Individuality
What you want for me to be
subtracts from “I’ to add to “we,”
and yet it does not set me free,
but traps me in normality.
You will not hear me make a plea
for rules of set society.
I simply choose to take the knee
and insist on being me.
For dVerse Poets: Peer Pressure. Image by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash
The Waystation
Prompt words today are half light, eschew, stomach and investigation.
Familial Disapproval
When he swears when the champagne cork hits him in the eye,
my brother’s new fiancee utters a “My, my!”
then swipes the bubbles from her upper lip with polite tongue.
(She’s squeamish about swear words and she calls the cork a “bung.”)
Her brow furls with referrals to anything unsavory.
(She prefers her history minus genocide or slavery.)
“If you can’t say something good, then don’t say anything at all.”
she says, and then says little but “Oh, really?” and “Y’all!!!”
She’s a proper southern girl with mild disposition.
She would not think to put you out or cause an imposition,
yet when I ask if she is hungry, she admits, “Yes, just a bit,”
and when I put the tea cake out, she eats three-fourths of it!
She never wastes her precious time when visiting by sitting
and conversing with the family. Instead, she brings her knitting,
and bottom lip between her teeth, she counts her knit and pearling.
concentrating on her knitting needles’ rhythmic twirling.
You might surmise she’s not my favorite, or second, third or fourth
girlfriend he has brought home from East and West and North.
This Southern girl sticks in my craw, I just cannot get used to her.
And you can bet I’m dreading the day my bro’ gets fused to her.
Prompt words on this Solstice morning are: hunger, disposition, squeamish, bung, referral and knitting.
Excessive Angst
He suffers not from nuance. His moods are all too blatant.
He bares his anger to display a violence once latent.
His colossal fits of rage reveal that he abhors me.
His reputation slips a notch, and in the end, he bores me.
Prompts today are colossal, display, reputation, bare and nuances.Image by Alessandro Bellone on Unsplash
When last we saw Zoe, she was in a. funny little outfit designed by her mother to keep her from continuing to pull out the stitches from her spaying. What a dilemma. Vet office closed, computer tech on the way, what was a mom to do? I called Zoe’s groomer who had to pass my house anyway on his daily drive back from his business in Ajijic to Guadalajara, where he lives, so I asked him to bring a cone, hoping it would keep her from totally disemboweling herself. You saw the result which I will duplicate at the end of this blog, but yesterday I took Zoe to the vet to have her check her out and she had a better solution to the problem. Here is thoroughly modern Zoe, transformed from sunbonnet girl to a stylish gym suit model. She’s soooo cute and no more nibbling at her stitches. Here is Zoe now: 
She has no objection to her new attire. Not so with Mom’s former solution to the problem:
Which look do you prefer? Luis, the computer tech guy who was one of three of us needed to pin her down to clothe her in her former protective attire said she looked like something from “Little House on the Prairie.”
If you want to read more about her funny little outfit above and how it came to be, go HERE.
Miss Cleanjeans
I love I love I love I love my boyfriend’s laundromat.
My clothes go in so dirty and come out looking pat.
You might find it lamentable that I do not pay.
I promise that I’ve tried to, but he says “No way!”
I’m timid as a lemur, so I do not protest.
In all of these matters, I know that he knows best.
Part of my lovey-doveyness is that I must concur
with everything he says or does, for I am so demure
that I can’t launch objections to anything he does.
My very simple reason? I can’t do it “because.”
For this week’s prompt, the letter is “L.”
Place – laundromat
Emotion – lovey-doveyness
Adjective – lamentable
Verb – launch
Animal – lemur
I came across this post from seven years ago as I was looking for poems for a new book. Thought I’d repost it.
The Old Ones Deign to Tweet
(With Character Counts)
Immanuel Kant
on the subject of building “platforms” for
blogs, websites, Twitter accounts or Facebook:
. . . the favor of the multitude is seldom got by honest and lawful means.
Seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. (140)
*
Charles Dickens
on the subject of tweeting, texting , e-mailing, or other social media:
Electric communication will never be a substitute
for the face of someone who with their soul
encourages another person to be brave and true. (140)
*
Mark Twain:
On the subject of those (like me) who resist
tweets, texts and ubiquitous handheld devices:
One who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80.
One who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young. (140)
*
Me:
And, a further comment about those tweets:
Mind without…
View original post 36 more words
Oh man. I had the tree guys come at 10 who informed me I have to cut down my two largest trees, trim another and relocate a fourth. Then Pepe my massage guy was here from 1 to 2:30; then Luis the guy who came to help me in a battle with Amazon to try to get my book rights back and to finish the cover for my book that Sharon and I have been working on all week was due to arrive at 4, but at 3:30 I realized Zoe had chewed all her stitches out and was gaping open!!! So I called the vet but they were closing and said to bring her in at 9 tomorrow so I called my dog groomer and asked if he had a collar to keep her from chewing at herself. He arrived at same time as Luis and I sprayed antiseptic on her wound , we jerrybuilt a collar and I used a face mask, an ace bandage and duct tape to make a girdle for her to protect her wound. Luis said the poor little thing looked like someone from Little House on the Prairie. Then we worked until 9:30 on the book cover and trying to figure out how to get my book off Amazon which seems impossible. All in all I’m exhausted. Tomorrow I need to get Zoe to the vet by 9. I’m scheduled to read at the writer’s group at 11 and have an appointment to get my taxation number at 4, a complicated process the government here sprung on us, giving every expat in Mexico a month to complete the process. When it rains it pours. That said, Zoe is being a very good girl but wants to be held a lot. Even Luis, my tech guy, held her for an hour while executing very tricky maneuvers on the computer. If you laugh in spite of your sympathy for sweet Zoe, don’t feel guilty. We were guilty of quite a few guffaws whenever we caught sight of what my mother would call “that funny little outfit” that it took all three of us to assemble and install. And that, folks, is the current state of Zoe, who is now sound asleep at my side.
For an update on Zoe’s current health and wardrobe, go HERE.
Headline News
I think for a week or two that I will remain
tucked away within the walls of my own domain.
That I made the headlines was flattering, more or less,
but the fact that I’ve turned sexy was a misprint, you might guess.
Still, so many have indulged their need for jokes at my expense
that I have had to seize this means to come to my defense.
Though my physical condition is healthy, fit and agile,
I find my sense of humor is becoming rather fragile.
It is “sixty” I turned yesterday, not “sexy” as reported.
Years have passed since I was so venereally comported.
My past generosity in spreading love around
I left back in the sixties and since then I have found
that piety becomes me, so I’ve trod another path,
thus, you’ll understand my embarrassment and wrath
at what some find as funny and so I took the action
of insisting that the paper issue a retraction.
But the form of their retraction, I must say, I found unkind.
The headline I’m not sexy was not what I had in mind.
Prompts today are.: domain, indulge, agile, misprint and generous, Image by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash.
