Private Lives
Private lives and private dreams
fill our world and burst its seams.
Many wants and many wishes
like an ocean full of fishes
For one to live, one more must go
to maintain the status quo.
Each fish feeding on another:
mother, sister, uncle, brother
all competing for their lives
One fails while another thrives.
Thus it goes with private lives.
The prompt today was “privacy.”
jdbphoto
Overworked or Labor Shirked?
It’s hard for me to find the middle
between hard labor and the fiddle.
Work? I either overdo it
or endeavor to eschew it.
Work all day and then all night,
being very erudite—
putting words down on the page,
imprisoned in my muse’s cage.
Perhaps I fear my distant past
when good work habits didn’t last
and days were spent in dreaming or
novels read behind closed door—
midnight radio a chance
for fantasies to spin romance.
Whole days stretched as though to catch
an errant dream of true love’s match.
I feared such days were sloth, and yet
perhaps they were just roads to get
to the place where I would tell
the stories that I knew so well
because I’d lived them first in dreams
or days just bursting at the seams
with doing nothing but living life—
its pleasures, problems, romance, strife.
First the doing at my leisure,
then the writing, and the seizure
of all the details of the past
that, once down on paper, are made to last.
Overworked or over-lived,
life first collected, then finely sieved.
Panned like gold to find the treasure—
leisure and work in even measure.
“Overworked” is the prompt word today.
public domain photo
Black Friday
Yesterday you masticated
until appetites were sated.
Then certain relatives orated,
argued, harangued and debated—
their monologues all unrelated.
Trapped, you were all educated
in what they sanctioned, what they hated.
Admit it, weren’t you elated,
when that last politician was rated,
and the last argument abated?
Once all your visitors were gated,
those final good-byes terminated,
and their ills excoriated,
you could prepare for what was fated.
Your choice was unequivocated.
Now that you’d heard and eaten all,
Tomorrow, you’d consume the mall.
Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since 1932, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales.
The prompt today is “sated.”
For some reason, WP wants to make the first photos huge and the ones I most want you to see are tiny. If you click on the first photo below, it will make the smaller ones larger as well. Also, please note that an explanatory poem follows the photos. Click on the X, upper left of the last photo, to see the poem.
Midnight Marketplace
The server’s hands pour liquid flame,
as though its heat he seeks to tame.
Poured in a river from great height,
a brilliant blue pulses with light
and falls steaming into a cup
for late night diners to drink it up.
Then when the restaurant lights go out,
the cats emerge to run about
through the darkened market aisles
to stalk their prey and sport their wiles—
grooming beneath swaying lights,
arching backs and staging fights.
This world of cats comes out at night—
that time when magic is at its height.
They swarm about and ebb and flow,
everywhere we come and go,
as though by moving through it, they
bring power to a feral day.
The hand that reaches to connect
is not rewarded. It’s suspect.
For as they walk their empty aisles,
over midnight-cooled tiles,
already in our nodding heads
are thoughts of home and welcoming beds.
Remainders
It’s not the second thoughts I dread,
but third and fourth and fifth instead—
those nights spent worrying on the pillow
while night winds howl and curtains billow.
The whine of air through frame and screen,
those curling winds that moan and keen,
echoing agonies of mind—
the doubts that blindly search and wind
through the corridors of my brain,
shedding parts that then remain.
Those times I knew that it was wrong,
but nonetheless, I went along.
Minor misdeeds I didn’t confess
left wandering my subconsciousness.
Though in our choices, we may not budge,
we are our own severest judge.
If on first thought we do not act,
those guilts pursue. It is a fact.
The prompt today was “second thoughts.”
jdbphoto
Sand Castles
Under the sand are palaces. I’ve seen them in my dreams:
vast halls and empty chambers smoothly rounded at their seams.
Every wall is made of sand. Each ceiling, archway, floor––
as though carved by master craftsmen, digging at its core––
is so magnificent, you’d think they were the stuff of lore.
You may also see them, but you must provide the door.
Though the chambers are filled in, they’re there without a doubt.
You are the one creating them by what you will scoop out.
The beauty’s hidden in the sand, waiting in your sleep
for you to dig the castles out from where they’re buried deep.
