Category Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown poems

Agave Marias

12 Replies

 

DSC07622

Agave Marias

Two sides are battling for possession of my life. One pushes me ahead, urging, “Do, do, do, and you will be of value,” but the other twines a hand around my ankle and pulls me down to earth and whispers, “Be.” The “Proud Marys,” I have named these contrasting women who emerge one at a time from my center, but since I have lived in Mexico for seventeen years now, perhaps Maria would be a better shared name. A name is all they share, for by their own natures one is an outward person: a doer, a liver of life, a socializer. The other is inner: a reclusive watcher, dreamer, thinker, artist and writer.

Some people know how to balance these voices, but I don’t. And so I live on a little seesaw of made and canceled plans, meetings and random days of alternately reading, writing, watching movies or wandering around my house attending to my ever-lengthening “to do” list. What is life, I wonder? Is it your accomplishments? I have lists of those I seem to have less and less willpower to sit down to and finish. It’s like I have to sacrifice the satisfaction of ticking things off a list for the promise of a different kind of life.

I don’t think I’ve every really felt I had significance other than as a doer of things: artist, writer, committee chairman, decorator of houses, organizer of my friends’ lives. Yet during all of this activity, I always suspected that all around me people were leading lives that were more fun than mine, more satisfactory. If I gave more, did more, accomplished more, I thought I would attract this ideal life to me.

A tour guide once explained to me the importance of the agave plant in Mexico. For the Mexican of the past, the agave was what the buffalo was to the American plains Indian. Different parts of the agave plant were used to make rope, housing, clothing, food, dye and last but never least, mescal—the finest of tequila-like alcohol. So perhaps I should call my Marias the Agave Marias. Between them, they furnish me with all of the necessities of life. One says organize, proceed in a linear fashion. The other says, “Brainstorm. Go with the flow. Let process win over need for a perfect product.” So I let one Maria lead me through my mind and put it all down on paper, now and then letting the other Maria pop in to clean things up a bit and organize. Agave Marias, furnishing it all.

Childless, have I instead created all of the possibilities for myself within myself? In refusing to give birth, have I hoarded all of the possibilities of my genes within myself and is that what has led to this slightly schizophrenic seesaw of existence-—one day running off for an entire day of activity, the next staying home behind walls? One side wanting to be Cinderella at the ball, the other side wanting only the security of my own hearth?

I was married for fourteen years and before that lived with another man for three years, I’ve also had female roommates, but most of my life has been lived alone. There is some part of me that only exists in solitude and when I’m too long away from her, I miss her. Without her I feel superficial. It is from this side of my Agave Maria that I draw all of my real nourishment—my creativity, my soul. The other Maria is my reward—the finished product, the publication party or the book tour.

All of the seed I hoarded has given birth to these different entities within myself. Failing to produce offspring, I have become my own offspring. These children, my Marias, journey out from me but always return to the wellspring. I go to the party but come home to snuggle into bed for the entire next day, venturing out only for popcorn and a different CD. Or I sit on the side of the tub for two hours with my laptop on my lap, writing a story which takes me into a wonderful world of my own creation.

It is Christmas, and in the background, a chorus sings what to my ears becomes, “Agave Mar-eee-e-e-e-aaaah,” and the beautiful notes convince me, for a short time, that I am the mother of creation, the one Maria that all of Mexico celebrates, tattoos upon their chests, dyes into their T-shirts, puts on decals and bumper stickers, commemorates in stone or plaster or clay or wood in every house. She is the spirit of duality in all women and in all men: flesh and spirit, of this world as well as heaven, of the utilitarian and the creative, human and divine.

All of us are Agave Marias, learning to collect ourselves and pull all sides of ourselves in to ourselves to appreciate them. We are our own mothers as well as our sisters and daughters and friends. Within all of us are these Agave Marias, like sisters absolutely indispensable to each other who are nonetheless competing for our attention.

“Honor them by listening to each,” Mother Maria says to me and suddenly I realize that there are more than two Agave Marias within me. This third motherly Maria seeks to reconcile the others and whispers, “Look deeper. There is always one more. All welcome. All part of life.”

 

The daily prompt was Narcissism. Since I had already written on this topic in April, I chose a slightly different slant on this prompt, concentrating on the different sides of myself in a slightly nacissistic manner. My original Narcissism poem, published in April for NaPoWriMo is HERE.

Near: World Premiere of Sylvestrian Near Rhyme

16 Replies

Near

My father went from obscurity to a sort of small renown.
He worked hard as a rancher and the mayor of our town.
He met my mother at a dance in her sister’s borrowed gown–
both of them lonely visitors to a faraway strange town.
I’ve thought about it often since we laid him down.
Why didn’t I ask more questions? Why didn’t I write it down?

Many a calf he helped to birth and many a field he’s mown.
Avoided his mother if he could–long-suffering aged crone.
Not many highways traveled,nor many airwaves flown.
He died in his angry daughter’s arms–the two of them alone.
I’ve thought of it often till regrets have turned into a drone.

His eyes were always looking further over yon.
Over a ripening field of wheat or over a fresh-mowed lawn.
Working, often, until dark and up again at dawn.
A man of camaraderie and wit and brains and brawn.

He liked to tell a story and sing a rousing tune.
Stand on the porch at midnight to piss under the moon.
He gave me a turquoise ring, a baby rabbit and a coon.

Now that he’s very gone away.  Now that I’m very grown,
I know my flesh is of his flesh. My bone is of his bone.

And I wish that I’d asked more questions. That we’d both been less alone.

DSC02618
The form of this poem is one consisting of six stanzas, the first with 6 lines and each thereafter one less line.  Each line in each stanza rhymes with all the other lines in that stanza and each stanza’s rhyme is a near rhyme to the last. The name of this form is Sylvestrian Near Rhyme and since “Near” describes both the theme and form of my poem, it is also the name of the poem.  And yes, I did make up the form!  I’d love it if poets given to rhyming and meter would attempt the form and send me the results as comments or a link to this blog.

For dVerse Poets Pub

Banded

4 Replies

Click on any photo to enlarge all.


Banded

From string to string and fret to fret,
they draw us into music’s net.
They strum and pick and blithely finger
notes that make us want to linger,
tap the table, move our feet
to their infectious strumming beat.

They are my favorite sort of band––
unique and playing their own brand
of acoustic, bluesy notes––
a kind of music that denotes
connection to a world of hearts.
Their music woos and cuts and smarts.

Opening sensibilities.
Music that unites and frees
our spirits to commune and soar.
Notes that journey to our core.
Which is what music’s meant to do
in  dancehall, city street or pew.

Good music sets our hats askew,
chases us down and counts a coup.
Stirs our hearts and brings a change.
Astounds us with its depth and range.
Draws us with it, layer on layer,
unites us in communal prayer.

Denominationless, it draws
us in and gives a place to pause
together to survey that place
devoid of sex or age or race.
That place where we unite in song.
Give up ourselves, and sing along.

The prompt today is fret.

Another Modest Proposal

5 Replies

DSC08411“Macho” assemblage and photo by jdb

Another Modest Proposal

Once a species has been depleted,
it’s sad that it can’t be repeated.
This is true of guys and gals
as surely as for animals.
So though we hate to limit fun
that might be realized with your gun,
unless you’re hunting for your fodder,
we ask that you confine your slaughter
to paper targets, or wood or clay,
and do not blow game sport away
like rhinos, elephants, giraffes.
Their slaughters are the greatest gaffes.
If you must kill a living thing,
form yourselves into a ring,
make prayers to the Holy Mother
and target practice on each other!

 

Yes, this is hyperbole!! The WordPress prompt is deplete.

Speechless

17 Replies

Click on any photo to enlarge all.


Speechless

I’ve been thwarted in my efforts to shine at elocution,
for though I memorize the words, I flub their execution.
In short, although I’m erudite, I don’t excel at speeches.
I stammer and I blush and sweat. My words come out as screeches.

I don’t give toasts at weddings. At funerals, I am mute.
And although I am quite clever and politically astute,
you won’t find me expounding on what I think I know,
for when I seek to share my thoughts, they just advance too slow.

Even if I’ve known for years the people I’m among,
I simply do not have the gift of a silver tongue.
There are no debate trophies cluttering my shelf,
for I’m usually speechless unless talking to myself.

The prompt today is thwart.

New Faith

17 Replies

I really started blogging exactly five years ago today, when I wrote my first NaPoWriMo poem, having little faith in my ability to make it for the whole thirty days.

In the end, day-by-day, I did it.  A year later, I did it again and when I came to day 30, I didn’t stop.  Since then I’ve exercised a different sort of faith by writing every morning—doing  a number of writing and photo posts, including at least one poem or story, every day for the past 1,460 days. (This post will be my 4,074th one.)

The pool exercises I once did faithfully in a water aerobics class three mornings a week at the clubhouse pool,  I still do at midnight in my own pool under the stars and moon, surrounded by the blossoms that fall from the tall Washingtonian palm trees that rise like giants in the night air above the pool.

