Tag Archives: dVerse Poets

“Transmogrified” for dVerse Poets

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Many hats worn during a lifetime!!

Transmogrified!!

Let them peel away my layers to see what is inside.
By the time they’ve finally done it, I, I will be transmogrified.
For one year I was one thing and another year another––
not just the girl created by my father and my mother.

If I were all the things I was in my former years,
my observers would get whiplash as they watched me shifting gears.
I’d be a waitress or a film-maker, a teacher or a writer.
A traveler, a publicist and a poetry citer.

A lover, wife and stepmother, an auntie, sister, friend.
A granddaughter, a daughter–my titles never end.
In each guise, what was needed–a lover or a coach,
sometimes one to blame,  at other times above reproach

I’ve lived in boats and houses, in motorhomes and more–
in huts formed  out of cow dung with swept dirt for a floor.
So if you want to find a person who can be all she can be,
you can give up all your searching, for I’m saying, “Please, choose me!”

 

To transmogrify means to transform or change completely, especially into a different, grotesque, or humorous shape or form.

For dVerse Poets, the prompt is “Let Them.”

Give Me Blue for dVerse Poets

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Give Me Blue

If it is a blue with no sadness in it:
the blue of the sky above Colima Volcano
with no other clouds in it except one puff
of earth’s hot breath becoming visible
in the cool morning air.

If it is a blue
with no middle ground of safety,
nothing that makes it ordinary.
No hue of boredom
or gray cast of age.
No tint of ever ending––
just pure blue
holding its mood in,
letting you feel however you want to feel.

The blue of glass that reflects the sky.
Iris blue and periwinkle.
Cerulean and cobalt.

If it is a blue with not a smudge of green in it,
or yellow or white or black.
Blue-blue like my tue love’s eyes
and like the color that a blueberry Popsicle
should be––its blue dusted by nature
as though frosted, even in the heat of summer.
Like blue caught in icicles.

The color of a jellyfish
or Noxzema jar.
Bluebottle fly, tenacious,
only its color not annoying.
Blue as a shiver. Blue as blood. Blue as Hawaii.

Not the blue of a heart before forgetting.
Not that blue with a lot of
dullness soaked into it.
But if you have Blue as in Australia.
Blue as in a first place ribbon.
Sky blue,
true blue,
never blue.

Blue that if it’s ever had one gram of sadness in it,
doesn’t show it.`
If you have that blue,
and you want to give it to me,
then, sure.

 Give me blue.

for dVerse Poets, the prompt is to write an ekphrastic poem about one of the given Chagall paintings.

In The Doghouse, for Sure!!! For dVerse Poets

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What happens when you finally get a full 8 hours of sleep after months of 2 or 3 hours a night (if you are lucky––0 to 1 if you aren’t?)  The prescription your doctor gave you says it is a none-steroidal, none-addictive mild anxiety med that may make you sleepy. I got it half right. I got a full night’s sleep, but unfortunately carried my anxiety along with me into what felt like a full-night’s dream. The further irony is that it has been years since I’ve been able to remember my dreams. (And, you are doggone right. This is waaaaay more than 44 words. You can’t get it all right!!!) And I swear, every word I have written is the truth. I was about to answer the dVerse prompt last night but I absolutely could not get on the Internet and so gave up to fall into the sleep that produced this story which after years of no dream memory and at least three months of almost no sleep, I hope you give me the poetic license to tell. Not poetry, not 44 words, but the gospel truth. Now, I guess I really am in the doghouse?

Dogged Dreams

It is 5:58 in the morning and I was just awakened by my barking dogs…all three of them. There is a good side to the story as I was awakened from a dream in which absolutely everything went wrong. In the dream, after I had waited for two hours for an interviewer to show up, the man who was to introduce me actually gave such a long intro that he ended up essentially giving all of the informmation I was going to reveal in the interview, and even then, the interviewer  did not show up. His assistant did, however, to retrieve equipment that was actually equipment that belonged to me, and no matter what I said, he refused to believe me and took it anyway, saying if I wanted to bring it up with his company later, I could.

Then a friend came by saying she was going to the liquor store to buy Scotch and did I want her to get me some? Under no circumstances, I said, I badly needed a drink, but I hated Scotch. Could she get me a bottle of gin? “Done,” she said, then showed up proudly as I began my third hour of waiting for the interviewer (who never did show.) “Here you go,” she said, presenting me with a huge bottle that included a wooden stand that proudly announced its name:  “Scotch!” I had just pointed out her error to see her march away, furious, sure that I’d ordered the damn Scotch, and was about to follow her off the interview site after telling them they were the most poorly organized outfit I’d ever seen and that I was announcing the name of the person who took my equipment to the owner of the company, who happened to be my uncle(a lie)––when the dogs began to bark, thus saving me from an additional minute more of torment.

