Love Prone
His heartfelt joy was palpable. His maelstrom of affection
spread throughout his body—a beneficent infection.
And yet he was resilient when his lover proved untrue.
He simply found another girl and fell in love anew!
Prompt words for today are maelstrom, palpable, heartfelt and resilient.
An Open Letter to the N.Y. Times Regarding Their Sunday Crossword
Your circular riddle’s an impossible pill
to swallow. Your blanks I struggle to fill.
The crux of the matter? I never know
just how to harvest the seeds that you sow.
I find your clues exceedingly queer.
Your genius outreaches my talent, I fear.
Prompt words today are circular, riddle, outreach and crux. I’m also answering the dVerse Poet’s Quadrille Challenge making use of the word fill in a 44-word poem.
Here’s the dVerse prompt: https://dversepoets.com/2020/02/10/quadrille-97-filling-the-page/
The Dress
She was blithe of nature and at the harvest dance,
men both young and aged straightened at her advance.
Noting her graceful movements across the grange hall floor,
the men all watched the flowings of the summer dress she wore.
Though the women called it skimpy, men found the dress divine
as it lifted out around her when they passed her down the line,
and as she was dipped and glided,
more than just a few collided.
So were girlfriends’ natures tested and marriage vows stretched thin
as boyfriends, partners, spouses contemplated sin
watching that skirt’s movements, its gentle falls and flow
as it swirled out around her with every do-si-do.
Prompt words today are skimpy, advance, nature and blithe. Photo is a detail from a photo by Amy Kate on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Sold Out!!!
Mirth has died and joy has vanished. Gone without a trace.
No laughter heard around us. A smile on no face.
So many fishy happenings. So many baited hooks
as all the crooked happenings once reserved for books
invade our lovely simple lives, making them complex.
First rated by our English, then rated by our sex,
we kowtow to the bullies and hide away our shame,
saying all the others are the ones to blame.
This man sat in front of me in the iPhone class I took yesterday. He’s riding a Harley and that’s a pistol tucked into his belt and some sort of rifle in his hand.The presidential crest on his bike and chest. Words fail me.
Memory Games
Though memories are sketchy, those that remain are vivid—
mere scraps of joy or humor or times when she was livid.
No way to tell what snips of time her memory will nourish—
current relations lost to time while past ones live and flourish.
The mind does nasty tricks when it decides to misbehave.
It may leave us abandoned within its darkening cave,
or perhaps it casts a cinema only one can see,
drawing them into a world of dreams where they are free.
No one who walks through memory’s door can return to tell
whether it is heaven or a living hell.
Another trick of life that draws us fast within it,
forcing us to play the game without a way to win it.
Prompt words for today are jive, sketchy, relations and vivid.
Torch of Liberty
If we could kidnap inequality and lock it safe away,
then resurrect our scruples and let them have their say,
we could acquit our consciences and set our nation right.
Then reilluminate her torch to guide us through the night.
Prompt words today are acquit, scruples, kidnap, inequality Photo by Juan Mayobre on Unsplash Used with Permission.
When my husband and I did arts and crafts shows, at least once during every show, someone would wander into our booth, have a good look around, and as they left, shrug their shoulders and say, “Well it’s different!” (Usually pronounced “differnt.”) It actually was an in joke between those displaying their art—always interpreted as the speaker not understanding and not really liking the arts and crafts. Growing up in a small town, it was not the first time I’d heard the word in its derogatory sense. Thus, this poem:
“Different”
When I finally made my way into the world so wide
I found myself exotic. Somehow transmogrified.
I liked being the foreigner, eminent in my oddity.
I found that being different was a definite commodity.
It was my prerogative to be just who I was
without creating currents in the small town buzz
of that place I had grown up in. My acts were less explosive.
My strange words now acceptable, not garnered as corrosive.
They thought my strange behavior typical of my nation—
those oddities of word choice and excesses of oration.
So in being totally different, somehow I felt more the same.
In finally being somewhere where different was not a sin,
the more different I was, the more that I fit in!!!
Prompt words today are explosive, prerogative, foreigner, eminent and wide.
Night Counselor
There is some little magic thing that whispers in the night,
smoothing out our former fears and setting them aright,
forever taking on the problems of the day,
righting them and sending them blithely on their way.
Settling our nerves with some alchemy of sleep
that somehow deals with worries, however wide and deep.
Though travails may be frequent, overwhelming in their numbers,
at least we have partial relief, nightly, in our slumbers.
Prompt words today are magic, forever, frequency, nerve and wide.
Fresh Produce
I lived in an era before eggplant or Swiss chard,
with fruit that mainly grew up from our own back yard.
Cherries and strawberries. Watermelon. Plums.
No passionfruit or mangoes passed across our gums.
One day avocados would become a revelation.
Papayas and fresh guavas discovered on vacation.
But artichokes back then were thought the product of the devil.
We kept our veggies smooth and round and strictly on one level.
Exchange with foreign countries back then was truly rare.
So many foods from far off climes we’d had no chance to dare.
These days all our grocery stores are filled with all this stuff,
but long ago potatoes, beans and carrots were enough!!
Prompt words today are eggplant, exchange, devil and revelation.
Eleventh Hour
It’s true the groom was old and gray,
a cane or walker his mainstay,
and the one he called his child bride
was just as tall as she was wide.
Her bathing schedule so erratic,
she was rather aromatic,
but since he’d lost his sense of smell,
they were suited very well.
If they had cause to take a journey,
he’d simply push her in a gurney
in lieu of walker. It worked well.
Her needs and his were seen to gel.
Centuries later, folks will recall
the evening of their wedding ball.
The dance they chose was rock and roll—
as practical as it was droll.
He rocked, she rolled, then one dance done,
he wheeled her off to have some fun.
For the groom, so aged and furry
was nonetheless in a great hurry
to address their wedding bed.
Fearing that he’d soon be dead,
he rolled his roly poly mate
out of the ballroom, through the gate,
down the hall and to their room,
an act, I fear, that sealed his doom,
for once his ardor was diminished,
alas, the groom’s long life was finished.
But in the end? A bit of magic,
for the ending was not tragic.
Nine months later his game was won
when posthumously, he had a son!!!
Prompt words are aromatic, century, journey, mainstay and wide
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 