Category Archives: Uncategorized

Worst Nightmare

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Worst Nightmare

I stood without a podium,
alone there in the odeum.
The lantern light was odious,
the theater commodious.
My stomach tied up in a knot,
I realized that I had not
even seen a single script
and therefore I was ill-equipped
no matter how hard I was driven,
to say the words that I’d been given.

And furthermore, how crass and rude
that I was standing in the nude,
center stage, in full display,
without a clue of what to say,
before an audience, all staring
at the body I was baring!
And here I brought the curtain down
and awoke to find a dressing gown
draped around me in a heap,
relieved to find I’d been asleep!!!

 

For those of you who will ask, this is not fiction. This is a dream I’ve dreamed a number of times during my life.  Prompt words for today are lantern, knot, Odeum and without. Image by Velizar-Ivanov on Unsplash.

Done Fishing

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Done Fishing

If they had a wishbone, perhaps I’d eat fish,
first stripping the flesh and then making a wish.
Of course I’m no specialist in the deboning.
This is a talent I haven’t been honing.

For I must say fish are a complete enigma,
since I have acquired a congenital stigma.
My mom never broiled them or poached them or fried them
and so in fact I’ve never ordered or tried them,

and every proposal to taste them I’ve scorned,
for I don’t appreciate how they’re adorned
with alert eyeballs and scales on their skin.
I simply don’t find the shape that they’re in

especially appetizing, so the stigma
I’ve attached to them should be no enigma.
If it resides in lake, ocean or sea,
you will not find it residing in me!

Prompt words are stigma, specialist, alert, proposal and wishbone.

Nov. 2: National Deviled Egg Day

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Nov. 2: In Honor of National Deviled Egg Day (Really)

Day of the Dead Buffet

Revitalized demons are deviling our eggs,
scrambling the yolks and mixing their dregs
with pickles and mayo and onions and mustard,
to the consistency of clotted custard,
filling their shells up and eating them whole
without the help of a plate or a bowl.

If you are tempted, don’t sample their yolk.
Don’t stick out your fingers to give them a poke,
then lick the residue off of your finger.
The power of finger food’s likely to linger.
Devilish spirits inhabit the food
of this entire unholy brood.

So if you must party with this ghoulish bunch,
Don’t sample the buffet. Just bring your own lunch.

 

When I asked Dan and Rhonda to make me some deviled eggs, they took a different slant on the request. Note the avocado horns!!!

 

First photo by Tahira Walker on Unsplash. Second photo by me. Thanks, Dan and Rhonda, for furnishing the subject!

True Confessions: Share Your World, Nov. 1, 2021

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  1. What was the very first popular song you ever remember taking a liking to?  I’m not talking about children’s songs or old traditional songs… but the kind of songs you’d hear on the radio. It was 1951 and I was 4 years old. “If You Turn Me Down-de-own-down-down” was the first song I can remember. I loved it and know all the words to this day, “If you turn me down de own down down, I’ll go off to Missouri, and I’l l buy me a mule, a mule with great big ears to tell my troubles to…..” Peggy Lee sang it and later, Dinah Shore did, too.
  2. Are you one of those people who get queasy at sight of blood, or could you watch an open heart surgery? I can’t even watch medical shows. I get dizzy at the sight of blood and to watch an operation? Impossible. I can’t watch fight scenes or anything that involves violence on TV or in the movies, let alone in person. I was invited to sit in the VIP box of a Sonny Liston fight once in Vegas because I’d made his promoter’s wife a pair of earrings and I had to sit with my eyes closed. Luckily, it was a knockout in the first round. Well, not lucky for his opponent.
  3. Who or what do you feel is lurking right behind you, just waiting to ambush you and make your life a living hell (or “heck” for those with delicate sensibilities)? I always felt like Ted Bundy or some other serial killer was going to get me. Actually, one did and I escaped and have never had that fear again.
  4. What is the gaudiest thing you have ever worn? My wedding dress. No lie. It was an off-the-shoulder turquoise peasant blouse with a many-banded full gypsy skirt by Anna Konya. And pink suede cowboy boots.  I still have it.
    5.Fess up!  What was something you did as a child that got you into BIG trouble? I took a Tootsie Roll Pop from a glass dish in our neighbor’s basement, where I was playing while my mom talked to the lady who lived there. My mom saw me with it after I got home and made me take it back and confess that I’d taken it. The lady said that was all right, that that was what they had put them in the dish for–for people to help themselves.
  5. (Gratitude Question – Always Optional):  What are you looking forward to as the festive season approaches?  My cousin Kirk is coming to visit me. I haven’t seen him for 10 or more years. He’s staying  for two weeks. Then I’m thinking of going to Phoenix to visit my sister Patti and her husband Jim  for Xmas. We shall see.

These questions were answered for the prompt: Squirrely Share Your World, Nov 1, 2021

Seated Guests: Oct. Last on The Card

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Ollie at the head of the table. Kukla, an honored guest.

