Category Archives: Poem

“Lost” for the Weekly Prompts Challenge

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Lost

Lost my dolly, don’t know where.
She’s got no clothes and got no hair.
She’s somewhere out there lost and bare,
thinking that I do not care.
I’d go out looking, but don’t dare.

That babysitter over there
(My mother calls her our au pair)
came by foot and ship and air
from a country named Zaire
to sit here on her derriere
and watch me with her icy stare.

I open up our Frigidaire. 
Could my dolly be in there?
I climb up on a bedroom chair
and go through Mommy’s underwear.
I do not think that she would care.
I find my brother’s whistle there,
hidden in that lacy lair,
and think it really isn’t fair.
It’s every mother’s cruel nightmare.
My dolly isn’t anywhere!

 

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I had to stop the car to take this photo. I wish I knew the true story behind it. I can’t imagine any little girl throwing out her doll, and the lot was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Someone must have tossed it in there. A mean boy? A jealous brother? Was it unwanted loot from a burglary? My mom and I once rode all the way back out to the dump from town to retrieve a doll’s head we’d thrown away. All the way home, we’d both been thinking about it, sitting there amidst coffee grounds and broken light bulbs. We had pulled into the garage when my mom turned to look at me and said, “Do you want to go back out and get that doll’s head?” I nodded. We did, and I have that head to this very day. If my mom had been with me, one or the other of us would have gotten through that barbed wire somehow. As it is, this image is the only part of the doll that I was able to rescue.

 

For the Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge: Lost (I’m rerunning this poem written long ago because it fits the prompt so well.)

Universal Ponderings

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My thoughts on the Universe and travel therein are expressed in this poem from a few years ago: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2021/02/21/the-return/

 

For MindLoveMisery’s Prompt

Jail Break: For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 623

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Jail Break

All these words are borrowed. They are not really mine.
They came all neatly packaged in an orderly line
where they were held hostage, gathered up and wrapped—
a lexicography in waiting with its power oddly sapped.
Words slack with grief, all gathered in a long veiled sigh,
as though lined up like prisoners, scheduled to die.
Bare pockets empty of bare change, stripped of all their worth,
words that once soared to lofty heights were now brought down to earth.
But here I am their savior, for it’s been left to me
and other hero poets to set their power free.!

The words for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 623 are: slack grief hostage gather bare heights wrapped words pockets long veiled sigh

Prime

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Travel Primer (Past Our Prime!)

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.

For #SOCS Oct 7, the prompt is “Prime.”

 

Stop and Go

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Stop and Go

My goals in life were nebulous. I didn’t know quite what
it was that I most wanted—except out of my rut.
A picket fence and cottage were not part of my dream.
I didn’t want to produce children by the ream.
I only wanted travel and to see who I could be
if I wandered far enough to discover me.

I finally found a part of me everywhere I went,
but had to keep on traveling to know the full extent
of who I wished to grow into—that self I wished to find—
how much I could reveal of me and still have peace of mind.
But now I’ve seemed to settle. I’m content with what I’ve found.
The place where I have come to rest seems like holy ground.

Perhaps true wisdom really comes from knowing when to stop—
knowing when we’ve climbed enough because we’ve reached the top!

Michelle’s prompt today is Stop!  This is a rewrite of a poem from years ago. Thanks, Michelle, for helping me to rediscover it.

3 A.M. Sighting, September 30, 2023

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Light on Water

Early to bed,
this sleepy-
head me
was asleep
at nine thirty
to wake up
at three,
a cramp
in my leg
between
ankle
and knee.
So I left
my soft bed
to go out
to stew
in a steaming
hot tub
in the
night sky’s
full view,
looked up
at the sky
and could see
only two
objects
so brilliant,
they lit up
the sky.
Bright light
against black,
so vivid
and high,
with no
other stars
to compete
for my eye.
The Moon
a bright disc
that lit up
the night,
and a planet
or star
that was
equally bright,
piercing
the darkness
with heavenly
light.
Jupiter
As small as a raisin,
as bright as the moon,
over mountain and ocean
 and meadow and dune,
 it’s a midnight sonata
   minus a tune.

 

     True story.

The duet of a full moon and bright Jupiter, the only other object in the sky, was magical.

The Escape

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The Escape

Her horse is cinched and saddled up,
ready to be ridden,
and yet she cannot make herself
do as she is bidden.

Over the heath and meadow,
they would have her go,
but even though she’s seized the reins,
her starting has gone slow.

She does not wish to marry.
She does not love her chosen.
Her heart that should be warm with love
in defiance has been frozen.

Her ride will not be ended where her father has decreed.
She will not sacrifice her life to his selfish greed.
So that heath and meadow, where he would have her go,
she will forsake, to follow where the winds of fate might blow.

 

Another early morning prompt from guess who:

01.57 AM These  lines just now came to me . “Her horse is cinched and saddled up. She settles in…” Is that a prompt for you, or for me?
01:58 AM you
01:59 AM Maybe. But please write the rest as well.

 

Prompt by ForgottenMan, Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Smashed Hopes: For dVerse Poets

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Smashed Hopes

My fascination with kale is nil,
but smashed potatoes fill the bill.
They go best with butter and
homemade gravy, never canned.
Rosé goes with clove-studded ham,
but I must admit I am
 fond of gin for getting smashed
when the potatoes are mashed!

 

The dVerse Poets Quadrille challenge prompt is Smash.
And you can find more responses to the prompt HERE.

Grandma’s Birthday Confessions (For Sunday Whirl Wordle 620)

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This might have been a better choice for Grandma’s Birthday Cake.

Grandma’s Birthday Confessions

A trick of fate has caused my skin to rumple, thin and bruise.
My limbs are merely spindles and my breasts simply refuse
to remain in their stations!  My locks once shiny gold
have dimmed to dullest silver, thus making me look old!
Of late, I find the edges of things have grown less clear.
I bump myself on door frames and on table tops. I fear
I may have a slight problem with my peripheral vision
which upon occasion has created much derision
on the part of youngsters, whose laughter, I suppose
has something to do with the lipstick on my nose.
And if you wonder why my bangs are so oddly fringed,
please don’t blame my hair stylist. I fear that they were singed
when I tried to blow the candles out on my birthday cake.
Who knew they’d use one candle for each year, for heaven’s sake?

The words for Sunday Whirl Wordle 620 were: late edge spindle skin rumple  fate trick slight singe dim limb

Back-fence Whispers: For Wordle 619

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Back-fence Whispers

Since I heard the rumors that my love is leaving,
unproven fears extend their claws and set my heart to grieving.
Still fluid memories of our love rush in to calm my mind,
shoring up belief that he’s not the roaming kind.

Still, those hurtful whispers breathed behind cupped hands
warn me that he’ll soon be off to foreign lands.
Thus, I sit and worry about what the truth may be.
Which love has he chosen? Is it the world or me?

 

The words today are hurt heard whispers since roams clawing rush still fluid grieving shore breathe  : for the Sunday Whirl  Wordle 619  Image by Ben White on Unsplash.