Two Will Do
I used to like friends by the score
squeezed wall-to-wall and door-to-door.
A party didn’t even count
until the guests began to mount
up to sixty, seventy, more.
But now, I’m finding crowds a bore.
Now I find that two-by-two
is something I prefer to do.
Conversations more intimate
make it simpler to relate.
So though I used to be a grouper,
now I’m just a party-pooper.
for dVerse Poets, the prompt is Number.
***Click on Photos to Enlarge and View as Gallery.***
Welcome to “The Numbers Game #100”. Today’s number is 222. To play along, go to your photos file folder and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.
Cruel Nature
Wee chirping birdies trill their whistles
while down in the cruel thistles
a baby bunny in the thicket
explores a wound and starts to lick it.
Stiff sticks as sharp as horns of deer
are what these little creatures fear.
What a great treat it would be
to be those birds up in the tree
looking out from far above––
their feathered nest a cosy glove
that fits them well, all snug and warm
up there far from pain and harm.
This sunset must be nature blushing,
and this momentary hushing
at the end of day a type of prayer
for quaking creatures hidden where
unprotected, they await
their potential sadder fate.
The Sunday Whirl Wordle #733 prompt words are: thistles horns stiff treat wee chirping fit down stick blushing out moment I made use of AI to create the images.
Quit Before It’s Too Late
Why oh why did I not quit
before the very end of it?
Douse live coals in the fire pit
or leave that fatal fire unlit?
Withhold that kick, suppress that hit?
Hold back the urge to squeeze that zit?
Leave that final plot unknit?
Alas, this is the truth of it:
one chance is all we mortals get.
For RDP Sunday the prompt word is; Quit
If I Were Water & You Were Air
I used to be restless water―
only the froth and currents
of a moving life.
Now I am still water,
sinking down to where
I can be found
by anyone willing to stand quietly
and look.
Is it true that moving water never freezes?
Is it true that still waters run deep?
Is it true that we are wed in steam?
“What if, caught by air,
it never lets me go?” I ask.
“But even water
turned to air
must fall at last,” you say.
“And what if I fall farther from you?” I say.
“Or what if I never again find banks
that open to contain me?”
I used to be swift flowing water.
Now I am a pool that sinks me deeper every year.
So deep, so deep I sink
that on its way to find me,
even air may lose its way.
Our dVerse Poets prompt today is to consider the opening line from a poem from one of my favorite poets, Edna St Vincent Millay. The Poem is “Love Is Not All,” and the line is:
“Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink nor slumber nor a roof against the rain.” As a response, I’m sharing the title poem from my newly published book of poems.
Image by Colin Horn on Unsplash
For Fibbing Friday, Nov. 21, the words to define are:
1. Imbroglio The language of “with it” guys
2. Ish Added on to any word, it means “sort of”
3. Insouciant Unlikely to bring legal action against
4. Inanition The act of telling stupid jokes
5. Infamy The state of babyhood
6. Impugn What the little girl walking her dog said when a passerby asked her
what she was doing.
7. Impecunious Description of someone who is naughty
8. Inveigle An adjective describing someone who is speaking very clearly.
9. Iconoclast What the final symbol in the world will be called.
10. Irascible What Ira’s mother said while introducing him after his sex-change operation.
When I mentioned to someone commenting on my blog what I went through to produce an AI image to go with my Scavenger Hunt post, she encouraged me to show her, so here it is. This took me much longer than the original post, I must say, and even longer to create the image with AI.
My message to AI: Can you draw me a photo of a man running dow the street with a. small bonsai in his knapsack and carrying a basket of other small assorted items.
Can you make it more realistic? An actual picture?
Can you put buildings behind him and a street in front of him?
Can you put the small bonsai and knapsack back in ?
No make it more realistic like the first photo. And remove the tree from the sidewalk and put it in his knapsack.
And take out the big tree in back and put the bonsai back in his backpack.
No, Use the same photo as the one before this one with a small bonsai in his knapsack and no other bonsai.
But include the basket full of other items as well.
No, use the last photo, please but add the building, the bonsai
in the backpack and the basket full of other small items.
Good, but put the small bonsai back in his backpack.
Thanks..This will do.
After I cropped the photo to take the large bonsai outTo see the post this was done for go
to my “Scavenger Hunt” post. Phew!!!!!
I bought this wonderful oil painting in Peru and just let my mind go in building a retablo for her. I had no idea who she was––thought she was just another Madonna. When I had finished, an artist friend, Eduardo Xilonzóchitl, was at my house painting and building a sculpture for me by the pool and he saw her and said, “Ah, Santa Cecilia.” I then Googled Saint Cecilia and discovered that she is the patron saint of poets and musicians and all of the symbolism–the various musical instruments, the quill, manuscript and sheet music did in fact tell the story of her life. Some things just want to belong together and so it was with her portrait .
16″ X 16: Santa Cecilia: Mixed Media Retablo, Wood, Metal, paper, dried flowers and leaves, Gold Leaf, Feather, Bone, Abelone, Antique Toy Rocking Chair, Oil Painting on Canvas, Acrylic paint. 16″ X 16.
Click on picture to enlarge and see details.
For the Writer’s Workshop, the prompt is “symbol.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 