Wednesday, November 23, 2016

HappyThanksgiving To All My America followers and friends







Three Word Wednesday- Preference

Prompts: Machismo, noun: (aggressive) masculinity, toughness, male chauvinism, sexism, virility, manliness; bravado, testosterone, macho. 

Nauseating, adjective: sickening, nauseous, stomach-churning, emetic, sickly; disgusting, revolting, offensive, loathsome, obnoxious, foul, vomitous; informal gross, gut-churning, gut-wrenching.



Oaf, noun: lout, boor, barbarian, Neanderthal, churl, bumpkin, yokel; fool, dolt, dullard; informal idiot, imbecile, moron, halfwit, lamer, cretin, ass, jackass, goon, yahoo, ape, baboon, clod, blockhead, meathead, butthead, meatball, bonehead, knucklehead, chucklehead, lamebrain, palooka, lug, bozo, hoser, boob, chowderhead, lummox, knuckle-dragger, galoot, klutz, goofus, doofus, dork, turkey, dingbat.


Preference 

I much prefer 
What some call an oaf
To nauseating men
Who preen and primp
And have to show
How machismo they can be
For oafs can have the sweetest centre
Gentleness at their core
Their tender hearts
They share with one and all
Kindness their motto
Their true handsomeness
For all to see
If you truly look
Beneath the exterior
©Sheilagh Lee November 23 ,2016


Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Remembrance Day




Soldiers in full dress
Some frail,
With canes, walker and wheelchairs

Still they come in tribute
For fallen comrades
New and old
The heavens cry
With rain and wind

Still they stand tall
People old and young
Marvel at their inner strength
The symbol a red flower
Proudly worn on their breasts
To remember so we can never forget
The sacrifices given
Though some think long ago
To these brave men and women
It’s yesterday again
Pain in their eyes
They remember and thank

Fallen comrades

Again and again
How can we do less?

©Sheilagh Lee November 9 2016

Three Word Wednesday- Election



Prompts:

Far-fetched, adjective: improbable, unlikely, implausible, unconvincing, dubious, doubtful, incredible, unbelievable, unthinkable; contrived, fanciful, unrealistic, ridiculous, absurd, preposterous, hard to swallow, fishy.

Gamy, adjective: having the tangy flavor or odor of game, having the flavor or odor of game or other meat kept uncooked until slightly tainted, plucky; spirited, lewd or suggestive, risqué, gross or squalid; unwholesome.

Halting, adjective: hesitant, faltering, hesitating, stumbling, stammering, stuttering; broken, imperfect, unsteady, awkward, faltering, stumbling, limping, hobbling.

Election

Farfetched
Beliefs
Halting
Votes
Election
Gamy odour
Of defeat
Win
Breaking
Hearts
Around
The world
Bridges
Not Burnt
Realizing
No one
Stands
Alone
Governs 
Alone
Hands
Reaching
For
Peace
Respect
Given
Listening
Hearts
Civility
Returns
©Sheilagh Lee November 9 2016

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Three Word Wednesday-Defusing Powder Kegs

Calculate, verb: compute, work out, reckon, figure; add up/together, count up, tally, total, tote, tot up, intend, mean, aim, design, expect, count on, anticipate, reckon on, bargain on, figure on.

Dire, adjective: terrible, dreadful, appalling, frightful, awful, atrocious, grim, alarming; grave, serious, disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, hopeless, irretrievable, wretched, desperate, parlous, urgent, desperate, pressing, crying, sore, grave, serious, extreme, acute, drastic, ominous, gloomy, grim, dismal, unpropitious, inauspicious, unfavorable, pessimistic.

Erratic, adjective: unpredictable, inconsistent, changeable, variable, inconstant, irregular, fitful, unstable, turbulent, unsettled, changing, varying, fluctuating, mutable; unreliable, undependable, volatile, spasmodic, mercurial, capricious, fickle, temperamental, moody.



I calculate the mood
Of the people around me
Will they go off like powder kegs
Is it a dire situation?
Are they acting erratic?
For I have learned
That some people are volatile
Scary and overpowering
It is better to diffuse them
With kind words
Apologies meaning nothing
Though they know that not
Then to let them
Explode with anger
Harming me or others
©Sheilagh Lee November 2 2016

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Three Word Wednesday- Celebrities


Three Word Wednesday Prompts: 

Vapid, adjective: insipid, uninspired, colorless, uninteresting, feeble, flat, dull, boring, tedious, tired, unexciting, uninspiring, unimaginative, uninvolving, lifeless, tame, vacuous, bland, trite, jejune.

Adjoining, adjective: connecting, connected, interconnecting, adjacent, ensuite, neighboring, bordering, next-door; contiguous, proximate; attached, touching.

Bouncy, adjective: bumpy, jolting, jerky, jumpy, jarring, rough, lively, energetic, perky, frisky, jaunty, dynamic, vital, vigorous, vibrant, animated, spirited, buoyant, bubbly, sparkling, vivacious; enthusiastic, ebullient, upbeat.


