Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Grump: A Pessimist’s Last Request

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The Grump: A Pessimist’s Last Request

I don’t pander to the drug merchants. My pleasures are not herbal.
I don’t believe in drinking and I don’t get off on verbal.
Gossip is innocuous and I have no affection
for reading mystery novels. I am bored by their detection.
I do not seek adventure in movies or in travel.
I don’t see what folks see in Judge Judy’s pounding gavel. 
I don’t have any hobbies, for I find all pastimes boring.
I got rid of my wife for I can’t abide her snoring.
I don’t see what folks see in life so when time comes to end it,
please do not resuscitate. I don’t wish to extend it!

 

A disclaimer: this poem is preceded by a favorite photo I once took but in no way illustrates the person depicted. He’s a good sport and has let me use this photo three different times to illustrate humorous poems. 

Prompt words are adventure, innocuous, herbal, pander and affection.  And. . .this poem is purely fiction. Go ahead and resuscitate me!!!! 

This Dress: The Sunday Whirl, Wordle #511

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

This Dress

This dress, stuffed in a corner of an old trunk,
sparks memories, rekindling magic.
From far in the future, I feel the past
rising to join me. It heats the cold air of the attic
and the skies outside the window clear of clouds.

A warm spring afternoon on a blanket in the park,
the outing I thought spontaneous
crowned with the offer of a ring.
Spilling the wine, falling sideways into the three-tiered coconut cake,
rising as one, laughing—a freshly engaged couple.

Licking the frosting off your arm. Your licking the frosting off my neck.
Symbiotic in new plans for our continuance into the future—
into the length of our lives.
That dress. A bit of frosting still on the collar.
You, so many years after, still blooming in my memory.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle # 511 the prompt words are rekindle, dress, far, future

View original post 18 more words

The Biggest Risk To the World!!!

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https://news.yahoo.com/delta-variant-upends-assumptions-coronavirus-101928525.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews

Member of the Pack

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Member of the Pack

It’s a pretense that I’m lonely, for as I look back
I do not miss existing in the raffish pack.
I do not miss the barrooms or parties tightly wedged
between the other partiers—those memories I’ve dredged
from a corner of my mind where they are a reminder
that once my world was fuller if not exactly kinder.

We were all examining the people we could be.
Trying on our different selves to see what we could see
in the mirror of our cohorts’ eyes and how they treated us,
riding in the joy car ’til we jumped down from the bus
to thumb a ride to try to find a different part to live in—
a part where all the rest of us wouldn’t have to give in.

All the various sides of us have their own times and spaces
that are all a part of how life puts us through our paces.
And now in maturity, I hope that we’ve all found
that comfortable part of us for which we all were bound.
And that’s why I’m not lonely as I wander back
in memory to when I was a member of the pack!

 

 

Prompts today are pretense, lonely, reminder, raffish and pack.

Tree Square: Neighborhood Giant

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For the Tree Squares prompt.

Living Behind Blue Walls

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

For the Life in Color: Blue prompt.

Accidental Excuses

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Accidental Excuses

Pointing at the calendar, you voice a guttural moan,
regretting a notation for which you must atone.
It’s time to trim the ivy from the window frames and gutters,
but your reluctance to do so, I can tell from your low mutters.

When our decorous window boxes needed a small touch-up,
you erased the reminder and smugly held your crutch up.
Of course I did the job for you, for it would be abuse
not to take a broken leg as adequate excuse.

But now that you have healed, my dear, it clearly is your turn
to cut back the ivy and to trim the Boston fern.
In spite of your pleading eyes and all your manly charm,
you’ll only avoid this chore if you fall and break an arm!

Prompt words today are guttural, calendar, ivy, decorous and point.
Image by Debb D on Unsplash.

Puddle-Jumping

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Puddle-Jumping

Raindrops fall and splat and skitter,
bringing sheen and gloss and glitter.
In my dreams I hear them falling,
try to wake to heed their calling.
When exactly do I know
it’s time to leave my bed and go
outside to splash in rain-filled gutters,
ignoring Grandpa’s warning mutters
that I’ll catch a cold today
if I go outside to play?

He says it’s raining cats and dogs,
but all I find outside are frogs,
proving his idiom a lie
as nothing’s falling from the sky
but rain and blossoms from the tree
that stretches its limbs over me.
I make my way, laborious,
through mud and goo most glorious,
then reach the ditch and wash feet off
in the rushing water trough.

I see Grandpa watching me,
warm and dry and splatter-free.
But then he’s gone, no doubt to see
what’s playing now on the TV.
But, just as it begins to pour,
there’s Grandpa coming out the door!
Barefooted, he jumps in my puddle,
gives my shoulders a warm cuddle,
then repeats the old refrain
that this day is “Right as rain!”


Prompt words today are rain, idiom, skitter, exact, dreams.
Images by Amy Reed and Nicholas Bartos on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Cracked

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Cracked

My thoughts are arabesques that curl—now looser and now tight.
They coalesce, then part again to let in needed light.
When ponderings go underground, they tend to matte and cloy,
but when they leave some room within, they seem to invite joy.
So in between colloquial thoughts, I wedge out open spaces
where I can  I leave some fractures, inviting fresh new traces
of innovative modes of thought and bright new points of view
so bit by bit, over the years my attitudes accrue.

Prompt words for the day are coalesce, colloquial, fractures, cloy and underground.

The Meeting Place (for Dverse Poets)

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The Meeting Place

What are you waiting for––
divine inspiration?
Do you think Shakespeare waited for his muse?
And if your muse came,
would you even recognize her?
Will she wear long white flowing robes?
Will she play a lute or will your voice
be her instrument?
Will she whisper in your ear or speak to you
though your mind?
And will she be beautiful or will that even matter?
As you age will your muse age with you
or is she perpetually young?
And what about wisdom?
Will it be your own acquired wisdom or hers
that will make your words cut like a knife
though the soft texture of days,
that will give them purpose
when those around you
fail and fall
into the magnetic cloud
of forgetfulness or boredom?
What if as you sit there
waiting for your muse,
watching reality TV
or doing crossword puzzles,
your muse is waiting for you
in the keys of your computer
or in your pen point?
What if she has been lolling all these years
in the pages
of that lined notebook
sitting empty on your shelf?
I keep telling you
that every day I see her
pass behind you
as you pine for her,
always looking
in the opposite
direction.

 

For dVerse Poets–a poem about a muse.