When I visited Japan in December last year, we went to see the art shop fronts on Ginza Street. I shared about this visit here: https://roberta-writes.com/2024/12/21/roberta-writes-thursday-doors-tokyo-store-front-scenes-tokyo-christmas-thursdaydoors/

On Ginza Street, I came across some lovely street art and took pictures of it for blogging friend, Resa, who loves street art. You can find Resa’s most recent street art post here: https://graffitiluxandmurals.com/2025/01/26/muhammad-ali/

I am sharing that street art today and also using it as a jumping off point for my contribution to Dora’s Reimagining d’Verse poetry challenge which you can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/02/04/poetics-reimagining-the-familiar/

You can read Dora’s poem here: https://pilgrimdreams.com/2025/02/04/washdays/

When I appear on Ginza Street

I am a male Cape buffalo

I roam the plains of southern Africa

Endlessly seeking fodder

Which I consume faster than most African herbivores

Due to my wide row of incisor teeth

And deft tongue

My coat is dark brown, and

I have a set of majestic horns

Called a ‘boss’

They come together in front

To form a protective shield

My temper is unpredictable

And I cannot be tamed

Except when I appear on Ginza Street

Here, I assimilate

Becoming one with the local culture

I evolve into a showpiece

Wearing Joseph’s coat of many colours

My heavy front and wide hooves reduce

My boss erodes, shrinking as I conform

With bowed head and downcast eyes

There is no need to fear me

When I appear on Ginza Street

***

I am a male bush elephant

I wander the savannahs of Africa

Relentlessly grazing

The world’s largest land mammal

I uproot massive trees

Stripping them of their leaves and bark

Leaving behind much devastation

I use my large, curved incisors

Known as tusks

To dig, communicate, and for defense

My thick hide is grey

But I cover it with mud

The colour of the surrounding earth

I am dangerous when provoked

Except when I appear on Ginza Street

When I’m on Ginza Street

I must blend in with my surroundings

And acquire an arty look and feel

My skin becomes dappled

Resplendent in a variety

Of colours and shapes

My tusks diminish

Choosing obscurity

Along with my honey coloured eyes

There is no need to stand back

When I make my appearance

On Ginza Street

This was some other street art we saw on Ginza Street:

d’Verse – Celebrating groundhog day

Frank is d’Verse’s host for today and this is his prompt: Had enough Arctic cold? Buried under unseasonable snow? Or, for those living south of the equator, are you enjoying an arid summer? Well, whatever your situation, you might have heard about a certain rodent prognostication. Frank Tassone, here, & honored to be your host for another Haibun Monday, where we blend prose and haiku together. Today, let’s celebrate an American, weather-predicting tradition with Northern European roots: Groundhog’s Day.

You can join in the d’Verse challenge here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/02/03/haibun-monday-2-3-25-celebrating-groundhog-day/

You can find Frank’s poem here: https://frankjtassone.com/2025/02/03/groundhog-night/

As I live in southern Africa and it is summer here and we don’t have Groundhog’s Day, I have Africanised the prompt and incorporated two Zulu mythological creatures that bring the rain, thunder and lightening. In South Africa we get rain during late spring and summer and nothing at all during late autumn and winter. We can go up to eight months in a normal year without rain so by the time it arrives, we are desperate for relief from the heat and dryness.

The Forsaken

The angry sun savaged the land. Pouring its heat down onto the earth that cracked and broke under the relentless assault. The cattle grew thin, sharp ribs poking through their scraggy hides, while clouds of flies buzzed around their dry eyes and mouths. The crops withered in the fields and the people lay lethargic and parched inside their thatched huts. The milk in the breasts of the young mothers dried up and the babies cried themselves into early graves.

Unkulunkulu — “The One Who Carries Heavy Blows”, also called Rainbull, kept his mighty horns pointed at the sky, forcing the clouds to withhold their rain. He watched the daily passage of the boiling sun across the sky and dreamed about the cloudless nights when the bright stars performed undisturbed against a velvety blackness.

One scorching day, he shook his massive head and his horns accidently pointed towards the land below. The opportunistic rain seized the moment and flooded down in sheets accompanied by Impundulu, Lightening Bird, who summonsed thunder and lightening through the force of its wings and sharp talons.

The parched earth, unable to absorb the deluge, regurgitated the water creating flash floods across the land. People, animals, trees, and bushes all disappeared into the swirling brown whirlpool while Unkulunkulu, faced with his gross neglect, stamped his great hooves and cried pools of tears.

Unkulunkulu

Why have you forsaken us?

