Category Archives: Poem

At 74

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At 74

After all the rushing, the extremes and the thrills,
After all the ups and downs, declivities and hills,
I’ve shot enough wild rivers, forded my last rill.
I do not mind the still life, that cup that I must fill.

Though my pace has slackened, still I do not stop
filling up my cup until it’s reached the top.
If it then spills over, what more can I ask?
Dealing with the overflow will be a welcome task.

 

Prompt words today are still, extreme, declivity and brief.

This poem, although it was posted and received some comments, suddenly disappeared overnight and when I woke up this morning, I found it in drafts and completed it, reposting it under a different name. Then, just tonight, Forgottenman found this original version in drafts, where, even though I couldn’t find it there this morning,  it had somehow been mysteriously relocated. So here it is again, with the same opening lines as the second version. Weird, weird. If you want to see the second version of this poem, rewritten this morning and renamed “Everything,” go HERE.

Chi Baba Blues

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Here is the earliest picture I have of me, probably at about 10 months.

 

The prompt from dVerse poets today was to write a poem incorporating the lyrics of a song that was popular on the day you were born. Well, although it isn’t a poem, here is a link to a post I wrote six years ago about the most popular song on the charts on July 3, 1947, the day I was born:

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/02/las-mananitas-and-other-less-lovely-bastardizations-of-a foreign-language/

And, to meet the qualifications of the prompt, here is a poem hastily pounded out today in response:

Chi Baba Blues

It must have been a silly year, the year that I was born,
with music even newborn babies might be driven to scorn.
The fact it was a lullaby, alas, could not atone
for that ugly music spewed out by the gramophone.
“Chi baba, chi baba chihuahua” were hardly words that lulled
and along with all the other lyrics, needed to be culled.
And though I have much gratitude that my mom chose to bear me,
when it comes to this lullaby, I’m glad she chose to spare me:

The #1 song in the U.S. on the day I was born was “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba Chihuahua (My Bambino Go to Sleep) ” by Perry Como.  Although I would advise against it, you can hear it HERE. But after that, please go to the link at the beginning of this post and click on the link to see my rave about its trivialization of and confusion between the Spanish and Italian languages and to hear one of the most beautiful serenades in the Spanish language, imho.

My mom and me. 

 

Here is the link to the dVerse prompt: https://dversepoets.com/

Genetics and the Lack of True Grit

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Genetics and the Lack of True Grit

Documentation passed down from the past
says that since time primordial, folks have been cast
from the genes of their ancestors, first unto last.
Thus, my nose is too long and my forehead is vast.
It’s a truth of genetics that leaves me aghast!
(Yes, I’d alter those features if only I dast,)

 

Prompt words for today are forehead, genetic, primordial, document and vast,
 Image by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash.

In Summation

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In Summation

Words have been my teachers and in their composition,
I’ve found my life’s real purpose. In making them my mission,
I’ve faced my major phobias and without a doubt,
I’ve reined in quite a few of them to somehow work them out.
I have no feelings of regret, no reason to repine.
Of any life that I could choose, I think I’d still choose mine.

 

Prompt words today are composition, repine, teacher and phobia.

Matchless

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Matchless

I fear I am a novice at getting romance right,
for every run I take at love ends up in my flight.
My first love was too cheerful. He was constantly jocund.
His physique was rolly-polly, and in time he grew rotund.

Once I escaped his clutches, I was happier by far,
but my next love was bittersweet, as seconds often are,
for I had found an athlete, less clownish  and much fitter,
but I could not keep up with him, so once more love turned bitter.

After that I tried a lawyer, a butcher, then a teacher,
a roust-about, a cowboy, a restaurateur, a preacher.
But nothing ever seemed to work, for those I found disarming
were the ones that always seemed to find me less than charming.

Somehow I never quite matched up when it came to matching.
Every time I fell in love, it didn’t end up catching.
So all-in-all, much as I love a fond embrace and kiss,
I think that when it comes to love, I’ll just give it a miss.


Fiction, folks…no consolations necessary. Prompt words today are escape, novice, bittersweet, jocund and bitter. 

