Category Archives: Poem

Family Harvest for “Cracking Open the Time Capsule.”

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For “Cracking Open the Content Tme Capsule, we were to evisit our posts from this day, July 31. This post is from 2016.

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Family Harvest

Sanguine, he was charismatic,
while she was choleric and emphatic;
so when their child was born phlegmatic,
the mother found his moods too static
while the father ruled his wife fanatic:
too moody, crabby and dramatic.

Their melancholic second child,
both parents found to be too mild.
Too analytical and quiet,
they put her on a special diet
of jalapenos in her suppers
and other culinary uppers.

Still, she grew up to be a judge,
while their eldest remained hard to budge.
Too relaxed to find employment,
he lacked the necessary deployment––
preferring to stay safe at home,
as lifeless as a garden gnome.

With dad the life of every party
and mother volatile and arty,
their family life slowly eroded.
Then one day, simply exploded.
Each unique personality
split off to be what they could be.

Thus would sage Hippocrates
class this familial demise
as differences in temperament.
Each following his special bent,
once fallen from the family tree,
did best when allowed to roll free.

Four temperaments is a proto-psychological theory that suggests that there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine (optimistic and social), choleric (short-tempered or irritable), melancholic (analytical and quiet), and phlegmatic (relaxed and peaceful).––Wikipedia

Blast from the Past, July 30, 2018

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On this date 8 years ago, we were asked to write a Clerihew.  I wrote several, which are below. You can also find a definition of the Clerihew there. Thanks for viewing this Blast from the Past!

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lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

 

It may be I will live to rue
the day I wrote each clerihew.
They may invite derisive snorts,
yet here they are with all their warts:

The word is out that Geoffrey Chaucer
never bothered with a saucer,
for though he raised many a couplet,
he always held them fully uplet!

Some have charged Truman Capote
with writing that is too emotey.
but though he was no macho stud,
I know that he wrote in cold blood.A clerihew has the following properties:

  • It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it mostly pokes fun at famous people
  • It has four lines of irregular length and metre (for comic effect)
  • The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English languages[2]
  • The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject’s name.

“Reminder” for RDP

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Reminder

This morning, upon awakening,
I kissed my pillow and imagined it was you.
There was no sadness in the act.
It was a simple act of adulation.

If there had been a real person here,
I would wish that it were you,
but I’m content here in my solitude—
writing tributes to past lovers—

a bit puffier (me, not you)
than even that last time we met.
When I waken, joints are stiffer,
the cat more crabby in demands for food.

I wouldn’t say time marches on.
It turns its pages, shifts its screens.
The world, more innovative since the Internet,
spins us a new tale second by second.

Vicariously, we speed through life.
Other people’s lives become our own.
We feed ourselves and perform daily functions,
our minds in one world and our bodies in another.

In that manner,
one thing substitutes for the other.
Over and over, like shuffled cards.
This reality and that one.

Upon awakening, I kiss my pillow—
not a conscious act. Not one I will repeat.
A simpler act and one unplanned
to remind myself, perhaps, what’s in my heart.

For Ragtag Daily Prompt, Wednesday, the prompt is “Puffy.”

“Stirring the Pot” for FOWC

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Stirring the Pot

Chunks and grains swirl round and round. They form a muddy mass.
I keep my paddle churning them as I turn on the gas.
As all the chunks and  bits melt down, the volume now decreases.
I watch the whole mess carefully. My vigilance increases.
I see it all congealing—an oily inky sludge
that after lengthy stirring finally turns to fudge!
This horrid, bubbling, lumpy goo that appeared so pernicious,
in the end turns into something creamy, rich, delicious.

For FOWC the prompt is “Decrease.”

Baby’s First Soda Pop for “Lets Hit Rewind” for July 28.

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Couldn’t resist rerunning this July 28, 2016 blog for the Rewind prompt:

Version 2

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Baby’s First Soda Pop

When finally a kid is poppable,
once the bottle is untoppable,
the overflow may be unstoppable.
It’s fortunate the floor is moppable!

Care-less for dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge

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Care-less

Lately I don’t give a thought to what I’m going to wear,
and I’ve let my hair grow down to my derriere.
No longer do the men I meet ever stop to stare,
but it doesn’t bother me. I simply do not care.


The dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt today is “Care.” To see other responses to the prompt, go HERE. Image created with AI.

“Panic” for Take A Look Back.

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The prompt for “Take a Look Bacj” is to look back at what I published on this day, July 27, on an earlier year in my blog. I chose this poem published in 2016:. True now as then.

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Panic!!!

When I was younger and a rover,
the things I should have panicked over
never seemed to stick to me.
I guess that’s part of being free.

But now with bigger guns and Isis,
we all feel continual crisis.
Though it’s true, I must confess,
I overlook the world’s grand mess

and concentrate on creaking knees
and where I left my ring of  keys.
As I get older, I would guess,
I’ll feel more panic over less.

“Successful Crossing” For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767

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Successful Crossing

I crossed the wilds, my staff in hand,
the first to conquerl this wild land.
My hood in place to combat the sun,
I would not stop until I’d done
the task I’d set to cross this space
that had been the burial place
of so many, from first to last,
who had found their lot was cast
as they had tried, only to find
the task to be a hopeless grind:
trails split by crevasses deep and wide,
cliff ledges with no room to slide
back to cliff, from right to left
across the mountain’s mighty cleft.
As said before, so many failed––
died in the act, or merely bailed.
Only I succeeded, by machination
to cross in my imagination.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767 the prompt words are: wild cross left staff last split burial grind space land room hood

The Wall, for Crimsons Creative Challenge

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The Wall

I cannot follow
where these lost parts of me go––
these thoughts, wishes,
aspirations
that I surrender to the wall.

It is not by choice, you know,
that I sit here facing what
has  been leached out of my life.

I go on living what life I can,
knowing that in time
all of me will finally
flow into the wall.

So much of what has kept me engaged in life
has already  gone into that gray world
where I cannot yet follow.
I’ve lost so much ambition to it—
and hope and curiosity.

Now I sit here, facing it,
acknowledging my failure
as well as the wall’s exclusivity.
Only my shadow
cast against it
reminds me that
somewhere behind me
there is a sun.

For  Crimsons Creative Challenge

“When I Was Young and Limber” for Thursday Inspiration

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Watching kids in the playground

When I was young and limber and given to wild rambles,
I came home from my wanderings complete with burrs and brambles.
I shed them on the carpets, I shared them via towels.
Never taking credit for the curses, shrieks and howls.
I thought my lovely meanderings among the fields and ditches
were worth the sacrifice of things brought in on my britches.

For Thursday Inspiration, the prompt is “Young.”