Tag Archives: The Daily Post

Compulsion to Peel

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Chair labels
Compulsion to Peel

In the courtyard, the music’s fine.
Chair by chair, we sit in line.
Row on row, we listen to
the opera, a lovely stew
of mezzo, baritone, soprano,
cello, violin, piano
performing favorite opera tunes
sans the oboes and bassoons.
Yet my attention seems to be
on the back of the chair in front of me
where a label’s firmly stuck
where I can see it—just my luck!
For each thing to me revealed
that can be unstuck or peeled,
(price tags, nail polish, wrap that clings—
all things stuck to other things)
calls out to me to come and pick.
It’s a compulsion I can’t kick.
I’m mesmerized by the plastic chair
of this woman with long blonde hair.
When she turns her head, the sticker’s there.
At other times, obscured by hair.
On other chair backs, I see labels.
I’d pull them off if I were able.
Yet most are just too far away
and in my seat I have to stay.
But if that woman would swish her mane,
I’d peel this label that is the bane
of my existence for now I feel
even more compelled to peel!
The performance over, the audience claps.
In their applause there is no lapse.
They stand and catcall, stomp their feet.
That woman rises from her seat
to show her wild approbation,
and thereby ends my consternation;
for when she stands in front of me,
I grab the label and pull it free!
Quickly the audience stacks the chairs
in stacks of sixes, fours or pairs.
Polite of them, for it saves time,
but still I feel less than sublime;
for as they stack them chair on chair,
it hides the stickers still stuck there.
And really, if I had my druthers,
I’d stay and peel off all the others!

Chair label

Today’s prompt was to tell the story of a badly-timed annoyance.  Those labels stuck on the back of most of the chairs at a local gathering spot/performance center have long been an annoyance to me.  Slowly, over the years, I have been peeling them off one-by-one as they appear in front of me at various events.

“You Don’t Send Me Flowers Anymore”

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The Prompt: Secret Admirers—You return home to discover a huge flower bouquet waiting for you, no card attached. Who is it from, and why did they send it to you?

No Roses Left Inside my Gate

He didn’t leave me flowers, instead he sent a cake.
Not the smartest choice that he will ever make.
The problem was, he left it inside my compound door
where the dogs could get it.  Now it is no more!
My dogs have diarrhea and I have no dessert.
Little bits of cardboard are carpeting the dirt
and grass and bricks and tiles and every patio chair—
with every bit of frosting licked from them with care.
I cannot blame my friend for this ungodly mess.
The blame is only mine, I’m driven to confess.
My friend’s a loyal reader and I’m a foolish girl.
You’ll understand more clearly if you read this URL:
https://grieflessons.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/popsicles-and-tuberoses/

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

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The Prompt: The Name’s The Thing—Have you ever named an inanimate object? (Your car? Your laptop? The volleyball that kept you company while you were stranded in the ocean?) Share the story of at least one object with which you’re on a first-name basis.

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

Though Apple named my laptop “Mac,”
I don’t name things that don’t talk back!

(Since my prompt is longer than my poem today, hope you’ll go back and also read one of my earlier prompts.  There are 211 others posted prior to this shorty!!)

 

Railroaded and Blended: Thirstless in a Bloodthirsty World, Sober in a Laughless One

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Railroaded and Blended: Thirstless in a Bloodthirsty World, Sober in a Laughless One

Every day, our children are mesmerized by computer games where they hunt down and kill. TV shows go from violent to horrific—all echoing a world made increasingly more warlike as the war games of children grown into the war games of politicians and financiers who seek political and financial gain by first vilifying and then “going after” their enemies.

It is not my dreams, but rather my waking world that’s tortured by the bloodthirst of our world. At night, in my bed before sleeping, I fear for my own breathing and have to go outside for the comfort of cool night moving air. That scene from “The Bridge” where a child is buried alive with water slowly filling his crypt—will not go away. I am stuffed to strangling with earth’s cruelty.

