Tag Archives: The Daily Post

A Bio Challenge

26 Replies

The Prompt: Flash Talk—You’re about to enter a room full of strangers, where you will have exactly four minutes to tell a story that would convey who you really are. What’s your story?

A Bio Challenge

My name is Judy. I live alone.
I love computers but hate the phone.
I’m addicted to the Internet
and the literary set.

I’m allergic to dogs. They make me wheeze,
but I still have two to make me sneeze.
(Along with a cat who comes to eat
but spends the day across the street.)

I like to write and do my art.
I’m not very pretty, but I’m sorta smart.
I live on a mountain all up and down
above a little Mexican town.

When I wake up, before I stray,
I write a poem every day.
Upon my back, I tap with zest
with my computer on my chest,

for I believe without a doubt
that when I move, ideas fall out
before I get them to the screen.
If I leave bed, they’re never seen.

I dance sometimes, and volunteer,
but spend too much time on my rear.
I’m a member of four writing groups
that keep me jumping through their hoops.

I write a blog to please myself
but my novel sits there on the shelf,
three chapters long, not any more.
When November comes, I’ll start on four!

So about me, I think I’m through.
I want to come read about you!
Please use my “comments” box to show
some things about you I don’t know.

One fact or two, (they needn’t rhyme)
would make me feel more than sublime.
If sixty people read this post,
then sixty comments I hope to boast.

And I promise that I’ll reply to
each person, be there lots or few.
I’ll write a separate rhyme for each
that won’t pontificate or preach.

The more unusual your fact,
the odder with be my “react.”
A mere two-liner for each one—
Please comment now and join the fun!

Pillage and Warfare

15 Replies

 Pillage and Warfare

As per Mandy’s request, I’m publishing these pictures.  As much as i admire the industry and organization of these fascinating creatures, it is also true that this year has been the worst in 13 years in my battle with the leaf cutter ants that have stripped my gardens time after time after time.  What used to be a once-a-year skirmish has turned into a year-round battle to try to preserve some of my greenery and flowers. 

DSC09398(Above:) Here you see bougainvillea, honeysuckle and hibiscus fallen to the tiny but effective jaws of the leaf cutters. This pile of leaf segments cut from the bushes above awaits transport to the nest.

DSC09392(Above:) A lone ant approaches his load, walking over the chalk line.  At the time, this Chinese Chalk was  my only defense against a garden completely stripped of leaves and flowers!

DSC09394
(Above:) Comrades at arms  struggle to move a leaf over the chalk line, in the process coating their bodies with the lethal “chalk.”

DSC09393
A lone ant vanishes into the crack in the concrete that leads to the nest.  A thin powder of the insecticide chalk can be seen on his hind quarters.

DSC09391

An ant struggles to move his fallen comrade back to the nest.

DSC09390
Too late, he himself falls.

DSC09397In the end, only the remnants of the harvested leaves are left to mark their former workplace.  This round against this nest, I seem to have won; but experience has taught me that they will be back!

For a fascinating look at the devastation army ants can wreak, I recommend that you read “Leningren Vs. the Ants” by Carl Stephenson.

 

Autumn Schmautumn

5 Replies

The Prompt: Autumn Leaves—Changing colors, dropping temperatures, pumpkin spice lattes: do these mainstays of Fall fill your heart with warmth — or with dread?

Autumn Schmautumn

The only colored leaves I see are going to be faux,
for autumn never visits in my part of Mexico.
In fact, those piles of autumn leaves are far back in my past.
Green on the leaves in Mexico just lasts and lasts and lasts.
It’s true that each leaf everywhere must one day be defeated,
but down here where I live, the only way leaves are unseated
is not by frigid temperatures. There’s no cold to unglue them.
Our only leaf-removal means is cutter ants that chew them!
The ones who cut them down are all the bravest and the best.
Their comrades wait below to carry them all to their nest.
Their robberies completed without the slightest peep,
their piles of leaves depleted in the nighttime while we sleep.
Our guard dogs doze on soundly as ants pass by in the dark,
letting all these thieveries go on without one bark.
And so I fear that this far south no autumn colors are viewed.
Our trees create no spectacle. They go from green to nude!
And though ants harvest all our leaves—just chew them off and take them,
at least they grant us favors in that we don’t have to rake them!

