A blog for the midnight epiphanies and idle thoughts of a hopeless wordaholic.
Quadrille #117 and the word is “abide” using exactly 44 words. Submitted November 30, 2020
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The King’s English, indeed
Is written in code
If today we go for a ride
Tomorrow you might say we rode
But what we say we can’t abide
Does not affect our abode
And things we hide today
Alas! We can’t say we hoed.
Writers' Pantry #46 A cold, sunny morning in my world. I find myself feeling restricted, constricted, and conflicted. My father's words come to haunt me. Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, November 29, 2020.
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I want to escape this isolation
Take myself to some foreign nation
Where folks are frolicking bare-faced
I want to amble through a well stocked aisle
Of latest fashions where trinkets beguile
And my cash in hand is well-placed.
I want to take myself out for the night
To some spot of gastronomical delight
And perhaps a cocktail or two
But My father’s wisdom is giving me fits
I hear his voice saying “Wants are not gets”
And, dammit, I know it’s true.
The Sunday Muse #136 wherein we're inspired by the photo provided.
Submitted November 28, 2020
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suspended in limbo
WAITING
to come up for air
when normal returns
or some semblance thereof.
WAITING
to be released
from this
sequestorial time out
WAITING
Weekly Scribblings #47 and we're asked to consider lessons learned from someone we loved. I learned so many things from my father, who led his life by example. In his later years, I captured this golden afternoon in poem, when he taught me the lesson of gratitude.
Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, November 25, 2020
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A MAN OF COURAGE
As we rode through summer breezes
The man of courage and I
He taught me still another lesson
As he had since I was just so high.
For the years had left their burden
And now he walked with a cane
And the body once strong and strapping
Now faltered and gave much pain.
I heard him not once complaining
As we passed fields of grain on our drive
But commenting on God’s bounty and sunshine
Saying, “It’s a good day to be alive”.
When I find I’m feeling sorry
For the problems and troubles I’ve had
I look to my model of courage
With humble gratitude…I love you, Dad.
Haibun Monday at dVerse. Kim is hostess, and challenges us “to write about a time when you last watched stars, a storm, the sea, an animal, or something else in nature that left you with a sense of wonder or awe.
Submitted to dVerse, November 23, 2020
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Over 25 years ago, my daughter and her then husband had moved to the state of Oregon, and I had gone to visit. I had commented many times that the sky seemed “big” in Oregon, for reasons I can’t explain. I don’t recall the occasion, but we were on an obscure and very dark country road somewhere between Albany and Corvallis when my son-in-law pulled the car to the side of the road, turned off the engine and said “Let’s look at the sky”. By that point in my life I’d for some time lived in a large city where all but the brightest stars were hidden in the smog that overhangs our large cities. Standing beside the car at roadside, I looked up to see the most magnificent display of starlight that fairly took my breath away. I don’t know how long we stood, identifying the Big and Little Dipper, the North Star, and other constellations. It was a magic I’d not seen since my childhood on the Illinois prairie, a quiet time when I felt a thrill, as if I’d touched the hand of God. There are signal moments in our lives that stay forever in the attic of our brains, archived for a lifetime. I will always remember that moment, and be grateful to a young man whose love of nature never dimmed.
Star light, star bright
Magic carpet of the night
I feel God’s touch
Given today's political chaos and the behavior of our White House resident, make me want to employ a powerful tool of my childhood, which I dubbed My Mighty Peckinstick. It needs an explanation, I'm sure, so here you are.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, November 22, 2020
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MY MIGHTY PECKINSTICK
Growing up on a farm you learn to help out at an early age. Farm animals need to be tended morning and night, and this is called “doin’ the chores”. When I was fairly young, my chore was gathering the eggs. When you’re a child, you simply parrot phrases you hear your parents say, so, using my mother’s southern Illinois twang, I called my chore “pickenup aigs”. Walking into a hen house of a couple hundred hens is a fairly intimidating thing. Toting the wire egg basket, the long row of nests looked endless to my child’s eyes. Most were empty, but there were always a couple with resident hens. These were of two types---the cackling hen who’d fly off in a flurry of feathers when I approached, and the other a formidable foe. She had no intention of giving up her nest and she’d greet my approach with an evil eye, some threatening clucks and a sharp peck on the wrist if I reached under her for the eggs. I devised a counter-attack for the clucking hens. I found a stick about a foot long and dubbed it my peckinstick. I’d give the hen a gentle nudge to see if she were the pecking type. If so, I’d hold her head down with my mighty peckinstick, rendering her unable to peck me while I reached under her for the eggs.
Many years have passed. I’ve learned proper grammar and proper use of the King’s English. There have been times through the years, however, when I’ve encountered people who’ve been sharp and hurtful. I smile to myself and think they wouldn’t have caught me so unaware if I’d been armed with my mighty “peckinstick”.
The Sunday Muse #135
Submitted November 22, 2020
Art by Justin Dingwall
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SHANKSGIVING
Who was sacrificed for today?
A proud gobbler who had other plans
A piglet perhaps who was out to play
A lamb known to his many fans
No doubt they had each dreamed success
Far afield from this actual truth
Never expecting to be considered largesse
What a dire ending, forsooth!
