Tag Archives: poem about revenge

Dental Retaliation

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Dental Retaliation

Do you remember toothbrushes lined up on a rack
in the medicine cabinet, at the mirror’s back?
Your father’s brush was ocean blue, your mother’s brush was green,
your sister’s brush the reddest red that you had ever seen,
whereas your brush’s handle had no color at all—
as though it was the ugliest sister at the ball.

How you yearned for color, reaching for your brush
as the first summer’s meadowlark called to break the hush
of the early morning while you were sneaking out
to be the first one out-of-doors to see what was about.
Making that fast decision, your hand fell on the red,
thinking your sister wouldn’t know, for she was still abed.

You put toothpaste upon it, wet it at the tap
and ran the brush over each tooth as well as every gap.
Each toothbrush flavor was different, your older sis had said,
so you thought it would be different brushing your teeth with red.
Your father’s brush was blueberry, your mother’s brush was mint.
Your sister’s luscious cherry—its flavor heaven-sent.

“But because you are adopted,” your sister had the gall
to tell you, “they gave you the brush with no flavor at all.”
You waited to taste cherries, but that taste never came.
That red brush tasted like toothpaste. It tasted just the same
as every other morning when you brushed with yours.
You heard your sister stir upstairs, the squeaking of the floors.

You toweled off her toothbrush and hung it in the rack
and started to run out the door. Then something brought you back.
You opened up the mirror and grabbed her brush again.
A big smile spread across your face—a retaliatory grin.
The dread cod liver oil stood on the tallest shelf.
You were barely big enough to reach it for yourself.

You dipped her toothbrush in it, then quickly blew it dry.
Replaced it, shut the cabinet, and when you chanced to spy
your own reflection in the glass, each of you winked an eye.
Then you ran out to cherry trees to catch the first sunbeam
and brush your teeth with cherries while you listened for her scream.

(Not a true story, by the way!!!)

 

For One Word Sunday the prompt is “Teeth.” Image created with help from AI.

Man Vs. Machine

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Man Vs. Machine

It is expedient that we convene
to discuss this new machine.
With teamwork, could we not achieve
all our higher-ups believe
needs to be done by this contraption
that according to its caption
can do the work of many men,
perhaps, it says, the work of ten?

Farewell to manpower, hello panic.
Made obsolete by things mechanic!
While ensconced in our cocoons,
it seems that corporate buffoons
have been brisk to seal our fate
and, alas, we’ve learned too late
that man by man, we’ll be ejected
by this means today detected.

And this is why I’m doubly keen
on dealing with this damn machine,
for men have brains but robots don’t.
If we retaliate, it won’t,
I think that we should make the hit
and simply throw a wrench in it!
Thereby persuading all our bosses
of better ways to stem their losses.

Word prompts today are cocoon, brisk, teamwork, expedient, discuss and farewell.

Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride

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Evening Rush Hour Bus Ride

Only one seat left, so I thrust myself within it,
beating out another boarding passenger to win it.
Adjusting all my packages, I didn’t chance to look
at my seat mate, for her face was buried in a book.

I used a lull in traffic to begin a conversation,
but was cut off by the bite of her brutal tongue’s serration.
She sputtered without compromise or mercy or a pause
about what she surmised were my weaknesses and flaws.

Her words sprayed out in spittle, unceasing in their venom.
She criticized my hairdo and my shoe size and my denim.
Not a thing about me pleased her. She was brutal in her spiel.
Had I considered a diet? Was my hair color for real?

At the very next bus stop, I finally took flight.
Miles from where I sought to go, I fled into the night.
It must have been a curse or bad Karma or a hex
that I would end up in a seat next to my boyfriend’s ex!!!

 

Prompts for today are traffic, compromise, flight, serration, spray and please. Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

Nomenclatural Revenge

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Nomenclatural Revenge

My repulsive nickname is an affront to my pride.
Whoever might have coined it most assuredly has lied.
When I queried who the rascal was, the usual rumor was
that nasty girl Rebecca, and the reason was because

I was dating Walter, the one she lusted for,
but who, because he prefers me, continues to ignore
the bodacious Rebecca, remaining in my arms
just because he prefers my  considerable  charms.

In spite, that bitch Rebecca says the name “Clock Face” should fit
because my face has passing time written all over it!
So I have coined a name for her. I’m going to call her “Lips”
for all the food  passed through them that’s recorded on her hips!

Kiss-off, Rebecca!

 

Prompts today are clock face, bodacious, query, rumor.First image by Glen Hodson on Unsplash. Second photo by me.

Floral Retribution

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Floral Retribution 

I slink into the plant place and snag a tub of roses—
the kind that is an irritant to weepy eyes and noses.
I could have sent her chocolates, could have brought her fruit,
magazines or houseplants or other sick-room loot;
but she’s such a social-climber, such a diamond Deb
that she won’t even socialize with old friends on the Web.

