
Leaves stained with minerals from waterings, petals specked with dirt from the nearby road, this little beauty still displays a waifish beauty.

Leaves stained with minerals from waterings, petals specked with dirt from the nearby road, this little beauty still displays a waifish beauty.

This little kalanchoe is much-dusted by the road that runs nearby, its leaves stained with sea salt, but the flower nonetheless retains its beauty.
For FOTD

No Head for Business
I fear I must be adamant in stating my demands.
In this I am unshakeable. My initial sales price stands.
I do not like this bargaining. I find it all a chore.
I’d rather be off wandering. Business is a bore.
And though I must admit that your demeanor is most affable,
your offer is too little. In fact I find it laughable.
It will do no good to counter offer. I’m set on the price
that would reimburse me for leaving paradise.
I have no bottom offer. This is no power game.
To nickel and to dime it is a practice I find lame.
The palm trees are all swaying, there’s hot water in the pool,
and the more I think about it, I see that I’m a fool
to leave this little Shangri-la. Where would I find its sequel?
It’s clear that for the price I ask I could not find its equal!
Here swinging in my hammock with a cocktail and my pup,
I am so contented that my sales price just went up!!
Prompt words today were chore, affable, adamant and power.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/rdp-friday-chore/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/18/fowc-with-fandango-affable/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/your-daily-word-prompt-adamant-january-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/power/
Click on first photo to enlarge all and read captions.
Challenging Fortune
Just when we’re feeling cocky—superior and svelte,
fate dishes out an uppercut, or one below the belt.
Its fickleness is onerous. Its lessons often hard.
Some end up with a loving cup and others with a shard.
So if misfortune catches you and holds you in its grasp,
for sure, good fortune harbors another in its clasp.
Rejoicing in their happiness may bring your pain’s surcease,
and looking at a larger view may bring you some release.
Some men are accustomed to eating all the pie.
They see no good in sharing. They vie and vie and vie
to horde the opportunities. It’s their sign of success.
They profit on our labors, grow rich on our duress.
It brings a sort of balance, this giving and this taking.
It teaches us that fortune is not just of our making.
There may not be enough good luck to insist that they share.
Label him a “socialist”If anyone should dare.
Where is the one who’ll stop them? Who will come to show the way?
What warrior or what holy man will lead us in the fray?
Those who’ve usurped religion seem to have lost the point.
They don’t champion the underdog. It’s rich men they anoint.
Everything is power and perhaps it always was.
For eons we’ve forgotten this, probably because
the photos of these greedy men reaching for the stars,
cruising in their massive yachts and their racing cars,
look so pretty on the page. The minute that we see them,
instead of censuring the greed, we simply want to be them.
They stage their wars and make their gains and young men die to aid it.
And instead of ruing war, we honor those who made it.
The prompt words today were shard, onerous, opportunity and uppercut.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/rdp-thursday-shard/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/17/fowc-with-fandango-onerous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/your-daily-word-prompt-opportunity-january-17-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/uppercut/


I think I’m on a jag. . . Can’t stop. 3:44 a.m. and I just finished another bracelet. Someone stop me before I create again!!!
These bracelets are what I’ve been working on for the past couple of days. I designed 75 of them last year, then put them away without assembling them. It’s taken me two days to assemble four of them. The red one with the butterfly, I hired a macrame artist to join for me but the time it takes and expense I think would price it out of the potential market. The other four were joined and clasps created by me. All of the designs are my own—assemblages of found pieces. I’d be interested in your opinions. Would you wear these? Buy them? They would probably be priced in the $45 to $65 (US) range. The high end would be for the macrame closures. (Only the red one with the butterfly is shown in this style. The green stones in the first bracelet are fresh water pearls.) All are one-of-a-kind pieces.
Click on any photo for larger views of all.

Spied this beauty on my way back from the plaza this afternoon. It must be a triple, or at the very least a double.
https://ceenphotography.com/2019/01/15/fotd-january-16-2019-amaryllis/comment-page-1/#comment-191821
If you think the wall and the current border patrol policies are a humane answer to immigration, I dare you to watch this through to the end.

For Cee’s FOTD