All your day’s exhaustion your dream labor will abort,
for what you build in slumber is work of a different sort.
Sand brought to the surface is what you get to keep
of subterranean palaces dug out in your sleep.
As you build aboveground castles in the world that we all know,
you reveal the outward structure of the inner rooms below,
furnishing the magic that the world will see through you,
showing what’s inside of you by what you bring to view.
I’m going in for a medical procedure today, so no time to write a fresh poem. This is a rewrite of a poem from a few years ago that fits today’s prompt of “underground.”
We Seem Meant to Argue
We seem meant to argue, to disagree and fuss––
to call each other s.o.b.’s, to blather on and cuss.
Somehow the world needs movement––the hurricanes and tides.
In every situation, there must be clans or sides.
There is a natural movement toward the pack or cult or gang.
Each game needs an opponent, and every yin a yang.
It may be named a congregation, a party or a cause,
but still there will be discord. There always is, because
there is something within us that draws us towards division.
Every peace march draws its crowd screaming in derision.
Some force within the universe that knows the whole of it
has decreed that everything has its opposite.
So though we may crave unity and hope one day to coin
accord between the nations, and for hearts and minds to join,
the truth is that the universe is like a pendulum.
For every radical event, the opposite will come.
if we just wait long enough, it will be peace’s turn,
but in the meantime hate will pillage, conquer, rape and burn
.
We would have it otherwise, but hope won’t make it so.
We may unite in nations, but we’ll still go toe to toe:
nation versus nation, like street gangs in a rumble.
The most sincere peace accord eventually will crumble.
Mere wishing will not bring on peace, but we can make a start
simply by appealing to that attitude of heart
that chooses to forget and start that upward swing
that can pull the whole world with it as it takes to wing.
The answer to the hatred is to start out one-by-one
to try to make the choices to set discord on the run.
To choose the dark sides of ourself is an act of treason.
We must conquer our own petty hates and choose to live by reason.
Today’s prompt is “Argument.”
Curiosity
As long as life remains unfinished,
my interest survives undiminished.
The prompt word today was “Unfinished.”
When he wasn’t ranching or farming or drinking coffee in Mack’s Cafe, this is where my father could normally be found. When he died, the only thing my young nephew wanted of his was these disreputable boots, which my nephew wore until the soles flapped. They are the only pair of work boots I ever remember my father wearing–wrinkled into creases by repeated wettings and dryings and pullings off and on.
Jump
Once the grass had grown waist-high,
some summer nights, my dad and I
accompanied by the shake and rattle
of his old truck, would go watch cattle.
In the twilight, barely light,
but not yet turning into night,
he’d drive the pickup over bumps
of gravel, rocks, and grassy clumps,
over dam grades, then he’d wait
as I opened each new gate,
and stretched the wire to wedge it closed,
as the cattle slowly nosed
nearer to see who we were,
curious and curiouser.
We’d park upon some grassy spot
where a herd of cattle was not,
open the doors to catch a breeze,
and I’d tell stories, and dad would tease
until at last the cattle came,
and dad would tell me each one’s name:
Bessie, Hazel, Hortense, Stella,
Annie, Rama, Bonnie, Bella.
Razzle-dazzle, Jumpin’ Jane.
Each new name grew more inane.
Yet I believed he knew them all,
and as they gathered, they formed a wall
that grew closer every minute
to that pickup with us in it.
Finally, with darkness falling,
and the night birds gently calling,
with cows so near they almost touched
the fender of the truck, Dad clutched
the light knob and then pulled it back
as the cows––the whole bunched pack
jumped back en masse with startled eyes
due to the headlights’ rude surprise.
Then he’d flick them off again,
with a chuckle and devilish grin.
As the cattle edged up once more—
the whole herd, curious to the core—
again, my dad would stage his fun.
Again, they’d jump back, every one.
He might do this three times or four,
then leave the lights on, close his door,
and gun the engine to drive on home
as stars lit up the heavenly dome
that cupped the prairie like a hand,
leaving the cattle to low and stand
empty in the summer nights
to reminisce about those lights—
miraculous to their curious eyes.
Each time a wondrous surprise.
Life was simpler way back then
and magical those evenings when
after his long day’s work was done,
laboring in the dust and sun,
after supper, tired and weary,
muscles sore and eyes gone bleary,
still when I would beg him to
do what we both loved to do,
he’d heave himself from rocking chair,
toss straw hat over thinning hair,
and make off for the pickup truck,
me giving thanks for my night’s luck.
These were the finest times I had––
these foolish nights spent with my dad.
The prompt word today is “jump.”
Over the river
and through the woods. to our good friends’ house we go.
When we stopped for lunch, if we hadn’t known it before, we would have known by the menu that we were in the south!
And when we passed the rockets, we knew we were in Huntsville!
It is most appropriate that the prompt word today was “Together,” for yesterday, Forgottenman and I drove from Missouri to Huntsville, Alabama, to be with two of our favorite people–our friends Tony and Allenda who lived right next door to me in Mexico for eight years before they moved back to the states. We had a wonderful time during those eight years, talking daily, meeting a few times weekly for Allenda’s incredible cooking or games of Mexican Train.
Tony and I wrote a book together and Allenda and I were in two different art groups together. With our friends Audrey and Linda, (Forgottenman and Ron when they visited,) we formed a tight “posse” that gathered at the drop of a hat or an invitation. And when we gathered, the one given was lots of laughter. Side-splitting, aching laughter that feels so good and that seems now to be the most necessary ingredient in friendship–coming right after trust and loyalty, which was certainly there as well.
Unfortunately, they all left Mexico on the same year, and I’ve been missing them ever since. Luckily, Audrey eventually came back, but two isn’t a posse, and we miss the rest of them. Always will. Hopefully just once more before all of our leaves fall from the tree, we’ll be together en masse at my house, as it should be! In the meantime, I’ll wander over the border now and then to come check up on them. This time, it was Tony and Allenda and Forgottenman I’ve herded together. Not the entire flock, but what lovely wooly creatures they are!
To Gather Together
To gather together, I flew on a plane
for seventeen hours, then flew once again
for another nine hours, then got in a car
and drove for five hours and now here we are!
Gathered together with three old time friends.
Now we’ll be together until our time ends.
Allenda’s lasagna and laughter with Tony
and all of Forgottenman’s verbal baloney.
I have been missing this madness for years.
All of their banter falls on my ears
like light verbal rain that gives birth to attention.
I soak in the comfort of each thing they mention.
There’s no time like idle time spent with a buddy.
We may not be sprightly, our memories muddy.
We tried to share book titles that we forgot,
Yet Google remembers all we have not.
Movies and TV and sports scores and then
we start to remember all over again
past times with invites thrown like a ball
with no prior warning, over the wall
that was all that divided us three years ago
when life was easier–free-flowing, slow.
“Let’s get together for a meal or a game.”
No prior planning, no traffic to tame.
The folks in our posse would gather like sheep.
The talk wasn’t serious, organized, deep.
Light chatter and silliness, cleverness, joking.
Side-splitting laughter ’til we were all choking.
Linda and Audrey, Tony and Allenda.
Forgottenman (when we were on his agenda)
and me like a housemother, guiding them all
so they didn’t wander, stumble or fall.
A sterling example when I wasn’t stumbling
or tripping or falling, forgetting or mumbling!
For the value of good friends you’ve formerly had
is that they remember the good, not the bad:
the train games that lasted far into the night,
driven in by the moths drawn in by the light.
Hot tubs at midnight, margaritas or rum,
counting up tiles until minds were numb.
Ridiculous movies of Allenda’s choosing,
raunchy and scandalous, but most amusing.
Collaborations over writing or art.
When we weren’t silly, damn, we were smart!
All of these pastimes special and shared—
All of the truths of our hearts that we bared
didn’t all end when you all went away,
for all of the memories have chosen to stay.
Now I’m handing them back to you, right here and now
and hoping you’ll all make a pledge, take a vow
that next year you’ll make the journey to me
so all of the “us’s” can once more be “we.”
We knew we were in the right place when Allenda served up her famous lasagne,
when Tony fell alseep in his chair before the night was over,
and when we found the flowers and chocolates our gracious hostess had left on our bed table.
Good night. All’s well in this world. We are together.
Appropriately, the prompt today is “Together.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 