Category Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown poems

Bad Timing

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Bad Timing

On my birthday in July, my true love gave to me
a coupon for a ski trip and a real live Christmas tree.
Chocolates when I’m dieting, sad songs when I am gloomy.
A grand piano, though my new apartment’s not too roomy.
The week that “Save the Animals” appointed me their chair,
he bought me a new winter coat of lynx and llama hair.

He brings home ice cream in the cold, hot cocoa in the summer.
When I broke my tooth, the peanut brittle was a bummer.
Though his gifts are generous, my thanks are often mimed,
for I’m speechless over just how badly all of them are timed!
The reason why we are not wed is so hard to relate.
I had the cake, the rings, the gown. We set the time and date.

The groom showed up and waited as I walked down the aisle.
My wedding dress was finest lace, my undergarments lisle.
I’d planned each detail out with care and left no stone unturned.
Just one detail  left to him–you’d think I would have learned!
For when I went to say “I do” to this  man I adore,
they found our wedding license had lapsed two weeks before!

The Prompt––10,000 Spoons  Tell your own verse, stanza, or story of a badly-timed annoyance.

 

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Companionable.” Head to one of your favorite blogs. Write a companion piece to their penultimate post.

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As I lie

Once, in that long dream of childhood, I
assumed that I would be a child forever,
slipping between the lives of adults, somewhat

off. The wrong hairdo, clothes
in my closet hanging in
that off-kilter way

like teeth missing in a child’s mouth, others grown half-way
in to not quite meet their lower neighbor.
It was a mystery

where I’d fit in adult life––
The job I’d do,
the children I’d tell what to do;

and I never quite found the answer, although
my teeth grew in, to meet
each other in the middle.

Blooming, after their
crimson exit––
two by two, they nourished a life,

burying childhood
like
a lie.

I chose S. Thomas Summers’ poem, “As a Child” as a springboard for my poem. Rather than use his poem as a theme, instead I used the first word of each of his lines as the first word in each of my lines. Go here to read his excellent poem: https://inkhammer.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/once-i/

In Spite of Our Wishes for All Good

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The real world is complex and sometimes none of the choices we have are good ones. If Attila the Hun is coming through, it’s not a matter of being moral. It’s kill or be killed.
                                                                                                                –Theodore Postol

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In Spite of Our Wishes for All Good

It seems for every good in life, there exists an evil.
Tomatoes suffer mildew and cotton has its weevil.
As north has south and light has dark, it seems the world is run
by drought balanced with rainfall and dark replacing sun.

It isn’t how we’d have it if the choice were up to us.
Who wouldn’t rather have the joys of life without the fuss?
But anima and animus and yin and yang are what
seem to keep our lives out of the same old rut.

As much as we might put off death if we had our druthers,
without it there would be no room for more sisters and brothers.
Would that the inevitable could just be delayed,
the game would turn out more like we wish it could be played,

but somehow the world’s demons like Isis and Attila
are the bitter flavors that balance the vanilla.
The words I write are hard to take when evil in this world
is visited on those we love and sadness is unfurled.

We all agree it isn’t fair that one should have good luck
while others suffer pain and sadness, buried in the muck.
Many try to change it but the changes never stay.
Night often cancels out what we’ve achieved by light of day.

The religious live on faith, but others curse the day
that they were born into a world that’s so suffused by gray.
For light and dark are always mixed in varying combinations.
Each day we choose our focus: good or abominations.

Those who focus on the bad confront it for us while
those others of us plant the crops and fix the broken stile.
Some preserve the joys of life while others fight the ills.
Some swallow the honey and the others bitter pills.

In this as well we find that nature provides opposites.
Some farm in the highlands while the others mine the pits.
But all are necessary for the progress of the whole,
for as the world keeps spinning, it functions as a bowl

filled with all the opposites the universe provides––
that force that makes it necessary that we all choose sides
and pull or push to keep the carousel securely spinning.
It would seem that in the good life, there must also be some sinning.


About the Picture:  I just wrote this as a comment to a friend on Facebook who said she liked the picture above.  After I’d posted it I decided others might be interested in the story, so here it is:

  • Since I have a bad reaction to the sun, I get up at 6 and walk on the beach in the dark, then return by the time the sun comes up over the buildings and trees, so there are very few people on the beach when I walk. This stranger I’d passed on the beach a few times came up one of my last days there and pressed a starfish into my hand…small, orange, beautiful and yes, dead. He said he’d had three for me the day before but hadn’t seen me and asked where I was. This from an utter stranger who I guess had noticed me picking things up each day and stowing them in my bag. I still have the starfish. Yes good things happen.