Vapid celebrities


Filling the news



Bouncy outlandish personalities



Living life not really seeing



The world but only the trappings



Of the rich and famous



Not the adjoining 



Neighbourhoods that are poor 



Now facing reality 



When they are targeted



By those who are bad



Poor or indifferent



Wake-up calls can be 



Good 



But what a terrible price



Leftover PTSD occurs


©Sheilagh Lee October 26, 2016


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Three Word Wednesday -Curse

Symbolic, adjective: emblematic, representative, typical, characteristic, symptomatic, figurative, representative, illustrative, emblematic, metaphorical, allegorical, parabolic, allusive, suggestive; meaningful, significant.

Tendency, noun: propensity, proclivity, proneness, aptness, likelihood, inclination, disposition, predisposition, bent, leaning, penchant, predilection, susceptibility, liability; readiness; habit, trend, movement, drift, swing, gravitation, direction, course; orientation, bias.

Unhinged, adjective: deranged, demented, unbalanced, unglued, crazed, mad, insane, disturbed, out of one's mind, out of one's tree; informal crazy, mental, nutso, bonkers, batty, loopy, loco, postal, bananas, touched, batshit crazy. 






A symbolic gesture of a rose
The tendency to grant forgiveness
But unhinged minds
Forget the act
After all it was faked
To get their lover back
So they’d forget
The beatings, the raised voices
As they self-medicate
With pills, liquor
Whatever takes them away
For a little while
And makes them
Happy for a moment
The gesture of the rose
Seals their fate
The unending cycle
Taught always to forgive
The family curse goes on

©Sheilagh Lee October 19, 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Three Word Wednesday- Resilient

Three Word Wednesday- Resilient

Three Word Wednesday Prompts: 

Radiance, noun: light, brightness, brilliance, luminosity, beams, rays, illumination, blaze, glow, gleam, luster, glare; luminescence, incandescence, joy, elation, jubilance, ecstasy, rapture, euphoria, delirium, happiness, delight, pleasure.

Rasp, verb: scrape, rub, abrade, grate, grind, sand, file, scratch, scour, croak, squawk, caw, say hoarsely.

Rhythm, noun: beat, cadence, tempo, time, pulse, throb, swing, meter, measure, stress, accent, cadence, pattern, flow, tempo.



Resilent 

She gave radiance in her advice
Beauty in her soul
Her voice at times raspy
From the surgery on her neck
She spoke of the rhythm of life
Teaching her children
Nothing is insurmountable
Poverty can be met
With humour and hope
Teaching us that
Nature is free to enjoy
Hard work does achieve goals
Even when life is difficult
It will get better
Yet her life was hard
Money was scarce
She fought and worked
To feed and clothe  
Her six children
Making something from
What others would say of nothing
While her husband often ill
Could not help
Neither with his money or spirit
She found money for extras
When it was truly desired
Not living the life she’d dreamed
But accepting fate’s quirky hand
Not asking for fame but…
Achieving status in hearts and minds
Of her children and grandchildren
Her kindness and heart
Our mother
Remembered forevermore. 


©Sheilagh Lee October 12, 2016

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Three Word Wednesday -Oddball

Three Word Wednesday -Oddball

Notable, adjective: noteworthy, remarkable, outstanding, important, significant, momentous, memorable; marked, striking, impressive; uncommon, unusual, special, exceptional, signal, prominent, important, well known, famous, affluential, famed, noted, distinguished, great, eminent, illustrious, respected, esteemed, renowned, celebrated, acclaimed, influential, prestigious, of note; noun: celebrity, public figure, VIP, personage, notability, dignitary, worthy, luminary; star, superstar, icon, name, big name; informal celeb, somebody, bigwig, big shot, big cheese, big fish, megastar, big kahuna, high muck-a-muck, high muckety-muck.
Oddball, adjective: whimsically free-spirited; eccentric; atypical; noun:  person or thing that is atypical, bizarre, eccentric, or non-conforming, especially one having beliefs that are unusual but harmless.
Perky, adjective: cheerful, lively, vivacious, animated, bubbly, effervescent, bouncy, spirited, high-spirited, in high spirits, cheery, merry, buoyant, ebullient, exuberant, jaunty, frisky, sprightly, spry, bright, sunny, jolly, sparkly, pert; full of beans, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chipper, peppy.



©Sheilagh Lee October 5, 2016

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Three Word Wednesday- Renewed

People say I’m two sides of the same coin
Mercurial and hard to pin down
These are the people
Who don’t know me
Kindly refrain for pigeonholing me
I am lighthearted most of the time
I don’t want to seem melodramatic
But like everyone
I hide my inner thoughts
And when depression gets me down
 When I’m spiralling down that hole
I cut myself off from friends
Protecting them from me
And my dark mood
Until I’m me again
Positive and renewed.

