Category Archives: Poetry by Prescription

Lost in Iowa

We are lost in Iowa,
pulled off the highway onto a gravel road.
Not content to give himself totally over to the control of GPS,
he checked its suggested route last night and instead devised his own.
But now, lost, without a clue as to where we are,
we have pulled over
to contemplate our situation.

I open the door to catch a breeze.
The yellow blooms of sweet clover and purple alfalfa
line the little road.
Wild anise and tall marsh grass
complete a scene
of perfect rural quiet and suddenly,
I am no longer lost.
I am back on the running board of my dad’s beat-up red pickup,
waiting for him to finish mowing the lower field.
I’ve eaten one chokecherry
from a nearby bush
and my mouth is puckered
by it’s astringent sting.
I go back sixty years
as I drink icy spring water
from my dad’s metal water can
wrapped in wet canvas
to keep it cool,
then jump back fifty years more
to my dad’s youth,
to try to imagine how he felt
with the prairie stretching hundreds of miles
in every direction.
My dad, his parents and two sisters in a two-room house.
There was privacy in the barn,
a dog for company.

Their closest neighbor
an ancient Hunkpapa Sioux named Charley
in his dugout house
half a mile up the draw,
town an hour’s ride away or more by horse or wagon.
With no diversion of cell tower or satellite dish—
there was only his family,
the land and his imagination.

My dad killing the coyote,
then finding her pups and bringing them home.
What would his dilemma have been?
Did he raise them,
then turn in their pelts for bounty?
Did he release them,
and then never know when he killed a coyote
if it was merely a pest or a former pet as well?

What did he think when he lay in a patch of clover?
Did he smell the wild anise and imagine
the sweet stickiness of licorice?
Did he pick the wild asparagus
for his ma to poach?
Did he have the idle moments
with which my childhood was filled?

What child now lies in the grass,
looking for something for his mind to rest against?
What other traveler,
lost on a gravel road in the scorching sun,
opens her door to a breeze
that flows like water down an empty creek channel,
looks up from the GPS screen
that promises to restore them
to civilization’s knowing?
Will she, as I have, relieve her lost present
by losing herself in the past?

That girl who sat on her dad’s running board
who would journey so far to unimagined places,
still travels the mind back to pleasures
of a world it was possible to be lost in,
sweet clover and wild anise
giving a taste of precious emptiness.

In this age of machines that can guide us
so surely into a future,
where we are often so found
that we are lost in it—
savor those mistakes
that bring us back
to flounder in ourselves.

We, too, know the way.

Dad with sleepy coyote pups on South Dakota farm, 1924

The Prompt: Wrong Turns—When was the last time you got lost? Was it an enjoyable experience, or a stressful one? Tell us all about it.

I am cheating and publishing here a poem I wrote on a trip two years ago.

Notoriety

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Notoriety

Remember Morrie Amsterdam, and Dick Van Dyke and Sally?
So clever and so erudite, and humorous and pally?
They had such fun as writers for a fictional TV show
(I can’t recall the name of it, but one of you will know.)

If that is what inspired the thought, I guess I’ll never know,
but I’ve always wished that I could be staff-writer for a show.
Such fun it would be, trading thoughts and quips and puns and jokes
and putting them into a show for entertaining folks.

Week after week to do this, would be a joy, I thought—
turning out those funny shows with plots so finely wrought.
But I had not a clue of how such jobs as this were got.
The route to such careers was something I was never taught.

I college I took every class in writing I could find.
I loved this pressure to use words to show what’s on my mind.
Sometimes the words came easy and sometimes they came hard.
I had a few successes, although no one called me bard.

In those days before the Internet, I don’t know how I came
to hear about these contests where we were asked to name
new products such as cereal and milk and a new shoe
and several other things as well, I just recall a few.

All-in-all, I think I entered six or more for fun.
Months later came the envelopes that said that I had won
first prize to name two products—and earned $25 for each.
Never had I expected such heights of fame to reach!

