In the Sunday Poser, 124 Sadje asks if we believe in luck. Here’s what I had to say about luck eight years ago: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/11/27/lucky
Image by Amy Reed on Unsplash.
In the Sunday Poser, 124 Sadje asks if we believe in luck. Here’s what I had to say about luck eight years ago: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/11/27/lucky
Image by Amy Reed on Unsplash.
jdb photo
Today I read a story about a man who led big game hunting expeditions whose claim was that he could guarantee a kill with one hundred percent surety. Ironically enough, after shooting a water buffalo and posing with his kill, he was fatally gored by another water buffalo. This was perhaps on my mind as I wrote this poem on the subject of extinction for the quadrille challenge. Please note that I am not in favor of big game hunting. In the last lines, I’m talking about luck in a general sense, not in terms of big game hunting. I took this photo in Kenya in 1967.
Extinction
If we all were always winners, winning would lose distinction.
Every hunter bagging game would lead to their extinction.
So to qualify my wishes, I guess that I’ll just say
I hope when it’s your turn for luck, that it will come your way!
for dVerse Poets
Luck
I am grateful for my life,
fluid and oblong
and gold.
I keep looking
for the reason why,
when it might have been static
and gray
with jagged edges.
The prompt words today are grateful, fluid, oblong and gold. Here are the links, in case you want to play along and use one or more for motivation! As usual, I’ve used all four.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/rdp-thursday-grateful/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/22/fowc-with-fandango-fluid/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/oblong/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/your-daily-word-prompt-gold-November-22-2018/

Cheap Falls Are a Stunning Solution!
She was a parachutist and an avid mountaineer
whereas he viewed such pastimes with a great amount of fear.
Yet, he was so enamored that he issued a proposal,
using every single cent he had at his disposal
to buy her an engagement ring, to which she answered “Yes!”
The agenda for their honeymoon? I’m guessing you can guess.
Only Nepal would suit the bride.
There they’d hire a sherpa guide
to climb Mt. Everest and then
parachute back down again!
The groom’s objections were double-fold.
The first was that he was not bold
enough to scale this mountain lest
he meet his end on Everest!
Plus, he had neither credit nor cash
to finance both a wedding bash
and an expensive wedding trip!
He’d spent his stash all on the ring,
not budgeting for everything.
To console himself, he took a nip
and then another little sip
until, too late, he’d had enough.
He found rising a little tough
and navigating down the hall?
He had no skill at it at all.
And so, a few yards from the keg?
I fear he fell and broke a leg!
Nonetheless, the wedding went through.
She said “I will.” He said “I do.”
They honeymooned at Niagara Falls
which cost less money, required fewer balls.
He kept her busy with hugs and kisses,
Giving thanks for two close misses.
Though his cast both cramped and itched,
He never complained, never bitched.
The drinking bout that caused his fall
was the greatest luck of all.
He blessed that final stiff ablution.
Two cheap falls? Stunning solution!!!
The prompt words today are fall, cheap, stunning and solution. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/rdp-saturday-fall/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/29/fowc-with-fandango-cheap/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/stunning/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/daily-addictions-2018-week-38/solution
(P)luck
Those who count on karma to bring about their luck
might do better to depend on industry and pluck.
Carry your ambition ready in its holster,
for things like synchronicity are only meant to bolster.
Get an education, in school and in life.
Knowing what you’re doing can alleviate much strife.
Exercise due caution, but do not let fear stop you.
What you’re meant to stand on is not meant to top you.
Watch out for the blind curves and watch out for loose gravel
as you take the wheel to drive on roads you want to travel.
The prompt today is “pluck.”
I’m also using this for Cee’s https://ceenphotography.com/cees-challenges/cees-which-way-challenge/
jdbphoto
Shifting Fortune
Once we’re accustomed to being kissed,
life forms itself into a fist.
All things don’t go as they should.
There is no perfect neighborhood.
Fate twists and wiggles, turns upon us.
What seems good fortune just might con us.
The only thing that really controls us
is how we deal with what life doles us.
When days turn into what you hate,
do not sit and equivocate.
Do not make life one long debate.
Do not turn martyr. Do not hate.
When others bluster and incite,
do not join their fruitless fight.
When misinformation’s at its height,
take a deep breath and choose insight.
It’s true some have more luck than others—
have more beauty, more faithful brothers.
The power you have is how you’re driven
to make use of what you’re given.
Be they tragedies or fortunes,
deal uniquely with what life apportions.
The word for the day way fortune!

Good Fortune
How lucky I’ve been in the bad luck I’ve had,
for no matter how dangerous, life-threatening, bad,
I’ve always come out both alive and still kicking
whenever my life chose to give me a licking.
The prompt word today is luck.

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/
“Your competition is not other people but the time you kill, the ill will you create, the knowledge you neglect to learn, the connections you fail to build, the health you sacrifice along the path, your inability to generate ideas, the people around you who don’t support and love your efforts, and whatever god you curse for your bad luck.” —James Altucher
“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!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Doubter’s Alert.” What commonly accepted truth (or “truth”) do you think is wrong, or at least seriously doubt? Why?
(Photo of lucky clover downloaded from internet.)
Lucky School
I don’t often write of it since it is such a bore,
but bad luck’s had a hold on me since nineteen eighty-four.
The tragedies that equal mine are just the stuff of lore:
sad tales of loves and lives lost–tales of heartache, blood and gore.
Don’t beg to hear my stories, for I won’t tell you more.
Thinking of my problems has me tired to the core.
I want to concentrate on now without the past’s loud roar,
and banish former labels such as “victim, tragic, poor.”
My friends all chipped in for me to go to Lucky School–
believing positive thinking might prove a handy tool.
They figured they’d transform me into wizard from a fool,
so that drawing fortune to me would become my daily rule.
I found a four-leaf clover and a heart shaped like a stone.
I got the longest section when I broke the wishing bone.
I found a silver dollar and rubbed it ‘til it shone,
then gave it to a beggar—a hump-backed aged crone.
The lessons that they taught me in my Lucky School
were that stones may be more valuable than a precious jewel.
Good luck’s never garnered from actions that are cruel
and to never save our gift-giving for birthdays or the Yule.
The way we gain good luck is just to give it all away
every single moment of every single day.
Our trying to hoard it is what keeps good luck at bay.
The luck you give to others is the luck you’ll get to stay.
Good luck is not for finding. It’s simply what you do.
When you hand it off to others, somehow it sticks like glue;
first adhering to the lucky one that you gave it to,
then doubling so an equal part remains right there with you.
The way life keeps the truth obscured sometimes seems most cruel.
How many years I wasted playing the selfish fool.
My friends needn’t have squandered their money on my school,
for all I really needed was to heed the Golden Rule.
The prompt provided me by JNW Topic Generator was: Lucky School. Go Here to receive your own prompt. * *