Category Archives: Uncategorized

Winning

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Winning

Any athlete worth his salt
can row or shoot or ski or vault,
balance, skate or box or splash,
hurdle, sprint, relay or dash.

But I find it curious
that all these actions furious
do not bring us closer to
what mankind really needs to do.

Instead of trying to beat each other,
overcome, defeat each other,
trying for cooperation
among each competing nation

just might serve to be a sample
that could be a good example
for the politicians who
do not seem to have a clue

of how to share our planet’s wealth.
Instead, by cunning, war and stealth,
they seek to get more than their share
of minerals and food and air.

What irony that they can’t see
how much better it would be
if we just learned it’s cheaper to
expand our neighborhood to view

every color, every nation
every man of every station
each the same as every other–
everyone as sister, brother.

There’s enough richness, if we dare
to treat the world as though we care
for every country, every nation
as one giant congregation

and not a game wherein we choose
that one or the other has to lose.

The words for today were splash, curious, irony and vault. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/rdp-wednesday-splash/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/15/fowc-with-fandango-curious/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/your-daily-word-prompt-irony-may-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/vault/

Bougainvillea: Flower of the Day, May 15, 2019

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IMG_1855.jpeg

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Denver Airport Invaded by Smart-Ass Gargoyle

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2 Billion Dollar Judgment Against Monsanto’s Roundup

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On May 13, 2019, a California jury awarded plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod a verdict of $55 million in non-economic and economic damages in addition to $1 billion each in punitive damages against Monsanto.  Monsanto unsuccessfully attempted to refute the plaintiffs’ toxicology expert who testified that Monsanto made glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – fifty times more toxic by including polyethoxylated tallow amine in tis formula.  Expert testimony stated that this ingredient facilitates the ability of glyphosate to penetrate the skin leading to quick dispersion to the bones, where lymphoma originates…….

Click on the URL below to read the entire article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/health/monsanto-roundup-cancer-verdict-bn/index.html?utm_source=CNN+Five+Things&utm_campaign=f60a97c6b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_14_05_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6da287d761-f60a97c6b8-90605325

Her Majesty

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image courtesy of Mohammed Metri on Unsplash.


Her Majesty

She had the best instruction in how to act serene––
a necessary attribute if she would be queen.
And though she lacked true courage, at least she appeared plucky.
Daily, they assured her that of all she was most lucky
to have been born of royal blood—to have been truly chosen,
and that is how, over the years, her heart was slowly frozen.

 

The prompt words today were courage, chosen, serene and lucky. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/14/rdp-tuesday-courage/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/14/fowc-with-fandango-chosen/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/14/your-daily-word-prompt-serene-may-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/lucky/

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Lucky: The Pleasures of Advancing Age

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(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Lucky
(The Pleasures of Advancing Age)

If I were a golfer, I fear there’d be no putting,
for my grass is lush and verdant— badly in need of  cutting.
Meanwhile, the bougainvillea has gotten out of hand.
It’s like a barbed wire jungle—every twisted strand.
If I were more rambunctious, I’d grab work gloves and scramble
to gas up the mower and to tackle every  bramble,
but those days of industrious gardening are far back in my past.
Those Olympian feats of plant and tend simply didn’t last.
Instead I lie here in my bed growing and trimming words.
Outside, through the curtains, I hear the wakening birds.
I hear the front gate opening, make out the squeak of wheels.
Is there a single reader who detects how good it feels
to just fluff up the pillows and type on throughout the dawn
as Pasiano trims the thorny vines and mows the blasted lawn?

Prompt words today are verdant, meanwhile, rambunctious and lucky. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/rdp-monday-verdant/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/13/fowc-with-fandango-meanwhile/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/your-daily-word-prompt-rambunctious-may-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/lucky/

Bougainvillea against Blue Sky: Flower of the Day, May 13, 2019

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For Cee’s FOTD

Wit’s End Challenge: Wheels

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Wheels!!!

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

 

 

https://witsend-travel.com/2019/05/10/weekly-photo-challenge-wheels/

Mother’s Day Long After Mother

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daily life color219

Mother’s Day Long After Mother

I feel the promise of rain in the gusting wind,
and in that far off wail of babies tired of the family gathering,
wanting their mothers to themselves.
Mother’s Day in Mexico is a three-day strung-out affair*
stretched out over the motherly memories of Gringos and Mexicanos.

Flowers fill the aisles of Costco and then melt
into the populace, streaming out in grocery carts by the threes
to mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
Pink cakes with chocolate scribbles fill huge center bins at Walmart,
appreciation of mothers being a going commercial concern
all over the chainstore world.

My mother I nestle in my memory like a beautiful uncut gem.
I trim off what ugly parts there might have been.
Rough stone falls away from the faceted center
until there she is, finished, refined in memory,
the way that she would want to be–
every hair in place, lipstick carefully aligned over a silly
Erma Bombeck grin, a small dog in her lap.

Or, better, wipe off the lipstick and muss the hair.
That same dog stretched out,
fencing in her stomach, waist and thigh
as she lies spread careless on the sofa,
asleep, a book having just fallen from her hand.

*By way of a short explanation, Mother’s day in Mexico  is always celebrated on  May 10,  whereas by those expats such as myself who grew up in the U.S., it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May, which this year fell on May 12. 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/rdp-sunday-finish/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/motherly/