Body Language
When words don’t translate, actions do,
and folks are always reading you.
Though you watch what you may say,
more information, day-by-day,
is given by the way you act;
so use a little care and tact.
There’s a language written on your face
that’s understood most any place.
In Des Moines or Timbuktu,
it’s the one you take along with you.
The prompt today was translate.
Let’s Pretend
“Let’s pretend,” the children say,
as they hurry off to play.
But that same action has often blown
up in the face of those full-grown.
Escape is easier these days
with all the various means and ways
we have to skirt reality
by what we listen to and see.
On television or movie screen,
we might pretend that what we’ve seen
is more reality than fact,
until we find that we react
so vividly to what is fiction
that it becomes a real addiction
that deflects our full attention
from that we do not dare to mention.
Escape increasingly is sought––
deflecting us from what we ought
really to be dealing with.
Instead of truth, we choose the myth.
Global warming, poverty,
Isis, the disparity
between the classes and the use
of meth and alcohol abuse.
Children wielding guns because
it is what every game now does.
Adults displaying their frustration
at our society’s obfuscation
of the truth of what goes on
in a society gone wrong.
Wealth governs us then shields us from
how far from truth we’ve really come.
We watch pretty fantasies
that entertain or shock or please
filling us with false elation
that is not of our own creation.
So life becomes vicarious,
distracting us from various
problems where we might have acted
if we had not been distracted
by the gross banality
passing for reality
of made-up people who act and preen
on TV or computer screen.
There’s something to be said, you see
in favor of reality
when dealing with the painful facts
of what it is one’s own life lacks.
The prompt word today was “pretend.”
Petitioning Time
The day first blooms, then flowers and fades away to night;
and though I’d choose to slow its progress if I might,
no part of nature sympathizes with my plight.
It is a futile undertaking trying to seize light.
Time feeds upon us all—the ultimate parasite.
There is no way to sate her appetite.
No clever words can save us from her cruel bite,
for she feeds with equal favor on dull and erudite.
Though we might flail and struggle, it does no good to fight.
If we try to outpace her, it is a futile flight.
All our human efforts to stay her just incite.
Time always is the winner, feeding on our fright.
Though we might choose to hoard our time—to hold it close and tight,
or hope that pills and potions might hide us from her sight,
no rituals or magic words that we might recite
can keep our fading colors perpetually bright.
No matter what initiatives we choose to expedite—
no matter what our efforts are to reignite
the light so quickly fading from our sight—
we cannot defeat time through acts of plebiscite.
The prompt word today is “Generous.”
Silence
What lost sensations do our nightly slumbers bring?
Do colors fade out when we dream? Are scents a former thing?
Does flavor tremble on our tongues in that dreaming land?
Do we hear music in our sleep or feel a lover’s hand?
Let bright colors fill my eyes, let flavors dance my tongue,
and let all those sensations that surged when I was young
once again assault me and guide my sense of touch––
to feel all of life’s textures that once I loved so much.
There will be silence in the future when we’re in the clutch
of that which muffles music, color, flavor, touch.
So let the neighbors party on. Let thunder crash and roll.
Let ravens caw out harshly from each electric pole.
Let babies loudly protest and laughter’s raucous sound
fill my ears like cups and spill out to the ground.
I am sure that one day I will have silence enough
when my final dream guide takes me by the cuff
and leads me off to sleep a final slumber where
supposedly I’ll be removed from every worldly care—
leads me off to dreams where all sensations end
and I shed life’s cacophony as I round the bend.
The prompt word today was “Silence.”
At First
Days were not over half so soon
when we ate passion with a spoon.
Swirled chocolate at the Frosty Freeze
melting in the prairie breeze
hot and redolent of soil—
chaff of wheat and rattled coil.
Summer days and summer nights,
rolls in grass and water fights
with uncoiled hoses, cooking pans,
rolled up cuffs and soaked white Vans.
Passion then was not so much
a thing of kissing or of touch
as of smells and sights and taste.
Baking beans and paper paste.
Brand new tablets, pencil shavings.
Summer nights, then autumn cravings.
Cattle lowing, school bells,
Cool spring water from deep wells.
Throats that ached from drinking it,
brought to light from ancient pit.
All these simple remembered things
that thinking about passion brings:
spin-overs on the monkey bars,
rides on bikes and naming stars.
It’s true some passion rides on night
with pressing lips and gentle bite,
or trembles on the fingertips
straying over breasts or hips.
Yet simpler loves bring lesser rations
of what adults consider passions.
Words like passion must be allowed
to be unfettered, like a cloud
and not confined in connotation,
dictionary or denotation.