OSDED-00000927-001

At Great Length

14 Replies

The Prompt: Brevity Pulls—“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” — Blaise Pascal. Where do you fall on the brevity/verbosity spectrum?

At Great Length

In sonnets, free verse, story, song—
I fear that I go on too long.
I flunked at law school, to my mother’s grief.
I could not seem to write a brief!

Hmm.  9:29 and we are still unable to post on the WordPress Daily Prompt site.  So, I fear my post needs to be expanded.  So much for brevity:

Our contact delayed yesterday
seems delayed once again today,
for now that I have penned a rhyme
that doesn’t take much of your time,
it seems the hyperlink won’t work
so here in limbo we all lurk!

“Delayed Contact” was the theme
for yesterday, but still they seem
stuck in it. We’ve cussed and prayed,
but still our contact is delayed!
Wordpress, please come out to play.
It seems you’re stuck in yesterday!!

Strangers When We Meet

16 Replies

The Prompt: Delayed Contact—How would you get along with your sibling(s), parent(s), or any other person you’ve known for a long time — if you only met them for the first time today?

Strangers When We Meet

If I had met my parents when we all were sixty-seven,
(before she went on oxygen, before he went to heaven,)
would we have liked each other and found something to say?
As strangers, would we walk on by or pass the time of day?

My father liked to be the one spinning out the tale.
Beside his vivid stories, I think most of mine would pale.
He wasn’t a joke-teller or a purveyor of fictions.
It was true stories of his life that fueled his depictions.

And when his friends had heard them all, he’d tell them all again.
Though they stretched with every telling, still his tales never grew thin.
If fifteen wolves pursued him—a number that is plenty,
the next time that he told the tale, I’ll wager there’d be twenty!

When I returned from Africa with stories of my own,
I found that they weren’t good enough, for all of them had grown
with all my dad’s retellings, so the rhino I had snapped
a photo of, now chased me. (In reality, it napped.)

I think perhaps my mother would like my poems the best.
She’d like the rhyme and meter, the humor and the jest.
For I learned all of it from her when I was very small,
as she was doing rhyming before I learned to crawl.

I grew up with her diaries—all of them in rhyme.
She had them in a notebook and we read them all the time.
The tales of her friend Gussie, who wasn’t allowed beaus;
so they said they went to Bible study, though it was a pose.

Gussie’s mother baked two pies, (for coffee hour, they said.)
Her father said he’d pick them up. They said they’d walk instead.
They took one of her mother’s pies to those within the church,
then took the other with them as they left them in the lurch!

Their beaus were waiting for them in a car with motor running.
Instead of Bible reading, they preferred to do some funning.
To abscond with both the pies was something that they had debated,
but in the end they left one pie–an action that they hated.

Two sisters present were their foes. They were so prim and proper.
To steal one pie was lie enough—but two would be a whopper!
Mom’s entry in her journal is one I can still tell.
(Don’t know why it’s the only one that I remember well.)

Line for line, here’s what she said in metered verse and rhyme,
though it’s been sixty years since I heard it for the first time:
“We left that crowd of greedy Dirks to feast upon our pies.
We were so mad, like Gussie’s Dad—had pitchforks in our eyes!”

My mother burned this journal when I was just a kid.
I wish she hadn’t done so, but alas, it’s true, she did.
Perhaps she didn’t want to see us following her ways.
Instead of what she did, better to follow what she says.

But I am sure if she still lived we’d have a little fun,
sitting down together when every day was done
and writing all our exploits down, relaying all our slips—
saving for posterity the words that pass our lips.

And in the meantime, Dad would tell as long as he was able,
all those stories that he’s told at table after table.
In coffee shops and golf courses, at parties or a dance,
he would go on telling them, whenever there’s a chance.

