Regrets

Stalwart forests
dreams drawn in bark
hold our secrets

Sunday Scribblings offers the prompt Regrets and I offer two poems:

Loons' Cry

half past the loons’ cry, sweeping wings
pile ashes too dark to burn, too dense to fly
a raucous crow jeers in clocklike ticks

toxic black covers inbound shadows
smothers smoking sage, too late to cleanse
errata moves to an ungodly black bile beat

regrets bear great weight, unlock the moon
before the dawn and the light comes on
half past her cry after the night has bled



Faulting

probing each layer I peel my sins,
disrobing as if it were my body
remove timeworn transgressions
fold them neatly in special bins

stripped to innocent newness
awkward within my skin
I dress in faultless clothing
to acquire fresh and novel sins.


♥♥♥

The image was constructed on Bamboo Fun with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.

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Spring in Winter Haiku

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winter morning light
casting sparkles on deep snow
promises of spring

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dripping icicles
slender stalactite rainbows
giving way to spring

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Haiku Friday prompts with Spring in Winter

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Shoreline Quest

in search of spirit, she
listens for ancient tales
builds scenes along the beach

where moving, changing sand
trickles an hourglass and
pockets polished rocks

arriving tide rolls sea glass
into her cupped hands
and sand reveals its legend



Totally Optional Prompts posts: This week, I'd like us to think about the contact points between things you wouldn't normally think had a whole lot to do with each other. For example, what do a car mechanic and a ballet dancer have in common? How might a sand dollar and a bluebird interact? Where would you find stone and fine silk together?

Watercolor by Sue

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Wednesday Haiku

Three Word Wednesday moderated by ThomG offers the following three words as prompt:


Caress Jagged Ruthless





My response is one haiku plus An American Sentence


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ruthless tides
pummel jagged rocks
caress sand

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The strong and ruthless create jagged shards from those they choose to caress.

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The fractal image was created in Fractal Explorer.

♥♥

B is for B

ABC Wednesday offers B in Round 4.

Honey, I'm Home won an Editor's Pick award on Better Photo.

The nest was on the underside of the picnic table when a guest knocked it loose and tossed it into the bushes. The buzzing grew loud so I told her to go get it ~ never thinking she would but she hurried over, returned with the nest and placed it on the table top where the bees swarmed it. We moved to another area.


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Baby's Plea

I don't wanna grin
quit cooing in my face
lay me down, walk away
I'll stretch, nap awhile
it's too hot to bear your heat
voices loud, colors strong
milk's too warm, dog sheds hair
lay me down, walk away
I need some space, a little air

Fractal created in Fractal Explorer, edited in Irfanview.

Skittles at Heads or Tails offers the prompt: HEADS - "Loud"
Make any kind of post using "Loud" as your prompt. You can either use the word itself or post about something that IS loud. Come play along...

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If Only

If only I had time

a trip to the sun
skip a relay to the moon
map three nebulae

If only I had time

soak up words of pith
become one with the wisdom
desiderata

If only I had time


The prompt was posted on One Single Impression and presented by Gemma of Greyscale Territory.

The image is a combination of digitally altered fractal and photo.

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When the Lights Come on in Uxmal

Leaving the Uxmal parking lot, I cross a small wooded area to enter the courtyard for the night's Spanish performance telling the story of the ruins.

Warm air breathes on my bare arms and legs. Tiny stars pierce the dark sky. A fat low moon creeps to the very top of the fortress as the music begins and spotlights play a seeking game within the courtyard and walls.

The music gains volume and lights rhythmically illuminate the quadrangle of stones while voices relate the ancient tale of this agricultural community attacked by a tribe from a remote drought-stricken area. Screams, hoof beats, cacophony of war mix in the dark and swirl outward...

Muted conversation breaks my trance and nudges me to return to the parking area. I wonder how I can romanticize a people who cheerfully beheaded others, sacrificed virgins by dropping them from great heights into deep pools of dark water and had such little regard for human life. Reality reasserts itself as I realize that after other civilizations disappeared, we continue the same things which contributed to their demise.

I also find a part of me begs to trust that chiefs, captains and other authority figures will have the integrity for proper and humane action when faced with a problem. Further processing provides the innate knowledge that each of us, within, is that authority and we must access it and learn to use it before we, too, become mere heads carved in walls or sacrifices to uncaring gods.

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Phantoms & Shadows is the prompt by Sunday Scribblings

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Gone, but not Forgotten ~ Haiku

♥

lavender
browned by winter ice
evokes green

♥

five months passed
summer heats the yard
hot wind blows

♥

bare feet touching earth
exposed legs stockpile suntan
I remember this

♥


Haiku Friday offers: Gone, but not forgotten.