    Actually, I had been frightened when I saw him from far away carrying a machete because a madwoman had attacked my neighbor the day before and I couldn’t see who it was and was afraid it was she…I was getting ready to jump in the ocean and swim out from the shore when I realized it was not a woman but a man with the machete! And felt relief. What a funny juxtaposition of normal fears. And then after all that, he gave me that wonderful and thoughtful gift. This is why I chose this photo to illustrate my poem.

Wicked witch. Today’s Prompt: Wicked Witch–Write about evil: how you understand it (or don’t), what you think it means, or a way it’s manifested, either in the world at large or in your life.

THE NATURE OF PERFECTION

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Random Thoughts on the Nature of Perfection

Everything in the natural order is perfect.
If you doubt this,
look closely at any flower
or consider the workings
of any animal,
including man.

Each part of nature is so intricately bound up
in the web of it all that its perfection
is only a small part of the whole.
Man makes the mistake of overlooking this
as he pokes and prods and institutes changes
in the natural order.
What man believes is of benefit to himself
is not necessarily of benefit
to the whole cycle of interdependence,
and it may not even be of benefit to himself.

PERFECTION

Potentially,
Every
Reaching
For
Excellence
Contains
This.
It’s
Opposite?
Nadir.

But all perfection is not to be aimed for.
There is perfect evil in the world
as well as perfect beauty
or perfect kindness.

If everything in the natural order is perfect.
In seeking to alter nature, it is man who has created imperfection.
Monsanto is the enemy of perfection.

MONSANTO

Perfect
Evil
Rebounds
From
Every
Can
That
Is
Opened
Now.

Perfection is best observed very close by and very far away.

Here is a printable list of Monsanto owned companies: http://www.realfarmacy.com/printable-list-of-monsanto-owned-food-producers/

https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/the-sandbox-writing-challenge-8-what-is-your-idea-of-perfection/

Lucky School: JNW’s Prompt Generator

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Lucky School

I don’t often write of it since it is such a bore,
but bad luck’s had a hold on me since nineteen eighty-four.
The tragedies that equal mine are just the stuff of lore:
sad tales of loves and lives lost–tales of heartache, blood and gore.

Don’t beg to hear my stories, for I won’t tell you more.
Thinking of my problems has me tired to the core.
I want to concentrate on now without the past’s loud roar,
and banish former labels such as “victim, tragic, poor.”

My friends all chipped in for me to go to Lucky School–
believing positive thinking might prove a handy tool.
They figured they’d transform me into wizard from a fool,
so that drawing fortune to me would become my daily rule.

I found a four-leaf clover and a heart shaped like a stone.
I got the longest section when I broke the wishing bone.
I found a silver dollar and rubbed it ‘til it shone,
then gave it to a beggar—a hump-backed aged crone.

The lessons that they taught me in my Lucky School
were that stones may be more valuable than a precious jewel.
Good luck’s never garnered from actions that are cruel
and to never save our gift-giving for birthdays or the Yule.

The way we gain good luck is just to give it all away
every single moment of every single day.
Our trying to hoard it is what keeps good luck at bay.
The luck you give to others is the luck you’ll get to stay.

Good luck is not for finding. It’s simply what you do.
When you hand it off to others, somehow it sticks like glue;
first adhering to the lucky one that you gave it to,
then doubling so an equal part remains right there with you.

The way life keeps the truth obscured sometimes seems most cruel.
How many years I wasted playing the selfish fool.
My friends needn’t have squandered their money on my school,
for all I really needed was to heed the Golden Rule.

The prompt provided me by JNW Topic Generator was: Lucky School. Go Here to receive your own prompt. * *

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Sound Bites

When the daylight takes its bite
eating up the dark of night
I begin my daily rite
of finding all the words to cite
that serve to bring my thoughts to light.

I write and write and write and write–
filling up my blogging site
until my dogs begin to fight,
and finally I know it’s quite
necessary to do what’s right.

And this is when I find I might
secure my laptop lid up tight
and give my brain a small respite.
It is my  second day’s delight
for they have tried to be polite

lest they disturb me or incite
words that in their haste are trite.
With an open door, I now invite
their appetites–now at their height.
Each jumps and spins–high as a kite,
and comes to have his morning bite.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Forward Drive.” https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/04/from-the-back-a-photo-a-week-challenge/ What is the one thing that drives you to wake up in the morning and do whatever it is you do? Is it writing, family, friends, or something else entirely?

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Druthers

What child does not plot and yearn to turn into a teen?
What teen does not look forward to leaving that age between?

Adults can drive and travel and stay up rather late.
They never have to introduce their parents to their date.