She has her chi-chi social circle—stylish, rich and arty,
so cannot bother to attend her best friend’s birthday party.
Yet when she breaks her leg and is in need of a diversion,
her new friends stay away as though they have a mass aversion
to hospitals and folks who do not share complete perfection.
In short, her newest “besties” stage the ultimate defection.

And thus it is her old friends that she calls to cheer her day,
forgetting that she is the one who threw us all away.
So when I come into her room and hear her cough and wheeze,
I’ll just withdraw with card and gift and my apologies.
She needs no further problems added to her maladies.
It’s been so long that I forgot about her allergies!

Prompt Words for today are snag, tub, rose, slink and fruit.

Cold Jack Ice

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The dVerse Poets prompt was to write a poem inspired by one of these vegetable names. I’m going to try to use them all: Black Beauty, Trail of Tears, Lazy housewife, princess, purple queen, Jacob’s cattle, The Czar, Wizard, golden acre, dazzling blue, purple sword, Jack ice, Reine de Glaces, blue fire, aurora, tender and true.

Cold Jack Ice

As accomplished in his love-making as at a game of dice,
his name was John Dukakis, but they called him Cool Jack Ice
because his smile could warm or freeze, depending on the way
his luck played out or didn’t, as it changed from day to day.

When he purchased Jacob’s cattle and his Golden Acre Farm,
He thought that he would use them to impress the new school marm.
He’d be a wizard as a cowboy, a czar of cultivation.
He’d win her as his bride before the coming school vacation.

He’d heard she was an ice queen a real “Reine de Glacé.
And since he was the King of Ice, he knew the game to play.
He donned his purple sword and a coat of dazzling blue.
If he was to be her Lochinvar, he knew just what to do.

He swooped down on his Ellen at the school fete,
saved her from the stag line and took her on a date.
The aurora borealis shone down from far above
As, feigning true and tender, he declared undying love.

He called her his sweet princess for those months he sought to woo her.
It was only after they were wed that he began to rue her.
She was a lazy housewife, he said, and counted coup,
taunting her as his black beauty as he beat her black and blue.

She fled into the freezing cold, a trail of tears behind her,
taking refuge in a secret place where he would never find her. 
And as her bruises turned her into a purple queen,
she plotted out her vengeance, silent and unseen.

They say it was blue fire that streaked across that night
that both Jack Frost and Black Jack Ice took their final bite.
What footsteps there were left were so filled up with snow
that not a single tracker could tell where they might go.

Severed from its body, Jack’s face had ceased to smile
as the one who wiped it off his face sped onward, mile by mile.
on Jack’s steed, and since that day, no one has defamed her,
for to put it bluntly, not one who knew him blamed her!

And, in case you didn’t read it before, here’s another poem I wrote about an heirloom tomato: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2020/02/12/aunt-lous-underground-railroad-tomato-for-black-history-month/

FordVerse Poets prompt.

The Scheme

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Photo on 7-4-14 at 12.20 AM

The Scheme

By the seat of my pants I’ll accomplish my scheme
which some may consider to be too extreme.
Avoiding the bridge, I’ll have forded the stream
in the dark of the night to the moon’s guiding beam.
As I find the right path, if only by chance,
small rivulets will stream down from my pants—
evidence that will dry up in the day
with the breeze’s collusion and each dawning ray
of the sun as it shrugs off the night’s blinding hand.
Permit me to hope that by then all I’ve planned
will be finished and done. I’ll have reached the far ridge,
crossed down to the road and fled over the bridge.

Extreme measures are sometimes all that can be done
to enact revenge. In the end, I’ll have won.
The news will corroborate all of my acts.
They’ll furnish the details, establish the facts.
My crime will go down in the annals as one
that everyone’s heard of but to this day none
will have heard who accomplished it. No one will know
that I orchestrated that fabulous show.
How can I be sure you won’t let it be known
that I did the act and I did it alone?
This vengeful act that I so aptly hid?
You’ll know I did something, but not what I did!!!

Prompt words today are hope, permit, scheme, corroborate and pants.

Almost a Miracle (Monologue) NaPoWriMo, Apr 15, 2019

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Almost a Miracle

I need to explain to you how it happened.
I know you don’t require it, but I need to tell you,
much as a good Catholic needs absolution from her priest or her god,
I need absolution from you.
It began with a simple mishap—the gas left on after cleaning the stove.
I do not remember this action,
yet it must have been me who left the dial turned not quite shut. 
A dark part of me, because with God as my witness, I do not remember doing so.

I did remember that every payday Saturday night when he came home reeling from the tavern, he went to turn on the striker to light his cigar.
If I had actually planned it, I could not have planned it better. 
My mother and the other children had gone to Talpa
for the four day pilgrimage to the virgin
and it was my night to stay with the children
of the people whose house I cleaned.
We did this weekly to afford them the chance
to be together with their friends,
away from their demanding children.
And it gave me an opportunity to avoid my father. 

