A combination of wind and rain did this obviously dead limb in after a recent storm. Looks like it might have caused a few electrical outages as well, but luckily not at my house!
For the Sunday Trees prompt.
The little pond at the Lake Chapala Society was covered with these gorgeous blooms the other day. Probably still is, with koi stitching their curvaceous seams in between.
For Cee’s flower prompt.
Appetite
It is the appetite we wrap our skin around like clothes—
that we push down but that squeezes out around us
in spite of our best efforts—
that appetite we run from and run to.
It lies waiting for us
behind the cold glass windows of stores,
coils in our cooking pots
and curls out in their steam.
Appetite sits under the Christmas tree
wrapped up in red paper and green ribbon.
It is the appetite of the Barbie Doll and the erector set,
the jigsaw puzzle and the bouncing ball of the jacks game.
It is the appetite
that lies dormant in our gonads,
jumps in our semen,
sleeps in an egg.
It vibrates in a vocal cord,
trembles on the fingers of a lover,
swims on the tongue of a nursing infant,
catapults off the slingshot of a seven-year-old boy.
Appetite kinks out from the curling iron,
chews itself from the tips of our fingernails
and spins itself from our feet
during a jungle rhythm or a southern reel.
Appetite pipes from the end of a flute
and shakes off the edges of a tambourine.
It is sealed in a tube of paint,
carried by a brush to the canvas where it dances its own dance.
It is appetite that hides in our computer keys
and in the tips of the fingers that tap them,
appetites lined up on our paper
where we have assembled them in unaccustomed order.
They are what bring us here,
these appetites that can never be catalogued or collected in their entirety—
our appetites better presented in a brown paper bag,
jumbled like penny candies, tumbled over each other like in a junk drawer.
Appetites that can never fully be defined
or neatly wrapped up in a moral or a surprise ending.
Appetites that can never be satisfied,
because our appetites want everything,
and gaining everything, reach out for more.
The prompt today is dormant. The prompt word today brought something up in me that has lain dormant for many years. That is, this poem which was actually written in a MUCH longer form twenty-five years ago. “. . .that lies dormant in our gonads” kept running through my mind, and although I knew I had written it, I couldn’t remember where. Finally, I did a search in my poetry file and found this poem. The original I submitted to a national poetry competition and won first prize for. The judge said it was for my pure audacity in submitting a poem that took 12 minutes to read! I published it in a shorter form two years ago in my blog, but even that tightened poem was probably too long for most viewers to read. At any rate, here it is in its newest and shortest form–a poem from within a poem, where it has lain dormant for twenty-five years.
Tradescantia, asparagus ferns, philodendron and a small pepper tree furnish company for this pineapple grown from a pineapple top I laid on top of the soil in a planter months before this photo was shot. Not quite a flower, but as pretty as one.
For Cee’s Flower Prompt.
Vet appointments for the four kittens as well as Annie leave little time for writing a new blog this morning, so I’m reblogging myself! This poem about what happened one day a year and a half ago when I left my gate open should work for today’s prompt of gate.
This morning I woke up as usual and lay in bed writing my poem, rose to take photos to go with it, then opened my front door so my upstairs neighbors could go through to the porch when they got home from breakfast. When Cathy wandered in, she asked if I realized that I had a friend waiting on the beachfront porch. Who was it, I asked and she said she didn’t know but she was singing.
I went out in my nightgown to see who it was and found a stranger–a singer/musician who had read my blog and come to meet me. By the time I’d thrown clothes on, Fred–a slide guitar player who had been walking by and heard her singing, had come to join her. As the morning progressed, another woman wandered by on the beach. Fred recognized her as a musician who lived on the same island as he…
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For the Thursday Doors challenge.
A few days ago I showed a different color of tabachine. This is the more usual color—and my favorite. Butterflies love them. So do I. Although my gardener calls the small bush varieties of the poinciana tabachine and the large tree varieties flamboyan, sites on the internet call the larger variety both tabachine and Royal Poinciana and this smaller variety a dwarf poinciana.
Pick a Pickled Pepper
Some girls lick on lollipops, but I never will.
I prefer the piquant taste of vinegar and dill.
Pickle up some peppers and shove them in a jar.
Put a label on it to show them who you are.
If a cute boy eats one, he will pucker up,
and perhaps you’ll plant a kiss where he deigned to sup.
Pick a cherry pepper, press it to your lips,
and that spicy boy might want to steal some sips.
Do not tell your mother. Do not tell your dad,
or that might be the only pepper that you ever had.
Lollipops are sweet but just a little coy.
Pickles work much better for picking out your boy.
The prompt today was lollipop. Strangely enough, the song “Lollipop, Lollipop” has been going through my mind for the past few days. I even made up different lyrics to the tune of it to sing to Annie, my 15-year-old ill cat, as I drove her (meowing all the way) home from the vet the other day. The men who stand in the road to wave people into the fish restaurants near San Juan Cosala must have wondered at me as I hollered out the strange song at the top of my lungs, just like my dad used to do to startle a howling baby into silence. Ah well. We get odder as we get older but have more of an excuse for it!
Also, for the Ragtag prompt: https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/rdp-9-pickle/
Click on first photo to enlarge all. I love the juxtaposition of the frilly gold flowers next to the stark cacti. This house has been being built for years. Glad they planted their wall vegetation early.
Do it Yourself
The ending was disastrous though it started out just fine.
I don’t have anyone to blame. The fault was purely mine.
I thought I knew the way to do it but was surely wrong.
I should have heeded the advice my friends gave all along.
But my father was a Dutchman. I inherited his genes.
To figure out most everything, I think I have the means.
I made and hung the kitchen shelf.
I installed my towel bars by myself.
I patched the wall
and then, y’all,
fast as a wink,
unplugged the sink.
As you can see, I’m competent. Sufficiently sufficient.
In household matters A to Z I’m startlingly efficient.
But—
I guess I should have asked for help with my last operation,
for now I have to stay at home and feign I’m on vacation
lest every friend who sees me delivers an oration
about how I should read instructions,
not depend on pure deductions,
ask for help, request advice.
I heeded not, now pay the price.
The instructions that I never heeded
were probably the ones I needed.
The hair dye warning I failed to see
is in fact what ruined me.
For though I am really fond
of hair a lovely hue of blonde,
I fear I’m unfit to be seen
now that my hair’s a vivid green!
So for a few months I’ll be heard
by Skype or telephone or word,
but no one will ever see me
until repeated shampoos free me.
You do not have to say a word.
I know my actions were absurd.
I might have had lovely blonde locks
if only I had read the box!!!
The prompt today was disastrous. Image from the internet. Thanks, “Psycho!”
