Donald’s World
It seems reality’s been hacked.
The dice are loaded. Cards are stacked.
Truth is no longer so exact.
Actuality’s been cracked
and reason pilloried and racked.
Verisimilitude is yacked
and common sense has long been sacked,
along with logic, reason, tact.
So what’s been rumored, gossiped, quacked
is now more true than proven fact!
The prompt word today is fact.
Lest the Love Affair End Too Soon
He’s so suave, my boyfriend Jesse—
trimmed and polished and so dressy—
that no one would ever guess he
lives in rooms so doggone messy.
Ties draped over backs of chairs,
spare shoes tumbling down the stairs,
underwear in places where
you wouldn’t think to find a pair
of crumpled socks or BVDs.
Things piled wherever he might please.
Pizza boxes you’re sure to see
on the divan or Smart TV.
Pockets emptied where he wishes—
piles of coins in dirty dishes.
He’s smooth and debonair, for sure.
I cannot question his allure.
Ladies fawn on him, and flirts
flutter eyelids, swish their skirts.
He’s charming and I don’t dispute
that he is terminally cute.
All those praises, I’d repeat,
but I would never say he’s neat!!!
So if you must, if you’ve the whim,
make a pass. Make off with him.
Hold hands in front of movie screens,
make love in cabs or limousines.
Meet him any place he chooses—
ski weekends, romantic cruises.
Go to Vail, Paris or Rome.
Just don’t let him take you home!
The prompt today is messy.
The Gatherers
We gather a new world
every time
as we collect marks
in black lines
on white paper,
and we have the power
of each world
that we pull around us.
I might have called this poem
“Utter Sovereignty,”
but I did not, for rulers are
sad folks, and lonely.
We are the gatherers and so
we draw to us what we need
and are never alone.
There is nothing we lack for
in this storehouse where
the shelves hold words,
the air is heavy with ideas
and the walls are covered
by imagination.
We gather words to set them free again.
This is the pattern of the world
that no one has ever broken.
Everything flying apart,
every moment of the day,
and all of us
gathering
it back together
again.
This is a rewrite of a poem written four years ago. The prompt word today is imagination.
Mismatched
You seem to dwell, dear, in the main
securely down in the inane.
If only you could just refrain
from loudly voicing your disdain.
Astrology you find a pain,
consider ESP insane,
while astral travel is the bane
of your existence and you’re fain
to scratch your head and shake your mane,
swearing you’ll open a vein
if I don’t try to put a rein
on my attempts to reach you where
you constantly refuse to fare.
Meditation’s out with you,
and you’ll have nothing to do
with Ouija boards or the I Ching.
You do not “Ohm” or chant or sing
to anyone or anything.
In short, you’re firmly planted here
on the earth, so dour and drear.
While my mind dwells in the stars,
yours hangs out in lowlife bars.
This love match has not scored a win.
Match.Com has erred again.
And so, my dear, ta-ta, adieu.
I guess I’m breaking up with you.
I fear that I have tried in vain
to find you on the astral plane.
The prompt today is astral.
Market Day
This day, alas, has dawned so hot
I’ve no need to be where I’m not.
I want to spend it where I can
be exposed to ice and fan.
Though I’m in need of countless things:
foodstuffs, videos and rings,
a hairbrush, pens and other stuff,
I do not need them near enough
to venture out into this heat.
I’ll sit here in the catbird seat
at least until the sun goes down,
then venture out into the town.
Dad’s Makeover
OMG, you guys. Daddy slept all morning so I made a fast run to the house to find his reading glasses and pick up some clean underwear. Hold onto your hats, because I have big news. Our old Dad has really cleaned up his act! He got rid of all the empty paper bags and National Geographics. There is space between objects in the refrigerator. You can see the hall walls again. No countless stacks of empty jelly glasses and yogurt cups. No drawers full of used twist ties and rubber bands streaked with carbon from newspapers thrown twenty years ago.
All of the flowerpots with dry cracked soil and the ossified skeletons of plants? Gone, along with their friends the stacks of empty pizza boxes and six packs of beer bottles.No cupboard full of clam chowder. No year’s supply of ketchup stockpiled in the pantry. In the bathroom drawer, just one tube of toothpaste squeezed from the end. No ranks of out-of-date prescription bottles. No shriveled tubes of Preparation H.
Mama’s clothes are finally gone from the closet. Her dusty doilies, vanished from every surface in the house. No mismatched socks and wrenches in his bedroom drawers.
