Category Archives: Poem

“Unscheduled Visitor ” for : Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule for Aug 5

9 Replies

This blog was posted  on this date (Aug 55) in 2017. I am reposting it for the prompt,”Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule.”

 

Unscheduled Visitor

I hear a rapid rapping and I’m wondering, “Who is it?”
It’s too early in the morning for a casual drop-in visit.
I’m still in my pajamas and the dogs and cats aren’t fed.
How can company be calling while I’m still here in bed?

The knocking is insistent but I have no way to spy
upon whatever passer-by refuses to pass by.
My intercom is broken, so I call out from the door,
“Who is it?” but it’s obvious they aren’t there anymore.

I wander back to bed again, feeling somewhat tense.
Only when I’m sleeping does the knocking recommence.
“Who is it?” I scream out again, accenting every vowel.
The dogs sense my frustration and they begin to howl.

My bedroom sliders are open, so my voice soars over the wall.
Any passerby could hear if they could hear at all.
But still nobody answers. This Saturday morning’s still.
There are no other noises up here on my hill.

No car horns and no dog barks. No children’s noisy play.
No birdcalls. No construction to mar this quiet day.
Except for my invectives as the rappings start again—
louder, oh much louder than they have ever been.

As I charge out of my front door, I grab for an umbrella—
in case I need a weapon to fight off some unknown fella
intent on ruining my day, but when I turn the key
and open wide my front wall gate, there’s no one there but me!

I roar in my frustration. The whole town must hear my wails.
I throw that damn umbrella. Over the wall it sails.
I stalk back to my room and pull the covers over my head,
praying for more silence, but what I get instead

is the steady rat-tat-tatting that now upon reflection
seems to emanate from a different direction.
I draw aside my bedroom drapes and wonder, “What the heck?”
sweeping my sight across my yard, I finally crane my neck

and see it far up in a palm—an industrious woodpecker
whose ruthless drilling is the thing that’s been my sleep-in wrecker!
I cannot throw a shoe at him for I can’t throw that far.
If I tried to knock a golf ball up, I’d be far over par.

At last I view with humor this ridiculous affair,
and so I pull on Levis and smooth my ruffled hair.
I shuffle off to feed the dogs, the kittens and the cat
and just accept as music this rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

 

The prompt today is casual.

12 comments
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    I Love this! Beautiful writing!!!
    

    

    

    

    

    

    

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    lifelessons
    

    

    lifelessons
    

    

    

    

    

    Thanks so much. After I finished the poem he/she continued his knocking into the afternoon.
    

    

    

    

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    Christine Goodnough
    

    

    Christine Goodnough
    

    

    

    

    

    One morning a woodpecker aroused me from my comfy recliner by hammering intermittently on the steel chimney cap of our wood stove. I thought someone was banging on the pipes!
    

    

    

    

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    slmret
    

    

    slmret
    

    

    

    

    

    It’s a long time since I’ve heard a woodpecker! This is a wonderful poem, and a great photo of your visitor!
    

    

    

    

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				Hesitation, for dVerse Poets
			

										

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Hesitation




As I recite my Sunday Psalms,

two butterflies alight like balms

upon the leper’s outstretched palms.


Thus nature intervenes and calms

the remainder of my qualms.

I fill the beggar’s hands with alms.


 


For the dVerse prompt today, Merril inspired us to write about butterflies.

See how others responded to the prompt HERE.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				The Journey Within for dVerse Poets
			

										

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A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. ~George Moore


This quote says succinctly what I have been saying to friends lately.  I no longer feel the push to travel but would rather stay home and think and write.  At first this made me feel old and then I started to realize that it is in the natural order of things to seek and then reflect.  It is not just a question of energy, but more a matter of the direction of one’s curiosity.  The more I traveled, the more I found that things do not vary that much.  Everywhere I’ve gone, the same personalities are sprinkled over the landscape.  Only the landscape and the percentages change.  Once you’ve found a place where there are the greatest number of people who appreciate you for who you really are, you have found home.  Then the task is to go inwards. That is where the real journey exists.


