Category Archives: Poem

Memory Care

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jdb photo

Memory Care

I’m tumbling backwards into silence.
My words have lost their spark.
When I seek enlightenment,
I’m only met by dark.

When I try to pick a theme, 
my thoughts quickly retreat.
Looking for a place to rest,
they rarely find a seat.

Where do memories go to 
when they cannot find a door—
when there’s no exit for them, 
and there’s no room for more?

Does our memory simply melt
starting with today
so the things that we remember
are only yesterday?

Do we wander empty corridors
or is our distant past
our favorite thing to think about
so they’re the thoughts that last?

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about dementia lately, but no, I don’t feel I’m describing myself in this poem. I am, however, trying to put myself in my sister Betty’s place to try to figure out what might be going through her mind…or what in her mind she might be going through. Certainly, we all have enough memories stored to entertain ourselves for life, and perhaps as we run out of room it is the last memories, more seldom thought of, that vanish first, leaving us with a rich inner world we are loath to leave. I hope this is true, or that we go back to a state of consciousness similar to where an infant exists before it is born, listening to the mystery of outside sounds and wondering where we are going to fit into them. Without words, are there thoughts? Unfortunately, not all mysteries are solved.

Prompts today were spark, pick, silence and backward. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/rdp-tuesday-spark/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/28/fowc-with-fandango-pick/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/your-daily-word-prompt-silence-may-28-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/backward/

Shelter: Portrait for Weekend Mini Challenge

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In front of Murdo Drug Store.

Shelter

On the prairies of Dakota, 
weather often came with exclamation marks.
My father’s forehead was ringed like an old tree,
white from above his eyebrows to his fast-retreating hairline,
from his hat pulled low to guard from every vagary of weather.
“It’s hot as the hubs of Hell!” he’d exclaim as he sank into his chair at noon,
sweeping his hat from his head to mop his brow.
A nap after lunch, then Mack’s Cafe for coffee with his friends,
then back to work in the field until dark, some days.

“Cold as a witch’s teat in January!” was as close to swearing 
as I ever heard my dad get, November through March,
stomping the snow off rubber
overboots in the garage, tracking snow from his cuffs through the mudroom/laundry.
Cold curled like Medusa’s ringlets off his body.
We learned to avoid his hands,
red with winter, nearly frozen inside his buckskin gloves.

His broad-brimmed hat, steaming near the fireplace
as we gathered around the big formica table in the dining room.
Huge beef roasts from our own cattle, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Always a lettuce salad and dessert. The noon meal was “dinner”—
main meal of the day.
Necessary for a farmer/rancher who had a full day’s work still ahead of him.

Our weather was announced by our father
with more color than the radio weather report.
Spring was declared by his, “Raining cats and dogs out there!”
Only now have I really thought about how we were protected
from the vagaries of weather as from so much else.
It was a though my father bore the brunt of all of it, facing it
for us, easing our way. It was his job.

We were sheltered, all of us,
from those extremes of that land I didn’t even know was harsh
until years later, living in milder climates,
remembering the poetry
of how a man who really lived in it
gave us hints of its reality.

 

This is an extensive rewrite of a poem published earlier this year, redone for a prompt given by the weekend mini challenge  to create a portrait with words that is based on a photograph or painting of a person.

Memory Games

19 Replies

Memory Games

My memory’s in jeopardy of growing rather fuzzy.
I can’t remember punch lines like “He wasn’t fuzzy, wuzzy?”
Quips like “Betty Botter bought a bit of bitter butter”
used to fly right off my tongue, but now they sit and flutter.

It’s true my thoughts surround me but they won’t assume an order.
It is as though instead I have become a memory hoarder
with stacks of memories piled up in my halls of memory
where perhaps I could still find them—if I had the energy.

But as is, names aren’t stacked near where my face recall is kept,
so when I meet acquaintances, I’m chillingly inept
at sorting out the names to go with their familiar faces.
This trying to put face with name sure puts me through my paces!

Somehow the very minute I recognize a face,
its name flies out the window, so I hasten up my pace
to scurry ’round the corner before they might see me.
It’s not my heart avoiding them. Just blame my memory!

The only reassurance in all this memory Hell
is that lately I have noticed others scrambling as well,
so perhaps it isn’t only me who’s exercising guile
trying to avoid my friends in the grocery aisle.

Prompts today were memory, jeopardy, surround and fuzzy. Links below:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/24/rdp-friday-memory/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/24/fowc-with-fandango-jeopardy/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/24/your-daily-word-prompt-surround-may-24-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/24/fuzzy/

Drama Queen

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Photo by Matthew T. Rader on Unsplash

Drama Queen

Your disingenuous comments come off as less than real.
In fact, I can’t help thinking you display more than you feel.
You feign blustery emotions. You fuss and you emote,
and yet your words seem bigger than the feelings they denote.
Your dialogue is fervent. You shout and plead and bleat,
but I’m afraid your fiery comments seem to lack real heat.
Before further encounters and angst-filled future sessions,
may I make a suggestion? I’d suggest acting lessons.

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/20/fowc-with-fandango-disingenuous/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/rdp-monday-blustery/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/your-daily-word-prompt-fervent-may-20-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/fog/

Travel Primer

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Travel Primer

We wander narrow alleyways in countries that are foreign—
negotiate their tunnels, like rabbits in a warren.
We do not pay attention as we ogle and we gawk
who may follow closely—who may observe and stalk.
We are naive travelers. We’re innocents abroad.
One listens to our narratives, then signals with a nod
just as we are reaching to try to reimburse,
for another watcher to swoop down on our purse.
Then they’re off down alleyways where we are loath to go
where they’ll have their own adventures—financed by our dough.

 

 

Today’s prompts were stalk, abroad, narrative and foreign. Links are here:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/rdp-sunday-stalk/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/19/fowc-with-fandango-abroad/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/your-daily-word-prompt-narrative-may-19-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/foreign/

Midnight Misunderstanding

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Midnight Misunderstanding

You wrote your pattern on my soul
and carved my heart into a bowl
punctured to catch the esoteric
and let drain all the hysteric
words and anger loosed at night
when at last they came to light
let flow by that spirit’s brew
that turns you into more than you.

Friends found it quizzical at best
that you would be the one to wrest
my heart from back there on the shelf
where I’d stored it in myself.
It is a virtual mystery—
this how I found the you in me
that let me fold myself away
when your mother held her sway,

invading you with anger that
you loosed on me, like tit for tat.
Thus parents birth the very beast
that is what turns out to be least
of what their children might have wanted.
And it leaves us shamed and daunted
to see within ourselves what we
never thought could ever be

passed down from mother unto son
so that when her day was done
she could live on in infamy
through what he’d learned at mother’s knee.
And likewise, I have come to be
what my father passed to me,
retreating in the dark of night
to avoid mother’s bark and bite.

It is as though our parents battled
while we skulk, puzzled and addled
in those parts where when we dare
we perfectly convene to share
those parts of us fully our own
where our natures, fully blown,
meet in a more playful vein
over matters less inane.

The crux of it is this, my dear:
when you rage and bite, I fear,
retreating to another place
where I do not need to face
those dictums passed down by your hands
when you fire off your demands.
At heart, I know it isn’t you.
You’ve merely dropped the other shoe.

The first was one your mother dropped.
It was the second one that plopped
off your foot. Then I sneaked in
to nudge it from where it had been
to hide it underneath the bed
so later, with a clearer head,
we might be who we really are
without those shadow sides to mar
what we know in reason’s glare.
We are the perfect damaged pair!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/rdp-saturday-patterns/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/18/fowc-with-fandango-quizzical/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/your-daily-word-prompt-esoteric-may-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/virtual/

Love Triangle (Wherein Priscilla Mullins Speaks Candidly to John Alden)

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Love Triangle
(Wherein Priscilla Mullins Speaks Candidly to John Alden)

How is it that you come to me today at his behest?
If your nature were more cynical, I’d say it was a jest
that the one for whom affection beats so surely in my breast
approaches asking favor for another suitor’s quest.
Have you, John, decided that you will seek a rest
from your own fond yearnings, abandoning them lest
your friend and fellow suitor’s hopes you might arrest? 
Your words are an anomaly that put me to the test,
yet up is never down, my love, and east is never west.
Forsake the words there on your lips. Convey what you’ve repressed.
It’s our initials on the linen in my wedding chest!
I’ll don my veil and you, dear one, will don your wedding vest.
You’ll graduate from best man simply to the man who’s best,
and instead of groom your friend will be our honored wedding guest.

 

(After “The Courtship of Miles Standish” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The only concise plot summary I could find was from a film based on the poem, but  the plot line is the same. Illustration from The Courtship of Miles Standish. The famous retort in the poem when John acts as Miles Standish’s go-between is, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”)

 

Today’s words were graduate, anomaly, cynical and jest. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/rdp-friday-graduate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/17/fowc-with-fandango-anomaly/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/your-daily-word-prompt-cynical-may-17-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/jest/

Winning

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Winning

Any athlete worth his salt
can row or shoot or ski or vault,
balance, skate or box or splash,
hurdle, sprint, relay or dash.

But I find it curious
that all these actions furious
do not bring us closer to
what mankind really needs to do.

Instead of trying to beat each other,
overcome, defeat each other,
trying for cooperation
among each competing nation

just might serve to be a sample
that could be a good example
for the politicians who
do not seem to have a clue

of how to share our planet’s wealth.
Instead, by cunning, war and stealth,
they seek to get more than their share
of minerals and food and air.

What irony that they can’t see
how much better it would be
if we just learned it’s cheaper to
expand our neighborhood to view

every color, every nation
every man of every station
each the same as every other–
everyone as sister, brother.

There’s enough richness, if we dare
to treat the world as though we care
for every country, every nation
as one giant congregation

and not a game wherein we choose
that one or the other has to lose.

The words for today were splash, curious, irony and vault. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/rdp-wednesday-splash/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/15/fowc-with-fandango-curious/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/your-daily-word-prompt-irony-may-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/vault/

East Meets West

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East Meets West

I’m fueled by fire yet pulled by the moon.
Everything used up too soon, oh too soon.
I’m a pig by my nature. I want it all.
I love my home, yet hear the world’s call.
Adventure and travel I had in full measure,
but now it’s my home that affords me my pleasure.
Nesting, then flying patterns my past.
Change chasing change in the past was a blast.
But now I prefer for the nesting to last.
As a crab in my shell, my future is cast.

Born a fire pig according to the Chinese calendar, western astrology brands me as a water sign—moonchild—crab. In the last quarter of my life, I would say that water has quenched fire, but of course all of these elements reside within us always. I just now find more sedate ways to express them.

For dVerse Poets.

Luxury

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Luxury

I am alive.
Loud morning birds
give testimony to the fact,
and I have started again to write this book
after a lapse of one year.
I sing to celebrate
two miracles,
my backup chorus
fading out behind me
as I warble
my extreme pleasure
in being chosen
to participate
in this wonderful world
and in having the luxury
to write
about
it.

 

https://aroused.blog/2019/05/11/friday-fun-luxury/