I took my best friends out to dine to celebrate my win
and we drank Golden Cadillacs (and probably sloe gin)
and wined and dined until we’d spent the sum of all the cash
I won by writing ad copy—a celebratory bash.

I know if I dug deep enough that surely I could find
the names of all those products in the corners of my mind.
“Vita-Man the Space Age Cowboy,” was one winning entry’s name.
His purpose to sell milk, although he never reached much fame.

This was the late sixties with skirts short or to the floor
and I recall one shoe line that I wrote a ditty for:
Mini-mums and Maxi-mums were names I thought were nice.
“A maximum of comfort for a minimum in price.”

This one was not a winner, but the reason I can quote it
is because they used it anyway–exactly as I wrote it.
The other one I won was for a cereal you’d know well;
I know you won’t believe me, so I’m not going to tell.

It became so famous that it’s still there on the shelf,
though I’m the only one who knows I named it all myself.
Still, this is where my fame resides—in stores from shore-to-shore
and that is how my name came to be writ in grocery lore!

So now my deepest secret’s out. The world will know my plight—
that advertising or TV is what I wished to write.
You’d think that watching “Mad Men” would cure me, wouldn’t you?
and it might, but for the glory of that cereal and that shoe!!!!

The Prompt: Back of the Queue—Is there something you’ve always wanted to do, but never got around to starting (an activity, a hobby, or anything else, really)? Tell us about it — and tell us about what’s keeping you from doing it.

Sayonara Umami

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Sayonara Umami

Every day my word prompt takes time away from me.
I lie in bed and write and write sometimes till two or three.
But today they’ve found another part of me to waste,
for now they’re going to take away one aspect of my taste.
Salt or bitter, sweet or sour, are tastes I must maintain.
Umami is the obvious choice that causes the least pain.
They say monosodium glutamate is what creates its savor.
Seaweed, cured fish, aged cheese and meats are what contain its flavor.
(All foods I hate and so at last, I’ll never have to worry
about detecting those weird tastes in saté or in curry.)
No more lurking fish paste. No more furry tongue.
No more adult flavors found revolting by the young.
So for once, dear “Word Prompt,” I shall to you relate
my thanks for taking from my life something I really hate!

The Prompt: Picky Tongues—You have to choose one flavor that your sense of taste will no longer be able to distinguish. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, spicy (not a taste per se, but we’re generous): which one do you choose to lose?

Unruly Punctuation

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Unruly Punctuation

When a guy driving a GMC
swoops into line in front of me
and takes the place I meant to park,
I use an !

While the ,’s made for multi-tasking,
in a sentence meant for asking,
there has to be a ?
lest readers be left in the dark.

An ! is fine
when simply put at end-of-line,
but,
too many (quite a fault of mine)
bring out the punctuation narcs
to ban those !!!!!!!!!!

Those abounding in . . .
are labeled punctuation gypsies
because they don’t know when to stop.
So please call in a grammar cop.

I must admit that I am rash
and tend to overuse the —.
What’s more, my editor goes crazy
when I forget or just get lazy.
His eyes bug out, his face goes red
when I make use of — instead.

The . is the simplest mark.
At sentence end it’s meant to park.
It’s always put where it is best
to let the sentence come to rest,
and no one puts it elsewhere lest
the reader is put to the test
to search from clause to clause to clause
to figure out where he can pause.

When I think of rhymes for ,
only strange words like pajama
are what come to mind—or llama—
or words not to the point, like “mama;”
so I’ll just say the Oxford ,
is like the Tea Party to Obama.
If his (and my) advice is heeded,
it will be clear that they’re not needed!!!

The purpose of the ’
is as clear as it can be:
Judy’s car or Judy’s house,
Judy’s dog or Judy’s spouse.
Yet, when the pronoun enters in,
it is the biggest grammar sin
to use apostrophes for possession
(although I’ll make this hard confession
that often I, unthinkingly,
will write it’s where it never fits.)
It’s in possession should be its!)
“It’s” only used as a contraction.
(It’s a faction, but not it’s faction.)