Direct your horns well

If you are interested in the Zuly Rainbull myth, you can read it here: https://medium.com/mythology-journal/the-spectacular-story-of-zenzele-and-the-rain-bull-0732de860a33

Last August, TC and I visited Jaci’s Treehouse Lodge in Madikwe Game Reserve. These pictures demonstrate how dry and dead everything looks at that time of your in this part of the world:

Story Chat

Talented writer, Marsha Ingrao, is the brain behind the innovative Story Chat series of blog posts. Story Chat involves the submission of a story or a poem which is published on Marsha’s blog, Always Write, and open to constructive discussion by her blog supporters. It is a most informative and interesting process and well worth considering for all poets and writers. You can find out more about Story Chat and find the schedule and submission process here: https://alwayswrite.blog/2024/11/22/story-chat-2025-schedule/

Marsha was kind enough to publish my poem, Invisible People, as part of her Poetry Day for Story Chat Digest 2025.

Story Chat Digest: Poetry Day

I am catching up today and posting poems for two d’Verse prompts.

The first one is OpenLinkNight #377 which offers the following picture as inspiration for a poem:

You can join in this prompt here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/01/30/openlinknight-377/

Mind Map

In her head

Her life

A mind map

It’s two main areas

Enclosed rectangles

Joined by gossamer threads

Fine but strong

To smaller contained squares

Work

Broken down into engagements

Engagements broken down into tasks

Tasks assigned to colleagues

Family

Each member

A different shape

Their problems

As different

As their various forms

Health

An inverted triangle

A reflection of balance

Or not

Between the other areas

It’s threads elastic

That stretch and stretch

Until they start to fray

Around the edges

She sits

Inside a circle

Formed by disconnected dashes

Her hands tightly griping

Those slippery silver threads

The second poem is a quadrille consisting of exactly 44 words and containing the word hint. You can read other poets’ poems here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/01/27/quadrille-216-can-you-take-a-hint/

Mist Warriors

Clothed in mist

The spirits of warriors

Sway and dance

To the beat of the rain

Their presence visible on aloes

Dripping from broad, green leaves

An arrow of light

Thrusts through the clouds

Turning the drops gold

A hint of the coming routing

These are some of the aloes we saw during our recent trip to Babanango Game Reserve. These photographs were taken after a cloudburst followed by drizzle for a few hours.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of the garden at the lodge.

Esther Chilton’s Writing Prompt

Esther Chilton’s prompt is beauty. You can join in here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/01/22/writing-prompts-49/. It worked beautifully in tandem with my latest watercolour painting.

Beauty (shadorma)

Young beauties

Skin smooth rose petals

Lips plump fruit

Hair fine silk

Life a freshly planted field

Just waiting for rain

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #365

Reena has posted a YT short about not letting others sap your energy as her prompt. You can join in here: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2025/01/23/reenas-xploration-challenge-365/

Energy suck (shadorma)

Parasites

Suck your energy

Feel it flow

Directly

From your heart and soul to theirs

Vampirical feast

What do you see #273

Sadje has posted this picture as her prompt:

The beach cafe (rhyming verse)

The sun blazes down

the beach simmers with heat,

my brother moans and whines

as it burns our feet

***

We dash for the door

and burst into the cool

an oasis in the desert

like diving into a pool

***

In the beach cafe

decor simple and plain,

from the heat we shelter

before we go insane

***

From it’s windows we watach

bodies frying on the sand

brown, white, and black

they all try to get tanned

***

Stretched out and exposed

shining with oil

a strange way to unwind

from your daily toil

***

We gulp down our drinks

wonderfully wet and cold,

staying out of the sun

for once we do as we’re told

You can join in Sadje’s prompt here: https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2025/01/27/what-do-you-see-273-27-jan-2025/

Bjorn is the host of this interesting prompt to use negation in poetry. You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/01/23/meet-the-bar-positively-through-negation/

You can read Bjorn’s poem here: https://brudberg.me/2025/01/23/what-it-is/

I have made an attempt based on how I understood this prompt. If you don’t like spiders STOP here.

I used a quote from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream which reflects spiders in a negative light. I have then flipped this idea in the second half of the poem.

In case you’ve forgotten, Puck, the mischievous servant to the fairy king in this play, is tasked with anointing Titania’s eyelids with the juice from a flower which will serve as a magic potion.

The Weaver

I scrabble backwards

Scrubbing shreds of sticky web

From my mouth and eyes

My Midsummer Night’s Dream forest walk

In tatters, just like the spider web

“Weaving spiders come not here

Hence, you long legged spiders, hence”

I invoke the charm of protection

From venomous arachnids

Out of the corner of my eye

I see a spectacular creation

A complex structure of threads

Glimmering in the golden light

Diamond-like rain drops clinging

At intervals along each lengthily seam

At the centre, sits the weaver

Slender red legs spread out

Around a distinctly marked abdomen

Like a queen on her throne

She eagerly awaits a banquet

Is her beauty real, or have I been bewitched

By magical floral juice upon my eyelids

“Tell me Puck? Is this vision real?