The longest journey

that I have ever gone on

is within myself.


For Haibun Monday the prompt is “Journeying.”

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Wanderlust, for Rewind: Posts from Previous Years for Aug 2
			

										

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Wanderlust


When I was a little girl, no more than just a snip,

I longed to be up in the air or on a sailing ship.

I lusted for adventure––for travel and for more.

I brooded over my dull life––such a crushing bore.

At five I was a dreamer. A backyard visionary.

I imagined me as gypsy, tourist or missionary.

My fantasies weren’t random. In all of them I traveled.

Year after year more restless and wandering dreams unraveled.


Tarzan was my hero and Superman my crush––

their journeys through the jungle or air currents a rush.

I longed for all their freedom––to fly and move at will.

All of their adventures dreamed from my windowsill.

All night I took such pilgrimages over hills and ridges,

crossing raging rivers over extension bridges.

At sixteen I sneaked out at night in my father’s car

and drove for hours through the night, going just so far


that I could be back home before he arose at five

to snuggle back into my bed in our familial hive.

Then slowly I transitioned into who I longed to be.

I swung down from the branches of my family tree.

Trips to far-off places: Australia and Japan,

Africa, Sri Lanka, Bali and Bataan

all came true. As time passed, I ended the charade

of my stationary life and joined the grand parade.


The world one grand excursion, for many years I quested,

thinking that the life that I was born to could be bested,

until at last I learned the truth that what I journeyed for

was simply to unlock the lock and open up that door

that led me deep into myself to find that private world

that lived inside me all those years, so securely curled

that I only found it by first venturing afar.

Thus do we wander far afield to discover who we are.




This was a post from Aug 2, 2019




					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				“Daily News” for the Sunday Whirl Wordle
			

										

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Daily News


Voices from the underworld weave in spirals through my dreams

like a current passing through my bones, prompting silent screams

that echo through the temples of my former faith,

their desolate chambers now the home of this hopeless wraith.

Sparks of past enlightenment now simply shed sparse light

in this pit of loneliness whose shadows fade to night.

What dreams may I yet follow to light my upward path

Dispelling enough darkness to cancel out my wrath?


for the Sunday Whirl Wordle #768, the prompt words are: screams desolate temples bone sparks pit voices follow underworld spiral weave current

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				“I (Don’t) Pardon Your French” for Word of the Day
			

										

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I (Don’t) Pardon Your French


I’m a hayseed sort of girl. I don’t believe in fancy.

To me, anything foreign is likely to be chancy.

I don’t eat things like escargot. I shudder at foie gras.

I buy my shoes in canvas, but never peau de soie.

When folks speak French to order food, I find it most pretentious,

and when they draw me into it, I’ll likely grow contentious.

I don’t like words that prettify. I view them angrily.

Like au courant, je ne sais quoi, pardon or vis-á -vis.

Why don’t folks just eat and say what comes naturally?

I think it’s done to irritate simple gals like me!


The Word of the Day is Pardon. Illustration created making use of AI.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Necromancer’s Oversight for “Can You Write a Story in 51 Words?”
			

										

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Necromancer’s Oversight


A type of evil second-chancer,

he became a necromancer,

nibbling cookies with a yawn

as he resurrected the devil’s spawn,

never considering whether

it was fine or stormy weather.

So, yesterday Beelzebub 

showed up dripping at the pub,

for his usual vacation,

minus his evil elation,

fire put out by precipitation.


 


For her prompt for “Can You Tell A Story In. . . .” this week, Esther wants us to write a story in 51 words including these words: YAWN, WEATHER, TOOT, COOKIES, NECROMANCER. (In case you have forgotten,  as I did, a necromancer is a person who practices magic to communicate with the dead, raise corpses, or use black magic.)


Illustration created making use of AI.


 

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Family Harvest for “Cracking Open the Time Capsule.”
			

										

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For “Cracking Open the Content Tme Capsule, we were to revisit 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!










lifelessons






lifelessons

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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
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  • 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]
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  • The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject’s name.
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				“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.”