Sometimes passion can be bright—
A meadowlark or soaring kite.
Sun-chapped lips just touched with mist
long before they’re ever kissed.
The prompt word today was “Passionate.”
Over the river
and through the woods. to our good friends’ house we go.
When we stopped for lunch, if we hadn’t known it before, we would have known by the menu that we were in the south!
And when we passed the rockets, we knew we were in Huntsville!
It is most appropriate that the prompt word today was “Together,” for yesterday, Forgottenman and I drove from Missouri to Huntsville, Alabama, to be with two of our favorite people–our friends Tony and Allenda who lived right next door to me in Mexico for eight years before they moved back to the states. We had a wonderful time during those eight years, talking daily, meeting a few times weekly for Allenda’s incredible cooking or games of Mexican Train.
Tony and I wrote a book together and Allenda and I were in two different art groups together. With our friends Audrey and Linda, (Forgottenman and Ron when they visited,) we formed a tight “posse” that gathered at the drop of a hat or an invitation. And when we gathered, the one given was lots of laughter. Side-splitting, aching laughter that feels so good and that seems now to be the most necessary ingredient in friendship–coming right after trust and loyalty, which was certainly there as well.
Unfortunately, they all left Mexico on the same year, and I’ve been missing them ever since. Luckily, Audrey eventually came back, but two isn’t a posse, and we miss the rest of them. Always will. Hopefully just once more before all of our leaves fall from the tree, we’ll be together en masse at my house, as it should be! In the meantime, I’ll wander over the border now and then to come check up on them. This time, it was Tony and Allenda and Forgottenman I’ve herded together. Not the entire flock, but what lovely wooly creatures they are!
To Gather Together
To gather together, I flew on a plane
for seventeen hours, then flew once again
for another nine hours, then got in a car
and drove for five hours and now here we are!
Gathered together with three old time friends.
Now we’ll be together until our time ends.
Allenda’s lasagna and laughter with Tony
and all of Forgottenman’s verbal baloney.
I have been missing this madness for years.
All of their banter falls on my ears
like light verbal rain that gives birth to attention.
I soak in the comfort of each thing they mention.
There’s no time like idle time spent with a buddy.
We may not be sprightly, our memories muddy.
We tried to share book titles that we forgot,
Yet Google remembers all we have not.
Movies and TV and sports scores and then
we start to remember all over again
past times with invites thrown like a ball
with no prior warning, over the wall
that was all that divided us three years ago
when life was easier–free-flowing, slow.
“Let’s get together for a meal or a game.”
No prior planning, no traffic to tame.
The folks in our posse would gather like sheep.
The talk wasn’t serious, organized, deep.
Light chatter and silliness, cleverness, joking.
Side-splitting laughter ’til we were all choking.
Linda and Audrey, Tony and Allenda.
Forgottenman (when we were on his agenda)
and me like a housemother, guiding them all
so they didn’t wander, stumble or fall.
A sterling example when I wasn’t stumbling
or tripping or falling, forgetting or mumbling!
For the value of good friends you’ve formerly had
is that they remember the good, not the bad:
the train games that lasted far into the night,
driven in by the moths drawn in by the light.
Hot tubs at midnight, margaritas or rum,
counting up tiles until minds were numb.
Ridiculous movies of Allenda’s choosing,
raunchy and scandalous, but most amusing.
Collaborations over writing or art.
When we weren’t silly, damn, we were smart!
All of these pastimes special and shared—
All of the truths of our hearts that we bared
didn’t all end when you all went away,
for all of the memories have chosen to stay.
Now I’m handing them back to you, right here and now
and hoping you’ll all make a pledge, take a vow
that next year you’ll make the journey to me
so all of the “us’s” can once more be “we.”
We knew we were in the right place when Allenda served up her famous lasagne,
when Tony fell alseep in his chair before the night was over,
and when we found the flowers and chocolates our gracious hostess had left on our bed table.
Good night. All’s well in this world. We are together.
Appropriately, the prompt today is “Together.”
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elegant/
Inelegant Obsession
I’d love to be elegant while I’m obsessing,
but if I told you how, I’d only be guessing.
The man at the counter said yoga’s the answer
to two hour waits, and smart cars and cancer.
I told him that yoga’s more easily done
in my pool or on mats spread out in the sun––
Not two hours before midnight when you’re feeling sad
’cause the car you pre-rented is not to be had
and instead you’re confronted with a Jeep Cherokee
with all bells and whistles included for free!
Yet each feature they’ve added is cryptic and puzzling.
Screen like a space ship and gasoline-guzzling.
I can’t find the lighter to plug in my Nuvi.
