Spelunking
Swimming in my sorrows, I’m obliged, I fear, to share them.
My friends all shrink away and hide, hoping I will spare them.
But worries are a mother lode, and each of us a piner,
tunneling into all our woes like a trauma miner.
Then relating all of them in streams without a comma,
turning everyone we meet into a surrogate momma.
Prompt words for today are swim, oblige, sorrow, miner and comma.
Every Saturday Night
In those final years before television
and long before computers,
we’d fly in unison
to our small town’s
sole scintillating diversion—
following the usher
in
single
file
down
the
narrow
center
aisle,
to sink into that seat closest to the magic screen.
At its first ignition,
our minds automatically shifted
to an outside world
devoid of waving wheat fields,
gravel streets
and minds
consumed
by
cattle,
ballgames,
church
and
books—
diversions
less glamorous
than this view
out into the wide wide world.
Prompt word today are Saturday night, fly, unison, scintillating, automatic and follow. Image by Noom Peerapong on Unsplash.
Preparing for Summer
When your appetite starts knocking and you crave a light repast,
even though the time since your last meal seems too vast,
tie your cravings to a stanchion and curb their niggling prompt.
Do some calisthenics or take a forest romp.
Defenestrate those Oreos. Resist that peanut brittle.
It takes a lot of will power to make yourself more little.
Dieting’s not easy. Resolution is the pits,
but it will all be worth it when your favorite swimsuit fits!!!!
Prompts for today are: knocking, vast, defenestrate, stanchion, forest and peanut brittle.
Click on photos to enlarge. Explanations of the sculpture are given below the poem.
Anima/Animus
The sword of guilt is something I continually hone,
and in this I feel that I am surely not alone.
Guile and temper are not exclusively my sin,
for animus is something that we all carry within.
In the early nineteenth century, animus was used to mean “temper” and was typically used in a hostile sense. In 1923, it began being used as a term in Jungian psychology to describe the masculine side of women. The anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man. (Excerpts from Wikipedia)
The photos are of my mixed media sculpture entitled Anima/Animus. The detail in the second photo symbolizes the shattering of the male side of the ego by a feminine consciousness. The metal object in the glass case is a small replica of the instrument used to sever heads from bodies in sacrificial preHispanic temple ceremonies. The hammer shattering the glass is meant to symbolize the gentling effect of the feminine on the masculine.
Prompt words today are animus, guilt, guile, exclusive and alone.
Night Terror
The circuits were all overcharged the night that one livewire
crossed another, triggering an electrical fire.
It was approximately midnight when I brutally awoke,
avulsed from bed and blanket by the acrid plumes of smoke.
Reeling from my dreamworld, plunged into reality,
Suffering from vertigo, I attempted to flee.
Gathered in my father’s arms, comforted by his grasping,
I was rushed into the cool night air, coughing, choking, gasping.
Our neighbors gathered all around to comfort and to gape—
to give thanks with our family for our safe escape.
Fire whistles shrilling their approaching welcome scream,
I was jerked awake once more from that childhood dream.
And even though I knew those terrors were all in my head,
I padded down the hallway into my parents’ bed.
Prompts today are livewire, approximately, brutal, avulse, overcharge and vertigo.
Click on photos to increase size.
Moonlight Reflection
The radiant moon invites me to meander to the pool.
To miss its cloud-scrimmed drama would reveal me as a fool.
Its flickering light reflected in the pool’s steaming glass,
I part its even surface asunder as I pass.
Clothed in liquid light, I walk a smooth straight line,
reflectively immersed in this world that is all mine.
I have no other idol except this ghost of moon.
I feel that I could taste it if I only had a spoon.
Its taste would be ambrosial upon my earthly tongue—
the first to taste a lunar menu formerly unsung.
I bundle up my prayers and toss them overhead,
leaving all my worries unthought of and unsaid.
The stone steps lead me up again from its steaming mass
and I shed off moonlight around me as I pass.
I take its memory with me as I return to bed,
the splendor of the moonlight forever in my head.
Today’s prompt words are: reflective radiant immersed meander idol line taste drama ghost flickering stone. The photos I took two weeks ago before leaving my house to travel to the states for my school reunion. A glorious scene. One of the shots is the moon and trees reflected in the surface of my pool that is fed by hot mineral springs that pass through the magma layer fed by the Colima Volcano, 80 miles away. I swim in it almost nightly.
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 562
Pollyanna’s Creed
Why so wan and petulant, so sober and contrary?
Concede that negativity that you sometimes carry.
Concentrate on cheerful things. Begin a new beginning.
Convert all your losses from losing into winning.
Remove the somber funeral veil from your mournful head
and buy a vivid orange hat to wear on it instead.
Life’s too short for sadness that you carry like a weight.
Every time you smile, you’ll feel it dissipate.
That cloud above your head will lift and light will filter in
and you’ll feel a happier time of life begin.
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Prompt words today are orange, sober, concede, petulant, beginning and concentrate.
Born-Again Gourmet
Once I was a candidate for gourmet school flunky,
sporting the dubious honor of number one food junkie.
But now I’m basically looking for a way to curb
my appetite for junk food in favor of superb
cuisine that suits the palates of gourmands and gourmets.
I’ll impress headwaiters with my knowledge of patés,
place orders for obscure foods that will startle and amaze.
Then I can claim my trashy choice in food was just a phase.
Prompt words today are: head, basically, candidate, activate and superb.Image by Mads Eneqvist on Unsplash.
Building Dreams
The spirits of birds hum from the trees
in fours and fives and twos and threes.
Their trickling songs dispel glum thoughts
and raise tired bones up from their cots
to run and skip and dance and play—
those former actions for which they pray.
In myths of old lost spirits howl,
vampires bite and werewolves growl,
but in my stories, wood nymphs prance
and willowy fairies join their dance.
Thus do we choose what we believe
and live the dream life that we weave.
For Wordle 561 the prompts are: glum pray birds myths growl bones trickling hum spirits willowy run lost three. Image by Anthony Tran on Unsplash.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 