To avoid the sound of his entrance at the front gate,
the heavy pounding of his boots upon the cobbles,
the creak of the front door and his slipping the bolt
so that I knew once again that I was in the prison of his making. 
His footsteps upon the tile stairs as I lay still, my lips moving in rapid prayers,
“Our Lord, dear lord, help him pass my door tonight. 
Help him to proceed past the doors of my sisters and my brothers
and let him move to visit my mother. 
Help him to relieve the cares of his week in her presence. 
Help it to be his wife who smells the tequila of his breath,
to taste the lime on his lips.
Help me on this night not to be the partner of his sin.”

Rare was the Saturday night when my prayer was heard.
But this night, perhaps I had answered my own prayer. 
Later on, the villagers would talk about the night they heard the boom—
saw the streaking image of a man run from the front door aflame
to run down the street screaming.
“Such a tragedy,” they would say,
“but how fortunate that his wife and children were not present.
God must have been watching,” they would say,
“but then to have blinked a moment.
It was almost a miracle,” they would say. “Almost.”

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a dramatic monologue.

Retribution

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

They’ve been building a monstrous three-story house across the street for months, the noise level increasing each day, but yesterday, my neighbor down below also started power-washing his house. They’ve continued today, and in addition, my neighbors on the other side have had gardeners operating unbelievably LOUD leaf blowers and chain saws.  It really is unbearable.  Only just now did all the men stop at once for their lunch break, enabling me to plan my revenge while writing today’s poem. Perfectly timed, just as I am typing this last line of my introduction, the power washers have started up again.

Retribution

Brain jarring poundings and drillings and sputterings
give rise to my angry cantankerous mutterings.
Construction on one side, leaf blowers over there.
High pressure power washers shatter the air.
From every direction, I’m besieged by noise.
It’s destroying my brainpower, shredding my poise.
No brilliant solution tops up my mind.
Sabotage is illegal and murder unkind.
I’ve turned up the music, closed windows and doors,
but still I can hear their mechanical roars
and grindings and crashes and rumblings and banging.
I contemplate suicide. Pills, gun or hanging?
Why aren’t my neighbors disturbed by the clamors
of chainsaws, cement mixers, trucks and jackhammers?
After all, it’s their property where men are working.
Yet none of my neighbors seem to be lurking.
They’ve probably all gone away for the day—
finding a quieter place they can stay.
They’ll return in the evening when noises decrease
hungry for dinner and a little peace—
and that’s when I’ll open each window and door,
turn my music amps up and even the score!!!!!

 

Prompt words today are hungry, cantankerous, brilliant and tops.Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/rdp-tuesday-hungry/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/09/fowc-with-fandango-cantankerous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/your-daily-word-prompt-brilliant-april-9-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/tops/

Retribution

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Retribution

He built himself a sanctuary in the old garage
to shelter from his mom’s complaints, his stepfather’s barrage
of insults that he spewed out whenever he drank beer
and his teenage stepson happened to be near.
He frequented the shadows of their viral house.
Took shelter in the attic, quiet as any mouse.
Hid out in the garden in a cave of loam.
Anyplace his stepfather was not became his home.

His meals lacked spice and savor also missing in his mother.
Her meals furnished nutrition, but very little other.
No laughter flavored mealtimes. The food rendered no spice.
He secreted small bits of food—a slice of bread, some rice—
to feed to his companions—a family of mice.
It was worth the beatings that he’d suffered twice
when that man not his father saw him hide away
some morsel in his pocket and said he’d have to pay.

 Raising his fist, he said he would take it from his hide
and gave another beating  to the boy who never cried.
The boy who simply stored it up—kept all of it inside—
bore the abuse stoically and then crept outside
to commune with his real family who lived in wall and  rafter
of the garage he’d made his home, and filled with love and laughter.
They came out at his bidding, swarmed around his feet
to eat a bit of porridge, some carrot or a beet.

Some crackers from his school lunch, some lettuce or a plum,
proved the presence of a heart that otherwise was numb.
Mice frequented his pockets and sat upon his shoulder—
every generation seeming to grow bolder.
They slipped into his mother’s house when she was sound asleep
and crept into those places where he could never creep.
They nestled in her shoes and chewed out all the toes,
severed all her bra straps, gnawed holes in all her hose.

They found the belt the monster man used to beat their friend,
dragged it deep under the bed and chewed it end-to-end.
When they crept into the larder to finish off the pie,
it must have been an accident that the can of lye
spilled into the sugar, pouring out in one fine stream
right into the bowl that would be placed beside the cream
on the breakfast table.  For how could it be
that vermin knew only the man took sugar in his tea?

 

The prompt words today are sanctuary, garage and nutrition.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/rdp-saturday-sanctuary/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/09/fowc-with-fandango-garage/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/your-daily-word-prompt-nutrition-february-9-2019/