Tag Archives: #RDP

“Cruel Nature” for The Sunday Whirl

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Cruel Nature

Wee chirping birdies trill their whistles
while down in the cruel thistles
a baby bunny in the thicket
explores a wound and starts to lick it.
Stiff sticks as sharp as horns of deer 
are what these little creatures fear.


What a great treat it would be
to be those birds up in the tree
looking out from far above––
their feathered nest a cosy glove
that fits them well, all snug and warm
up there far from pain and harm.

This sunset must be nature blushing,
and this momentary hushing
at the end of day a type of prayer
for quaking creatures hidden where
unprotected, they await 
their potential sadder fate.

 

The Sunday Whirl Wordle #733 prompt words are: thistles horns stiff treat wee chirping fit down stick blushing out moment   I made use of AI to create the images.

“Quit Before It’s Too Late” for RDP Sunday

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Quit Before It’s Too Late

Why oh why did I not quit
before the very end of it?
Douse live coals in the fire pit
or leave that fatal fire unlit?
Withhold that kick, suppress that hit?
Hold back the urge to squeeze that zit?
Leave that final plot unknit?
Alas, this is the truth of it:
one chance is all we mortals get.

For RDP Sunday  the prompt word is; Quit

“On the Beach” for RDP “Sepia” Prompt

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This fish and the other objects in the first picture were found in exactly this position on the beach. I was fascinated by the beauty of the arrangement and the details of the fish that was not a fisherman’s catch but had obviously died either before or after it washed ashore.

(Click on first picture and then on arrows to enlarge photos and view gallery.)

 

for the RDP prompt, which is also “Sepia.”

I used these photos many years ago for a “Sepia” prompt by Cee, who inspired so many posts over the years. R.I.P. Cee!!!! I post them here in memory of her.

A Regal Final Breath, for RDP Wednesday

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Her Highness Contemplates A Seemly End

Nobility in dying is something I shan’t botch,
for I know it shall be one that the whole wide world will watch.
I cannot go by fire, for I’m sure I would be screaming
as the water quenched the fire and set my flesh to steaming.

So unseemly and so crass. I’d find it unappealing.
So, too, a rope around my neck, hanging from the ceiling.
Jumping from a roof won’t do. Nor will a gun nor pills.
Every sort of suicide just sports too many ills.

It’s clear that death by avalanche is the only one
that will really suit me when the day is done.
A certain swift clean fall of snow seems such a pristine death.
A queenly mode of dying. Such a regal final breath!

For RDP Wednesday the prompt is REGAL

Must admit that I am rerunning a poem I wrote for RDP six years ago. At that time the prompt was was “avalanche”, but as you can see, the poem works for “regal” as well!

The Sporting Life for RDP

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The Sporting Life

I’ve never had much interest in sports played with a ball.
Of games with pucks or shuttlecocks, I have no need at all.
Gym workouts, laps and chin-ups do nothing for me.
I simply have no talent for touching chin to knee.
The body part I work out with is of a different kind.
I like the sort of games requiring exercise of mind.
Dominoes or Mastermind, Bridge or Chess or Scrabble
are aspects of the sporting life discounted by the rabble.
Yet if you want to hold my interest, team sport is absurd.
Just woo me with a domino, a die, a card, a word.
Lay your mind upon the table, dear, I’ll trump it with an ace.
The contact I like in a sport is merely face-to-face.

The prompt for RDP Wednesday is Shuttle

“Firm Ground” for Ragtag Daily Press

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Firm Ground

Between all of you and me,
I’ve no experience with scree.
Given the type of ground to walk on,
scree’s the surface I would balk on.
Other folks may be adventurous.
My choice is usually ventureless!

The RDP prompt is “scree.”  (Image borrowed from the RDP prompt site.)

Crocs, Iguanas and Relatives for RDP

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This croc and others live in the river across the road from a house I have stayed in in La Manzanilla.
One swam within 10 feet of me as I did my daily water aerobics in the ocean in front of my house. Bystanders watched it swim behind me without commenting–until later. Thanks, guys!!!
Here’s a smaller relative.
And an iguana.
An artistic rendering of an iguana by my friend Laurie.
Art or nature? You decide.
My early morning alarm clock, this fellow tried his darndest to get me to come to my sliding glass door.
He bumped his head and scratched at the door with no success.

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is Reptilian

These are all reptiles I either visited in La Manzanilla  (where some of them visited me) or found in my garden. Luckily, the larger ones I left behind when I came back home to San Juan Cosala!!! Oh, and you may have detected that a couple of them are artistic renderings.

