Moody Blues
Like a child denied its favorite toy, you slip into that gloom
that seems to cast a sorcerer’s spell all across the room.
You jinx that joy formerly sown––that rapture gone astray.
Like a gift once kindly given, then cruelly jerked away,
A soft wind blows a kind of truce that stills your restless mind,
and styles a more tranquil place for you to hide behind.
For the Sunday Whirl the words are: favor kind jinx spell sorcery gift denial child style rapture truce
My Name
It would have never occurred
to my mother or father
to look up the meaning of the name
before giving it to me.
In the Apocrypha,
Judith slew the Asian general
to save her people.
In Ethiopia, Judith is “Yodit,”
cruel usurper of the throne
and destroyer of Axum.
These women my parents had no knowledge of
might well have scorned the “Judy” I evolved into,
despite my mother’s best intentions
of always calling me Judith Kay.
Uncle Herman called me Jude
and I loved that,
but for years,
until I married,
nobody else ever did.
I never had many nicknames,
except from my father who called me Pole Cat
and my sister who called me Jooj Pooj.
My oldest sister, Betty Jo,
knows her name
might have been prompted
by the popularity of Betty Boop
and my sister Patti Adair
has the same middle name
as her cousin Jayne
because my mother named them both,
but there is no story
for my given names.,
except that my mother liked them both.
I can draw a wading bird
using just the letters of my first name
in the correct progression,
lifting the pen off the paper only twice,
to form the eye and leg.
Yet for years,
my name was a bird
that hadn’t found its wings.
My surname was carried to America
in the hull of a ship—
when my grandmother,
born of Dutch-immigrant parents,
married to an immigrant
Dutch baker to have a son
who passed the name Dykstra on to me.
Judy Kay Dykstra
The last two letters of my first name
and my middle initial
are the first three letters of my last name,
and the remaining four letters, rearranged, spell “star.”
Nobody planned that.
Judykstra
Judykstar.
The “dyke” part of my name is self-explanatory,
and the suffix “stra” is derived from
the old Germanic word “sater,”
meaning “dweller,”
and although I’ve never lived by a seawall,
I like my name in its Dutch Shoes.
My surname
is not frequently seen
in the phonebooks
of most towns.
I’m not the one
who put it in famous places
like “Dykstra Hall” at UCLA or
in baseball statistics
on the sports page,
and it was John Dykstra
who had it engraved
on the academy award.
But it was my name written
along with my phone number
over the urinal at the library
in turquoise magic marker
by a disgruntled student,
and it took one month of late-night phone calls
from men asking, “Do you . . .?”
before a caller admitted
where he found the number
and was persuaded
to wash it off the wall.
And it was my name
written on the label of
a favorite coat left at the pier
and never returned,
so ever afterwards,
perhaps, my name
pressed against someone else’s neck.
I keep trying to change my name
into something else.
Into a bird.
Into a married name.
Drop mine, take his.
Keep mine and his,
I take his, he takes mine,
so we exchange names, both keeping both.
In the end, though, he drops mine, I keep both.
Judith Kay Dykstra-Brown. Bob Brown
My name next to his on a gravestone
in my hometown in South Dakota,
only mine open-dated.
My name on a paycheck every month for years,
and in the records of the tax collector,
then on a social security check.
For so long,
I was not yet within my name.
I wanted it to hold me,
but I couldn’t squeeze into it.
Until, finally,
my name on books and art
that told its full story.
Judy Dykstra-Brown.
I made it mine.
The Offering
My cat surprised me with a gift
but I must say, I’m rather miffed
with the hairball that she left––
(those locks of which she’s now bereft.)
Was this donation made by chance,
or was it planned far in advance?
Did she commence her furry tearing
with the intent that she’d be sharing?
I wonder if she formed that ball
with any future plans at all
to heave it out upon the chest
of one I thought that she loved best?
Oh that she could communicate
whether it was love or hate
that prompted this hair artistry
produced and then coughed up on me!
The SOCS prompt is to close eyes, open book, point to word, open eyes and use the word as a prompt, so here goes. The prompt word that suppllied itself was “Surprised.”
What is the logic of not believing in abortion but believing it is okay to let babies die of Ebola in Africa because we have cut off aid to fund vaccinations…or to allow children to die of measles because our misguided head of national health does not believe in vaccinations? Nothing in the Bible says charity should be ended at national borders or that the rich should profit by the neglect of the poor. Think, people, think! And please read this poem written by my friend Andrea Huelsenbeck at: https://arhtisticlicense.com/about-artistic-license/:
Lunar Eclipse
Last night I rose to watch the moon’s eclipse––
a blood orange moon, full in the dark night sky,
around it, scattered stars and tall palm tips.
