Category Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown poems

Disinclination (Sleep Phobia)

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Disinclination (Sleep Phobia)

I hate to give the day up.  There’s so much left to do.
I like the sky when midnight black is its only hue.
No interruptions on the phone. No meetings, no last chore.
It’s days that contain all the rules.  Days are such a bore!
At night I watch Doc Martin or read the blogs of others.
It always would be dark outside if I had my druthers.

I resist sleep when first it comes knocking at my door.
I put it off and fight it, sometimes ’til three or four.
At night it seems like such a shame to waste my life in sleep,
yet in the morning I find those convictions hard to keep.
When the alarm bell rings if I could choose, I find I would
go back to sleep, for suddenly my bed feels really good!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.”

Hive

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Hive

I know the day has started. I hear them stir around.
Yet here I am sealed in my room, making not a sound.
I rarely sleep eight hours, but usually six or four.
Yet this guest room has no window. It only has a door.

With no bird songs to waken me, no sunlight and no dog,
I have gone on slumbering, sleeping like a log.
It’s a deprivation chamber—a cell, a cave, a den;
so I’ll just go on sleeping, perhaps ‘til nine or ten.

All in all, I am the perfect kind of guest.
No need to entertain me. I’ve only come to rest.
In two more days please crack the door of my little hive.
Perhaps just flip me over to see if I’m alive.

Certainly as hostess, my sister is the best,
and I am sure she has some plans for her newest guest;
but for today to leave me be is my sincere request.
After weeks of traveling, Sunday’s my day of rest!

Note: Today marks my twenty-eighth day of travel since I left home and yesterday it was thirteen hours of travel from the time I left for the airport at 3 a.m. to the time I arrived at my sister’s house. When I awoke this Sunday morning after seven and a half hours sleep—the most sleep I’ve had since I left home—I still couldn’t stir before I’d written my daily poem.

When my sister and brother-in-law built their house and made their guest room windowless, the joke was that no guest would want to stay for very long. Suffice it to say that I know how to turn the broadest hint to my favor!!! Thus, this poem.This one’s for you, Patti. Please put the coffee on.  I’m about to make an appearance.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/its-my-party/

Baker’s Dozen (Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)

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Baker’s Dozen
(Only So Much Forgiveness to Go Around)

I forgive you for hogging the covers
and eating the last cookie, too.
I forgive you for doing the crossword
that I was intending to do.

I forgive you for bringing the dog home
that you never have walked even once
and for donating genes to our children
that turned them each into a dunce.

I don’t mind your poker night forays
or the damage you do to my car,
or the fact that your minimal salary
really can’t stretch very far.

Your spare tires and the fact that you’re balding
really don’t bother me much.
I’ve grown used to your slobbery kisses,
and the foreplay no more than a clutch.

But there’s one thing that you always do, dear,
that rouses my most  primal scream,
for I had made plans for a tryst with
that last pint of chocolate ice cream!

The Prompt: Forgive and forget
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/forgive-and-forget/

Flip Flop

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th
flip flop

the sound  of ease
and summer

not much to slip into
or out of

sand between toes
and other cracks

released in sleep
to gritty sheets

grinding our sleep
and clogging up washing machines

long gone the days of high button shoes
and the shoe horns that went with them.

Waist cinchers
give way to bikinis

and bikinis
to nude beaches

half of the world
flip flopping

rubber soles
and swinging breasts.

flip flops
taking the place

of gasps
as stays are tightened

the other half
burqas and Jimmy Choo

these differences
in freedom found

and freedom
found too slowly

find release in
collapsing towers

conceal, reveal.
flip flop.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/flip-flop/

Beyond the Pale

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Beyond the Pale

My pigment’s nonexistent. I make pale look dark.
For me a frolic in the sun is no carefree lark.
First I goop on sunscreen–the higher strength the better–
follow all the time limits to the very letter.

Then I wear long leggings and cover up each arm.
I would not let my hugging things come to any harm.
I wear a hat with floppy brim to cover up my face.
Use a strap to keep it on during a rapid pace.

If I go swimming I rely on a high-necked long-armed top.
When it comes to sun control, I’m my own solar cop.
The one time when I slipped control and forgot my restrictions,
I sorely paid for each of my solar derelictions.

I was in Canberra, visiting a friend
with only three short days before Australian days would end,
We’d be off to Bali, to Singapore and more–
exotic places that would form a part of my life’s lore.

But first we had two hot dates planned for swimming in the park.
My date was blonde and tall and cute. Deirdre’s date was dark.
We spread our towels out in the sun and talked and laughed all day.
Rarely did a stranger have so much to say

that I wanted to listen to. We swam, we ate. The sun
rose and set that day as we were rapt in all this fun.
It wasn’t ’til that evening I discovered my mistake.
I should have spent less time in sun and more time in the lake!

My skin was burned a vibrant red–purplish in spots.
All the hues my body sported seemed to be the hots.
One blister spread from hip to hip–an enormous bubble.
Another one across my chest spelled out bigger trouble.

Two days in the hospital and others with my friend,
the trip to Bali much delayed while waiting for my mend.
Two weeks later we set out with a heavy load
of backpacks packed with all the things needed on the road.

Medicines and duds and hats and books and other notions.
Needless to say, much of my load was comprised of potions:
sunscreen, sunblock, sunhat, sunglasses and long-sleeved shirt–
all the things that shield the skin from all solar hurt.

They have so many products now to keep one sunburn-free.
Oh that I had had them then in nineteen seventy three!
It was more than forty years ago I lived this sorry tale.
Ever since I’ve lived my life unequivocally pale!

