To Get a Poem for dVerse Poets

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To Get a Poem

Leave the dirty dishes in the sink.
A dishwasher washes the poems away.
Allow cat hair to accumulate on the footstool.
Cat hair is a city for poems.
Let plants go another day before watering,
lest poems in the soil should be flushed away.

Let lie the crumpled sock a friend’s child
left in the sleeping loft.
Don’t destroy the poem of it.
Don’t bother to rake leaves.
Poems cannot live in neat piles.
Leave the soup stain on your shirt .
Tomato and basil are ingredients of poetry.

There is a poem in the confetti of paper on the bedroom carpet
and in the bread crumbs and the orphaned straight pins.
Bills in the “TO BE PAID” folder?
Each is the embryo of a poem.
Paying them now would be poetry murder.

In my living room, there is more poetry
in the blankets of dust on glass tables
than the burnished surface of the clay vase.
There is more poetry, more poetry, more poetry
than can ever be tidied up in this world or the next.

Falling poetry snarls in the weave of the hammock.
All of this raw poetry lies around us, primed for the collecting.
Messy poetry and dusty.
You won’t die from, but you could live on
poetry that’s hidden in the messy corners of your world.

And, since Mr. Linky shut down before I could post it, Here is another: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2026/06/28/love-poem-to-poets/

for dVerse Poets, the assignment is: The Prompt:   Write an Ars Poetica that reveals your writing process through imagery, symbolism, or personalization.

Friday Fibs for June 26

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Sal Mineo

The Fibbing Friday Fodder for today is:

Your thoughts on defining these please

1. Ricochet.  Doilies crocheted out of rickrack.
2. Paradox.  Dr. Strangelove meets Ben Casey
3. Influence. Being ill with swine or bird flu.
4. Calculus  What two CPIs in love call themselves
5. Imminent.  Emnt
6. Fluctuate. To first raise, then lower, then raise again the middle finger of one’s hand.
7. Ramshackle. A beat-up habitat for sheep
8. Salivate. Drooling over Mr. Mineo
9. Hypothesis. A scholarly treatise written about a huge aquatic animal living in Africa.
10. Gentry  A polite man’s attempt.

 

Ten Years Ago Today: On Pants and Fences

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This is today’s look over the shoulder from Word Press: “Cracking open the content time capsule: Revisit your posts from this day, June 26.”

I chose a post I made on this date (June 26) in 2016:

Mending Wall and Mending Pants!!!

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I agree that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, ” but fences, schmences.  Although the topic today is “Fences,” I think walls are close enough to fences–just a matter of material and “I have miles to go before I sleep” thanks to packing, purchasing, organizing  and copying things I need to take to the states on Wednesday, so taking the further risk of alluding to Robert Frost three times in three sentences, I am going to avail myself of a link to an old parody of “Mending Wall” (entitled “Mending Pants”) that I wrote 2.5 years ago before most of you had even heard of my blog.  I hope you enjoy it and approve the streeeeeetttttccchhhhh of the theme for today.  Guess you could call them stretch pants???

DSC09502 IMG_1447

Robert Frost seemed to have a thing about boundary markers.  “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and “Mending Wall” are the most notable indicators of this.  Several years ago when I had only a few faithful followers, I wrote a parody on “Mending Wall” which I’d like to share with you again.  Judging from the likes, the faithful Angloswiss was my only present follower who read it and if some of you are like me, even if you read it two and a half years ago, you probably won’t remember it, so please indulge me and go here:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/09/17/mending-pants-with-apologies-to-robert-frost/
and I’ll get on with my packing, ordering, xeroxing and house ordering for my housesitter.  Only three days to go!

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

 

Daisy and Judy’s Last Adventures

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Then, Then Although we (Judy and Daisy) have had many adventures in the past three days, not many photos were taken. Yesterday, we went shopping at an outside shop that sold Mexican blouses with Judy’s friend Blue. Daisy sat tied to a post and watched this guy having his lunch as the ladies shopped.

Then we went to a restaurant by the lake in Chapala. At the restaurant, Daisy shared a bit of Judy’s chicken. Then her leash released and when she ran out of the outside cafe, the couple sitting at the table closest to her jumped up and ran after her.  We didn’t even know these people. So kind. Daisy tried to tell them she was coming right back and Judy knew this, but ran after her as well.  She only made it about 4 feet beyond the restaurant. Blue fell in love with Daisy and said if Judy couldn’t find her family, that she would like to adopt her. She was the third person to say this. She is a popular girl!!!

This morning, when Miguel came to give Judy her weekly massage, Daisy demanded and received her own! She was much pleased. I think Miguel fell in love with her as well.

