Tag Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown Poems

Queasy

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 Queasy

Silas Marner did not bore me. Cosines served me well.
I did not dread the tolling of the school bell.
Geography was interesting–all those maps and facts.
History a story of migration, wars and pacts.
Psychology didn’t throw me. I learned to type real fast.
I got an A in algebra, though the knowledge didn’t last.
Bookkeeping was annoying–all those columns and their sums.
I’ll admit I caused disturbances, clowning for my chums.
But all and all my schooldays were challenging and fun.
The only time I wished that all my schooling could be done
was when my Biology teacher made me blanch and squirm
by issuing me a scalpel and then handing me a worm!!!

The Prompt: Land of Confusion–Which subject in school did you find impossible to master? Did math give you hives? Did English make you scream? Do tell!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/land-of-confusion-2/

Get the Hint and Please, Repent!

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Get the Hint and Please, Repent!

A door that opens with a creaky hinge
is sure to make me frown and cringe,
but nothing makes me shiver more
than a lengthy lecture by a raving bore.

When at a party, I walk away
as they pontificate and bray,
but at a lecture or in church
one just can’t leave them in the lurch.

This is when a raging cough
quickly developed, can get one off.
A rapid exit towards the door
delivers you from any more.

More naive listeners might excuse
since they have not seen through your ruse.
More clever ones view your quick exit
wishing they had thought of it!

So those who think they have much wit
and find it difficult to quit
when displaying it to others
(with the exception of their mothers,)

take heed when those you’ve asked to gather
to hear your blah blah blah and blather
start to cough and start to hack,
bolt out the door and don’t come back!!!

The Prompt: Cringe-Worthy–What’s most likely to make you squirm?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cringe-worthy/

hear and know

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I spent yesterday and last night at my friend Linda’s house.  There will be more about that in a later post.  For now, here is a simple little poem about living in the here and now.

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hear and know

water drops
from sky or hose
where it comes from
no one knows

the blinds are pulled
I only hear
water moving
very near

morning’s new
the world I wake in
has new sounds
for me to take in

open eyes
and feet on floor
morning waits
outside my door

the smell of coffee
invites me there
my friend waiting
for me to share

how can I know
until I rise
what new world
will meet my eyes

at the window
curtains billow
deer grazing
on weeping willow

window washer
rings the bell
i greet the day
this tale to tell.

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/write-here-write-now/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/coming-to-a-bookshelf-near-you/

Recalculating: Berkeley to Livermore and Back

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Recalculating: Berkeley to Livermore and Back

Who wanders for pleasure, wanders alone
marking no boundary, barrier, zone.
The earth has no limits and time has no chime,
my steps undetermined by schedule or clime.

This used to be my modus operandi—
travel my sweet tooth and freedom my candy.
No email or Google, no iPad or phone,
without Internet service, I rolled like a stone.

But today I am traveling from town to town
with heavier luggage–more weighted down.
And though I go singly, I’m never alone
thanks to my computer, my Kindle and phone.

Right now I’m imprisoned and my progress is bound
by the cords of my ear buds confusingly wound
round my camera charger and Ethernet connector.
My GPS determines my vector.

No more do I travel unfettered and free.
Cell tower to tower is where I must be;
so every person that I’ve ever met
has me perpetually in their debt.

Birthdays to remember and twitters to answer,
queries of grandchildren, hip sockets, cancer.
Traveling with this extra weight is not pleasant.
I much prefer traveling just in the present

unfettered by email, phone calls or that voice
calling instructions at every choice
of northwards or southwards or eastward or west.
Yes, I know GPS directions are best,

but if I’m never lost and never alone,
I might as well stay home and talk on the phone,
for most of adventure has come when I’m lost
from all of my past, whatever the cost.

Still the ways of the present make planning much easier,
finding my next destination much breezier.
These tricky freeways have changed in past years
and I find my memory much in arrears.

So perhaps for today I’ll turn on GPS
so I won’t get so lost and I won’t have to guess
which freeway to take: eight-oh-eight? eight-oh-six?
Getting myself in a terrible fix.

Tomorrow’s the time to become vagabond,
using personal radar and my fairy wand
to maneuver through life by the skin of my pants.
Just for today, I won’t take the chance!

