Going Halvsies! (19th Day of April)

Going Halvsies!

Toads!  Congrats from me, Manicddaily, a/k/a Karin Gustafson, a/k/a Outlawyer!  Those of you who are writing thirty poems this month are more than halfway through!  (And those of you who are not writing thirty poems are also halfway through listening to the rest of us kvetch about it all!) 

So, although I’m a little late (as per usual), my prompt for today is the idea of half.  

There are many ways to think of half:  half is better than none.  Split the baby down the middle. (Yikes!)  Your better half, your other half, your lighter half, a half of a conversation, a pie, or cantaloupe. 

An elephant I know and her better half. 

Can I call that the top half, I mean...um.. lower half, of my favorite dog? 

And now, to make it a little more interesting:  did you know that this is the day 88 years ago (1927) upon which Mae West was sentenced to ten days in prison for her starring role in the Broadway play Sex, which she also wrote and directed,

Garrison Keiler tells the whole story quite wonderfully on Writer’s Almanac, but the long and short of it is that Mae West (who said she had simply written about a girl who “lost her reputation and never missed it”) actually spent eight days in jail (she was released two days early for good behavior) where she had to give up her silk stockings but was allowed to keep her silk underwear, and where she so charmed the jail warden and his wife, that they invited her to eat dinner with them every night of the sentence. 


This story may mean different things to different people, but for purposes of this prompt it makes me think of (i) finding a silver lining in a dark cloud and (ii) making lemonade our of lemons.  Which, now I come to think of it, is the other half of the cloud, and even arguably, the other half of lemons (the juicy bits.  You also have to halve them to squeeze them, right?)

So, in thinking about this prompt, feel free to think about direct ideas of half, but if these don't work for you, also consider silver linings, lemonade, and if you wish, Mae West, a lady who does not seem to have done very much by halves--(i”Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”)  

And although I don't particularly want to focus the prompt to Mae--here's a fun set of some of her great moments--at least to offer a laugh even if you opt to write on some other idea of half. 

Most importantly, have a wholly good time, and please do not feel hemmed in. 

 (Note all the pics and photo above--other than the youtube video--were made by me.  Feel free to use any but please give me attribution; thanks. )