I see a duck, do you see a duck???
Merely sculpted by the tide. One of nature’s wonders sculpted of flotsam and jetsam. Spotted on the beach at La Manzanilla four years ago!
For Ragtag’s “Duck” prompt.
Duck!!!
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Author Archives: lifelessons
Books (For Daily Addictions July 21, 2018 prompt of Obsolete)
Books
The fresh bookstore smell of them,
bending the pages to crack the spine,
notes scribbled in the margins,
underlines,
hearts with initials on the flyleaf,
something to loan or to wrap for a gift,
something propped up on the bathtub edge,
its paper sprinkled with drops-—
pages wrinkled into a Braille memory—
that rainstorm run through,
how he put it in his back pocket.
Poetry touched by fingers.
Single words met by lips.
Words pored over by candlelight or flashlight
in a sleeping bag or in a hut with no electricity.
Books pushed into backpacks
and under table legs for leveling.
Paper that soaked up
the oil from fingers
of the reader
consuming popcorn
or chocolate chip cookies
in lieu of the romance on the pages—
finger food served with brain food.
Passions wrapped in paper and ink—
the allure of a book and the tactile comfort.
The soul of a book you could touch, fold, bend.
Books are the gravestones of trees
but also the journals of our hearts.
Cities of words,
boards and bricks of letters,
insulated by hard covers or the curling skins
of paperbacks.
Something solid to transfer the dreams
of one person to another in a concrete telepathy
of fingers and eyes.
Books are the roads we build between us,
solid and substantial—
their paper the roadbed,
the words the center lines directing us.
What will fill the bookcases of a modern world?
Wikipedia replacing dictionaries,
Google already an invisible bank of Encyclopaedia Britannicas.
What will we use our boards and bricks for,
if not to hold up whole tenements of books?
How will we furnish our walls?
What will boys carry to school for girls?
What will we balance on heads
to practice walking with perfect posture?
What will we throw in the direction of the horrible pun?
Will there be graveyards for books, or cities built of them?
Quaint materials for easy chairs or headboards for beds?
Will we hollow them out for cigar boxes
or grind them up for packing material?
Where do books belong in the era of Kindle and Audible?
These dinosaurs that soon will not produce more eggs.
Perhaps they’ll grow as precious as antiques.
Perhaps the grandchildren of our grandchildren
will ponder how to open them. Will wonder at their quaintness,
collecting them like mustache cups or carnival glass,
wondering about the use of them—as unfathomable as hieroglyphics.
That last book closing its pages—one more obsolete mystery
fueling the curiosity of a bygone era that has vanished
into a wireless universe.
Yes, you are right. These are chairs made out of books.
In response to The Daily Addictions prompt of obsolete Of all the technologies that have gone extinct in your lifetime, which one do you miss the most?
The Daily Addictions prompt is obsolete.
A Vindication of Single Life
A Vindication of Single Life
I will not love for comfort. I will not love for gold.
I will not love for custom nor approval of the fold.
The handsomest of profiles will not win my hand.
Fair face alone will not insure I’ll wear a wedding band.
Those whom others seek to wed are not my man of choice.
I want a man gentle of heart but bold of word and voice.
One with an eye for beauty written in other places
aside from what the world demands in figure and in faces.
That certain novel contour molded by his hand.
A forearm strongly muscled. Sinewy and tanned.
Serious in nature, but not too melancholy.
Capable of fine reasoning, but also fun and jolly.
A man who carries others securely in his heart.
A man I am a part of even when we are apart.
An oddball twist of humor. A unique bend of mind.
Someone glib in rejoinder, but also fair and kind.
I am by no means perfect in demeanor nor in form.
My face is not the fairest and my habits aren’t the norm.
I am not the world’s best dancer nor a very sexy dame,
but I bet someone exists whose imperfections are the same!
Written for these two prompts. Check out their URLS and come play along:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/rdp-50-gold/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/20/fowc-with-fandango-melancholy/
Flower of the Day, July 20, 2018
I must admit that although I took this photo in my own garden and that I’ve planted everything in it, that I don’t know what it is. It looks a bit like a lipstick plant, but they don’t grow in clusters like this. Ah the mysteries of nature.
In the Blood
Image downloaded from Internet.
Remember Walter Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil, the lion lured out of a game park in Tanzania in 2015? This is a poem I wrote and dedicated to him at the time. I was wondering how he is doing now and if he ever had the nerve to mount Cecil’s head in his trophy room, so checked up on him again via the link above. I dedicate this poem again to him and to all who profit from the spilling of blood in sport, be it war games or other blood sport.
In the Blood!!!
(Dedicated to Walter Palmer)
Don’t you just love football—the running and the tackling?
The sounds of hamstrings pulling and the crunch of femurs crackling?
We sit up in the bleachers eating hot dogs, drinking beer,
comfortably viewing blood sport—the kind we hold so dear.
