Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

Transcendental Bad Boy

8 Replies

img_0410Transcendental Bad Boy

Nowhere to go, nowhere to flee.
I cannot run away from me.
I’m stuck inside with no way out.
Just me, with no one else about.
All the others are there outside
this place where I alone abide.

If I could climb out of my skin
and leave this body that I’m in,
escape myself from head-to-toe,
I wonder where I’d choose to go?
Perhaps a river, perhaps a sea––
anyplace that wasn’t me.

For one day, I’d be a cloud
if changing stages of matter’s allowed.
Floating high up in the blue,
I’d think of new things I could do.
I’d find parades for me to view,
then just for fun, rain on a few.

If I were water and you drank me,
I’d view you internally.
Tickle your uvula and then
slide down the chute inside your skin.
Inside you, I would rage and thunder,
from your throat to way down under.

If I were wind, I’d lift the skirts
of dour old ladies and teenage flirts.
I’d muss the hair of social mavens,
pluck nestlings from the beaks of ravens.
No telling what a menace I’d be
if I’d not been limited to me!

The prompt word today was flee.

Tree of Faith

18 Replies

Tree of Faith

screen-shot-2016-12-11-at-9-12-32-am

Please click on the first photo below to enlarge and read captions that explain the pieces.

This one Mexican combined with a general mysticism.
My own personal faith
and Huichol. In working with their symbols, I was tryng to understand their faith, not necessarily adopt it.
The cycle of life represented by the trees, sun, clouds, rain.
The sacred amaranth
And the scorpion holding the six-sided star. Now, please click on the X at the upper left of the page to continue reading about the main purpose of posting this poem and these photos.

For any of these creations, I could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. Then crucified for the poem. This holy examination of self is not tolerated in some countries, or by certain factions of our own. This is what we are trying to guard against in a democracy, but its guarantee in our constitution is not, evidently, a given.  It must be fought for over and over again. That open eye of the Madonna was never more called for in our country.

This poem and these retablos are dedicated to   Ashraf  Fayadh.  Please click on the below link if you doubt the veracity of what I say above or if you want to see an example of why it is so important for us to continue to embrace diversity in thought , faith and culture:
https://thegadabouttown.com/2016/12/10/speak-out-for-ashraf-fayadh/

The prompt word today was “mystical.”

 

Asthma Attack

41 Replies

img_0511

Asthma Attack

I’ve left the house where I abide.
I can no longer live inside.
The dust has got the best of me—
my lungs, and all the rest of me.
Two weeks of tile and concrete dust
have all built up until I must
admit my lungs gave up at last
with breath a function of the past.

I made it to the pharmacy
before my breath gave out on me.
Once there, gasping, voiceless, paler,
I pantomimed for an inhaler,
then asked how to make use of it
and for a stool on which to sit—
all with gestures wild and manic.
Attempts to breathe brought only panic.

A half hour more I struggled for air.
Clearly I needed help and care.
“Tranquilo, señora,” the store clerk urged,
every time my panic surged
because I could not breathe again.
I tried and tried, but all in vain.
Another spray, then I willed calm
to wrap me in its healing balm.

At last, I finally breathed free.
They called a friend to come for me.
She drove me home, and now I sit
above the dust and all of it:
debris, concrete, tile and grout.
I’ve left it all.  I have moved out
to live in my upstairs casita
a saner, safer señorita

far above the mess and din,
lest this construction does me in.

If you’ve never had an asthma attack, I can only say it is one of the most panic-provoking experiences I’ve ever had, equaled only by my first asthma attack three years ago and an earlier time when I was pinned underwater and nearly drowned. I’ve said before that my greatest fear in life is not being able to breathe, and today I faced that fear again. After a month of severe coughing bouts and three trips to the doctor, I finally checked my meds on the advice of my friend Marti and found my blood pressure meds were known to provoke chronic bouts of coughing. I got my doctor to change my meds and slept well last night. It wasn’t until the man remodeling my bathroom arrived and started sanding and cutting concrete that I suddenly got a severe coughing attack again, in spite of the fact that there were two closed doors between us.

Although I had plenty of nighttime cold meds, I was out of Tabcin Activa, my daytime cold formula, so I decided to drive to the pharmacy to get some more. Thankfully, within the last few months, they’ve opened a Guadalajara Farmacia in my  village. Otherwise, I would have had to have driven 5 miles to Ajijic. This synchronicity, I am sure, saved my life, as by the time I got to the pharmacy, I was coughing and wheezing so severely that instead of asking for Tabcin, I asked for cough medicine. The pharmacist brought out a  lovely gift-wrapped conglomeration of kids’ cough medicine, stuffed toy, vitamin tablets and herbal tea. No, I insisted between coughs, just very strong cough syrup. By the time she brought it and I had ripped open the box and asked her to open the bottle, I was wheezing. I chugged the cough medicine, then went into a full asthmatic attack. I motioned wildly for an inhaler, and then for them to open it and show me how to use it. I used the inhaler once. Twice. Three times. I was presenting the most wild and frantic display of behavior but I knew, in fact, that I would die if I couldn’t breathe soon.

