Category Archives: Poem

You Want Us to Write about What???

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The Prompt: Voice Work—Your blog is about to be recorded into an audiobook. If you could choose anyone — from your grandma to Samuel L. Jackson — to narrate your posts, who would it be?

You Want Us To Write About What???

This prompt is simply for the birds.
It can be answered with two words!
The worth of it, I’m just not buyin,’
so I’ll just tell you that Meg Ryan
Is the one that I’d have voice
my blog if I were given the choice.
My reasons, though, are somewhat murky.
Perhaps, because her voice is quirky
with humor and variety
that seems to exclude piety.
However, I think this won’t be.
I doubt I could afford her fee!

Mob Sob

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The Prompt: Moved to Tears—Do movies, songs, or other forms of artistic expression easily make you cry? Tell us about a recent tear-jerking experience!

Mob Sob

I know that it is corny—sorta sentimental
and probably some cruel folks might even call me mental,
but something about people gathering together
in protected malls or out there in the weather
to dance or sing or orchestrate, coming one-by-one
has the effect of making me come totally undone.
First a knot forms in my throat. Then I start to sigh.
And then (I must admit to you) flash mobs make me cry!

To that first person dancing or with a violin
there soon comes another, anxious to join in.
Another and another, in singles or a pair
send chills right up my spine to exit through my hair.
They dance and sing, play music and entertain us all.
We stop what we are doing as we are held in thrall.
Babes on daddy’s shoulders or holding grandpa’s hand
cease at once their walking to sit or lean or stand
to watch this little miracle that folks have orchestrated
only for the wonder of it—rare and understated.

No flyers advertise them. They seem to be spontaneous,
though months of planning go into what seems like instantaneous
gathering together to have a spot of fun
creating such a spectacle. Then suddenly, it’s done.
One by one they leave us—go into their own lives
like swarms of busy honey bees retreating to their hives.
I don’t know why they do it, who starts them all or why.
I only know that flash mobs always make me cry!

If you want to see a sterling example of what prompted this poem, please click on this link!

Casting Reality

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The Prompt: Cast Change—You’ve just been named the casting director of your favorite television show (or movie franchise). The catch: you must replace the entire cast — with your friends and family. Who gets which role?

Casting Reality

Instead of casting TV shows with folks you’ll never know
I’d rather cast my life with actors from a TV show
that all of you have seen and so you’ll understand the jokes
better than if I had cast TV with common folks.

A lot of Grandpa Walton might go into making Dad—
plus one ounce of Archie Bunker (though he wasn’t half so bad).
He was a rugged rancher and an avid storyteller.
One day he’d recite Shakespeare and the other, he would beller
a song of mountain bootleggers or “Old Chief Buffalo Nickel,”
then construct towering sandwiches and top them with a pickle.
So I’d add some Leon Redbone and a bit of old Mark Twain,
a little bit of Dagwood and a whole lot of John Wayne.

Though my mother cooked and ironed, often with no thanks,
she also was a jokester who loved to think up pranks.
Though she was often zany, she wasn’t dumb at all—
a sort of Gracie Allen all mixed up with Lucille Ball.
Add some Cagney and some Lacey and a little Nancy Drew
and of another side of her you’ll start to get a clue.
She always loved a mystery and crossword puzzles, too—
and UFO’s and Halloween—things scary as a “Boo!!!”

Stacey London is the next to join my family cast.
“What Not To Wear”—the show that she has starred in in the past.
Her role of saying “No” to this one, then a “Yes” to that,
(as in, “That one makes you skinny, but in this one you look fat!”)
was just exactly how my sister used to talk to me.
That this skirt did not go with that was plain for her to see.
As an older sister, she was free with such advice;
but often loaned me her own clothes which, I admit, was nice.

Though my oldest sister Betty’s not accustomed to go last,
she’s the one last family member that there is for me to cast.
She was my boss from my first breath, as she was then eleven.
And if she could, she’d boss me still, though I am sixty-seven.
And so I try to figure out whom she would choose to play her.
And though I’d pick Bette Midler, maybe I should Doris Day her.
She was a singer and a blonde, so guess that she will do.
And now I’ve finished casting a whole film you’ll never view!

