Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Journey Within for dVerse Poets

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A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. ~George Moore

This quote says succinctly what I have been saying to friends lately.  I no longer feel the push to travel but would rather stay home and think and write.  At first this made me feel old and then I started to realize that it is in the natural order of things to seek and then reflect.  It is not just a question of energy, but more a matter of the direction of one’s curiosity.  The more I traveled, the more I found that things do not vary that much.  Everywhere I’ve gone, the same personalities are sprinkled over the landscape.  Only the landscape and the percentages change.  Once you’ve found a place where there are the greatest number of people who appreciate you for who you really are, you have found home.  Then the task is to go inwards. That is where the real journey exists.

The longest journey
that I have ever gone on
is within myself.

For Haibun Monday the prompt is “Journeying.”

Dia de Muertos in Mexico for Lens Artists Challenge

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No celebration in Mexico is bigger than Dia de Muertos. Shrines, parades, painted faces, decorated graves, special art.

For Patti Moed’s Lens Artists Challenge Celebrations Around the World prompt.

“I (Don’t) Pardon Your French” for Word of the Day

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I (Don’t) Pardon Your French

I’m a hayseed sort of girl. I don’t believe in fancy.
To me, anything foreign is likely to be chancy.
I don’t eat things like escargot. I shudder at foie gras.
I buy my shoes in canvas, but never peau de soie.
When folks speak French to order food, I find it most pretentious,
and when they draw me into it, I’ll likely grow contentious.
I don’t like words that prettify. I view them angrily.
Like au courant, je ne sais quoi, pardon or vis-á -vis.
Why don’t folks just eat and say what comes naturally?
I think it’s done to irritate simple gals like me!

The Word of the Day is Pardon. Illustration created making use of AI.

Necromancer’s Oversight for “Can You Write a Story in 51 Words?”

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Necromancer’s Oversight

A type of evil second-chancer,
he became a necromancer,
nibbling cookies with a yawn
as he resurrected the devil’s spawn,
never considering whether
it was fine or stormy weather.
So, yesterday Beelzebub 
showed up dripping at the pub,
for his usual vacation,
minus his evil elation,
fire put out by precipitation.

 

For her prompt for “Can You Tell A Story In. . . .” this week, Esther wants us to write a story in 51 words including these words: YAWN, WEATHER, TOOT, COOKIES, NECROMANCER. (In case you have forgotten,  as I did, a necromancer is a person who practices magic to communicate with the dead, raise corpses, or use black magic.)

Illustration created making use of AI.

 

Summer Daze for Lens Artists Challenge #406

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Probably my alltime favorite, captured on a soda straw at my favorite beach resturant in La Manzanilla
I was just sitting there minding my own business when suddenly. . . .
Screenshot
Because it conjured up a wonderful afternoon in the San Miguel Botanical Desert Gardens with my dear departed friend Joe and my long-unseen friend Dale.

 

For Lens Artist Challenge #406, the prompt is “Summer Daze.”

“Dappled” for dVerse Poets

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Henri Rousseau, La Promenade dans la Foret (The Walk in the Forest) (c. 1886), oil on canvas

Dappled

Shadows of leaves stipple the ground
in swirling patterns, all around,
like footsteps left by tiny feet
dancing to the wind’s wild beat.
They lessen as the sun goes down
and the forest floor turns brown.

The sunlight that all day has made
each leaf stand out as dappled shade
sinks into some other sky,
but soon enough, the moon comes by
with shadows of its own to cast.
With wind died down, their patterns last,
sure and steady, through the night,
each ringed by the moon’s soft light.

Staunch resident of the heavens, the moon—
your constancy our guide and boon—
the pathway that your light lays down
brings my lover from the town
to stand beneath my bedroom pane,
handsome, gentle and urbane,
to nightly plead my hand and troth.
Soft call of bird and wing of moth
likewise beat against the glass,
supporting what will come to pass.

Our passion, soon to come to light,
was birthed in shadows of the night
whereas the light that without fail
will fall upon my wedding veil
will be the dappled light of sun,
revealing what the moon has won.

For dVerse Poets

 

 

Pairs of Colors for CFFC

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Loved this little toad on my wall..or is it a frog? It has warts so toad won out.
Cocoon attached to pot.

For the Pairs of Colors CFFC prompt, we were asked to post photos that combined two of the following colors: red, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, orange and purple. Here are mine. Click on photos to enlarge.

 

 

“Stirring the Pot” for FOWC

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Stirring the Pot

Chunks and grains swirl round and round. They form a muddy mass.
I keep my paddle churning them as I turn on the gas.
As all the chunks and  bits melt down, the volume now decreases.
I watch the whole mess carefully. My vigilance increases.
I see it all congealing—an oily inky sludge
that after lengthy stirring finally turns to fudge!
This horrid, bubbling, lumpy goo that appeared so pernicious,
in the end turns into something creamy, rich, delicious.

For FOWC the prompt is “Decrease.”

Care-less for dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge

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Care-less

Lately I don’t give a thought to what I’m going to wear,
and I’ve let my hair grow down to my derriere.
No longer do the men I meet ever stop to stare,
but it doesn’t bother me. I simply do not care.


The dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt today is “Care.” To see other responses to the prompt, go HERE. Image created with AI.

“Successful Crossing” For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767

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Successful Crossing

I crossed the wilds, my staff in hand,
the first to conquerl this wild land.
My hood in place to combat the sun,
I would not stop until I’d done
the task I’d set to cross this space
that had been the burial place
of so many, from first to last,
who had found their lot was cast
as they had tried, only to find
the task to be a hopeless grind:
trails split by crevasses deep and wide,
cliff ledges with no room to slide
back to cliff, from right to left
across the mountain’s mighty cleft.
As said before, so many failed––
died in the act, or merely bailed.
Only I succeeded, by machination
to cross in my imagination.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767 the prompt words are: wild cross left staff last split burial grind space land room hood