Holding Back the Moon
Standby. I think I love you, though I’m not completely certain.
But when I see the ship of moon through my bedroom curtain,
then watch it disappear as the sky takes up its space,
as though its crew has moved it to another time and place,
I hope that you can moor yourself and stay your bullish pride
while you wait for my decision. Please stem restlessness. Abide.
Prompt words today are standby, moon, disappear, crew and pride.
Click on flowers to enlarge photos.
Every Flower
Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.
They pick up your thoughts by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.
Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.
Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.
When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.
Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.
To read another poem on the significance of flowers and memory, go HERE.
TheNaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem about the meaning of flowers.
Also, for Cee’s FOTD.
Memory Management
I’ve finally calculated the amount my head can hold—
sorted, classified and filed, folded, stacked or rolled.
It’s just enough to get me by and leave room there for me.
If you want to learn some more, you’ve got to leave space free.
Don’t jump to the conclusion I don’t prioritize.
One’s got to be selective in what they memorize.
Keep the best stuff handy in your mental cache.
Put some stuff on a higher shelf and throw away the trash.
Heads do not get bigger like hips and waists and ears,
so if you are forgetting things, let me calm your fears.
It’s nature’s way of making room for more important thought.
Emphasizing what we are, erasing what we’re not.
Prompts for today are finally, head, jump, cache and amount.
Building Paradise
A Tropical Illusion
They’ve spiffied up the island. It was a piece of cake.
No one will ever know that the volcano is a fake.
No amount of protest would stay them from this action
even though of course there was a non-supportive faction
who thought the former real grass was better than the new
which never needed mowing and was such a lovely hue.
The battle raged throughout, but in spite of it, by June
They had all the equipment for the holographic Moon.
They’d planned their big Grand Opening and advertised online.
From all the folks who liked their ads, they knew that they’d do fine.
They’d made their Island great again. Not one guest disagreed.
Every problem engineered, there was no lack or need.
An homogenized vacation, a prefab honeymoon—
Every month of every year went by the name of June.
Ships came in and ships went out and zombies came and went.
on simulated adventures where life was just for rent!
Prompt words for Thursday are cake, ship, island, battle and amount.
Kitten on the Keys
Four
months gone
or maybe more
still
she hears
a closing door
thinks
it’s him
walking the floor
but
all is empty
space and time
no
kisses fond
or words sublime
footsteps
are but
creak and groan
she
lies here
listening all alone
footsteps
on the
roof top rafter
found
in type
the morning after
once
a wife
no regrets sold
she
doesn’t know
the story told
kitten
paws heed
no man’s barriers
make
the perfect
love note carriers
This is a true story. Today while cleaning and organizing my art studio, I found a bag with old notes from my husband in it. Included was this message found typed out on my computer a few months after he died. The kittens loved to walk over the keys and I had heard Talulah or Annie do so the night before. What came out was gobbledygook with “once a wife no regrets sold.” typed out in the middle of it. For nineteen years, I’ve been trying to figure out what the “sold” was about unless it was that we’d put our house up for sale and bought one in Mexico three weeks before my husband died. This message was received as I lay on the floor on an inflatable mattress in the bedroom of the house we would have shared in Mexico. Nope. No regrets, ever, concerning the move to Mexico, but it took me 8 years to stop feeling married.
This is Annie about 16 years later, perhaps remembering her one successful message on those keys she walked over so many times in the 19 years she shared here with me. She was just a kitten in the time period this poem describes.
The day 10 prompt for NaPoWriMo is to write a haynaku. Six word stanzas with lines of 1, then 2, then 3 words.
Asparagus Fern Floral Branch
This is the size of the branch of flowers above compared to my little finger. I think I need a manicure. I used this finger because most of the other nails are broken off. Hard work being isolated!
For Cee’s FOTD.
This essay by Paul Duncan is both funny and brilliantly done..don’t miss it.
Global holiday experts, known as “the employed” in most countries, have today agreed that the timing of this year’s Easter weekend “is a direct and pointed insult to anyone who has in the past relied on this holiday to maintain their work-life balance, and are now left with just life, and no work. And no balance.”
“It’s like someone giving you a set of new tires to help you get over crashing your car,” said Chase Lounge, an upper-level sales manager at I’se The B’y Office Supplies, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. “I like a long weekend as much as the next guy sure, but after spending the last few weeks plumbing the disturbing depths of my addiction to human fail videos, I say no thank you sir.”
“It’s an odd surplus to be sure,” agrees Tom O’Furlough, a former bartender in Dublin, Ireland. “It’s like someone throwing you a shot…
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In this time of isolation, these hibiscus blooms decided not to comply and showed up in a group. As usual, you can click on photos to enlarge.
For Cee’s FOTD Challenge
Be sure to come back here again after you click on this link and then the link that pops up below it to see the video that goes with the below photo: https://defectivehumor.net/?p=877
I had to go out the other day to take photos but my iPhone suddenly would not respond to my demands. It took me awhile to realize that it was activated by facial recognition and I had my mask on!! Ha!
I wonder how many others have had this same thing happen and it set me to thinking that I’d like to sponsor a mask competition for decorating an actual mask worn to fend off the coronavirus in two categories.
1. In one, for a mask that is painted to actually look like the parts of your own face covered by the mask so you look as much like yourself as possible in the mask as without. This needs to be done on an actual mask you’ve been using for health reasons. In this category, the winner will be determined according to skill of execution, appeal, likeness to your own face or perhaps humor if you are using a gimmick. A $50 prize will be awarded in this category.
If you do not have a blog or website, please post a photo on my facebook page, not as a personal message . If you do have a blog or website, post in your site with a link to this blog at: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/04/09/who-am-i-under-here-mask-contest-cash-prizes/ If it is linked to another posting on my blog and it isn’t linked to this particular blog, I may not see it. Just put a comment with the URL of your blog where your photo is posted.
Two $50 first prizes will be awarded, with the understanding that you give permission for me to publish a photo of your mask in my blog. ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY APRIL 24.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 