Monthly Archives: April 2018

Sport Retort

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Sport Retort

When faced with talk of games and sport,
I seldom have cause to retort.
For dribbling, sparring, touching  down
raise no emotions but a frown.
The games I play are just of mind
Less physically taxing and more kind.

Using tongues and brains to spar,
I am more likely  under par
than when I hit a pock-marked ball
off of the course to hit a wall,
bounce off and into someone’s car
to be transported to regions far.

I have not thought to scream out, “Fore!”
My terminology’s as poor,
I fear, as my coordination,
I will not, ever, stun the nation
with my prowess with balls or bats,
parallel bars, hurdles or mats.

Likewise, I have no interest in
watching others skate and spin,
touch balls down or thrust a fist.
When it comes to sports, I must insist
when the tube depicts each bout,
I am forgiven for running out!!!

This is a reblog of a piece I wrote three years ago. The Prompt today was parallel.

Dear Genie (A Note Affixed to a Bottle)

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Dear Genie  (A note Affixed to a Bottle)

Get back into the bottle. You’re doing nothing right.
The Adonis I requested just the other night
turned out to be the plumber. He got here around nine,
but the pipes he chose to work on were not any pipes of mine.
A problem with your hearing is a possibility,
so for now there’s only one more wish that I would ask of thee.
A doctor of ear, nose and throat you need to visit, please,
for when I requested money, you brought me hives of bees.
Now I’ve sufficient honey and beeswax it appears—
almost as much as I imagine you have in your ears.
As it is, each thing I wish for occasions my new fears.
So you’re confined to quarters ’til your hearing reappears!


The prompt today is genie.

Zeroing in: Hibiscus, Flower of the Day, Apr 18, 2018

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IMG_9486 copyIMG_9486My backyard had become a bit of a jungle.  The men came and trimmed the palms and cut the pistachio tree in the background of this photo way back.  Sort of sad right now, but really opened up the view of the lake. In this photo taken a couple of weeks ago, the tree furnishes a lush backdrop to the profiles of these twin hibiscuses.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Matins: NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 18

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 Matins

We lie in each other’s shelter,
hiding what is necessary,
shedding guilt,
holding one another in the soft reverence
of those who seek to be loved.
We can hardly believe
how our pieces are coming together—
the hard world retreating,
falling like pages from our hands,
making us want that loss of everything
except the two of us.

Flattery is unnecessary, as is reassurance.
We hold one another as protection,
quieting each other,
gathering our petty problems
like brood hens put inside for the night,
safe and barely yearning 
for the freedom of low branches,
flight to further fence posts and away.
How could we have ever wished escape?
Caught up in our private morning,
we find it hard to remember
what the rest of the world rails against.

 


Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt: find a poem in a book or magazine (ideally one you are not familiar with). Use a piece of paper to cover over everything but the last line. Now write a line of your own that completes the thought of that single line you can see, or otherwise responds to it. Now move your piece of paper up to uncover the second-to-last line of your source poem, and write the second line of your new poem to complete/respond to this second-to-last line. Keep going, uncovering and writing, until you get to the first line of your source poem, which you will complete/respond to as the last line of your new poem. It might not be a finished draft, but hopefully it at least contains the seeds of one.

This is a link to the poem “Hail Mary,” by Megan Blankenship that I chose from “Blackbird” Magazine to use to inspire my poem.

 

 

 

Banded

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.


Banded

From string to string and fret to fret,
they draw us into music’s net.
They strum and pick and blithely finger
notes that make us want to linger,
tap the table, move our feet
to their infectious strumming beat.

They are my favorite sort of band––
unique and playing their own brand
of acoustic, bluesy notes––
a kind of music that denotes
connection to a world of hearts.
Their music woos and cuts and smarts.

Opening sensibilities.
Music that unites and frees
our spirits to commune and soar.
Notes that journey to our core.
Which is what music’s meant to do
in  dancehall, city street or pew.

Good music sets our hats askew,
chases us down and counts a coup.
Stirs our hearts and brings a change.
Astounds us with its depth and range.
Draws us with it, layer on layer,
unites us in communal prayer.

Denominationless, it draws
us in and gives a place to pause
together to survey that place
devoid of sex or age or race.
That place where we unite in song.
Give up ourselves, and sing along.

The prompt today is fret.

Back View: Flower of the day, Apr 17, 2018

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IMG_9504Copa de Oro. So glad I took so many photos before this vine was destroyed.

Legacy: NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 17

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Legacy

The thoughts and looks and talents of others of my kind
are written on my body and written on my mind.
My genetic family, departed from this earth,
exists in my coloring, expression, voice and girth.

I’m glad I got mom’s optimism and her rhyming wit,
but her success with pastry? I have none of it.
I cannot bake a cherry pie. Light pastry is a riddle.
The few cakes that I  ever baked were soggy in the middle.

Why couldn’t I inherit my mother’s slender legs
instead of my Dutch aunties’ solid ample pegs?
For women on my dad’s side were noted for their girth
as well as for the many years they spent upon this earth.

Thin skin that picks up bruises from each ungentle touch?
I’ve inherited it all–thank you very much!
My mother’s taste for chocolate, my uncle’s taste for gin––
both sides of my family I carry safe within.

My grandmother’s hands that always needed to be busy,
my Aunt Stella’s tendency to wind up in a tizzy.
“Blahsy blah!” she would exclaim, and flop her arms and walk
in tight little circles. I couldn’t help but gawk.

But sometimes I find myself getting flustered, too,
my mind stomping in circles as I figure what to do.
My upper arms look more like hers, my stomach like my mother’s,
although I’d rather have Aunt Betty’s if I had my druthers.

