Shattered Illusions: FOTD, Dec 30, 2021

In 35 years of growing bougainvillea, I have never seen the central flower bloomed out like this!

Here is how they usually look:

But, oops. I suddenly had a brainstorm and went outside to check again, and guess what? When I moved the bougainvillea branch aside, this is what I discovered:

That bloom was actually the bloom of this tiny succulent peeking through the bougainvillea. Another of life’s illusions shattered!

 

For Cee’s FOTD

They’ll Be Sorry!!!

They’ll Be Sorry!!!

She’s stuffing Mommy’s reticule with necessary stuff,
putting on her bunny coat and leaving in a huff.
All the sundry items contribute to its thickness—
pajamas for her dolly and candy pills for sickness.

She’s packed her favorite nightie and her dolly and her bear,
a pair of extra panties and a hairbrush for her hair.
She grabs a sun umbrella as she passes by the rack,
squishes up her raincoat and stuffs it in her sack.

So now she’s set for sun or rain as she sets off to roam.
She’ll make her parents sorry when she runs away from home!
The hall clock ticks its countdown as she sets off on her lark.
She’ll have to run away right now to be back before dark.

 

Prompt words are reticule, sundry, countdown, cohere and sickness.
Image by Zahra Amiri on Unsplash

Through the Window

For Monday Windows

Thursday Trios, Dec 30, 2021

 

For Thursday Trios.

New Year Resolutions

New Year Resolutions

When the new year zaps us with our last year’s reflection,
it brings up all our defects and flaws for our detection.
It goads us to be better and to bend our crooked way
to plot a straighter game in life than we’ve been prone to play. 
It’s January 1st that prods our consciences to make them,
giving us a whole long year in which to go and break them.

 

Word prompts are zap, play, reflection, goad and bend. Image, Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash.

Marigold Survivor: FOTD Dec 29, 2021

 

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Make Mine Tanqueray

Make Mine Tanqueray

A gin and bubbly with a twist?
Sufficient reason to exist.
As integral to daily life

and in deferring pain and strife
as a good psychiatrist.
Better, in fact, I must insist,
than thrusting all one’s problems on
some overworked Freudian don.
On days when feeling near-demonic,
nothing soothes like gin and tonic!!!

 

 

Prompts today are twist, integral, bubbly defer and thrust.

Garden Shadows: FOTD, Dec. 28, 2021

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Scotch Plaid: Wordle 533

Scotch Plaid

A bloke’s
a joke
when clad
in plaid.
Girls don’t tarry
with guys so merry.
They suppose
such garish clothes
best suit a zone
for golf alone—
a sporting life
lived void of wife.

A plaid-swathed guy
might well let fly
a golf ball and
wind up in sand,
his drive a flub
made with a club,
his signal “Fore!”
a senseless roar,
or perhaps see,
there on the tee,
his ball still sitting
devoid of hitting.

A ball unfired
is best retired
to join a club
that is a pub
where scotch on ice
will suffice.
No more balls fired,
golf clubs retired,
that vest of plaid
doesn’t suit a lad
who is, I think,
best suited to drink.

For such a lad, I think it’s best
to drink the scotch and ditch the vest.

Prompt words for Wordle 533 are: signal, drive, plaid, lone, life, joke ice, fire, club, merry, fly and join