Tag Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown poem

Rain

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DSC08898 - Version 2

Rain

Gives an excuse
for that bright orange umbrella
and yellow overshoes
toppled over in the hall closet,
yet it is nighttime and I am old.
I lie under blankets on the sofa,
content with its comforting
rat-a-tat
on the plastic skylight
overhead.

It is a friend knocking
insistently,
calling me out to play.

Six years old,
Imprisoned by summer,
we were given occasionally
the refreshing release
of a hard summer rain.
Bare feet splashing,
we raced dry leaf boats
manned by our imaginations
through the caves of culverts,
down to those ultimate puddles
magnificent in their magnitude.

Sixty years later,
I am caught up in the currents
of that sudden rush downwards
and backwards to
a plastic umbrella
abandoned on the sidewalk
as we opened like  flowers.

Rain
hides tears.
Forces growth.
Cleans up our messes
and provides glorious new ones.
Washes away today
and grows tomorrow.

Fault Lines

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Fault Lines

She lives up on a hillside far from the busy town,
and every year she lives there, she’s less likely to come down.
Her dog sits on her house’s dome and barks at all that pass.
One day she’ll likely join it, but for now she feels it’s crass.
Besides, she’s not that agile.  She seems to fall a lot–
merely due to clumsiness. A drinker, she is not.

She spends too much on artwork. The results hang down her halls,
sit upon her furniture and cover all her walls.
Her closets? Full to bulging with sizes large to small.
Her friends keep telling her there is no need to keep them all,
but to toss the ones that do not fit would cause her great duress.
She cannot throw any away, for next year she’ll weigh less.

Her refrigerator is her favorite scenic spot,
though entering’s an adventure with dangers amply fraught:
dog food barely balanced on a small sweet pickle jar
she has to brush against to get to where the short ribs are.
I’ve said that she is clumsy.  She doesn’t take her time.
This really isn’t new, for she was like this in her prime.

Her elbow strikes the pickle jar, the dog food comes out spinning.
They crash upon the tile floor. Our heroine stops grinning–
her thoughts no longer on the food but on the awful mess
of dogfood, pickles, broken glass–the rest you’ll surely guess.
The exercise that she will get mopping all this glop up.
will surely compensate for all the ribs she’ll later sop up.

And so she’ll lose her weight again and fit in that size eight.
As soon as this feat comes to be, he’ll ask her for a date.
Her dog will come down from the roof and she’ll come down the hill.
Her fridge and all her closets will suddenly unfill.
She’ll sell the art and cease to fall and fulfill all her scheming.
For the sixth thing true about her is that she’s prone to dreaming!

The Prompt: Far from Normal–Take a step back and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

For more writing on this topic go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/far-from-normal/

Today’s prompt was really “Plead the Fifth” about a question we hate to answer.  We were given the choice of an alternate prompt, which is the one I chose, but ironically, it was one I didn’t want to answer so my post really fulfills both prompts.  Tricky.  If you want to see today’s prompt and other answers to it, you will find it:  HERE.

Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

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Odd Little Saturday Morning Poem

I lie in bed, flat on my back, head raised by pillows,
computer raised to eye level
by a wadded comforter over bent knees.
I listen to raised voices in the village down below,
the staccato of an inadequately mufflered car revving up,
a hammer falling on wood, birds in the coco  palms.
A pianissimo chorus of dogs spread
over the surrounding hills swells to a frenzied crescendo,
then falls silent but will swell again.

I have dropped obligations
like clothes shed for a lover.
My Saturday morning pool aerobics and zumba,
I slipped out of years ago.
Group luncheons hang from doorknobs and chair backs.
Committee meetings lie sloppily abandoned in the hall.

I have retired from the running of the world
to run my own small universe on paper.
Saturday morning is my brainstorm session
with “Me,” “Myself” and “I.”
“I” suggested feeding the dogs,
but they are quiet now, so
“Me” suggested we let them lie.
“Myself” laid out some words to dry
in the heat of the fire of our communal
inspiration, laying them smoothly on the page,
rumpling up others in her fist to send them sailing
to join the crumpled singles event invitations in the corner.

This slow Saturday morning dressing of pages
and stripping them bare
is a sort of ceremony celebrating seizing time
and making it my own.
Pages  fill up with passion, angst, anger,
irritation, joy, laughter, camaraderie.
There is more than one word for each.

Imagine such control over your world–
not having to live the world of any other.
If you could have any life you wish?
Imagine a Saturday morning  building it.

 

The Prompt:  Me Time–What do you like to do on Saturday morning?  Are you doing it now?

The Old Ones Deign to Tweet

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The Old Ones Deign to Tweet
(With Character Counts)

Immanuel Kant
on the subject of building “platforms” for
blogs, websites, Twitter accounts or Facebook:

. . . the favor of the multitude is seldom got by honest and lawful means.
Seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. (140)
*

Charles Dickens
on the subject of tweeting, texting , e-mailing, or other social media:

Electric communication will never be a substitute
for the face of someone who with their soul
encourages another person to be brave and true. (140)
*

Mark Twain:
On the subject of those (like me) who resist
tweets, texts and ubiquitous handheld devices:

One who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80.
One who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young. (140)
*

Me:
And, a further comment about those tweets:

Mind without heart conveys no wisdom.
Where brevity is the only rule,
larger truths may be lost. (96)

We must remember that “character” has two meanings
and count our truths as closely
as we count our keystrokes. (109)

Empty Cup

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Empty Cup

You would think there would be some remnant left,
but death was simple.
You were there and then you weren’t.
After one deep ragged breath
you were so gone that even your body
seemed to miss you.  That stillness
so irrevocable. So not right.

