Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Last

 

The Last

Old people mumble and snicker and stare
at the last of my lineage ‘s bright lilac hair.

If I’m the most banal of all of my kin,
at ingenuity, she’s bound to win.

I’m reluctant to ask why her clothes are so worn:
so faded and rumpled and tattered and torn.

I immure my comments between lips of stone,
for she’s flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,

with a mind of her own and unique from the start,
the last of my grandkids has most of my heart.

 

Prompt words are reluctant, lilac, banal, start, immure and lineage. Images by Jessie
Dee Dabrowski and Quinton Coetzee on Unsplash.

Show-offs, FOTD May 30, 2022

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Water Denizen Trios: Which Do You Prefer?

Please click on photos to enlarge.

Which do you prefer? Three different shots of the same scene. I couldn’t decide. Night Herons at rest.

Here is another. Egrets walking.

 

And finally: Three more choices of water creatures of another sort. Closeup or far view? Which do you prefer?

For Lens Artist Challenge: Three of a Kind

 

 

Bougainvillea: FOTD May 29, 2022

For Cee’s FOTD 

Final Expectations

Final Expectations

When I’ve drawn my final breath
and fall into the arms of death,
I’ll tell my life I’m through with it.
I do not give a single whit
for what becomes of all those things:
poems and paintings, bracelets, rings.
I mop my soul of all such whims
to rise free of my earthly limbs
on wings of whatever is left
to give my being lift and heft.
What if those things I’ve striven for
have merely been a bottom drawer?

What if it opens to set free
whatever there is left of me
and there is nothing else inside?
What if the whole of me has died?
What part of me is made to last?
Have I an essence that’s more vast
than accomplishments, adventures, things?
Some remainder that will give me wings?
Is there woven within me
something  that will be a key
that will unlock the galaxy
that’s sleeping in the heart of me?

 

 

Prompt words today are mop,
death, whim, whit and bottom.

Traviesa


She looks so innocent, there in her little bed that she still prefers to the new bigger one I bought for her, her toys around her. Dreaming, no doubt, about her next naughty exploit or perhaps just remembering her last one.

Traviesa means “naughty” in Spanish, and it is Zoe’s middle name. Often her first one, because even after three months, “Zoe” never comes automatically to my mind, but “Traviesa” all too frequently does.

Tonight I looked down to see a much-chewed clutter of paper on the rug in my bedroom, along with Zoe’s favorite little ball that has lights inside that change colors when it is chewed or dropped on the floor. She was nowhere in sight, but the evidence was clear as to who was responsible.

At first I couldn’t figure out what the torn up paper object was, but when I picked up the pieces and turned them over, I I realized. “Oh no!”

It was my favorite photo of Forgottenman! It must have fallen from the shelf where I have a little collection of his photos.
When I Skyped  him to share Zoe’s most recent mischief, he was trying to figure out if it was his graduation photo, so I pieced it together as best I could:


No, not his graduation photo with Beatles haircut, just a crew cut with a little lift in the front and a mischievous smile.  

She shifts in her sleep, giving little running movements, dreaming the dreams of an innocent, but Moms know the truth about their kids, and fortunately, love them to bits in spite of it.

Three of a Kind

 

For LAPC Three of a Kind

Dream Perch

Houndstooth Pillow

Dream Perch

When I can’t locate my pillow, my immediate reaction
is to galvanize my efforts in investigatory action.
I’m elated if I find it slipped behind my bed,
and I immediately restore it to its place beneath my head.

But if I cannot find it and do not have something better,
I have to improvise and use a wadded up old sweater!
When away from home, though, if I require a few
winks and have no sweater, any passing dog will do!

 

 

Prompt words today are pillow, locate, galvanising, elate and sweater.

Surrendering

Here’s to Fate!!!


Surrendering

The conferral of my future to the errant whims of fate
has cleansed my mind and eased negative feelings as of late.
My checkered past spread out with joy and pain  in rich array
as I lay me down no longer adds to my dismay.

What comes will come. The practicality of recognizing this
is, in short, what most contributes to my present bliss.

 

Prompt words for today are array, checkered, practicality, conferral and negative.

Scourge of the Universe

 

Scourge of the Universe

The blood of crushed magnolias stains the universe,
mankind ruining everything it chooses to traverse.
Leaving bloody footprints and the litter of our lives,
we exploit everything we see and kill all that survives.
Why can’t we learn to live in peace, preserving leafy bowers?
What single other species is as ornery as ours?

 

Prompts for the day are ornery, universe, magnolia, stain.