image from internet
Foreshadowing
That broken leaf in your mother’s table—
was it really just a karate chop—
careless teenage abandon?
Or that first permission
you gave yourself
to vent your anger
in a physical act?
Hard lesson
that broke your hand
but did not break you.
Taught you, fast learner,
that a woman’s body
is a safer place
to vent.
The prompt today was leaf.
Bouquet
All the love that you confess
I fear is rendered meaningless
by the kiss you choose to press
near the neckline of my dress.
Hidden by collar, more or less,
the flower you rendered like counting coup
last night, now blooms in black and blue.
It was the least that you could do
once you’d gone through all your brew
and needed a diversion new.
When you said you’d shower me with flowers,
I envisioned vases, bowers.
Not this expression of your power
that lowered me from ivory tower
and taught me how to cringe and cower.
Each floral offering rendered anew
confirms what I must one day do.
each page in this scrapbook of you
written in a violent hue
on my body is one you’ll rue.
Once I’ve worked out my solution,
plotted and planned my retribution,
prepared the waters of my ablution,
then I will stage my revolution
and enact our dissolution.
I’ll pluck my flower from your bouquet
and be no more beneath your sway.
I will be happy and free and gay
with no nightly price to pay.
I really will. One day, one day
The prompt word today is meaningless.
jdb photo
Arms “Race”
Millions of planets go spinning around
out of our sight and making no sound.
Because we don’t see them, are they not there?
And if we do not see them, have we a care
of what lies upon them or what it’s all for?
Is the rest of the universe simply a snore?
We are so taken by the mess of our world
that we keep forgetting that we’re merely curled
like a fist of small planets thoughtlessly cast
into a corner of a system so vast
that we’re barely noticed in the scale of it all.
It is not so important, our spinning blue ball
as we all make it out to be, fussing and feuding,
warring and hating and bombing and shooting.
Like fleas on an elephant, thinking their bite
reveals such a showing of power and might,
our planet could vanish like that, in a puff,
and truly, the world would have planets enough.
Like millions of tiny balls spinning in space,
we’re in no competition. It’s really no race.
It’s nobody’s loss and nobody’s win.
We always return to the place we begin.
So put away guns and machetes and knives
and let’s simply live out our miniature lives.
The prompt word today is “Millions.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 