Category Archives: Uncategorized

Checklist

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I very rarely reblog a post, but I love this Checklist by Xan. It’s very short so unfortunately it is all viewable here. Please go to Xan’s post to make comments as well as here so the author knows you appreciated it, too.

Xan's avatarXanku

Pet the cat
Feel the sunshine on your face
Stop and smell the flowers
But move with your brothers and sisters
Toward justice
Welcome new souls
And celebrate lost ones
Be troubled when you’re young
and troublesome in your age
and make good trouble all your life
Fill up your hungry belly
And someone else’s too
Love your neighbor as yourself
Honor your gods
However you see them
Raise your children
To love life
And mourn death
And make good trouble
In a new day

NaPoWriMo Day 7, prompt: a list

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Yum! for CMMC, Apr 5, 2023

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My friend Brad took us to Teocintle Restaurante for dinner earlier this week and my dish was almost too pretty to eat, as were all the others. Is this close enough, Cee?

 

For the CMMC Challenge: Macro or closeup

A Valediction Forbidding Morning

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Disclaimer: John Donne wrote “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.”  This is not that poem!!!

A Valediction Forbidding Morning

When the moon is at its peak
It is the nighttime’s time to speak
words worthy of our full attention
yet this is a mere audition.
Another speaker’s  coming soon
who has hopes to debate the moon.

The sun will soon commence to snivel
that moon’s sentiments are drivel.
Thus day and night both ebb and flow
informing us by what they show
of light and dark and sun and moon,
all of their phases gone too soon.

Each noonday sun flashing its warning,
every moon forbidding morning
while warning the ladybug
to check her babies are all snug,
for as the sun climbs ever higher,
it might set her house on fire.

 

Prompts for the day are valediction, drivel, audition, worthy, peak and ladybug.

Burning Books: For What Do You See #180

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Burning Books

Harry Potter tied to the stake,
the “Holier than Thou” ones light the pyre, stringing marshmallows
on limbs snapped from the burning bush
shortly before its point of ignition.

They toss The Handmaid onto the pile
and the flames lick up high enough
To Kill a Mockingbird on an overhanging limb.

Hidden deep in the woods,
in the shadows Where the Wild Things Are,
 The ghost of Ray Bradbury views the flames,
guesses their temperature at Fahrenheit 451.

The Holy Ones brave The Power and the Glory of the flames
to squeeze the molten marshmallows
from their sticks onto Hershey-Bar layered
(ironically named) Graham crackers.

They swat at The Lord of the Flies
risen from the flames
to rest upon each gooey mess
created by the heat from all the ignited words.

Long after 1984,
still ignorant of its warnings,
they lift their arms heavenward
in thanks for the holy communion
they are about to partake in.

And thus,
Their Eyes Were Watching God
even as they  overlooked
the coincidence of its immolation.

 

For Sadje’s What Do You See prompt.

 

Time Temporal, for NaPoWriMo Day 3, 2023

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Time Temporal

                  by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Shall I contrast thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art less lovely and more tempestuous.
The lack of wind doth still November’s empty stalks,
Oe’r which the winter hath too long a power.
Sometimes the too-cold moon hides ‘neath the clouds.
Then rarely doth it’s pitted face shine forth;
And dark from dark can sometimes rise,
Spurred on by fate or providence’s static plan.
But thy short winter shall soon pass away,
Restore to thee the homeliness of death.
Nor shall that birth that brought you forth to light
Still claim thee when temporal time shall stop thy growth.
As men lose breath and eyes lose sight,
So dies this poem, and draws thee with it to thy grave.

Sonnet 18

            by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

For NaPoWriMo  Day 3, they wanted us to write an “Opposite Poem” based on a famous poem. Mine is above.

The Professor Joins E Harmony

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The Professor Joins E Harmony

On his first round of internet daming,
sure he was intent on shaming,

his blind date stirred up such a fuss
when he called her pulchritudinous,

that it proved a barrier to fun
as she announced their date was done!

His mistake was simply ’cause he
didn’t know her brain was fuzzy

and unaccustomed to such words
that more literary birds

might realize were a compliment
in fact, a word meant to augment

the chance that he might marry her
instead became a barrier

of misunderstanding that
made her think he’d called her fat!!!!

