Monthly Archives: September 2021

Chi Baba Blues

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Here is the earliest picture I have of me, probably at about 10 months.

 

The prompt from dVerse poets today was to write a poem incorporating the lyrics of a song that was popular on the day you were born. Well, although it isn’t a poem, here is a link to a post I wrote six years ago about the most popular song on the charts on July 3, 1947, the day I was born:

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/02/las-mananitas-and-other-less-lovely-bastardizations-of-a foreign-language/

And, to meet the qualifications of the prompt, here is a poem hastily pounded out today in response:

Chi Baba Blues

It must have been a silly year, the year that I was born,
with music even newborn babies might be driven to scorn.
The fact it was a lullaby, alas, could not atone
for that ugly music spewed out by the gramophone.
“Chi baba, chi baba chihuahua” were hardly words that lulled
and along with all the other lyrics, needed to be culled.
And though I have much gratitude that my mom chose to bear me,
when it comes to this lullaby, I’m glad she chose to spare me:

The #1 song in the U.S. on the day I was born was “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba Chihuahua (My Bambino Go to Sleep) ” by Perry Como.  Although I would advise against it, you can hear it HERE. But after that, please go to the link at the beginning of this post and click on the link to see my rave about its trivialization of and confusion between the Spanish and Italian languages and to hear one of the most beautiful serenades in the Spanish language, imho.

My mom and me. 

 

Here is the link to the dVerse prompt: https://dversepoets.com/

Genetics and the Lack of True Grit

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Genetics and the Lack of True Grit

Documentation passed down from the past
says that since time primordial, folks have been cast
from the genes of their ancestors, first unto last.
Thus, my nose is too long and my forehead is vast.
It’s a truth of genetics that leaves me aghast!
(Yes, I’d alter those features if only I dast,)

 

Prompt words for today are forehead, genetic, primordial, document and vast,
 Image by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash.

In Summation

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In Summation

Words have been my teachers and in their composition,
I’ve found my life’s real purpose. In making them my mission,
I’ve faced my major phobias and without a doubt,
I’ve reined in quite a few of them to somehow work them out.
I have no feelings of regret, no reason to repine.
Of any life that I could choose, I think I’d still choose mine.

 

Prompt words today are composition, repine, teacher and phobia.

Matchless

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Matchless

I fear I am a novice at getting romance right,
for every run I take at love ends up in my flight.
My first love was too cheerful. He was constantly jocund.
His physique was rolly-polly, and in time he grew rotund.

Once I escaped his clutches, I was happier by far,
but my next love was bittersweet, as seconds often are,
for I had found an athlete, less clownish  and much fitter,
but I could not keep up with him, so once more love turned bitter.

After that I tried a lawyer, a butcher, then a teacher,
a roust-about, a cowboy, a restaurateur, a preacher.
But nothing ever seemed to work, for those I found disarming
were the ones that always seemed to find me less than charming.

Somehow I never quite matched up when it came to matching.
Every time I fell in love, it didn’t end up catching.
So all-in-all, much as I love a fond embrace and kiss,
I think that when it comes to love, I’ll just give it a miss.


Fiction, folks…no consolations necessary. Prompt words today are escape, novice, bittersweet, jocund and bitter. 

Thunbergia and Jade Plant: FOTD Sept 27, 2021

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This thunbergia grandiflora flower had detached from its vine above and fallen down to nest in the jade plant.  Photo opportunity!

For Cee’s FOTD

Words

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Words

By their adjustment,
I change their drift,
but when I alter their lilt,
I am as transformed by them
as they are by me.

I am inebriated by words.
I reel in their power
as they call my bluff.

They reflect the changes in me
I would otherwise not know.
I can float in their buoyant comfort
or shoot the rapids of emotion.

Words are my river and my raft,
my cushion and that daredevil conveyance
into a new stream of thought

from which I never return
to the exact same world
I left from.

 

Prompt words today are bluff, inebriated, adjustment, lilt and shoot. Photo of the Current River in the Ozarks by jdb.