Real Toads: late for Open Link Monday, but...

Very busy with the kitchen renovation and other concerns, so I didn't even post my Mad Kane limerick to Open Link Monday at the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads yesterday.
 
However, I did write this one (changed from an old first line of Madeleine’s).
 

A senior, I still like to date

But it is unlikely I’ll mate

I’m still doing fine

But I’m ninety-nine

And I certainly won’t procreate.

By Kay Davies

  

  

And this week, I couldn’t think of anything, but my husband did. Then Madeleine sent him a message inviting him back another time.

A fellow was planning to wed

A girl who was all in his head

He thought, “No big deal

if she is unreal,

At least she won’t nag me in bed.”

By Richard Schear

Isn't he just too, too bad? Well, Madeleine thought he was okay as a limerickist, but didn't comment on his husbandly qualities.

For Real Toads: Geminis and friends

Kerry's challenge for Open Link Monday this week at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to poets born under the sign of Gemini, and to their friends. I assume this means "friends and relatives" because I wrote (two days late) this poem about my dad.

 

my father was a gemini

we never knew

what he would do

or why

  

musician, artist,

writer, too

he had more gemini sides

than two

and always tried to teach us all

he knew

   

we miss him so...

when questions come

but answers none,

for we can't say

“that’s okay

 Dad will know”

For Real Toads: Open Link Monday, limerick

deviantart.com

A wolf had a notable knack

For trying to scratch his own back.

His frantic contortions

Were lupine distortions

Amusing the rest of his pack.

Photo from all-about-wolves.com

Posted for Open Link Monday

at the writers' group

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

This limerick was also entered in

Madeleine Kane's Limerick-off Monday

Open Link Monday: together, we

I might be one of the last to respond today to Kerry's deputy, Fireblossom, at the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, but there's an old saying about that, if only I can remember what it is.
*
It's Open Link Monday once again, rolling back around in that way Mondays have, when we least expect them. 
There have been some wonderful poems posted today, and I've enjoyed them, but I haven't even gleaned the inkling of an idea from any of them—which is good, because there's a word for that, too.
I would, however, like to avail myself of one of the photos Fireblossom posted, and use it to accompany my submission for the day. I know she didn't personally take this photo, because she's much younger than Charlie Chaplin.
*

fear has come to you

and it is new

to you

but not to me—

let me help

let me care

let me

be there

for you.

if changes come

(and come they may)

we don’t

have to

rue the day.

together, we

can do

what one alone

cannot.

For Real Toads: springtime in Paris

All that glitters
is not gold—
diamonds glitter, too,

© Photos Kay Davies and Richard Schear, 2011

although the streets of Paris seemed
to drip with gold when seen last spring,
and blossoms held more beauty
than we'd yet beheld before,

when comes our late spring here at home,
when breeze is soft and air is warm,
we won't begrudge Parisians
their golden domes and elegant homes
and softer, gentler seasons.

Gardens and apartments beside the Eiffel Tower.

Posted for
Open Link Monday at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

© Photos Kay Davies and Richard Schear, 2011

For Real Toads: submitting my Mad limericks

© Photo by Richard Schear

Insomnia last night. Too many things going around in my head about the upcoming kitchen reno. Beautiful day today and I couldn't even think up something original for the microfiction prompt at Succinctly Yours. Had to resort to a quotation instead.
However, I did come up with three original (and true) limericks for Mad Kane's Limerick-Off, and am now submitting those for Open Link Monday at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. I'm so glad it is Open Link today!
Now that I have you completely confused about what I'm doing and why, here are the three little limericks I wrote earlier to go with Madeleine's opening line "A fellow who had a degree..."

*

A fellow who has a degree

A doct’rate in something, you see,

His name is Gabor

Which I pronounce Gabber

Because he has gossiped ’bout me.

*

A Canadian who got a degree

In British-in-India hist'ry

Couldn’t come back

To BC, alack!

None at home would hire poor he.

*

A fellow who had a degree

From McGill could not teach Grade Three

Had to get an Ed Dip

Thus delaying his trip

To teach in the North Territ’ry

For Real Toads: Open Link, February 6

"How dreary – to be – Somebody! 
How public – like a Frog – 
To tell one's name – the livelong June – 
To an admiring Bog!” 
― Emily Dickinson

❣

It is Open Link Monday again at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, and Kerry posted this little poem by Emily Dickinson, whose work I have always admired. I agree with Ms Dickinson in principle and in person, but I have chosen to disagree in verse, just to be perverse.

❣

Disagreeing with Dickinson?

❣

How lovely to be Somebody

http://www.people-clipart.com/

With admirers galore

Who know one’s name one’s livelong life,

And don’t think one a bore.

❣

Pretty flowers brought backstage

From admirers faithful

Who cheer one’s name one’s livelong life

And don’t think fame disgraceful.