Then, a happy ending. This afternoon, Judy’s across the street neighbor, saw one of Judy’s signs and recognized Daisy as the dog of her friends. She called her friends and when Judy didn’t answer her phone because she was driving, she told them Judy’s address and they came and reclaimed their girl!

I am going to miss her sweet company, but so glad she’s back in another place where I’m sure she is much loved.

Note: Daisy is just the name I gave her so I’d have something more endearing than “hey, Pup!” to address her by. I asked the two young men who came to claim her what her name was. They told me, but unfortunately I’ve already forgotten. My house feels emptier without her…Sweet dreams, Daisy!

The End

The Lost is Found

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Daisy’s family just came and claimed her. Two young men. So happy to have returned her to them, but so so sad as well.. Thanks to all who cared about her and commented. We had a few happy days together, but she wouldn’t let any of the other dogs near me…was very jealous. It has turned out as it should have.  oxooxoxox Daisy. I asked her real name but have already forgotten. She will always be Daisy to me.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about go HERE. (In the post you are about to read, I called her Pixie. Later a friend said she’d name her Daisy and I agreed it suited her better.)

71 Words

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For Esther’s “Can You Tell a Story in. . .” Her prompts are:

  • CAPTAIN
  • LEAPFROG
  • BAKERY
  • PRESCRIPTION
  • WIDOW
  • SHAMPOO
  • ANAGRAM

The captain leapfrogged over rain puddles as he checked “bakery” off his shopping list and headed for the pharmacy. He had the widow next door’s prescription to pick up, as well as his own favorite shampoo, as well as the daily paper with the anagram puzzle in it. If only he’d thought to bring his umbrella, he thought, as he ducked into the store, shaking water from his full pants cuffs.

 

(71 words. as prescribed.)

 

“Frozen,” for dVerse Poets

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Image copied from dVerse Poets prompt

>Frozen<

Ice crystals clung to the naked branches like frozen fireworks,
their shafts capturing sunlight that outlined their million frozen rays.
It was like walking through a crystalline otherworld,
and she avoided brushing branches wih her shoulders,
not wanting to disturb nature’s artistry.

So it was with her memories of him.
The truth of their parting could not be allowed
to brush off their perfect beginning,
now frozen  forever in her mind.

for dVerse Poets

“Erasures Impossible” for The Three Things Challenge

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Erasures Impossible–Unless

If you are writing in a jiffy,
it may be your spelling’s iffy.
So, unless it doesn’t hurt
to have to scratch out and insert,
It would be wiser, don’t you think,
to write in pencil and not in ink?

For the Three Things Challenge  the words were: INK. INSERT IFFY

Wash Day–Dunked Doggie

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We’re calling her Daisy, at least until her former owner reclaims her or I decide I can stand to give her up to a new home. She was a very good girl while Yolanda bathed her, but we found out that her coat must have been really matted before, as after she dried off, she really required a brushing. I discovered this when I took her along on a shopping trip to see how she’d do in public and made the mistake of wearing all black. Afterwards, I, too, required brushing! She was a good girl both at the store and in the restaurant afterwards.

For more info on who daisy is, go HERE.

“Enough,” for Blast from the Blog, June 25

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Enough

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Enough

At six o’clock, glib comments start to fill the air.
We’re hungry for frittata, but the table’s bare.
Darkness fills the kitchen, for mama’s gone on strike.
She’s gone off to the city. Alone, on papa’s bike.

It’s dicey whether she’ll return. She says she’s tired of cooking.
She’s in need of a vacation and so she made a booking
at a posh hotel that has its own cafe
where she will dine on coq au vin followed by crème brûlée.

For once, serving the rest of us will not be her fate.
Someone else will  wait on her and she’ll just sit and wait.
In the morning she will order service in her room
where she’ll not even make her bed or wield dust cloth or broom.

Her note says then she might come home, or she might just wait
and find a nice seaside resort where she can cogitate
for another day or two. She says we shouldn’t worry.
The pizza place delivers if we’re not in a hurry.

Her recipe book’s on the shelf. The stove is  under it.
Her apron’s in the closet and she’s sure that it will fit
each and every one of us while she is on vacation.
She says that fending for ourselves will be an education.

She says to wash the dishes even though it is a bore,
for if she sees a messy kitchen when she walks in the door,
she’s going to walk right out again until we prove we’ve learned
that things will be real different after Mama has returned!

 

 

Word Press’s “Blast from the Blog” asks that we reblog a post from a certain date from an earlier year. I published this poem on June 25, 2021–tomorrow’s date, as they publish the challenge a day before the prescribed date. The poem was supposed to include the five words seen below.

Prompts for today are six, glib, frittata, dicey and darkness.