The radio screen is showing a movie,
but I can’t find a plug to plug in my phone
and I’m out in this parking lot, stressed and alone.
After one hour of standing and waiting to rent it
and one more in the parking lot, how I repent it!
I go on the road in the inky black dark
with no place to stop and no place to park.
My GPS empty of power and knowledge,
to find the right route would take training in college.
No route numbers have I, I can’t see the map.
My phone out of power sits limp on my lap.
The screen gives me options for stations galore,
but no arrow to choose them, just one button more
for feature after feature that I cannot use.
I wish I had knowledge. I wish I had booze!!!
When I try to turn on the overhead light,
the moonroof zips open and try as I might,
I can’t get it closed but just open it more,
so the wind whips my hair with a terrible roar.
I’ve always loved traveling wild and free,
but it now seems travel’s evolved beyond me.
Where is my confidence and my elan?
That air of achievement, that air of “I can?”
When I get to the motel two hours in arrears,
when the clerk asks how are you, I explode in tears.
I tell him my story, like a silly old fool––
but he doesn’t snicker and he isn’t cruel.
“See that?” he said, waving a hand at my phone.
He shook his gray head and gave a small moan.
“Don’t know how to use one–not me nor my wife.
It seems like technology’s plaguing our life.”
He dished out a Kleenex and almost at once,
I found I was feeling much less of a dunce.
I may be a fool and an old one at that,
but it’s so reassuring to share that coned hat!
This control board of the plane I flew from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia on is slightly less daunting than the dashboard of the Jeep Cherokee they pawned off on me as a replacement for the simple economy car I requested. The flight took one half hour. Renting the car (even though I’d filled out all the paperwork on the internet) and figuring out how to operate the monstrosity they gave me took two hours!!!
The beast!!! I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the radio and tremble at the thought of mistakenly turning on the four wheel drive.
I later snapped a photo that better illustrates the size of this car. See that photo HERE.
The prompt word today was “Elegant.” This was stretching the prompt, but I had my own agenda.
jdbphoto
Cheated
You are the one we’d love to beat.
We train, we strain, we sweat. We cheat.
Anything to win the heat
and gain the glory of your defeat.
You are so handsome, fit and neat.
Sure of hand and swift of feet,
with fame and glory, you are replete—
the hero of each match and meet.
You are not boastful, do not bleat
your successes down every street.
You are humble and discreet.
You do not replay and repeat
each mile covered. Nor do you greet
those you’ve defeated when we meet
with prideful leer or smile cloying—
but still, we find your fame annoying.
You win each medal, then repeat
year after year at every meet.
Your well-toned muscles, hair like wheat,
make you every lady’s treat––
propel you to the winner’s seat,
your win made obvious and concrete
while those below complain and cuss.
Could you not leave some fame for us???
The prompt today was “Cheat.”
Learning Disabilities
I have no water in my house. I’ve had no Internet for weeks. My dog is at the vet’s having major surgery that will cost $1,000 U.S. that I need to go to the bank to withdraw along with another $1,000 I offered to loan to a friend to buy a car they need to buy who just called to say they need the money tomorrow! Problem is I can’t get to the bank because I’m hoping for a call from Telmex saying they’ve figured out my internet problem––and the plumber who is going to try to come at 3. All this and to top off the perfect day, I have amoebas and the new medicine I got yesterday has given me a headache and fever. Or I’m just stressing out and the entire kit and caboodle is giving me a fever and headache.
I’m beginning to fear I’m no longer able to handle running a house. The floor is covered by boxes of three different types of tile I have laid out to try them out. I have a dozen things to complete before I leave in a little more than a week. I’ve been trying to get a haircut for a month, but no time to do so. Gripe gripe gripe. You would think I would learn, but somehow time and time again I am getting into these high-stress situations where hyperventilation is the norm.
From a perfectly organized house last night my house has turned into a disaster area. Files from the file cabinet lay piled on the headboard/case of my bed—leftovers as I looked for a brochure of the water system to try to figure out what particular tube I need for the purification system. My bed is covered by the contents of six different big baskets I pulled down from the closet to look for a pair of gloves to handle the tube I bought after visiting four different water supply places. No, none had a man to come install it. Yes, I broke it installing it. Good thing I had one glove on—all I could find.
My desk is covered by little slips of paper concerning tile types, prices, business cards, discarded amoeba meds (wrong variety for what the lab told me yesterday) and old VHS tapes (what are those doing there?) Earlier, when I needed to call the water place to see if they could locate another purification tube light (answer was no) I couldn’t find one phone of four that I have in the house that was still in its cradle. Then when I did, turns out one of the lost phones was clicked on so I couldn’t call anyway. Search house again. Finally found it on the bookcase by the doggie domain. What in the world was it doing there and where in the world are the other 3 phones that are still lost? Last night I found them all and restored them to their cradles. Do I have Telmex poltergeists infesting my house every night?
