This post has been removed as a stipulation for submitting it in a poetry contest.
The Prompt: Middle Seat—It turns out that your neighbor on the plane/bus/train (or the person sitting at the next table at the coffee shop) is a very, very chatty tourist. Do you try to switch seats, go for a non-committal brief small talk, or make this person your new best friend?
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?
The Prompt: You’re embarking on a yearlong round-the-world adventure, and can take only one small object with you to remind you of home. What do you bring along for the trip?
Well obviously, my computer. It is my communicator, entertainment, authority, reference engine, game board, stereo, movie theater, playground, tablet, singles bar, family gathering place, archivist, doctor, shopping mall, photo album and so much more. This is a no-brainer.
“Lined Up Blues”
(to be sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”)
Dashing through the flow,
barefooted as I go,
I stand and pine
in the security line,
emptying pockets way too slow.
Put my laptop in a bin
and my 3 oz. bottles in
a little bag,
but I can’t lag
‘case my purse and all my dough
has preceded me through the screen
and the TSA’s look mean.
I’m afraid that lady
who looks so shady
will take my purse and go.
(refrain;)
Oooooh, airport lines,
security whines,
waiting all the day.
I’ll flunk my scan
and the X-ray man
will frisk me all the wa-ay.
Airport blues,
got no shoes,
some man just took my rings.
I’ll lose my seat,
get athlete’s feet,
but lose my other things.
I guess it is the norm
my privacy to storm,
to strip me down
and frown and frown
as they survey my form.
I just spent all my dough
to come from Mexico
to see my kin
and then drop in
to see my favorite beau.
But first I’ll have to ride,
a center seat to abide
and airplane woes
like too-small rows
with no space left inside.
(refrain)
Ohhhhh, Airport blues,
travel dues,
no time to complain.
I grab my stuff
half in the buff
and run to catch my pla-ane.
Airport lines,
security whines,
I fear I’ll rue the day.
‘cause I have to face
this same disgrace
when I reach the U.S.A.!!!!
The Prompt: You’re at the airport, your flight is delayed for six more hours, and none of your electronic devices is working. How do you pass the time?
Blogger’s note: Actually, I wrote a less tongue-in-cheek piece about this topic a few weeks ago. Here’s a link to that blog post: The Atlanta Airport
In the Motel Breakfast Room
That little boy
is screaming and mad.
At eight in the morning,
he’s already bad!
He tasted his waffle
and doesn’t want more.
He just dumped his Fruit Loops
all over the floor.
His mom didn’t see
from her side of the room.
The attendant was swift
with her dustpan and broom.
She removed all the cereal
dumped at my feet
by the brattiest child
I ever did meet.
I came to this place
for some coffee and quiet.
I didn’t expect
to encounter a riot.
He’s having a tantrum.
He will not sit down.
His voice at screech level,
his mouth set on frown.
Does he want to go back
to the room? asks his mother
as she struggles to feed
both his sister and brother.
At this breakfast bar set up
for all of the guests,
regrettably, no sign says,
“We don’t serve pests.”
Last night when my friend
went to get us some ice,
“Excuse me, Excuse me,”
the desk clerk said twice
as he ran down the hall
in a manner uncool
heading straight for the door
that leads into the pool.
Now I can imagine this
terrible kid
pushing some button.
(I bet that he did!)
that signaled “Emergency
Call 911!”
watching the panic
and calling it fun.
The manager thinking
“perhaps a cracked head!”
but encountering only
this bad boy instead.
Now this morning my coffee
was ruined by his cries.
This early-day tantrum
a rite I despise.
I started to gather
my coffee and fruit,
then grabbed a few
creamers and sweeteners to boot.
When from my eye’s corner
before I could stand,
at the edge of my table
I saw a small hand.
I looked up to encounter
a smile ear-to-ear.
That horrible child
looked ever so dear!
He flashed me the smile,
for a moment stood near,
then departed the room
nevermore to appear.
When I looked at the table,
an astonishing sight.
He’d left me one Fruit Loop
right there in plain sight.
That child’s behavior
now leaves me in doubt
whether I should remember
the smile or pout.
Was my disapproval
so plain to see
that this tiny child
could see right through me?
And had he the wisdom
to do what he did
simply to remind me
a kid is a kid?
Note: The event described in this poem actually happened on May 24 at a motel in Des Moines, IA, where I was attending my nephew’s h.s. graduation party. And yes, this is “the” Fruit Loop, which I still have. The subject was prescribed by Duckie, who, when I told him what had just happened, said, “You gotta write about this.” Poetry by Prescription. You suggest the topic. I will write about it.
“Southern Icons of the 20th Century” by Joni Mabe
“Travelers” By Larry Walker
Yesterday, I arose at 3 a.m. (after just 3 hours of sleep) to be driven by taxi to the Guadalajara airport to catch a plane to Dallas/Ft. Worth where I would catch a connecting flight on to St. Louis, MO. After visiting Mexican immigration at one end of the airport and pulling two heavy bags the length of the airport to wait in the American Airlines line for an hour, I discovered that bad weather in Dallas had caused them to cancel all flights, and would it be convenient for me to come back tomorrow? No, coming back tomorrow was not convenient! Not only was a friend waiting for me in St. Louis, but the additional two taxi fares would amount to my taxis costing more than my airline flight. American was able to schedule me onto a later Delta flight and so it is that at the hour when I should have arrived in St. Louis, I am instead in the Atlanta airport with three hours left before my flight leaves, sitting next to a man who snuffles like a pig every 30 seconds, held prisoner by the electric power strip providing juice to the loyal MacBook Air that is making it possible for me to tell you today’s story.
