Abandoned

Shack+Pump3.jpgPhoto Credit: forgottenman

Abandoned 

Grass sways by the abandoned house
I cower inside––a trembling mouse
exposed to the bright flash of day
when all else has gone away.

First my father, then my mum
go away and never come
again to shelter, feed or love.
Life is a winging mourning dove

that makes us and then flies away,
making green grass into hay,
the flush of life and then decay,
a harsh light turning shadows gray.

Life swells  like paint–a curling blister.
It peels away my older sister,
then also takes my younger brother
and never comes to bring another.

A shadow passes over me.
A sparrowhawk. I dare not flee,
for life is mainly perilous.
It makes us just to feed on us.

Outside I see the preening cat.
It waits for me––patient and fat
in tall grass by the abandoned house
wherein I hide–a trembling mouse.

Daily Inkling’s Prompt: You’re walking in the woods, and there is an old shack in the middle of nowhere. You open the front door to find a completely different realm entirely unlike our own. Describe this new domain. (This is a reblog of a poem written two years ago.)

 

Ollie

I found this adorable photo of Ollie before he became the fat cat he is today.  Had to post it:

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Then

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And now!!!

For the November Photo a Day Challenge: Pets.

Day Lilies, Past Prime: Flower of the Day, Nov 7, 2018

These photos, taken a couple of months ago in Mexico, depict flowers long past their prime.

For Cee’s FOTD

A Surefire Recipe for Banishing Dejection

Click on first photo to enlarge all.

 

A Surefire Recipe for Banishing Dejection

If you’re feeling down and out about this last election,
here’s a recipe that might banish your dejection.
Or, if instead your problem is way too much to do,
this selfsame concoction might just work for you.

You need to take a holiday away from all your hurrying.
Life was not created for perpetual worrying.
Take all the world’s problems and put them on a shelf.
Take a little time off  purely for yourself.

Find a ripe banana, a papaya and some ice.
Blueberries, soy milk, fiber and some apple juice are nice.
Don’t worry if the papaya has a big brown spot.
You can cut it out because, poisonous? It’s not.

Put it in a blender. Push the button with your finger.
It’s not automatic, so you will have to linger
while the magic little blades make your concoction thinner.
Take a meditation break as you watch its spinner.

After just a minute, retire with your drink.
Take it to an easy chair to have a little think.
Chances are your problem is that you do not sin enough,
so, pour a little gin in if you find it isn’t thin enough.

The Ragtag prompt today is Holiday.

Not Good Enough, America!!!

Not Good Enough, America!!!

Will they carve his effigy on  a golden coin
and use it for ill purposes, our country to purloin?
Will they pare back Utopia, and in their selfish carving
leave us all in danger? Leave the masses starving?
When there’s no way left to judge them, when justice has been bought,
will we all reach out too late for what we’ll wish we sought
much earlier, when there was a chance we could impeach
the ones who took Utopia farther from our reach?

 

The prompt words are danger, effigy, starve and Utopia.

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/07/fowc-with-fandango-danger/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/effigy/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44/starve
dverse poets: Utopia

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Tools

https://ceenphotography.com/2018/11/06/cees-fun-foto-challenge-tools/

Reasons to Vote: a Reblog

Wish I’d seen this earlier, but I guess some polls are still open..

theceaselessreaderwrites's avatarThe Ceaseless Reader Writes

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My friend & fellow Tennessean Tony Burgess reblogged Angie Harmon’s excellent post today.  Tony lives in East Tennessee, which has long been a reliably Republican outpost, so it gave me hope to read this post, so much hope that I feel compelled to pass along the good word.  Please visit Tony’s awesome blog to see what else he has to say.

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The Good Wife: Page 62, Line 6

The Haunted Wordsmith’s prompt is to pick up the nearest book and turn to page 62, line 6 and use that line in a story.  The book I picked up was Veils, Halos and Shackles and this is the line: “. . . .each night passing through a boundary.”

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The Good Wife

Each night passing through a boundary, every morning coming home.
Pinned to the day’s agenda with no free time for her to roam
the streets of her imagination, gathering images she’d share
in all the stories she would write if she had the time and nerve to dare.
What would they think if they knew where she journeyed during dreaming time?
Would the other wives revile her or tell their husband of her crime?

The lush banks of imagination where she went barefoot and unveiled
and did the things that in the real world would cause her to be shunned or jailed
were her reward for time in harness, being that person they expected.
Veiled and cloistered and obedient. Qualities they all respected.
But in her dreams she lived the wild world—unfettered, uncensored and free.
It was the only place in her life that she labeled herself “me.”

In that world that wasn’t her world—that place where she was forced to be—
She existed as observer, watching a self she labeled “she.”
She kept her true self safely hidden. Kept her opinions to herself.
All her precious thoughts and talents neatly stacked upon the shelf
waiting for her nightly visits when she could take them down and play
until the early morning sunlight drew her, regrettably, to day.

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/page-62-line-6/

 

Last Leaf: FOTD Nov 6, 2018

 

FOTD

https://thejeshstudio.wordpress.com/2018/11/03/all-seasons-my-fall-favorites/

Colorful Living

I couldn’t find a photo of one of my favorite houses when I did my first post, so I have to publish an addendum to my “Places People Live.” This is the house of my friend Candace, who loves color, as I do, and her husband Bob.  I’ve now added it to the collage, but for those of you who have already seen my earlier post, here is another wonderful place where wonderful people live, and HERE is the original post of all of the houses.

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For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge.