Category Archives: Animals

For Wordle 639, Jan 28, 2024

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Home Invasion

A curious wood mouse prowls the edges
of our garden’s outer hedges,
penetrates our house’s maze,
invades the kitchen and starts to graze.

Though caught within the streetlamp’s glow,
he can’t be seen as he’s below
while we’re above, still sleeping tight,
immersed in dreams that fill the night.

Crude visitor, though frail and small,
nonetheless invades the wall,
climbs up and up from floor to floor,
down the hallway, through my door.

He hears my sighs, observes my snore,
and water dripping just next door
from the faucet of the bathroom sink.
Impetuous, he goes to drink.

Down in his luck, too bad that he
knew not my dad had gone to pee,
saw the mouse and took a swat.
And now, alas, that mouse is not!

The prompt words for The Sunday Whirl today are:maze penetrates edges glow curious crude frail mouse prowl drip sighs impetuous

Yes, I took the photo and yes, I’m holding the mouse. Can’t remember where or when this was taken, but in another photo you can see my rings so I know it is me.

Night Thoughts for dVerse Poets

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Night Thoughts

They lie there like slumbering cats,
unaware of my presence,
then stir to stalk a field
where hidden metaphors hunch,
twitching, in the tall grass.

Whether they exist in a dream or not,
they do not know, but dwell there
in the shadow of my sleep,
transformed into jungle animals.

Exposed to the light of day,
they spring, as though tired of waiting,
into my conscious thoughts,
leaving their footprints on the page
where I jot them down guiltily,
a grateful plagiarist
who has merely trapped
the stuff of dreams.

Showing, then curling and retracting their nails,
paw after pawprint, they stalk
one line after another,
as, taking the credit,
I fill another page.

 

For dVerse Poets.  What Animal serves as a perfect metaphor for how you write?
See how other poets wrote to the prompt HERE.

Penultimate/Ultimatepen, For The Daily Prompt, Jan 5, 2024

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Penultimate/Ultimatepen

He said they couldn’t fence him for he liked to roam free.
No sty could ever hold him. No captive pig was he.
That he was a wild pig was true without a doubt.
As soon as they would pen him in, in seconds he’d break out.
But the farmer, too, was resolute. As his prize pig departed,
he vowed that he’d contain him. He wouldn’t be outsmarted.

He built a sturdy metal fence, and then he strung it higher—
woven fine and tight of the premium barbed wire.
Then he caught Porky and closed him in, determined that he’d win,
for it wasn’t up to any pig to refuse his fencing-in.
But indeed the pig devised again a means by which he left,
leaving the farmer feeling defeated and bereft.

Once more caught and then re-penned and taking his repast,
the pig had not a clue that this meal would be his last.
This escape his penultimate, now the die was cast.
His days of glorious freedom, alas, were in the past.
Then, his last meal finished, he made his next advance
toward a fence reconstructed, ready to take his chance.

But, alas, he’d met his match. Escape would never be,
for the farmer had infused the fence with electricity.
This time not the penultimate, it was the ultimate pen,
for Porky has been seen, I fear, just one more time since then.
Spread out on a platter, an apple in his jaws,
his final feat a foolish one, bound to give one pause.

When he said they couldn’t pen him in, I fear poor Porky lied,
for when he hit the fence this time, in minutes, he was fried.
Ham that he was, I fear that poor Porky’s lot was cast.
For the pen after the penultimate turned out to be his last.
Probably not the first time a pig who was a sinner
paid the price for it by turning into Easter dinner.


For The Daily Prompt: Penultimate

Deadly Visitor

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Darn!!! Paciano found this dead coral snake on the low outside wall that runs alongside the   steps up to the second story of my house. They are venomous and can cause respiratory failure and death, although a search of the internet yielded the following information: A single death has been reported due to a coral snake bite in the United States in the last 40 years (roughly, since coral snake antivenom became available). Before that time, the estimated case-fatality rate was 10%, and the cause of death was respiratory or cardiovascular failure.
Another source says: Unlike pit viper venom, coral snake venom is primarily a neurotoxin. There is little or no pain and swelling, and symptoms may not appear for hours. But once symptoms do appear, they progress rapidly: euphoria and drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, headache, difficulty in breathing and paralysis.”
I’m so glad the dogs didn’t find it first. It is very confusing, because they seem to be two different snakes joined at the tail. I took this photo yesterday, but need to take another look tomorrow to see if it is one snake or two.

Sleeping with Dogs (For Last on the Card)

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Click on Photos to Enlarge

Can you find three dogs in this jumble of sheets and pillows? Barely room for one human to join them and it takes a bit of pushing and relocating. Now it is 6:30 a.m. and soon they’ll all be off like a shot for a walk with Oscar. It’s the first day of the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, so we’ve all been up since 6 when the cohetes (bottle rockets) started going off. The actual celebration is Dec. 9-12, but San Juan Cosala likes to stretch the occasion out from Dec. 1-12.

There will be shrines set up in front of buildings all over town.  Yolanda will switch my candles to a position in front of the Virgin statue on my divider between the dining room and kitchen and “native sons”—men who have gone to work in the States—will send money for huge displays of flowers in the church. On the 12th, the 92-year-old statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe will be paraded through the streets and there will be a huge procession with many of the people being led blindfolded behind her statue. In former years, many would crawl on their knees in the procession, but I’m not sure if this happens now. Always a celebration being held somewhere in surrounding villages.

Ajijic is still celebrating the San Andreas Festival, with booths and carnival rides being set up all over town. Earlier, San Juan celebrated for San Juan, then Day of the Dead, now the Virgin, then Xmas. In Jan., Tres Reyes and February Candlemas, then Carnival leading up to lent and depictions of the crucifixion. I’ll stop there as I could go on month-by-month throughout the year.

Oscar just arrived and the dogs are off like a shot, my body being no big obstruction—they all just ran over or leaped over.  Coco always returns for one brief cuddle as Oscar puts the leashes on the others, then bounds out a second time when it is her turn. I’ll know they are home when I hear their food dishes rattling as he doles out their breakfast. It is 6:54. So go mornings on M-W-F in this house.

 

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card prompt

Cat Blanket

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The Cat Blanket
“If Mom’s gonna spread out, we may as well do so, too.”
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

The kitties were all girlcatting it around outside when I lay down on the sofa, but when I woke up after a 3-hour unplanned nap, they were covering about all of me. I had been listening to a book on my Kindle when I fell asleep, but I suddenly realized it had a camera on it, so then and there, I learned how to use my Kindle to take these photos and how to send them to my computer, all while lying under a cozy cat blanket! I love it that I’m just the bottom cat in the pile.

For The Carrot Ranch’s 99-Word Story prompt

Spinners, for Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge

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The golden orb weaver spider featured in the first five photos is the spider I find to be most fascinating. The heavier zigzag web closest to its body  is sticky, which allows the spider  to capture and stun its prey with a quick bite, then to wrap it in silk. With venomous insects, the wrapping precedes the bite, which seems illogical, but must indicate that the spinning  is a rapid process. Only 1/2 of all spiders , including the tarantula pictured above, do not spin webs, but all produce silk. 

 

 

For Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge: Spiders and their Webs

Semi-Cold Turkey: Bird of the Week

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These fellows seem very at ease wandering through the town of Sheridan, Wyoming, this summer during the hottest week of the year. Here they stroll through the shade of my friend Duffy’s yard. Definitely not camera-shy. They were about as Cold Turkey as they could be during this snap when daily temperatures reached 110 degrees!

For the Bird of the Week prompt