Category Archives: Poetry

The Wall: NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 29

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The prompt today is to write a poem inspired by a Sylvia Plath poem.  Below the photo is the poem I wrote. The Plath poem I chose that inspired it is given below my poem.

The Wall

I put my hand against the raw stone of the wall
and I can feel it siphoning molecules.
There is a tingling sensation
as they flow out of me.

I try to send some extrasensory
particles along with them
to communicate to me
where they go
and what they encounter there,
but I know that it is futile.

I cannot follow
where these lost parts of me go––
these thoughts, wishes,
aspirations
that I surrender to the wall.

It is not by choice, you know,
that I sit here facing what 
has  been leached out of my life.

I go on living what life I can,
knowing that in time
all of me will finally
flow into the wall.

 I’ve lost so much ambition to it—
and hope and curiosity.
So much of what has kept me engaged in life
has already  gone into that gray world
where I cannot yet follow.

Now I sit here, facing it,
acknowledging my failure
as well as the wall’s exclusivity.
Only my shadow
cast against it
reminds me that
somewhere behind me
there is a sun.

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For NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 29.

 

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                              Apprehensions

                                              — by Sylvia Plath

There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself —
Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.
Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.
They are my medium.
The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A grey wall now, clawed and bloody.
Is there no way out of the mind?
Steps at my back spiral into a well.
There are no trees or birds in this world,
There is only sourness.

This red wall winces continually:
A red fist, opening and closing,
Two grey, papery bags —
This is what i am made of, this, and a terror
Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pieties.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds
Swivel their heads and cry.
There is no talk of immorality among these!
Cold blanks approach us:
They move in a hurry.

Rivulet

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Rivulet

That tiny scarlet rivulet
descending from his bayonet
displays a horrid etiquette,
so minimal, it’s barely wet.

He lights himself a cigarette
with no remorse and no regret.
Overhead, he hears the jet
and speaks to it from his headset.

Mere days from now, a wife will set
out pieces of a wee layette
on the counter of her kitchenette
not having had the visit yet

that minutes later she will get.
Her country is much in her debt
for the end her husband met
caught in the enemy’s cruel net.

Her hopes and dreams they can’t reset
with military etiquette.
No lesser arms do to abet
tears falling in a rivulet.

The prompt today is rivulet.

July 3, 1947

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July 3, 1947

The date above is notable
for reasons that are quotable.
It marks the birth of someone who
has  brought these few words into view
to put them in her blogging queue.
(True, that is what all bloggers do.)

But if there is a blogging heaven,
four thousand one hundred fifty-seven
might certainly be in the running
for snapshotting, rhyming and punning—
all those things we bloggers do
to try to get a rise from you.

In fact, in numbers I’ve been sparing
in how my blog count has been faring.
Blogs four thousand one-fifty-nine
are the numbers I claim as mine
for former blog posts that are done.
The next will end in sixty-one!

With sixty, alas, nothing rhymes
and so it is the least of crimes
that I don’t quote it as a score.
A small malfeasance, nothing more.
As poems go, this is not the best,
so please just rate me by the rest!

 

The prompt today is notable.

Goblins

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Goblins

They steal into town to pillage and croon,
Invading on tiptoe, every third moon.
With fiery red hair and warts on their noses,
they cut all the tulips and pee on the roses.
Venting belches that reek of porter and scallions,
they chase all the ladies in randy battalions
and press scaly lips on unwilling misses
who scamper away to wipe off their kisses.
But still the next morning, their sickly taste lingers
on unlucky lips and unfortunate fingers
of girls who’ve attempted to purge these advances
that with lecherous hobgoblins pass for romances.
So all ye young maidens take heed of this warning.
Put off your wanderings until the morning!

 

 Further thinking about whether there are in fact girl goblins and what their activities might be regarding human boys led me to write this additional (very bad) poem: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2018/04/27/questions-of-diminution/

The NaPoWriMo prompt was: write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses. Thanks to Forgottenman for adding the “goblin” prompt to the mix.

NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 25

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem
that takes the form of a warning label for yourself!