The Prompt: Beyond the Pale--When was the last time you did something completely new and out of your element? How was it? Will you do it again?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/beyond-the-pale/

May Day!!!

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May Day

When I was seven and when I was ten,
the meaning of May Day was different back then.
It conjured up candy or flowers and fun
not fear of a shipwreck or missile or gun.

We’d construct baskets of paper and glue,
put in some candy and a flower or two–
marshmallow peanuts so rubbery and chewy,
jelly beans, candy corn, gumdrops so gooey.

From a big ribbon, they’d hang like a fob
so the basket could hang from a door handle knob.
We’d sneak to a friend’s house and ring the doorbell,
leave the basket and take off, running like Hell.

If anyone caught us, a prize they would seek–
a slap on the arm or a kiss on the cheek.
The boys gave the slaps and the girls gave the kisses–
(the reverse of our wishes for all of us “Misses.”)

For friends who lived farther than six blocks away,
our parents would drive us some time in the day
before school or after to deliver our gifts.
We escaped easier when we had lifts.

We once strung a Maypole  from tether ball staff
that was rather disastrous—more of a laugh
than a sweet springtime rite filled with dancing and grace.
When our ribbons got tangled, they laughed in our face.

When our class bully fell down, exposing her panties,
we all joined in with our uncles and aunties,
our moms and our dads and even the teachers,
the school board, the doctor, the priest and the preachers.

Everyone roared at this May Day disaster,
then we picked up our ribbons and ran even faster,
some unfortunate dancers wrapped tight to the pole
until finally the school bell began its slow toll,

telling us all to disband and depart,
weak from the laughter and lighter of heart.
A day in my memory much better than payday–
the one time when May Day was also a mayday!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/your-life-the-book/

Each and Every: WordPress Fearful Symmetry and NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 30

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Each and Every

Each person is born to turn into a memory.
Every beginning is the beginning of an end.
Eerie the truths we start to face with time.

Earnest philosophers find a happy ending.
Elders will soon become the newly borne.
Eiderdown falls to rise again.

Either we believe this, or we spend
eternity trying to know it.
Every ending is also a beginning.

NaPoWriMo Prompt: Write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning. Another way to go about this might be to take a poem you’ve already written, and flip the order of the lines and from there, edit it so the poem now works with its new order. (I selected the first alternative.)

WordPress Prompt: Fearful Symmetry—write a poem where every line begins with the same letter.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/fearful-symmetry/

Recalculating: Berkeley to Livermore and Back

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Recalculating: Berkeley to Livermore and Back

Who wanders for pleasure, wanders alone
marking no boundary, barrier, zone.
The earth has no limits and time has no chime,
my steps undetermined by schedule or clime.

This used to be my modus operandi—
travel my sweet tooth and freedom my candy.
No email or Google, no iPad or phone,
without Internet service, I rolled like a stone.

But today I am traveling from town to town
with heavier luggage–more weighted down.
And though I go singly, I’m never alone
thanks to my computer, my Kindle and phone.

Right now I’m imprisoned and my progress is bound
by the cords of my ear buds confusingly wound
round my camera charger and Ethernet connector.
My GPS determines my vector.

No more do I travel unfettered and free.
Cell tower to tower is where I must be;
so every person that I’ve ever met
has me perpetually in their debt.

Birthdays to remember and twitters to answer,
queries of grandchildren, hip sockets, cancer.
Traveling with this extra weight is not pleasant.
I much prefer traveling just in the present

unfettered by email, phone calls or that voice
calling instructions at every choice
of northwards or southwards or eastward or west.
Yes, I know GPS directions are best,

but if I’m never lost and never alone,
I might as well stay home and talk on the phone,
for most of adventure has come when I’m lost
from all of my past, whatever the cost.

Still the ways of the present make planning much easier,
finding my next destination much breezier.
These tricky freeways have changed in past years
and I find my memory much in arrears.

So perhaps for today I’ll turn on GPS
so I won’t get so lost and I won’t have to guess
which freeway to take: eight-oh-eight? eight-oh-six?
Getting myself in a terrible fix.

Tomorrow’s the time to become vagabond,
using personal radar and my fairy wand
to maneuver through life by the skin of my pants.
Just for today, I won’t take the chance!

P.S.  Thanks, Patti, for the loan of the GPS!!! Actually, it has been a Godsend.

The WordPress prompt: The Happy Wanderer–What’s your travel style? Are you itinerary and schedule driven, needing to have every step mapped out in advance or are you content to arrive without a plan and let happenstance be your guide?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-happy-wanderer/

Street Animals

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Street Animals

In a house, I like a presence
not my own
and I like contributing
to some other creature’s pleasure.
I prefer cats, but dogs prefer me.

These animals
are drawn into my life
as though by a magnet,
but it is yet to be determined
which is the magnet–
them or me.

Nonetheless, here we are.
They bark their language of in and out.
I motion my language of sit before being fed.

The cats do not enter since the second dog moved in.
One sits on the front wall to be fed and ventures no closer.
The other moved to  dogless neighbors.
I am a resting place in their karma.
They come and go at will.

While the dogs, compliant prisoners,
escape through some careless open door when they can,
in minutes, they come home again
to walls and gates and high scalable domes
where they can watch that world
they have been saved from.

WordPress Prompt:Menagerie–Do you have animals in your life? If yes, what do they mean to you? If no, why have you opted not to?

 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/menagerie/

HayNOku: NaPoWriMo Day 27

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NaPoWriMo Prompt: Write a A hay(na)ku (a three-line stanza where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words.)

Haynakus
are the
Tweets of poetry.

No
bird tweets
three note songs.

I
don’t write
six word poems.

 

 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/menagerie/