My dreams remain my own, so it is not sleep I fear, but rather that time before sleep when I release hold of my consciousness and let my mind drift into worlds I am half-conscious of. That’s when I give way to thoughts of my own death, jerking myself back from fears of what comes next.

I don’t share the world’s appetite for torture, violence, killing and revenge. I want to scream “Please! Stop!” and run in the opposite direction, for I can’t follow where the world’s mania leads us. And this is why, when a friend asked me to go to a movie with her and suggested “The Railway Man” with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, I pleaded for a chic flick instead. My uncle died in the death march on Bataan. I saw the “Bridge on the River Kwai,” “A Town Like Alice” and have read about how the real life and death of women prisoners of war was minimized by “Paradise Road.” I’ve read of the horrors of those Australian nurses marched into the sea and shot, the rapes, deprivation, starving and executions.

This is why I said, “No more!!!” when my friend asked me to see that particular movie, wherein former POW Colin Firth goes in search of one of his Japanese captors. This year I have read two books dealing with the tortures of the slave trade and two more about the Spanish inquisition. I simply cannot take any more tales of torture and man’s inhumanity to man, and so it was that I chose the movie “Blended” starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler and my friend agreed to attend this “light comedy” with me.

This is how we came to be sitting in a theater in Ajijic, Mexico, with approximately ten other viewers similarly misinformed as to the utter dross and simplistic humorlessness of this movie!!!!! (Suffice it to say that all tortures are not physical in this world.) This was the singularly worst movie I have ever seen in my life. I love Drew Barrymore and most of Adam Sandler, but the script and acting in this movie were horrible! Add to that the ridiculous slapstick of the sterotyped African Disneyland that passed as an African adventure. I would add “offended” to the other adjectives that describe my reaction to this movie: namely, “unamused, bored, sickened and amazed.” The children were obnoxious, the plot implausible, the African characters one-dimensional stereotyped farces. What was that African singing group that showed up at any given moment furnishing a (not-funny) Greek chorus effect during various mini-climaxes during the movie?  Not since the black-faced minstrel has such an offensive stereotype been presented.

I must admit that my friend loved the movie. She laughed throughout, and must have wondered why I sat unsmiling and laughless throughout the entire movie. There is a certain amount of insult in finding fault with a book or movie or TV show that someone else loves, and I felt like a Scrooge when I was asked how I liked the movie and had to admit I HATED IT! Fed up to the eyebrows with the violence and torture that seems to be increasingly necessary to hold our interest in both our media and games, it was I who had suggested we go to this movie instead, and perhaps I was forced to pay for my need to bury my head in the sand for a few hours.

Not wanting to be influenced by what I read, I have deliberately not gone to IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes to see whether the critics agree with my review of this horrible movie, but as I draw toward the end of my diatribe, I will now do so and be right back with some of their thoughts:

Rotten Tomatoes Review: “Lurching between slapstick and schmaltz without showing much of a commitment to either, Blended commits the rare Sandler sin of provoking little more than boredom.”

Washington Post, Stephanie Merry: Each sweet moment is inevitably punctuated by some in-your-face joke that’s at least as stupid as the preceding moments were heartfelt. Blended has other problems, too, including some faulty editing and a typically predictable finale.

Reel Views, James Berardinelli: “What’s missing from Blended? Two key ingredients: it doesn’t touch the heart and it doesn’t tickle the funny bone (at least not often enough). “

Entertainment Weekly, Jeff Labrecque: “In Blended, his (Sandler) comic flab has never felt as thick, and this hackneyed “family-friendly” entertainment feels less like a movie than a bad sit-com re-run.”

Portland Oregonian, Stephen Whitty: “He(Adam Sandler) plays it so low-key there’s nothing much for him to do, apart from the clueless-dad shtick and some awkward comedy.”

