DAILY PHOTO: Macaque Family

Family of macaque monkeys on Gudibande Hill in Karnataka, India.
Baby macaque monkey on the rocks atop of Gudibande Hill.
A family of macaque monkeys on Gudibande Fort in the state of Karnataka in India.

PROMPT: Close to Home

Daily writing prompt
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

Exhibition: Bigfoot! (a.k.a. The Sasquatch Museum.) It’s not very close, but it is by far the closest of this nation’s many Bigfoot and Sasquatch related collections.

Spring Swerve [Free Verse]

Photograph taken at Jvari Pass in the Republic of Georgia as a rain cloud works up the valley. The previous day, it had snowed.
Spring can swerve.

White patches,
holdouts from yesterday's snow,
are melted by today's rains.

Buds no sooner form
than are encased in ice.

No self-respecting Summer
day could bring snow.

Winter won't hatch
a butterfly.

Autumn can't turn
a red leaf back to green.

But Spring can swerve.

Invaders [Haiku]

Photograph taken in Tbilisi, Georgia near Tbilisi Reservoir in Late Spring.
Spring glade:
small patch of light blue nests
in a yellow sea.

DAILY PHOTO: Tbilisi Scene from Queen Darejani Palace

Image

A photograph taken in Tbilisi, Georgia with Metekhi Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the fore (left) and Narikala Fortress in the background (probably from Queen Darejani Palace.)

Redbud [Haiku]

Photograph taken in Tbilisi, Georgia in late Spring. The pink flower buds appear to be from a Redbud tree.
dense clusters
of pink flower buds
brighten the trail.

PROMPT: For Fun

Daily writing prompt
List five things you do for fun.

1.) When getting on an elevator with strangers, I like to look at the little inspection placard with consternation and say, “Oh no… oh no, oh no!” When someone asks what’s the problem, I point to the inspector’s name and say, [for example] “John Smith is a hack. He wouldn’t know a frayed cable from a firehose. WE’RE DOOMED!”

2.) Sometimes I’ll stare at the grates on a city sidewalk. When someone asks whether I lost my keys, I’ll say, “No I saw a Leprechaun run down there with a pot of gold. I’m waiting for it to come back out so that I can murder and rob it.”

3.) Alternatively, I stare up at the sky, and when someone stops to see what I’m looking at, I say, “It’s a lovely day to be hurtling through space at two million kilometers per hour, isn’t it?”

5.) I like to skip the number four, and when someone asks why I say because it’s bad luck in China and Japan because the number four is pronounced the same as death. When the person points out that I’m not in China or Japan, I confidently bark, “That’s your opinion!” and rapidly walk off as their consternation and / or infuriation grows.

Ivy & Stone [Free Verse]

Taken in the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijan.
There's something relentless
in an old stone wall...
But, also, cold and dead.
One knows it will not stand forever --
that it will go the way of
ruins, rubble, stones, and dust --
but, still, it can outstand any man.
Ivy climbs to camouflage the stone's
cruel deathlessness,
But then the ivy stands on the wall
year after year after year...

DAILY PHOTO: The Crescent, Baku

A photograph of The Crescent Residences, an architecturally interesting building on Baku's Caspian shoreline.
carview.php?tsp=

Chill Induced Memory [Tanka]

Taken in Fountains Square in Baku, Azerbaijian.
the memory
of an outdoor cafe
at city center
comes to me out of the blue,
on a frigid Winter day.