And if we all were strangers, and none of us were kids,
we could relate our stories without putting on the skids.
Each would outdo the other as we passed around the bend,
with story after story till we all came to The End!!!

Overdone (Ten Minute Flunkee)

19 Replies

The Prompt: Ready, Set Done—Today, write about anything, but you must write for exactly ten minutes, no more, no less.

Overdone (Ten Minute Flunkee)

One-a-minute two-a-minute three-a-minute four.
Big bad minute police waiting at your door.
If you take a minute more, I know they’ll somehow know.
So thinking about what you say is gonna bring you low!
They’re gonna crash your firewall and take you off to jail.
So with no other blogger there to get you out on bail,
you gotta write a piece that isn’t about anything—
not about-a-nothing, but the words they gotta sing.
Time is of the essence ‘cause there ain’t no other clue.
Topical-type bloggers? They just ain’t gonna do.
Don’t know why with time limits I’m lacking all my grammar.
It’s like my words are nails but that I’m lacking any hammer.
With no topic they all lie here, looking for a wall.
There’s no sense to any of it. No, no sense at all.
I’m sure a question’s out there, but nobody’s gonna ask it,
and all these words just roll on by like eggs without a basket.
And meaning keeps eluding me. I know I’ll never find it.
Somehow though I’m running, I just stay too far behind it.
I once said I never know just what I will be writing.
From line to line, I follow words and hope they’ll be inciting
a thought, a thesis or a theme somewhere along the way.
I always hope it will be soon, ‘cause I don’t have all day.
But now I look and see the time—9:20:52.
I know that is impossible, for there’ve been just a few
minutes since I started—only one or two—
but the clock says fourteen minutes and some seconds more as well.
So though I’ve met the challenge, once again I’ve missed the bell!!!

9:06:20-9:21:41

Mending Pants (With apologies to Robert Frost)

18 Replies

I once again didn’t feel an affinity for today’s prompt, but a friend had suggested that I try this week’s Poets & Writers poetry prompt, so I did it instead.  What follows is a familiar poem by Robert Frost entitled “Mending Wall” and then my parody of it entitled “Mending Pants.”  I hope that I am interpreting that grimace on your face as a smile, and if so, I can link my poem to the Daily Post prompt as well, thereby mending two fences with one stone!!!

Mending Wall   (by Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Mending Pants (With apologies to Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love a fast,
That sends a frozen pizza to waylay it,
And spills the diner’s flesh out towards the sun;
And makes gaps in his pants legs where two balls can pass abreast.
Those forks of custard are another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left him with new stone on stone*
Until his flesh again peeps by habit out of hiding
To tease the helping girls. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor lady know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to mend his pants
And set him down between us once again.
We keep him there between us as we sew,
To each the breaches that have fallen to each.
Some near his buns and some so near his balls
We have to fuse him well to make them balance:
“Stay where you are, until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One ball on a side. It comes to little more:
She has your pine staff and I your apple, Richard.
Your apple, free, will never get across
And be misplaced to crowd its twin, I tell him.
He only says, “Good pants repairs make good neighbors.”
Frisky with springtime, I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are actually balls? But here there appear to be no balls.
Before I mend thy pants, I’d like to know
What I was panting in or panting out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love tight pants,
That wants them torn! I could shout “Elvis” to him,
But he’s not exactly Elvis, and I’d rather
He saw it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing his stones grasped firmly at the top
In each hand, like an old stoned savage armed.
He moves in discomfort, as it seems to me,
His balls lonely and his blade not yet set free.
He will not go far before his pants start splaying,
Yet he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good pants repairs make good neighbors.”

*a stone is a British unit of measure equal to 14 pounds.

(Wish I could have printed these out side-by-side so the parody is clearer.  If you are really a purist, perhaps you’ll do so to enjoy the parallels.)

Okay.. I’ve come back from the future to do a side-by-side version:

ON STRIKE!!!!!!!

5 Replies

The Prompt: Absolute Beauty—Do you agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder or is all beauty contingent on a subjective point of view?