Weekly Scribblings #46, and we're asked to engage in a
celebratory mood. I choose to celebrate seniorhood and
all we've had to learn through the years.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United, November 19, 2020
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CELEBRATING SENIORHOOD
I’ve always wanted to be “hip”. It’s been a challenge. Just when I’d think I had the “hip” lingo mastered, a new generation would throw me into a terminological tailspin. When my children were home they helped a lot, but once they were grown I was on my own, facing the computer era all alone. Kicking and screaming, I was dragged into the technological era, and I learned about floppies, hard drives, modems, bauds, glitches, megabytes, gigabytes, RAM, ROM, CD-ROM, URL CPU, “tweaking and massaging”. I could speak it! I was “way cool”. I even learned to program my VCR.
I moved into the era of bright, young business majors steeped in “educated verbiage”. Memos became communication vehicles, rate increases became revenue enhancement and a meeting with the boss became encounter-specific decision making. New locations became geographic kickers, top salesmen became major rainmakers, summing things up became bringing the aggregate. If it was simple, it was a no-brainer, if readily available we could cherry-pick it, and a push-over was a slam dunk. Disagreements became cognitive dissonance and the art of persuasion and giving the results became quantifying the impact. I think became my sense is, getting to the point was cutting to the chase, estimating was ball parking and something likely became a conditional probability. At home over my bookshelves hung the Thoreau quote “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify”, and oh how I longed to implement it.
On the other hand, I’ve had to learn reverse lingo to understand my grandchildren. For instance, bad is good, hot is cool, and far out is in. You’ll notice my list here is smaller, as I’m not understanding much. It’s no wonder we seniors are more forgetful than the youngsters. All they have to remember is their own patter. Our brains, on the other hand, are cluttered with all the preceding outdated terms like by golly, gee whiz and darn, spooning, necking and making out, tanked, soused and plastered, fast, loose and easy, getting hitched and tying the knot, inka dinka do, 23 skidoo, hubba hubba and …. well you get the idea! It's time to celebrate us!
Our photo challenge this week presents a challenge indeed. A limerick came to mind. Submitted November 14, 2020
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This poem was written some time ago, inspired by a deserted country chapel I passed off an interstate I frequently traveled. I often wondered about the stories it might tell if I were to visit. Submitted to dVerse November 12, 2020 Open Link #278
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It was just a little chapel that sat beside the way
But oh the stories it could tell, if it could speak today
The chapel is now empty where once it stood with pride
With voices raised in worship by those who were inside.
I stand beside what used to be, and can’t believe it’s gone
If I listen, I hear echoes of ice cream socials on the lawn.
I imagine all the faithful who have talked here with their God
While outside their forefathers rested deep beneath the sod.
I see all the bridal couples who have here exchanged their vows
And think of long-ago sermons soothing furrowed brows.
How many babes were christened, how many old folks laid to rest
How many Sunday mornings with folks dressed in church-day best.
I feel God all about me as I think of days of yore
And listen to the echoes of those who’ve passed before
One day I’ll be like them, when this life has passed me by
And my voice be but an echo to some dreamer such as I.
May I live my life with honor in my short time here on earth
And touch the lives of others with love, and joy and mirth.
May there always be a moment as day follows busy day
For echoes like the chapel’s and what it has to say.
Weekly Scribblings. "...it's only with the heart one can see rightly." Those words, plus the carnival painting by Shelle Kennedy, inspired my prose this week. Moments in time cling to certain treasured items, and it is so with the carnival clock. Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United November 11, 2020
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Tuesday Poetics. Poetry as Witness is our challenge,
and we’re to write a poem with a local bent.
Submitted to dVerse
November 10, 2020
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DEMOCRACY IN MOTION
Two green lawns, side by side,
proudly displaying their choice
one Trump/Pence; one Biden/Harris
a microcosm of America
just down the street
democracy in motion
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*
hopefully
Prosery is the challenge, and we're to use this line .."behind the wall is only space where the wind whistles".
Submitted to dVerse. November 9, 2020
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A MAIDEN'S TALE
Once upon a time there was a fair young maiden with a very wise mother. She met a man she thought to be her dream man. He was tall and broad-shouldered, handsome and glib. She determined he could be the husband of her dreams. Soon she came to realize he seemed concerned only with himself. Mother had warned her of such men. “They will charm you, my dear,” her mother warned, “but be cautious. Their handsome face is but a wall, and there is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles. You do not want this man to father your children, my dear. This one is an empty man filled only with himself. Look for a man of substance.” And so she did
Writer's Pantry #45 at Poets & Storytellers United
Submitted November 8, 2020
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THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Some say gray is dull and drab
yet
it’s the color of the early morning
fog that rests gently in the valleys
of the Great Smoky Mountains.
it’s the color of the nimbus clouds
that skid across summer skies, their
bellies filled with welcome rains
for gardens and fields.
it’s the hair color of our seniors,
signaling their cumulative years of
service and knowledge, giving of
life and self to those who come after.
Sometimes we need to see color
in a different light.
The Sunday Muse #133
Submitted November 7, 2020
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The light of hope
cannot be extinguished.
Even in the most somber of times
when all about is gloom and doom
the tiny flicker that is hope
continues to illumine a small spot
in the heart of humankind..
It is said even at the bottom of
Pandora’s box, after she released
the evils, there remained
the light of hope
Weekly Scribblings and we're to consider the eye of the hurricane.
Well heaven knows we've been in the storm for most of 2020,
and we're hungry for the eye. Aye Aye
Posted to Poets & Storytellers United, November 4, 2020
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Here I sit in the eye of the storm
Filled with happy contentment
Don’t spoil my nirvana
And tell me its return is imminent
