Tag Archives: poem

Lost in Iowa

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Lost in Iowa

We are lost in Iowa,
pulled off the highway onto a gravel road.
Not content to give himself totally over to the control of GPS,
he checked its suggested route last night and instead devised his own.
But now, lost, without a clue as to where we are,
we have pulled over
to contemplate our situation.

I open the door to catch a breeze.
The yellow blooms of sweet clover and purple alfalfa
line the little road.
Wild anise and tall marsh grass
complete a scene
of perfect rural quiet and suddenly,
I am no longer lost.
I am back on the running board of my dad’s beat-up red pickup,
waiting for him to finish mowing the lower field.
I’ve eaten one chokecherry
from a nearby bush
and my mouth is puckered
by it’s astringent sting.
I go back sixty years
as I drink icy spring water
from my dad’s metal water can
wrapped in wet canvas
to keep it cool,
then jump back fifty years more
to my dad’s youth,
to try to imagine how he felt
with the prairie stretching hundreds of miles
in every direction.
My dad, his parents and two sisters in a two-room house.
There was privacy in the barn,
a dog for company.

Their closest neighbor
an ancient Hunkpapa Sioux named Charley
in his dugout house
half a mile up the draw,
town an hour’s ride away or more by horse or wagon.
With no diversion of cell tower or satellite dish—
there was only his family,
the land and his imagination.

My dad killing the coyote,
then finding her pups and bringing them home.
What would his dilemma have been?
Did he raise them,
then turn in their pelts for bounty?
Did he release them,
and then never know when he killed a coyote
if it was merely a pest or a former pet as well?

What did he think when he lay in a patch of clover?
Did he smell the wild anise and imagine
the sweet stickiness of licorice?
Did he pick the wild asparagus
for his ma to poach?
Did he have the idle moments
with which my childhood was filled?

What child now lies in the grass,
looking for something for his mind to rest against?
What other traveler,
lost on a gravel road in the scorching sun,
opens her door to a breeze
that flows like water down an empty creek channel,
looks up from the GPS screen
that promises to restore them
to civilization’s knowing?
Will she, as I have, relieve her lost present
by losing herself in the past?

That girl who sat on her dad’s running board
who would journey so far to unimagined places,
still travels the mind back to pleasures
of a world it was possible to be lost in,
sweet clover and wild anise
giving a taste of precious emptiness.

In this age of machines that can guide us
so surely into a  future,
where we are often so found
that we are lost in it—
savor those mistakes
that bring us back
to flounder in ourselves.

We, too, know the way.

daily life color006

Dad with sleepy coyote pups on South Dakota farm, 1924

The Prompt: Wrong Turns—When was the last time you got lost? Was it an enjoyable experience, or a stressful one? Tell us all about it.

I am cheating and publishing here a poem I wrote on a trip two years ago.

Unruly Punctuation

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Unruly Punctuation

When a guy driving a GMC
swoops into line in front of me
and takes the place I meant to park,
I use an !

While the ,’s made for multi-tasking,
in a sentence meant for asking,
there has to be a ?
lest readers be left in the dark.

An ! is fine
when simply put at end-of-line,
but,
too many (quite a fault of mine)
bring out the punctuation narcs
to ban those !!!!!!!!!!

Those abounding in . . .
are labeled punctuation gypsies
because they don’t know when to stop.
So please call in a grammar cop.

I must admit that I am rash
and tend to overuse the —.
What’s more, my editor goes crazy
when I forget or just get lazy.
His eyes bug out, his face goes red
when I make use of — instead.

The . is the simplest mark.
At sentence end it’s meant to park.
It’s always put where it is best
to let the sentence come to rest,
and no one puts it elsewhere lest
the reader is put to the test
to search from clause to clause to clause
to figure out where he can pause.

When I think of rhymes for ,
only strange words like pajama
are what come to mind—or llama—
or words not to the point, like “mama;”
so I’ll just say the Oxford ,
is like the Tea Party to Obama.
If his (and my) advice is heeded,
it will be clear that they’re not needed!!!

The purpose of the ’
is as clear as it can be:
Judy’s car or Judy’s house,
Judy’s dog or Judy’s spouse.
Yet, when the pronoun enters in,
it is the biggest grammar sin
to use apostrophes for possession
(although I’ll make this hard confession
that often I, unthinkingly,
will write it’s where it never fits.)
It’s in possession should be its!)
“It’s” only used as a contraction.
(It’s a faction, but not it’s faction.)

I think I may conduct a poll on
: versus ;
Which one separates two clauses,
signaling those longer pauses;
and which one signifies a list?
I’m sure that you have got the gist
of which is which—where each should go
to end this punctuation woe.

