Tag Archives: RDP

Dust to Rain

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Dust to Rain

The world, my dear, is dust to rain
over and over and again.
It is as true as it is sad
that relief cannot be had
unless some travail happens first.
How can we quench unless we thirst?

Those times you go without a trace
of raindrops on your upturned face
give way to petrichor—they must
as finally rain comes down to dust.
Bountiful years follow the drought.
It is the way the world’s planned out.

Grandparents tell their younger kin
that drought is the result of sin
or hurricanes our penance for
those misdeeds the gods abhor.
But this is all mistaken lore
dispelled by whiffs of petrichor.

The prompt words for today were trace, kin, bountiful and petrichor ( the pleasant, distinctive smell frequently accompanying the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather in certain regions.)

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/rdp-thursday-petrichor/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/08/fowc-with-fandango-trace/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/kin/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44/bountiful

A Surefire Recipe for Banishing Dejection

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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.

Acquisitions

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If you want a closer view, click on the first photo to enlarge all.

Acquisitions

It’s all part and parcel of what I’ve been repressing—
one of those hidden vices I should have been addressing.
All those dingy corners filled with useless things.
Wondering how much happiness each hoarded object brings.
How can I glide through life carrying such a pack?
It must impede my progress with all that on my back.

There must be a reason a turtle has a shell
that enables all he glides through to slide off him as well.
He doesn’t amass fortune or any worldly thing.
Each day he starts anew to see what it might bring.
Perhaps in my next life I’ll be less of a hoarder.
and in the life I’m finishing I’ll be a better sorter.

One pile for donations, another I will sell.
Another, objects for old friends I know will love them well.
One pile for Yolanda and one for Pasiano.
Old pictures for my sister to put on her piano.
Rings for all my nieces and earrings for my friends.
When it comes to shoes, the pile never ends.

When it is all sorted, the clothes all hung on racks,
knickknacks on the tables and records piled in stacks,
I’ll open up garage doors and let the masses in
to sort through all the boxes and plow through every bin.
And when the weekend’s over—the chaos and the din,
I’ll start amassing more and start the process all again!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/rdp-tuesday-parcel/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/06/fowc-with-fandango-repress/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/dingy/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44/ glide

The Fruits of Nature

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The Fruits of Nature

Wind chimes in the autumn by stripping bare the trees.
A vine of clouds now choke the moon. Stars fill the sky like bees.
Summer is clearly over and arctic winds are coming.
Small squirrels mine the oak tree with their insistent drumming.
Our backyard orchard gives its last small shelter to the birds
although its leafy plumage is diminished now by thirds.
Where months before small families chirped their hunger to the skies,
empty nests have been laid bare to marauding eyes.
No danger now, unless the murderous blue jay stores away
the memory of their placements for a future day.
The trees stand strong and sturdy, their roots below entwined,
watching one more old year steadily unwind.
What new pleasure in this scene will we newly find
once all the fruits of  nature are pared down to the rind?

The word prompts today are: chime, over, arctic, oak tree, orchard  and this sketch by Kira. Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/rdp-monday-chime/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/05/fowc-with-fandango-over/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/kiras-sunday-scribbles-15/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44/arctic
Welcome to Kira’s weekly inspirational art piece.
https://normalhappenings.com/2018/11/05/the-old-oak-tree-daily-inkling/the old oak tree
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-addictions-2018-week-44orchard

Mature Love

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Mature Love

I once basked in your bonfire, and though no one quite remembers
when we last caught fire, I’m warming fingers at your embers.
Slow steady fires that survive, snoozing ‘neath the ashes
have the same mysterious lure as winks obscured by lashes.
Passion need not flame to warm the cockles of one’s heart.
What was a wild onslaught at its very start
may settle down to a warm glow or a steady smolder.
Loving hand placed over hand —my head upon your shoulder.

 

 

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https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/03/rdp-saturday-bask/
FOWC with Fandango — Snooze
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/03/bonfire/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/onslaught

Political Gaming

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Political Gaming

Even a gamester must confess
that life is no mere game of chess.
Friday’s vote, Friday’s disaster
that brings on man’s end all the faster.

 

The Ragtag Daily Prompt was Friday.

Fandango’s Prompt was Chess.