ABC Wednesday post is on my Art Blog

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Philly to DC

the train whistle
cuts through howls
flung by rabid coyotes

strung by chains of chaos
a double track cambers
fading toward untried

clicks across countryside
spiked by towns to
span old years and miles

tunnels come and go
offer flashes of light
slap shadows into dark

the song of yearning
merges with tones of oath
the train whistles

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Prompt of Ceremonies posted by Totally Optional Prompts.

Watercolor by Sue.

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At Last, First Dance

strengthening resolve
humble carries the first dance
cadence of that day

3ww Wednesday and ThomG offer these words as prompt for today: Cadence, Humble, Resolve. He says: The idea is to take the words, craft something and let the world critique it. I invite everyone to play along.


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Feat

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mall-bound feet carry
million yearning folks or more
cheering public feat

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frigid air
fills with smoke-like wreaths
praising feat

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Skittles at Heads or Tails offers todays prompt: Feet *OR* Feat

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Fading Memories Haiku

One Single Impression posts: Geraldine of My Poetic Path is back with an encore; this week's prompt is fading memories. Please visit Geraldine's blog to read her poem.


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fiery poppies
drop petal after petal
blackened pod

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feuds simmer
stir flash and fury
battles boil

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burning bush
limbs and flapping leaves
ash to ash


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Original Watercolor by Sue.

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Pilgrimage

Recently, I had occasion to drive through the rolling farmland of the Palouse. It wasn't my first trip as I'd driven it any number of times and flown over it a multitude of others but I was blindsided by the feeling of 'homeness' which revealed itself that day.

My parents were born and raised in Kansas which shares a similar landscape and I've had several occasions to return there.

The last trip, untaken, was when my father asked me to accompany him to Kansas for the funeral of a distant family member shortly after my mother's death and not very long before his. Deciding I was too busy, I refused.

Some journeys don't get a second chance and some don't really deserve one. However, this one periodically yearns for another opportunity.

There's no reason for me to return now and yet there is a lonely whisper...


♥♥

The original image was created on Bamboo Fun.

Sunday Scribblings offers the prompt Pilgrimage.

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Cold and Crazy

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freezing fog
hangs low as rain clouds
ashen gray

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solstice point
winter day unrolls
meets noon dusk

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snowbound
cabin fever climbs
silence

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Haiku Friday offers 'cold and crazy' as the Friday theme. Winter in the north has displayed both words and more!

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The Pale Horse

more biting than
a surgeon's suture
stitching scalpel lines

a phantom wound
rising like last year's moon
sweeps into the night

folds pale shadows
in on one another
decades collapse

distort the calendar
until the first day
lies crushed and bleeding

unburied and raw
loss begins again


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Totally Optional Prompts: The Other Side. Come along and play with this wonderful meme...

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Bottle

chiming like a sailer's bell
a sea glass bottle
coasted through the tide

screw top bottle
not a cork of the elite
was salt-sealed tight

an odd natal chart wrapped
a tiny parchment paper
bearing an astrologer's stamp

'startling aspects in your chart
send money for the news ~'
dot com address

Skittles at Heads or Tails posts: Bottle


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A Summer's Day Haiku

white aspen
root deep in summer
stir in the breeze

♥

whispering birch grove
gossips over pink petals
buzz of summer song

♥

summer's moon
poached by rain and heat
spills warm light

♥

Watercolor by Sue.

One Single Impression prompts: Geraldine at My Poetic Path brings us this week's break from winter with the prompt, a summer's day.

Be sure to check out what others have posted and feel free to play along!

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Organic

Sunday Scribblings prompts: What is your take on 'organic?'

I'm probably one of those cynics who view organic in terms of increased cost. There are several things that astound me when given to serious thought and not necessarily in order are the following food paradoxes:
..it costs more to have less sugar
..it costs more to have less caffeine
..it costs more to have less salt
..it costs more to have fruit, vegies and meat grown or raised without expensive pesticides and man-made chemicals (unless waste counts) Argh

When I shop at the local supermarket, albeit the smallest one I can find, it becomes apparent that locally grown organic goods are nearly double the price of those unhealthy (?) goods grown thousands of miles away and driven, flown, flown and driven to this little store. Somehow I feel guilty for not being green enough to appreciate the not-so-obvious-to-me attributes of organic.

