Natural Alarm Clock
I’m up before the Daily Prompt,
up before the sun.
Somehow I’ve started my new day
before the night is done.
The world is cloaked in darkness.
It’s too early for me,
yet wake up time’s whenever
Morrie needs to pee!
(Click on first photo to enlarge and see captions.)
S-U-C-C-E-S-S
“S-U-C-C-E-S-S—that’s the way you spell success!”
These words still rouse me, I confess,
though fifty years now (more or less)
have passed since I last heard the chant
that quickly turned into a rant
when we saw the basketball soar
through the net and become lore.
It was the year they won it all—
those high school kings of basketball,
with last-second ball thrown from mid-hall.
Both those who watched and those who played
cheered and ranted, chanted, brayed.
The day that ball swished through the net?
It was as good as sports could get.
The prompt today was “successful.”
Of the 271 solidarity marchers in La Manzanilla, Mexico, this day after the inauguration, this was my favorite pair of ears. And since they are botanical, I think they qualify (sort of) for flower of the day.
By the way, in addition to the majority (American and Canadian women) there were lots of men marching–some with their sons–as well as Mexican grandmothers, mothers and children.
https://ceenphotography.com/2017/01/20/flower-of-the-day-january-2 1-2017-tulip/
Southern Exposure
Although my north end’s fully cloaked,
when rain clouds come, my south gets soaked.
I guess the fault is really mine.
The raincoat that I bought, size nine,
that I insisted would fit fine,
combined with excess when I dine
means that though it swathes my seat,
the buttons in the front don’t meet
the holes they’re meant to go into
no matter what my fingers do.
That’s why my front side’s sorta soggy
when the weather ends up foggy.
If you approach me from the back,
I swear, you won’t see any lack.
You’ll only see my dripping clothes
If we meet up nose-to-nose
I just can’t get myself together
to protect myself in stormy weather.
The prompt word today is “exposure.”
jdbphoto
Overworked or Labor Shirked?
It’s hard for me to find the middle
between hard labor and the fiddle.
Work? I either overdo it
or endeavor to eschew it.
Work all day and then all night,
being very erudite—
putting words down on the page,
imprisoned in my muse’s cage.
Perhaps I fear my distant past
when good work habits didn’t last
and days were spent in dreaming or
novels read behind closed door—
midnight radio a chance
for fantasies to spin romance.
Whole days stretched as though to catch
an errant dream of true love’s match.
I feared such days were sloth, and yet
perhaps they were just roads to get
to the place where I would tell
the stories that I knew so well
because I’d lived them first in dreams
or days just bursting at the seams
with doing nothing but living life—
its pleasures, problems, romance, strife.
First the doing at my leisure,
then the writing, and the seizure
of all the details of the past
that, once down on paper, are made to last.
Overworked or over-lived,
life first collected, then finely sieved.
Panned like gold to find the treasure—
leisure and work in even measure.
“Overworked” is the prompt word today.
I love this door at Mayahuel in La Manzanilla:
And the positioning of this mask beside the door:
Click on first photo to enlarge all.
Click on first photo to enlarge all.
https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/01/18/color-your-world-burnt-orange/
Original Style
Is your aesthetic pop or funk?
Waterford crystal or Goodwill junk?
Whatever may be your aesthetic,
copying I find pathetic.
Find your style and follow it.
Originality and wit
will pull you through where money won’t.
Express yourself, but copy? Don’t!!!!
Expressing yourself is aesthetic.
Following trends mere anaesthetic.
The prompt word today is aesthetic.