Eventually, I could take small gasps of air, interspersed with more closings of my air passages. I pointed toward a stool, which they brought to me, along with a glass of warm water. I took a sip and my passages closed again. Another inhaler blast. Tears were streaming down my face and I was shaking uncontrollably. Earlier, they had asked if they should call for an ambulance, but I knew if this were done, that my house had been left open with only strangers in it. Both of my computers were out in plain sight. The gate to the street open. The front door open. The workers would not know where I was. Anyone could wander into the house. What’s more, I’d left my cellphone at home along with my phone list. I didn’t have any numbers to call friends to come help. Of course this caused more anxiety and brought on another attack.

In the end, still unable to talk, I wrote a note asking for a phonebook. I finally found the number of a friend, had them call her and ask her to come get me. Unfortunately, she was not a native speaker of Spanish and didn’t understand what they were saying, but I was able to speak enough to say who I was, that I needed help and to come to the pharmacy.

She drove me home, got items from my house I needed, stopped by another friend’s house to see if he’d come mind mine for the day, and since I was breathing well by then, took me back to the pharmacy to pick up my car.  On the way back home, I suddenly remembered I had an upstairs room that should be dust-free and so I relieved my friend, brought possessions upstairs, and here I am ensconced until construction is finished.

I must end here because I’m getting sleepy and think I’ll soon nod off. Ironically enough, what I had originally gone to get at the pharmacy was Daytime Tabcin, a multi-symptom cold capsule for what I thought was my cough and cold. Although I had the night formula, I was out of the daytime one. I had written my request to the pharmacist who had shown me a box. Yes, that was it I said. Now, safe in my upstairs room, breathing freely, I again felt a cough coming on and quickly opened the box and popped two of the capsules. Only afterwards did I think to look at the box. She had given me the nighttime formula! So in spite of the fact that it is just a bit past noon, I think I’ll be off to dreamland soon.

 

The prompt word today was “abide.”

Ephemera

7 Replies

img_0349

Ephemera

I saw the shadow of a bird
vanished too quickly to be heard.
Yet with my curtain as a scrim,
for moments I caught glimpse of him.

Strangers at windows on a train
pass by so quickly, then gone again.
They heal no wounds and cause no pain.
Are merely there. No loss or gain.

All of life’s pleasures come and go
for nature has arranged it so.
We’re caught up in its ebb and flow.
We treasure life, then let it go.

 

The prompt word today was Treasure.

The Lady Doth Protest Just Right, Methinks.

5 Replies

Does this look like a sixty year old leg to you? She posed for it!!!

The Lady Doth Protest Just Right, Methinks

“The Lady Doth Protest too much. . . .”
he says as he expands his clutch.
As she then attempts to guard her
honor from his excess ardor,
if he won’t take her “No!” verbatim,
there is one way to educate him.

For when a lady’s had enough,
it may behoove her to get rough.
That she may return home intact
may require much less tact
and more physicality
to apprise him of reality.

A well-placed knee aimed at his tool
may seem unfairly base and cruel,
yet if mere words will not connect,
this simple action might correct.
If entreaties will not stir him,
extreme sign language might deter him.

The prompt word today was protest.

Mama Milk My Goat

16 Replies

Mama Milk My Goat

Whenever anyone in my family was feeling sorry for herself and expressing it to a point where it was noticeable, another member of the family could be counted upon to use the family saying for such occasions, “Well, Mama milk my goat,” we would say, and if the person’s nose wasn’t too far out of joint, they might snap out of it.  Or, alternatively, stalk away to seclusion where they could fully feel the full extent of their misery without anyone trying to dissuade them from it. Why did we say this? Because my mother had told us all that it was what my grandmother, her mother-in-law, used to say.

My grandmother, a master at martyrdom, used to say it with a small uptake of breath, in a trembling voice.  I can remember hearing her do so, although it may be that sort of childhood memory that grows out of a family tale being told again and again.  Needless to say, I had no reason to question its frequent usage until I got to college and again and again was met by a blank look when I issued the rejoinder.  Finally, when I reported this strange fact to my folks over the dinner table during a trip home, my dad got a twinkle in his eye and confessed.

What my grandmother, who was Dutch, actually used to mutter when when she was feeling sorry for herself was, “Mama Miet mi Dote!” (Mama might be dead.) Only my mother (her daughter-in-law), who didn’t understand Dutch, thought she was saying “Mama Milk My Goat.”  My dad thought this was funny so never told us differently. So even now, “Mama milk my goat,” is occasionally what I say to anyone who is playing  the martyr, and if they have any curiosity at all and ask me why, I tell them this story.