I swim with the moon,
stars strewn like wedding flowers
in this midnight pool.

For dVerse Poets Haibun Monday, Faith.

Typical

9 Replies

Typical Day

Bark of dog,
Meow of cat.
Mama-san
takes care of that
with pop of can
and clink of dishes.
After solving
all these wishes,
back to bed.
Write my blogs.
Out of bed.
Put on togs.
Make a smoothie.
Read E-mail.
Into town
for writers’ meetings.
Lots of words
and lots of greetings.
Home again
to write some more.
Pepe’s ringing
at my door.
Once a week
a heavenly rub.
Body restored,
soak in the tub.
Pat the cats,
throw balls for Morrie.
Write some more,
the same old story.
Talk to Dux
many a time
throughout the day.
Sometimes  with rhyme.
Midnight finds me
in the pool
under stars
and Morrie’s rule.
Throw the ball
for him to fetch.
Exercise, then
reach and stretch
to retrieve the ball
he throws at me.
Then loft it over
bush and tree
to lower garden
for him to find.
This is our nightly
pool grind.
Go in to bed
to write some more.
Get up to check
I’ve locked the door.
Other events
often occur.
Trips to the vet
to trim or cure.
Coffee with friends,
or dinner out.
trips to the shore,
without a doubt.
Lives grow and change
often with time.
So this is just
the paradigm.

The prompt word today is typical.

Dim Prospects

18 Replies

img_2826

Dim Prospects
(A Hyperbolic Modest Proposal)

We’re blotting the sun out and dimming the stars
with furnaces, factories, wildfires, cars.
With overproduction causing glut after glut,
it seems our improvements are anything but.
Man’s once-shiny future is now looking dim,
and he’s pulling the whole planet under with him.
Fires and hurricanes, tsunamis and quakes,
rampaging hillsides and drying-up lakes
are messages sent that the earth’s fighting back—
giving us warnings of things out of whack.

When fat cats in limos and thousand buck suits
have usurped all the seeds and kept all the fruits,
and all of their products are made by machines,
three dimensional copiers making our jeans,
our autos, appliances, organs and cars,
our TVs and glasses, our bikes and guitars,
we’ll all need welfare—mere motionless blobs
once they have “teched” away all of our jobs.
And since welfare is something that they’ve soundly booed,
what will the masses do for their food?

Where will we sleep once all of the money
all of the milk and all of the honey
is in the pockets of those gazillionaires
cushioned away in their billion-buck lairs?
Keeping a few of us here on the scene
to garden and cook for them, to serve and clean,
they’ll let unwashed masses starve in their cots
and buy from each other their trillion dollar yachts
And perhaps they’ll be happy with what they’ve created:
machines making products ’til their needs are sated.

Now that they’ve purchased our ship of state
and made it their own, it seems that the fate
of unlucky millions who’ve gone overboard
for lack of the medicine they can’t afford
is nothing to them, for not one of them cares
how any common citizen  fares.
Lest we riot against them out of our need
for money for food they’ve usurped in their greed,
issue guns to the populace. Let us dispense
of  these unneeded masses. To them, it makes sense!

The prompt word today is dim.

Burn

18 Replies

IMG_8175jdbphoto 2/18

The sun has burned the day away
and set the sea  on fire
turning a glowing pathway
into a funeral pyre.
She, too, has left her day behind,
shed like a soiled dress.
What tomorrow holds for her
She has no need to guess.

A quadrille on the prompt “burn” for dVerse Poets.

The Forgottenman Challenge. Done!!

9 Replies

After seeing my mixed bouquet in Cee’s daily flower challenge, Forgottenman challenged me to write a poem making use of the name of every flower in the bouquet.  Okay F-man, here it is. I rise to every challenge!!! (The names of the flowers in the bouquet are in bold print.)

Zinnia was the fairest maid the town had ever grown.
She flirted with the mill boy and claimed him as her own.
She rose and fed their baby with a silver spoon
each morning as her husband lay abed ’til noon.
To wake him up, she lay their child well within his reaches.
He woke to that sweet baby’s breath-—just redolent of peaches.
Brushing off her flour-dusted lover, Zinnia sent him on his way
to grind more grain for townsfolk who had the means to pay,
for although her dusty miller was not the working kind,
true love will not buy Gerbers nor diaper a behind.

Here is the bouquet again:

IMG_7727

Bouquet of zinnias, roses, baby’s breath, dusty miller, Gerber daisies.  jdb photo

Another response to Cee’s daily flower prompt.