Tag Archives: Judy Dykstra-Brown Poetry

Lucky???

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Lucky Duck riding the wild turkey off to a new adventure!

Lucky???

The first person I talked to today was myself, awakening from a dream and answering aloud whatever question the person in the dream had asked.  So, I’m going to reblog a poem of my own that I wrote three months ago.  When I look back at even something I wrote last week, I barely remember it; so perhaps this will feel fresh to you as well, even if you read it before:

“You’re So Lucky!”

 Too often those described as lucky
are actually only plucky.
It’s the decisions that they make
that make their lives a piece of cake.

If they have a cushy job,
far above the teeming mob,
it is because they chose to go
to college, so they made it so.

Or if they traveled after school,
when others said they were a fool,
and tell of their adventures young,
some people tend to come unstrung

and say they wish they’d had the chance
to participate in life’s wild dance
when they had the energy,
but, you know, traveling’s not free.

The truth is that most anybody
can go to college if they study
or travel anywhere they wish.
Life’s feast is a communal dish.

There is work that you can do
from Broken Hill to Timbuktu
if you are willing to do the tasks–
whatever the situation asks.

It’s true that there are places where
life is not equitable or fair–
places where a woman’s lot
keeps her chained to stove and cot,

or places where sheer poverty
limits all that you can be.
Yet  many who bemoan their fate
simply needed to leave their gate

and take the chance to see the world–
allow their lives to be unfurled.
But, lacking courage, they remained
in the place that fate ordained

was their lot in life and so
just maintained the status quo.
Many are happy where they are
and have no wish to roam afar,

but for those who moan and fuss,
saying all the luck’s with us
who have chosen to live in paradise
(and say it more than once or twice,)

I just want to say once more,
“Here is your suitcase, there’s the door.”
Luck is more often made than won,
and is, I fear, too quickly done.

So even if you’re old and gray,
do what you want to do today.
If you feel caught in the muck,
break free from it and make your luck!

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-luckiest-people/

Dakota Diction

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Dakota Diction

In the little town where I grew up,
instead of “yes,” we all said, “Yup!”
When we removed a soda top,
what we drank was called a “pop.”

When we drove off the road a bit,
we went into the “barrow pit.”
The mud was “gumbo”–rich and thick––
and every creek was called a “crick.”

Breakfast was never labeled brunch,
and “dinner” was what we called lunch.
Therefore, at night, our picker-upper
was never dinner.  It was “supper.”

Highway patrolmen were all “cops,”
and their cars were  “cherry tops.”
On movie nights, we saw the “show”
for just ten cents–which we called “dough.”

We told stray dogs that they should “git,”
and when they scampered off a bit,
the place where they commenced to wander
was what we labeled “over yonder.”

I fear it’s not spectacular,
this prairie states vernacular;
and because our listeners never balked,
we thought it was how all folks talked!

Non-Regional Diction:Write using regional slang, your dialect, or in your accent.https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/non-regional-diction/

Washing Up

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

Washing Up

The churning water brings them up.
The grounds of coffee in the cup
rise like saints to water’s top
while water runs, they do not stop.

I read their shapes like tea leaves now.
I see the future but know not how.
They swirl and change, revealing lives––
swarm like hornets from their hives.

The one I wait for comes unstuck,
careening towards his future luck.
The one that’s me caught in an eddy,
stuck for now, but holding steady.

Other remnants of finished meals––
carrot shards, potato peels––
rise up and circle, forming dreams.
Reality, or so it seems.

I see a heart and charm and lies,
a future lover in disguise,
a plane, a knoll, a tree-lined path,
a woman bound in senseless wrath.

She sends out waves that push you here––
the very thing that she most fears.
I know not who or where you are.
Are you near or are you far?

As all goes rushing down the drain,
I feel a sense of loss and pain.
And so I fill the sink again.
Will I see you one time more,
or was my vision only lore?

This poem was inspired by a comment chain on  Jane Basil’s blog. In reply to my last comment, she wrote:”You have just inspired me. When I read your comment I thought about the odd concepts writers come up with. If we didn’t think up strange plots, what would we write about? The answer came in a flash: washing up. We could write about washing up, or hanging curtains, or eating toast. I’m off to try to write a poem about washing up. Would writing about mundane activities make me boring,or odd? And is there something wrong with my thought processes?” I wrote back telling her I’d write a poem about washing up as well. This is mine and HERE is hers!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/it-builds-character/

In and Out

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In and Out

 

The Lapdog

Dogs that stand outside and seek admittance to within
overlook the worth of what they’ve seen and where they’ve been.
Those of us sealed fast inside yearn to see the world
that we have been deprived of as we lie securely curled
in the safety of our houses, away from chasing cars
and other fun activities kept from us by bars.
We would feel such ecstasy racing after squirrels,
other dogs and cats and lizards, skunks and boys and girls.
We seek to flee the rules that those street dogs seem to flout.
We would have such wild adventures if we only could get out!!

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The Street Dog

Lucky little dogs with collars sit there looking out
as though they do not know what life for street dogs is about.
We’d love to have their pampering and their daily feeding.
What they seek escape from is exactly what we’re needing!

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The Prompt: Tell us about a time you were on the outside looking in. https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-outsiders/

Next

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Next

To live in yesterday’s a sorrow.
From the past I need not borrow.
All I need is my tomorrow.

The Prompt: One More Time–What day from the past year would you like to live over again? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/one-more-time/

The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

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The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

At the age of sixty-eight,
I’ve no wish to equivocate.
Is there a time when childhood ends?
When we give up playful friends?
Cease to lie in grass and dream?
Drink our coffee without cream?
Always do what’s reasonable
in order to avoid life’s trouble?
Say no to candy and dessert?
Cease to giggle, joke and flirt?
If so, I can’t remember mine.
Perhaps when I am sixty-nine!

The prompt: Write about a defining moment in your life when you were forced to grow up in an instant (or a series of instants).https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/when-childhood-ends/

Time is a Wastrel

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Time is a Wastrel

Vagabond lover
packs his valise
and is off at a gallop–
leaving me in his wake.

Profligate seducer,
Tied to no one
except
inevitability.

Foolish, I
should have known
even I could not keep up
with fickle time.

*

Root-a-toot-toot (Appetite)

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “These Horns Were Made for Tooting.”Today, share something you love about yourself  — don’t be shy, be confident! — but that few other people know about you or get to see very often.

I don’t have very much patience for submitting poems for publication or entering contests or trying to find agents or publishers. I’ve played the games at times but it never seemed worth the time spent. One exception was when I decided to enter a number of contests at once. I believe I entered ten, but it may have been less. Rejection after rejection came in. There were a few near-misses where I was a semifinalist. Then, the last letter came in and lo and behold, I had won first place in a national poetry contest. My notification was accompanied by a check for $500! The judge’s comment included the statement that she had awarded me the prize for my sheer audacity in submitting a poem that took twelve minutes to read. Ha. Here is the poem. I will grant a special prize to anyone who makes it to the end! (I believe this is a shortened version of the poem I submitted.)

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Unclear Agenda

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This poem is set in California, U.S.A. and the initial character is American, as are the protesters. The men standing outside the lumber yard are Mexicans looking for work. 

Unclear Agenda

His denims worn and torn, his hair unshorn,
he sat on a fruit crate near a stop sign
on an exit road just off the California interstate.
“Will work for food,” his sign said, so I stopped.
“Jump in,” I said, and he looked confused.
“I have a city lot taken over by castor beans,” I told him.
“I’ll give you a meal and ten bucks an hour to clear them.”
“Lady, that would take me a day or more,” he said.
“I can make more than that in a few hours, just sitting here.”

A week later I see him in a line of toughs
who line the street, holding signs and now and then
crossing the street to harass the Mexican laborers
in the parking lot outside the lumberyard.
“Illegals steal the  jobs of good Americans,” their placards say,
while the littler, more brawny men stand silent,
not answering their jostlings and their shouts.
Once more, I pull up in front of him.
“So you’re ready to work?” I ask. “Jump in.”

I direct the question to the lot, and not one answers.
“So no one wants the job of cutting castor beans?” I ask.
This sparks a recognition, and he shifts and turns,
his attention suddenly captured by the man lighting a joint
behind, in the shadows of a shrub.
Still, not one answers, so I drive on to the parking lot.
When I ask the question again, thirteen hands shoot up.
I leave with a full back seat and when I turn into the street
not one picket sign is lifted. Every eye avoids my own.

This poem, based on a real incident, was inspired by the prompt, “Wandering Revenue” that was suggested to me by the Topic Generator. https://topicgenerator.wordpress.com/submit/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-ritual/

 

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Devil # 3

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.” Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Okay, I was going to give this prompt a “miss” and went to the new prompt generator I’ve been using for the past few days.  I hit the button and was served up the two-word prompt: “Ill Devil”.  At first I read this as #3 Devil, and I must admit, I got a chill, because what I immediately thought about when I read the prompt was the third time I was in a near-death situation where I felt totally helpless.  What are the chances, I thought, that these two prompts would line up?  This must be something I’m meant to write about.  But then reason stepped in and I realized this prompt always gave an adjective and a noun.  What they probably meant by the prompt was ill Devil. (Changing the capital to a small “i” clarified the prompt.) But then I realized that ill devil described the occurrence I am trying not to talk about as much as #3 devil did, so I guess, prodded on twice by fate or coincidence or synchronicity, I will try.