Adults do as they wish. They live at their own bidding–
at least until they marry and start in their own kidding.

Then once again they hustle to their family’s beck and call,
so it would seem that no one has a favorite phase at all.

For family life may leave us feeling exhausted and harried.
I guess the ideal phase, then, is perpetually unmarried!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Golden Age.” If you had to live forever as either a child, an adolescent, or an adult, which would you choose — and why?

Lunch Date (Old-Fashioned Attention): JNW’s Prompt Generator

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Lunch Date

One thing I’d like that I will mention
is a bit of old-fashioned attention.
The kind with no device in hand
is the kind that I can stand

better than the sort with texting
minds caught in “before” and “next”ing
and not a thought for whom you’re with
until I’m sure that it’s a myth

that I’m the one you want to see,
even though you have invited me.
For though our table is for two,
you bring so many more with you–

every relative and friend.
Your texts to them just never end.
Our tete a tete‘s become absurd.
I never get to speak a word!

So there’s one thing I’d like to state.
Please cancel our next luncheon date.
The next time you desire a munch,
just take your iPhone out to lunch!


My prompt was “Old-fashioned Attention.” To get a prompt or see more JNW Prompt-Generated posts, go HERE.

Needless to say, there will be no sequel to this lunch date, but to see posts about sequels to movies, go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/missing-seqeuls/

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Sixteen!! The Combiners (Excerpt)

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                                        Sixteen!! The Combiners (Excerpt)

This is an excerpt from a longer narrative poem in my book, Prairie Moths.  It is the final section of  “The Combiners” –a poem about the itinerant workers who would drive up from Oklahoma each summer to harvest the wheat crop in South Dakota.  This infusion of fresh young men was, of course, exciting to teenaged girls whose own male classmates were a bit immature. Not that any of us ever did anything about it.  Imagining and talking was enough for us at the age of sixteen!

combiners dance

The Combiners

I saw him first on the bleachers
on the other side of the floor.
As dancers came together and parted,
I saw him and then didn’t see him.
After the music stopped, I craned my neck
around the legs that stood in front of me,
trying to see him across the cleared dance floor.

Then the voice at the top of the legs
asked me to dance, and I looked up–at him.
Feeling uncertain, wicked and wild,
I answered yes.

I’d served him once or twice
at Restaurant 16–
that highway-fronting restaurant
as exotic as its name.
I knew he was working the Weston place
with an outfit my dad had never used.
He liked his steak well-done,
French dressing, no tomatoes.
Butterscotch sundaes made him cough.
Over the water pitcher and order pad,
we had traded a look or two.
I knew he wore Old Spice
and drank Cokes with breakfast,
but I didn’t know his name.

When we got to the dance floor,
he took my hand,
put his other hand on my damp waist.
It was a slow dance and the night was hot.
The dance was work.
I was awkward–too inhibited to get as intimate
as following in dancing requires.
Over the music, we tried to shout our names,
tried to find a mutual rhythm,
finally giving up both endeavors
to dance the slow song, not touching,
moving our arms in fast song 60’s style
to the slow song rhythms.

When the music stopped,
he walked me back again
to the bleacher
he had plucked me from,
reinserted me into the correct space in the line of girls,
smiled, and walked away.

My friends closed around me
like a sensitive plant
to hear the news.
I watched his back,
blue short-sleeved shirt,
his pressed Levis
and his cowboy boots.
I watched the Oklahoma swing of his hips–
danger on the hoof.
He wouldn’t ask me to dance again,
yet, his sun-blackened arms,so finely muscled,
had held me for a minute or two.
His bleached blue eyes
had seen something of worth in me.
He had asked my name, touched my waist,
and walked me off the dance floor.
And, since this was as spicy
as any of our stories would likely be
all summer long,
I turned to my friends to tell the tale.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/only-sixteen/

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Devil # 3

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.” Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Okay, I was going to give this prompt a “miss” and went to the new prompt generator I’ve been using for the past few days.  I hit the button and was served up the two-word prompt: “Ill Devil”.  At first I read this as #3 Devil, and I must admit, I got a chill, because what I immediately thought about when I read the prompt was the third time I was in a near-death situation where I felt totally helpless.  What are the chances, I thought, that these two prompts would line up?  This must be something I’m meant to write about.  But then reason stepped in and I realized this prompt always gave an adjective and a noun.  What they probably meant by the prompt was ill Devil. (Changing the capital to a small “i” clarified the prompt.) But then I realized that ill devil described the occurrence I am trying not to talk about as much as #3 devil did, so I guess, prodded on twice by fate or coincidence or synchronicity, I will try.

