Culture Queen

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Culture Queen

She was a universal maven. Up on every trend.
Music, art and literature thrilled her to no end.
She raised no petty cavils. Her eye and mind were keen.
Her taste was impeccable. She was the culture queen.
She painted masterpieces when she was just a maid,
and though detractors said that her genius would fade,
she remained keen in her eighties and proved her critics wrong,
tackling every challenge as they came along.
She kept her zest for life until they laid her down,
and so became the object of the world’s renown.

 

Although this poem was written about a fictional character, when I started looking for photos of classy ladies, my friend Gloria, who luckily has not been laid down, seemed to fill the bill. 

Prompt words are: maven, task, cavil, maid.

Hibiscus: FOTD Feb 6, 2022

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For Cee’s FOTD

Heirlooms

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Heirlooms

Heirloom quilts, wedding veils, and Grandma’s tablecloths
are but future feeding grounds for silverfish and moths.
Since we cannot control the changes that the future brings,
we should not be flummoxed by the loss of treasured things.

Their value is more visceral than literal, it’s true,
so time can rarely mitigate their presence within you.
North and south and east and west—wherever we are cast—
within our minds and hearts, we bear the treasures of our past.

 

I cannot help mourning the loss of this quilt handmade by my grandmother over 100 years ago  which seems to have vanished from the assisted living facility where  my sister lived for the last ten years of her life, so I guess this poem was mainly written to comfort myself.

Prompts today are tablecloth, visceral, flummox, mitigate and north.

Hibiscus: FOTD Feb 5, 2022

1 Reply

 

For Cee’s FOTD

The Poet Artist

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The Poet Artist

“Poltroon!” He calls out in his sleep,
caught up in words, even when deep
in dreams—those places where he goes
where fresh ideas, rows upon rows,
spreading farther, stacking higher,
crowd his brain . And now, “Pismire!”
Is he building poems or sculptures there?
What new dream, what bold nightmare

will he allow to come to light
as soon as he has finished night
and carved his way into the the day?
The worker ant come out to play?
Carving stone into a face
or moving words from place to place.
All those schemes conceived in dreams
turned into his creative schemes.

I intrude, a kiss, a cuddle,
bringing love into the muddle
of his early morning head,
still sleeping here in my warm bed.
This is no coward sleeping here.
He has no qualms, displays no fear
of any challenge of his art
or adventures of the heart.

Metal, wood, paper and stone—
no one material alone
can solve his lust. He needs them all.
No stone too heavy. No scheme too tall.
And, alas, no woman will
manage to completely fill
that questing heart. That grasping soul.
seeking to reach that final goal.

See some results of those dreams HERE.

Prompt words today are poltroon, cuddle, pismire, allow and worker.

Hibiscus, FOTD Feb 4, 2022

3 Replies

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Harridan

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Harridan

I’m standing at the crossroads between a saint and bitch.
Schooled in forebearance, I’ve stayed within my nitch.
But lately things are changing. I’m losing self-control.
The hounds of Hell have been released and now they’re on patrol.
They’re fluting all the pillars formerly unmarked—
scoring them with unfurled claws every time they’ve barked.

Soon I will be certified as a nagging crone—
the sort of aging harpie who prefers to live alone.
I’m sure its hard to fathom it, as perfect as I’ve been,
kowtowing to authority—especially to men.
But privilege must come to all as we come to age,
so I’m expressing sovereignty, at least here on the page.

 

Word prompts today are flute, crossroads, certified, bitch. Image by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash.

Hibiscus: FOTD Feb 3, 2022

1 Reply

For Cee’s FOTD

Five Major Annoyances!!!!!!

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1.Drivers that hold up an entire string of traffic behind them for the entire cycle of a green light to enable them to make an illegal left-hand turn as the light turns red.

2.  People who tell pointless looooooong stories, relating every detail about people you don’t know and will never know.

3.  Tiny writing on business cards or medicine bottles or instruction cards when there is an equal amount of blank space that could have been used to double the size of the print.

4. Computer apps that keep changing their formats and the position of things without making anything clearer or easier to use. Skype and Hotmail Outlook and Facebook, I’m talking about you!!!!!

5. Apps. that ask me for my password every time I use them in spite of the fact that I’ve marked the square to “remember this password.” And then don’t accept the password!!!!

Grrrrrr… now you have me all stirred up!!!!!

For: https://fivedotoh.com/2022/02/02/5-things-annoyances/

Strange Conglomeration

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This is probably the strangest conglomeration of close-ups you will ever see. What they have in common is simply that they were all taken within a 24-hour period and I like them all.

For Cee’s CMMC Close-Up or Macro Challenge