Category Archives: judy dykstra-brown poetry

Small Reunion

5 Replies

IMG_0574 IMG_0603
IMG_0509 IMG_0471IMG_0496IMG_0602IMG_0543

Small Reunion

At the piano, the music chords easily.
The soprano’s voice slides smoothly from her throat
while we others strain until “Dear Heart” syrups our vocal chords
and we slip with less effort up and down the scale–
old friends singing even older songs.

The small dog snuggles in,
balancing on the plush chair back.
The mother of the pianist and the soprano
observes from her frame atop the piano.
All husbands out and about other business.

Old letters reread, old memories pulled from forgetfulness,
each of us left at the end richer–hearts refilled
from a shared past. Every word
a song of its own.
Our notes blending together
into perfect harmony.

Disclaimer: I obviously haven’t mastered the art of taking pictures with my cell phone, so these are terrible, but they do convey a bit of the action and mood, so I’m including them.  Unfortunately, I had the camera on video during the entire singing session, so no photos…too bad. 

Bogged Down in Blog

13 Replies

DSC01205
Bogged Down in Blog

It’s hard to write while traveling–
your half-knit thoughts unravelling
as they call you in to talk
or have a meal or take a walk.

You sleep in other people’s houses,
wrinkles in your unpacked blouses,
possessions jumbled in your cases,
move at unfamiliar paces.

You live a life that’s not your own–
daily walking, driven, flown
while trying to remember faces,
confused by all these different places.

In the past I adored going–
miles passing, airwaves flowing.
I loved to move like a rolling log,
but that was when I didn’t blog!!!

Now I find I’m scurrying.
Wake up already hurrying.
I’m confused and frankly dumb,
forgetting where I’m coming from

as well as where I’m going to.
I’ve lost a sock and lost one shoe.
Still, I find time to write each day,
here in some room, hidden away.

This daily writing’s an addiction
that makes real life a dereliction!
I short my hosts to do my writing.
I’ve given up my life for citing!


The Prompt: State of Your Year–How is this year shaping up so far? Write a post about your biggest challenges and achievements thus far.

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

Disinclination (Sleep Phobia)

16 Replies

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.”

Queasy

1 Reply

 Queasy

Silas Marner did not bore me. Cosines served me well.
I did not dread the tolling of the school bell.
Geography was interesting–all those maps and facts.
History a story of migration, wars and pacts.
Psychology didn’t throw me. I learned to type real fast.
I got an A in algebra, though the knowledge didn’t last.
Bookkeeping was annoying–all those columns and their sums.
I’ll admit I caused disturbances, clowning for my chums.
But all and all my schooldays were challenging and fun.
The only time I wished that all my schooling could be done
was when my Biology teacher made me blanch and squirm
by issuing me a scalpel and then handing me a worm!!!

The Prompt: Land of Confusion–Which subject in school did you find impossible to master? Did math give you hives? Did English make you scream? Do tell!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/land-of-confusion-2/

Flip Flop

6 Replies

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/

May Day!!!

6 Replies

DSC00524

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

4 Replies

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/

Street Animals

15 Replies

DSC07914 DSC09953
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

6 Replies

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/

Mundane Objectification: If Helpmates Could Speak– (NaPoWriMo 2015, day 26)

1 Reply

Mundane Objectification: If  Helpmates Could Speak

I’m the first to tell her what to do,
though each morning she pushes my button, too.
“Get out of bed,” I order her,
come back to reconnoiter her.
When she refuses to rise at once,
I sit in the corner like a dunce
and nag and nag until she’s up
to shower and dress and feed the pup.

I keep her clothing crisp and neat
with water mist and searing heat.
I’m a dangerous helper and she knows it.
Dire results if she ever blows it
and fails to heed my hiss and cough
and forgets to turn me off.

When my workday starts, I have no say.
Always ready as she greets the day,
I perk her up and fuel her drive.
She says she needs me to feel alive.
She takes some of me with her when she leaves.
When she kills the rest, nobody grieves.
I’m strong and flexible and black.
Cause eyes to open and lips to smack.

She holds me tightly every morning–
cussing, yelling, pleading, warning
others who get in her way
as she speeds into her waiting day.
She pushes my buttons and wheels my wheels
with clicks and groans and grinds and squeals.
I carry her inside of me
to take her to where she needs to be
and wait outside until she’s done
in rain and snow and baking sun.

I wait at home in the cold and dark
wondering when she’ll light the spark
that relieves me of my lonely plight–
chilly  environs and unlit light.
I hear her footsteps across the floor,
light up as she opens my door.
She reaches in and relieves me
of can or bottle, then goes to pee
restoring me to isolation.
I don’t complain. It is my station.

She turns me on most every night
to wallow in my sickly light,
staring at dramas I provide.
Never does she go outside
to jog or run or bike or walk,
to meet the neighbors and have a talk,
to mow her grass or trim her tree–
she seems to live her life through me.

When at night she seeks her rest,
she always favors me the best.
I cushion her at end of day,
listen as she has her say
about her travails, aches and pains
her setbacks and all her gains.
All her secrets I will keep
As she covers me, then goes to sleep.

The Prompt: write a persona poem – a poem in the voice of someone else. Your persona could be a mythological or fictional character, a historical figure, or even an inanimate object.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/barter-system/