Frail
She cannot change a tire or heft a cotton bale,
help us move the sofa or lift the water pail––
not because she’s lazy or because she is too frail,
but simply because if she did, she might break a nail!!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/frail/
I will admit that the howling dog in last night’s sunset was awesome, but the pizza wasn’t!!!
Remember back when “awesome” was a word applied to miles of glaciers breaking off in one fell swoop or solar flares or the birth of a child? A few years ago, I had something to say about my feelings over its present usage, where it is more commonly applied to a good slice of pizza or a friend’s new dress. See my complaints here:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/06/13/empty-prais/
If you want to see what others have to say or to tell us your own thoughts aboug “Awe,” go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/awe/
(Photos above? Before I was a natural girl! Poem below? Fifty years later.)
Natural Girl
Underneath this hairpiece, I am a natural girl.
It’s just that blogs are waiting, and I haven’t time to curl.
I haven’t put on makeup for a month or so, but still
there’s no one here to see me as my daily prompts I fill.
I don’t need any lipstick, for my lips have grown too thin
to find a place to put it, plus I don’t know any men
around to help me kiss it off and so why put it on?
That’s why when my friends see me, they think I’m looking wan.
I no longer wear foundation, for it clogs up in the cracks.
And that’s not the only makeup that my face so lately lacks.
I cannot wear mascara, for my dry eye medication,
every time I use it, sends eye makeup on vacation.
I’m growing out my bangs and so no need to shape and pluck.
My eyebrows don’t show anyway, so I say what the fuck!
Without the rest, why take the time to make eyelashes curl?
Lately, by default, I am a totally natural girl!!!
Morning Blues
Another day is dawning. The birds are full of tweet.
So I decide to take a little stroll out on the street.
I have no need for makeup. I prefer my features bare.
I choose my clothes most carefully, but do not brush my hair.
With my new haircut, tousled’s in. I’m told to leave it there.
“Just run your fingers though your mop as though you do not care!”
The trees are bursting verdant, dry grass the hue of wheat.
Smiles stretch across the face of every man I meet.
I find their moods infectious, so I smile back at them.
I’m sporting a new haircut, so I feel very femme.
Corner after corner I round to see what’s there.
I straighten out my collar and toss my brand new hair
as I stroll by the house the new guy’s living in.
I check my watch and see it’s only eight-oh-ten.
Perhaps he’s a late riser, so I walk right on by.
If he had been in evidence, I might have murmured, “Hi!”
and maybe he’d have talked to me and asked me for a date.
Perhaps I’m not too early. Perhaps I am too late!
One day I’m sure I’ll meet him, but I am wondering when.
It’s not that I’m accustomed to running after men,
but it’s especially pretty, this block where I’ve just been.
I turn around so I can stroll through it once again.
The second time I pass his door, I see it opening.
As he comes out my spirits soar. My heart begins to ping.
I know this is the man for me. He’s pleasant, handsome, tall.
I’d go and introduce myself if only I’d the gall.
When his eyes light on my face, he smiles like all the rest.
Of all the smiles I’ve seen today, this smile is the best.
I croon hello and smile back and yes, I flirt a bit—
his grin so wide I know that I must have scored a hit.
I pass on by but I am sure we’ll meet another day,
and judging by his smile, he’ll have much more to say.
As I retrace my steps again, I’m feeling very pert.
Perhaps I’ll lose a few more pounds. It surely wouldn’t hurt.
I climb the hill to my house and open up the door.
The perking of the coffee pot drowns out my roommate’s snore.
I pour a cup and take it back to work upon my blog,
and all this time my roomie is sleeping like a log.
An hour passes, she awakes and stumbles by my door.
Until she has her first cup, she’s grouchy to the core.
Five minutes pass and she comes in and plops into a chair,
her grin so wide, I wonder if she’s going to diss my hair.
“I took a walk,” I tell her, and her eyes go really wide.
“Like that?” she said, “You mean that you have really been outside?”
“My hair’s supposed to look this way. The natural look is in!”
I said to her most huffily, my patience wearing thin.
“I finally saw the new guy, and he’s really cute.”
I told her, and I saw her look, because I’m so astute.
“What,” I asked her, “is your problem? Don’t you like my hair?”
I met her answering guffaw with an angry glare.
“Your hair is not your problem,” she said and grabbed my hand,
pushing me into her room, where she made me stand
before a full length mirror, where finally I could see
perhaps why all my neighbors had deigned to smile at me.
For my whole face was covered with last night’s facial goo—
dried upon my face to form a vivid shade of blue!
Not quite the statement I had hoped to make that fateful day,
and since that time I fear my confidence began to fray.
I’ve given up long walks for neighborhoods much nearer,
and I never leave my house without checking out the mirror!
For other sagas, check out this URL:https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/saga/
Bare Necessities
I scream, I cry, I moan, I curse.
My pleas for help are curt and terse.
I look around for something worse,
then lift the sofa just to rehearse.
I quote the Bible–both psalm and verse,
request a doctor, request a nurse,
predict they’ll need to call a hearse.
Why must its contents be so diverse?
I grit my teeth. Then lift my purse!
Hope wears a white apron and a pensive smile!
Hope
I hope life turns out as you wish and is a bowl of cherries.
I hope you find a run of luck and that it never varies.
The whole world would be lucky, if I had my “druthers.”
Every line would catch a fish. All orphans would find mothers.
All endings would be happy. All lottery tickets win.
But as I stop to think of it, I have to think again.
If all of us were winners, winning would lose its distinction.
