Simplicity is something that I rarely do.
Why have only one of something when you could have two?
It takes a lot of veggies to come up with a stew,
and we’d do a lot of limping if confined to just one shoe.
Multiples are awesome. Multiples are grand.
Look how many fingers we have upon each hand.
One finger could not do the job. Neither could two or three.
Simple cannot form a hand, did not form you or me.
Simplicity’s much touted but I think it is absurd.
Who ever heard of stories comprised of just one word?
With a single raindrop, the world could not get wetter.
Sparsity may be more chic, but I like clutter better.
I don’t get minimalism. I’m a hoarder to the core.
When I ran out of wall room, I put art upon my door.
There are no piles in hallways. Hoarding need not be a sin.
I’ve built three rooms onto my house just to store things in.
With so many lovely things in life, collecting is a joy.
With life’s manifold choices, why be niggardly or coy?
At the ice cream parlor, why does one have to choose?
You need not always limit yourself just to ones and twos.
Have a scoop of strawberry and pineapple and mint.
Green tea is delicious and tequila’s heaven sent.
Load your dish with raspberry and coconut and mango.
Why do the simple two step when you could do the fandango?
In short, I am a gatherer. I have too many things.
I like to make the choices that a complex lifestyle brings.
When it comes to writing, a stuffed-full mind is fine!
Reach into words and shake them out and string them on a line.
A solitary animal will never make a zoo.
One grain of dirt, one drop of water cannot create goo.
A single cannon fired will not execute a coup.
The world just is not simple, nor am I and nor are you!
The prompt today is solitary. Yes, you’ve read this one before!!!
Thanks, okcforgottenman for publishing it first and bringing it to my attention.
Is this the largest stalk of asparagus in the world? Click on first photo to enlarge all.
Nah, it’s the great granddaughter of the first century plant I planted here 16 years ago. After it blooms (this is its blooming stalk) it dies and a new one grows up in its place. Sources say it takes 10 to 20 years for it to bloom but I remember at least three blooms since I’ve been here, the last one much more recent than 10 years.
It seems like an appropriate time to repeat this poem. It also meets the prompt word!
“Macho” by Judy Dykstra-Brown, jdbphoto
Blind Judgment
Wielding words like bludgeons, they stumble through our world,
supporting fools as their gods, confederate flags unfurled.
Motivated more by hate than any rational thought,
they’d have no more spices added to our melting pot.
Hooligans wielding bludgeons as simple as a vote
cannot see the truth of what their voting might denote.
A businessman with ethics determined by the dollar
seems to have convinced them he’s the friend of the blue collar.
Bankruptcy and divorces, rash words and rasher actions.
Tax-dodging obligations, like a child in his reactions.
His minions yielding bludgeons, be they cudgels, guns or mallets,
now have it in their power to trash the world with ballots.
So all these bleating sheep with their lovely little daughters
will feed them to misogyny, like lambs led to their slaughters.
What leads nations on in these times of mass delusion?
Tomfoolery and hate and fear can lead to mass confusion.
We’ve seen it down through history with Hitler and Pol Pot.
Attila and Idi Amin, Gaddafi and Sadat.
All the blind majority led onward by a dunce.
All the dark sides of the world coming out at once.
Please, fathers love your daughters and mothers love your sons.
Protect them from the hatred of bigots wielding guns.
From politicians inventing facts and changing history,
leaving devastation wherever they might be.
We’re taught that justice must be blind to shield in its detection
of prejudice, and yet that selfsame blindness in election
may lead to faulty judgment that leads to foolish acts.
We should not cast our ballots when blinded to the facts.
The prompt today is unfurl.
Thought I’d go in and say goodnight to the kittens in their suite. As usual, they piled right on. I was Skyping to forgottenman and said I hated to disturb them, but the mosquitos were dive-bombing. He asked if I’d gotten photos and I said no and I couldn’t get out from under to go get my camera. He then suggested my computer cam, but it actually isn’t that easy to get photos when you can’t see what you are shooting. An additional problem is preserving one’s modesty while shooting random photos of kittens draped all over your nightgowned body. At any rate, here are the photos that made it past the censor:
As usual, you can click on the first photo to enlarge all and view as a slideshow.
Morrie had surgery for a very fast-growing tumor today. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get it all because it was attached to his ribs. He wanted me to share these photos of him being such a good patient. (Once he got home, that is. When I got to the clinic to pick him up I could hear his barks from the parking lot!) We’ll have the results of the biopsy in ten days. Neat sewing and clipping job, don’t you think?
(Click on first photo to enlarge all and see captions. You do want to hear the whole story, don’t you?)
Just found this new bloom hiding out in the lower garden. Thanks, Cee, for driving me out in search of a flower for the day!
For Cee’s Flower Prompt.
Against the Grain
On those days when constant rain
spits against my window pane
with droplets forming into chains
and rushing down like liquid trains,
I try to keep my thoughts in rein
to guard against the certain pain
of remembering one who was the bane
of my existence. So I fein
a cheerfulness that is inane.
Attempts at humor that in the main
go against sincerity’s grain
are voiced in vain.
They do not light a shrouded brain.
They do not stop the constant rain.
The prompt today is grainy.
I have no idea how old the monster tree on the main road through Ajijic was when they cut it down a few days ago, but it was the largest in the two walls of trees that separate the carretera from the two lateral roads that run through town on either side of it. I’m saving photos of the main tree for the Sunday Trees prompt, but the chips left on the ground have a beauty all their own—just right for Tuesdays of Texture.