 

The dVerse Poets prompt was: Write about the dog days – of summer, of war. The dog-eared pages of your favorite novel. Tell us about a time you were sick as a dog, or give us a little hair of the dog. Make it rain cats and dogs. Put your poem through a downward-facing dog yoga pose, or let it run with the dogs. Let sleeping dogs lie, or tell the truth about this dog-eat-dog world – or anything else you doggone please. Just be sure your poem is exactly 44 words long, including some form of the word dog – or you’ll be in the doghouse. 

Image made with help of AI

“The First Day of School” for dVerse Poets

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What demands a list more than deciding what to put in your book bag for the firt day of school..and what is more necessary than a list in relating the story of that big day?

First Day of School

In our house, a pencil sharpener fastened to a shelf
with a little handle I could turn myself.
All the curls of wood and lead safely caught within,
as I gave the pencil sharpener one more little spin.

Five newly sharpened pencils, clutched tight in my hand,
then bound into a secure bunch with a rubber band.
Dropped into my school bag with eraser, tablet, ruler.
Everything unused and clean.  Nothing could be cooler.

The school warning bell rings out as my saddle shoe––
crisp black and white, unblemished, for it’s stiffly new––
makes its first step out my door to cross across the street
and with other six-year-olds, to find my proper seat.

Lynnie, Henrietta, Sheila, Diane, Sharon.
Clevie,  Meridee and I, Rita, Linda, Karen.
Lyle, Keith, Clinton, Jeff, Georgie, Jimmie, Billie––
come from all directions, running willie-nillie

to get to school before the bell sounds its final peal.
All those years of playing school finally here for real.
We stand in lines inside the room as she calls our names.
No more days of playing random childhood games.

Reading and arithmetic, that little cardboard store
where we learned to count out change, make shopping lists and more.
Spelldowns standing up in front, facing towards the class.
Your hand up when you had to ask for the bathroom pass.

Marching all around the room singing “Charming Billy.”
Can he bake a cherry pie? Those lyrics were so silly.
Then we stomped and pointed–our volume without match
as we sent the boys out yonder  to the paw paw patch.

Are you too young to remember? Or is it that you’re old,
your remembrances supplanted, your memories grown cold?
Do you not recall  the ink wells and chalk erasers?
The recess bell, the sandbox, the swingers and the chasers?

The teeter-totters creaking and the merry-go-round?
Every playground adventure? That cacophonous sound
of shouts and jeers and teasings, the tether ball and slide.
All the joyous sounds before we were called inside

to spend time with Alice and Jerry,  and with “Run, Spot, run,”
reading words over and over before the day was done?
They swirled around in all our brains––phonics, words and numbers
stirred our active childhood minds from their former slumbers.

It was so many years ago that we set out that day
upon a road that later would carry us away
from that square white building with its tower and tolling bell
that for the first eight years of school we would mind so well.

Streaming in from all the sides of our little town––
brilliant students, dunces, class bully and class clown.
It was a collaboration that ultimately made
eighteen little boys and girls ready for second grade!

The dVerse Poets prompt was to construct a list poem.

“African Love Story” for dVerse Poets

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African Love Story

In this day and age
Almost everyone has a tropical love story.

Show of hands–
How many here?

There was a war.  Danger.
And there were disapproving fathers
And careers.
And yes, I know that some
Love stories survive them all.
But ours didn’t.
And he didn’t.

So just for a year and a few months
We were in love in a warm climate.
A torn love story with a sad ending
With me as its only living remnant.

Imagine yourself
In that story
Full of hormones and atmosphere

It is a meditation remembering
Sand and moonlight under the Southern Cross.
Or cocks crowing before you fell asleep
Long rolling nights in a village
Where almost no one spoke your language.

Perhaps you were a prisoner of love
As I was years ago.
Non-protesting, dizzy and dumb for passion.

Would I have stayed for love if I’d known
It was the whole business of love I’d leave behind,
And not just my beloved?

Would you?

 

 

The dVerse prompt is ‘Where Does Love Go?”

A Reunion Imperative for dVerse Poets

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Upon Running into a Former Best Friend

Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my career or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!

For dVerse Poets...an Imperative Poem

Just Me for dVerse Poets

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Just Me
Inside my skin, around my bone,
I am me and me alone.
Wherever I choose to abide,
it is just me tucked here inside.
And if you find you’re in a bind,
you’re welcome to explore my mind
and pass on anything you find.

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille challenge, the prompt is “Bone.” Illustration created with AI. (Best I could do.)

Letter from the People of America for dVerse Poets

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Letter from the People of America

Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dear Elected Representatives:
(A Letter from the People of America)

We ventilate our dwellings of many different kinds,
but may not have the sense to ventilate our minds.
Perhaps we fear we’d stir up something that has died—
some milk of human kindness that’s buried deep inside.

