Tag Archives: Leo’s Z to A Challenge

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Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: “K” is for Keno

View of Reno, Nevada, with the University of N...

Image via Wikipedia

Submitted to Leo’s Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/

“K” is for Keno
A Limerick

There once was a young lad from Reno
who had an addiction to Keno
then lost all his cash
because he was smashed
that night he’d had way too much vino

Keno: gambling game played with cards (tickets) bearing numbers in squares, usually from 1 to 80. A player marks or circles as many of these numbers as he wishes up to the permitted maximum, after which he hands in, or registers, his ticket and pays according to how many numbers he selected. At regular daily intervals a total of 20 numbered balls or pellets are randomly drawn from a container, and prizes are paid out by the house according to how many of each player’s selected numbers are drawn

Reno is in Nevada (USA) and gambling is legal here. Most of us who call Reno “home” avoid the casinos although sometimes they have good food and outstanding shows. Because our economy is so dependent on gambling and tourism is way down at the present time due to an overall lack of disposable income, Nevada is number # in the US in unemployment and foreclosures. Because of this, the area is looking to capitalize on its location in the Sierra Nevada mountains by promoting outdoor activities. We are about 40 minutes away from Lake Tahoe, in the north of the state. Reno is a far cry from Las Vegas.

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M is for Mortality

Day 102 - Gambel's Quail

Image by MissTessmacher via Flickr

Submitted to Leo’s Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/

M is for Mortality

A dead quail lay on the path,
legs extended
grasping the last touch of life,
eyelids sealing off earth’s beauty forever.

Layers of gold feathers
zigzagged its empty breast.
Clods of earth soiled
the handiwork of some obscure Artisan.

I knelt to honor
nature’s defiled chalice,
scooped the chilled stiff form into a plastic bag.

It landed with a thud in the empty garbage can.

This poem was originally published in Twenty-Three Magazine, 2006

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Z to A Challenge: P is for “Perhaps”

Lonely woman

Submitted to Leonnyes Z to A Challenge: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/

 Perhaps If

I’d noticed
how she
pushed that piece of Kung
Pao Shrimp around
the plate and left it
balancing
precariously
on the edge.

If I’d taken time
to hear to the words,
she didn’t speak.
Or if I’d
caught the way her
eyes avoided mine,
staring at some
distant intersection
on the horizon
of her world.

If I’d paid attention
to the curtains
drawn tight against
intrusion
or if I’d wondered why
she never called
me back.

Perhaps then she
would not have chosen
to die so soon.

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Leo’s Z to A Challenge: “Yesterday, You…”

I’m submitting this poem to Leo’s Z to A: http://leonnyes.wordpress.com/  For today’s theme, based on the letter “Y” I’ve chosen “Yesterday, You…”

Yesterday, side-by-side
you and I toiled in our garden.
You piled leaves in rows,
(mounds of leaves like tombs
of Chinese Emperors.)

You watched me prune
the ravished peonies,
(leaves gnawed into lacy filigree
by a band of determined earwigs.)

I cut the canes into small pieces
that wouldn’t pierce the plastic bag.
Yesterday you culled the fruit,
(tomatoes that survived the frost)

Yesterday, when darkness folded in
upon the day and left our garden empty
You said Goodbye, said Good things
cannot last forever.

You closed the door behind you
when you abandoned us. Yesterday.

Just a disclaimer: David and I did garden yesterday…but he’s still very much here. Getting ready to go golfing before it gets any colder.