It was as though in this world, only I
watched the last fingernail of glowing moon,
chewed at by shadow, slowly wane and die.
And then the night birds with their lonely croon
gave timbre to this darkened night soon joined
by lonely burro, braying for the moon
as though they mourned for vision now purloined
or simply sang for joy of adding to
the beauty of this dark moon newly coined.
Then once again the moon’s edge came to view.
Earth moved aside in favor of the sun
and for an hour, I watched as moonlight grew.
Then sought my bed, the pageant not yet done,
as light increased and shadow slowly waned.
Inevitably, once more light had won.
Voices
As I huddle in my twisted dreams,
wind shakes my window frame.
Rain scars the glass in knitted streams
as thunder calls my name.
LIghtning flashes secrets
and by habit, I attend,
by rising to fill pages
with the messages they send.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 697, the prompt words are: habit flash dreams twist shakes rain scars knitted glass secret pages huddle
Retribution
He built himself a sanctuary in the old garage
to shelter from his mom’s complaints, his stepfather’s barrage
of insults that he spewed out whenever he drank beer
and his teenage stepson happened to be near.
He frequented the shadows of their viral house.
Took shelter in the attic, quiet as any mouse.
Hid out in the garden in a cave of loam.
Anyplace his stepfather was not became his home.
His meals lacked spice and savor also missing in his mother.
Her meals furnished nutrition, but very little other.
No laughter flavored mealtimes. The food rendered no spice.
He secreted small bits of food—a slice of bread, some rice—
to feed to his companions—a family of mice.
It was worth the beatings that he’d suffered twice
when that man not his father saw him hide away
some morsel in his pocket and said he’d have to pay.
Raising his fist, he said he would take it from his hide
and gave another beating to the boy who never cried.
The boy who simply stored it up—kept all of it inside—
bore the abuse stoically and then crept outside
to commune with his real family who lived in wall and rafter
of the garage he’d made his home, and filled with love and laughter.
They came out at his bidding, swarmed around his feet
to eat a bit of porridge, some carrot or a beet.
Some crackers from his school lunch, some lettuce or a plum,
proved the presence of a heart that otherwise was numb.
Mice frequented his pockets and sat upon his shoulder—
every generation seeming to grow bolder.
They slipped into his mother’s house when she was sound asleep
and crept into those places where he could never creep.
They nestled in her shoes and chewed out all the toes,
severed all her bra straps, gnawed holes in all her hose.
They found the belt the monster man used to beat their friend,
dragged it deep under the bed and chewed it end-to-end.
When they crept into the larder to finish off the pie,
it must have been an accident that the can of lye
spilled into the sugar, pouring out in one fine stream
right into the bowl that would be placed beside the cream
on the breakfast table. For how could it be
that vermin knew only the man took sugar in his tea?
For SOCS, “Mouse”
Fifth Element
That vessel formed from water and earth?
Air fanned the fire that gave it birth.
Then something came and filled me up
until I overflowed my cup
and flowed to other lands and climes––
spilling words to flow in rhymes,
verses, stories, volumes and
fabrications of mind and hand
that created each further world
that has continuously unfurled
from what came after the birth
of my body spawned by water, earth,
fire and air––something anew
born out of that primordial goo
that gave birth to all the rest,
then stirred me from the natal nest
with the blessed germination
of sparks of imagination
that infused each element
with spirit that was heaven sent.
What gave us words and poetry
was the element that gave birth to me.
for dVerse Poets Pub the prompt is to write about our association with one of the four elements: air, earth, water, fire.
To see other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.
Picking Your Pieces
Invest in possibilities and bifurcate your worries.
Soon enough these balmy days will change to winter’s flurries.
But why let future problems intercede today?
Best enjoy the present and put future woes away.
Being in a smaller pond makes you a bigger fish,
so whatever your situation, exercise your swish
and live your life with flair and joy. Wring all the zest from life.
It does no good to drown yourself in thoughts of gloom and strife.
Sometimes I find that in this life I get what I expect,
so when life hands you troubles, why don’t you just object
and turn those woes to prospects and insist on being chipper?
Why choose to be a pessimist when optimism’s hipper?
You might call me a dreamer, but that’s okay with me.
Why be imprisoned by your doubts when you could be free?
Life needn’t be a puzzle. It can be a quest.
Pick out the parts that you prefer and throw away the rest.
The prompt for My Vivid Blog today was “Flurries.”
Abandoned
Voices echo down long hallways where there’s no one left to hear––
each second fading into hour to day to week to year.
Old friends now departed, time has finally run out.
Words have lost their power. Memories have lost their clout.
Mirrors show no images, locks rust and fall away
as the fires of time passing burn to ash another day.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle #695 the prompt words were: lock fades echo out voices burn show friends time power hear second. Image by Alexy Malakov on Unsplash.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 