ON STRIKE!!!!

I am tired of being asked to agree or disagree with the obvious!  Things said a million times over? What is the need of saying them again? What difference can it possibly make for me to agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I might as well say bread is white or the ocean is wide. Who needs to hear this again? Who needs to hear this again? See? You are already tired of hearing it and I’ve only said it twice. I am a card-carrying opponent of the trite, the platitude, the obvious. And so in protest I am not answering today’s prompt. Long live originality. Reward offered for an original prompt.

Mind Freeze

6 Replies

  • The Prompt: Overload Alert—“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” — Gertrude Stein. Do you Agree?

    Mind Freeze

    There is new news all day long, for every single minute.
    By radio and television, we are immersed in it.
    Even on the Internet, they repeat and repeat
    every warlike action, every athletic feat.

    We know before their spouses do when politicians slip,
    view every starlet’s nightclub spree via a Youtube clip.
    Stock market scams and Ponzi schemes and other news that scares
    as big guys pick our pockets in order to line theirs.

    Sans Blackwater and Monsanto, we would be better off,
    but we’d still be deluged by news of Enron and Madoff!
    We consult Wikipedia to see what it might say,
    keep up with the Kardashians a dozen times a day.

    It’s hard enough to keep abreast of those they might be bedding,
    let alone to know the date of their most recent wedding.
    Who has gained a pound or two or who’s the most hirsute?
    This information makes our lives a Trivial Pursuit.

    There are so many details that come at us day and night,
    filling up our minds until our craniums feel tight.
    We’re stuffed with sound bites, news clips and every TV show
    until it is inevitable. Something’s got to blow!

    No wonder that we can’t remember names of our best friends
    or what we came out shopping for or how that movie ends.
    We can’t remember song lyrics or what we meant to do
    when we came in here for something. Was it scissors, paint or glue?

    I am forgetting everything I always used to know.
    Every mental process has just gotten kind of slow.
    It’s taking me much longer now to ponder each decision—
    a factor that the younger folks consider with derision.

    Like-aged friends agree with me, for they all feel the same.
    They all have minds stuffed just as full, and we know what to blame.
    There’s too much information, and like any stuffed-full larder,
    to locate things within them gets progressively harder.

    If we could sort our minds out the same way that we pack—
    putting unimportant stuff way at the very back
    and all the more important things in front and at the top,
    we wouldn’t have to search our minds and wouldn’t have to stop

    to figure out the names of things or places or of folks,
    and then we wouldn’t be the brunt of all their aging jokes;
    but it seems that we can’t do this so perhaps the answer is
    to just turn off the TV news and gossip of show biz.

    The scandals and the killings—all the bad things that astound us—
    we’d leave behind to concentrate on happenings around us.
    We’d notice more the little things in our immediate world:
    the spider in the spider web, the bud that’s tightly furled

    and notice when it opens, and the dragonfly that’s on it
    and take a picture of it, or perhaps construct a sonnet.
    See the children who are hungry and instead of our obsessing
    on matters where we’re powerless, instead bestow a blessing

    on all those things around us where we have the power to act.
    When we see whatever needs doing, to take action and react.
    Perhaps then all the horrid facts that rise up in the mind
    will settle to the bottom and then all of us will find

    the keys we’ve lost, our glasses, and remember why we came
    into this room and how to recall every person’s name.
    And all the time we save we’ll spend on the important things
    and feel the sense of purpose helping others always brings.

    The world is too much with us with its bad news of all kinds,
    and all this information simply freezes up our minds.
    Perhaps with less input, there would be less facts to astound us
    and we could concentrate on what’s important close around us.

The Prompt Becomes Itself

7 Replies

The prompt: Curve Balls—When was the last time you were completely stumped by a question, a request, or a situation you found yourself in? How did you handle it?

The Prompt Becomes Itself

Every prompt I’ve bumped into
has been a task I’ve jumped into,
but today’s I fear has trumped me,
for I find that it has stumped me!
In short, I find this prompt to be
a self-fulfilling prophesy!!!!!