Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
In open safari vehicle
my driver Robert
drives right up on the lions
who have killed and eaten
a water buffalo
of last night’s kill
I can smell the carcass
and hope that they
are too full
to find interest in me
My mother gave me Grapenuts
while other kids got Frootloops
those artificially-colored
little donut shaped
sugar puffed
cereals
in
box
with a toucan
singing commercials
guiding me through the taste
smells and sight of delicious like
candy breakfast nutrition created
to make me want more and more
dVerse prompt— a fruitloop (sp) daydream
Hold air like water
float
traverse skyward
in a dream
unbroken
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dVerse prompt on AI. This picture came out of an AI program at the Dali Museum in St Petersburg. My childhood dream of swimming in air was typed into the program and this picture was created by AI.
Oh to be able to taste again
I have forgotten what breakfast tastes like
In the sunlight
Hard to tell which part of the body is singing
Too cute
I search the day for pretty words
Coffee coffee buzzbuzzbuzz
So it is settled
This is how the end comes
It is as hot as Texas
There is something about a Queen
I sleep deeply under the strawberry moon
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dVerse prompt to take first line of first poem written in each month of 2022. I wasn’t very prolific this year so had to snitch a couple of lines.
New Year’s Day was a birthday for my second born and a smorgasbord for the relatives. Pickled herring, cheeses and pressgurkin, gravlax, pate, pepparrot, Janssons frestelse, kuttbullar, sometimes lutefisk, bruna bonor, appelflask, oxrelader.
Akvavit poured in just the right amount. How we linked arms and shouted “skol”. I can still hear my mother-in-law’s voice, “That will warm the cockles of your heart.”

midwinter hoarfrost
crispy sharp on old flowers
cold stabs in the mind
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dVerse haibun prompt on New Year memory. Forgive my Swedish spelling.
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Texting with my daughter
This is how the end comes.
It is wrapped in silver like a gift.
The gift is most welcome,
eager to see what is inside.
Inside was not what I wanted.
It was full of memory.
Each memory had a story.
They played inside my head.
The head was filled with irrelevance,
as I sought for the divine.
What could be more sought after
than a life of heartfelt love?
In love with the only One—
this is how the end comes.
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NaPoWriMo Day 27 prompt to write a duplex sonnet.
I can’t really say I loved him. Love does not come easy for me. He was my first kiss, a little bit of making out, kind words from his thin lips.
I went on to guard the pool, to save a life, my tanned olive skin a beacon for men. Then one day a man walked through the gate and I watched his choppy strokes across the water and married him.
We vowed to love art. To make art out of our lives. We traveled both locally and abroad but that huge painting on the Getty wall stays with me— Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 by James Ensor.
When will He come?
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NaPoWriMo Day 21 prompt— a person forgotten, a job taken, a memorable piece of art, an unanswerable question
When I was ten, I learned to swim. To hold my breath, submerge, and move underwater. Only the torso, legs and arms of other people were visible. No heads. I never timed these underwater adventures but swam about like some kind of fish. Eyes open but no gills; just my expanded lungs, increasing capacity to stay under longer and longer. I became an orca scouting its prey. My feet, the fluke, pounding surface with each new breath. My mouth spewing water into the sunshine.
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NaPoWriMo Day 8 prompt to write your alter ego.
I folded and creased the paper
to make a fuselage
long and slender
overlapped side wings
perfect aerodynamics
hoping it would stay aloft
that it would be lifted
by a current of air
and fly forward
tailwind taking it further
before the landing
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dVerse prompt to write a quadrille using the word paper
wordshophop 