 

For Brian’s challenge, we are asked to publish the last photo we took each month. I always forget to take a special shot, so it really is pot luck for me.

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card Challenge.

R.I.P.

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We came early, on October 31, to avoid the crowds of Nov. 1 and 2. Friends came to help me decorate the graves. Beer, water, dead bread, chocolate and marigolds completed the decor and la offrendas. Then we used our extra marigold petals to decorate several other graves that seemed as though no one was going to remember them. Today there were a few dozen families decorating the graves of loved ones. Tomorrow it will be busy and on Nov. 2 even busier.

Web

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Web

Please do not procrastinate when walking ‘neath these wires,
for one who does so may not get that for which he aspires.
Trick or Treat acquires more meaning . Must I even mention
that straying too close to this web may bring unsought detention?
Heed well my warning for tonight what seems to be is not.
As you look for treats you seek tonight, you also may be sought. 
This spooky spider is not fake, in fact it is too real.
It will abet your progress and make of you a meal.

 

This spider, viewed in my friends Beck and Lach’s yard, was HUGE. It’s body alone was three inches long. Just in time for Halloween. No need for other decorations.

Prompt words today are procrastinate, trick, spooky, abet and detention.

The Haunting: Wordle 525. Happy Halloween

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The Haunting

When bells toll at midnight, the chiming of each bell
signals that the scarlet one has begun the knell
to release the ghoulish souls and all the bats of Hell!

They seep up through our floorboards and wait for light of day,
twist themselves into our minds as we helpless lay,
toying with our dreaming as they pause along the way.

They seek out the damp corners everywhere they go,
trying to relieve the parch of the fires below,
cooling off scorched spirits in the river’s flow.

As a sort of trial, they may choose a wild horse,
winding bony fingers through its mane, they guide its course,
streaming through the heather and leaping over gorse.

But when dusk comes to dim the sun and tuck away the light,
it is the time for spirits to begin their fearsome flight
and the frightening of humans will become their main delight.

Then as children mime their horrors while going trick-or-treating,
when they see a darker shadow or hear a wild heart beating,
they may feel more evil presences in spirits they are meeting.

As they go door-to-door or wander a dark lane,
they may detect the real creatures that they seek to feign,
and feel a certain horror that they can’t explain.

So, children out on Halloween, heed each one that you meet.
Be sure the ghoulish one you pass really just wears a sheet,
and remember that a human ghost will be possessed of feet!

 

These are the prompt words for Wordle 525: ring, scarlet, light, damp, fright, trick, chime, bat, floor, ghoulish, trial.

Collective Dia de Muertos Show in Ajijic

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These are the pieces I’ll be showing at Jesus Lopez Vega’s “Dia de Muertos” Group Show at his studio gallery, Rio Zula #7 in Ajijic from 4-7 PM on November 2.  (Rio Zula is the street one block west of Yves Restaurant and the street Casa Linda is on.)

Davy Jones Locker: Davy Jones’ Locker is a metaphor for the bottom of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors and shipwrecks. It is used as a euphemism for drowning. Silver coins spilling from a pirate chest seem to be doing these victims of shipwreck at sea no good at all. I collected all of the shells and sand used in this piece from various beaches in Mexico.

 

Click on photos to enlarge size and read captions.

Since it looks like the captions are cut off in the enlarged versions of the photos, here is the complete description of the pieces:

Davey Jones’ Locker
Davy Jones’ Locker is a metaphor for the bottom
of the sea: the state of death among drowned sailors
and shipwrecks. It is used as a euphemism
for drowning. Silver coins spilling from a pirate chest
seem to be doing these victims of shipwreck
at sea no good at all. Media includes sand and shells
collected from various Mexican beaches by the artist.

Day of the Dead in Mexico
Offerings to the dearly departed include my
miniaturized version of a real book:
Noche de Muertos Muestrario Poetico en Michoacan,
 a volume of Day of the Dead poems.

 Waiting for the day of the Dead
Father and Child skeletons wait
patiently for Dia de Muertos and
their yearly portion of “dead bread.”

 Altar
This skeleton has already consumed
one loaf of dead bread and is
ready for his next one.

These are the artists in the show:

Poster art is by Antonio Lopez Vega.

Please join us there for art, music, refreshments and to meet the artists!

The More the Scarier

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The More the Scarier

When a single apparition tried to haunt the candy store,
they just admired his costume and gave him one treat more
than all the trick or treaters who’d appeared before his visit.
I wonder if his timing isn’t very good or is it?

When he planned his visit, he was counting on horrific,
but when the owner simply said his costume was terrific,
his esteem somehow defrayed his disappointment that
the only creature that he seemed to scare was just the cat.

He returned to the graveyard and stirred his sleeping mate,
insisting on their return—this time as double date.
And their double-haunting in fact turned out so well,
 next year they’re showing up with all the denizens of hell!!!!

Prompt words today are apparition, costume, horrific, esteem and mate. Image by Kevin Escate on Unsplash.