The lesson learned from this brief story
is that blind dating can be gory.

What a guy has got to do
before he makes a swipe anew

is to ascertain his date’s I.Q.
before he chooses words to woo!

Prompt words for today are rambunctious, augment, fuzzy, pulchritudinous, shaming and barrier. Illusration from the Nutty Professor Site. No attribution.

Influencer

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Influencer

By what are you influenced? What triggers you?
Do you stand at attention for the red, white and blue?
Are you of the first nation or Apache or Sioux?

Do you bask in the limelight, awash in your fame.
Hoping that everyone’s seeing your name?,
aware of the problems, but you’re not to blame!

Or are you sedulous, loving and caring,
more concerned with your heart than what you are wearing?
Wanting justice for all, intent on the sharing 

of all the riches of the land of your birth,
looking for solutions for the ills of the Earth,
considering everyone of equal worth?

 

Prompt words for the day are influencer, bask, first nation, sedulous, wash and triggers. Image by Laura Chouette.

 

NaPoWriMo Day 2, 2023. After and Before

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 After and Before

Rush hour traffic for raindrops.
The universe’s roar of disapproval.
That last guest left at a party who doesn’t realize the party is over.
Words that called out for company.
A bird searching for an answer.
A small pond that has died and gone to heaven
A single kernel.  
A small scuffle.
A man with limited vision.
 A relationship that barely passes for love.
Fate coinciding with a wish.
A storeroom for rain.

 

For NaPoWriMo 2023 Today’s prompt asks you to:

*pick 5-10 words from the following list :
owl generator fog river clove miracle cyclops oyster mercurial seaweed gutter artillery salt elusive thunder ghost acorn cheese longing cowbird truffle quahog song

*then to write out a question for each word selected and for each question, to write a one-line answer.

What is a river? Rush hour traffic for raindrops.
What is thunder?  The universe’s roar of disapproval.
What is a ghost? That last guest left at a party who doesn’t realize the party is over.
What is a song? Words that called out for company.
What is an owl?  A bird searching for an answer.
What is fog? A small pond that has died and gone to heaven.
What is a cyclops? A man with limited vision.
What is a miracle? Fate coinciding with a wish.
What is a gutter?  A storeroom for rain.
What is a truffle?  A small scuffle.
What is  acorn? A single kernel.  (A group of corns is called an ear.)
What is longing? Precognitive achievement.
What is artillery? Digging in an attempt to find buried Pre-Columbian statues.
What is a quahog? A new breed of hybrid animal half duck and half pig.
What is an oyster? A Jewish Grandpa.
What is clove? A relationship that barely passes for love.
What is mercurial? A doctor who specializes in treating the maladies of mythological sea beings.

*After you’ve written out your series of questions and answers, place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page. See if you can make a poem of just the answers. You may find that what you have is very beautifully mysterious, and somehow has its own logic.

Chipping Away: Last on the Card for March, 2023

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I had to have the flowering/fruiting bundles cut out of my tall palms and while they were there, decided it was time to chop the who cutoff tree trunks out of my sidewalk. This guy made fast work of it. Now, what to plant there? Formerly, I had flowerpots sitting on the stumps filled with flowers, but they were both stolen, even after I glued one down, so this time I guess they need to go into the ground.

 

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card prompt.

Foggybaby Dreams

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Foggybaby Dreams Clarified
(For My Nephews––now Six Feet Tall.)

You flinched from my touch,
hated the red cowboy hats
I bought for you,
preferred the hundred
tiny grass frogs
to the cows we tried
to introduce
into your city lives,
had eyes only for the trucks
carrying salt for the cows
to gather after.

Early mornings,
you leaned against
my sleep.
And oh,
your sleep-wicked
hair
and your
sweet sour milkbreath
and the
slight fart smell
of your warm bunny p.j.’s,
your impeccable smiles.
Daylight
had barely
bedeviled
you yet.

Five minutes until
you melted
back into your
foggy baby dreams,
and I became
your
nostalgia.

For NaPoWriMo 2023, the first prompt is to write a poem inspired by a book cover.
Below is information for the book cover that seemed to best illustrate this poem:

And also for dVerse Poets Open Link Night.