Writer’s Block
Rip up your notebook and throw it away.
At heart, you know you have nothing to say.
The cadre of writers who came on before you
wrote legions of words guaranteed not to bore you.
They composed solid volumes of bountiful wit.
Their number of sales will verify it.
The drivel you write is mere uninspired lore,
so better you read what they wrote than write more.
Prompt words today are notebook,solid, bountiful, cadre and number.
This variety of hibiscus grows into a huge tree covered with these glorious blooms. These photos were taken on my walk along the malecon this evening, but I think they deserve their own separate post.
For Cee’s FOTD challenge.
For Water Water Everywhere and Jo’s Monday Walk.
Bedbound
I have pain in my back and water on my knee
and not one single friend has expressed sympathy!
I’ve called every doctor in town to explain
my aches and my ills, but it’s all been in vain.
Not one can discover what it is that ails me.
Each remedy that I’ve sought out simply fails me.
The sun hurts my eyes and the rain brings depression.
It hurts when I walk but bed rest brings compression
that freezes my spine so I’m forced to just lie here,
seeking assistance from all who walk by here.
And although I’ve no appetite, still I must eat,
so there’s one request that I have to repeat.
If you’re going to town, could you help me out, please,
and bring me a pizza? Sausage. Extra cheese.
Because I’m so thin, the doctor prescribes beer.
and since there’s a Quik Stop that’s really quite near,
could you pick up a six-pack, some ice cream and chips?
For I simply must add some flesh to my hips.
My bones are protruding so far that they hurt
from the weight of the sheets and the thinnest night shirt.
I’m under the weather, headachy and thin.
I cannot convey the bad shape that I’m in.
My offspring don’t care and my spouse says I’m making it
hard to stay with me because I’m just faking it.
I have to complain because I must confess it
is impossible when one is ill to repress it.
Although all my friends say I’ve bats in my attic,
these ills you can’t see are not psychosomatic!
Prompts today are under the weather, offspring, flush, repress and stay.
Some people call these “black-eyed Susans” although that is not really their name. They are thunbergias, but not the big purple or blue Thunbergia Grandiflora. Both, however, like to travel.
For Cee’s FOTD
These are the vines that are taking over my upper garden. They’ve totally smothered the bougainvillea in the center of the yard.
Worst Nightmare
I stood without a podium,
alone there in the odeum.
The lantern light was odious,
the theater commodious.
My stomach tied up in a knot,
I realized that I had not
even seen a single script
and therefore I was ill-equipped
no matter how hard I was driven,
to say the words that I’d been given.
And furthermore, how crass and rude
that I was standing in the nude,
center stage, in full display,
without a clue of what to say,
before an audience, all staring
at the body I was baring!
And here I brought the curtain down
and awoke to find a dressing gown
draped around me in a heap,
relieved to find I’d been asleep!!!
For those of you who will ask, this is not fiction. This is a dream I’ve dreamed a number of times during my life. Prompt words for today are lantern, knot, Odeum and without. Image by Velizar-Ivanov on Unsplash.
Done Fishing
If they had a wishbone, perhaps I’d eat fish,
first stripping the flesh and then making a wish.
Of course I’m no specialist in the deboning.
This is a talent I haven’t been honing.
For I must say fish are a complete enigma,
since I have acquired a congenital stigma.
My mom never broiled them or poached them or fried them
and so in fact I’ve never ordered or tried them,
and every proposal to taste them I’ve scorned,
for I don’t appreciate how they’re adorned
with alert eyeballs and scales on their skin.
I simply don’t find the shape that they’re in
especially appetizing, so the stigma
I’ve attached to them should be no enigma.
If it resides in lake, ocean or sea,
you will not find it residing in me!
Prompt words are stigma, specialist, alert, proposal and wishbone.
Day of the Dead Buffet
Revitalized demons are deviling our eggs,
scrambling the yolks and mixing their dregs
with pickles and mayo and onions and mustard,
to the consistency of clotted custard,
filling their shells up and eating them whole
without the help of a plate or a bowl.
If you are tempted, don’t sample their yolk.
Don’t stick out your fingers to give them a poke,
then lick the residue off of your finger.
The power of finger food’s likely to linger.
Devilish spirits inhabit the food
of this entire unholy brood.
So if you must party with this ghoulish bunch,
Don’t sample the buffet. Just bring your own lunch.
When I asked Dan and Rhonda to make me some deviled eggs, they took a different slant on the request. Note the avocado horns!!!
First photo by Tahira Walker on Unsplash. Second photo by me. Thanks, Dan and Rhonda, for furnishing the subject!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 