 ©Sheilagh Lee September 28, 2016

Friday, September 16, 2016

Goodbye Old Friend

During a heavy storm, a mature deciduous tree can 'drink' a couple of hundred gallons of water, which is funnelled to its roots. This water is stored in the surrounding soil, to help the tree through future dry spells. Trees think ahead.
A single tree contains millions of calories in the form of sugar, cellulose, lignin (which helps to make the structure 'woody') and other carbohydrates. But to insects and birds, a tree isn't so much a grocery store as a guarded warehouse, because the food is surrounded by a thick protective wall of bark. Trees think about security.
Every day in summer, trees release about 29 tons of oxygen into the air per square mile of forest. A person breathes in nearly two pounds of oxygen each day, so that's the daily requirement for tens of thousands of people. Trees don't care about us — but we should care about them. Elms and pines use a different tactic. When an insect eats a leaf, electrical signals travel from the damaged area to the roots — just as human tissue sends pain signals along the nervous system.
It takes at least an hour for the roots to react and unleash the defences, by flowing bitter compounds into the leaf to send the attacker packing. But something even more amazing is also happening: the tree identifies the attacker by its saliva. Armed with this, the tree releases phero-mones to summon specific predators, to prey on the insects. For example, elms and pines call on parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside leaf-eating caterpillars, condemning them to slow, painful deaths. Trees are prepared to wait for revenge.
The main reason humans cannot perceive how clever and complex they are is because we exist in such short time scales by comparison. There's a tree in Sweden for instance, a spruce, that is more than 9,500 years old. That's 115 times longer than the average human lifespan.
A tree's childhood lasts ten times as long as ours. Activities that take us moments — waking up or stretching our limbs, can last months for a tree.
It's hardly surprising that most of us see trees as practically inanimate, nothing more than objects. But the truth is very different. They are just as intensely alive as we are . . . and for much, much longer.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3792036/Do-trees-brains.html#ixzz4KPnCdEB6
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

source DailyMail UK





Beautiful tree, majestic ash     




How you must have weathered
Storms, times and emotions
Did you miss the woman?
Who owned our house?
That you withered and died
Did something
Kill your spirit and your roots?







How I wish I could seen
You at your best
Though I did try to
Bring you back to life
I shall miss your shade
And the birds and animals you sheltered
But today I bid farewell
To your magnificent height
Strength and presence
May it comfort you that
A tree has been planted in your honour






Goodbye old friend 






Goodbye
©Sheilagh Lee September 16, 2016







Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Three Word Wednesday - Peace

 Prompts: 

Firm, adjective: hard, solid, unyielding, resistant; solidified, hardened, compacted, compressed, dense, stiff, rigid, frozen, set; secure, secured, stable, steady, strong, fixed, fast, set, taut, tight; immovable, irremovable, stationary, motionless; strong, vigorous, sturdy, forceful; resolute, determined, decided, resolved, steadfast; adamant, emphatic, insistent, single-minded, in earnest, wholehearted; unfaltering, unwavering, unflinching, unswerving, unbending; hardline, committed, dyed-in-the-wool; close, good, intimate, inseparable, dear, special, fast; constant, devoted, loving, faithful, long-standing, steady, steadfast, rock-steady; noun: company, business, concern, enterprise, organization, corporation, conglomerate, office, bureau, agency, consortium.

Grave, noun: burial site, gravesite, cemetery plot, tomb, sepulcher, vault, burial chamber, mausoleum, crypt; last resting place; adjective: serious, important, weighty, profound, significant, momentous; critical, acute, urgent, pressing; dire, terrible, awful, dreadful; solemn, serious, sober, unsmiling, grim, somber; severe, stern, dour.

Heated, adjective: warm, hot; thermal; vehement, passionate, impassioned, animated, spirited, lively, intense, fiery; angry, bitter, furious, fierce, stormy, tempestuous; excited, animated, inflamed, worked up, wound up, keyed up.


Peace 

I am firm
In my belief
Though people get heated
About different views
They can come together
To make the right change
In goodwill and harmony
If they only try
But if they cannot make change
Then find some calm
Because life is too short
To argue and moan
About what we cannot change
Let’s take some
Peace to the grave
And have serenity
Now

©Sheilagh Lee September 14, 2016

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Forgiveness?

I tried to winnow out
Life
Abashed with ways to change the past
Blind
Because the past is what defines us
Good
Bad
How we cope with difficult things
Forgiveness
For ourselves and others transgressions
Survival
We cannot change the hurts
Forgiveness
But still the sufferings
Hurt
From those we love
Hide
Within our consciousness
Burning
Brightly in our dreams
Haunting
Forgiveness still on our lips
Forgetting
Not going to happen
Burning
Deep inside the cycle

Continues
Pretending that all is alright
Lingering
In consciousness burning bright
Hurting
Still hearing the words
Cutting
To my soul
Again
And 
Again
Time to forgive
©Sheilagh Lee August 31, 2016