As kids sit scared in cages and countless forests burn,
you think you’re given license to hoard all that you earn,
protecting it from others who have need of it,
flailing around in luxuries of your money pit.

Yachts and cars and mansions should not buy peace of mind
when they leave our planet in a lethal bind.
Our plastic world is flailing. It chokes on its excess.
How can you turn your backs on its extreme duress?

We elect our rulers. They are not born to reign.
In return we must demand that they share our pain
and do not profit by it with cash for legislation
leading to their betterment and our consternation.

Look at where we’re going and look at where we’ve been.
Open up your minds. Let truth and justice in.
During your term of office who’s advanced as far as you have?
It seems the teeming masses did not profit as a few have.

We’re taking back our government, abolishing each clause
that gives you the entitlement to profit from the laws
you enact for self-interest. It’s time that you were outed
and all who vote against our interests were routed.

You defend bad judgement, support your corrupt clown.
Now all who stand behind him must also be brought down.
You overlook the obvious for motives all your own.
You’ve opened up the cage and the dove of peace has flown,

stalked by a bald eagle who feeds on those for whom
it should serve as symbol of something else but doom.
We must bring back our liberty, nobility and pride.
Resuscitate a country that many fear has died.

The truth is there before you, so open up your minds
to see there’s a solution for our present binds.
If you refuse to topple that one on whom you dote,
we’ll topple you one after one–when we go to vote!!

For dVerse Poets we are to write a poem in the form of a letter.

Memories of Bob for dVerse Poets Acrostic Challenge

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Bob Brown sculpture and visitor

Memories of Bob
(Judy Dykstra-Brown Acrostic Poem)

Just as I was about to give in to distress,
up came a memory of you,
diverted by all those dreams
you carried in your head.

Dreams consisting of wood, metal, paper, stone––
your first loves
katapulting themselves into your art.
Sculptures startling in their originality,
taking their viewers into new worlds,
returning, eventually, to
actual life, and me.

Beautiful memories
return daily, now that you are gone.
Over the years, I see you daily, nonetheless,
when I see what you created––
now the only part of you that remains.

 

For dVerse Poets the task is to write an acrostic poem for the name of a famous person, loved one or yourself. I used my own name, Judy Dykstra, which after marriage included my husband’s last name as well, blending us, as does this poem. I hope.

Dakota Dirt for dVerse Poets

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Dakota Dirt

 

Dakota Dirt

My father toiled for fifty years,
facing the worries and the fears—
the gambles that a farmer faced
when all his future he had placed
as seeds beneath Dakota dirt.
Every year, he risked the shirt
right off his back. With faith, he’d bury
his whole future in that prairie.
Sticky gumbo, that fine-grained silt
upon which his whole life was built.
Then, closer to our summer home,
near the river, in sand and loam,
he hoped he could prepare for ours:
our clothes, our college, and first cars.

Then came those years that brought the change
that altered fields and crops and range.
The rain that formerly turned to rust
plows left untended, turned to dust
that, caught up in the wind’s mad thrust
caused many a farmer to go bust
as a whole nation mourned and cussed
black clouds of dirt that broke the trust
that nature would provide for all.
What formerly fed, now brought their fall.

It broke the men who couldn’t wait
for the drought years to abate,
but my father kept his faith in soil.
Found other paying forms of toil
building dams to catch what rain
might later fall on that dry plain.
And though others thought his prospects poor,
he kept his land and bought some more.
He learned to vary furrow line,
believing it would turn out fine.

So when good fortune returned again,
bringing with it snow and rain,
he welcomed and was ready for it.
That April it began to pour, it
filled his dams and nourished what
soil remained. He filled each rut
with clover, alfalfa and wheat.
Allowed the summer sun to beat
and change them into fields of gold—
into grain and feed he sold.

Bought cattle. Planted winter wheat.
Once more secure on his two feet,
expanded and as he had planned,
bought more cattle and more land.
Some said that he had just exploited
those whose land he’d reconnoitered
and purchased after they’d given up,
empty hands transformed to cup.
He was a hero unsung, unknown,
until long after when I was grown.

At the centennial of our town,
I learned a bit of his renown
when others told to me how he
shared nature’s generosity.
He sent three daughters to university,
then shared with his community 
to build a church and give more knowledge
to those young men he sent to college.
Then made loans without fame or thanks
to other farmers denied by banks.

I’d always known how rich my life
was made by all his toil and strife—
the insurance he gave his family
that enabled us all to be free.
But, aside from daughters, wife and mother,
I’d never know of every other
soul he’d helped  to prosperous ends:
neighboring ranchers, sons of friends.
Could my father have known he’d also planned
all these other futures when he bought the land?

This rich Jones County gumbo on the treads of my tire at one of our all-town reunions a few years ago is what sent me to college!

For dVerse Poets “Embodying a Landscape” prompt.