Alarm Clock

5 Replies

IMG_9458

Open Window

6:58 A.M. and the party down the road is still going full force. Loud music with oom pah pah tubas, drunken voices shouting above the music. What do they celebrate? A wedding? Birthday? They are invulnerable, these partiers.

Is it the booze or their youth that raises them above the threat that those of us older shield ourselves from with masks and gloves and solitude?

Far-off dogs bark their accompaniment to the drum that pounds like a giant heartbeat. One male voice, shouting above the rest, barks barks his optimism as if to say, “It will not find any of us!” He leaves caution to that far-off world of the barking dogs and me, listening from so far above as the music swells louder and a single cock crows his harmony to the morning’s cacophony, over and over, as though to reassert his claim as the harbinger of the day.

Simple Things

9 Replies
A dried-out vine or twig that is caught in my screen door? No. the simplest of insects: a walking stick.

Click on photos to enlarge.

For the Lens Artist Challenge: Simplicity

A Recap of the Last Three Weeks by James Tabeek

16 Replies

Thanks to the “anonymous” reader who just let me know who wrote this. I had tried to track the person down who wrote this but there had been 2,000 shares from the source where I saw it by the time it got to me–evidently all without attribution. I now see that there have been approximately 8,000 more from his own Facebook siteI hate to print anything without attribution, but this was just too good not share, so I’m glad to now remedy this. Here is his Facebook site. Brilliant: https://www.facebook.com/james.tabeek

A RECAP OF THE LAST THREE WEEKS*

AMERICA: Oh my god! Coronavirus! What should we do?

CALIFORNIA: Shut down your state.

AMERICA: Wait… what? Why?

CALIFORNIA: Because 40 million people live here and we did it early, and it’s working.

NEBRASKA: Whoa… whoa… let’s not be hasty now. The President said that this whole coronavirus thing is a Democratic hoax.

CALIFORNIA: He also said that windmills cause cancer. Shut down your state.

TEXAS: But the President said that we only have 15 cases and soon it’ll be zero.

CALIFORNIA: The President can’t count to fifteen nor even spell it. Shut down your state.

NEW JERSEY: Us too?

CALIFORNIA: Yes, you guys too. Just like when Christie shut down the bridge, but it’s your whole state.

FLORIDA: But what about all these kids here on spring break?? They spend a lot of money here!

CALIFORNIA: Those kids invented the Tide pod challenge. Shut down your state.

LOUISIANA: But wait let’s have Mardi Gras first. It entertains people.

CALIFORNIA: It also kills them. Shut it down.

GEORGIA: Ok well how about we keep the state open for all of our mega churches? Maybe we can all pray really hard until the coronavirus just goes away!

CALIFORNIA: Which is working like a charm for mass shootings. Jesus told us to tell you to shut down your state.

OKLAHOMA: What about the tigers?

CALIFORNIA: What about a dentist. Shut it down.

WYOMING: Hold up, maybe we should go county by county like the president said.

CALIFORNIA: Stop acting like there are counties in Wyoming. There are no counties in Wyoming. Wyoming is a county. Shut it down.

PENNSYLVANIA: But big coal.

CALIFORNIA: But big death. Shut it.

WEST VIRGINIA: But we were the last state to get coronavirus!

CALIFORNIA: And don’t make us explain to you why that was. Shut it down.

NORTH CAROLINA: But the Republican National Convention is coming here!

CALIFORNIA: SHUT… OK, fine, do what you want.

White Hibiscus: FOTD Apr 4, 2020

2 Replies

IMG_9511.jpeg

This is the third time my newest hibiscus has bloomed. Obviously, the ants are not sheltering in place..unless you consider this flower their place.

For Cee’s FOTD

Off Course

8 Replies

IMG_2737

Off Course

For those who cannot fathom the changes time has wrought,
tomorrow will be better, or perhaps it will be not.
Those who have championed progress, thinking it is for our betterment
might come at last to fathom that it’s been to our fetterment.
Why do we study science and waste our time at college
only to find out that we’ve been ruined by our knowledge?
We have been so quickly smart and sadly too late wise.
All our grand inventions seem to lead to our demise.
Can we make things better? Can we veer off to the light?
Or will we blindly keep our course, attracted to the night?

The word prompts today are: better, tonight, champion, fathom and college.

Oxycontin Dream: NaPoWriMo, Day 4

13 Replies

Oxycontin Dream

“Eggplant,” he says, at two in the morning.
“What if I carved an eggplant
and made it look exactly the same inside as outside.”
“What would you carve it from?” I ask.
I already told you.  Eggplant.”

His eyes roll back, his mind still caught
in the penumbra of his inspiration.
He has been having artistic inspiration all night long.
Now that he suspects his last joint is welded,
his last stone drilled and carved and smoothed,
he is regretting not creating
that one last great piece.

For hours, his arms reach up
in perfect pantomime
joining wood to stone,
stitching paper to frames.

“See that shadow behind Lisa’s head?”  he asks me.
“Well, bring it over here and put it on top,
then take the bed rail off and add it to the bottom.”

When he sleeps, his lips move.
Words almost connected come out half-digested.
Hands reach out and clutch.
“Oh, it’s gone,” he says.  Over and over,
reaching out for each thing almost grasped.

 

 

For NaPoWriMo day four, we are to write a poem based on a dream.

Cool to be Square: April Square Tops Challenge

6 Replies

Click on photos to enlarge

Top O’ The Morning
Top Knot
Popcorn with Toppings

ForBecky’s Square Tops Challenge

Morning Ritual

5 Replies

 

Morning Ritual

For NaPoWriMo Day three we are to do pretty much what I’ve been doing every day for the past six years, so I’m combining it with my usual five prompt sites, whose words of the day are: online, lackluster, help, haze and wonder. (When I tried to add five more words to use this for the NaPoWriMo prompt as well, my computer went crazy and the editor turned everything pink and started flashing off and on and erased the first line of the poem, so I guess  WP doesn’t want me to combine prompts, but I’m going to try again. I’ll pick 5 more words at random from sheets of paper scattered on my desk: beginners, solving, developed, warm and milk. Instead of using the rhyming dictionary, I’ll use the one in my head, which works better for me. Okay, here I go again…..)

If your online life’s lackluster, let me help to clear the haze.
It’s no wonder that beginners might feel somewhat in a daze.
Solving all these NaPoWriMo prompts can be a chore.
You develop one poem and next day, must write one more!
Warm wishes I send out to you and others of your ilk.
If I were your mommy, there’d be cookies and warm milk,
but, alas, I’m miles away and locked up in seclusion,
dealing on my own with this confusing ten-word fusion!

online √
lackluster √
help √
haze √
wonder √
beginners √
solving √
develop √
warm √
milk √

 

Poetry

38 Replies

 

Poetry

There
Is a place in all of us
Where we converse
With a different part of our mind.

Anyone
Can do it.
All it takes
Is turning off the television
Or the free cell solitaire
And bringing up a blank page on the screen
And filling it.

A poet
Is someone who chooses to go there often
And to add to the bank
Of wisdom
That comes from the part of us
Whose language is
Poetry.

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night.

A Succulent Collage: FOTD Apr 3, 2020

1 Reply

IMG_7237

 

ForCee’s FOTD