Category Archives: Uncategorized

Succulent Gestation for Cee’s FOTD

I love this tiny succulent plant being created from a single fallen leaf. Note roots that have already started to develop. During the rainy season, it doesn’t even require soil.

For Cee’s FOTD

Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

Eyeing my Neighbor’s Sandwich in the School Cafeteria

Since they garnisheed Dad’s wages, we’ve been bleary-eyed and passive.
The influence on our diet, in short, has been most massive.
Sister has a headache and mother’s getting thin.
My football playing brother has no energy to win.
His lack of skill’s been vindicated by the fact that he
was relegated to a diet riboflavin-free.
For since Dad has no wages, there’s no money to buy bread,
so dandelion greens are what we’re grazing on instead.
Since vitamin g is what we have been missing in our diet,
if you don’t like that sandwich, do you think that I could try it?

I know. A really bad poem, but hope I am “vindicated” when you view what the prompt words were: Prompt words for today were bleary, passive, win, vitamin g, vindicated and garnishment.Illustration thanks to Chic Young.

Note:

Vitamin G isn’t a term you’ll hear very much anymore. It’s actually an outdated name for riboflavin (also known as lactoflavin and vitamin B2), a micronutrient found in bread and pasta. Riboflavin is an easily absorbed micronutrient that plays a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is required for a wide variety of cellular processes and is very important in getting energy from the foods we eat. Studies have shown that riboflavin may play a role in the prevention and/or treatment of iron-deficiency anemia, carpal tunnel syndrome, cataracts, migraines and rosacea (a skin disease). And recent research has found that riboflavin is one of three vitamins involved in the regulation of circadian (daily) rhythms, because it helps to activate some light-sensitive cells in the retina of the eye and synchronize our daily biological rhythms with the light.

Texture for CBWC

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

For CBWC, Texture.

Wind

Wind

The breath of the world blows tendrils of hair,
turns windmills and dries white sheets upon a line.
It  twists into a tornado
and lifts a house off its foundations,
sets it down in a mountain meadow
where zephyrs stir the trees.

The breath of the world blows a bee from its branch,
inhales its pollen and puffs it into nostril hairs
that launch a hurricane of sneezes,
sending a whirlwind of powder
from a powdered sugar donut out the window
onto the shoulder of a passing immaculate black tuxedo.

The breath of the world launches sailboats,
   then sends them into safe harbors as it swells into a typhoon.
     As it exhales, it lifts kites high into the air
              and as it inhales, sends them plummeting to earth.
                   It fuels our lungs to blast a wind of words: expletives or adamant prayers,
                              anthems or a tyrant’s raves, benedictions or cheers for a favorite football team.

Windy cities draw their nicknames from the breath of the world.
Wind in the Willows names our books.
Woodwinds breathe out melodies
Wind gives a name to our direction as we struggle windward.
Hurricanes quench our thirst in airless bars.
Breezes give monikers to our dispositions.

Whirlwind, breeze, zephyr,
hurricane, gale, draft, blow,
tornado, crosswind, cyclone—
from gentle puff to wild tornado,
it is  the world’s breath 
that sets everything into motion.

 

 

For the Fake Flamingo September Poetry Challenge  hosted by Rebecca, which was to write a poem about the wind making use of anaphora (a repetition of lines.) Image of sheets in the wind by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash. All other images by me.

Forced Celebration

Forced Celebration

As they frogmarched their prisoner into the room,
uncountable candles dispelled the gloom.
A pervading odor of sugar and wax
was entrenched in the air around piles and stacks
of brightly wrapped boxes of variable sizes,
yet she was not swayed by potential surprises.
Soothing smiles of friends and the song they were singing
were tangential to thoughts that were wildly zinging
through her mind, for in short, she did not find it nifty
that this was the day that she would turn fifty!!!

Prompts today are frogmarch, variable, soothing, entrench, pervading, candle and tangential. Image by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash.

Nature, for CFFC

 

For CFFC: Nature

Yolanda for the dVerse Poet’s Pub

Click on photos to enlarge.

Yolanda

She plucks the dirty clothes
like field flowers from the basket,
her journey to the laundry
another joyful excursion 
from room to room in my house.
Did she enjoy her vacation? I ask.
She shakes her head no.
She’d rather be working,
she insists.

Every task,
fulfilled to perfection,
builds her pleasure in the day.
She dusts the picture frames,
folds the towels,
steals her dusting cloth back from the playful puppy,
then takes the dish sponge from my hand.
Let her, she says,
and you go write a poem!

Y, en espanol. Gracias, Lisa.  oxoxox

Yolanda

Ella arranca la ropa sucia
como flores de campo de la canasta,
su viaje a la lavandería
otra excursión
alegre de habitación en habitación en mi casa.
¿Disfrutó de sus vacaciones? Pregunto.
Ella sacude la cabeza no.
Ella preferiría estar trabajando,
ella insiste.

Cada tarea,
cumplido a la perfección,
construye su placer en el día.
Ella desempolva los marcos de los cuadros,
dobla las toallas,
roba su tela de polvo del cachorro juguetón,
 luego toma la esponja del plato de mi mano.
Déjala, dice,
 ¡y vas a escribir un poema!

A double quadrille for the dVerse Poets Pub, the task set by Lisa is to compose a quadrille on the topic of work. To see the prompt itself and the wonderful poems it quotes to name the task, go HERE. And to read poems that answer the prompt, go HERE.

Something Fishy


Something Fishy

Those who embrace fish cuisine need to heed my warning,
for even though a new catch comes in every single morning,
our local seafood retailer it’s rumored is a mobster
who concocts a fishy mishmash and pawns it off as lobster.
It’s mushier than lobster and they say a wee bit pallid,
so if you want the real deal, better stick with tuna salad.

Prompt words today are lobster, embrace, concoct, retailer, tuna salad.

Chasm

Chasm

I flounce, you plod. You reach the crest
while I have chosen to stop and rest.

From far below, I scan the skies.
dreaming, as you supervise.

You are inflexible and frigid,
I the opposite of rigid.

As I wander here and there,
you search for me and tear your hair.

What tantrums over my transgressions
must be prompted by my digressions.

Comparable to day and night,
you are the darkness to my light.

This, dear, is the dichotomy—
the chasm between you and me.

 

Prompts for today are flounce, crest, supervise, comparable, tantrum, inflexible and dichotomy. Image from Unsplash.

Well-Seated

These chairs that appear to be out of focus are actually just stacked!!!! A colorful display along the road yesterday, just in time for this prompt.

For the Pull Up A Seat Challenge.