For Cee’s FOTD
Rubber Boots
All the flowers are crying, their petals streaming drops
inherited from rivers flooding over troughs
running up above them, collecting all the streams
that run down the roof top and across the beams.
The rainfall is most copious. It kisses windowpanes
with countless fractured raindrops, each falling where it deigns.
If this were not a school day, I’d run about outside.
This staying inside looking I cannot abide.
I’d rather splash in puddles, damming off the flood
with my rubber rain boots, crushing down the mud
to form private embankments to stem the rushing tide.
What an unfair punishment, this keeping me inside.
Reading, maths and spelling cannot hold my attention,
for I have these new rubber boots I am driven to mention.
I can’t wait ’til recess so I can try them out,
for in rainy weather, splashing’s what it’s about!!!!
Prompts today are “a flower cried,” school, crush, copious and kiss.
Photo Credits: Red boots by Rupert Brooks , blue boots by markus Spiske, both on Unsplash, used with permission.
“Who sings in the deepest water in the abandoned lagoon?”
—Pablo Neruda
Answering Neruda
Who is the one who
sings my dreams here
in the velvet shade of
the river’s guardians ?
Deepest secrets are told here.
Water, the mother of us all,
in league with
the
abandoned voice of this
lagoon’s ministry.
For dVerse Poets Pub. See the challenge HERE.
Read more responses to the challenge HERE.
Indulgent Parents at the DMV
You’ve studied so hard and we’re screamingly proud.
You’ve done everything perfect, for crying out loud.
You’ve conquered the manual, drive in the dark,
avoiding pedestrians. Parallel park.
You knew all the signals for stopping and turning.
Looked perfectly calm, though your stomach was churning.
It’s such a travesty you didn’t pass.
That inspector was prejudiced, ornery and crass.
Your driving test was perfect. Almost.
Anyone could have missed seeing that post!
Prompts today are travesty, scream, manual, loud and almost.
A few seconds before I shot this yesterday, there was a hummingibird hovering over this bloom.
For Cee’s FOTD
For the eighteen years I’ve lived in Mexico, I have watched Halloween taking over the imaginations of kids here to the point where its displays far-exceed those of Day of the Dead in Walmart. Many rue this tendency, but Day of the Dead still remains the more authentic and widely-celebrated holiday for adults and I both buy bags of candy to contribute to our yearly distribution to kids at the gate of the Raquet Club and construct a Day of the Dead altar honoring my husband, parents, friends and pets who have died.
This year, the displays of bagged Halloween candy, costumes and jack-o-lanterns was the largest I’d ever seen here and luckily, I bought my Halloween candy early, for when I returned ten days before Halloween to buy more bags for friends who are in the states and who wanted me to buy bags for them to contribute to the give-away, the huge Halloween displays in Walmart had vanished, replaced by storewide Christmas decorations! I took these photos of the trees going up, and the next day at least six big sections were filled with Xmas decorations. Today I went back to buy a curtain rod and found this one little sad abandoned jack-o-lantern hidden away on a box in the Xmas display. What is wrong with us that we can’t even celebrate one October holiday before shoving it aside for Xmas? Pretty soon it will be Easter it is shoving aside.
Please click on first photo to enlarge all.
For Cee’s FOTD.
Split
They gather round the pool for a glass of wine—
their voices soft as butter with a continental whine.
Their conversation heady. She’s finally arrived,
running from that castoff life that she barely survived.
She changes personalities according to her whim.
She became a baroness the moment she met him.
Tonight in the wine bar, perhaps she’ll be a waif.
In such low localities, a title isn’t safe.
The fantasies of childhood have certainly paid off.
One day she is a Renoir, the next she’s a Van Gogh.
One face follows another with a costume change.
Her various identities show an extensive range.
Being so many people is her brand of fun.
You’d call her a chameleon if you knew more than one.
But she is very careful. One identity per friend.
She saves her next identity for those met round the bend.
Prompt words today are butter, heady, glass, pool.*This poem was not written about the girl in the photo. I love this photo I took of my niece and although I felt the image worked to illustrate the poem, it is not illustrative of her personality.
Image by JJ Jordan on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Grossed Out by Liver
Have you ever seen the quiver
of a plate of raw red liver?
Shake it and you’ll see it shiver.
Blood runs right out and forms a river.
If mom cooks it, I won’t forgive her.
I will not eat a gol darn sliver!!
For Whimsygismo’s dVerse Quadrille (exactly 44 words) prompt of Quiver. Phew!!!
Cartoon Thinking
If our thoughts grew out of us in a gigantic bubble,
perhaps they might give warning to keep us out of trouble.
They might flow on ahead of us in a big balloon
to tell folks what we’re thinking, like in a cartoon.
Sometimes our thoughts scream out at us. At other times they whisper.
Sometimes our minds are in a fog. At other times they’re crisper,
but with prior warning of dangerous or sad thoughts,
perhaps our friends would intervene to circumvent bad thoughts.
Folks in crowds we’re entering might split to left and right
when we’re in a pissy mood and spoiling for a fight.
Those we meet might warn us of what we’re about to think,
or chuckle at our naughty thoughts and give a little wink.
What would the world be like if folks knew everything we thought?
One friend would know we hate her hair, one know we think he’s hot.
There would be no mysteries, not one Christmas surprise.
No detecting secret thoughts by staring into eyes.
The whole world would be literal. No nuances or mysteries.
Strangers would know our secrets, both our present and our histories.
No reading of expressions, for the truth would all be there
floating in thought bubbles, right above your hair!
