Dry Eyes
Your eyes were dust, mine were a flood.
The combination, a mire of mud
that we somehow wound up in.
You blamed it on original sin,
but I, agnostic to the core,
had wisdom to walk out the door
to spend my tears on other guys.
Never trust a guy with arid eyes.
The prompt word today was arid.
Shooting Stars
We were both so young and nimble
on those nights the world would tremble
with a touch, much less a kiss.
You a farm boy, me a miss
unaccustomed to such things
that woke my heart and gave it wings.
Some part of me knew even then
it was just what might have been—
that though you made my body sing,
it was not an ever-after thing.
Still, oh those nights, remembered still,
parked somewhere on a prairie hill,
I knew for then I was your world,
enraptured and securely curled
In the nest of puppy love.
The very stars trembled above.
The prompt today was tremble.
jdb photo
Cross My Heart
I’m counting steps from one to ten,
across my heart, them back again
to see the places it has been.
First loves were merely friends and kin
before my heart first snagged on men.
Then well do I remember when
the swell of love turned into wen.
The cure of it beyond my ken,
with all my pain I filled my pen,
then released it on the page again.
Once cured, I uttered an “Amen,”
discovered the i ching and Zen.
Turned into a comedienne,
and sought to leave love’s gambling den.
In truth, though, that was there and then.
So now, as through my heart I wend,
I wish that love might never end.
I seek once more its tricky bend.
To welcome in, the heart must rend,
which causes pain, but oh my dears,
a lover’s breath will dry those tears.
The prompt today is “crossing.”
Meat Market Surprise
Her low-cut dress clearly bespoke
her dire need to meet a bloke.
When she removed her swathing cloak,
a dozen men at once awoke
from barroom reveries to choke
on swallows of their Rum and Coke
or beer or whisky. “Okeedoke!”
their eyes said, as they shared the joke.
Which one would have the night’s best poke?
One chugged his drink, as if to stoke
his courage. One more took a toke.
They circled round, craving the yoke
of one night’s spree–perhaps a soak
in penthouse hot tub most Baroque?
Then, as though wishes could invoke
more luck, a mini-skirt and toque-
clad example of fine womanfolk
appeared , more passions to provoke—
another goddess made to evoke
a duel, heart attack or stroke!
But then, alas, their bubbles broke
as she sauntered up and pulled an oak
stool to the bar and spoke.
Her voice was sultry—fire and smoke—
as she killed their dreams in one fell stroke.
“Darling,” she said to the other miss,
enfolding her in an ardent kiss.
The prompt word today is “bespoke.”
Bloggers know this, but today I’m just reminding us all that best friends need not always be close at hand or even living in the same country. I’m leaving in a few hours to fly back to Mexico. My bags are packed and for the first time, although they are stuffed to the zippers, I’m leaving the U.S. with the same number of bags with which I left Mexico. What I’m not taking back with me are all the close friends and relatives who have made the rigors of traveling worth it. Prime among them is someone you’ve gotten to know a bit during these last few weeks of my trip. A bit of an agoraphobe, he has nonetheless not only paid host to me in his home but has also driven me through six states to visit other loved ones. I release him now, back to his computer and the grass that I am sure he’ll be mowing tomorrow. Oh, and to Little Duck, for whom he has sole custody, while I merely have visiting rights. Although he goes by the name of okcforgottenman on his blog, he is far from forgotten.
Just Testing
If I were to choose from all the rest,
you are the one who’d ace the test.
You left your warm and comfy nest
to drive around at my behest.
I do not say it often, lest
you come to see me as a pest,
but though we tease and joke and jest,
you are the one I love the best.
The prompt word today was “test.”
jdbphoto
Racing Man
I’ve parked you in my dreams
where you sit sputtering,
engine racing,
ready to be off
over the next hill.
As always,
reaching to release the parking brake,
adjusting the seat back,
never noticing the rear-vision mirror
is slightly off-kilter.
Then and Now
First Love
Zing! went our heartstrings. Zang! went our souls.
Eyes filled with wonder, hearts cupped like bowls
ready to fill with passion and love.
Putting each other on like a glove.
First kisses miracles we’d never known.
No longer single all on our own.
Someone to cuddle, someone to spoon.
Hand holds and lip locks over too soon.
Misunderstandings, squabbles and fights.
Heartbreak and lonely Saturday nights.
Then a new glance from cars “U”ing main.
Flirting and wooing all over again.
More hugs and kisses parked on a hill.
How to forget them? We never will.
At school reunions, we relive those lives,
husbands beside us, or boyfriends or wives.