A&Wesome Burgers for the Ragtag Daily Prompt “Sandwich” Prompt

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Okay, when I saw the Ragtag prompt was “sandwich,” I decided I simply must rerun this post from 2016:

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Today dawned rainy and foggy with a prediction it would last all day, so instead of spending five hours on the Cabot Trail before heading southwards for another three hour journey to get my car returned to Hertz by 9 p.m., I decided to head immediately for the airport and my overnight stay at the very classy Alt hotel which is located right at the Halifax airport.  Very handy.  Enroute, I noticed an A&W Drive-in and had to stop. I thought they’d gone out of business years ago but here is proof that they are still alive and thriving in Nova Scotia. Thanks, WordPress, for the very timely prompt.  I didn’t even know what it was until I got to the wifi of my hotel in Halifax. Nice coincidence that I was already supplied with an illustration for today’s prompt of “Sandwich!”

Version 3

A&Wsome Burgers

The first drive-in I went to when I was just a kid
(before there was McDonalds or wax cups with a lid)
was an A&W sixty miles from home
with root beer served in frosty mugs and sporting heads of foam.
I haven’t seen another for years, so I believed
there weren’t any anymore—a fact that I have grieved.
So while driving into Halifax, imagine my elation
when I saw an A&W next to a filling station!

I had meant to fill my rental car before I turned it in,
‘cause the prices when Hertz fills them up are really quite a sin,
but all thoughts of filling up the car vanished in a blink
with thoughts of luscious burgers and foamy things to drink.
There’s mama burger, papa burger and even a teen,
but still no baby burgers, or anything between.
They have onion rings and French fries and something called poutine?
An addition to the menu? I found it most obscene.

Now it has been a long time since I have had the fun
of consuming family members stuffed into a bun,
but I am really very sure that poutine is a new one.
In all my life I’ve never before had the chance to chew one!
I asked the friendly sales girl for a bit of erudition
that could clue me in to this Canadian addition
to what I thought was sacrosanct—an act of pure sedition.
Just what has the world come to when franchises have permission

to add things to the menu? It simply is not right
that they can think up something new for us to bite!!!
She filled me in on what it was and said it was delicious.
French fries, cheese curd, gravy??? A mixture most pernicious.
What good are French fries served with cheese that’s certain to taste boggy,
topped off with gravy that no doubt would make the whole mess soggy?
I bought a teen burger and naked French fries at their best—
then left to eat them in my car—a sure sign of protest.

But in the end my protest was paid most dearly for.
For when I took my food to go, slamming shut the door
and roaring off to eat my food in another place,
I ended up with poutine all over my face.
For I forgot to buy my gas which would have cost a third
of what I had to pay to Hertz—a total most absurd.
Yet even though my protest in my budget put a crimp,
at least I did not stoop to eating French fries that were limp!!!

The prompt for RDP is “Sandwich.”

Cat and Mouse for RDP

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Cat and Mouse

My cat is in his hunter mode, and that is no surprise.
I see it in extended claws. I see it in his eyes.
His back is hunched into an arc. His hair all stands on end.
His lips are stretched back in a hiss, his teeth ready to rend.

When he lets go a loud remark, it sounds more like a chatter.
I look up from my magazine to see what is the matter.
The prism on the windowsill reflects a flashing gleam
and he springs into action to try to catch its beam.

Like an arrow, straight and sure, he shoots across the room,
but when he does, his target’s gone. Vanished in the gloom.
It seems his prey has vanished. It’s nowhere to be found.
He’s wasted all his energy: his speed, his stealth, his bound.

The cat door closes with a swish. He’s off to other pleasures.
Out in the sultry cloud-swathed world, he’ll resort to other measures.
He saunters by the hen house, hungry, but it’s no use
He still bears the scars of the rooster’s last abuse.

While the men are busy milking, he’ll crouch there in the dirt
hoping if he’s lucky to receive a friendly squirt.
He’ll troll the barn for mice and rats, then comb the prairie grass
for game that’s more digestible than prey that’s made of glass.

 

The prompt for RDP is prism.

Inedibles

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The Indigestibles

No room for mushrooms, can’t live with liver.
The thought of brains just makes me shiver.
Though I like pizza, my other law
is I don’t eat tomatoes raw!

Drinking milk’s against my wishes.
Fish is simply for the fishes.
I eat no veal or other baby,
and steak for me is simply “maybe.”

So if it’s your plan to invest
in things that I like to ingest,
I won’t make it any harder
for you to come and stock my larder.

All else you want to bring to feed me—
what edibles you wish to cede me:
Injera, curries, Thai, Chinese—
all are sure to tempt and please.

Except for one thing I just thought of
that in the past I’ve had a lot of.
There’s one more mouthful I won’t try.
I have no taste for humble pie!

For RDP, the prompt word is Mushroom.