NY Times, A.O. Scott: “Most of Blended has the look and pacing of a three-camera sitcom filmed by a bunch of eighth graders and conceived by their less bright classmates. Shots don’t match. Jokes misfire. Gags that are visible from a mile away fail to deliver. “

Meta critic, B. Jackson: “I loved earlier comedies by this duo but this looks like they were here just for the paycheck. Also, based on the screenplay, the writers must have been working on a tight deadline for their high-school drama class.”

USA Today, Caludia Puig: “You have to work hard to make an African vacation seem unpleasant. And Adam Sandler nearly pulls it off in Blended.”

Not all critics hated this movie and some fans, including my friend, loved it. Having lived and traveled in Africa for years, I perhaps found the Africa scenes more insulting and deprecating than most. But this movie lost me long before it got to Africa!

The Prompt: When was the last time a movie, a book, or a television show left you cold despite all your friends (and/or all the critics) raving about it? What was it that made you go against the critical consensus?

Wrinkle

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Wrinkle

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

The Prompt: New Wrinkles—You wake up one day and realize you’re ten years older than you were the previous night. Beyond the initial shock, how does this development change your life plans?  Actually, I don’t worry much about wrinkles, but for the sake of rhyme and humor, let’s just pretend!

Smoke

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Smoke

She had met most of my stepchildren.
Was my husband similar? she asked.
Yes, he was talented and smart and funny.
But, he was very quiet, I said, and often sad.

He never believed he’d been the love of my life,
even though I’d told him so.
He’d raised a hand
to let it fall unused again, one time or more.
I hadn’t any children.
He always thought I’d leave.

For years I’d felt the cause of his unhappiness,
but his children told me he had always been this way.
Less angry with me than the others,
I had been, he told them, (but not me)
the love of his life.

He was a man who trusted few
and loved less.
He could not give what others demanded.
What better time to say I love you
than when asked for it, I pleaded–
his daughter, sobbing, on the phone.
But he couldn’t do it
for me, for her, for anyone.

What he wanted most he always had,
but he was blind to it,
wasting it all: the friends, the fame, the love.
Alone, he stared into the fire, into trees,
imagining tools and studios and sculpture
grander, in the end, than his energy to create it.

He had not been idle in his life.
Houses, children, art, tools, poetry—
he made them all, well and in great numbers.
Yet when he died, he said, “Imagine.
I had thought I’d be making art to the end.
Instead, I am so tired. I’m just glad to know
I have an excuse for feeling as tired as I do.”

They ate him up, his dreams.
We sent them up in smoke with him.

Daily post: Second Opinion—What are some (or one) of the things about which you usually don’t trust your own judgment, and need someone’s else’s confirmation?

(Instead of being about someone who needs someone else’s confirmation and advice, my poem is about someone who never could accept it.)

Compulsion to Rhyme (All the Time)

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Compulsion to Rhyme
(All the Time)

You may guess there are drawbacks to writing as I do,
for lately, I must find a rhyme for everything I view.
This matching up of words that rhyme has come to be compulsion.
A harmless one, but still one sometimes met with some revulsion.
When making jokes or making bread or making whoop-de-do,
I always think of words that rhyme and then I voice a few.
So when a lover bites my neck and with my hair is toying,
and the only word that I can find to rhyme is “cloying;”
it certainly gets in the way of my successful “boying!”

Or when a good friend feeds me and under-cooks the meat,
as I run through my retinue to find a rhyme that’s neat;
and she happens to hear me just as I curse the red,
wishing she had opted for a well-done steak instead,
my sincere protestations do not seem to be accepted.
If only that one choice of rhymes had not been intercepted,
perhaps she would still ask me to her luncheons and her dinners.
Instead, I’ve wound up on her list of culinary sinners!

As much as I like rhyming, sometimes it is a curse,
for what is my best habit may also be my  worse.
If only long ago I’d learned how not to rhyme each word,
the last one in this poem would not need to be “absurd.”