I have written to a similar prompt twice in 2015, so probably most of you who read my blog have chanced upon one of those posts, but when I wrote to a similar prompt in June of 2014, I wrote a different piece and since I had few of my present-day readers then, I’ll mention that THIS is what I wrote.  It may not be obvious that the topic given in today’s prompt was what I was really talking about then, however, because it was a poem where I actually stood to one side of what I was really remembering and wrote about the subject as an onlooker rather than a participant.  I only alluded to the real subject, which is what I’m going to attempt to write about today. That real subject is Ted Bundy and how otherwise respectable women sometimes fall prey to such predators.  Okay, deep breath. I’m going to tell to the world something I have actually told to very few people. Yes, this is a true story.

Devil # 3

Nineteen seventy-something. In the bar with friends.
When you are in your twenties, the partying never ends.
It was rodeo season  and the big one was in town.
As one by one they ordered drinks, I couldn’t turn them down.
We were a rather rowdy bunch of teachers in our prime
Devoted in the classroom, but wild on our own time.

The bar was crowded hip to hip, the music barely heard
over the loud cacophony of laugh and shouted word.
It was my turn to buy a round. I struggled towards the bar.
My polite “Excuse me’s!” really hadn’t gotten me too far
when a guy appeared in front of me and moved the crowd aside
as though he had appointed himself to be my guide.

As I returned with eight full drinks, again he stemmed the tide
by walking close in front of  me and spreading elbows wide.
He smiled and then departed, back to the teeming mass.
Impressive that he had not even tried to make a pass!
My friends all wondered who he was. I said I had no clue.
Tall and dark and ivy-league, he vanished from our view.

This story happened long ago. Some details I’ve forgotten,
and any memories he retains, you’ll learn were ill-begotten.
I think we danced a dance or two. I know we talked awhile.
I liked his fine intelligence, his low-key polite style.
At three o’clock the barman’s bell commenced it’s clanging chime
and I made off to find my friends, for it was closing time.

Two lines of men had split the bar, lined up back to back.
Their hands locked and their arms spread wide–they moved into the pack.
One line moved east, the other west, forcing one and all
Either out the front door or towards the back door hall.
I was forced out the back way–out into the alley.
My friends and I had made no plans of where we were to rally

and so I walked around the block, sure that was where they waited,
but there was no one there at all–the crowd had soon abated.
I went back to the alleyway to see if they were there.
but all was dark and still, and soon I began to fear
that both carloads of friends had thought I was with the other.
I had no recourse but to walk, though I prayed for another.

I combed my mind to try to think of anyone at all
living in this part of town where I could go to call
a friend to come and get me and furnish me a ride
for 3 a.m. was not a time to be alone outside.
There were no outside phone booths and I lived so far away
I simply had to rouse someone, but what was I to say?

But since I had no other choice I thought I’d check once more
if any single soul was waiting at the bar’s front door.
And as I left the alley to be off to see,
I saw a new familiar face looking back at me.
It was my dancing partner, his face split in a grin.
It seems that he was going to save me once again.

He had asked me earlier if needed a ride,
but I had told him wisely that I had friends inside
and so I thought he’d left, but I could see he was still there.
Yet, ride home with a stranger?  Did I really dare?
And yet I had no other choice, abandoned as I was.
And so I said I guess that yes, I would, simply because

I knew there was just one of him and I was young and strong.
And he seemed kind, polite and gentle.  What could go so wrong?
His car was just a block away. Our walk was short and brief.
And when he pointed out his car, I felt a great relief.
For it was a convertible–and easy to escape
If I detected the first signs of robbery or rape!

He opened up the door for me. I got in the front seat.
But as he started up the car, my heart skipped a beat.
For from the bushes, two more men emerged and jumped inside–
one man in the backseat, the other at my side!
He pulled out into the street, though I protested so.
I didn’t really want a ride, so please, just let me go!

(And here I have to beg off and say I’ll finish this story tomorrow.  Right now my heart is pumping and my head throbbing as though I’m re-enacting this whole tale physically as well as mentally.  I’m totally exhausted.  Why I decided to write this in rhyme I don’t know. Perhaps I thought it would be easier, or more fun or more lighthearted, but there is simply no way to write this from any other frame of mind but the terror I felt that night. So, sorry, but I will resume tomorrow. You all know that I’m here telling the story, so be assured that the worst didn’t happen…but the story is by no means over, so join me tomorrow for the rest.  I, for one, could really use a drink, but it is only 1:40 in the afternoon so I’ll find some other means of escape.)

To see the conclusion of this poem, go HERE.

If you’d like to try out Jennifer’s new prompt generator, go HERE.