But, in all honesty, every time I see the word organic I think of organdy fabric. How weird is that? This is one of my foibles I'm not trying to foist off on anyone.

I'm anxious to find out how the talented people on Sunday Scribblings view this particular word but I'm willing to bet there won't be another who thinks 'Oh, yeah, organdy.'

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Friday Fill-Ins

Friday Fill-ins offer the italicized words for prompt.


1. It's January; a chinook removed half of the 80 inches of snow and I'm happy.

2. Sun and sweat is what I crave most right now.

3. Cork and wine go together like biscuits and gravy.

4. Disgusting broccoli is so nourishing.

5. Let us dare to give hope and peace a chance.

6. Can someone clean my home?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Now and Moyers Journal, tomorrow my plans include Bamboo Fun play and Sunday, I want to see sunshine!

♣♣♣

The image is a fractal created in Fractal Explorer.

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Winter Watch

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somewhere ahead of the wind
dry snow sweeps the prairie
horses, heads down, belly deep
and their butts to the blow
crunch and maul frozen hay
coats quiver, keep frostbite at bay,
lashes mascara'd with rime
like betty boop past her prime
dawn finds them standing
snow falling and wind blowing

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Totally Optional Prompts requests: Sestina/Quartina/Tritina.

I chose the Optional route for today. Fractal created in Fractal Explorer, edited in Irfanview.

Also listing this on Monday Poetry Train Revisited - Please play along with this one - it's a great ride...
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Three Word Wednesday

An American Sentence:

Madoff's viral scheme of deception flamed panic and burned common sense.

AND

A Loose Limerick

Once upon a boom and bubble,
in the land of greed and trouble,
there schemed a ponzi crook
whose crass deception took
world wide panic straight to rubble.



Thomg at 3ww Wednesday offers these words for today's prompt: Deception, Panic and Scheme. Follow the links to see what others wrote and to play along with this vibrant meme - a variety of style and talents!

The watercolor sketch is a bookmark.

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Three Things

Skittles at Heads or Tails posts this prompt: Tell three things you learned in 2008.

Admittedly, 2008 was one of my least favorite recent years. I allowed the political machine to steal my humor, cause a lot of knee jerk reactions and, even worse, let it force me to use a plethora of not so nice words.

Almost everything I thought I learned has come up for double scrutiny and may need to be relearned with different rules, as in: nothing's learned forever. Sigh.

Three things I learned:

Summer is too short.
Family always comes to the rescue.
Pneumonia has no redeeming qualities.

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If you've ever wondered what you'd see as you drove though an automatic carwash, look closely for soap bubbles in the photo above. :)

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Skin

mottled hands
veins pushing thin skin
crone’s reward







One Single Impression offers the word 'skin' as today's prompt.



Fractal was created in Fractal Explorer.

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For Richer or Poorer

The difference between the facial expressions of the rich and the poor has always fascinated me.

The childlike laughter that explodes from monks is a polar opposite to the expression of the uber wealthy who often show a genuine disdain for those who fail to grab anything that isn't nailed down regardless of ownership.

Melancholy often feels like poverty and happiness is the wildest kind of wealth. I am rich when laughter tears run down my cheeks during a game of dominos. Money becomes part of the equation only when my pockets run dry and coins gain significance of the first degree.

I always sign up for Powerball and keep a list of where and how to distribute it. Amazing? Once I won $150 and split it with the granddaughter who went with me to collect. I wonder if she still has her money. Not. Me, too.


Thanks to Sunday Scribblings for the prompt. And to Wordle for the word cloud.

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Viduity

wrapped in stolen rags
one step ahead of wind
near the orange of dusk
where melancholy sucked
the marrow from her bones
a stutter of hesitation
roused her from repose
blew across the grate
rattled against cobblestones
and caused the owls to moan
viduity was her final miswrite
nightmare of the soul


Poefusion Friday 5 prompts with these words: hesitation, miswrite, orange, repose, viduity

Thanks, Michelle!
Fractal created in Sterling 2.

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Cinquain

November
small flakes
swirl in the air
find their footing and build
maples freeze and collapse in shards
...think spring


December
snow comes
solstice follows
buried streets, autumn's south
cabin fever strikes in the dark
long nights

January
ranch bound
indifferent
jobless now, far too late
gold plinth welcomes a new leader
change comes

Migraine
cinquain
unrhymed, unsung
twenty-two syllables
five lines and a title will do
head throbs

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Totally Optional Prompt posts today's prompt for cinquain poetry.

Follow the link to read what others have written and to play along with this interesting meme!
Watercolor by Sue...
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