How did this come about? Impossible to say as he still hasn’t come to after his surgery, but if I were to assay the probabilities, I’d say a woman might be involved. There is a vase of flowers in his hospital room and a container of homemade soup in the little fridge beside his bed. His hair looks newly cut and his nostril hairs are not in evidence. All presentable underwear in the valise I packed for him and sis, his jockeys are in shades of maroon, navy blue and rust brown!!! No more untidy whities. No more undershirts with holes in them. It’s like they operated on his whole life, not just his appendix. Removed every dusty, tattered, useless, outgrown part of him and plopped down a new father in his place.
Oops.. gotta run soon. The nurse just said he has another visitor. Not a family member, but the one who admitted him to the hospital last night at midnight. The one who left the key to his house for me. They say only one visitor at a time, so guess I’ll have to leave when she gets here. Door opening. She’s coming in the door! I’ll call you from the car.
(After a ten minute lapse, the phone rings again.)
Okay. You guys? Are you all there? Sit down, will you? All sitting down? A slight modification. Make that a he who came in the door!
The prompt word today is assay.
Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar
It’s easier to talk than think,
especially when you’ve had a drink
or two or three or six or seven.
That’s when you’re sure you’re going to heaven.
And anyone more liberal
is surely going to go to hell
along with those who worship God
with rituals that you find odd.
And even worse is all of those
in turbans, robes or hippie clothes
who don’t believe in God at all.
They’re destined for the biggest fall.
Transsexuals and the profusion
of folks with sexual confusion
need to get their heads on right
or be removed from good folk’s sight.
Those who pontificate in bars
sport redneck slogans on their cars
and are so sure that them and thars
will live with God up in the stars.
Creationism is a fact
and scientists have made a pact
with one below who waits for them
to come and make their home with him.
And they don’t even need to think
beyond what they next want to drink.
They’re so securely in the know
because the Bible told them so.
They do not need to feed their brothers
or provide health care for the others.
Planned Parenthood’s the devil’s scheme
and Right To Life’s the savior’s team.
Woman should bear what she has sown
and raise the product all alone.
It is her punishment for sex—
this guilt for children she neglects.
Society should never pay
for lowlife children such as they.
Society should close its doors
to the progeny of faithless whores.
Retribution is the thing
Obamacare neglects to bring.
Cutting welfare’s the best way
to insure they pay and pay.
If you were smart like them, you’d know
this scheme is how the world should go.
First remove birth control and then
make sure she has her spawn of sin.
Do not provide for them at all.
Then you’ll begin to see Eve’s fall.
What she brought Adam to she’ll see
and be punished endlessly.
For dVerse Poets: a poem about drinking.
No Longer in the Present
Seated around the table in our favorite cafe,
attention to each other has come to be passé
We are not present here and now. We’re all in other places
as we stare at tiny screens, intent on other faces.
The friends we have around us will simply have to wait
for our interest in the world-at-large to finally abate.
The news that’s happening elsewhere is simply more amusing
than what might be happening in this space our body’s using.
Other friends are funnier in their “selfie” poses—
pooching out their lips at us and scrunching up their noses.
It won’t do to look natural, we have to look unique
in the selfsame pose that all selfie-flashers seek.
So if your friends are boring, not half so chic as you,
you always have the option to make a Tweet or two.
Check out the latest fashions available from China.
They’ll only take three months to reach you here in Carolina.
Check out the weather in Tibet and give YouTube a glance.
Companions won’t distract you if you don’t give them a chance.
Living one life at a time no longer has to do
so long as you remember to have your phone with you!
So if you’ve dropped a French fry and spilled ketchup down your dress,
you needn’t be embarrassed. It couldn’t matter less.
Intent on Twitter, Instagram, Facetiming and Facebooking,
the friends with you won’t notice, for nobody is looking.
The prompt word is present.
Costume
I want to be an artist, a writer and a wife—
juggling all these masks with just a minimum of strife.
A lover, mother, daughter, cousin, sister-in-law, sister.
A friend to every woman and a temptress to each mister.
A master to my canine friends and slave to all my cats.
A pal to all my blogger friends, not just to swell my stats.
As well as to some Facebook friends and email friends and Skype.
(I no longer use snail mail—I’m simply not the type!)
So, if I were being truthful and I didn’t give a fig
about what others thought of me, I’d dress up like a pig.
Why the porcine costume? The tail curled in a ring?
Because in my life choices—I want everything!
jdbphoto
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 