Monthly Archives: April 2017

Blind Misfortune

15 Replies

DSC08409Mixed Media collage “Macho” by Judy Dykstra-Brown, jdbphoto


Blind Misfortune

What you blindly get into
in youth can be the end of you.
Those days of passion, counting coup
are never risked when days are few.
The shorter our remaining years,
the greater seem to be our fears.
Thus, old men send the young to war,
forgetting what life’s really for.

They forget love’s throb and ache
and living just for living’s sake––
that need to feel adventure’s thrust––
the drive to do what’s fair and just.
Once passion ebbs, the quest for gold
drives these men turned crass and old.
They give libido other names
as they turn to other games.

Warheads coming now erect,
it seems a waste not to connect
them to their targets, so far away.
It’s only strangers who will pay.
All those enemies of mind,
with no thought of age or kind:
mothers and children meet their ends
and old men never make amends.

They send their own youth off to war
because this is what they’re for.
And young men taught by fantasy
on football field or on TV
are fodder for the greed of those
billionaires in evening clothes.
So the young men blindly go
for reasons that they barely know.

The WordPress prompt word today is blindly.

Security is . . .

9 Replies

Security is a big comfy bed and permission to use it! (Click on any photo to increase the size of images.)

 

 

Today’s weekly photo prompt is a photo that represents security.

Upstaging: Sunday Trees, Apr 9 2017

3 Replies

Upstaging

I love the contrast between these trees:

For Becca’s Tree Challenge.

Tulip Tree: Flower of the Day, Apr 9, 2017

4 Replies

IMG_2702jdbphoto2017

 

https://ceenphotography.com/2017/04/08/flower-of-the-day-april-9-2017-tick-bush/

Trump Plays War Games and Golf

4 Replies

Sloooooow Burn. Why has no action been taken to make him divest himself of these interests? Eisenhower warned that the biggest threat to democracy would be the takeover of government by the military industrial complex. It has happened, folks!!! I shudder.

alotfromlydia's avatarA lot from Lydia

Amid speculation that North Korea may try another weapons test in coming days, the US military has sent a naval strike group towards the Korean Peninsula in a tactical capacity to maintain readiness in the region.

“The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilising programme of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” ~ US Pacific Command spokesman Dave Benham

President Trump has said the US is prepared to act alone to deal with the nuclear threat from North Korea, and as his missile launches against Syria last week show, not only will the US act alone, but Trump will act without congressional approval… because what does the constitution matter to this POTUS.

And, if it’s good for Trump Enterprises, it’s good for the US: Trump fired 59 Tomahawks made by Raytheon at a cost of $90…

View original post 50 more words

Temporary Saints

5 Replies

Temporary Saints

Sunday morning, dressed to the nines,
we joined our proper church school lines,
sat upon paint-peeling chairs
that barely fit our derrieres
and were shaken free of sins and taints.
Rows of little Sunday saints,
we learned our Bible verses well,
secure from thoughts that led to Hell—
at least until the closing bell.

 

You’ll find more about Sunday School and bleached-white souls here: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/12/30/i-used-to-eat-red/

The NaNoWrMo prompt for this ninth day was to write a nine-line poem.

 

Open Hand

7 Replies

jdbphoto2015

Open Hand

Wings held lightly without crushing
survive to join the world’s wild rushing,
while love held by a tight-clenched fist
quells half our reason to exist.

Some laud passions most rapacious—
grasping, volatile, tenacious;
but this is not the love I feel.
I do not seek to swoon or reel.

The tenacity of a skin tight glove
might stay my soaring to heights above.
I need your love like an open hand.
Not for me the wedding band.

The bond I seek from you, my dear,
is not the gauntlet that I fear
but rather, fingers whose sensations
are left free to life’s elations.

Butterflies kept in a jar
lose that beauty seen from afar.
That grace of movement caught on air
is what makes their beauty rare.

I love it when your arms enfold,
but if you love me, loose your hold.
The measure of my tenacity
is that I’ll come back to thee.

jdbphoto

The prompt word today was tenacious.

Banana Blossom Detail: Flower of the Day, Apr 8, 2017

8 Replies

IMG_3182jdbphoto

 

I love this detail of a banana tree bloom.

 

For Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge

The Wheel: NaPoWriMo Repetition Poem, WP Daily Prompt

4 Replies

jdbphoto

The (Wh)eel

We sail through life on an even keel,
solving every small ordeal
until one day, it turns surreal
as death slides in like a slippery eel,
our place in nature to firmly seal,
our invulnerability to steal.

It’s true these thoughts were never real,
but still, we feel what we must feel.
In youth, our lives are stainless steel,
Our pains are solved, our wounds all heal.
Then death slips in like a slippery eel—
gives no second chances. Does not deal.

A carnival barker with his spiel,
death lures us with unfettered zeal,
to spin us on the ferris wheel—
all our accomplishments to peel
and all our woe and all our weal
to cast from us, reel after reel.

On a ride that nothing can repeal,
it’s our turn to be nature’s meal.
The surreal now becomes the real,
and we join the universe’s wheel.
The organs keen, the bells all peal
as death slides in like a slippery eel.

 

jdbphoto

The WP Prompt today is “heal,” and the NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that depends on repetition.

Flower of the Day: Another Audacious Heliconia

2 Replies

IMG_3159

There are so many varieties of Heliconia and some of them are often confused with Birds of Paradise, but each of the flowers in this photo, other than the red ginger, is a heliconia. From my friend’s garden in La Manzanilla, Mexico.

For Cee’s daily flower prompt.