Words

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Words

By their adjustment,
I change their drift,
but when I alter their lilt,
I am as transformed by them
as they are by me.

I am inebriated by words.
I reel in their power
as they call my bluff.

They reflect the changes in me
I would otherwise not know.
I can float in their buoyant comfort
or shoot the rapids of emotion.

Words are my river and my raft,
my cushion and that daredevil conveyance
into a new stream of thought

from which I never return
to the exact same world
I left from.

 

Prompt words today are bluff, inebriated, adjustment, lilt and shoot. Photo of the Current River in the Ozarks by jdb.

Wild Open Wordle 520, Sept 26, 2021

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Wild Open

The spacious room is open to the clear blue sky.
Waves of grain sway drowsily with a distant sigh.
Somehow, things seem simple in this open place,
everything instilled with a sort of easy grace.
If what you seek is quiet, listen to what I say,
There is no better place to choose to spend your day.

 

Prompt words today are spacious, open, room, blue, say, grace, waves, plains, simple, drowsy, clear, seek. Photo by Forgottenman.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle prompt

“That” Friend Sept 26, 2021

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“That” Friend

My friend is amenable, but she is clueless.
If memories were sticky notes, hers would be glueless.
It seems like her calendar’s up for debate,
and if she shows up, she is, chronically late.

She’s always slow to get the ball rolling
for our monthly date for dinner and bowling.
Her memory’s airy. It blows where it blows.
Her socks are unmatched. There are tags on her clothes.

Her hair is disheveled, and It’s often the case
that traces of night cream are left on her face.
In short, she’s a space case. Her life’s in arrears.
If she were a car, she’d be missing some gears.

We gave up long ago in trying to change her.
We can’t straighten her out or fix or arrange her.
Over the years we’ve become less perplexible
figuring she’s here to keep us more flexible.

 

Prompts for the day are amenable, late, clueless,  airy and bowl. Photo for illustrative purposes only. The friends in this picture are anything but clueless. Not necessarily so for the person in the foreground, however!  ;o)

Wedding Dalliance

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Wedding Dalliance

Though it’s a lovely wedding, after the seventh toast,
you’re tired of the well-wishing and each new smart riposte.

You’ve had too much champagne. You can’t face another bubble,
so you ask for a martini and say, “Make it a double!”

You’re fatigued by the spectacle and need to get some air,
so you wander to the terrace to view the cloudscapes there.

Your shoes are less than comfortable, so you slip them off,
 and find that you are lost in dreams when you hear the cough 

of an interloper who has joined you in escape—
another wedding attendee who’s come outside to gape.

He joins you at the railing and elbows you for room,
and before you know it, you are flirting with the groom!

When you feel his arms around you, you take it in your stride.
You’ll have no regrets later, for luckily, you’re the bride!

 

Prompt for today are cloudscapes, attend, spectacle, riposte and comfortable. Image by Marcus Lewis on Unsplash.

Leftover Nightmares: Weekly Wordle 519

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Leftover Nightmares

Sharp teeth of moths that daily fray the fabric of my dreaming
through the faulty screens of youth continue to come streaming.
Will nothing seek to stop their flights and free me from my dread
of lines of dusty millers that by rights should now be dead?

I try to curb my memory—the dull sheen of their eyes
as they fly slowly toward me in their moth disguise.
All those evil prairie spirits, rising from the grass
to find me after midnight and fill my dreams enmasse.

 

This poem is partially memory, partially fiction. The flutter of Miller moths, the adult form of the cutworm, are so much a part of my growing up on the prairies of South Dakota that I named my first book, “Prairie Moths.”  Then when I built my own house in Wyoming, moths again rose to swarm around me–so many that I had to light ceiling bulbs at night and put large bowls of sudsy water under the lightbulbs to trap the moths by the hundreds to free my house from them. So, although the surviving nightmares of moths are completely exaggerated, the theme is authentic, brought out by this week’s Wordle prompts. Prompt words today are daily, sheen, rights,  try, nothing, sharp, moth, fray, free, line, seeks and streaming.

For The Sunday Whirl Weekly Wordle Prompt 519