Category Archives: Uncategorized

Driven

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Driven

If only we had been more patient
when our child’s skills were nascent.
Hadn’t prodded, hadn’t shoved,
that young one we so dearly loved,
had not created goals irrational
local, regional and national,
vying for ribbons and for gold,
pushing for numbers over-bold.

If we had stressed an education,
built a stabler foundation,
put less zhuzh into her clothes
and more of it in what she knows,
the cyberbullies who mocked her fall
would have had no power at all,
to instigate the wounded pride
that led her to her suicide.
But as it is, it was our sin
that did our lovely daughter in.

 

Prompt words are ribbon, zhuzh, numbers, nascent,foundation,cyberbullying and irrational. Image by Kirklai on Unsplash.

Last on the Card, September, 2022

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For Bushboy’s Last on the Card Challenge, Sept, 2022

Culinary Differences (Coping with an Artistic Palate)

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Culinary Differences
(Coping with an Artistic Palate)

I’ll admit that I’m perplexed
for my spouse is sorely vexed
because he finds my menus bland
and untouched by artistic hand.

He finds my soup so pale and thin, it
needs a bit of color in it,
so I asked him how to do
more pleasing palettes for my stew.

He painted me a portrait of
a consommé he said he’d love
with so many veggies in it
and a ruby wine to thin it.

He’d like to wrap his mouth around
colors that are more profound.
to the point where I’m perplexed
over what I should cook next.

My color combination tends
towards browns and whites of various blends. 
Might I aspire to red and yellow,
with pickled beets in lemon Jell-o?

He says my taste in food is static
whereas his is more erratic.
But, tired of his bitch and moan,
perhaps I’ll let him cook his own.

Alternate ending:  (don’t read this one, Sam)

He suggests a novel dish
of tomato aspic around fish?
The thought of it makes my lips pucker.
Perhaps I’ll just divorce the -ucker!!!

 

Prompts today are red and yellow, pickle, perplexed, aspire, mouth, portrait and erratic. All of the images are from Unsplash.

Wallpaper for Flashback Friday, Sept. 30, 2022

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When Fandango asked us to reblog a blog from the past, I had over 9,000 to choose from, and for some reason I chose this one.

For Fandango’s Flashback Friday, we are to repost a blog from the past.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

DSC09880

Wallpaper

Clinging to the wall
like an old wallpaper scrap
are the words
I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you.

Their refrain slides up and down
the musical scale—
an old country tune,
plaintive and clear.

Why do I want you?

The first time I met you,
there was something about the curl of your hair.
Your eyes, so familiar­—puzzled, as though
you, too, were trying to remember.

After that, it was
the set of your shoulders—
the arm stretched between your seat and mine
with your hand on the back of my seat.

All of your restraint an aphrodesiac.

The truth is
that I pined
for two days after I left,
then went on with my life.

Still, that scrap
of wanting
comes up early in the morning
as I waken

and my mind walks,
looking for someone to pin it to,
and every…

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Detente in the Animal Kingdom

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Detente in the Animal Kingdom

The queen of hippopatamuses feels a bit perplexed
for she crossed the hyenas and now she has been hexed.
They’ve jinxed her favorite swimming hole so she has to swim
in a muddy tiny pond with crocs around the rim.

When she lumbers from the pond to have her usual binge
on grass, her favorite supper, she feels a little twinge.
It seems like in the puddle where she most recently sat,
waddling through the bottom mud, dragging all her fat,

she must have nudged a bit too close to a crocodile
and snagged a bit of hippo fat on his croco-smile.
He’s swinging there behind her, his tooth hooked on her tush,
creating  a great disarray while crashing through the bush.

With her competing waddle, they’re an ecological threat,
destroying all the underbrush as they thrash and vet.
How will they resolve this problem that they cause?
First it’s necessary that they cool down and pause

to make peace with the hyenas so they can use their claws
to disentangle hippo skin from the croc’s sharp jaws,
thus restoring order and reinstating peace
so all this inter-species angst finally will cease!!!

