Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bar Stool Bozos and the Predictable Come-on Line

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Bar Stool Bozos and the Predictable Come-on Line

A new potential conquest is seen falling from her stool
in bodily protection from contact with this fool.
He’s a denizen of single bars, a problem to avoid,
for he’s sure to leave you listless, if not, in fact, annoyed.

How many boring platitudes can one bromide spout?
How may time-worn come-on lines are vying to get out
of lips that move unceasingly, spilling into the night
all the obvious clichés that he’s driven to cite?

Of all the gin joints in the world, why did he enter in
into the one where you came to have a quiet gin?
There should be a law passed that you get to vote on who
gets to wander into bars and saunter up to you.

They should have to pass an I.Q. test, then be sorted and tagged,
from “interesting” to “boring,” and the worst should then be gagged
with a small hole for a soda straw so they could go on drinking
without the ones around them having to know what they’re thinking.

 

Notable come-on lines that are grounds for gagging:

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?”
“We gotta get you outa that wet dress and into a dry martini.”

 

Prompt words today are bromide, falling, denizen and problem.

Note: Bromide in literary usage means a phrase, cliché, or platitude that is trite or unoriginal. It can be intended to soothe or placate; it can suggest insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker. Bromide can also mean a commonplace or tiresome person, a bore (a person who speaks in bromides).

Eulogy for Artichokes

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Eulogy for Artichokes

Behold the bristly artichokes scattered through the field—
delicious little thistles when boiled, buttered, peeled.
With our taste buds wakened and when they’re salted slightly,
it takes a bit of discipline to try to eat politely.

Leaf by leaf, we peel them bare, scraping off their meat.
We like them better with each tiny bit of them we eat.
Then scraping off the “chokey” part, we gobble down the heart.
They told us all along that this would be our favorite part.

Who knew these fat green pinecones would turn out to be so tasty?
Now we wish consumption of them hadn’t been so hasty.
And even after plates are bare and not a morsel lingers,
we’d like to slurp the butter up and lick it from our fingers.

 

Prompts for the day are scattered, field, discipline, bristly and wake. Image by Margaret Jaszowski on Unsplash.

Stages, FOTD Aug 28, 2021

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For Cee’s FOTD

Hibiscus, Aug 28, 2021

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This brand new hibiscus was at the height of its beauty today. It seems to float above the brick pathway of the garden.

 

For Cee’s FOTD

The Human Race

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The Human Race

Our world keeps tripping over its own tangled shoelaces,
one generation tying them up, the next heedlessly
rushing ahead in wondrous greed until it trips, falls,
and stops again to tighten its laces.

Today goes for the throat of yesterday,
bemoaning its tardiness
in choking off the past
while rushing ahead in a blind race.

In a constant state of pregnancy,
one generation gives birth to the next,
standing and tripping and falling in turn
like an automaton marching ahead to its own destruction.

Prompt words are throat, tangled shoelaces, wondrous, tardy and pregnancy.

CMMC: “M and M’s”

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I gave Mommy a little hug, hoping she’d get the hint,
Watched by the usual dummies
Jammies

Cee’s CMMC prompt demands photos of things that contain two M’s.

Not in the Cards (An Art Dealer’s Lament)

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Not in the Cards
(An Art Dealer’s Lament)

I hear your family reads tea leaves and
can tell the future from a hand.
And it’s been said that being mystic
tends to make one altruistic;
but insufficient evidence
exists in proof of this and hence,
moving forward, I must state
it is a truth I must debate.

Your sister’s painting of the farm
shows some skill, a certain charm,
with animals in states of grace
which normally is not the case.
Stallion, bantam rooster, steer
are not the best of friends, I fear.
And that pig you lately ate
likely knew its horrid fate.

I’ve no need to excoriate
your peaceful kingdom, but of late
realism is the trend
in the paintings that I vend.
It’s clear your sister did not foresee
what my response was going to be,
for her depictions of rural glee
are not the canvasses for me.

Prompt words today are altruistic, farm, canvas, forward, insufficient.

Puddle-Jumping in the Rain: Wordle 515, The Sunday Whirl Aug 22, 2021

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Puddle-Jumping in the Rain

A surge of wind predicts the storm,
blows in the clouds, dispels the warm.

One dry gust sends blinds to swinging
and in the eaves commences singing,

billows drapes, blows open doors,
spreads leaves on counters and on floors.

Soon the rain masks land and sky
as the whole world begins to cry,

fashioning a different role
for each ditch or deep pot hole.

Children scurry home from school
earlier than is the rule

to tug on boots over their feet
and splash through puddles in the street.

These stompings in the driving rain
earn their mothers’ deep disdain.

Mud caked on leggings, jeans and coats,
remnants of ramblings through moats,

oceans, rivers, seas and streams—
all the faux waterways it seems

kids are drawn to in a gale
and moms forbid to no avail.

 

Prompts for the Sunday Whirl Wordle Prompt are: role, surge, fashion, gust, dry, send, children, masks, storm, and counter

Mystery Plant: FOTD Aug 23, 2021

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I thought this was lobelia when I bought it, but when I returned home after a month and a half, it had grown so tall that it can’t be. Does anyone know what it is? 

For Cee’s FOTD

Walking on Flowers: For Flower of the Day, Aug 22, 2021

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I couldn’t resist sharing these favorite flowers for FOTD. My friend was aghast when I photographed this cinema carpet and stated that I’d gladly use it to carpet a room in my house if I had a different house and could decorate the room to go with it!  What do you think? 

For Cee’s FOTD