Aren’t dogfights lovely–the growling and the whining?
Too bad they aren’t more elite, so we could watch while dining.
So amusing watching canines being dished their due.
Dying is so entertaining when it isn’t you!
Better still are bullfights, though they’re few and far between.
The bull so lithe and dangerous, the matador so lean.
The best part of the sport is that the dying is so slow.
I feel its thrill suffuse me from my head down to my toe.
We adore big game hunting in such exotic lands–
our chance to prove our manliness with our own two hands–
handing over money to those trackers in the know
who guarantee an easy kill with rifle or with bow.
Easy on the hunter, but not the animal,
for just because he’s hit the prey’s not guaranteed to fall.
We get more for our money if he’s hard to track,
and war games are more pleasant when one’s foe doesn’t shoot back!
All these minor titillations just a prelude to
the main event and the most major way of counting coup.
Once all the good old boys are finding life is just a bore,
they round up all the younger men and send them off to war.
See how the valiant struggle, see their stripes and purple hearts–
apt pay for missing arms and legs and other blown off parts.
Lucky to be home at last and lucky to be living–
the products of that blood sport that just somehow keeps on giving.
The Daily Addictions prompt for today is dedicate.
Black and White Challenge: Signs
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
“You Are Well Come” the banner read,
fluttering high over head.
From tree to tree it had been hung
with vibrant ribbons, securely strung.
Feasting tables were well laid
with mead and beer and lemonade.
The wedding cake stood tall bedecked,
sugar-spun and flower-flecked.
Roast joint of flesh and wheels of cheese
were laid, the wedding guests to please.
The wedding aisle strewn with flowers,
overhead the wedding bowers.
Organ music, strong and steady,
everything was poised and ready.
Heads were turned to footsteps heard
upon the pathway. Not one word
was uttered as the maiden entered.
Her pace was slow, her steps well-centered.
An arrow shot straight down the aisle,
veiled in silk and gowned in lisle.
The bridegroom marked her progress toward
the priest, the ring, the wedding gourd.
She took his hand, their vows were coined,
they sipped the gourd and thus were joined.
That night beauty would grace the bed
of the suitor she had wed.
The ending that you might foresee,
however, is not what will be.
Our plots in life have dips and bendings.
The same starts have different endings.
She wed the prince who slewed the beast
that now comprised the wedding feast!
The above poem was written to fulfill these three prompts:
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/19/fowc-with-fandango-steady/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/vibrant-july-19-2018/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/rdp-49-welcome/
Plumeria: Flower of the Day, July 19, 2018
Old Trucks, New Trucks, White Trucks, Blue Trucks.
CLICK ON ANY TRUCK TO ENLARGE ALL. LOOK CAREFULLY AT THAT LAST BLUE PICKUP. ITS LICENSE PLATE DOES NOT SAY RETRO!!!
Remote Possibility
A Remote Possibility
I spent all day in town today for business and for pleasure,
so by the time I got back home, I felt I’d had full measure
of driving-selling-trying on, shopping-eating-walking;
so I just thought I’d have some time that didn’t include talking.
I put my suit on thinking I would jump right in the pool,
but then the cat began to whine, the dogs commenced to drool—
sure signals it was feeding time—in this they were united.
They’ve learned their human serves their supper faster when invited.
The problem was, the dog food was still up in the car,
so I ran out to get it. (It wasn’t very far.)
I fed the dogs and cat, then found new flea collars I’d bought,
and so, of course, I had to put new collars on the lot.
Then, finally, the pool was mine—aerobic exercise
kept my body busy while a movie wooed my eyes
to disregard the time that passed while bending, kicking, flopping,
for when I am distracted, I am less intent on stopping.
With no prompt to finish early, I just went on and on.
Two hours passed so quickly that the setting of the sun
(and the ending of the movie—I guess I must admit)
finally gave the signal that it was time to quit.
But as I climbed the ladder, something poked my breast—
something sharp and lumpy that had made a little nest
there between my cleavage all my hours in the pool;
and when I drew it out you can’t image what a fool
I felt like, for this faux pas cannot help but win the prize
of all the times that I’ve done stupid things in any guise.
As teacher, daughter, writer, artist, sister, lover, friend,
I’ve committed stupid acts impossible to mend.
But this one takes the cake, I’m sure, as stupidest by far.
I’ve told you how I went to get the pet food from the car,
then fed and put flea collars on protesting dogs and cat.
(I doubt you’d do much better when dealing with all that!)
When I went out to do all this, I didn’t want to lose ‘em.
That’s why my car keys (with remote) wound up within my bosom!
Try as we may, those little indicators of age will sneak up on us. There is no plastic surgery for a sagging memory!!! But, wonder of wonders, when I put the key in the ignition the next morning, it worked!!! Saved on this one.
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/remote-july-18-2018/
