Quartets of Memory
To what extent
do you lament
losing the blush
of teenage crush?
Tease and chuckle,
tight-gripped knuckle,
that challenge of
teenage love—
to cultivate
a future mate—
dawdling where
a certain stare
might meet with yours.
These sweet amors
left in the past,
nonetheless last.
Some afternoons
listening to tunes
of a past kind,
they come to mind.
Prompt words today are knuckle, challenge, lament, cultivate, dawdle. Image by Eric Krull on Unsplash.
Sixteen
She met him at the harvest dance.
An act of fate, they met by chance.
The very first grown man she kissed,
he was a traveling journalist,
and she had barely got love’s gist
when he vanished in the mist.
For reference, she had not any.
She had not made love with many
and those she’d had were only boys,
as unacquainted with the joys
of mature love as she had been,
for they were only kids, not men.
She found it tedious at best
to spoon with any of the rest,
and yet she tried, and kept a list
in which she rated and she dissed
those teenage lovers that were left
once journalism left her bereft
of seasoned lover who had pleased her
whereas all the rest just squeezed her
wrong, somehow. They smacked and cuddled,
yet, somehow, they all just muddled
what she’d had occasion once, perchance,
to experience at the harvest dance.
She finally devised a plot
wherein she could improve her lot.
She’d do a deed of much renown
to draw her lover back to town.
And this is why she planned the prank
wherein she would rob the bank.
Of course she’d send the money back.
The larcenous gene she seemed to lack,
but this would create so much news
that she was fairly sure he’d choose
to come investigate the crime,
and that would be the perfect time
to improve her skills of woo.
He’d be her prey and she’d count coup.
For a week, her schemes just perked.
She watched and waited, planned and lurked
watching for the perfect time
to enact her lovelorn crime.
And, finally, the time seemed good.
She donned a long-armed cloak with hood,
took her daddy’s gun and, masked,
said “Stick ’em up” when she was asked
if she was seeking to deposit,
distressing her, it seems, because it
seemed to cause so little pause,
from the teller, perhaps because
the teller, who was also masked,
gave her a sucker before she asked
what transaction she might mean
to request on this Halloween!
And so it was the plot was foiled.
By mistiming, her plans were spoiled.
She abandoned larceny
and resumed her tomfoolery
with the local high school boys
wherein they all discovered joys
by practice to bring that surcease
she’d sought to learn by expertise.
Prompt words for today are journalist, reference, tedious, list and pleased.
So I took a stroll into the town plaza instead.
Young Love
After a certain interval, my innocent young sister
seemed to fall in love with each teenaged boy who kissed her,
but these girlish fantasies just left her in a pickle,
for as you know, boys in their teens are usually fickle.
So, although each goodnight kiss to her seemed purely magic,
its likely aftermath was more usually tragic.
Prompt words today are aftermath, popular, interval and sister.
Nostalgia Reexamined
The sublimity remembered when memory has its turn
often has beginnings in nostalgia’s timely churn.
That teenage bliss that we recall as being overjoyed
if remembered correctly would be being over-boyed.
Our adoration of the past is easier than giving
all the same attention to the life that we are living.
Prompt words today are nostalgia, overjoyed, adoration and sublimity.
Full Makeup
As each wispy object she attaches to her face,
these extraneous objects seem somewhat out of place.
They flutter from her eyelids like moths before the flame—
just the opening number in her makeup game.
As she smooths on her concealer, then powders over all,
she does not see me watching her out here in the hall.
Never does she hesitate. Brushes grow ever finer
as she patiently applies shadow and eye liner.
She does it all so expertly with such consistent flair,
then carefully begins to work to rearrange her hair.
A little mousse to set the curls, a little spray of mist
and she’s prepared a face that is ready to be kissed.
When she comes home, the hair is mussed, one eyelash is askew.
One eyelid seems to be of a slightly lighter hue.
Although her hairdo’s fallen, still her mood seems somewhat lighter.
Her lipstick gone, and yet somehow her color seems much brighter.
One little word transforms a girl to another realm.
Makes an unsure teenager the captain at the helm.
Just change “make up” to “make out” and her heart takes wing.
And woe to any parent who notices a thing!
Prompt words today were flair, hesitate, spray and extraneous.
I think I was 12 or 13 when this was taken, playing dress-up in my older sister’s dress!
Reflections
I do not seek out mirrors, for I don’t like what I see.
That pudgy older woman barely resembles me.
I prefer reflection of the memory kind,
rooting around within my brain to see what I can find.
Old lovers all hang out there, frozen as they were,
and when I break into their worlds, I create quite a stir,
for I am as I was as well, less inches ’round my waist,
my hair much longer and my skirt length much more to their taste.
I’m thinking just how fortunate it is that we should meet,
both of us together on this familiar street.
What are the chances we’d be here at the selfsame time––
drawn in from our different lives to join here in this rhyme?
Then of course I realize it is by my orchestration
rather than a miracle of synchronization.
At first, our talk is shallow, our conversation bland.
What causes a big flurry is when he takes my hand.
It’s then that I remember what it is I miss.
It’s not the conversation, but rather it’s that kiss
that sent my senses spinning off to some future land
where I imagined he would ask my father for my hand.
But when that event came for real, that time for plans and rings,
I found my mind was turning to many other things.
College and then travel to many foreign strands—
things that wouldn’t happen if we wore wedding bands.
So we parted directions—off to different lives,
adventures with different spouses, children with different wives.
Building separate futures that led us both to this:
to fifty years thereafter and that same remembered kiss!
Written for these three prompts:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/24/rdp-54-reflection/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/fortunate-july-25-2018/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/25/fowc-with-fandango-shallow/
jdbphotos (Click on any photo to enlarge all)
When we were young, before love rusted,
how we pined and how we lusted.
We lived on love. So sure. Nonplussed.
As though we held a deed of trust
on those we kissed. We arched, they thrust,
our hearts pounding as though percussed.
We came home rumpled, dizzy, mussed—
our heads swirling, slightly concussed.
Our mothers warned. Our fathers fussed,
seeking to turn our dreams to dust.
Our hearts reeling in shamed disgust,
our faces flamed as they discussed.
And although we thought we must
pretend to listen, inside we cussed,
knowing their words to be unjust.
Within each throbbing teenage bust
beat a heart free of distrust,
bursting with love’s wanderlust.
Back there at our very starts,
as we were learning to use our hearts,
back when we thought they might combust,
our hearts were tender, without crust.
We gave them fully with no mistrust.
We thought the world of love was just.
The prompt word today was lust.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 