Our friends all came
to see the place where you had been,
bringing offerings
to fill the void.
It was a full-packed house–
your sons, their wives, your daughter–
eight of us filling out every hollow corner.

I slept in the bed meant for two,
trying to convince myself I was enough–
trying to fill in the space you left.
That empty cup.

The Prompt:  Cut Off–When was the last time you felt completely, truly lonely?

Mexican Fiesta

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 Mexican Fiesta

Every village has one for the saint’s day of their town.
Vendor booths spring up like grass as fireworks rain down.
Bottle rockets all day long are auditory pollution.
Newcomers often fear that it is a new revolution.
Thousands in a day explode, from predawn into night;
so gringos living in the town often just take flight
for the two weeks of fiesta that happens every year
as loud music and announcements join the assaults to the ear.
But after thirteen years, to me it’s just become a joke.
I simply plug my ears and down another Rum and Coke.

The Prompt: Write about a strictly local event in the place where you live as though it were an entry in a travel guide.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/local-flavor/

Addicted

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Addicted

It’s altering our planet, or so the experts say,
but I fear I am addicted, for I take it every day.
As regular as clockwork–morning, noon and night–
whenever I have need of it, I take it as my right.

I can take it when I’ve planned to or also just ad hoc
when I need to go out shopping, to the dentist or the doc.
I can take it while I’m listening or take it while I’m talking,
but the one time I can’t take it is whenever I am walking.

It’s become a real compulsion, an addiction and a crutch.
I’d try to give it up but I enjoy it way too much.
Yet I do not need to search it out in pharmacy or bar,
for the thing I cannot do without is just my little car.

The Prompt: Think Global, Act Local–Link a global issue to your personal life.

See more writing on this theme at: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/think-global-act-local/

I’ve Come Undone

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I’ve Come Undone

If I could undo anything that’s happened in my life,
I would not undo enemies or illnesses or strife.
For all led up to my life now that really isn’t bad.
All given, I am happy, and frequently I’m glad.
My palm trees may need clipping and my dogs may have the mange,
but all in all there’s really only one thing I would change.
I’d undo one tequila or two or three or four.
I think that that is all I drank. I can’t remember more.
And after that, that dance I did as others ringed the floor?
I fear I chose to party when I should have chosen the door!

And that knee I rocked on back and forth, remembering the twist?
I fear I chose to overdo instead of to desist.
My friends did not remove me, but cheered me on instead.
And now I have a throbbing knee and needles in my head.
That knee I’d earlier injured when I fell on cobblestones
had healed, I thought, relieving all that aching in my bones.
But now I’m hobbling back and forth–gimpy once again,
for you gotta pay the piper when you choose a life of sin.
I know my knee will heal and that this agony will end,
but please remind me next time that tequila’s not my friend!!

The Prompt: If you could undo something, what would it be? Discuss why, potential repercussions, or a possible alternative.

Offers

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Offers

When he asked me to marry him
and when we had to bury him–
these times inevitably set
wherein we find that we must let
nature have its way with us.
It does no good to rant and fuss.
Life’s made to reward, then abuse.
Its vagaries we can’t refuse.

All is part and parcel to
the next thing that we’re meant to do.
Good comes from bad and bad from good.
Birth, courtship, marriage, parenthood
fill our lives in marching order,
but every joy must have its border.
Birth leads to death. Love’s often lost.
To release life’s pleasures is the cost

of having and enjoying them.
Coal under pressure becomes a gem.
Remembering this must get you through
the next trial that’s set up for you.
Every day’s  an offer  you can’t refuse–
another pleasure to gain, then lose.
Life’s losses are also its seeds.
We lose our wants to gain our needs.

The Prompt: Set the timer for ten minutes and then tell us about an offer you couldn’t refuse.

Citing or Writing

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Citing or Writing

Two little Internetters sitting on a log.
One is a writer. The other reads a blog.
The one who reads it learns a bit,
but I’d rather be the one who’s writ;
for there are parts of me inside
that like to run away and hide

and the only way I get to be them
is if I take the time to see them.
But they are canny, reclusive, meek;
and so unless I prod and seek,
they stay hidden, sealed away–
never seen in the light of day.

Somehow, blogging brings them out.
The Daily Prompt, without a doubt,
seems to catch them by surprise
and lures them from behind my eyes
to meet the screen–to shine and glow
and tell me what I need to know.

So if I want to follow others,
or entertainment is my “druthers,”
I’d go on reading other blogs–
other writers on other logs.
But since my need is to know myself–
to lure the rest of me from the shelf,

I’ll make the choice that’s most exciting.
If I had to choose, I’d keep on writing.
For if blogging is a game,
sitting on the bench is lame.
Those who write just keep on fighting
while those who read are just reciting.

 

The Prompt: If you had to choose between either writing a blog or being able to read the blogs of others, which would you choose?