Monthly Archives: March 2019

Gone Fishin’

Gone Fishin’

All of the other girls are extolling
your expertise in flirting and trolling
for available fellows here at the bar.
The barstool regulars know who you are. 
When you remove your jacket, revealing your chest,
it’s the general opinion, your bait is the best.

The only “rule” for a quadrille poem is that is has exactly 44 words, not counting the title. The prompt word was “troll.” Strangely enough, that prompt seemed to invade my next day 4-prompt posting as well.  Here’s that post:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/03/26/trolls/

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille Prompt.

Addicted to Kalanchoe

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For Cee’s Flower of the Day

Corpse of Another Day

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The  corpse of another day lay spread across the horizon. A jet stream cut through gossamer clouds stained with its blood.  If only those old men who made the decisions were teachable, she would bring them out here and show them this. Then any fool could see what they were putting more at risk every day.  This beautiful, rare world. These unique sunsets. She bent to retrieve yet another piece of plastic—this time a brightly colored molded toy. They were playing with the world, and it was a tough game, she thought, as she tossed it into her collection bag. 

The prompt words today are jet, corpse, gossamer and teachable. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/rdp-monday-jet/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/25/fowc-with-fandango-corpse/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/your-daily-word-prompt-gossamer-march-25-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/teachable/

Bougainvillea: Flower of the Day, Mar 24, 2019

 

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For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

TrackRbravo Lament

TrackRbravo Lament

There was a little gadget I bought two years ago
but when it came to using it, I was a little slow.
Since instructions were too difficult, I maintained the status quo
and continued, when I lost my keys, to seek them high and low,

looking in the old way by fumbling through my purse,
perusing tabletops and hooks and wastebaskets and worse.
Every time I lost my keys, I’d fuss and swear and wheeze,
searching drawers and closets on my tiptoes or my knees.

But recently I found the box where I’d stowed the appliance
and decided that I’d make another try at an alliance.
I tested its small battery and found plenty of juice
to assure its assistance in my tracker’s use.

After struggling to get the battery inside
the little TrackRbravo disk where it would reside,
I fetched the brief instructions which accomplished not a thing.
I could not pair it to my phone, and it refused to ring.

I made a trip to YouTube which helped a small bit more.
When I pushed the button, I heard a small faint roar.
And after just an hour, I’d linked it to my phone.
No more would my keychain roam this earth alone.

At first I searched and searched and searched, and I searched in vain
for the spot upon my phone where I could complain
when I could not find the place where my keys had hidden
so I could find them in the spot to which I had been bidden.

When I finally found the spot—a paltry little dot,
where I had never thought to look, although I looked a lot—
I pushed the button and I heard for the initial time
my keychain’s piping little voice––it’s initiation chime.

As hard as this procedure was, I knew it could be worse,
and I felt a sense of power tossing keys into my purse
full of reassurance that I’d not be late
due to searching for my keys before my luncheon date.

But hours before I had to go, I heard a little buzz
making more disturbance than a mosquito does.
I tracked it to my table, then tracked it to my bag.
insistently, it whined at me––an annoying little nag.

I went back to my phone and found the place to quell its stammer,
then settled down to work again, relieved of all its clamor.
But then, alas, five minutes more, and it went off again.
It seems that it can’t wait for my request to start its din.

And so now, five hours later, I’ve been out and came back home.
I’m sitting at computer, composing this dumb poem.
I feasted with three favorite friends and I enjoyed it so,
but, alas, my TrackRbravo didn’t get to go.

I removed it from my car keys and stashed it far away
thinking that a quiet place its panic would allay.
But hear that little buzzing sound coming from my closet?
No matter what I try to do, I cannot seem to pause it.

And though I know what’s causing it, I cannot make it freeze.
It just goes off at random, whenever it may please.
Perhaps it’s looking for my keys and does not have a clue
and instead of just one problem, I find that I have two!

 

The prompt words today are closet, paltry, fetching and feast. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/rdp-sunday-closet/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/24/fowc-with-fandango-paltry/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/your-daily-word-prompt-fetching-march-24-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/feast/

One Word Sunday: Circle

https://travelwithintent.com/2019/03/17/circle-2/

Tracings

 

Click on photos to enlarge and see commentaries made about some during earlier postings.

Children are the parts of themselves that parents leave  behind when they die—actual physical tracings that will last for as long as their line reproduces. Yet, they have no control over what the children add to their genes to pass on down through time. Each generation melds together with the genes of other families to create a new assemblage composed of bits and pieces of the physical and mental characteristics gleaned from each side of the family to form a new identity.

Childless, I have only what I create to carry me forward into the far future—my poems, stories and books as well as the found object collages that I have created over the past eighteen years. In them I leave the tracery of my life—the long trailings of where I have been, whom I have known, what I have thought. But unlike children, they are glued down, painted, securely fastened to stay as I have intended them to be.

Vestiges of my entire  life story  are stored in them:  moments happy, sad, delirious, tedious, exciting, passionate, depressed, thoughtful, nostalgic. They are souvenirs of travel, heartbreak, reading, lost loves, found adventures.  I have no idea where they will eventually end up. In a trash heap?  On a table or shelf or in a box stored on a shelf? Or will they travel as I once did? Will the box that records Andy’s death end up back in Africa? Will that record of my early childhood school days wind up back in my prairie town?  Will some quantum miracle bring all of the items back to their origins by a force stronger than the one that bonded them together? Will the pieces fly apart, each going in its own direction?

Perhaps this is what happens to all of us at our death—subatomic particles flying back to some prehistoric origin, ready to start their journeys outward once again. Our whole lives are assemblages. Each of us assembles a life as much by our choice of what we draw into it as by what we are given by nature and by birth. Every life is, in a larger sense, a work of art; and how it is recorded—by human genes or by pinning it down on a board or in an assemblage or sculpture or representationally in a book or on canvas—is our choice.

Prompt words today are tracery, delirious, assemblage and identity.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/rdp-saturday-tracery/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/23/fowc-with-fandango-delirious/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/your-daily-word-prompt-assemblage-march-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/identity/

If Democratic Socialism is so Bad, Why is Norway so Great?

Photo and article from “The Week.” Read below to see an example of what has worked for Norway.

https://theweek.com/articles/783700/democratic-socialism-bad-why-norway-great?fbclid=IwAR2pQhdt1xJHg4RYgsKiqn6aCArhtr6sQOFnmg7p1v8DlijP9RkpuL2tgJ4

Kalanchoe Real Size

As always, click on photos to enlarge. jdb photos

I’ve been showing all these closeups of kalanchoe flowers, but thought I should show them en masse for those who haven’t seen them before–or didn’t recognize them in macro.

For Cee’s FOTD

Bookbound

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Even the most intriguing book can become a dungeon of our own choosing. Comfortable as it is to read the stories of others, we only truly satisfy life by moving out into it and creating our own.

 

The prompts today are book, intriguing, dungeon and satisfy. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/rdp-friday-book/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/22/fowc-with-fandango-intriguing/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/your-daily-word-prompt-dungeon-march-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/satisfy/