I think I may conduct a poll on
: versus ;
Which one separates two clauses,
signaling those longer pauses;
and which one signifies a list?
I’m sure that you have got the gist
of which is which—where each should go
to end this punctuation woe.

( ) mark an aside, much as a—might do,
Like “ ”, they’re paired. You always must use two.
Which brings us to the – that joins a compound word.
You never put a space in. To do so is absurd.
You should not use it as a dash with spaces on each side.
That is an antique usage that I simply can’t abide.

Yet if you choose to Google some of the rules here,
there will be discrepancies from site to site, I fear.
What I say they’ll question. They’ll support what I must pan.
So I can only say that I’ve accomplished what I can.
In spite of all my studying, despite my dedication—
I find that few agree on rules applied to punctuation!!!!

The Prompt: By the Dots—We all have strange relationships with punctuation — do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without? Tell us all about your punctuation quirks!

You might have guessed that the punctuation marks being referred to (but not those merely functional) are meant to be read out as words. In my original, it was fairly obvious as they were in 20 font in bold so they stood out. The only way I could find to designate them here was to use boldface and to change their color to blue. As usual, thanks for reading my entries. I appreciate your comments and “likes,” always!!! Thanks. Judy

Bed Head

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Bed Head

First thing in the morning, when I’m fresh from dreams,
this is when the new ideas seem to come in streams.
If I want to capture what is in my head,
It’s better if I do not try to leave my bed.
Luckily, my laptop’s always right near by
and so I pull it over and rest it on my thigh.
And lying on my back with pillows ‘neath my neck,
I pull up to my word bank and write a little check.
Spending all my riches stored up in the night,
I write and write and write and write and write and write and write.

The Prompt: Writing Space—Where do you produce your best writing — at your desk, on your phone, at a noisy café? Tell us how the environment affects your creativity

This is a shorty this morning, so read on for a poem posted in the wee hours last night, when a random sentence Skyped to me by a friend created an immediate pingback, (whatever that is.)

Lick for Lick

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Lick for Lick

Ice cream is my weakness—my favorite sort of sweet.
A flavor that I don’t adore is one I’ve yet to meet.

Mandarin orange or licorice, tequila or dill pickle?
I am not true to any of them, for I fear I’m fickle.

When choosing ice cream flavors, it’s impossible to pick.
I simply am incapable of choosing which to lick.

And so I’d like a flavor that has a bit of each:
chocolate and vanilla and a little touch of peach,

strawberry and mango and lime and toffee crunch—
why choose just one flavor when you can have a bunch?

Throw some tangerine in and some pineapple sorbet.
Licorice and banana? Who am I to say nay?

This flavor would be popular with those who cannot choose
whether they prefer the flavor of pickles, fruit or booze.

Though some of you may scoff at it and laugh in your derision,
the name of my new flavor? I call it “Indecision.”

The Prompt: Flavor # 32—A local ice cream parlor invites you to create a new wacky flavor. It needs to channel the very essence of your personality. What’s in it?

It’s a Gas

June 24th

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June 24^th

The rain falls
fresh as cucumbers
on cobblestones and tiles,
the dust of summer
washed from crevasses
and curves of stone and clay.

The air is cleansed
of the scent of primavera,
jacaranda
and flamboyant trees
and the whole world
breathes easily again.

Clouds dried up
by sunlight,
the silent birds
are flushed
from their covering leaves
and open in chorus

to the booming crack
of cohetes, splitting the air
in celebration
of Saint John the Baptist
who has baptized all
this day.

The Prompt: Seasonal Scents—S’mores, salty ocean breezes, veggie burgers on the grill, sweaty people on the bus — what’s the smell you associate the most with summer?

Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

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Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

Groundhog Day (the movie) was frustrating for sure.
When that same day kept happening, there seemed to be no cure.
But this was not reality. It really could not be.
And so to write about it has no appeal for me.