❣

Interviews on TV shows

By admirers hosted

Who drop one’s name one’s livelong life

And make sure one is toasted.

❣

—Kay Davies, © 2012

For Real Toads: Open Link, January 30

genetic memory:

is it real?

I went to Scotland

with Mom

and Dad

and the rest of the mob.

no one

felt it

except me, and I did

as soon

as the

we got off the plane.

I’m here,

I said,

I’m in Scotland,

I’m home

and I can feel it

in my bones.

*

I had nothing for Open Link Monday this week. I’ve been researching a subject dear to my heart—a kitchen renovation—and have therefore been distracted, but I read some submissions by other members of the writers’ group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, so I could at least comment.

Mary (In the Corner of My Eye) wrote of one’s “primal landscape” which some of us, those of us who were fortunate enough to stay in one place for a large part of childhood, are said to possess.

Mary’s memories awakened my own, and, in so doing, reminded me of the way I felt the first and only time I visited Scotland.

I went with my parents, my siblings, and my siblings’ spouses. Mom was born a MacKenzie. Her ancestors were from the western Highlands. Grandma Davies was a Fraser from Aberdeen. Neither Mom nor Dad felt what I felt, although Dad had been very fond of Scotland when he visited relatives during his time there in World War II.
*

I know the sensation was real. It was the same feeling I’d always felt when I heard bagpipes, the feeling I thought everyone had about the pipes until I learned otherwise: a strong tug at the heartstrings; in the bloodstream, and in the very marrow of my bones.

Carl Jung, whose opinion I respect in certain other areas, called it racial memory, part of a collective unconsciousness.

I don’t intend to research it. I simply know it’s true. I’m not sure yet if the kitchen reno is true or not, so I’m going to keep working at that.

For Real Toads: Madrigals and Rondelays

It is Open Link Monday for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads and Kerry invites us to post something unspecific. It would be difficult to find anything less specific than this poem I wrote in the middle of the night, and found on the table this morning. I rather like it, even if it ain't art.

Of Days and Rondelays

*

when the soft is on the kitten

and the warm is on the dog

when the wing is on the bird

and the turtle’s on a log

*

the world is good around us

and we know the joy of life

we feel a precious calmness

far from worry, far from strife

*

the chirping toads are chorusing

celebratory ’lays

and we know the precious peaceful

of extr’ordinary days

© by Kay Davies 2012

With Real Toads: open link cinq

Kerry has left us alone for a week, with Marian to make sure we aren't, to use Sherry's word, obstreperous. What can I do to get into trouble now?
It is Open Link Monday for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads and we are invited to share a poem, old or new, on any subject we wish. Aha, but it has to be a poem, said Kerry, before jumping ship and turning the tiller over to Marian. So, a poem, but a little poem, it shall be:

winter:

freezing, snowing;

summer: hot and glowing;

spring and autumn are best for me—

mediocrity!

Open Link Monday: but no laundry

What did I do on Monday if I didn't do laundry? I took up my latest wild and exciting hobby—getting all juiced up.

juicing vegetables

generating healthfulness

celery, zucchini, 

cucumber, carrot,

bok choy and bean sprouts

I like it, dog loves it, husband hates the taste.

intriguing machinery

juice comes out one side

pulp out other side

dog loves the pulp but I’m saving it for soup.

next time apple

little bit of cantaloupe

(half a head

of lettuce—

reduces

to juices

just like that!)

The best I could do (because I hate to do nothing)

for Open Link Monday at

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

What could be easier than Open Link—just present a piece of my own writing and go to bed (yes, it's still Monday here) so I can lie awake all night wondering what everyone is thinking about that crazy Canadian lady who writes poetry about vegetables. Squished vegetables, too.

No, this isn't my dog, although she's a similar color. It isn't my husband, either. It's my new toad-shot. 

With Real Toads: Chapter 9

Kerry, of the writers’ group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, has announced today is, as always, the free-for-all (doesn’t that sound like fun?) known as Open Link Monday.

This unfittie is feeling particularly unfit today, so I have chosen to re-publish an entire short chapter (but not the shortest chapter) from The Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel.

CHAPTER 9—MORE ABOUT ME

My husband has read my manuscript to this point and thinks I haven’t told you enough about myself.

Although one’s self is often one’s favorite subject, I thought it over and decided this is merely a matter of misery loving company. Dick has to listen to all my woes, and has lived through many of them with me, so he thinks it would be easier for him if half the western world shared his misery.

I don’t think so.

You can tell I’m an unfittie if you can imagine a family doctor, a gerontologist, a rheumatologist, a gastroenterologist, three ophthalmologists, a podiatrist, a massage therapist, a sleep therapist, and a denturist; and if you know the pharmacist recognizes the old guy in the referee shirt as “Kay’s husband coming to pick up her meds.”

You don’t need to know the gory details. You probably have enough gore of your own.