Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bird Talk, Arizona Lingo Style

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Bird Talk

 

Spent an hour out on my sister’s patio that is a few yards from the draw. This is the bird conversation that I overheard:

Beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver

chip chip chip chip

Whee whee whee whee

daring do, daring do, daring do, daring do

cherry cherry cherry cherry

who’re you? who’re you? who’re you? who’re you?

chip chip chip chip chip chip chip chip

Pretty bird. Pretty pretty pretty

choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo

wheet wheet

cheerio cheerio cheerio cheerio

beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver.

pretty pretty pretty pretty

trrrrrrrr trrrrrrrr trrrrrrr trrrrr

oooeeeooooeee ooeee oooeee

pooooreeee poooreeee pooorrrreee

cheater cheater

pretty bird pretty bird

chee chee chee chee chee chee chee

cheater cheater cheater cheater

t t t t t t t t t
Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter

whilygig? whirlygig? whirlygig? whirlygig?

Does anyone know any of these bird languages?

(Click on the photos below to enlarge and read the captions.)

This guy shared the terrace with me but was silent.
As was this guy.
And this is another silent denizen of the terrace. I’m sure you all know my lingo, however.

A Walk Through My Sister’s Neighborhood

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I took a block-long walk down my sister’s street in Peoria, Arizona, and this is what I saw: (Please click on photos to enlarge.)

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Junk Drawer

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This is the prompt:

  • First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be a favorite song of yours, or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about your notes making sense.
  • Next, rifle through the objects in your junk drawer – or wherever you keep loose odds and ends that don’t have a place otherwise. (Mine contains picture-hanging wire, stamps, rubber bands, and two unfinished wooden spoons I started whittling four years ago after taking a spoon-making class). On a separate page from your song-notes page, write about the objects in the drawer, for as long as you care to.
  • Now, bring your two pages of notes together and write a poem that weaves together your ideas and observations from both pages

    Click on the arrow on the album to hear the song.

For NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 10

“To Do” List for a New Roommate (NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 9 and Daily Prompts)

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“To Do” List for a New Roommate

*If you value this abode,
please plan to shoulder half the load
to keep it lovely, clean and neat.
This rule, I will not repeat.

*Underwear should not be seen
on chair or floor or in-between.
(To insure I’m a happy camper,
dirty clothes go in the hamper.)

*If, on occasion, you feel you might
have a lover spend the night,
lest my ire you might incite,
please have him leave by morning light.

*No mongrels, kittens, fish or birds
or other denizens of herds
may cross my doorway, now or ever.
In short, are pets allowed? No. Never!!!

*If personal details you recite,
please insure they are not trite,
for next to messiness and snoring,
I most dread roommates who are boring.

* Don’t steal my cookies or my chips.
My food should never pass your lips.
Don’t steal my leftover knishes,
and when you cook, do your own dishes.

*If these requests you can’t abide,
just pack your bags and move outside!
Follow my rules, or it’s your loss,
for in this house, I am the boss!

 

Prompt words today are shoulder, underwear, mongrel, trite and love.  Image by Sincerely Media on Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Also, for NaPoWriMo, Day 9, Make a To-Do List

Cistena Plum Blossoms: FOTD Apr 9, 2021

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For Cee’s FOTD

Keeping Abreast

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Keeping Abreast

If I were made the ruler of
this universe I rue and love,
the one thing I would not let “be”
is the force of gravity
in respect to just one issue.
Namely––my mammary tissue!

For, though you may feel dubious,
each year, I grow more boobious!
I do not like them hanging there
where once they used to thrust the air.
Where once each strained against its cup,
It seems like now  they’ve given up.

Listless and flat, downward they droop.
Sad Sack replaces Betty Boop.
They have no personality.
They’ve lost elasticality!
The result is truly tragic,
so this is why I need some magic.

Please, gods of nature, give a cure.
There must be some way to inure
my breasts from force of gravity.
Now that I rule, hear my plea!
Tell gravity that it is best
to loose its hold upon each breast

so they are perky once again,
thrusting out below my chin
instead of hanging in two vees
somewhere down around my knees!
Restore my pride. Dispel my frown.
I want them hanging out, not down!

 

For dVerse Poets: Body Parts

 

Is it cheating that this is a poem I wrote six years ago? More true now than then!!!!

Three-Wheeled, Two-Door One-Seater: Thursday Doors, Apr 8, 2021

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For Thursday Doors.

Saw this tiny auto in the mall. Like a hard-topped motortrike!!!

Unmarked Grave: NaPoWriMo Day 8,

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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

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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

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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