Almost Ready to Stand-in
If I had a bit more moxie,
I’d be Kardashian by proxy.
I’d be less studious, more frocksie
and trade these garments long and boxy
for a mini dress that’s foxy,
wear heels less Oxfordy and soxy,
hang out with girls named Tess or Roxie,
more cool and definitely less poxy.
I’d be a cockette of the walksie!
The prompt today is proxy.
image from internet
Sharing Mr. Teddy
Caught in baby’s neck creases, clinging to Grandpa’s cuff,
escaped from Mr. Teddy are these little bits of fluff.
These airborne little clumps of fuzz go anywhere they please.
They catch in Daddy’s nose hairs, causing him to sneeze.
They wind up in the pancakes–an artistic swirl of blue.
A few of them are tracked outside under Billy’s shoe.
When he climbs onto the school bus, they go along with him,
and everywhere that Mommy goes, to grocery store or gym,
a piece of Teddy comes along to be left behind
somewhere in the wide wide world, but he doesn’t mind.
He has so many fluffy parts that he can share a few.
And when you come to visit, you can take some home with you!!
The prompt today was fluff.
In some cultures, loyalty extends far beyond the fair or rational, but no one controls what happens after tradition is satisfied:
Burnt Offering
(The Virtuous Wife)
This suttee
is easier to bear with eyes closed.
She falls upon his burning pyre,
puts out his flame,
grateful for short rituals.
The pyre,
the bone,
ashes on the sheets.
He cannot touch her.
She is air.
She floats his breath.
She tracks his carbon
down the hall.
She walks
out to the Avenue,
wearing sheerest black
with nothing but a cauldron underneath.
Her fire.
She picks a stranger
dusted by the road,
leans him against
shadows
in the tall grass,
spills her steam,
lifts into
penumbra
above shaded hill.
The prompt today was loyal.
The Sporting Life
I’ve never had much interest in sports played with a ball.
Of games with pucks or shuttlecocks, I have no need at all.
Gym workouts, laps and chin-ups do nothing for me.
I simply have no talent for touching chin to knee.
The body part I work out with is of a different kind.
I like the sort of games requiring exercise of mind.
Dominoes or Mastermind, Bridge or Chess or Scrabble
are aspects of the sporting life discounted by the rabble.
Yet if you want to hold my interest, team sport is absurd.
Just woo me with a domino, a die, a card, a word.
Lay your mind upon the table, dear, I’ll trump it with an ace.
The contact I like in a sport is merely face-to-face.
The prompt word today was interest.
The Guardian: A judicial review this week will decide whether it was right for Sport England to have ruled that the card game is not a sport. … “Europe has said [sport has] to be physical, but the International Olympic Committee is prepared to include mind sports. … The IOC, for instance, recognises chess and bridge as sports – the respective federations have applied for them both to be included in the 2020 Olympics;
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/shortcuts/2015/sep/22/a-bridge-too-far-card-game-considered-a-sport
New fathers often balk at tampering
with their newborn’s inaugural Pampering.
But though he’d rather be out boozing,
He’d better learn, ‘cuz Mommy’s snoozing.
The prompt today was pamper.
Donald, Donald
You’ve shown us through your policies as well as how you feed
that the only real emotion you experience is greed.
Everything you come upon you brand with the name “Trump,”
Yet lack of compassion still labels you a chump.
In all your machinations, you attempt to spin the pulley.
Like other gleeful little boys, you have to play the bully.
What you have written on the world is not, Sir, what will last.
The image history makes of you you have no power to cast
unless it’s by your actions, and it’s clear what they have been.
How many evil actions have you endorsed with your pen?
Those fed their pablum with golden spoons may not develop empathy,
but that’s no reason why they couldn’t exercise some sympathy.
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Trump sign on his Chicago Hotel and Tower
Trump International Hotel – Las Vegas, Nevada
The 18th hole at Trump National Doral
The prompt word today is sympathy. (Donald Trump during Launch of Trump Steaks at The Sharper Image at The Sharper Image in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/WireImage for Hill & Knowlton)
jdbphoto
After the Honeymoon
The bride’s exhausted. The groom is numb.
I think that they have overcome.
The prompt today is overcome.
Glaring Error
(Peroxide Blues)
When she showed up in her new hair,
her friends could hardly stand the glare.
For though she hoped to gain some highlights,
when she stood under the skylights
and shook her head, each brilliant tress
seen without shades could cause duress.
The head she’d chosen to imbue
had turned out such a vivid hue
that every time the power failed,
she was the first one people hailed,
for when the current ceased to flow
her locks still gave off such a glow
that dinner parties could feed by it
and book clubs chose to read by it.
So ladies, heed my warning well.
When dying, please be sure to tell
your hairdresser to watch her throttle
and resist using the whole bottle.
The prompt today was glaring.
Unscheduled Visitor
I hear a rapid rapping and I’m wondering, “Who is it?”
It’s too early in the morning for a casual drop-in visit.
I’m still in my pajamas and the dogs and cats aren’t fed.
How can company be calling while I’m still here in bed?
The knocking is insistent but I have no way to spy
upon whatever passer-by refuses to pass by.
My intercom is broken, so I call out from the door,
“Who is it?” but it’s obvious they aren’t there anymore.
I wander back to bed again, feeling somewhat tense.
Only when I’m sleeping does the knocking recommence.
“Who is it?” I scream out again, accenting every vowel.
The dogs sense my frustration and they begin to howl.
My bedroom sliders are open, so my voice soars over the wall.
Any passerby could hear if they could hear at all.
But still nobody answers. This Saturday morning’s still.
There are no other noises up here on my hill.
No car horns and no dog barks. No children’s noisy play.
No birdcalls. No construction to mar this quiet day.
Except for my invectives as the rappings start again—
louder, oh much louder than they have ever been.
As I charge out of my front door, I grab for an umbrella—
in case I need a weapon to fight off some unknown fella
intent on ruining my day, but when I turn the key
and open wide my front wall gate, there’s no one there but me!
I roar in my frustration. The whole town must hear my wails.
I throw that damn umbrella. Over the wall it sails.
I stalk back to my room and pull the covers over my head,
praying for more silence, but what I get instead
is the steady rat-tat-tatting that now upon reflection
seems to emanate from a different direction.
I draw aside my bedroom drapes and wonder, “What the heck?”
sweeping my sight across my yard, I finally crane my neck
and see it far up in a palm—an industrious woodpecker
whose ruthless drilling is the thing that’s been my sleep-in wrecker!
I cannot throw a shoe at him for I can’t throw that far.
If I tried to knock a golf ball up, I’d be far over par.
At last I view with humor this ridiculous affair,
and so I pull on Levis and smooth my ruffled hair.
I shuffle off to feed the dogs, the kittens and the cat
and just accept as music this rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
The prompt today is casual.
jdbphoto
Best for Last
Just as I’m ready to ingest
the morsel I consider best
and so picked out from all the rest
to be my last bite, savored with zest—
last memory of this gourmet fest—
from north and south and east and west,
descends each winged little pest,
radared in on diabolical quest
as though invited at my behest.
They put my appetite to the test,
settling as though to the nest,
their hairy feet intimately pressed
upon that morsel that I loved best.
I wave my hand over them, lest
they eat too much, then I confess
I guiltily consume the rest.
The prompt today is pest.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 