Note: For those of you who speak Dutch, I know that “Mama miet mi dote” is not how “Mama might be dead” translates into Dutch.  Might might be “machen” and dead might be “dood,” but the whole phrase doesn’t translate into “Mama “machen mi dood,” either. Perhaps it was a local dialect or perhaps my ear heard the words differently, or perhaps it is just one of those family stories half legend, half fact.  At any rate, if you speak more Dutch that I do, I am more than willing to be informed about what it was my grandma really said. (I only know the alphabet, taught to me by my grandma, and “Mama miet mi dote!”)
Addendum:
In case you don’t read comments, I want to add here some light shed on the topic by Sally, who said in response to this posting, “Very funny Judy and we had strangled phrases like that as children. I had to learn Afrikaans when we went to Capetown for two years when I was 10 and so have a basic understanding of Dutch. Mama niet meedoet means Mama is not participating or taking part.. or perhaps an expression of being left out…just a thought… thanks for the entertaining post. Sally”

Thanks, Sally!!!!

Here’s another poem I wrote a few years ago about my grandma and her sister Susie:

“Sisterly Squabbles”

A little weep, a little sigh,
a little teardrop in each eye.

Grandma Jane and her sister Sue,
one wanted one hole, the other, two

punched into their can of milk.
(All their squabbles were of this ilk.)

The rest, of course, is family fable.
They sat, chins trembling, at the table.

When my dad entered, we’ve all been told,
their milk-less coffee had grown cold.

The prompt today was “martyr.”

Wan Yvonne

5 Replies

Version 2Wan Yvonne

Although in summer she is tannish,
in winter color seems to vanish.
So from November up to March,
her skin is colored white as starch.
In fact, I think it would be valid
to say that she is rather pallid.
But all-in-all, she still looks fine
even without  bikini line!

 

The prompt word today is “vanish.”

Keeping Sacred in the Right Order

12 Replies

img_0404Last Night’s Sunset over Lake Chapala: jdbphoto

Keeping Sacred in the Right Order

How ironic that that which should unite us so often divides us instead. If there is one reality, then every religion that unites us with that sacred reality should unite us to each other as well. But sadly, that which should be sacred turns us scared instead. Just one slight shift in the letters creates what man creates when he attempts to define the universal instead of just feeling it. In vehemently insisting that our way is the only way, we are both demonstrating our fear that someone who thinks differently from us might prove our way to be wrong as well as setting up the same fear in them. We are one. Everything points to it, and it is what most religions profess in words regrettably finite which cannot quite grasp the concept that no matter what our belief, it should in the end profess that one truth. The fact that what prophets once expressed has been bent by those less prophetic to promulgate division instead of oneness is the great irony of organized religion down through the ages.

These factions and sects and denominations that set themselves above the rest—that declare one group heathens or infidels or unsaved, move themselves one step farther from faith and one step closer to dogma. The entire world is sacred. We see it in the petals of a hibiscus or a dandelion, a Christian or Jew or Muslim.  All children, in their innocence, possess this sacred quality and then we go about trying to help them define it and in doing so, kill the very thing we are trying to define.

Sacred is not limited to churches or synagogues. Sacred is a holy place within us that we go to to connect with the universal. We could do this as well at home if we took the time to do so. But all people and all places that call themselves holy are not so just for the telling. If the “holy” man speaks of divisiveness, he is not holy. If he holds his religion up above the rest and points fingers at those who believe differently, he is not holy. He is a politician as surely as the man who runs for congress. He is politicking for his own beliefs rather than trying to guide you to your own.

A walk in the woods or a swim in the sea, the painting of a picture or the careful stitching of a quilt, lying on a blanket in the shade with a child and watching the progress of ants—all are holy pastimes that can take you closer to the sacred in yourself.  Do not let anyone turn your “sacred” into “scared,” for holiness is in every molecule of our universe, and all of us have it spread equally within ourselves.  It is just up to us to find it.

The prompt today was “sacred.”

Construction Cycle

8 Replies

(What’s going on here? Click on first photo to enlarge pics and read captions.)

Before. Giant bathtub I never use will come out in lieu of a new shower and bench. Tub side will be cut down to just above the floor for easy entry. A small wall like the one on the right but a bit higher will go beside the chest on the left to guard from shower spray.
Bench for taking a rest during the rigorous task of showering.
New mini wall in lieu of a shower curtain.

 

Cycle

What comes before needed construction
is a good deal of destruction.
Thus at any given time,
there may seem no reason nor rhyme
to account for what is going on.
Yet, when all the rubble’s gone
and the building then commences—
houses, bridges, rooms or fences—
mass destruction seems no sin
when we tear down to build again.
Yet still, destruction never behooves us
unless what’s built tends to improve us.

 

The prompt word today was “Construct.“

Everything Shall Fade Away

8 Replies

img_4618

How cruel of life at end of day
that all of us should fade away,
one head going hoary white,
ready to give up the fight
while all around it, fresher shoots
sturdier and less hirsute
push upward in the dawning morn,
the meadow to freshly adorn.

The prompt word today was “Faded.”