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.
At the Crossroads
I am drawn
toward a horizon
not as flat as the others.
Palm trees stir
in the ocean’s breath.
A yellow dog
churns down this road,
but I do not follow.
That other road?
Spires of a city
pulse with light
and an imagined music
blows in on the wings of notes
that swim through heat currents in the air.
Not that road, at least not yet,
the music tells me.
What the third road leads to is invisible
behind a denser curtain of air
blistering with possibility.
Like fingers motioning me forward,
flapping like drapes in the sky––
beckoning.
Come here. Here. Here.
Spinning to look behind me,
then in a circle to see where I am,
“Is this place enough?” I wonder.
It is a place known and comfortable.
It has the right chair and a fridge well stocked with food––
familiar objects of my choosing.
Can “here” be a course chosen?
Can we draw new roads through where we are?
Everything is present everywhere, I once said,
and a trusted friend agreed;
but truths of the past are not always complete truths.
We add on to truth like sand castles,
building new towers,
crumbling others in our haste
to make bigger, better.
Truth changes like the sea.
In its entirety, it is the truth;
in each part, part of the truth.
It is a creative endeavor,
this life of each of us––
choosing the parts of truth
to call our own.
Did you recognize this post from over two years ago? An interesting part of reblogging is finding the errors. I wonder if other people notice them and are just polite or if they were as invisible to them as they were to you. I’m still dealing with the question posed in this poem. Perhaps I always will be. One thing is for sure. I grow more invisible daily. The prompt today is invisible.
Parts of Him
You look so like him on our passing—
that strongly muscled arm,
his hair brushing your shoulder,
but you do not have his charm.
Your hands curl in a gesture
so familiar in its kind,
but they do not form the magic
his hands mold within my mind.
Your smile is so like his—
that chortle when you laugh—
but I see you cannot be him
as we pass upon the path.
Your stance is his, your bearing
when I see you from afar.
It’s just as we draw nearer
I see who you really are.
These long years since his passing,
I still look for him in places
where in the crowds I search him out
in unsuccessful faces.
Each similar demeanor
reaches out a tentacle
to draw me to a likeness
that, alas, is not identical.
The prompt today is identical.
My TV is Smarter Than I Am
My TV is smarter than I am, springing to life on a whim.
When my Jack-of-all-trades comes to work here, I think she is flirting with him.
She flicks on and then off in a second, just like she has given a wink.
Or perhaps registers disapproval by shutting us off with a blink.
I know she has much to complain of since I purchased her two years ago.
I’ve never connected to cable or dish, so she doesn’t have too much to show.
Although she connects to computers, my Apple igores that she’s here.
That I haven’t read the instructions? I know it’s exceedingly queer.
She’s equipped to show movies in 3D, but my housekeeper threw out the glasses.
So if I want movies to jump out at me, I must go view them out with the masses
and not in the privacy of my own home with my cat or myself or my friends.
I haven’t checked out buying more on the Web, and for this I must soon make amends.
My computer is usually my viewer of choice when my friend sends me movies by Skype.
The films that he sends are amazing. He knows the best subjects and type
of videos that I like viewing. They are smart and they’re funny and Indie.
He doesn’t send action/adventure or slapstick or horror or Hindi.
But I never watch them on my Smart screen, preferring my laptop to it.
I set it right there at my poolside and watch as I try to get fit
doing my pool aerobics for an hour and a half, maybe two.
My workouts just seem to last longer whenever I’ve something to view.
My TV can see out the window that I’m faithful to screens that are small
and I’m sure that I’ve given a complex to my big gal I don’t watch at all.
So I started a “Last Sunday” film night where I can share films that I savor
We eat and we drink and we talk and we laugh as we all view the movies I favor.
For one night a month, my TV springs to life when I plug in the little thumb drive.
Her face flushes up in an enormous blush, for she sees that I know she’s alive.
The eyes of all eight of us fix upon her. She’s the center of all our attention.
We laugh at her jokes and cry at her pathos. Respond to her mysteries with tension.
But the rest of the month her expression is blank, sitting alone in her corner
looking so sad and so lacking in life that I feel that perhaps I should mourn her.
The first time she lit up when I entered the room to say she didn’t recognize me,
I realized with shock for the very first time that my TV could both talk and see!
