Toxicity Report
Toxic little rumors and poisonous little lies
circumvent veracity and cloak it in disguise,
poisoning perception, holding truth at bay,
obscuring what is truth in favor of hearsay.
The prompt today is toxic.
Seer
Her statement that she’d had a vision
was met by general derision;
so though she tried to warn them all,
they heeded nothing but “last call!”
So while she stocked up her provisions,
they hemmed and hawed with their decisions
and had a round of boozy toasts—
gave their laments, boasted their boasts.
Then they went west while she went east
and thus were eaten by the beast
or overtaken by the flood.
Soaked in water or in blood.
The moral of this little tale
is heed your mystics, or learn to bail
or run faster than the beast
lest you become his morning’s feast
or starve to death in time of drought.
Her warnings met with only doubt
instead of action to stem the tide,
by those who stood as one. And died.
Gotta warn you. Once again, a poem from three years ago. The prompt word today is warning.
The Betrayal
There is a story hidden
In the majolica mug
that sits on the
terraza table.
Pasiano the gardener
drinks echinacea tea
with honey
from this cup,
coughs loudly
behind the hand
that does not cradle
a telephone.
His sly smile
betrays a love story
as clearly as the small child
who sometimes
accompanies him to work.
Some senora’s, he tells me,
but the child has
his eyes and solid legs,
his shy manner,
lives with his mother
and her husband,
but sits on my steps
with a sugar cookie––
betraying
no more secrets
on purpose
than his father does.
This is a rewrite of a poem written 5 years ago. The prompt word today is betrayed.
Plethora
How I love umbrellas! When I see them in the store,
frequently, I buy one, thinking I could use one more.
At the entrance to my casa, there is a jardiniere
with umbrellas tucked inside it, conveniently near.
All the long dry season, they sit shoulder to shoulder
waiting for the weather to get rainier and colder.
I see them in my passing and give each one a pat.
When the time comes that I need one, I’ll know where they are at!
The thunder comes at midnight. Wild lightning cracks the sky.
I see it all around me from the bedroom where I lie.
The rain comes down in torrents, but perhaps it will abate
by the time I leave tomorrow for my breakfast date.
If not, I know umbrellas stand ready at the door.
I can always use one, for that is what they’re for!
Until then, I watch the lighting flash, the drapery’s wild billow .
The dogs whine at the lightning. The cat curls on my pillow.
When morning dawns with raindrops beating a barrage,
I’m in need of an umbrella for my sprint to the garage.
All the trees are dripping and the rain’s still coming down.
So I need a big umbrella to protect my hair and gown.
I grab a likely candidate and draw it from the jar
like a sword pulled from a scabbard, but I don’t get very far.
It seems I can’t unfurl it. Its opener is stuck
and when I try to force it, I find I’m out of luck.
The next one lacks a handle, the third misses two spines.
The hall fills with frantic curses, my grumbles and my whines.
Where can all my umbrellas be now that they’re finally needed?
The one that shows the Eiffel tower? The one so finely beaded?
One loaned to Yolanda, another in the car,
one given to the old man who had so very far
to trudge up on the mountain in the driving rain.
There’s always one umbrella more, yet now I search in vain.
I grab the last umbrella, but it won’t fit through the door.
If it’s too wide to fit through it, then what is it good for?
Finally, I make a dash without the aid of shelter.
My shoulders soaked, my glasses fogged, my hair blown helter-skelter.
In my journey through the garden, the rain does not abate.
I dodge around the soggy dogs and wrestle with the gate.
When I reach the refuge of my car, I refuse to feel down.
I’ll just buy a new umbrella when I get to town!
(jdb photos. To open umbrellas wider, click on any one.)
The prompt today is frantic.
Click on any photo to enlarge all.
Morning Alarm Clock
First the ghoulish yowl of cat.
Then the dogs’ accompanying scat.
The far off whine of the machine
that whines the gardener’s routine.
With creak of valve and scrape of tool,
water streams into the pool.
This water surging from the jet
completes my waking up quartet.
Yolanda’s key turns in the door,
adding one harmony more.
Her music joins the morning’s set
to swell it into a quintet.
What finer way to stir one’s head
on alternate mornings, here in bed?
The prompt is quartet.
Quick Change
This modern world has changed and changed
until I have become estranged.
These alterations make me dizzy.
I do not like my world so busy.