The Prompt: Not Lemonade-When life gives you lemons… make something else. Tell us about a time you used an object or resolved a tricky situation in an unorthodox way.

As a writer, almost any bad situation may be improved by writing about it! It doesn’t always solve the problem, but at least something positive may be gained out of something negative. This poem makes light of this tendency, but the truth is that I almost always feel better after writing about something, no matter how it has turned out in reality.

(This post is dedicated to Laura and Mamta, who prompted it by commenting on my proclivity to rhyme. And because I cannot waste even a mediocre product, to Duckie!)

 

 

 

“Flutter” : The Surrogate

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Surrogate w pic 6

The Prompt: Sounds Right—This is clearly subjective, but some words really sound like the thing they describe (personal favorites: puffin; bulbous; fidgeting). Do you have an example of such a word (or, alternatively, of a word that sounds like the exact opposite of what it refers to)? What do you think creates this effect?

I’ve always loved the word “’Flutter” as it applies to a butterfly or moth.  What better word could be used to describe the motion of their wings?  The moth described in my poem, however, was noticeable because of its lack of flutter.  It landed upon my computer screen like a magnetized object to metal and remained there for over two hours.  The moth pictured in the poem is the actual moth.  Tiny and green, it became part of my writing experience. Since it had chosen to remain in one position, directly on my screen, I was forced (by choice) to write around it, which could not help but influence the poem that resulted.

 

 

D-Picted (X-Rated)

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                                                                               D-Picted (X-Rated)

I was taking my daily sunset walk on the beach at La Manzanilla, Mexico when I came upon this idyllic scene. He was sipping a margarita and staring out to sea as the water ebbed and flowed—never reaching higher than his chair bottom. Of course, I had to comment.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

“Is the view good enough for you?” I queried, with a noticeable lack of originality.

“Do you want to see for yourself?” he asked. He quickly rose from his chair and motioned for me to take his place, taking my camera from my hand as he handed me his Margarita.

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He told me to look his way as he turned the tide by taking a picture of me, and so I didn’t see at first a part of the landscape obvious in this next picture.

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But as often happens in an evening tide, that object quickly washed ashore to enter my picture,

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and quickly dominate it.

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The End

(I promise.  This was not a staged incident.  It happened exactly as I describe it with no prompting by me.  I love getting out in the world.  No imagined story ever duplicates what happens in real life!!)

The Prompt: Edge of the Frame—We often capture strangers in photos we take in public. Open your photo library, and stop at the first picture that features a person you don’t know. Now tell the story of that person.

Special Note to viewers of my blog:  Please also see the next posting “Sur-Prize” to enter a contest celebrating my 10,000th viewing.

Crunchy, Soft and Piquant

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The Prompt: Is there an unorthodox food pairing you really enjoy? Share with us the weirdest combo you’re willing to admit that you like — and how you discovered it.

Crunchy, Soft and Piquant

Potato chips, ketchup and cottage cheese! I imagine this pairing came about by accident one day at a school or church picnic on a too-small plate, and some flavor memory insists there were baked beans and a hamburger on the same plate; but somehow the vital ingredients came to be the salty-crunchy chips, the creamy-soft cheese and the piquant perfection of Hunts Ketchup. (For the uninitiated, the process is to dip the chip in the ketchup and then scoop up the cheese.)

I don’t usually keep potato chips in the house anymore because I can’t be trusted with them, and cottage cheese is so expensive in Mexico that I don’t usually buy it; but when I make a trip to Costco in Guadalajara, invariably I’ll come home with one of their huge containers of cottage cheese and somehow, magically, potato chips appear (If you buy it, they will come) and the house echoes with the strains of some culinary Indian Love Call coming from the heart of my fridge, “When I’m calling you u u u u u u.” And so it is that the unlikely trio are reunited once again, probably late at night when even the dogs are fast asleep and no one is looking.