and tears
will pay for the yachts of the rich and the gears
of the factories smudging the skies with their waste.
Air chokes on their vapors, the oceans all taste
their lethal remainders and sicken and die.
We have poisoned our water, our earth and our sky.
What is left once the old men have all had their say?
They will live life in splendor and the future will pay.
Prompt words for today are inure, twist, golden, privilege and discipline.
There is a distinction between avarice, self importance, grandstanding and obtaining a meal for your family in the wild. This man has no honor and is making all US citizens pay for his and his family’s outrageous vacations and splurges. *** This should make you think how you will vote while you are sitting at […]
He
would have married the girl and had children
and been less overt with his teachings
of peace and love too radical
for a world immersed in their opposite.
He would then not have changed the world, perhaps,
but only lived in contrast
to that power popular among those who needed it
and effective in keeping those averse to it quiet.
If he had married the girl, the world would probably have ended up
pretty much how it has anyway, but he might have had a different ending.
Grown old, had his cronies over to talk about the good old days,
converted water into wine and served them loaves and fishes.
Mary Magdalene would have danced for them in their memories,
and all of his grandchildren would have listened in awe
to hear the tales of how he walked on the water,
bade Lazarus to rise from the grave.
He would shush his cronies as they started in
with tales of how he smashed the souvenir stands
and threw the money changers out of the temple.
Not stories for young ears not quite ready to learn revolution.
And all of the ill done in his name might have happened anyway,
but at least he would have had a good life. Would have suffered less.
And some other savior might have found a way to save the world
that would have worked.
FordVerse Poets Pub: Write a poem about a deceased person.
