The Unhaunting
Ancient ruins cloaked in fog rise from the icy ground,
yet here no restless spirits are likely to be found.
The wind has driven all from this commune of the dead,
and stitched the lace of curling clouds to frequent them instead.
They hover over columns and sail the empty halls,
brushing clear the cobwebs of these once-haunted walls.
For The Sunday Whirl the prompt words are:cloaked ruins ancient lace communes stitched spirits wind drive curling icy ground
911
The fire sighs and flips the ravaged timbers to the floor,
sends soaked ashes swirling in currents toward the door.
Blue flames lick at skins of walls, then weave around the beams,
trying to escape the fire fighter’s streams
as they emerge in masks from the house’s inner places,
assassins of those flames who’ve chosen not to show their faces.
Thus is the conflagration robbed of its power and beauty
by this crew that sees extermination as its duty.
For The Sunday Whirl
The prompt words are sighs fire flip ravaged blue floor emerge masks ashes soak skin weave
Don’t Pick the Daisies
Please leave those daisies in their wrapper.
I find them just too pert and dapper.
I prefer a floral decoration
prone to promote excitation.
I’d choose something a little queer
to be used as a boutonniere.
Yes, I agree, daisies are cute
but aren’t held in good repute
for inclusion in bouquets exotic.
They aren’t sufficiently chaotic.
All their little petals are spread
in order. They are too well-bred.
I like my flowers with frisky sproutings,
curling ‘rounds and sticking-outings––
birds of paradise well hung
with orange feathers and bright blue tongue.
I admit, I am a binger
on passionflower and wild ginger,
on orchid and bromeliad.
Daisies I find a little sad––
too Doris Day and sixtyish.
A bit of odd is what I wish
for when I choose to pick a flower
for an arrangement or a bower.
Give me heliconia,
proteus or begonia.
For an occasion that is formal,
daisies, dear, are just too normal.
For my mother Pat who liked her food plain and her flowers exotic. XOXOXO
I woke up to this prompt from Forgottenman:
No friggin’ idea why, but I just conjured up a three-word prompt: anvil, fluffy, sediment. Do with them as you will or not. (Yeah, I needa head to bed.)
I’ve said before that I am game for any challenge, so here goes:
Cold-Hearted
You’re fluffy as an anvil, as sweet as cod liver pie.
The sediment from the hearts you’ve broken piles up so high
that you can’t be seen behind it, so there you sit, alone.
reflecting on the shattered loves for which you must atone.
Image by Kasia Darenda on Unsplash. And this poem, although written in the second person, is not directed at the prompter.
Delayed Warning
A bout of indigestion can make a guy a grouch
and leave him prone to lying grumbling on the couch
while his wife stands listening, chuckling in the hall,
remembering how she had warned him not to eat it all.
Yet he had ingested it, as usual, in a hurry
before she could warn him that he was eating curry!
For the Three Things Challenge the words are: CHUCKLE GROUCH INDIGESTION
Image by towfiqu-barbhuiya- on Unsplash
Foggybaby Dreams Clarified
(For My Nephews––now Six Feet Tall.)
You flinched from my touch,
hated the red cowboy hats
I bought for you,
preferred the hundred
tiny grass frogs
to the cows we tried
to introduce
into your city lives,
had eyes only for the trucks
carrying salt for the cows
to gather after.
Early mornings,
you leaned against
my sleep.
And oh,
your sleep-wicked
hair
and your
sweet sour milkbreath
and the
slight fart smell
of your warm bunny p.j.’s,
your impeccable smiles.
Daylight
had barely
bedeviled
you yet.
Five minutes until
you melted
back into your
foggy baby dreams,
and I became
your
nostalgia.
For NaPoWriMo 2023, the first prompt is to write a poem inspired by a book cover.
Below is information for the book cover that seemed to best illustrate this poem:
And also for dVerse Poets Open Link Night.
Split Seconds
On Valentine’s Day,
standing dizzy on a dry summer country road,
between weekend dances in different towns,
sweet 16 and finally kissed.
My eccentric English professor,
slapping down his briefcase once, twice, three times
on his table at the front of the room,
opened the clasp, drew out our first papers,
and chose mine as the one to read aloud.
I felt the gun barrel pressed against my head,
heard the gun fire,
fell into the street and rose above
to see them lift his wounded body into a taxi,
my body lying in the street.
The woman in the dream
walked toward me across the barroom,
threw her drink in my face,
then hit me over the head with the glass
and I woke up soaking wet, with a knot on my head,
screaming, “Just wake up!”
I saw him for the first time
on the stage at the little coffee shop in Santa Monica
reading love poems he’d written to another woman,
and it was as though I’d been with him
for my whole life. Then afterwards,
I was with him for the rest of his.
He met me
at the plane
with a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup and a rose.
Hours later, in his kitchen,
after the long ride southward,
luggage spilled sideways on the floor—
another long-delayed
first kiss.
The NaPoWriMo prompt is to “write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.”
Cryogenic Ponderings
I hear that they’re researching cryogenic preservation,
and I admit I view it with a certain hesitation.
I’m drawn to such longevity, but must admit I worry
about what aftereffects such a heedless act might curry.
As wily as I now may be, as cunning and as clever,
will irresistible qualities remain with me forever?
Will I be packed with garlic to keep me fresh and bugless?
Will I still be so sexy after eons going hugless?
Can minds be kept as fresh as flesh? Can kind hearts be conserved?
Can intellect and soul be saved and memory preserved?
What good will body do one in a thousand years or more
if they can not conserve those things we hold here in our core?
Prompt words today are drawn, irresistible, wily, garlic and cryogenic.
Image by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.
Story Time at the Library
Cluster here around me. Cross Your legs. Open your mind.
I’m going to tell you stories of a slightly silly kind.
Or lie back on the carpet, close your eyes and try to see
all the varied images that are going to be.
We’ll be crossing to another land where we can be whatever
each of us may want to be: beautiful, brave or clever.
Light the bulbs above your head. Imagine what you hear.
For the next half hour or so, you’l be “there” and not “here.”
In imagination’s magic land, all your dreams come true.
Climb aboard my story train and I’ll share it with you.
And now as then, the crowd being both clever and magnanimous,
They decided they’d all come along. The voting was unanimous.
And so the children climbed aboard to hear a tale or two—
precisely the same stories in the past that I told you.
Prompt words today are cluster, crossing, bulb, unanimous and carpet,
Above are photos taken yesterday morning (May 3.) What looks like a bank of clouds is actually smoke from a fire that has been raging for five days on the slopes of Mount Garcia, the extinct volcano across the lake from me.
The grainy shot above (taken with my phone, so not the best photo) was taken at about 1 a.m. this morning, May 4th, from my rooftop terrace. If you want to get a better view of the fire, have a look at the time-lapse video for the past 24 hours on this site: http://www.ajijicweather.com/lakecam.
When Forgottenman suggested I write about the fire, I reminded him that I actually had written about fires on Mount Garcia many years ago, and he further suggested I reblog that blog, so, always willing to please, below is a link. The Maria Phoenix restaurant I mention, which became a favorite of mine after this first visit, has since been sold to new owners, but still, as regular as clockwork, Señor Garcia (as locals fondly call the mountain) continues to wear his yearly sombrero of smoke. Here is the link to my poem about the fires eight years ago:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2013/04/18/dining-alone-at-the-maria-bonita-restaurant-bar-day-18-of-napowrimo/