Prompt words today are jinx, swing, perplexed,disarray, compete, twinge and hippopatamus. Image by J. Anders on Unsplash.

Aimless

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I couldn’t help reblogging this poem which uses a bird as the metaphor for the creative process. Yes, it has a simile in it, but the entire poem itself my mind becomes a wild bird.

For Muriopsis’s Scavenger Hunt “Looking at Names” prompt number 12, to use a bird as a metaphor.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

IMG_9131

Here’s a smaller version so you can see the shape on a smaller device.  I’ve been working on this shape for seven hours.  Sheesh! how time flies.  I have versions of four different birds, but I think I like the duck best.

IMG_9131

In case you are curious, here is another version of “Aimless.”  Same poem, different bird–a plumed exotic with its wings extended.


Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 5.29.02 PM

And, for those who haven’t had enought, here is the first view I did:

Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 7.46.53 PM
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/aimless/

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Jumpin’ Jupiter, Wordless Wednesday, Sept 28, 2022

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Photos of Jupiter in overcast skies from my pool, 2:30 AM, Sept 27, 2022, San Juan Cosala, Jalisco Mexico. Did anyone else observe it? Largest view we’ll have for the next 58 years. If you took photos, please send me a link in my comments. I had a hard time getting these as the clouds kept floating over and obscuring the skies. I stood in my pool for an hour or so trying to get decent shots. 

For Wordless Wednesday

CFFC Birds, Sept 27, 2022

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Oriole
I never have been able to figure out what was sticking out of this gull’s head.
Transcience

For CFFC Birds

R.I.P.

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R.I.P.

No fall to earth, no plaintive cry.
No false regrets. No ending sigh.

No stab, no arrow and no shot.
All of these things were not her lot.

No accusation of who’s to blame.
No faulty party here to name.

Let mourners mourn if mourn they must,
reduce her body into dust.

They do it all to no avail,
She sees no tears. She hears no wail.

I fear your mourning goes too slow.
Only her body remains below,

for she departed long ago
to melt into that greater flow.

For her, all mortal customs cease,
so let her mourners rest in peace.

Prompts offered at this point are plaintive, accusation, stab,

An Amazing Ending to the Cat Intruder Story

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A few days ago I published a story about a cat who showed up at my house, terrorized my other cats and attached itself to me like glue.  Under ordinary circumstances, I would have done what I’ve done with every other animal that has come to the house or attached itself to me on my walks. I would have adopted her. But, she wreaked utter pandemonium in my house. The other cats ran from her in spite of the fact that she was half their size. When she went into the backyard to perch herself on the ledge below the upper wall, the dogs went crazy, jumping up and barking. There was nothing I could do to remove her as she was behind a stand of dense banana and ficus trees and seemed to be enjoying teasing the dogs. I had to feed the other cats inside or they ran away when she approached and she ate all their food.

I tried confining her in a large carrier for hours, thinking she’d run away when I released her. Instead she wound herself around my legs and got in front of me, threatening to trip me up with ever step I took. All day and all night long, she went from outside door to window to door of my house crying, then climbed the screens to hang, beseeching.

This went on for two days until I discovered that Yolanda was open to taking her to her home, a mile and a half away down the mountain in San Juan Cosala, so I drove her there and heard no more for two days.  Then, today when Yolanda came to work, I asked her how the new cat was working out and she said very well, that he was living with her sister’s daughter. When I asked why, she remarked that Alejandra had come over to see her and immediately recognized as one of her own cats that had annoyed the neighbor and so he had taken him (I had been sure “he” was a “she”) with another cat up to the mountains and released them.

This was a long distance from her house, but just up the mountain from me, evidently, and somehow the cat found its way to my house and worked its wiles to eventually wind up back home again. Now how is that for a “The Cat Came Back” story????

In case you missed them before, here are my two other stories about the cat intruder.

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2022/09/23/intruder-my-pick-for-cwbc-sept-22-2022/

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2022/09/23/intruder-addendum/