Category Archives: Uncategorized

When Right is Wrong

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When Right is Wrong 

You always were too holy for our motley crew.
No way could we ever be quite as straight as you.
We questionable artists and musicians and the ilk
could not approach your holiness absorbed with mother’s milk.

You postulate your future at heaven’s pearly gate,
while at the same time uncertain of our sinners’ fate.
Will we be subject to your God’s retaliatory rages,
or will he ask you to atone for locking kids in cages?

Prompts for today are motley, straight, postulate, questionable, artist and uncertain.

Neighborhood Security

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Neighborhood Security

The siblings from Hell bike over the hill,
ravage my apple tree and eat their fill.
Pernicious young visitors—prophets of doom,
they deadhead my flowers, purloin their perfume.

I postulate ways that I may be rid
of each malevolent disastrous kid,
but threats don’t deter them and their parents don’t care.
They’re just grateful these Hellions are out of their hair.

Should I kill them with kindness? Prepare them ice creams?
Bake them a pizza that’s the stuff of their dreams?
Buy them new toys or enfold them in arms
that have forgiven their previous harms?

Would this turn them loving and mindful and meek?
Will it work if I turn that proverbial cheek?
Or should I turn the dogs out to drive them away?
Lock all my doors and again hit the hay?

It’s six in the morning. I could use some more sleep.
They are such bratty kids. My resentment runs deep.
So I walk down the hall and open the gate,
release my Great Danes and thus seal their fate.

They’ll pursue them with vigor and though they might run,
they’ll soon overtake them and when they are done,
revise your opinion if you’ve judged me as cruel,
they’ll divert them with kisses and subdue them with drool.

Prompt words today are pernicious, perfume, postulate, questionable, bike and siblings. Image by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash.

Ornamental Kale: Feb 8, 2023

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For Cee’s FOTD

 

Caged Bird

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(Click on Photos to Englarge)

Caged Bird

My cage is comfortable, but
it is a homey sort of rut.
Is it not reasonable for
a bird to want a whole lot more?

Confined to this continual squeeze,
I yearn for freedom of the trees—
the air, the feel of wind on wings.
One should not confine wild things.

 

Prompts today are reasonable, homey, confine, trees.

Visiting Mom in Jail

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(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Coco has a new bad habit of reclining on the terrace table. As I was getting ready to do this prompt, I decided to try to incorporate her into the poem, using these photos as a further prompt.

Visiting Mom in Jail

If it were up to me, we’d both be off and hiking,
but as you can see, this is not to her liking.
You are instrumental for the reason she is balking,
for Instead of hiking, her fingers do the walking.

Clearly, I don’t fancy this. I see no plusses to it.
I denounce this action and I’ll tell you why I rue it.
My phrases you’ll find piquant . They’ll clearly break your heart.
But when they come to moving her, they will not make a start.

As you can see from shots above, they keep Mom behind bars
and only let her out at night to swim beneath the stars.
We feel so sorry for her that when she goes in to bed,
we all stream in behind her and cluster ’round her head.

We’re sure she craves as company the doggies she adores,
though she complains that Zoe farts and brother Morrie snores.
As for me, I lick her face and hands and arms and neck.
She says she does not like it, but I just think, “What the heck?”

As long as we are all on the same side of the bars,
we need to reassure her we consider her as ours.
Meanwhile, in the daytime when we clearly are not able,
I’ll stay as close as I can be by lying on the table!!!

Prompts today are denounce, fancy, plus, piquant, hike and instrumental.

Red

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Obviously, a good time was had by all. It started when I drove into San Juan Cosala to see the sunset but stopped to drop off some Old Dames books at Viva Mexico. Next thing I knew, I was sitting at the table with the musicians sipping a gin and tonic. Then, when they played a Mexican version of “I Did it My Way,” the lady in red had to come up and say it was originally a song written  and recorded to the tune of an old French song by Paul Anka, who was a Canadian. Of course I had to say Frank Sinatra recorded it. They begged to differ. The next thing I knew, we were all standing up singing our own version simultaneously, in English, French and Spanish.  It ended up with us all in tears, hugging each other and the two women saying it was the best time they’d ever had visiting Mexico.  And, by the way, I was right. Paul Anka refused to record the song, saying he’d written it for Frank. She was also right, however, because he did use the tune to an old French song but wrote different words to it in English. I also read that Frank Sinatra hated the song because he thought it was self-aggrandizing. 

Oh, by the way. I missed the sunset.

I’m not responsible for the additional red rings around the lights. I guess my camera just anticipated this prompt. 

For the Valentine Red Challenge.

Funny of the Day

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I couldn’t resist sharing this one.

New Stone Age

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New Stone Age

We construct a life, then fate takes it away,
constructing its own plan it changes day-to-day.
All that man constructs it conspires to pull down.
Everything will vanish—every roadway, every town.

Our most intricate circuits will be ripped to shreds—
our efforts all discounted for what comes in their stead.
It seems we’ve done our least to save the world we’ve hexed,
so nature gets to try again to see what it builds next!

Prompt words today are vanish, least, discount, circuit, construct and fate. Image by Pavel Nexnanov on Unsplash.

Almost Flowers, Feb 4, 2023

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For Cee’s FOTD

Gina and Judy Add Color to My Life–Even in Absentia!!!

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My pal Gina Cameron and I got together Lestats Hillcrest yesterday afternoon to catch up with each other’s stories and to color in our new coloring books “When Old Dames Get Together and Other Confessions of a Ripe Old Age,” with poems by Judy Dykstra-Brown and illustrations by Isidro Xilonzochitl. What a hoot! We had so much fun. Remember how calming coloring can be? You can do it too. Here’s info for Judy’s book: Amazon

Look for Judy Reeve’s new book coming out. I’ll give a link when it is available. She’s also conducting a writer’s workshop at the wonderful resort across the lake that I published photos of earlier—Quinta San Carlos. If anyone is interested in coming down to a beautiful part of Mexico and participating in her Wild Women Writing Workshop, I can furnish info on that, too. She’s conducted them for us for six years, I think, in La Manzanilla, on the beach near Colima, in Puerto Vallarta, Nueva Vallarta, Acapulco and at Quinta San Carlos. (If I left any out, please remind me.) This year we’ve convinced her she needs to do an additional one for others who want the experience. Let me know if you are interested and I’ll pass the info on to Judy.

Hi Gina!  Hope you are coming down again this year. You need to help us in our Wilding!!!!

Anyone else who has ordered the Old Dames book, please send me a shot of your response.