Or are you making mischief

With your enchanted love potion?”

I am excited to be kicking off In Touch with Nature, 2025 with a post about the Secretary Bird, Southern Africa’s most unusual bird of prey.

Thanks for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth.

In Touch With Nature – African’s most unusual bird of prey – Ode to a Secretary Bird #southernafricanwildlife #birds #poetry

The prompt: Write a piece of prose, fiction or non-fiction, up to 144-words, using the line:

“where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”
–From Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”

You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/01/20/prosery-finding-the-light/. Thank you, Merril: https://merrildsmith.org/2025/01/20/prosery-galaxies-of-hope/

The Light

The forest sweltered in the heat. Droplets oozed from the dense undergrowth and the loamy, waterlogged soil squelched beneath our sneakered feet. The air lay heavily on us, coating our skins with slickness. Our lungs sucked in boiled syrup, thick and sticky in the gloomy twilight beneath the canopy.

All around us, the trees formed a closely packed barrier, forcing us to wallow on through the mud. Snaking tendrils, moist and slimy, slyly pulled our hair and sneakily wrapped around our ankles while the cicadas blasted encouragement. The noise rang in our ears.

“I need some sun … and fresh air,” Bill muttered. “Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”

The trees did not deign to answer. The cicadas screamed laughter.

On we trudged, eyes downcast, muscles quivering.

The cicadas fell silent. Glancing around, we saw dappled sunlight ahead.

The Sound of the Forest YT video:

And beyond the trees lay The Grotto:

Three videos of inside The Grotto. It was very wet, with water sparkling on the rock walls and undergrowth. There were also two waterfalls. You can hear them in the last to YT shorts.

Thank you to talented author and blogger, Toni Pike, for this wonderful review of my short story collection, And the Grave Awaits.

Toni has a marvelous selection of books in the thriller, women’s fiction, and children’s books genres. I’ve read several of her books across all of the genres and loved all of them.

Book Review: And The Grave Awaits by Roberta Eaton Cheadle #shortstories #reviews

What Amazon says

Nolcha and Barbara decided to collaborate after Nolcha’s submission attachments to Barbara were mysteriously eaten by computer gremlins. Those gremlins were the topic of their first collaboration. It’s been so much fun to work together, it shouldn’t be legal.

My review

Too Much Fun to Be Legal is an engaging collection of witty, slightly sarcastic, and highly engaging poems by talented poets, Nolcha Fox and Barbara Leonhard. The poems are all freestyle and are written as alternate paragraph contributions by each poet. It is amazing how seamlessly the paragraphs fit together to create poems that flow perfectly. The poetry is highly imaginative and yet relatable and is filled with descriptions of daily life gone awry and the trials and tribulations of aging, which will have you nodding your head in understanding.

A few poetry extracts to demonstrate my commentary above.

Extracts from Diminishing:
Barbara’s contribution:
“Otherwise, I’m a monkey,
scaling shelves at the supermarket,
or using the grabber tool I was given
after my hip replacement
to snag containers”

Nolcha’s contribution:
“Supermarket shelves fell down
last time I tried to reach the Spam.
Canned goods, bottles, scattered,
shattered down Aisle 3 and 4.
Now the market manager
won’t let me shop without escort.
I just ride electric carts,
let someone else
do all the work.”

Extract from Freedom of the Body:
“Unshackle me from
pantyhose and heels,
from suits and ties,
from heavy bags
and briefcases
filled with everything
important, so we think.
These costumes
only serve as weights
to keep a work desk
in its place.”

I thought this paragraph describing work attire and the greater attitude towards work was very thought provoking. We all need to remember that we work to live and not let work become our lives.

Memory loss is a very real part of aging. Sometimes the demons, Dementia and Alzheimer’s, raise their ugly heads and the memory loss becomes all encompassing. This extract from I’m looking, written by Barbara, subtly illustrates this particular symptom.

“Like the shards of my soul
lost in traumas.
Some left to haunt
old homes, playgrounds,
hospitals. How to rescue
those missing pieces
of my memory?”

If you enjoy relatable poetry that allows you to smile, or even laugh, at the inconveniences, annoyances and griefs of life, you will enjoy this brilliantly compiled collection.

Purchase Too Much Fun to Be Legal from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DC4RTRCR

Find Nolcha and Barbara

You can find more of Nolcha’s poetry on her blog here: https://writingaddiction2.wordpress.com/

You can find more of Barbara’s poetry on her blog here: https://extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog/