Private: Keep Out

Daily Prompt: Do Not Disturb

Photographers, artists, poets: show us PRIVATE.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My business is my business
Your business is yours
No one likes nosiness
Especially by those in power

Private used to mean private
Now it only means personal
‘Privacy’ is now stored in bits
Byte by byte in server files

Don’t be paranoid or full of fear
You have one sure place of privacy left
That memory bank between your ears
You can keep some things to yourself

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

Let’s Celebrate #15

Daily Prompt: RSVP

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CELEBRATION.

Headed for the beach!

My Lady, I plan to take you away
Will you please confirm to me
I remember our first day
My new bride, happy and so sweet.

For fifteen years we’ve gone through much
Mostly ‘ups’ with just a few ‘downs’
I’m ready for some ‘living it up’
As some would say, “Doing the town!”

“on a blanket with my baby…”

Let’s go back to the seashore
Sea gulls celebrated with us that day
More than we had ever seen before
They made us laugh in a silly sort of way

Once again, just you and me
Children and grandchildren some other time
I’ve planned something special, wait ’til you see
So glad I’m yours, so glad you are mine

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

Life (poetically divined)

Daily Prompt: Four Stars

Photographers, artists, poets: show us LIFE.

Genus–differentia definition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Life, so many definitions:
Such as the span of time from birth to death,
or a criminal’s time spent in prison

Life, biologically,
the presence of activity on the cellular level
Is ‘still life’ a misnomer or just verbal oddity

Life, spiritually,
refers to energies and experiences
understood by most metaphysically

Life, mentally,
holds all hopes, dreams and memories,
the realm of character, and personal entity

Life however defined,
regardless the varied beliefs in origin
is always and forever simply divine

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

-As a Christian I believe that all life is of God, manifested in and through Jesus Christ:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.   St. John 1:1-4 KJV, Holy Bible

~If we disagree, may we respectfully disagree.

Never, Nefre, Not Ever

Daily Prompt: Never

Tell us about a thing you’ll never write about.

Many times in life I have been told: “Never say never.” I suppose that is sound advice seeing that most of us are not clairvoyants and therefore cannot foretell what circumstances in which we may find ourselves.

Eat crow! (Photo credit: rutlo)

Knowing not the future, maybe the best affirmation to make about negative things is to say something like: “I intend to never…” or “I plan to never write about X, Y, or Z.” I realize that may sound like moral ambivalence to some, but that would most likely be ones who have never had to ‘eat crow.’

Seeing that this writer truly knows the unappealing taste of ‘crow’ as it applies in meaning to ‘eating one’s own words’, I will limit my list drastically: I intend to never write anything derogatory of my first wife. I have more than one reason for making such a declaration, but the foremost is that I would never want the children and grandchildren that we both love and admire to be wounded by defamatory things said or put into print.

Another reason for not ever writing negatively about certain things from the past is personal healing. Any kind of healing is exacerbated if the wound healing is reopened. New relationships are another reason for not going back to pain and trauma from days gone by. I have a wonderful relationship fifteen years strong with a beautiful lady. To write and become mired even mentally in things before our relationship could only serve to detract from the joy I experience now.

Speaking of joy, I prefer to write and express myself in more jocular tones than those in this piece. Also, many times I assume a character pseudonym to be able to write personal experiences in the third person in order to approach my topic more objectively and lightheartedly when possible. However, this Daily Prompt is what it is and never is a negative term in meaning. And, I intend to NEVER write about these things again!

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

“Let’s Get Physical”

Daily Prompt: Red Pill, Blue Pill

If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill — no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation — would you do it?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us NOURISHMENT.

The updated USDA food pyramid, published in 2005, is a general nutrition guide for recommended food consumption for humans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Eat this, don’t eat that,”
You know, “You are what you eat.”
“Cut the salt, trim the fat,”
We hear the food police.

“Will you ever use self-control?”
Pipes the young skinny one.
“Give me a break, my metabolism has slowed,”
Sings the same soul thirty years on.

A different expert every few years,
opinions seem to ever change;
Exercise, diets, rising health fears,
The battle remains the same.

“It’s more about how much.”
–“No, it’s more about the what.”
“It’s exercise, you lazy butt,
If you’d only do some squats.”

On and on the merry-go-round
keeps turning through the ages;
There was a time folks wanted more pounds,
But now, “Thin is in,” according to the sages.

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

~ During the first two decades of my life I was underweight. I was taken to physicians, subjected to embarrassing tests, made to feel inferior, taunted and ridiculed. Some things said to me, supposedly as a joke, were too vulgar to repeat verbally or in print. As middle age and the ‘wonder’ years creep on I fight the same kind of ‘imbecility’ because now I am ‘too’ heavy. I’ve decided that I’ll let ‘a problem with my weight’ be someone else’s problem. Me? I’ve learned how to “DO COOL” either way!

Vacation is Poetry Lived

Daily Prompt: Tourist Trap

Photographers, artists, poets: show us VACATION.

The sun shining bright and hot
the water clear and aqua-blue
on a beach blanket, secluded spot
summer breezes, warm then cool

The east coast or the west coast
the gulf or the lake
Sometimes by the pool, just being human toast
swimming, relaxing, and catching rays

Oh, and those times in the mountains
hiking up the trails,
waterfalls, flowers and natural fountains
Camping out and telling old tales

Shopping in quaint shops
admiring local cunning motifs
Checking out the tourist stops
finding the best places to eat

Whether the mountains, the lake, or the shore,
caves, inland park or a country hideaway,
spending time with someone you adore
makes a vacation the best of days.

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

Chilling Out (poetically)

Daily Prompt: The Zone

Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in “the zone”?

Chill Out Cafe (Photo credit: Infrogmation)

When I feel that tired exhausted feeling
from a long day’s work well done
Or when I’ve finished a time of speaking
I’m so ready for my “chill out” zone.

Maybe not all creative ones run low like me
artistry tends to drain my juices
I have to find a little time ‘think’ free
like television, my feet up, totally useless

Lounging in my favorite chair
my little lap dog loves this time
Sports, cops or drama, I don’t care
they all seem to work just fine

Sometimes a nap helps get the job done
or a simple little walk around the block
or chilling with ‘my lady, my one and only one’
then my brain starts spinning and I’m ready to rock

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

The Road of Hills and Curves

Daily Prompt: Silver Linings

Write about something you consider “ugly” — war, violence, failure, hatred — but try to find beauty, or a sense of hope, in your thoughts.

curve (Photo credit: shellorz)

Dutch leaned into the curve he was about to take to the left and already his mind was preparing for the lean to the right as the curve to the left immediately led into a curve to the right. How many times, he began to ponder, had he negotiated these “S” curves as well as the ones he had just come through and the other two a couple of miles ahead. The curves, especially the ones going downhill on the approach to the river crossing as they were curving so sharply, took Dutch back so many years.

The slightly past middle-aged man with graying hair in his temples had first begun driving this stretch of highway on a daily commute to a new job while he was going through the most painful time he had ever been through in his life. Dutch had not wanted the divorce from his companion of twenty-five years. But he thought, there really is something to the old saying, “It takes two to tango.” Reflecting now some fifteen years later, Dutch could see things more clearly than in the past. The emotional fog of all the searing pain of separation, the endless quarrels, the false accusations to and fro, and the dreaded legal process of divorce having lifted, the man could see and even admit to himself his own faults and short-comings.

Leaning back to the left again as he approached yet another series of curves, Dutch continued his self-evaluation and mental inventory. All those curves reminded him of his circumstances so many years in the past. He remembered thinking one day as he commuted that travelling that highway with so many curves in differing directions was so much like his life during that time. Along with the curves were hill and valley after another hill and valley. Dutch remembered comparing the ride on the highway to the ride he was then going through in life. Like riding on a roller coaster, he had felt like he was being tossed to and fro, left then right, up and down, sometimes round and round.

Finally, the last long curve negotiated, Dutch smiled and thought now of the event to which he was driving.  It was almost birthday party time for one of his little darlings. Now his mind was on a pretty blue-eyed granddaughter with silky blond hair. Just as the curvy road was now straighter, so was his life more so than in the past. The older, more mature man realized that he was happier now than he had been in decades. His home life was now calm and old qualms and quarrels had taken a back seat for everyone as beautiful grandchildren arrived.

Relaxing a bit now, the old curves having made Dutch remember the past had also caused him to appreciate his current time in life. He was filled with silly anticipation of all the grandpa hugs he was soon to receive from all his ‘little Georgia peaches’ that would be at the party. Smiling, Dutch thought of how glad he was to no longer feel the pain of years gone by. Then he thought, “I’m certainly glad I don’t have travel this doggone crazy road with all the hills and curves twice everyday anymore!”