Instead I want to write about something on my mind;
and it, indeed, is something day after day I find.
When I look at my statistics on my blogging site,
I see the countries that have viewed my blog each day and night.

And when I see “Sri Lanka” occur day after day,
I wonder who that person is and what they’d have to say
if they could comment on the words that I have said to them
and wish that I could know a little more of her or him.

So if you read this message and know that it is you
who reads my blog, reveal yourself. Say who you are, please do.
I’ve been to Sri Lanka many years ago and saw
Colombo and the stupas—I viewed them all with awe.

The elephants in Kandy, the tea fields on the way,
the little inn called “Bird’s Nest” where we slept at end of day.
We climbed Anuradhapura, we stood beneath the tree
where Buddha sat 2,000 years ago. (How can this be?)

You probably weren’t born then so I’m sure we didn’t meet;
or as a babe in arms, perhaps you passed me in the street.
But nineteen sixty-seven (or was it sixty-eight?)
is very long ago and so I’m sure it’s not my fate

to reconnect with anyone I might have met back then
and it is not important what happened way back when.
To me, it is more vital to know what’s happening now,
and that is why a day or so ago I made a vow.

I mention this thing only to try to drive you to
share a little bit of what it might be to be you.
I’ve told you all my secrets, kept nothing back in shame;
so dear Sri Lanka viewer, please at least reveal your name!

The Prompt: Groundhog Week—If you could relive the past week, would you? Would you change anything?

Lush Night

8 Replies

Lush Night

Remember that delicious
walking, arms linked,
down the middle
of the gravel road
in your pajamas
at five in the morning
when you were twelve?
That first slumber party
in your safe small town
when you all stayed up all night
for the first time in your lives?
That eerie first sight
of the sun coming up
when your head had never hit a pillow
since it went down?

And then you knew for the first time
the delicious pleasures
of being a night owl—
of finding time
that everyone else was wasting
through dreams.

And you have been
an aficionado of night
ever since.
All of your term papers
and exams studied for
at the last minute,
all night long.
Books written, poems written
mostly in the dark
while towns and cities around you slept.
That power of having all of your time for yourself
with not a chance of phones ringing.
Some magic happening
once you had the world to yourself
so ever afterwards
you have survived
on as little sleep as possible.

During your party years,
dancing and drinking till three,
then going for breakfast with the single crowd
and driving straight to school at six.
You were invulnerable.

Even married,
sneaking out of bed once he’d fallen asleep
and working in your basement studio all night long,
sometimes sneaking back to bed before he awakened,
at other times caught.
“It’s nine in the morning! Have you been up all night again?”
Feeling that little terror, like a vampire caught by light.

Then at 54, with no more husband,
no more job necessary,
with a new country and a new studio
above ground,
guilty pleasures no longer needed to be hidden—
watching light after light go out
as you sat piecing art together
in your studio—until suddenly,
impossibly,
light after light went on again
so you were going to bed
as your neighbor was arising
to start his day.

Then, improbably, at 62, internet romance
entered your midnight-and-after world.
Every night serenaded to sleep
from 1500 miles away
by an equally night-addicted lover bard
at two or three or four a.m.—
or whenever pillow talk led to it.

Skype became your love letters
and your trysting spot
now and then all day long;
but still, night better swaddled
that intimate invisible union
through the dark air
that has always been magic for you,
but which now joins instead of
sending you into the single space
where you unite with that within you
which you keep separate from the world.

At night, united or alone,
you know exactly what it is you want
and live it,
with no world
to lead you elsewhere.

The Prompt: Sleepy Time. More and more of us go to bed too late because of sleep procrastination. What are the nighttime rituals that keep you up before finally dozing off?

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lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Reflections on Life through poetry, essays and photos

Category Archives: Poetry by Prescription

Lost in Iowa

Notoriety

Sayonara Umami

Unruly Punctuation

Bed Head

Lick for Lick

It’s a Gas

June 24th

Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

Lush Night

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