For Thursday Doors.
Saw this tiny auto in the mall. Like a hard-topped motortrike!!!
Three-Wheeled, Two-Door One-Seater: Thursday Doors, Apr 8, 2021
19 Replies
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Unmarked Grave: NaPoWriMo Day 8,
Unmarked Grave
The colonel raised me to be great.
As tall as was he—a giant of a man.
Handsome and clever,
a winner of confidence,
I was his favorite son.
I played the role, but lost myself
in one who broke my heart by leaving.
Then, as so many others who fled
during those dangerous times,
my best friend of a lifetime went away,
the two of them leaving me with no support.
I fell victim to the flattery of a tyrant
and chose the wrong side.
Then, knowing my end was near,
I refused to run
but met my fate—
A bullet delivered by that Surafel, a childhood friend
who himself was caught by the Derg and brutally killed.
“Hero of the Revolution” my caption read,
yet they buried us both, as so many others,
in an unmarked grave.
My father wept and grew old,
my whole family collapsing in on itself.
By what miracle,
forty years later
in a land 9,000 miles away,
did my former love
hear my whole story
and write these lines?
For NaPoWriMo Day 8, the prompt was to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write my own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead.
Paper Star
Paper Star
Born to a family with great clout,
endued with fame, there was no doubt
she, too, would take the world by storm.
Yet, she went against the norm.
Coached in wit and charm and fame,
she didn’t want to play the game.
Sure of herself, without a doubt,
she felt no need to preen or flout.
She renounced usage of the name
and chose a lifestyle much more tame.
Given a choice, selected knowledge,
studied hard and went to college.
Took lifelong sabbatical
from being brash or radical.
Did not grace the silver screen.
Lived out her life private, unseen.
Avoided fame and tabloid papers,
forwent scandal, Oscars, capers.
Became a mother and a wife.
Gave up fame, but had a life.
Word prompts today are radical, coach, usage, endue and doubt. Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Safety in Numbers
Safety in Numbers
It might beseem the patriarch to forego actions radical,
forsaking them for pastimes more blandly mathematical.
Discourse over Pi and coffee a safer course, by far,
than plotting revolution at a local bar.
That there’s safety in numbers is a much-repeated platitude
much favored over taking risks with a subversive attitude.
Prompt words today are radical, patriarch, beseem and coffee. Image by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash, used with permission.
And for NaPoWriMo, Day 5
Empty Cities: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 4 Liminal Poem
Click on images to enlarge.
Empty Cities
The ghosts of hamburgers lurk in the air,
waiting for children no longer there.
All of their voices turned empty and spare,
waiting lines empty and every chair
devoid of bodies. Each table bare.
To where have they gone? Do you know where?
If people all vanished, would the world care?
Would the lynx and the bobcat, the fox and the hare
and deer from the forests and crocodiles dare
to enter our shopping malls and broach the stair
forever silent, frozen and still?
Would they climb the escalator’s metal hill
and move into spaces filled with our things?
Jackets and towels and soup bowls and rings?
Refrigerators, bicycles and shoes,
donuts and bagels and pretzels and booze?
Tip over displays and ponder just what
we ever accomplished with all of this glut?
When we are gone will the animals wonder
what they can do with all of this plunder?
Will they swim in our pools and loll on our greens?
Will they scratch their wild backs on our mowing machines?
Leap over our cars and stream over our bridges,
enter our houses and nose through our fridges?
Will they make a nest of the socialite’s mink?
Have dozens of babies in our kitchen sink?
Remove stuffing from mattresses to create burrows?
Tunnel under our lawns to make ridges and furrows?
Will monkeys swing from our huge chandeliers?
Chimps drive our cars and strip all the gears?
Cows graze through our parks and horses run free,
no saddles inhibiting their liberty?
Just imagine our world once mankind is vanished.
Once we’ve insured we are finally banished.
Clean air and clean oceans. No traffic or noise.
No cars and no airplanes. No rush hour noise.
No traffic or crowds. No exhaust pipes or trash.
No credit cards, coupons or coinage or cash.
What we saw as improvements will all rust away,
covered with vines, to slowly decay.
Mankind just a segment of time’s stony layers,
our music and art and headlines and prayers
all just one strata within the earth’s stories,
buried like all of her other brief glories.
After we’ve suffered earth’s most recent purge,
and we’re all gone, what else will emerge?
No Vacancy
No Vacancy
Hurry your feet and speed up your caboose.
We’ve only minutes left to vamoose.
It’s a nuisance, I know, but our time has run out.
It will do you no good to object or to pout.
The antithesis to one’s arrival is going.
The fact this was coming was well in our knowing.
The details of our living here now are archival.
Just as we saluted upon our arrival,
we now must wave bye-bye and pack up our bags,
fasten their locks and attach our name tags.
You may strive to remain here, but we must be gone.
We’re a nuisance here. We must now move over yon.
That’s the thing with exotic weekend vacations.
There’s always someone with Monday reservations!
Word prompts today are caboose, antithesis, salute, strive and nuisance.
Cactus: FOTD Apr 3, 2021
FOTD Apr 3, 2021
I went out to photograph flowers, but couldn’t resist the wonderful patterns in these cacti.
For Cee’s FOTD
Little Squirts
Click on photos to enlarge.
For A Guy Called Bloke’s Challenge: https://aguycalledbloke.blog/2021/04/01/what-kind-of-squirting-are-you-into/
Squares Challenge: Moon Bright
NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 2 The Road Less Taken in a Modern Age
The farther up the mountain we went, the smaller the road became. I was on the outiside and for most of the way the drop was severe–with no siderails or walls or shoulders. Vertigo? Yes.
The Road Less Taken in a Modern Age
Who wanders for pleasure, wanders alone
marking no boundary, barrier, zone.
The earth has no limits and time has no chime,
my steps undetermined by schedule or clime.
This used to be my modus operandi—
travel my sweet tooth and freedom my candy.
No email or Google, no iPad or phone,
without Internet service, I rolled like a stone.
But today I am traveling from town to town
with heavier luggage–more weighted down.
And though I go singly, I’m never alone
thanks to my computer, my Kindle and phone.
Right now I’m imprisoned and my progress is bound
by the cords of my ear buds confusingly wound
round my camera charger and Ethernet connector.
My GPS determines my vector.
No more do I travel unfettered and free.
Cell tower to tower is where I must be;
so every person that I’ve ever met
has me perpetually in their debt.
Birthdays to remember and twitters to answer,
queries of grandchildren, hip sockets, cancer.
Traveling with this extra weight is not pleasant.
I much prefer traveling just in the present
unfettered by email, phone calls or that voice
calling instructions at every choice
of northwards or southwards or eastward or west.
Yes, I know GPS directions are best,
but if I’m never lost and never alone,
I’d best just stay home and talk on the phone,
for most of adventure has come when I’m lost
from all of my past, whatever the cost.
Still the ways of the present make planning much easier,
finding my next destination much breezier.
These tricky freeways have changed in past years
and I find my memory much in arrears.
So perhaps for today I’ll turn on GPS
so I won’t get so lost and I won’t have to guess
which freeway to take: eight-oh-eight? Eight-oh-six?
Getting myself in a terrible fix.
Tomorrow’s the time to become vagabond,
using personal radar and my fairy wand
to maneuver through life by the skin of my pants.
Just for today, I won’t take the chance!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 