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.
Italian guys are sexy, but pasta makes me fat. When a Scots boy served me haggis, had to hide it in my hat. I had a Japanese boyfriend, but I gagged while eating sushi. French crepes don’t suit my fancy. I find them bland and squooshy. Foreign dates? I’ve had enough to man a whole battalion,
and so long as I take care that I’m not dating an Italian,
I’ve found that when I’m traveling and have a need to guy it, it’s a perfect opportunity for sticking to my diet!
I want to make this perfectly clear.
We are not close just because we are near.
There has to be more than proximity for
my heart to open its almost closed door.
Say something sweet to me. Say something rare.
I do not feel loved just because you are there
across a room that is filled up with things.
You must think of something and give your thoughts wings.
Speak playful words that will prompt words from me.
Then volley them back to me. Don’t let thoughts “be”
without giving them air to live in and grow
so they banish these shadows and fan fire’s glow.
Passion’s not something for us to remember.
It’s better a constantly glowing live ember.
Get up from your chair. Give that remote a miss
and speak to me now with a word or a kiss.
The camera battery left in its charger in a motel in St. Louis, my batik sarong left gracing a hostel bed in Jakarta, my only pair of shoes in Timor. A pair of Levis in Singapore, my diary in Tanjung Pinang, my swimsuit in Sri Lanka.
I am lost all over the world, and this is why, five minutes after my sister has gone down to check out of the St. Paul hotel, I am rechecking the beds and desk tops of our room.
My bag packed and zipped at the door, my purse and computer case propped next to it, I sift through soggy towels in the tub, open the closet door once more to rattle empty hangers, check each plug socket on each wall.
“Check” is the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. This is a rewrite of a poem written three years ago.
If you want an easy way to contact your senator or representative or other congressmen about the issue of separating children from their parents at the border, it is given at the end of this heartbreaking posting of the sounds of children being taken from their parents and descriptions of those who have witnessed the process. We all need to be responsible to DO SOMETHING!!!!
Thanks to the media outlet Propublica, we have access to the above video. Please be aware that the sound of the children’s wailing as they are being separated from their parents seeking asylum at the US southwest border, are heartbreaking.
This is a new protocol that was started with President Donald Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions with his April 6, 2018 memo. As per Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the president can end this practice of separating children from the parents with one phone call. Telling the migrants to apply for asylum at the US designated points of entry is not a realistic direction as most peoples are being turned away. There are stories about peoples waiting weeks to gain entry.
As per international law, it is NOT illegal for peoples fleeing danger, persecution, war like circumstances, to ask for asylum.
Any other republican talking point other than the above…
Petulant child, in a bit of a snit, pooches his lips out. He’s having a fit. He sets up tin soldiers in orderly rows. Where they will be fighting, not even he knows.
Fast through the air, his tweets swiftly whistle, delivering threats like an ICBM missile. He casts insults northwards and south over borders to Mexico, Canada and other quarters.
He’s saving his friendships for other bad boys. With each fawning message his keyboard deploys, he wishes their power were his for the taking. Korea and Russia—what plots in the making.
His attention span just long enough for his tweeting, he blusters his way through each conference and meeting. Many are gap-jawed, yet nothing gets done concerning disarming this smoking gun.
He’s expressing his own sort of odd concentration by impounding children, expressing elation that this will now curb illegal immigration. How long will we let this man screw up our nation?
Daily Addiction’s prompt today is Gasp! What better to cause us to gasp in the news today than our self-serving president’s recent horrendous action?
Update: okcforgottenman commented and added this video, which feels appropriate to this post.
If you want to hear testimony of those who have witnessed this separation process and to hear the voices and reactions of children as they are being taken from their parents at the border, then to be taken through a process by which you can easily reach congresspeople who can do something about it, go HERE.
You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what is it? Sushi? Scotch Tape? Good Health
Teleportation or flying? Teleportation! Flying is no fun anymore.
Would you rather live where it only snows or the temperature never falls below 100 degrees? I could live in either one and just teleport myself to reasonable climes whenever I wished!
What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week? I’ve been wanting to share these photos of the koi ponds at the Chapala Society. You can see them better by clicking on any photo to enlarge them all. There are a lot of photos, so give them 30 seconds to focus before you begin the slideshow after clicking to enlarge. You only have to do this once, not for each photo.
Caught short by the rainy season, I should have known better. Though I’d left home high and dry, I knew I’d soon be wetter. Defenseless in the downpour, I ducked into a store. Just to get some shelter, I rushed in through that door.
I felt that I was lucky as this store was full of stuff, though finding what I needed might be sort of tough. The store clerk shuffled up to me, though he could barely stand— an umbrella just as old as him held up in his hand.
Lucky when I chanced upon this ancient wrinkled fella, he happened to be carrying a really big umbrella! I opened up my pocket book and located a fiver. Now I wouldn’t spend this day wet as a scuba diver!
But when I left that thrift store with my practical new find, I found that I was actually in the same old bind. For opening up my parasol, I uttered “What the heck?” as rivulets of water ran down my head and neck.
The purchase I’d just made, I found, would be no help at all. I hadn’t noticed that the shop was St. Vincent de Paul.* The fault was no one else’s. I know it was mine, solely. I should have realized sooner that my purchase would be holy!
*St. Vincent de Paul is a secondhand store run by the Catholic Church.
The Daily Addictions prompt was Ancient. This poem was published under a different name four years ago.
I keep thinking I’m not going to publish another photo of a hibiscus, and then I find one of a different shape or color, and fall off the wagon like addicts often do! I dedicate this bloom to Cee’s one-millionth view.