Yes. At.The. End. Of. My.Rope.
Should I move? Can’t stand to think about that. Perhaps there is someone pleasant willing to trade free rent of my casita for a few managerial tasks such as dealing with electricity, phone, internet, gas and minor construction. No, I don’t need a keeper yet, but my house certainly does. It seems to be reaching that age when everything needs attending to. Walls aren’t crumbling, but floors need replacing, the walls painted less than a year ago need a second coat, and someone needs to search the Virginia creeper vines to find those hummingbird moth caterpillars that are pooping bee bees all over my terrace table and the steps outside the doggie domain.
Yes. At. The. End. Of. My. Rope.
I need to pick up Frida in an hour and still can’t get hold of Pasiano or Yolanda to come let the plumber in. If the plumber comes. And even then, I won’t have purified water—just water, at least, to flush toilets and wash with.
Headache. Chills. Frustration. Breathe. No one has died, at least today. Calm down. Was I always such a fussbudget? Yesterday I was screaming “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” when I had for the zillionth time lost my keys. They were no place. How could I be so dumb???? It was past time to leave for something important and the other set of car keys had vanished into the void 4 years ago. This was my last set. Last chance. I looked in the outside locks, the inside locks, the bathrooms, kitchen, under the bed, on the nail on the wall where I usually hung them. Emptied out my purse. Twice.
I imagine, now, neighbors passing in the street hearing this madwoman scream invectives at herself. With all my doors and windows open, they must be able to hear me as clearly as if they were inside my house. For 15 years, I’ve overlooked this fact until once earlier this year when all three of my dogs were barking and I roared “Frida!!! Stop!!!!” above the din, a friend protested,“Judy! You are worse than the dogs. You should hear yourself. You must scare the neighbors!” my friend uttered this softly. Unlike me.
I had to shout to be heard above the dogs, right? But did I need to scream at the keys?
I found them eventually and was only 10 minutes late to the appointment I started to leave for half an hour early. I found them by calmly retracing my steps which took me eventually by my open closet door with the new file cabinet inside—my keys dangling from its lock. I had gone to get some necessary file, but the cabinet is so new it had not yet been added to my key recovery route. It has been now.
I am, you see, capable of learning. It’s the remembering that is the hard part.
The End (Perhaps)
Postscript: Just now the lovely lovely girl from Techno Agua called. She has called all over town and located the right water purification tube light. It is 60 pesos above the price I paid for one this morning. Is that a problem? No problem. The plumber can come at 3. I just called Pasiano and although he still is not answering his phone and although Yolanda is working and can’t come to let the plumber in, her husband has agreed to do so; so when he arrives, I can go, hopefully, to the bank and then to get Frida. The tide is turning. Maybe today will turn out to be slightly less frustrating than earlier happenings indicated.
An hour later: good news and bad news. I got to the bank in time to get the $1,000 U.S. for the surgery and the $1,000 for the car, but when I got to the vet’s I was informed that Frida still hasn’t awakened and so I need to leave her for the night. They assure me they’ll feed and water her when she wakes up, but although I understand I can’t take an unconscious dog home, nonetheless I know she’ll be traumatized to wake up in a cage away from home and to have to spend the night there. Also, I was supposed to sit the info booth at the Lake Chapala Society tomorrow so will have to try to find someone to sit in so I can go get Frida and take her home. Always a new thrill. Still no internet at home, so I am at the mall. Getting to be a regular mall rat as they have free wifi and otherwise it is $15 U.S. a day to use my phone as a hot spot as I was over my limit in just four days.
Are you tired of my whining yet?
The Prompt word today was “Learning.”
Complicated by Nature
I find my mind keeps spinning until my brain grows weary
ever since I foolishly googled “chaos theory.”
While fatalists declare the world caught up in its rut,
the chaos theorists have theories I cannot rebut
wherein each thing duplicated differs from the last
because of other factors than the mold from which they’re cast.
And suddenly I have excuses for each thing I do.
Why my cake has fallen, and why my bras turned blue
the last time that I washed them the detergent was the same,
and yet something perhaps had changed–chaos theory is to blame!!!
Each snowflake varies from last, each flower is unique.
It seems that our creator demands a bit of tweak
in everything created. Chaos affects everything.
I guess that Mother Nature wants to keep it interesting!!!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 