Little Mysteries
The essence of attachment is discovery,
but there’s also much allure in a mystery.
So sometimes when an answer seems definitely certain,
it might behoove us just this once to sagely pull a curtain.
Word prompts today are curtains, essence, discovery, attachment.
Doldrums
Divorce yourself from worry—that tangled skein of stress.
Most of the problems in your thoughts are ills you can’t address.
Tasks collect in clusters that dry out in the sun,
so concentrate your efforts on things you may get done
and shove the others in a drawer or stack them on a shelf
where they can be seen by no one but yourself.
Don’t let their hidden status be cause for delay.
Accomplish at least one task every single day.
Thoughts peripatetic flit from thing to thing.
Nothing is accomplished by resolve on the wing.
Make a list and stick to it. Tick off what you have done,
and then forget your worries and go and have some fun.
Life’s not just for doing or accomplishing or working.
Life can be made richer with a little quirking.
Loosen up your hairdo. Paint your toenails blue.
Turn around and talk to strangers in the movie queue.
Take some time off from your work and plan a small vacation.
No telling what adventures lurk in a new location.
If you’re wishing for excitement, it won’t come to you.
There’s so much more that can be done, and done begins with do.
In between the “musts” of life, inflict some “want to do’s”
and make them happen. Take a chance. What do you have to lose?
The longer that you wait, the more life becomes a ruse.
Have the courage to go out and live the life you choose.
Prompt words for the day are delay, cluster, peripatetic, skein and divorce. The painting is acrylic on canvas board. I just noticed I didn’t sign it.
Night Visitor
A shift in light, a shape just glimpsed, a moment fraught with fear.
What spirit floats in front of me and breathes into my ear?
It thrusts into my consciousness, filling all its gaps
with memories that, truth to tell, I’ve recently let lapse.
Its stories fill my night out in whispers soft and low.
It beckons me to follow it, but still I answer “No.”
In fear of where it seeks to lead, I do not heed its sighs.
It might be other than it seems, in another guise.
That truth we find in dreams, alas, carries no guarantee.
Do we see what really is or what we wish to see?
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, the prompts are: fraught glimpse shape moment lead gap thrust might breath shift sigh low Image by Lux Graves on Unsplash.
Forgottenman at Serial Monography has acquainted me with another online Wordle of a different type that I have become equally addicted to. You can find an explanation of how to play it HERE . And you can go HERE to sign on play the game. A new one is posted daily. Please note this is an entirely different Wordle not associated with Brenda’s blogging site.
All paintings by Betty Peterson. Click on photos of paintings to enlarge. The reflection of my hands superimposed over the hand in her painting was purely accidental, but I love the implication of our work being combined in this piece. R.I.P. Betty, friend of twenty years. The one sketch and watercolor of me was done in a small bar/restaurant in Tequila as we were waiting for my broken-down van to be fixed on our way to the U.S. The other painting of me she gave to me as a surprise, using a photo I had in my blog. She added Morrie, not realizing this was a photo of me in my wedding dress in 1987. Love how Morrie was suddenly transported back in time.
Conversing with Betty
You are the first person I see every morning—
there on my wall and hanging from my curtain rods––
your heart and talent painted onto watercolor paper,
matted, framed and preserved under glass.
Your freed spirit spreads out into my room like memory––
the sorties to find pre-Columbian treasures,
van breakdowns on the road to Tequila and road trips to the border,
shared secrets, successes and heartbreaks.
My friend, your life expired while mine still runs its course,
but you have left the women you gave birth to
behind you on paper and on canvas.
Their eyes follow me upon my rising, look over me in my sleep.
In them, I retain the best of you
here in my heart and on my walls,
grateful to have you still around me,
conversing in our favorite language.
Serial Lover
He was skillful at his art: a lover and romancer.
For every question of the heart he had a valid answer.
Pivotal to all his charms was his savoir faire.
He had a knightly bearing—a quality most rare.
No lady could resist his charms or deny the thrust
of his passionate ardor. He always won their trust.
And although perhaps at first they might have hesitated,
In the end, each maid he wooed at last cooperated.
But when the heat of passion turned inevitably cold,
and he wiped the slate clean, though he never kissed and told,
he’d move on to another challenge of the heart,
forget his last night’s ardor and make a brand new start.
Prompts for the day are clean slate, answer, thrust, pivotal and cooperate.
Be Careful What You Wish For
The sky was dark and oorie the day of the premiere,
and approaching the red carpet, the star expressed a fear
her gown hem would be sullied as she passed through the morass
and the tabloids would just note the stains instead of her fine ass.
“Please tell them not to mention my less-than-perfect garb,
she spat out at her agent in her customary barb.
And her look was sullen as she left her limousine,
less glamorous than that depicted on the movie screen.
And as she slogged her way through puddles to the gala scene,
through photographers and writers from every magazine,
of course they all reported on that look of arch disdain
instead of any mention of her garment’s spreading stain.
Prompt words are oorie, premiere, disdain, morass and arch. Image by Raychan on Unsplash.
Working Out in My Seventies
I badly need a product that will make me indefatigable.
I have not the energy to blow, and less to bat a bubble.
It is just unfathomable that I ever walked
twelve miles through the jungle and barely even balked!
At the high point of my youth, adventures were my thing,
but lately I feel much deprived of energy and zing.
Swinging in my hammock is now enough for me.
It seems to mark the zenith of my energy!!!
Prompt words today are zenith, unfathomable, indefatigable and product.
It Can’t Go On Without Us!!!!
Moss will not grow on a stone if someone’s there to spin it.
The genipapo needs a hand to squeeze the ink within it.
No finish line is ever crossed in one proverbial minute
without those legs that join the race and set a goal to win it.
No job has ever botched itself unless a human blows it.
Knowledge is not knowledge until somebody knows it.
A car without a human foot can’t pick up any speed.
What good are pears or apples without a mouth to feed?
No tail’s pinned on a donkey without a hand to pin it.
What transgression could exist without a man to sin it?
Even guilt would not exist without human compunction.
In short, the Earth’s in need of us to fulfill every function.
The Gods must be mistaken when they censure us and cuss us.
In truth, we make the world go ’round. Where would it be without us?
Prompts today are moss, minute, genipapo, botch and speed.
Poem inspired by the film “Don’t Look Up.” Too, too close in its depiction of our present day world.
New Year Ritual
After you toast the new year with confetti, wine and shout,
assemble broom and sponge and mop to wash the old year out.
Let it know it’s finished. Make it abrogate that power
officially surrendered when clocks struck the midnight hour.
The most practical among you might find this act absurd,
but please suspend your disbelief and take me at my word.
What’s acted out in metaphor declares a second time
what was announced at midnight by the bell tower’s final chime.
Prompt words today are broom, sponge, absurd, abrogate and finish.
Protest or Assent?
The ratio between dissent and absolute compliance–
the odds that we’ll react with order or with strong defiance—
depends on several factors, but the stats insinuate
a majority of people will just equivocate.
If they feel one or the other will work out in their favor,
they’ll take the medicine dished out, no matter what the flavor.
Or if there is a bargain to be gained by compromising,
or a sure advantage that’s outlined by advertising,
they will sublimate their feelings and just go with the flow.
If to do so bends their ethics, well, who will ever know?
Thus, our ethical behavior may change from day to day
depending on temptations that fate may send our way.
Prompt words today are insinuate, medicine, bargain, dissent and ratio.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 