Every hunter bagging game would lead to their extinction.
It seems that often one guy’s luck brings bad luck to another.
If you’re the family favorite, then it cannot be your brother!
So if I must express my hopes I guess that I’ll just say
I hope that when it is your turn, good luck will come your way!
Now I have to tell the story about my camera, which showed up missing (oxymoron) the day after I’d met friends in the Ajijic plaza coffee place. I’d run a number of errands that day, and so after I had searched my house for over an hour, and my car, and my garden, I headed off for town. Was it at the coffee place? No. Either of the stores I’d visited? No. I headed down the street to Ajijic Tango, where I’d had comida with my friends. All locked up. Seeing a door ajar a few yards away from the entrance, I called into it. It must be the kitchen. I called and called and fially someone came. I gave them a note asking the owner to call me.Then I went home.
A day or so ago I wrote about a friend in Missouri who tends to straighten out my life for me on a regular basis? Well, I wrote to him bemoaning the fate of my camera. Within the hour, he had sent me a link to a local message board and lo and behold–there was a picture of my living room with friends I’d invited to a viewing of the new documentary of another friend all sitting in it! A picture that had been in my camera! Turns out the lady pictured above had been approached by a man who tried to sell her a camera. “He asked too much” she said in her message, which stated that when she’d inspected the camera, she had surreptitiously removed the sd card from the camera as well as three more in the pouch of the carrying case, then posted one of the pictures on the card in hopes of finding the owner.
Did she know the man who had the camera? She did. Long story short, she went to his house to ask about the camera. Sadly, he reported, it had stopped working. (He still didn’t realize she’d taken the sd cards out. Brilliant move on her part.) Did he still have the camera? No, he had given it to his son, who, it turned out, worked in the restaurant next to where I must have lost my camera! After a few more trips to enquire on her part, the next morning I recovered my camera from the son, giving him a good reward, although he didn’t ask. I then recovered my four sd cards from the angel pictured above and gave her a reward as well, in spite of her protests. And that is how my Music Man in Missouri once more came to my aid and turned disaster into luck. (If you regularly read my blog, you might have guessed that I cannot survive without my camera.) What does this story have to do with hope? Simply that I hope if you ever lose anything dear to you that you have two angels looking over you as I did!!!
Lesson from the Garden of Eden
When Adam tripped on Eden’s portal,
Eve could not resist a chortle.
She found she loved this new sensation––
her first encounter with jubilation.
Day by day, she watched him jiggle.
Without clothes, he made her sniggle.
Meanwhile, he admired her wiggle
and secretly, he learned to giggle.
Day in, day out, behind their knuckles
they resorted to these chuckles
privately, not knowing the other
also had tee-hees to smother.
Where things before had made her bitter,
now they simply made Eve titter.
And when occasionally they bickered,
instead of shouting, Adam snickered.
Thus did laughter come to save
these first children of the cave,
and when they became ma and pa,
they taught their children to guffaw.
Then each succeeding generation
increased their sense of jubilation––
enjoying each others’ flubs and gaffes
with chuckles, chortles and belly laughs!
As friends and family still use humor
to solve discord and dispel rumor,
would that nations forever after
Replaced their guns and missiles with laughter.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/giggle/
https://silverthreading.com/2016/04/13/writers-quote-wednesday-writing-challenge-laughter/
“Half a Heart” detail of mixed media wall sculpture by jdb (Wood, moss, shells and assorted dried beach scrub.)
Half a Love Story
Lately, when it comes to kissing
something seems to have gone missing;
for if the kissing rules are heeded,
it’s clear two pairs of lips are needed.
I have the half that’s labeled “me.”
I only lack the one called “he.”
So when it comes to birds and bees,
I must rely on memories!
The one-word prompt today was “Incomplete.”
In addition to being a fine writer, Denise Brown is an accomplished drummer and vocalist who plays several gigs weekly around La Manzanilla–most frequently at Palapa Joe’s. More information about her playing schedule is given after the poem.
La Manzanilla Tourist
…visitors are slightly different
How can you tell a tourist is aqui
Camera in hand bumping into me
Asking poor Lydia for plain white bread
Always looking up never ahead
Laying on the beach in all shades of red
Swimming in water most of us dread
How can you tell a tourist at the bar
Three margaritas goes way too far
You can’t drink like that in the heat of the day
They don’t like what they hear when they hear what I say
Come morning they rise looking so ghastly
Straight to the bano stepping so fastly
And out of the bathroom appearing quite ghostly
They say it’s the street food. I say it’s probably tequila (mostly.)
How can you tell a tourist is aqui
Just look around it’s no mystery.
Denise will play a final gig with Dave and Sally next Thursday, Feb. 25. She also plays there with the Lounge Lizards on Fridays and will play with Bindu Gross at artis gallery at an event that begins at 4pm on Feb 24.
Denise Brown
Pragmatic Faith
Coins cast in a fountain with wishes voiced above–
requests for fame or money, beauty, health or love.
Do those who make the wishes have faith they will come true?
If so, what difference from the prayer whispered from a pew?
Twenty years thereafter, what wishes still remain?
Do we again repeat these things that we’ve wished in vain?
Do we still have faith in magical solutions
via coins subjected to watery ablutions?
Fantasy may have its place in fairy tales and dreams,
but it rarely helps us to achieve life’s major schemes.
Santa Claus and fairies, the Easter Bunny, elves?
Far better that we base our faith mainly in ourselves.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/three-coins-in-the-fountain/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 