My Life by Tens
Up to Age One? Cares had I none.
At age ten? Pretty zen.
Then at twenty? Zip aplenty.
Turning thirty? Feeling flirty.
Nearing forty? Lithe and sporty.
Turning Fifty? Bali’s nifty.
Big six-oh? More oats to sow.
Big seven-oh? One year to go.
(Click first photo to enlarge and see years. Hover to just see years.)
The prompt today was “FIfty.” This was all I could come up with.
Final Jeopardy
I don’t feel in jeopardy, don’t feel in danger.
I feel as protected as sheep at a manger.
I’ve deadlocks and bolt locks and high walls and bars,
passwords on my iBook, alarms on my cars.
With insurance policies paid for a year
on my car, house and health, there’s no reason to fear.
Jeopardy lately is something I’m lacking.
My virus protection secures me from hacking.
And as I get older, with more things to fear,
I’ll invest in a cane and Depends for my rear.
Now nearly everything has a solution.
It seems a development in evolution.
Our hides are less tough but our hearts just beat stronger
when we replace them so we can live longer.
We can buy a new hip or replace a bad knee.
There’s only one problem that I can foresee.
Memory replacement is what they should do
so we could remember where we’re walking to!
The prompt today was jeopardize.
jdbphoto
A Youthful Calling
Oh that I had been born later
in an age more prone to cater
to the new technology
that simply doesn’t gel with me.
I must ask. Is it me alone
who can no longer use the phone?
What every eight year old has mastered
makes me feel completely plastered.
Those buttons simply don’t make sense.
They leave me rattled, shaken, tense––
uttering words you’d find uncouth.
I do not glorify my youth,
but bygone memories do linger
of dials that fit a human finger––
phones simply used to call a friend
instead of apps that never end.
iPhone? I fear I’m not a fan.
I want a phone I’m smarter than.
The Prompt today was “Youth.” In the weeks since my internet has increasingly become nonexistent, I’ve been relying on my iPhone to furnish a hotspot to post from. Unfortunately, for the past few days, as my phone registered its full limit, I’ve been waiting for my usage to flip back to 0 MB, but alas it hasn’t. Finally I went to Telcel where I was assigned to a young man whose knowledge of a little English rendered him understanding of my faulty Spanish and, like a gift from the gods, he informed me that the 1 GB was what I’d used in the past year, not in the past month, and he downloaded an app that will keep me informed of my month’s usage and flip over each month. (In addition, I learned that the price of extra MB’s is 25 cents Mexican per MB which is less than 2 U.S. cents! So, I’m back to 1 MB usage and a bit less tense about the fact that I’m beginning my second week of no wifi. Telmex (the phone company as opposed to Telcel, the cellphone company––both owned by the near-richest man in the world, Carlos Slim) was closed today so I’ll try again Monday. Perhaps I’ll just cancel my internet and landline and opt for more MGs on my phone. It, at least, seems to be consistent in its service.
Before I left Telcel, I quipped to my young “savior” that along with their better understanding of Smart phones and iPhones, I have a feeling that future generations are going to be born with one little pointed finger more adapted to those tiny buttons on the cellphone. He laughed and assured me that I’d become accustomed to them, but I have my doubts. So, that is the backstory to this poem, as after leaving the Telcel center in the mall, I went to the food court which has free wifi and wrote the above poem.
If I’m not commenting on blogs or posting as much as before, this has been why. May wifi at home be in my near future. So far my complaints have not brought action.
Two Poems from a Night with No Moon
I wrote these poems two years ago, but I had forgotten them, so perhaps even if you read them then, you have forgotten them, too.
This Night is Broken
With all of its sounds
spilled out,
someone else’s sounds
echo around it.
The space inside of it
is broken, too.
Only the constant rain
seeks to fill it.
Falling Practice
Twice on the stairs last week
and once in the kitchen—
lately, these falls
have been coming in threes.
Tonight in the moonless dark, I tripped
over the low metal bench beside the hot tub.
Then a loud bang sent me searching
to find the heavy husk fallen from the palm tree.
