Simple Inspiration
I’ll verify a dozen ways that I’m in the pink,
but I’m not as together as some folks may think.
The course I plod is littered by words I’ve thrown away,
hoping that I’ll come across some better ones some day.
I use no means nefarious to prod words into being.
My syllabic yield is rather based on what I’m seeing.
And so I am a plagiarist of wind and rain and flowers,
recording what is sweet in life and also much that sours.
The MVB prompt today is “Verify.”
Picking Your Pieces
Invest in possibilities and bifurcate your worries.
Soon enough these balmy days will change to winter’s flurries.
But why let future problems intercede today?
Best enjoy the present and put future woes away.
Being in a smaller pond makes you a bigger fish,
so whatever your situation, exercise your swish
and live your life with flair and joy. Wring all the zest from life.
It does no good to drown yourself in thoughts of gloom and strife.
Sometimes I find that in this life I get what I expect,
so when life hands you troubles, why don’t you just object
and turn those woes to prospects and insist on being chipper?
Why choose to be a pessimist when optimism’s hipper?
You might call me a dreamer, but that’s okay with me.
Why be imprisoned by your doubts when you could be free?
Life needn’t be a puzzle. It can be a quest.
Pick out the parts that you prefer and throw away the rest.
The prompt for My Vivid Blog today was “Flurries.”
I’m flashing back in time to my visit to Pompeii with my sister a few years ago. Few other palaces in my life in the past few years!
For My Vivid Blog, the prompt is: Palace.
Ode to My Doctor, Who Has Done Little to Curry My Favor
Each of these foods you suggest for my diet
has not one feature to urge me to try it.
The chard is too leafy, the kale makes me gag.
I will be affianced to naught in this bag.
This fluffy green spinach would be best in a dip
with sour cream and onions and served on a chip.
I have not one vestige of an urge to consume it
raw in a salad, so do not assume it
will ever pass lips as selective as mine.
I need carbohydrates and meat when I dine.
Do you get the message that I’m on the outs
with arugula, collard greens, beet greens and sprouts?
My palate’s delighted when it comes to spice.
A molé is lovely and a curry is nice,
but please put some meat in it. I’m a contrarian
when you attempt to turn me vegetarian.
For My Vivid Blog, today’s prompt is “Doctor.” I wrote this poem three years ago, but I’m still of the same opinion.
Parting Words
Before Rhett Butler went on the lam,
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
was his parting imprecation
before he he left on his vacation.
For My Vivid Blog the prompt is Profanity.
Man Child
He’s a bomb at being serious. He’s jolly, rash and wild.
In essence, he’s never grown up. He’s a perpetual child.
His rustic simplicity is anything but charming,
for he’s redolent of fishing smells and horse riding and farming.
His impetuosity has often brought on trouble,
leading to some barroom brawls and the resulting rubble.
For all these things, he’s won a sort of infamous renown,
and he’s banned from almost all the pubs in his little town.
The local folks have made excuses for him all his life,
but such crass indulgences won’t garner him a wife.
He’d like to have some kids himself–a most unlikely bid
so long as he himself insists on acting like a kid.
Today’s prompt for My Vivid Blog is Man.
This is a “man” I used to see at the beach. Those squirrels are real!! They later had a baby squirrel, increasing the family to four (including the man child.) This is a reblog of an earlier blog.
Fancy Words
Don’t we adore fancy words? Don’t we love to use them?
Still, it is annoying when some choose to abuse them.
When “geddouddahere” would do to tell pests when to go,
they use “begone!” to banish them in words more rococo.
Their need to parlay simple words, I fear I find most gruesome.
A tasty meal’s not good enough. They see repasts most toothsome.
While we argue, they asservate, assiduously stating
things that all of the rest of us are fine with just debating.
They see themselves as bon vivants, most clever and most charming,
They complicate the simplest words at rates we find disarming.
A lady we call beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, cool,
they find pulchritudinous. Where did they go to school?
“Piquant” they use religiously, though most of us denounce it.
Yes, we agree it’s pretty, but we just can’t pronounce it.
Slow music is andante, dark closets are aphotic.
As they rave on, each alloquy tends to get hypnotic.
What the rest of us get rid of, they alleviate.
They do not use contractions. They don’t abbreviate.
They’re intent on gamboling while we’re just being silly.
They see the landscape undulating. We just find it hilly.
Forsooth, they have no wherewithal to get where they must go?
We’re all willing to chip in. We hope they don’t go slow!
They are extremely irritating, though they do not know it.
It’s not easy dealing with a friend who is a poet!!!
For My Vivid Blog: Words
Must confess that I wrote this poem 7 years ago, but it seemed appropriate, so….
Click on Photos to Enlarge
Elephants
Fifty-six years of elephants in my life. The first photo—Tsavo Game Preserve in Kenya, Second—riding a timbering elephant in Sri Lanka. First it tried to pull down this tree. Next it went lumbering down the bank of the river to cool down in the water. An exciting ride. Third—a crocheted mama and her baby created by a woman in my village in San Juan Cosala, Jalisco, Mexico. My life has tamed down a bit since those first two photos.
Just three months late, For CMMC: Word with E and A
And for My Vivid Blog
Fire on the Mountain
The smell of burning leaves us only when we sleep,
the hills above us aflame for weeks as the wind
catches the upraised hands of a dozen fires
and hurries them here and there.
It is like this every year
at the end of summer,
with the dry grass ignited by
light reflected by a piece of glass
or careless farmers burning off their fields.
The lushness of the rainy season
long since turned to fodder by the sun,
the fires burn for weeks along the ridges
and the hollows of the Sierra Madre—
raising her skirts from where we humans
puddle at her ankles.
Imprisoned in their separate worlds,
the village dogs bark
as though if freed
they’d catch the flames
or give chase at least.
The distracting smell of roasting meat
hints at some neighborhood barbecue,
but only afterwards do we find
the cow caught by her horns in the fence
and roasted live.
Still, that smell of roasting meat
pushes fingers through the smoke of coyote brush
and piñon pines and sage,
The new young gardener’s
ancient heap of rusting Honda
chugs up the hill like the rhythm section
of this neighborhood banda group
with its smoke machine gone crazy
and its light show far above.
The eerie woodwinds
of canine voices far below
circle like children
waiting for their birthday cake,
ringing ‘round the rosy,
ringing ‘round the rosy
as ashes, ashes,
it all falls down.
For My Vivid Blog, the prompt is “All.”
If I were marooned on an island with only three foods, what three foods would I choose?
Potatoes, Whole Milk, Oil.
What I could make from these three ingredients? Baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, French fries (alas, no ketchup), mashed potatoes with milk and butter, potato chips, scalloped potatoes, fried potatoes, VODKA!!!!!
What I’d miss most: Salt (but I figure I could obtain it from seawater), green vegetables, (Surely there are some edible greens on the island? More likely than wild potatoes.) As for meat, there must be some game on the island and fish in the ocean or lake around it.
The Prompt for My Vivid Blog is Potatoes. Can’t resist that one!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 