The young are used to change, it’s true.
They love the instant and the new.
Texts and sound bites come so fast.
Nothing’s really built to last.
But, for someone over fifty,
all this change is hardly nifty.
When at each end the candle’s burned,
when everything we’ve newly learned,
when everything that we hold dear
turns obsolete within one year,
we’re always slightly out of gear,
which makes us feel unjustly queer.
They make these changes without a clue.
Let’s start out minor, then work up to
the major things they’ve set askew:
(I will not mention Dr. Who.)
Every computer becomes its clone.
I cannot use the telephone.
My applications change so quick
that I have come to feel I’m thick.
Skype makes its changes overnight.
(Yet rarely ever improves the site.)
Microsoft Word just loves to change,
which leaves her users feeling strange.
Move this to there and that down here;
so all my mental powers, I fear,
are spent in figuring out the APP
and organizing a mental map
of how to write instead of what,
creating one big mental glut.
No room for creativity.
No safe place where our minds soar free.
We’re always “searching” for, instead,
our minds caught up in fear and dread
of where they’ve moved the enlarge bar to
in this week’s Word processing zoo!
Our e-mail servers have joined the plot.
I feel like pitching out the lot.
Just when I’ve learned most every trick
of tool and contact, every lick—
their Machiavellian, evil team
goes and changes the whole darn scheme!
But when we’re sending coast-to-coastal,
the alternative is going postal.
So though we bitch and though we frown,
they are the only game in town;
and so they have us where they want us.
Though they frustrate, ire and daunt us,
one after another, they are the same,
playing at this modern game
of change for change’s sake, it’s true.
There’s really nothing much to do.
So I submit, though in a tizzy,
I’ll relax less and keep real busy.
I’ll leave the cyber world alone
and concentrate on just one bone
I have to pick in this modern world,
and I say this with my top lip curled.
Max Factor, Revlon, Almay, please—
I kneel before you on my knees.
Leave the lipstick colors that we hold dear
alone! Don’t change them every year.
Each time you cancel one that’s zesty,
to find another makes us testy!!!
I admit.. Repost of a poem from four years ago. Admit it, you didn’t even remember it did, you? I certainly didn’t. The prompt today is micro.
Mitigating Circumstances
It’s not that I am inefficient.
It’s just that I had insufficient
time to do what you requested.
So, if I was being tested,
in doing all that you have asked,
it seems that I was overtasked.
The prompt today was inefficient.
Portugese Timor, 1973, Setting off on a WWII Troop barge into the Timor Sea
Ciao, Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu
When I was young, I traveled far
from Germany to Zanzibar.
Australia, Bali, France and Spain,
to Africa and back again.
And though I mostly loved them all,
from Venice to the Taj Mahal,
as my departure time grew nigh
I had to voice a sad goodbye.
To Ethiopia I strayed.
For eighteen months I stayed and stayed;
and when I had to leave too soon,
I had to say “dehena hun.”
In college days, when I was young,
German was my foreign tongue;
but when to Frankfurt wir mussten gehen
I just remembered, “Auf Wiedersehen.”
The French were rude and cold and snotty.
They mocked my accent and were haughty,
so while I had to bid “adieu,”
I’d have preferred to say, “pee-ew.”
Florence thrilled me from the start.
Their lasagna is a work of art.
When I left, they all said, “Ciao.”
Their kitties, though, all said, “Miao.”
I never went to Israel
but nonetheless, I’m proud to tell,
the rabbi books? Read every tome.
So I know how to say “Shalom.”
Though “Arigato” is bound to do
when you want to say thank you,
“Sayonara” is the way to go
to bid farewell in Tokyo.
Bali’s full of dance and art
that treat your eyes and fill your heart.
I must admit, I had a ball
before I said “Selamat tinggal.”
Mexico was saved for last
And now I fear my lot is cast
Since “Adios” I cannot say,
I’ve decided I will stay!
The prompt today is foreign.
Talisman
Token from a loved one. A protective charm.
A fetish or an amulet worn at neck or arm.
Luck is what it brings you if it’s working right.
Iridescent courage glowing in the night.
Signet ring or pendant inscribed with hidden power
Melts away the terrors of the midnight hour.
As an absent loved one in a far off land
Nestles very close here, in a clutching hand.
The prompt word today is talisman.
Water Park—Uruapan, Michoacan, 2003 jdb photo 
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 