Categories of Terror
Footsteps behind you in a midnight park
or the sentence of standing center stage.
A shadow, darker, moving through shadows,
that one voice, remembered, calling your name.
Echoes that follow you through the years.
Only one terror worse.
Alone in the whole wide world.
No more morality or fame or love or blame.
Now, what is the purpose of your being?
Pain and Pleasure
Be thankful for your bugaboos, though they invade your head
while walking down a lonely street or lying in your bed.
I know they make you nervous, especially at night.
They ramify your countless fears. They niggle, scratch and bite.
Fear is the voice of instinct. It says that something’s wrong.
It sets action in motion when pain sounds the warning gong.
Fear and pain must guide the way. Without them you are guileless.
How would we know something was wrong if gall bladders were bileless?
Nature’s warning signals, be they physical or mental
agitate those normal states more pleasurably gentle.
They are our bodyguards and they make us more secure,
warning of us problems for which we need a cure.
They tell of hidden dangers. Make us more aware.
It’s true both pain and pleasure are part of nature’s care.
Prompts for today are thankful, bugaboo, nervous, night and ramify.
Blind Potential
This trail of salt reveals to me you’re led by superstition.
Eyes shut tight, you stumble on, following tradition.
Like a deer in headlights, you are blinded by the light
that others cast, refusing to be guided by insight.
There is a light inside you that will lead you much more surely.
That little nudge that prompts you will guide you more securely.
Trust that spark within you to tell you what to do.
You need not fear those instincts you carry within you.
They are the wisdom of the universe, trying to get out.
If you do not heed their whisper, you may later hear their shout.
What you deem as accidents might be communication
from that inner part of you, prompting your education.
Although those outer voices may continue to deride,
trust your inner voices. They are firmly on your side.
What you find within you may be genius that’s unknown
that won’t come to fruition until it has been sown.
You are its only guardian. Only you can plant and tend
and bring these new world miracles to their fruitful end.
Do not let superstition or fear of the what could be
keep you from that within you that is your destiny.
The Ragtag prompt is superstition.
Fandango’s promt is fear.
In the Soup
Definition: in trouble, as in “I’m in the soup with the boss.”
Without fear, we’d be in traction with braces head to toe––
Each day a speed infraction from refusing to go slow.
We’d fall off tipping ladders and land upon our heads
or go to sleep with adders sleeping in our beds.
We wouldn’t have good sense about where we ought to go.
Our decisions would be faulty––our thought processes slow.
We’d wind up in the jungle sleeping on the ground
hoping for each bungle a solution might be found.
An expert on this topic, I’ve been in many a stew.
But luckily, I chose to act, so “done to” turned to “do”
as in the past I came too near to kidnapping and rape,
and luckily by conquering fear, I found means of escape.
After graduating college, I became a bum;
but now I can acknowledge that I was often dumb,
with fearlessness often what got me into trouble—
need for adventure softening the rub of danger’s stubble.
Traveling to foreign regions, I was so naive
that my mistakes were legion, so now I do believe
it’s crazy to be fearless. Now even I succumb.
In caution I am peerless––finding fearlessness is dumb!
This is a rewrite of an earlier poem. The prompt today was succumb.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 