I do not venture out alone again,
but sit on the patio
in the light of my laptop,
hoping to escape the third fall.
Your face on the screen turns green
from the reflection of the string
of Chinese lanterns
as we succumb to hard truths.
I fell in love with you so quickly,
but even all these falls
have not taught me how
to fall out of love with you.
The Prompt today was “Moon“
My internet which has been out since yesterday just came back on and since I have an appointment in 25 minutes in Ajijic, I need to leave; so since I have just discovered the prompt word today is “Ghost,” I think it would be appropriate to reblog this blog about Dia de los Muertos in Ajijic last year. Mary, this one is for you.. It tells the story you wanted to hear. Please click on the below URL to see the tale and and photos that illustrate it:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/11/02/pantheon-afternoon-dia-de-los-muertos-ajijic-mx-2015/
Carrying On
Were they carrying? That’s the buzz.
Was she carrying? Likely was.
In nine months we’ll know for sure,
but we’ll never know if the brothers were.
He carried the play. His voice carried well.
The truth of it they’re sure to tell
as the paper carrier carries the news––
the comics, headlines, play reviews.
Three into ten and carry one.
In long division, that’s half the fun.
Carry on and carry through,
for no one else will carry you.
Those cutter ants you love to hate
can carry 100 times their weight.
We pack 30 pounds in carry-on cases,
carry-out burgers from carry-out places.
Half our lives we carry on.
Then when we are dead and gone,
removed from all this carrying fuss,
what friends are left will carry us.
It is probably obvious that the prompt word today was “Carry.”
Roundabout
When we were younger, we all were amused
as my mom steadily grew more confused––
losing her keys and her glasses and purse.
Each year of her life, it seemed to get worse.
At tax time she snorted, she fussed and she stewed
as her simple receipts she sorted and viewed.
One thing at a time was all she could do.
She grew somewhat flustered when confronted with two.
It was a puzzle for those forced to view it.
With much less to do, she took longer to do it.
But now as my seventies get so much nearer,
what my mother faced is getting much clearer.
Once a multi-task wizard, I find even two
tasks at one time are too much to do.
When on the computer I now have to think
to accomplish functions once done in a blink.
The names of close friends I now search my brain for.
What once came so easily, I must now strain for.
I still have my memory—try to believe it.
It just takes me longer to sort and retrieve it.
When it comes to time limits, I just confuse myself.
In games like Trivia, I must recuse myself.
The end of my stories I’m often delaying,
for I can’t recall what I started out saying.
When I finally remember why I came to town,
I’ve forgotten the list where I carefully wrote down
all of my errands and then what is worse,
when I get back home, they are there in my purse!
I’m glad I’ve no kids with whom I can share
or they’d already have me in memory care.
Complicated by Nature
I find my mind keeps spinning until my brain grows weary
ever since I foolishly googled “chaos theory.”
While fatalists declare the world caught up in its rut,
the chaos theorists have theories I cannot rebut
wherein each thing duplicated differs from the last
because of other factors than the mold from which they’re cast.
And suddenly I have excuses for each thing I do.
Why my cake has fallen, and why my bras turned blue
the last time that I washed them the detergent was the same,
and yet something perhaps had changed–chaos theory is to blame!!!
Each snowflake varies from last, each flower is unique.
It seems that our creator demands a bit of tweak
in everything created. Chaos affects everything.
I guess that Mother Nature wants to keep it interesting!!!
Reach
When fate makes a fissure, we’ve three ways to go.
One is acceptance, another is woe.
But the third is to shatter the old status quo
by using the break as a window to show
a new direction where we may go
to learn what before we had no way to know.
What makes a man’s life is what’s beyond his reach.
Why stop at a wall when you could make a breach?
What today is impossible may be the goal
for a man with a chisel who carves out a hole.
My Obsessions
I’m not obsessed by fancy cars, heroin or grog.
What am I obsessed by? Chocolate and my blog.
I cannot resist them. My fingers itch for either.
Until I’ve finished both of them, I cannot take a breather.
Thankfully just one of them is fattening, for you see
although I scarf down chocolate, it’s my blog that consumes me!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 