I could go on for stanzas, listing each thing that I’d rather,
but my recital has already turned into mere blather.
So I’ll just say a thank you to those who came before.
For in spite of all your ills, I have you at my core.

Somehow the parts you left in me, although they aren’t all pretty,
are very rarely mean or dumb or dense or dull or petty.
You left me curiosity that fills out all my days––
as well as that  Dutch work ethic that doesn’t let me laze.

Dad and Mom, I thank you both for your good sense of humor
and for your facility at blending fact and rumor
into stories that you then simply had to tell.
And thank you for instilling the need to tell them well.

Slight exaggerations are expected, I have learned––
one vital ingredient of stories finely turned.
And though each story must be told starting at its top,
the secret lies in simply––knowing when to stop.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem re-telling a family anecdote that has stuck with you over time. This one from a few years ago fits the prompt, I think. Tomorrow have early appointments so will get this posted tonight. Perhaps I’ll do another tomorrow.

Dearly Departed: Flower of the Day, Apr 16, 2018

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This is a bloom on my favorite giant copa de oro vine that blew over in its huge pot and died a week or so ago. Much missed.

For Cee’s Flower Prompt.

Old Crank

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Old Crank

He’s sort of wonky, sort of cranky.
Spits his chew into his hanky.
Plays his guitar sharp or flat.
Rarely knows where he is at.
Makes off with neighbors’ garbage lids,
yells at all the little kids.
His vision’s getting sort of dim,
so when the kids throw rocks at him,
he thinks that it is just a gale
pelting him with balls of hail.
Once he was a little kid,
doing as his parents bid,
but now it seems to be his fate
to be his home town’s reprobate!

The prompt today was crank.

At Play: NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 16

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“Ring Around the Rosie” for my sister’s birthday & a backyard production of “Cowboys.”

At Play

“Annie I Over,” ” New Orleans.”
In shorts or dresses or cutoff jeans,
we ran and threw and played and shouted.
our pent-up energy thus outed.
“Send ‘Em,” “Ditch ‘Em,”  “Cops and Robbers.”
“Poor Pussy” turned us into sobbers.
Do you remember these childhood games?
All vastly varied, with different names?

Before TV or internet,
games were as good as one could get
for transport from reality.
Back when we were cellphone-free,
“Drop the Handkerchief” we knew well
along with “Farmer in the Dell.”
“London Bridge” went falling down
each birthday party in our town.

All the long-lit summer nights
“Cowboys and Indians” staged their fights.
“Cops and Robbers” led to searches
of school ditches and behind churches.
The whole town our playing ground,
each chid lost, each child found
in hours long games of “Hide-and-Seek.”
Count to one hundred.  Do not peek!

In childhood games of girls and boys,
imaginations were our toys.
Does such magic now reside
in minds of children safe inside
their cushioned worlds of rumpus rooms,
sealed safe within their  houses’ wombs?
For dangers real now lurk in places
that formerly hid playmates’ faces.

Safety dictates different measures
for insuring childhood pleasures.
But oh, I remember so well
joyful flight and heartful swell
of friends pursuing through the dark
back then when life was such a lark.
Now children seek  play differently
on cellphone screens and Smart TV,

scarce imagining a world
with internet not yet unfurled.
Our world had not yet been corrupted
with connections interrupted
with wireless servers on the blink,
for we needed no further link
than friends pounding upon our door
to come outside and play some more!

 

daily life color161 (1)Stylish cowboys Karen Bossart and sister Patti.

 

This is a rerun of a piece from two years ago.http://www.napowrimo.net/day-sixteen-5/

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24 thoughts on “At Play”

    1. lifelessonsPost author
      Me too. Why don’t adults ever play these games? I guess in Britain they used to…The one where one person would hide and when they were found, the person who found them would crowd in with them. More and more as the bame progressed until everyone was in one confined space with just one person left looking for them.

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      1. Karen Bossarts Rusthoven
        Oh, Judy! This was wonderful! Those were the days. What ever happened to childhood?
        Thanks for the memories! I’ll see you in September. Love you! Karen

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    1. lifelessonsPost author
      Did you play all of those? I’ve never met anyone else who played New Orleans. My sister and I were tryng to remember what happened after the “it” person droped the button into your hand. Wikipedia just says that everyone tries to guess who has it and the one who does then gets to be “it.” That doesnt sound very exciting, though. I thought there was some chasing involved, but perhaps I’m confusing it with “Drop the Handkerchief.” Charmingly naive names for these games, as were the rules. But what fun they were. In the winter, Fox fox Goose.

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  4. Venkatacharya
    Those were all wonderful days. I used to play many games that you mentioned above at my childhood during those years of 1950s and 60s. We miss all this happiness now.

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      2. lifelessonsPost author
        Thanks, Mary. My poetry group doesn’t quite know what to make of my humorous rhymed stuff. They don’t want me to put any of it in our new anthology, which they say is intended for more “serious” poetry…But the rhymed humor cheers me up, too, when it decides to appear, so I keep welcoming it with open arms. I will describe Poor Pussy, Poor Pussy in a post.

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    2. lifelessonsPost author
      Thanks to sister Betty, at least for the first seven years of my life.Then I took over the role of family photographer, or Patti did when the photos were of me. I now take more photos in a week than we did in ten years back when it was a bit more work and a lot more money to get a photo.

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      6. lifelessonsPost author
        Is the story about the women in your family the 1500 word story you were talking about? I enjoyed it. Didn’t seem rambling. I’d enjoy knowing who the people were in the photos, though.

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  6. Mary Francis McNinch
    I longed for the simpler world, before Internet and real danger lurked. Tonight I cried. Cyberspace became a stranger, now I feel like a two faced jerk. Truly Judy.. I love the way you tell it like it is or was.

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The prompt: write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up