Warning: Fume-Free Area!!!!

The human female in this room
cannot abide the dreaded fume
of any type of floral bloom,
so if you slather on perfume,
it is for sure—you must assume
you chance occasioning her rheum.
Enter and face your certain doom!!!

 

For further information on how much I abhor floral scents, go HERE.

For NaPoWriMo 2018, day 25. image borrowed from internet . 

 

Uriah Heep Meets Rocky Balboa on Rodeo Drive

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Uriah Heep–an unctuous, cringing, overly-humble character from Charles Dickens was chosen by the British Telegraph as one of their favorite Dickens characters. I chose him as well for a meeting with another rather hard-to-take notable fictional figure way back at the beginning of my blog. Few people read that silly poem that chronicled the meeting between Heep and Rocky Balboa. HERE is a link if you’d like to take a peek back at it.

A portrait of Uriah Heep by Frederick Barnard (1846-1896), which was used to illustrate David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

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A portrait of Uriah Heep by Frederick Barnard (1846-1896), which was used to illustrate David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Photo: Alamy

The WordPress prompt today is bestow.

Chancy Cuisine

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Chancy Cuisine

I ordered cottage cheese pancakes with bacon on the side.
I’d heard they were delicious, so I took it in my stride
when I saw them on the menu, not thinking it absurd
until I took my first big bite and bit into a curd.
So what if cottage cheese had lumps? I thought it wouldn’t matter.
I thought somehow that they’d be blended smoothly in the batter.
Not so, I found, attempting to mash them with my fork.
and take  a bite of pancake, then a bite of pork.
The pork and syrup didn’t help this dish lumpy and pallid.
It still tasted like breakfast that was conjoined with a salad!
By the time I’d drunk my coffee down to its last dregs
and tried to hide my pancakes under my scrambled eggs,
my friends were finishing their meals, replete and smacking lips,
settling their bills and figuring their tips.
Their breakfasts were not strange ones—neither oddly-paired nor lumpy.
Nothing in today’s cuisine had left them starved and grumpy.
They went on to see a matinee and other day’s adventures,
while I went home to pry the curds out of my brand new dentures!
Next time I’ll order scrambled eggs, an omelet or a waffle,
not chancing more exotic fare potentially awful.

 

The prompt work today is partake.

Mama’s Boy: NapoWriMo 2018, Day 21 and WordPress

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                                                          Mama’s Boy

Nodding over the water,
Arcing over beauty,
Reeling from what you see.
Consummate perfection
In that visage
Swaying in the water’s current.
So many women echoing your admiration,
Unable to break your fascination with your
Self.

The prompt today is to write a poem based on the Narcissus myth.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/narcissism/

Let There be Light

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Sometimes, to get to that authentic part of ourselves where poetry resides, we have to illuminate some dark corners.

IMG_4662 (1)

Let There Be Light


My mind is a growling dog.
While I stew and fuss,
fulfilling lists,
she jumps the screen door,
beckoning.
Rude me, to turn my back
on the only playmate
who wants to play
the same games I do
every day, every hour,
because I fear that initial
plodding through silt
page after page
in search of the stream
of words.

Sometimes boredom
yawns so wide
that I have to enter it,
to wander its inner closet
where for decades
only cobwebs
have stirred.
In some dark corner
where I spank the dog
or search the bedside table drawers
of a lover called out at midnight,
I find the river’s source,
but then
the phone
rings and I’m off
gathering crumbs from a forest path,
leaving lost children
stranded in their own story.

Stray puppies—I collect every one,
wild orange funnel flowers
and guava
washed in an afternoon kitchen
just before the invasion
of five o’clock sunlight.
All of them I carry back
to hidden places
to rub against each other
and ignite
into the language of this place
where life goes in,
plays dress-up,
but emerges
nude,
like poetry.

 

If you’ve been following me for four years, you’ve seen this one before. The prompt word today was authentic.

At Play: NaPoWriMo 2018, Day 16

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daily life color162 (1)Version 2

“Ring Around the Rosie” for my sister’s birthday & a backyard production of “Cowboys.”

