Tumblewords

Fractals Photos Poetry Prose Watercolor

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Child's Play

















A sheer pink skirt
swings in scented air
a bodice tightly
laced by summer green

a tiny bonnet
tops it all
hides a phantom face

and when light
begins the downhill slide
a dozen floral dolls
dance in Gramma's garden

hollyhocks and me.


'Dancing Pinks' was painted at the beginning of my affair with watercolors. When it was purchased, I thought the world couldn't get better. Smiling.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Does it Rain on your Parade?

'Into each life, a little...'.

Yes, but it doesn't have to leave water spots and irritable windshield outlook.

Apply Rain-x to your auto windshield according to the directions and you will be amazed. Water beads up, disappears in the wind and leaves no trace of stain or water deposit.

It works well on house windows, too. When spring comes, winter dirt rinses off so easily anyone can do windows.

Applied to bathroom mirrors, it cuts down on steam and spotting. Motorcycle windscreens are also worthy of Rain-x.

It began to rain - really rain - when I was playing at Possum Trot Golf Course in Myrtle Beach, SC. A four-eyed fellow in my foursome whipped off his glasses, swabbed them with Rain-x and continued to golf clear eyed. While it didn't improve his golf, his vision was spotless. And that's a good thing. If you've played that course, you may have noticed alligators stalking golf balls and if you can't see through your steamy rain-eyed glasses, you can become one missing link.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Wooly Thyme


Wooly Thyme, classified as a stepable, waits in original black plastic planter pots atop my outdoor tables. Soon, I'll move it down where normal folks walk. I'm sure I will. I have in the past.

When I google wooly thyme the articles mention it is fragrance free but I question that. A batch planted several years ago between the stepping stones under a glider produces such exquisite aroma, I find myself stepping on it only to release the scent. Bearing tiny pink flowers, it fills in between rocks and adds falling drama to hanging pots.

It's time to quit leaning into the table top planters for a rewarding sniff and set this charming groundcover in stepable areas.


This photo was taken with a Minolta digital camera on macro setting without flash.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Night Loop



wrong number,
your cry for help
broke my twitch of sleep

beyond first squint of day
grogged by nighttime split
I attack the morning mess
borne by an edgy wind

miss a step,
foot folds in half
flings me to my knees
blood seeps through denim
I hear the echo of your plea,

fear you and I
in one single digit slip
will seesaw through time
forever tied
by that fiber optic thread




Steps Through Time, watercolor by Sue, 2006

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Flea Market Pigeons

Bird chatter roused her from a midday catnap. Ellie sat up and stretched for the mesquite cane propped against the sun-warmed couch.

She limped down the steps and shuffled over southwestern desert pebbles to the coop where Sambo, sometimes watchdog and full-time friend, waited with wagging tail. Ellie scratched his head while looking for danger but saw only the birds’ restlessness.

‘Soon,’ she crooned. ‘Very soon.’

The following Saturday, she placed the birds in wire cages attached to the rusty pickup bed and left home in the gray dawn. Scattered towns on narrow strings of lonely asphalt made it easy to travel long distances to find an untapped market for her precious birds and in a few hours Ellie arrived at Ciudad de SueƱos where outdoor stalls awaited vendors.

Ellie backed the truck in beside the assigned space and a tall teenager, skinny as a zipper and tattooed with a thousand pictures, wordlessly helped her place the crates for display. Ellie plumped her 69-year-old body into the sagging seat of a faded green folding chair and pushed strong freckled fingers through her short gray hair. She looked around, saw there’d be plenty of business and smiled broadly enough to expose the darkness left by a missing canine tooth.

The taciturn kid came back at dusk to help place the empty crates in the pickup bed. Ellie laboriously climbed behind the steering wheel and patted the large wad of bills pocketed in her polyester trousers.

Sambo swirled with happiness when Ellie reappeared. ‘Oh, Sambo! It was a great success! I wish you could have been there. Let me rest a bit ~ our lovely pigeons will soon return home.’

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Twilight




Fringes missing
truth hides in the blur
the shape of absence
too much to bear.
Indian paint brush, quiet
as a crack in the floor,
sweeps the line
forged at the black moon
in rites older than first sin.
I feel the broken place.




My watercolor painting was digitally enhanced by duplication, rotation, palette distortion. It surprises me to see how a real image can be manipulated to an entirely different view with a few keystrokes.