Tag Archives: sing

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What martians drink

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is traipse. I looked up Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe through the Tulips, but I don’t want to post it. So instead, another Peter and Lou Berryman. I saw them live while I was in college at UW in Madison, Wisconsin. Once I got my MD, I can especially enjoy the chorus about Dr. O.

And yesterday I really enjoyed watching the Osiris land. How exciting! Gravel from Bennu, the asteroid! Space and science geeks are high as kites, me included!

My photograph is from the Vatican Museum. Look at that ceiling, they were space geeks too.

Let’s traipse to Wisconsin, hop on Dr. Otto’s rocket ship and find out what Martians drink and when they close the bars.

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Nature Song

This is the first song I think of with today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: onomatopoeia. This song sounds like kids playing and speeds up like kids do and all the laughter, about being outside. Wonderful! I love the Sweet Honey in the Rock kids’ records as well as adult records and my kids did too.

Here is an adult song followed by the kids’ song and circling back to the difficult adult part.

I took the photograph at the Centrum Jazz Port Townsend Concert, the Matthew Whittaker Quintet. Wow, wonderful.

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Lipssss

Vermilion makes me think of lips. Why lips? Oh, the vermilion border, as it’s called.

Ok, trigger warning, medical stuff: if some gets a cut on their face involving the lips, we have to match the edges of the vermilion border very carefully. Because if it’s not matched, it’s very obvious.

This is me singing at the mirror, with vermilion lip liner and black lipstick. It still looks vermilion, doesn’t it?

Of course I have black lipstick. Don’t you?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: vermilion.

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Names

Last night I go to the Cowboy Ball, replete with cupcakes. It is the kick off of our local county fair, which is in two weeks. There is an hour two-step lesson and then a really fun band. The crowd is very mixed. There are some people who can two step, though not very many. There are some people faking it. After a while there are people dancing six count swing or tango or salsa, but everyone waltzes when they play the waltzes. It’s not quite a polka.

One dance partner asks, “Are you the poet doctor?” I blink. “Yes,” I say, pleased. “Which open mike were you at?” “Disco Bay.” I have done four there in the last three months, three at the poetry open mike and one at a music open mike. I was assured that they want poets too at the latter. Ok, then. “And what do you play?” I ask, because it must have been the music open mike. “Drums.” He is with a band that I know. “When do you play again?” He wrinkles his forehead. “I’d have to check my calendar.” “Get back to me!” I say and he says, “Thanks.” All this while dancing. We are doing some two step, falling into swing whenever one of us messes up a step.

I am nicknamed the dancing doctor by the coffee stand at the Farmer’s Market. She writes that on my cup. They are right next to the outdoor “stage”. I try to lure small children out to dance, solo since they don’t know me. They are wonderfully free and fun when they do come out.

I am pretty thrilled to be the poet doctor! We will see if that sticks in this community.

The photograph is Simon Lynge and Janna Marit two weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market. And here is the coffee stand.


And look! The poster for the Cowboy Dance in the lower left!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: community.

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Child memories

This photograph is from a box sent by my cousin. My sister Chris and my mother Helen. On the back it says “pear tree”. My mother would try to assemble the parts of the Twelve Days of Christmas. When I was in my teens, she would hang glittery pears on her avocado tree that she had grown from a seed. One partridge, two calling birds. She had seven tiny glass swans that she would set swimming on a mirror lake, with white fluff around it for snow. I don’t think she got past seven. My mother had wonderful traditions that she developed for Christmas. She loved the old carols and wouldn’t sing the modern ones at all.

I think my grandfather or grandmother took this photograph. I thought, why isn’t it square? But it isn’t: it was cut from a page and is a bit of a trapezoid.

My sister is about four, so this would be from around 1968.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: children.

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Stone heart

My mind is done and unsurprised. My heart a stubborn rock.
My heart does not give up: loves where it loves. It doesn’t care
about reality or whether it is derided or mocked.
My mind moves on and kicks my heart, wondering where
this tenacity stems from. My heart is done with tears.
It agrees to new friends and joys in dance.
When my mind says forget, my heart jumps and steers
my body into a warrior fighting stance.
My mind is cynical and laughs and derides my heart.
I let them fight back and forth every day.
I cannot reach an end unless I start
to honor my feelings, the heart must hold sway.
My mind moves on, ignoring what you do.
Yet my stubborn heart remains a friend, strong and true.