The Collector

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The prompt: Digging Up Your Digs—500 years from now, an archaeologist accidentally stumbles on the ruins of your home, long buried underground. What will she learn about early-21st-century humans by going through (what remains of) your stuff?

The Collector

Tools, pictures, clothes, shoes,
too much food and too much booze.
Too many games and too much fun
for a house of only one.
A mystery why this big collector
didn’t have the proper vector
directing her away from things:
(potions, lotions, bracelets, rings)
directing to another track—
something that could love her back.

But, for the rest of the story about living alone, go here

Mirror Fearer

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The Prompt: The Mirror Crack’d—You wake up one morning to a world without mirrors. How does your life — from your everyday routines to your perception of yourself — change?

 
Mirror Fearer

Every time I walk past it, I look into the glass
and notice how my hair looks and then survey my ass.
I cannot help but look at it, every time I pass—
criticizing how I look, both fuzziness and mass.
And in my deepest feelings, despite my brains and sass,
I can’t avoid this feeling that men must find me crass.
And so I guess I really feel that it would be a gas
if you took away the mirrors from this self-critiquing lass!

Waiting for the Bell

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DSC07814Nine Minutes to Nine–Retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown ( 5.5 X 7 X 1.25 inches)

Waiting for the Bell

From my upstairs bedroom window, I could see it all:
who got to school early to be first for tether ball,
the teachers driving up the street, avoiding children running
some children in the sandbox, and other children sunning
stretched out on the teeter-totters, waiting for a ride—
their friend the perfect size to balance, still locked up inside
cleaning off the chalkboards and dusting the erasers
with others who’d been tardy, or perhaps desktop-defacers.

We could hear the school bell toll the warning for
just one more bite of Cream of Wheat—no time for any more.
I stood and watched as sisters sprinted out the door.
Going on without me, for I was only four.
I waited then for recess, spread out on the grass
waiting for the hours and minutes just to pass.
Through open windows, I could hear all the teacher voices
quizzing all the children and listening to their choices.

The teacher on piano, the class singing along—
long before my school days, I’d memorized each song.
At 10:15, the bell was rung and big doors thrown out wide—
one hundred children, all at once, released to the outside.
Some ran to claim the swings and slides, or lined up for the games:
choosing sides for “Send ‘Em” by calling out their names.
But the creaking of the swing chains and whoops up on the slide
could not reveal the mysteries of what was sealed inside.

Year after year I watched and listened, storing up the clues
for the day that I could put on my new school shoes.
I’d have my school bag at my side while mother curled my curls
and keep it with me as I ate my breakfast with the girls,
spooning up my Cream of Wheat but listening for the bell
that warned the time was getting short for me to run pell-mell
across the street and up the stairs in brand new skirt and blouse.
I knew which room to look for.  I could see it from my house.

And then perhaps my mom would stand under our big elm tree
and the singing that she listened for would finally include me!

 The Prompt: August Blues—As a kid, were you happy or anxious about going back to school?

My Promoter

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The Prompt: You, Robot—You’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

                                                                        My Promoter

Since Ray Bradbury wrote of one in “There Will Come Soft Rains,”
the list of things robots can do seems to have made great gains.
Some are made to wash our hair. Others shave our heads.
They build our houses, clean our floors and even make our beds.
I grant that it is handy that there’s one that scoops dog poop,
and one to stop our snoring, another to cook soup.
Lonely? One shoots billiards and perhaps it lets you win;
but do not gamble with it, for I hear it cheats at gin.
It’s great that there’s a robot that lifts patients out of bed,
but since I am still mobile, I have other needs instead.
I want a robot that can read and surf the internet
to send out my submissions and to guarantee I’ll get
an agent and a publisher to dispense all my writing
and send it to reviewers so my words they would be citing!
Send it out to libraries, to Amazon and Kindles.
Keep track of my royalties so there would be no swindles.
In short, I want a robot that will publicize and fight
so all this writer has to do is write and write and write.