I hadn’t quite realized the extent of her powers when I bought her at Costco that day.
My old TV weighed in at five hundred pounds—more than a TV should weigh.
I’d inherited it from my mom when she died so I had a personal attachment,
but to move it alone, one risked heart attack or at least a vertebral detachment.
And so I gave in to cajoling by friends that it was time to buy another.
and I gave away the monster TV that I had acquired from my mother.
But guilt has suffused me ever after that day, for I really don’t need a TV,
and this smart girl is lacking in challenges, just wasting her talents on me.
She’s recently started to turn herself on (something that girls alone do)
and talking to me when I enter the room and enter her angle of view.
Finally I just unplugged her—an act of most selfish defiance.
I haven’t the time in my life just to chat—especially to an appliance!
Hate to admit this poem is an edited version of one written over three years ago and I still flounder around trying to work this TV. The world has evolved beyond me. I should be the one blushing! The prompt today is blush.
Confessions of a Line-Crasher
Patience is not my forte. I put it on a shelf
and withdraw my impatience. It better suits myself.
I do not enjoy waiting for my turn in a store,
and bank lines make me want to barrel for the door.
I will not take a number when going out to dine.
I do not get my jollies from standing in a line.
Pharmacies and waiting rooms are simply not for me.
Let alone the airport queues when I’ve a need to pee.
If patience is a virtue, I fear I’ve flunked the test,
I think it is my birthright to go before the rest!!!
The prompt today was patience.
Judy and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day, #2
(Those Time-killin’, Prescription-fillin’, Amoxicillin Blues)
For one long week, I wait and wait
for this cold to dissipate,
but such is not to be my fate.
Although it seems like it’s abating,
instead, it’s simply incubating.
It’s only here to agitate.
It has me in a constant state
of paroxysm. At this rate,
I’ll cough myself to heaven’s gate!
By what means may I eradicate
this uninvited guest I hate?
I steal its covers, palpitate,
disturb its sleep, excoriate
its surfaces and mentholate.
I leave doors open just to bait
its exit, and I educate
myself in methods to end this date–
wild to finally give the gate
to this unwelcome reprobate.
Unrested, shaking, light of head,
I pull myself out of my bed,
strip off my fevered dressing gown,
to make the long drive into town
to see my doctor for my check,
climb up the stairs, a wheezing wreck,
on time. But doctor’s one hour late!
As I sit and ruminate,
I fall into a sorry state,
thinking I need to educate
them on the way they operate.
I see the doc and hit the door.
As I drive to the Walmart store,
of energy, I have no more.
Fighting just to stay upright,
it feels like I’ll be here all night.
When one man cuts in front of me,
I’d like to give his back the knee,
but I resist and live with it.
Yet I admit i have a fit
when one more woman cuts the line.
I tell the druggist the turn is mine.
She bags my pills and I am off
with dripping nose and awful cough
due to my cold as well as strep,
shaking, dizzy, slow of step.
I make it to my car and drive
home through the traffic’s busy hive.
One hour, if I’m not mistaken,
it takes to drive what should have taken
twenty minutes. I’ve not been fed,
or medicated, yet take to bed
the very minute that I get
back home, fatigued and soaking wet.
Two hours later I awake
to discover the mistake.
When that pharmaceutic villain
dosed out my amoxicillin,
she didn’t get the dosage right—
plus—I was 20 capsules light!
What’s more, she’d kept the damn prescription!
Yes. I threw a small conniption
fit. I couldn’t order more
from any pharmaceutic store
without the script. And, as I’d supposed,
my doctor’s clinic was now closed!!!!!
That’s how, my friends, my day has gone
since I awakened with the dawn
after a few hours tossing sleep.
Read of it now and mourn and weep
over those pills sorely mis-boughten
by one who lies here feeling rotten!!
True story, un-exaggerated in terms of how utterly rotten I was feeling. Yes, it’s strep and the doctor is trying to ward off pneumonia, thus the second round of heartier antibiotics. which I’m going to have to put off taking at least another day until some kind friend (John?) goes into town and gets me a new prescription and the correct pills. The prompt today was incubate.
Wrinkle
Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.
I wrote to this exact prompt four years ago, so here it is again. The prompt word today is wrinkle.
Water Park—Uruapan, Michoacan, 2003 jdb photo 
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 