P.S.  Thanks, Patti, for the loan of the GPS!!! Actually, it has been a Godsend.

The WordPress prompt: The Happy Wanderer–What’s your travel style? Are you itinerary and schedule driven, needing to have every step mapped out in advance or are you content to arrive without a plan and let happenstance be your guide?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-happy-wanderer/

Poetry Pays!!!

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Poetry Pays!

Quatrains for carrots, couplets for peas,
I’m writing out haiku whenever I please
for rib eyes and cheesecake and chili and cheese,
to visit the doctor whenever I sneeze,
to buy a new sweater to ward off the breeze,
to buy a new car and a ring for its keys,
to barter for kneecaps when I’m out at the knees,
and cartons of cigarettes until I wheeze.
I’m lucky to have a profession well-paying.
Poetry’s lucrative. Ignore what they’re saying.
If you are planning on going to college
for profit as well as for wisdom and knowledge,
if you want to live well in this difficult time,
be sure that you learn how to scan and to rhyme!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/barter-system/

See/Saw: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 20

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See/Saw

I know what I saw.
My mother-in-law
may nay and naw,
may hem and haw,
lay down the law,
fight tooth and claw;
but I won’t thaw
to her cronish caw.
I’m feeling raw.
I’ve set my jaw.
I know what I saw!

We made it to Mazatlan and I am lying on the bed looking out the window at a sea view

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and drinking a Rum and Coke
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and concocting my NaPoWriMo poem for the day.  (Today’s Prompt: write a poem that states the things you know. The things you “know” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs.) Now…on to dinner and a swim.  See you tomorrow!!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/roy-g-biv/

Ollie Ollie Oxen: NaPoWriMo 2015 Day 18

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The NaPoWriMo Prompt: write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message. The WordPress Prompt: Karma Chameleon–let’s pretend that science has proven that karma is a thing. Your words and actions will influence what happens to you in the future. How (if at all) will you change your ways?

Ollie Ollie Oxen

Dreams are the playground of the day.
It is time to take that avoided journey
that sends me out
in pursuit of myself,
then gives me morning
to come in free.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/karma-chameleon-2/

NaPoWriMo 2015, DAY 14: The Holy Apewoman of Mexico

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th-8th-9th-6

The Prompt: Write a poem that takes the form of a dialogue. My dialogue takes place between my 7 year old self and my 67 year old self who, ironically, is writing this in Mexico.


Childhood Dreams

7
The mysteries
of Grandma’s barn
and basement–
whole lost worlds down there.
Our own attic–that door held down
by a gravity never challenged.

I wanted to see
the hanging gardens of Babylon,
Mexico and Africa–
all these places from books,
their pieces jumbled together
like puzzle pieces
in the deep recesses of my closet,
scattered,
but ready for assembly
some day
when I would
make my future memories
happen.

67
I crouch with myself at seven–
sharing imagined dangers
in deep closets,
trying to conjure the world.
So many small town stories
overlooked
while I dreamed of living
in those fairy tale places
of Bible stories
that stood on a shelf
sandwiched between
the Bobbsey Twins
and Tarzan.

Some of us spend our lives
trying to be like books,
then spend our old age
trying to remember childhood,
mainly remembering
childhood’s dreams.

*

Sunday Stills: Cups

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https://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-cups/

NaPoWriMo 2015: Two Abecedarian Poems: Loving Thy Enemy and Raw Savage Thoughts

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Loving Thy Enemy

Age
becomes
creative.

Don’t ever fictionalize
great heroic intimacies.

Just keep looking
major nemeses over,
proudly quieting
rash stabbing thoughts.

Under violent words,
xenophobic
yearnings
zing.

****

Raw Savage Thoughts

Zealous young
xenophobic wanderers
veer under
the sun’s rays,
quitting promenades
over nomadic mesas.

Let’s keep jumping
into harsh green fields,
eternally delving closer
before age accents
belligerent crankiness.

Delicious effervescence
froths gushingly homeward
in jugulars,
keeping lymphatic matters
normal or palpitating,

quickening
raw savage thoughts.
Understanding vulcanizes
woman’s X-rated,
yearnful zest.

The Prompt: Write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet or a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter. I wrote one that went A to Z and a second that went Z to A and back to Z.