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

Double Losers

Daily Prompt: Fight or Flight

Ruins (Photo credit: StephYo)

I knew two men who were giants,
Not really, they just thought they were;
They both were so defiant,
Brought themselves and others great hurt.
In their hearts they each were always right,
‘Twas the other who was always wrong;
With those mind sets, and both willing to fight,
The question was who was more strong.
They pitted the battle not once but twice,
And the battles were several years spaced;
They cared not the cost, who or what paid the price,
It became a fight to save face.
Neither won, so many lost, the rubble is all that remains,
Two ‘little men’ thought they were giants, did nothing but cause great pain.

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013

The Almost Fight

Daily Prompt: Fight or Flight

When faced with confrontation, do you head for the hills or walk straight in? Was there ever a time you wished you’d had the opposite reaction?

Fight (Photo credit: Philippe Put)

Danny and Tommy were walking quickly to the back side of the rural school house followed by at least a dozen of their classmates. It was Tuesday evening and teachers and parents were inside occupied with their own drama in a scheduled Parents and Teachers Association meeting. The meeting presented a perfect time for the ‘feud’ to finally be settled.

There actually was not a real feud. It was more like the ongoing torment of a young bully, Tommy, taunting his unwilling, fearful victim, Danny. The more Danny had tried to negotiate peace and friendliness with Tommy, the more ‘the bully’ came out of his tormentor. The other classmates didn’t help, but only aggravated matters by chanting together like a young schoolboys’ choir. They would chant things like, “Danny is a sissy, Danny is a sissy. If he had girl clothes then he’d be prissy.” This only served to embolden the bully and torment the victim.

Finally, Danny could take no more and had agreed to face his biggest fear. They would fight it out on Tuesday night during the PTA meeting while parents and teachers were occupied inside.  All the boys, mostly 5^th graders, had purchased hot dogs and sodas at the vendors so that no one would be concerned when they headed outside to enjoy their snacks. Danny had marched along with the group feeling like he was being carried along like a small log in a river stream.

The group of rowdy boys finally reached the open area behind the school that had been designated for ‘the rumble.’ They all took time to eat their hot dogs, however, before forming their ‘circle of doom.’ Tommy seemed to wolf his food down in his normal huffy, puffy manner. Danny, the smallest boy in the crowd, took his time slowly eating as though it was his ‘final meal’ before execution.

Something happened inside young Danny as he slowly and intentionally stretched out the eating of his hot dog. He suddenly remembered the characters he had played over the last few years in school plays and church drama skits. As he finished the last few bites of his hot dog, Danny began starring down his bigger than life opponent. As he starred, Danny began slowly pacing around Tommy as though he was sizing him up and choosing his moment. Danny was suddenly in character as one of the gladiators from eras past.

Feeling now like a young gladiator, little Danny threw the last bit of his food down and balled his fists. Knowing he would most likely lose this fight he had determined within himself to at least redeem his reputation with the other boys. Yes, he would wear his ‘whipping’ with pride. As he circled the bully with his fists raised and the best look of a fighter he could muster from memories of television and movies, Danny decided he would attempt the first punch.

Fight, fight, fight. (Photo credit: theirhistory)

With the circle of boys chanting, “Hit him, pop him good!” Danny made his move. Just before he could land the ‘first lick’ as the boys called it, Tommy suddenly ‘chickened out’ and stepped back.  Now, the bully was the fearful one and began backing up and whining like a little wimp about fighting not being necessary to settle their differences. “We can just shake hands and agree to not cross each other’s path. I’ll be happy with that,” the bully now whined. Danny realizing that he was in a winning position without having to throw a single punch took a step back and lifted his chin. He magnanimously agreed while extending his open hand in friendliness to his past tormentor.

“Ah, man!” the young chorus cried as they watched the disagreement being settled without fisticuffs and wrestling on the ground. Someone cried that the concession stand was still open and the entourage headed back to the front of the school building to buy candy and gum. On this return trip, Danny, the smallest of the group, now felt larger than all the rest. Several slapped him on the back and congratulated him as the winner while the bully sullenly brought up the rear looking sad and dejected. Tommy’s reign of terror was over; not only with Danny, but with the rest of the boys as well.

-Donald R. Sansbury, 2013