I have written to a similar prompt twice in 2015, so probably most of you who read my blog have chanced upon one of those posts, but when I wrote to a similar prompt in June of 2014, I wrote a different piece and since I had few of my present-day readers then, I’ll mention that THIS is what I wrote.  It may not be obvious that the topic given in today’s prompt was what I was really talking about then, however, because it was a poem where I actually stood to one side of what I was really remembering and wrote about the subject as an onlooker rather than a participant.  I only alluded to the real subject, which is what I’m going to attempt to write about today. That real subject is Ted Bundy and how otherwise respectable women sometimes fall prey to such predators.  Okay, deep breath. I’m going to tell to the world something I have actually told to very few people. Yes, this is a true story.

Devil # 3

Nineteen seventy-something. In the bar with friends.
When you are in your twenties, the partying never ends.
It was rodeo season  and the big one was in town.
As one by one they ordered drinks, I couldn’t turn them down.
We were a rather rowdy bunch of teachers in our prime
Devoted in the classroom, but wild on our own time.

The bar was crowded hip to hip, the music barely heard
over the loud cacophony of laugh and shouted word.
It was my turn to buy a round. I struggled towards the bar.
My polite “Excuse me’s!” really hadn’t gotten me too far
when a guy appeared in front of me and moved the crowd aside
as though he had appointed himself to be my guide.

As I returned with eight full drinks, again he stemmed the tide
by walking close in front of  me and spreading elbows wide.
He smiled and then departed, back to the teeming mass.
Impressive that he had not even tried to make a pass!
My friends all wondered who he was. I said I had no clue.
Tall and dark and ivy-league, he vanished from our view.

This story happened long ago. Some details I’ve forgotten,
and any memories he retains, you’ll learn were ill-begotten.
I think we danced a dance or two. I know we talked awhile.
I liked his fine intelligence, his low-key polite style.
At three o’clock the barman’s bell commenced it’s clanging chime
and I made off to find my friends, for it was closing time.

Two lines of men had split the bar, lined up back to back.
Their hands locked and their arms spread wide–they moved into the pack.
One line moved east, the other west, forcing one and all
Either out the front door or towards the back door hall.
I was forced out the back way–out into the alley.
My friends and I had made no plans of where we were to rally

and so I walked around the block, sure that was where they waited,
but there was no one there at all–the crowd had soon abated.
I went back to the alleyway to see if they were there.
but all was dark and still, and soon I began to fear
that both carloads of friends had thought I was with the other.
I had no recourse but to walk, though I prayed for another.

I combed my mind to try to think of anyone at all
living in this part of town where I could go to call
a friend to come and get me and furnish me a ride
for 3 a.m. was not a time to be alone outside.
There were no outside phone booths and I lived so far away
I simply had to rouse someone, but what was I to say?

But since I had no other choice I thought I’d check once more
if any single soul was waiting at the bar’s front door.
And as I left the alley to be off to see,
I saw a new familiar face looking back at me.
It was my dancing partner, his face split in a grin.
It seems that he was going to save me once again.

He had asked me earlier if needed a ride,
but I had told him wisely that I had friends inside
and so I thought he’d left, but I could see he was still there.
Yet, ride home with a stranger?  Did I really dare?
And yet I had no other choice, abandoned as I was.
And so I said I guess that yes, I would, simply because

I knew there was just one of him and I was young and strong.
And he seemed kind, polite and gentle.  What could go so wrong?
His car was just a block away. Our walk was short and brief.
And when he pointed out his car, I felt a great relief.
For it was a convertible–and easy to escape
If I detected the first signs of robbery or rape!

He opened up the door for me. I got in the front seat.
But as he started up the car, my heart skipped a beat.
For from the bushes, two more men emerged and jumped inside–
one man in the backseat, the other at my side!
He pulled out into the street, though I protested so.
I didn’t really want a ride, so please, just let me go!

(And here I have to beg off and say I’ll finish this story tomorrow.  Right now my heart is pumping and my head throbbing as though I’m re-enacting this whole tale physically as well as mentally.  I’m totally exhausted.  Why I decided to write this in rhyme I don’t know. Perhaps I thought it would be easier, or more fun or more lighthearted, but there is simply no way to write this from any other frame of mind but the terror I felt that night. So, sorry, but I will resume tomorrow. You all know that I’m here telling the story, so be assured that the worst didn’t happen…but the story is by no means over, so join me tomorrow for the rest.  I, for one, could really use a drink, but it is only 1:40 in the afternoon so I’ll find some other means of escape.)

To see the conclusion of this poem, go HERE.

If you’d like to try out Jennifer’s new prompt generator, go HERE.