Category Archives: Uncategorized

Feeding Frenzy

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Feeding Frenzy

When I hear footsteps on the roof I do not ever worry,
even though they’re rapid as though someone’s in a hurry,
there is no burglar kneeling there waiting to rob my vault.
If there are noises overhead, it is my kitty’s fault.

The loot she seeks is kibble. She cannot stand the fact
that I am so heedless and have so little tact
that I feed dogs before the cats, and yet she doesn’t dare
venture into the backyard, for canines quarter there.

 


The fact of my investment in the solid gate
that keeps dogs from the cats’ domain does not expiate
the sin that I have chosen to feed the doggies first.
Of all my pet decisions, she thinks this is the worst.

 


So from the rooftop far above where dog types cannot reach,
the girl cat feels the need to stand there daily to impeach
my decision, once again, and let me know her wishes
for soft cat food and dry cat food in their separate dishes.

And once the dogs are fed, we race—her up there, me below,
and however quickly I happen to go,
she always beats me in the race to get to the back door
where I rip one food pouch open and she meows for more.

 


While her brother digs into juicy tuna souffle,
grateful for just one dish of this easy prey,
she looks up accusingly from her feline crouch,
and now and then I heed her plea and yield the extra pouch.

 

 

 

Prompts today are on the roof, fault, loot, kneel and investment.

Today’s Hibiscus. FOTD June 17, 2021

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More where this came from.Twelve new buds on the  very tall sparse plant. A treasure or more a day.

For Cee’s FOTD

Tiny Tuesday #9

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Enjoyed this tiny concert so I’m sharing it.

K.F. Hartless's avatarSongshine Sounds

Graphic graphic for the "Tiny Tuesdays" post

If you’re anything like us, you’re missing your regular drip of live music to keep you going. Luckily, lots of mini-concerts are still happening online, and we can tune into to get an intimate musical fix.

In November of 2019, Jon Batiste performed his tiny desk concert for NPR with a special twist. Instead of his regular band, he performed this four song concert with all-female collaborators — Endea Owens on acoustic bass, Negah Santos on percussion, Sarah Thawer on drums, and Celisse Henderson on guitar and vocals — and the outcome was outstanding.


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Concrete Poem

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Photo by Glenn Buttkus


Concrete Poem
(Exposed Aggregate)

You cut a channel through my flat heart,
straight and sure, as though it had not already been set.
Miracle worker. Perfect craftsman,
sculpting the impossible medium.

 

 

For the dVerse Poets Pub prompt. Go HERE to see poems by other poets answering the prompt.

Peddler’s Daughter

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Peddler’s Daughter

My father was a spruiker. At the juncture of each road,
he pulled his wagon to the side and spilled out all his load.
His wagon, heavy-laden, contained such treasures that
he knew he would sell something. He had his spiel down flat.

He had an old pump organ whose callithumpian tunes
filled the air with music from the treetops to the dunes.
People came from miles away to see what caused the din,
then grouped around the wagon to see what was within.

This commenced the distribution of all my papa’s treasures:
clothes and pans and furbelows and other worldly pleasures:
squeezeboxes and vases and women’s pantaloons,
chamber pots and laces and inflatable pontoons.

Pre-loved dolls for little girls and balls for little boys.
Jump ropes, checkers, building blocks, assorted wind-up toys.
Tobacco  plugs for Grandpa and canning jars for Gran.
Corsets for vain ladies to decrease their middle span.

Bridles for one’s horses and ropes to lead their cows.
Chicken feed and saddles and feeding trays for sows.
There was hardly anything that wagon did not hold,
and my father’s selling spiel was loud and brash and bold.

“Huzzah huzzah, huzzzah!” he’d call out to the crowd,
his bounty spread for viewing and touching was allowed.
Everything available–all that you could see
except for one thing on the wagon seat, and that small girl was me!!!!

 

Prompt words today are spruiker, juncture, callithumpian, lade and distribution. Image by Tamara Garcevic on Unsplash, used with permission.

spruiker noun at spruik verb. DEFINITIONS1. 1. (Australian English) someone who tries to persuade people to buy something, use a service, etc often in a dishonest or exaggerated way.

Callithumpian refers to a band of discordant instruments or a noisy parade.

Whirlwind

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Whirlwind

Cookie crumbs, pumpkin seeds pepper the floor
beneath the stool of this child I adore—
a slovenly child who is perfectly able
to spill half her milk on the floor near the table.
As she sits cutting paper dolls, paper bits flutter
down from the piles of snippets and clutter

she amasses around her in  any room where
I’ve worked half the morning just to prepare
for the meeting with friends that occurs in an hour.
The sofa cushions she spread in a tower
are ringing the sofa back, placed in a mound
to catch mountaineer Barbie should she fall to the ground.

Covered by green napkins, the pillows now pass
for a fantasy hillside all covered in grass.
I scoop up the clutter and then the small miss,
ransom the cookies for a small kiss,
then hurry to try to clean up the room.
Locate new napkins, then brandish the broom,

sweeping up crumbs and paper and things
left in her wake just before the bell rings
and the first guest enters, surveying the scene
now cleared of the mess. Perfectly serene.
“I don’t know how you do it, with work and a kid,”
my friend says, not knowing the stuff that I hid

just two minutes ago behind the hall door
that once only held coats but now holds a lot more:
Barbie dolls, crayons and scissors and scraps
as well as neat rows of sweaters and wraps.
Family secrets that we’ll never tell
that every mommy knows all too well.

 

Prompt words today are seed, flutter, grounds, sloven and milk.

Shades and Shadows

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For Lens Artists Shades and Shadows prompt

Avian Fashion: Dots and Stripes

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Click on photos to enlarge, please.

Loud morning birds
seem to be speaking together
in different languages.

For Bird Weekly: https://oureyesopen.blog/2021/06/11/bird-weekly-photo-challenge-birds-with-stripes-spots-or-freckles/

Sticks and Stones

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Sticks and Stones

Success brought a fleeting fame
in that  game of pitched rocks
hit with a stick—that sugar rush of pride
in both the one who threw the rock
and the one who held the stick
with which it made contact.

Their wild shouts
before the shock of breaking glass
to this day form a wicked memory—
both boys off like a shot
down an elm-shadowed gravel street
even before a hand could part the curtains,
scattering shards of glass like summer snow.

Old man Sterner’s bellows:
“You boys!
I know who you are.
Your dads’re gonna whup yer hides,”
not yet overshadowing
the fleeting joy
of that solid whack
as the rock made contact.

 

Prompt words by: https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2021/06/13/wordle-505/

Keep on Moving!!!

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on a road where two cars could barely pass. Imagine the excitement when two full-sized buses tried to do so!
A greening tricycle,
an almost red wagon,
We were in a convoy of 7 Land Cruisers with 4 passengers per car.
I have watched over 40 episodes of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” over the past four days!!!
Behind the Frizbee
Old

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

For the One Word Sunday prompt: Mobile, Mobil