I hold your letter in my hand as the sun like a crimson dragon claws through the thinning clouds––spreading its sunset colors against a sky bruised with the remnants of an earlier fog. It casts a halo around your head–a spell broken by what you have just repeated to me in person––those words that have hollowed out my heart, now empty of all those past promises gone without a trace.
You are bound for the glory of that new career, far off in a golden land. No mention of my coming along. So I will remain, formerly yours, broken-hearted, in this place where the sun has now set for you, ready to rise again, as you will, on the other side of the world.
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle #694 the prompt words are: hollow clawing bruised broken spell spiralingfog halo bound trace dragon crimson
Photo by Ryan O’Niel on Unsplash. Used with permission
Stickler
The banker, the doctor, the rabbi, the priest used to jam back in high school and never ceased. They’ve been meeting on Saturday nights all their lives leaving their girlfriends and bishops and wives to drink beer and rap and have deep discussion about riffs and choruses, notes and percussion. The priest is the drummer. He wields a wild stick. The rabbi’s a string guy. The cello’s his schtick. The banker plays sax and the doctor’s on keys, but they’re all pretty good at shooting the breeze.
It’s as hot as a sauna and still they play on. All through the night and into the dawn. the priest squeegees his glasses off with his left thumb while his right is engaged in beating the drum. He’s a stickler for rhythm, enthralled with the beat. He stirs a small zephyr while stomping his feet. When they’ll stop playing is anyone’s guess. It’s obvious they overlook my duress. They’ve had a good jam. A most excellent session, but the priest better scoot or he’ll miss my confession!
After so many years, seeing it again on the screen,
I took a picture of your name.
Not written by your hand,
it had a strangeness––
featureless, revealing nothing.
It had no voice,
no breath.
Out there sharing itself with the world,
it has formed a wall around
that intimacy it birthed when you took my hand in yours,
using your name to pull me closer,
powerless against its strength on your tongue.
Everyone wanted to share a part of what made you you,
but I only wanted to be with you, back when,
scrawled in your careless hand,
you were written on my soul.
Wanting to be perfect for you,
remembering that tattoo you traced across my back.
Your name and mine.
“Always,” you wrote.
If you have not yet seen the movie Flow, move heaven and earth to see it. It is spellbinding. If you have a cat, you will be especially impressed with how perfectly the main character is illustrated. And, that said, we will have much to talk about afterwards.
What we feasted on
in those first stages of internet romance—
when nine hours was too short a conversation—was words.
We passed on to the next stage of computer dating:
our first dinner date.
He watched on his desktop computer as I prepared a salad.
This was a long and lengthy process
I recorded as closely as was possible,
using the camera from my laptop.
A prisoner of his large unmovable console computer, I watched his empty desk chair
as he repaired to the kitchen to prepare his meal, hearing sound effects but little else.
When he returned to the living room, he laid his meal in front of his computer.
I had yet to see it as I, in turn, placed my salad in front of me and took my first bite,
watching closely my technique according to my Skype image.
I chewed politely and then smiled,
revealing the lack of lettuce shards on my front teeth.
I looked up. He was watching me as lovingly as usual.
Now, it was his turn.
What are you eating? I asked. Ham, he said.
He lifted a huge hunk on his fork, taking a dainty bite
and chewing happily.
What else? I asked. Just ham, he answered.
And so he demolished the entire pound of thick ham steak,
now and then washing it down with a healthy swig of rum and Coke.
Rum and Coke.
It had been one of our bonding experiences
to find that the drink of choice for each
was Bacardi Rum with caffeine-free Diet Coke.
How could this not be a romance made in heaven?
Culinary compatibility from 2,000 miles away
seemed to be less of a problem than it would be months later,
when we first made physical contact.
But, there was a resolution. He started munching on carrots and I had no objection to ham.
We discovered a mutual mania for potato chips, and true romance bloomed
when I found the full bar of Hershey’s chocolate atop his refrigerator.
Who says we need to concentrate on our differences?
For dVerse Poets we were to post a poem about internet romance in honor of Valentines Day
I am so sad to say that Andrea is removing her WordPress blog. Because she has published several wonderful interviews and reviews of my work on her blog, I want to replicate them on my blog before she vanishes from WP.
I will miss seeing Andrea’s blogs, but she tells me she has another blog on Medium. Please check it out!
I had the pleasure of reading the manuscript of this book before its publication in 2023, and I recently reread it so I could review it with a fresh impression. If anything, I liked this book even more on second reading.
I’ve loved Judy’s poems ever since I stumbled on her blog 10 years ago (where she posts a new poem or two every day). The China Bulldog, subtitled And Other Tales of a Small-Town Girl, contains poems and essays about her childhood in rural South Dakota. It’s illustrated with vintage photos of her family. I’m close to Judy in age, so the photos trigger memories of my own small-town childhood, with similar architecture, furniture, clothing, hairstyles, toys, etc., even though I grew up on the other side of the country, in New Jersey.
The story called “Five Gifts for my Sister” gave me one of those flashbacks, when Judy mentions giving her sister a box of “old aluminum tinsel.” The tinsel of my childhood was actually lead foil. Its weight made it hang straight down, unlike the modern plastic tinsel. And the correct procedure Judy described for placing it on the tree reminded me so of my mother’s admonitions—evenly spaced, “draped on the ends of branches so it hung just to the top of the next branch without lapping over,” and never just thrown on the tree—horrors!
The essay “Hail, Hail” is about the family getting a shiny new green Oldsmobile, and Judy’s mother deciding to allow 17-year-old sister Patty drive Judy to summer camp, 200 miles away. Just before arriving at the camp, they were caught in a severe hailstorm that “marbled” the car’s windshield and cratered every inch of the new car’s surface. Now, if that had happened to me, I would have been terrified to drive it back home, suspecting that when my parents saw it, I would somehow be blamed. But throughout the book, Judy reveals her parents’ characters by their words and actions. About the damaged car, Dad said, “Accidents happen. It wasn’t your fault.” Mom said, “I never really liked that color of green anyway.” I’m guessing insurance paid for a replacement, because Judy’s parents picked her up in a brand-new rose-colored Pontiac Bonneville.
My favorite story in the whole book is “Zippy,” about their pet raccoon. Yes. Hysterical.
Who we are in our adulthood is significantly influenced by our upbringing and where we were raised. Judy Dykstra-Brown does a wonderful job of portraying her early life on the prairie. I was transported by her vivid descriptions and reminiscences. This book is definitely worth reading. And rereading.
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lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 