If you’ve ever gone through your customs and immigration check in Atlanta, you probably already know what I have discovered: that the Atlanta airport has the longest walk and most circuitous queue lines of any airport so far experienced, after which you arrive at an automatic passport check where you scan your own passport, pose for the most unflattering picture possible, then go through yet another maze that is nothing short of an endurance check/ordeal after which you wait in line forever along with 500 other travelers to again be sorted into lines by an immigration employee on the job for the first day (she told me so) who for some reason has a grudge against your line to the point that the other two lines are empty before she sees fit to select people from the pariah line to again get in line to see one of the 4 humans assigned to double check our worthiness to enter the U.S., walk for another 15 minutes to retrieve our luggage and then wait in yet another line for customs.
By the time I actually made it through customs and began my loooooooong trek to where I could catch a train to another concourse, I was as perspiration-soaked as if I had been through an hour-long workout at the gym. You will have guessed right if you are thinking that once I arrived on “B” concourse, I discovered that my gate was the last one on the concourse. Of course it was! There is, however, a fact that mitigates all of the frustration previously endured, for the corridors of the Atlanta airport leading from the plane to Immigration are lined with some of the best and most varied art I’ve ever seen in any airport exhibition and most art museums. Collage, wall sculpture and paintings made me wish the automatic walkways would stall to give me time enough to actually look at the art—with the result that I got off the moving walkway to walk back to do just that. With no hands free to record any of the names of artists, I’ll just have to leave it to Google or airport authorities to give you more specific information, but the art was whimsical, colorful, original, thought-provoking and sometimes naïf. (For certain of those outsider art pieces giving exhaustive social commentary, do not judge the artistic merit by the spelling.)
A $13 pulled-pork plate assuaged my appetite as at that time it had been 13 hours since I arose to drive to the airport and begin my long day’s journey. But it was a trip to the ladies room that assured me that I was in fact back in the good old U.S.A. Spotless cleanliness, two full toilet paper rolls, paper seat covers, a hook to hang my purse, enough room to store my carry-on rolling bag without having to squeeze myself into a corner to do so, a self-flushing toilet that actually flushed and the piéce de résistance—A SHELF TO PUT MY DRINK ON!!!! Upon my easy exit from the roomy stall, I enjoyed an automatic foam soap dispenser installed in the sink next to the warm water faucet, then found paper towels and trash can within easy reach. This of course made me remember (with no nostalgia) the new movie theater in Ajijic, Mexico—my home town for the past 13 years—where only one sink of the eight present actually works and is, of course, the one furthest away from the only towel dispenser. Ah, Atlanta airport. I forgive thee for all other sins.
Our prompt today is to write a poem that includes at least 5 words in a foreign language.
Foreign Tongues
When I was a child, I thought as a child.
In short, I didn’t think.
My faulty reasonings were piled
like dishes in a sink.
I was different, didn’t sync
with the rest of my childhood herd.
(Even at five, I was on the brink
of being a little nerd.)
While other children responded to
“What do you want to be?”
with “Cowboy! Teacher!” (right on cue),
these answers weren’t me.
When it came to having career talks,
I fear I was a purist.
My answer was less orthodox.
My aim? To be a tourist!!
I thought tourists then to be
a sort of gypsy pack.
Jobless, they were wild and free,
their luggage on their back.
Or in their cars, packed front and back,
traveling evermore––
a footloose, wandering, feckless pack
unsettled to the core.
I saw them passing on the road
just one block south of where
my family hunched in their abode
year after passing year.
I had to wait for 19 years
to earn my traveling shoes––
to assuage my parents’ groundless fears,
abate their travel blues.
I took off on a sailing ship
to visit foreign lands.
When foreign words evaded lip,
I merely used my hands!
Back home, the English seemed to me
common––sorta dowdy.
Instead of “Moshi, moshi”
I had to murmur, “Howdy.”
As soon as school was over,
I hopped upon a plane.
I’d pass my life a rover.
Inertia was inane!
I packed up my regalia
with neither tear nor sob
to head out to Australia
for my first teaching job.
I thought that English I would teach.
It was our common tongue.
Enunciation would I teach.
Oh Lord, I was so young!
My first day there, I heard the word
“Did-ja-‘ave-a guh-die-mite?”
I found it all to be absurd.
They were joking. Right?
“Don’t come the raw prahn on my, mite”
was next to meet my ear.
What foreign language did they cite?
It puzzled me, I fear.
I rode, I walked, I sailed the seas
and ended up in Bali.
Said my “Terimakasih’s”
And then, “Selamat Pagi.”
My move to Africa was one
that some folks found quixotic,
but “amasaganalu”
was a word I found exotic.
After two years, I went home.
Wyoming was the next
place that I agreed to roam,
though I was sorely vexed.
For though the words were all the same
I’d learned at my mom’s knee––
(I’m sure that I was all to blame)
they all seemed Greek to me!
California was where I hung
my hat for many-a-year.
There Español was half the tongue
that fell upon my ear.
I liked its cadence, liked its ring.
The words ran fluid and
their foreignness was just my thing
in this bilingual land.
So Mexico is where I’m bound.
I’ve reasons numbering cien.
The main one is, I like the sound
of “Que la via bien.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 