Talking of other things: study halls, games,
but always remembering carving those names
in desktops and memory—first loves forever—
tendrils that bind us that we cannot sever.
We’ll soar ahead to the rest of our lives,
collecting new memories—bees in our hives.
But no honey finer than that we made first.
No sweeter lips and no stronger thirst.
Stored in our hearts, remembered but hidden,
hoarded like treasures sealed in a midden,
our lives are made richer by both now and then.
Past memories opening over again
spill out old secrets, then seal them away
to be unwrapped on some future day
when old schoolmates meet for two days’ reminiscing
of school pranks and ballgames and homework. And kissing.
The prompt word today was “Zing.”
Two Poems from a Night with No Moon
I wrote these poems two years ago, but I had forgotten them, so perhaps even if you read them then, you have forgotten them, too.
This Night is Broken
With all of its sounds
spilled out,
someone else’s sounds
echo around it.
The space inside of it
is broken, too.
Only the constant rain
seeks to fill it.
Falling Practice
Twice on the stairs last week
and once in the kitchen—
lately, these falls
have been coming in threes.
Tonight in the moonless dark, I tripped
over the low metal bench beside the hot tub.
Then a loud bang sent me searching
to find the heavy husk fallen from the palm tree.
I do not venture out alone again,
but sit on the patio
in the light of my laptop,
hoping to escape the third fall.
Your face on the screen turns green
from the reflection of the string
of Chinese lanterns
as we succumb to hard truths.
I fell in love with you so quickly,
but even all these falls
have not taught me how
to fall out of love with you.
The Prompt today was “Moon“
Staircase
I really did not mean to stare
when I saw you standing there,
but there was sunlight in your hair.
It was tangled. Your feet were bare.
It was a lovely sight and rare
as, seemingly without a care,
you stood above me on the stair.
And though I wished to, I didn’t dare
climb up to see how you might fare.
Instead, my wretched form I bore
down the staircase and out the door.
Since then, you are that thing of lore
that resides within my core.
I still remember what you wore.
I lie awake. I pace the floor––
trying nightly to restore
at one, at two, at three, at four––
the vision of you one time more.
I cannot work. I cannot eat.
I see your hair the hue of wheat,
your wrinkled dress, your naked feet,
and cannot help but feel defeat;
because even in ardor’s heat,
my courage to ascend and greet
thee, and to make my life replete,
never ascends above your street,
never accomplishes the feat.
And that is why I’m in your hall
wondering if I have the gall
to stand up brave and sure and tall
and ring your doorbell––to make the call.
I put my ear against your wall,
but I can hear no sound at all.
Indecision casts its gloomy pall.
I hesitate. I pause. I stall.
I do not shoot. I bounce the ball.
Though all my fears I seek to quell,
my words are prisoners in a cell,
and though I have rehearsed them well
and have the key to where they dwell,
my thoughts of what to say won’t gel.
I stand here in my private Hell.
A deathly dirge begins to knell.
I raise my hand. I ring the bell
and steel myself––this tale to tell.
Today’s NaPoWriMo Prompt was to write a “mix-and-match” poem in which you mingle fancy, poetic vocabulary with distinctly un-fancy words.
After the Honeymoon
Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.
It is flowering, our ordinary world.
peanut butter sandwiches
and corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.
If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
You are diaphanous in your kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.
For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.
Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
leaving my bride, my fairy princess.
My pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of my wick,
the cooker of my sausage.
My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, my little zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
you are still my camellia and my rose.
I think of you under lindens,
your footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and your cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.
If you are curious, here is the list of words I made up to use before I wrote the poem:
bated, penultimate, scintillating, vaporous, tyrolean, fragile, throbbing, majestic, cloud, magical, fragile, fairylike, vaporous, birdsong, flowering, verdant, diaphanous, star-studded,dreamlike, rose strewn, elfin, birdsong, Zephyrus, pulsating, silence, hush, tra la la, turgid, verdant, rosebuds, camellias, lindens, pastoral, heavenward, pulsating, sartorial.
gas tank, hammer, shopping list, dog food, can opener, wrench, pillow slip, garden hose, scrub brush, dishwasher, washcloth, comb, Ziplock bag, pencil, phonograph needle, emery board, shoelace, eyelash, curtain rod, stapler, bubble gum, Oreo cookie, peanut butter, corned beef sandwich , sauerkraut, blander, fingernail clippers, measuring stick, pencil sharpener, gas tank, shoe polish, Dodge truck, table saw, ski boot, cowboy boot, bra strap, ironing board, dill pickle,
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 