We took a half hour off to walk down three blocks to see the Feria Parade today. Some beautiful horses. Then back to work.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Took these photos at a wonderful house my friend Rachel is renting for next year. Designed by a famous architect. These posies were in his garden.
For Cee’s FOTD.
Hello, LifeLessons readers, OkcForgottenMan here again. Judy is in her second day at a writers retreat in Colima, so I’m here at her request to reblog some of her older poems. It’s a fun gig for me as I stroll back through her blog archive, wondering which to select. I’ve done this twice before, and I’m looking at her posts from 2016 this go-around.
Today, I’m picking a poem she posted in late January, 2016, called “Ritual“, simply because it describes what she is not doing this week. I hope y’all enjoy.
Hello, LifeLessons readers, OkcForgottenMan here.
Most of you know by now that Judy is at a writers retreat in Colima, and I have graciously (maliciously?) agreed to fill in for her for the next several days, reblogging some of her older poems. It’s a fun gig for me as I stroll back through her blog archive, wondering which to select. I’ve done this twice before. The first time I arbitrarily chose to look only at her oldest posts, from 2013 (her first year blogging) to 2014. Next I looked at 2015 posts. Since I’m a lazy creature of habit, I’ll look at her posts from 2016 this go-around.
Judy almost always posts early in the morning. (We’re both on U.S. Central Time.) But I rarely crawl out of bed before noon, and I’m not reblogworthy until I’ve had my Dr. Pepper (my version of coffee) and digested the day’s news. Yes, my reblogs will usually be late, like this one, so please dispel the perception that I’ve regressed into becoming ForgettingMan. (Yes, Judy has already cast a faux chagrin in my general direction for not posting yet today!) I was wondering if there was a way I could work in some of the daily prompts Judy posts to. Then I had an epiphany!
First up is something she posted in January, 2016. It’s called “Blogomania”. Feels to me like a fun title to kick off my temporary tenure, yes?
Under the Volcano
Tomorrow I will be driving toward the volcano for a one-week writing retreat with six other women in Colima. I hope to make progress on at least one book. During that time, Forgottenman has agreed to take over my blog, so I hope you enjoy seeing what he has up his sleeve. Although I won’t be home yet, I’ll be back blogging on March 1. Give Forgottenman your full attention, because there will be a test later!! xooxox Judy
Presidential Seal
He’s an annoying sycophant, his screw loose in its socket.
One hand in the treasury, the other in his pocket.
What he may label progress is progress just for him
and his self-serving buddies. For the rest of us, it’s dim.
What’s seen as prosperity I fear is selling out.
How can it be that all cannot see what it’s about?
He’s selling off our parklands. Selling off our world.
The seas rise up to claim us. The hurricane’s unfurled.
The fires blaze around us. Nature has gone spastic
as it disgorges methane and chokes on all our plastic.
Lady Liberty’s in mourning. Our flags all fall to tatters.
Our leaders lost in their affairs instead of in what matters.
Our people, so short-sighted, will be called upon to pay.
The eagle on his office crest is but a bird of prey.
Both eagles and vultures are adroit at seeing,
but they are not equal when it comes to being.
I fear the presidential crest now marks what he will steal.
Its bird is now a turkey for a reigning monarch’s meal.
He claps his hands and purses lips–a barking preening fool–
as he does his silly act upon his circus stool.
He gives the presidential seal a different connotation
as he balances upon his nose the future of our nation.
Hoping that this earthly globe is one that he won’t drop.
Hoping his buffoonery one day soon will stop.
Prompt words today are annoying, progress, vulture, adroit and seeing.
She Used to Say
“How many loves, Senora?” she used to say.
“Perhaps twenty,” I would tell her.
I was forty when I married,
and I had traveled the world.
She had married at fifteen
and was a mother at sixteen.
By twenty-six, she was a mother of five.
When he drank cerveza,
he had beaten her.
She had not missed him when he left.
No more men, her children had demanded
and she’d agreed,
for the young man from El Chante who courted her now
was handsome and had money
but was not in her heart.
Still, I could see her pining
over the tall Arab
who hired the men of her pueblo.
He neither looked at her nor talked to her.
But in the night, I imagine she pined,
Arabian nights unreeling in her imagination
impossible and foreign.
One day, returning early,
I found her asleep on the divan,
a Mexican novella
rolling out of the television
into the eyeless air.
What futile dreams superseded
all these vicarious heartaches?
What magnolia-scented air
slumbered heavy in the hot layers of her sleep?
“How many loves?” she had asked me
on the road home from Guadalajara.
“Oh, many loves, “ I told her.
“I was forty when I married,
and I had traveled the world.”
For dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night
