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Quartet
They flicker like tiny sparks,
these rapid kittens
intense in attention,
movements reflecting
every neighboring small movement.
Suspicious of brief distractions.
Violent, then soft like the feather
they’ve destroyed,
drifting to the window frame above,
forgotten by its intense stalkers
of a second before.
When I saw your flower post tonight, I couldn’t resist posting this photo of a lily pond I took just today, Cee!!!
https://ceenphotography.com/2017/07/17/flower-of-the-day-july-18-2017-water-lily-pond/
Daily Menu
Lately it’s incredible
how many products edible
I’m buying daily at the store.
There’s constantly a need for more.
One type for kittens two months old,
getting more hungry and more bold.
In the morning, when I enter in,
they climb my robe or climb my skin
thinking that perhaps they may
consume kitten tuna souffle
a second before all their peers
consume it. All four little dears,
meows now turning into roar
as though only four hours before
they had not had a late night meal
of special kitten rice and veal.
Then the old cat limps out to see
the special treat that’s brought by me.
Mixed with fish oil, sardine pate—
a king’s ransom three times a day.
She deigns to feed upon this fare,
eschewing edibles less rare.
The small dog with a skin condition
consumes his own special edition
dog food for his special state
I portion out upon his plate.
Just one more left—the old dog claws
the window with his muddy paws,
demanding edibles from me
both by his barks and what I see.
I provide a different dog food for
this anxious dog who mars my door.
The menu, as you see, is varied.
As cook and waitress, I am harried.
But breakfast done, I take a rest
to do the thing that I like best.
The minute they are finished chewing,
I present their menu for your viewing!
Seven animals with 4 different diet demands make feeding time a big job–especially with the cat and kittens who need to be fed numerous times a day. I’m off now to apply for a bank loan so I can go to the store with a wheelbarrow for today’s provisions. When days are full, hyperbole helps.
The prompt word today was edible.
These sculpted bougainvillea bushes run up the center divider at the entrance to the fraccionamiento where I live. Quite an artistic and sculptural effect. Click on the first photo to see them better.
Whenever my older sister’s friend Karen came over to spend the night with her, she’d bring her Bonnie Braids doll to sleep with me. It kept me out of their hair and gave me someone to talk to. Perhaps it established a precedent? When I went to visit her in Minneapolis 60 years later, she still had Bonnie. Here, we reminisce. She still lets me do all the talking.
Prattle Practice
I don’t have any roommates since I lost my spouse,
so I chew the fat with animals and objects in my house.
“How did you get way over there?” I mumble to a spoon.
I converse with my potted plants, complete with off-key tune.
Sometimes I jolt myself awake, talking in my dreams.
What I have to say at least I want to hear, it seems.
I’ve had a conversation with the sidewalk, face-to-face.
I’ll have another talk with it once they remove this brace.
I hold my kittens in a trance by talking in their ears,
and though they do not answer in the manner of my peers,
they have their personal language of meows and purrs and squeaks.
While I speak back in high-pitched tones like baby talk for freaks!
I hope the neighbors have not heard as I advise the trees
to only shed their debris on their own lawns, if they please.
I sometimes gripe to flowers that they are too soon dying
and to potatoes in the pan that are too slowly frying.
I grumble to my router and cold water from the tap.
Soundly, I upbraid them in my own domestic rap.
I talk to nestlings from below as they cheep from their nest,
but, dive-bombed by the mother bird, I give our chat a rest.
When I prattle to the furniture, the cook pots and the cactus
in lieu of human company, in fact it is just practice.
All my other blatherings just keep me there on track
for when I meet with human folks who no doubt will talk back!
Don’t know where else this photo of the Bonnie/Judy reunion would ever fit in so here it goes into fun photos, along with the poem I wrote to go with it.
Remember Dagwood making those midnight trips to the fridge, piling his “Dagwood sandwich” high with most things edible that came into his vision? Or slumber parties where you tried to do the same and everyone ended up ill, to you mother’s great chagrin? We crave the memories almost as much as the tastes, and perhaps this is what continues to drive us out into the night from our warm beds—exploring the hidden depths of our refrigerators for something special to savor.
Midnight Light
I wear darkness like a second skin.
It is the cloak that hides my midnight sin
as I make my way, barefooted, through my house.
Silent, lest I wake my dogs or spouse.
This way I know most well and so I bridge
in seconds that long gap between my bed and fridge.
Pull open that snug door and hear the plop
first of the rubber gasket, then the top
of the carton that has been my goal.
Spoon out its richness without benefit of bowl.
This darkness both of me and of the night
something the fridge dispenses with its light
as tears of joy and guilt and pleasure stream
down cheeks distended with this chocolate dream.
For minutes, I stand caught up in the hold
of this trio of pleasures: chocolate, creaminess and cold.
Until some motion jolts me from their grip.
I feel its pressure at my shoulder and my hip.
My spouse rolls over, shattering my dream
of midnight tryst with frozen cream.
Its chocolate savor is one that I try to keep
as I roll over once again to seek my sleep.
Whatever course my next dream serves, I’ll try it.
For I’ve already been one long day on this diet!
The prompt today was savor. (Yes, you have perhaps read this poem before. I wrote it three years ago.) The photos were harvested from the Internet.
doll by Louie Gann, jdbphoto
Sleight of Knees
When the circus clown was lauded,
marveled at, praised and applauded
for hanging from the high trapeze
for 24 hours by his knees,
though he was admired for his moxie,
it turns out it was just epoxy!
The prompt today was moxie.
This fella sitting on rebar rising up from the lot next to my friend’s house was huge. Is it a Kingfisher? Closest I can come to identifying it.
For Nancy’s A Photo a Week Bird Challenge.