 

 

A Halloween Primer

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A Halloween Primer

Bloodcurdling screams of banshees and the moans of other specters
are signals to skirt graveyards and other creepy sectors.
Do not go close to water. La Llorona* lingers there.
Hobgoblins roam on Halloween. Please take extra care
that you aren’t impeded by your costume’s girth and weight
so just in case, you can maintain the proper speed and gait
to insure escaping witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls
who inhabit Halloween and make up all the rules.
Heed well my past instructions of where you should not go.
Get home before the witching hour. These warnings you should know
lest you become another statistic of the night
set aside for horrors, for hauntings and for fright.
Halloween is filled with fun: the costumes, pumpkins, candy,
and if you heed my warnings, everything should turn out dandy.
Just stay away from witches of the authentic sort—
the kind with real black three-inch nails and a genuine wart.
Make sure the vampire’s fangs aren’t real, that ghost is in a sheet.
Assure the authenticity of every friend you meet.
It does not do to make new friends. Be guided by your fear
and do not talk to strangers on this one night of the year.

*In Latin American folklore, La Llorona (pronounced [la ʝo.ˈɾo.na], “The Weeping Woman”) is a ghost of a woman who lost her children and now cries while looking for them in the river, often causing misfortune to those who are near, or who hear her.

I was premature in my posting of spooky Halloween photos. Go HERE to see scary photos.

The prompt words today are costume, weight, bloodcurdling and signal. Here are links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/rdp-wednesday-costume/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/31/fowc-with-fandango-weight/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/bloodcurdling/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/signal

Human Conditions

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Human Conditions

What some see as a plank, others see as a sliver.
What starts out as a rivulet can swell into a river.
But there is a dead center closer to what’s real—
a place optimists overlook and pessimists overfeel.

Some may have solutions that others find absurd
and as a result, simply let go unheard.
But as we spend time bickering o’er who is right or wrong,
more sinister plans of nature flow rapidly along.

There’s a reason we are labeled as the human “race.”
Most problems exist because we cannot slow our pace.
We speed too quickly forward, not considering the end
of all the natural balances that we choose to bend.

The food we grow is excess and we throw away
forty percent of it, every week and day
while people starve around us. We can’t find a solution
to world hunger, extinct species, global warming or pollution.

Each plastic bag we use is the beginning of a motion
that takes it down that rivulet to river to the ocean
where it will join the others—the flip flops and the dishes
that are killing off our coral and our mollusks and our fishes.

We choke our air and wonder why we cannot breath.
Our youths lack a direction. They question and they seethe.
What choices have we left them as we export all their jobs
and give them all devices that turn them into blobs?

If there were a grand plan for ridding Mother Earth
of every single species that had a use or worth,
I think it would be planned by man and not by evolution.
Increasingly we seem to be mounting a revolution

It’s as though we’re pre-conditioned, as though we have a need
first of all, to bring an end to every other breed,
and then to do ourselves in to restore the motion
of evolution once again. To see what is her notion

of what might work the next time in building a global order
that knows its place in things without straying ‘cross the border.
Perhaps billions of years from now, nature will proudly flout
another scheme for nature that this time will work out!

The prompt words today are dead, center, rivulet and globe. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/30/rdp-tuesday-dead/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/30/fowc-with-fandango-center/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/30/agnostic/(actually, rivulet)
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/globe

Short Vacation

7 Replies

Short Vacation

Just for today, repress advice
that the world is not so nice.
For just one day, forget the slime.
Pretend the world’s once more sublime.
Let’s hop aboard our little dingy,
grab that picnic hamper thingy
and simply sail our fears away.
Escape the news, just for today.

 

Prompts today are sublime, dingy, repress and advice. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/rdp-monday-sublime/
http://FOWC with Fandango — Dingy
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/repress/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/advice

Microcosm

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Microcosm

Solace from this angst-filled world can best be found at home.
It wraps around me snuggly under my protective dome.
Prioritizing calm and peace, I have a little chat
with a dog or bird or two, or maybe with a cat.

I lie snug in my hammock and survey the too-long grass
of my private little meadow where no evil comes to pass
short of combat between possums and dogs too poorly trained
to entertain these welcome guests in manners more restrained.

Their battles are, alas, short lived. The dogs always the winners.
As in the world, the bounty here goes to the biggest sinners.
The possum’s only infraction? It’s not a dog or cat
and its physical resemblance is too close to a rat.

And so the world injects itself into my little nest,
insisting the familiar is what we accept best.
These battles happen when I’m gone or when I’m fast asleep,
too lost to this too-conscious world, lost in a world more deep.

As things are on the outside, I fear they’re also here.
My world is not a perfect world, but simply a small mirror
to what is happening all around. It is without a doubt
those who have most everything keeping others out!

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