At Play

“Annie I Over,” ” New Orleans.”
In shorts or dresses or cutoff jeans,
we ran and threw and played and shouted.
our pent-up energy thus outed.
“Send ‘Em,” “Ditch ‘Em,”  “Cops and Robbers.”
“Poor Pussy” turned us into sobbers.
Do you remember these childhood games?
All vastly varied, with different names?

Before TV or internet,
games were as good as one could get
for transport from reality.
Back when we were cellphone-free,
“Drop the Handkerchief” we knew well
along with “Farmer in the Dell.”
“London Bridge” went falling down
each birthday party in our town.

All the long-lit summer nights
“Cowboys and Indians” staged their fights.
“Cops and Robbers” led to searches
of school ditches and behind churches.
The whole town our playing ground,
each chid lost, each child found
in hours long games of “Hide-and-Seek.”
Count to one hundred.  Do not peek!

In childhood games of girls and boys,
imaginations were our toys.
Does such magic now reside
in minds of children safe inside
their cushioned worlds of rumpus rooms,
sealed safe within their  houses’ wombs?
For dangers real now lurk in places
that formerly hid playmates’ faces.

Safety dictates different measures
for insuring childhood pleasures.
But oh, I remember so well
joyful flight and heartful swell
of friends pursuing through the dark
back then when life was such a lark.
Now children seek  play differently
on cellphone screens and Smart TV,

scarce imagining a world
with internet not yet unfurled.
Our world had not yet been corrupted
with connections interrupted
with wireless servers on the blink,
for we needed no further link
than friends pounding upon our door
to come outside and play some more!

 

daily life color161 (1)Stylish cowboys Karen Bossart and sister Patti.

 

This is a rerun of a piece from two years ago.http://www.napowrimo.net/day-sixteen-5/

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24 thoughts on “At Play”

    1. lifelessonsPost author
      Me too. Why don’t adults ever play these games? I guess in Britain they used to…The one where one person would hide and when they were found, the person who found them would crowd in with them. More and more as the bame progressed until everyone was in one confined space with just one person left looking for them.

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      1. Karen Bossarts Rusthoven
        Oh, Judy! This was wonderful! Those were the days. What ever happened to childhood?
        Thanks for the memories! I’ll see you in September. Love you! Karen

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    1. lifelessonsPost author
      Did you play all of those? I’ve never met anyone else who played New Orleans. My sister and I were tryng to remember what happened after the “it” person droped the button into your hand. Wikipedia just says that everyone tries to guess who has it and the one who does then gets to be “it.” That doesnt sound very exciting, though. I thought there was some chasing involved, but perhaps I’m confusing it with “Drop the Handkerchief.” Charmingly naive names for these games, as were the rules. But what fun they were. In the winter, Fox fox Goose.

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  4. Venkatacharya
    Those were all wonderful days. I used to play many games that you mentioned above at my childhood during those years of 1950s and 60s. We miss all this happiness now.

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      2. lifelessonsPost author
        Thanks, Mary. My poetry group doesn’t quite know what to make of my humorous rhymed stuff. They don’t want me to put any of it in our new anthology, which they say is intended for more “serious” poetry…But the rhymed humor cheers me up, too, when it decides to appear, so I keep welcoming it with open arms. I will describe Poor Pussy, Poor Pussy in a post.

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    2. lifelessonsPost author
      Thanks to sister Betty, at least for the first seven years of my life.Then I took over the role of family photographer, or Patti did when the photos were of me. I now take more photos in a week than we did in ten years back when it was a bit more work and a lot more money to get a photo.

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      6. lifelessonsPost author
        Is the story about the women in your family the 1500 word story you were talking about? I enjoyed it. Didn’t seem rambling. I’d enjoy knowing who the people were in the photos, though.

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  6. Mary Francis McNinch
    I longed for the simpler world, before Internet and real danger lurked. Tonight I cried. Cyberspace became a stranger, now I feel like a two faced jerk. Truly Judy.. I love the way you tell it like it is or was.

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The prompt: write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up