As far-fetched as these robots sound, they are all based on reality.  For more information, go to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30898/10-robots-very-specific-tasks

 

If I Followed the Wandering Poet

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If I Followed the Wandering Poet

Who cares
if I swim naked in my pool?
All other human occupants
have left this neighborhood behind,
leaving more room
for possums, skunks,
birds, scorpions, spiders
and me.

I keep a closer company with them
than I do with any human these days.
Weeks ago, it was the orb weaver spider
who filled my mind,
but this week, I talk to the large caterpillar
with one rear antenna on his tail
as he sits for a day on the Olmec head
that guards my swimming pool.
Back and forth, back and forth I pass,
adding a look at him to my lap routine.
For one long afternoon,
he sits still—like Alice’s caterpillar,
but hookah-less,
meditating in this gray place.
If he were on my Virginia Creeper,
I’d be repositioning him
to the empty lot next door, but here
he seems to be a guest; and so some etiquette
keeps me from altering his placement
as he sits on stone, moving his suction cups in sequence
now and then only to alter his direction, not his place.

Recently,
I question if I’ve stayed too long
in this one place.
Is there something else
I may yet do?
So if you are a wandering poet
and you have a place you think I need to go,
please write of it
in the way you do best
and tell me why I have to go there.
And if you create a good argument and a better poem,
I will go to that place in much the same way
that I have come to this point
in my poem.
Blindly.
Open to what comes next.

This is neither a love poem nor a singles ad. It was prompted by a blog site called “The Wandering Poet” that I recently read. I think I commented, and then as I was ready to leave his/her blog, I caught sight of the “Follow” button. The phrase “follow the wandering poet” got stuck in my mind, leading to “If I followed the wandering poet” and this poem. The challenge is real. I will pick up and go to any place that any poet, male or female, makes irresistible by means of a poem. (Be kind. Choose nothing less for me than the best place on earth you know of. I, by the way, will do the same for you if you wish. Judy)

P.S.: Thanks, Wandering Poet. If I forgot to select “follow,” I’ll do it next time.

I will never cease being amazed at the incredible capacities of the human mind, because three days ago, I wrote the above poem for reasons explained above and the next morning I woke up repeating the lyrics “I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men.  I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me.” (an old Sunday School song I haven’t thought of for 50 years). Now this morning I woke up with the song lyrics, ‘I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go” running through my mind, only to go on the WordPress site to discover that the prompt for today was: Opening Lines—What’s the first line of the last song you listened to (on the radio, on your music player, or anywhere else)? Use it as the first sentence of your post.

All three days, “Follow” has seemed to be the prompt running through my mind and so I guess it is time to publish this poem, conceived of even before I’d heard today’s prompt!!!!

Rum Dumb

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Rum Dumb

Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.

The Prompt: Pick Your Potion—What’s your signature beverage — and how did it achieve that status?      http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pick-your-potion/

Let There Be Light

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Let There Be Light


My mind is a growling dog.
While I stew and fuss,
fulfilling lists,
she jumps the screendoor,
beckoning.
Rude me, to turn my back
on the only playmate
who wants to play
the same games I do
every day, every hour,
because I fear that initial
plodding through silt
page after page
in search of the stream
of words.

Sometimes boredom
yawns so wide
that I have to enter it,
to wander its inner closet
where for decades
only cobwebs
have stirred.
In some dark corner
where I spank the dog
or search the bedside table drawers
of a lover called out at midnight,
I find the river’s source,
but then
the phone
rings and I’m off
gathering crumbs from a forest path,
leaving lost children
stranded in their own story.

Stray puppies—I collect every one,
wild orange funnel flowers
and guava
washed in an afternoon kitchen
just before the invasion
of five o’clock sunlight.
All of them I carry back
to hidden places
to rub against each other
and ignite
into the language of this place
where life goes in,
plays dress-up,
but emerges
nude,
like poetry.

 

The Prompt: Is there a cause — social, political, cultural, or other — you passionately believe in? Tell us how you got involved . The cause I most believe in is getting in touch with your authentic and true inner voice.  This is what I do when I write. Would that more people involved in making decisions that will alter our world would do so. This poem is really about the creative process where, when done right, there is only truth. It is also about all the things that get in the way of this process.