( ) mark an aside, much as a—might do,
Like “ ”, they’re paired. You always must use two.
Which brings us to the – that joins a compound word.
You never put a space in. To do so is absurd.
You should not use it as a dash with spaces on each side.
That is an antique usage that I simply can’t abide.

Yet if you choose to Google some of the rules here,
there will be discrepancies from site to site, I fear.
What I say they’ll question. They’ll support what I must pan.
So I can only say that I’ve accomplished what I can.
In spite of all my studying, despite my dedication—
I find that few agree on rules applied to punctuation!!!!

The Prompt: By the Dots—We all have strange relationships with punctuation — do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without? Tell us all about your punctuation quirks!

You might have guessed that the punctuation marks being referred to (but not those merely functional) are meant to be read out as words.  In my original, it was fairly obvious as they were in 20 font in bold so they stood out.  The only way I could find to designate them here was to use boldface and to change their color to blue.  As usual, thanks for reading my entries.  I appreciate your comments and “likes,” always!!! Thanks.  Judy

Ping Hack

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Ping Hack

“I don’t know what to make of ping,”
he told me, simply answering
my question of the difference
and, in truth, my inference
that he would know the answer and
as usual would take a hand
in clarifying one time more
what a speed test measures for
and what they had to do with “ping”
and downloading and uploading
and whether one point twenty three
was enough download for me
and whether zero point six seven
would get me into upload heaven
and what this ping stuff had to do
with starts and stops that ruined my view
of films that I had hoped to stream
that only made me want to scream

because they came in fits and starts,
ruining all my favorite parts!
Are they adequate, I asked?
His scorn was only partly masked
as he admitted they weren’t at all.
“And ping?” I asked him this last thing.
and he was quick in answering,
“I don’t know what to make of ping,”

Ping Fact (Addendum)

These numbers are the actual,
although they aren’t the factual
upload feeds
nor download speeds,
for I forgot to disconnect
the VPN and so I wrecked
results of loading speed and ping,
but I was apt in my rhyming

which only goes to show a poet
is not a techie, so now you knowet!

  Image

(This is the actual result of my speed test after I turned off the VPN.)

Lick for Lick

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Lick for Lick

Ice cream is my weakness—my favorite sort of sweet.
A flavor that I don’t adore is one I’ve yet to meet.

Mandarin orange or licorice, tequila or dill pickle?
I am not true to any of them, for I fear I’m fickle.

When choosing ice cream flavors, it’s impossible to pick.
I simply am incapable of choosing which to lick.

And so I’d like a flavor that has a bit of each:
chocolate and vanilla and a little touch of peach,

strawberry and mango and lime and toffee crunch—
why choose just one flavor when you can have a bunch?

Throw some tangerine in and some pineapple sorbet.
Licorice and banana? Who am I to say nay?

This flavor would be popular with those who cannot choose
whether they prefer the flavor of pickles, fruit or booze.

Though some of you may scoff at it and laugh in your derision,
the name of my new flavor? I call it “Indecision.”

The Prompt: Flavor # 32—A local ice cream parlor invites you to create a new wacky flavor. It needs to channel the very essence of your personality. What’s in it?

It’s a Gas

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                        It’s a Gas

I know that I saw it on You Tube
(and I’m sure that it wasn’t a dream)
—a machine that shreds old soda bottles
and melts them to make gasoline.

The machine they were using to make it
was compact—and could possibly be
installed in each house or wherever
you think you might like it to be.

Grocery stores, motels or roadside—
(wherever these bottles collect)
instead of machines set for vending,
would have a machine to inject

with all of the plastic you brought there
and for it you’d get, I deduce,
credit for all of the petrol
the bottles you brought in produce.

Every gas station would honor
these chits that you’d get every day.
You’d make a big saving on gas bills
with bottles you once threw away.

You could save up your old plastic bottles
and toss them right into your trunk
right next to the tools and blankets and flares
and all of the usual junk.

And when you next went for refreshments,
for soda or candy or chips,
you could also deposit your bottles,
’cause your car also needs a few sips.

Daily Prompt: Vending Wishes—Soft drinks, electronics, nutrient-free snacks — you can get all of those from a vending machine. But what type of vending machine is sorely needed but doesn’t yet exist? Share your automated retail fantasies with us!

The process I describe here is not fictional. Google “pyrolysis” if you want more information.

June 24th

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June 24th

The rain falls
fresh as cucumbers
on cobblestones and tiles,
the dust of summer
washed from crevasses
and curves of stone and clay.

The air is cleansed
of the scent of primavera,
jacaranda
and flamboyant trees
and the whole world
breathes easily again.

Clouds dried up
by sunlight,
the silent birds
are flushed
from their covering leaves
and open in chorus

to the booming crack
of cohetes, splitting the air
in celebration
of Saint John the Baptist
who has baptized all
this day.

The Prompt: Seasonal Scents—S’mores, salty ocean breezes, veggie burgers on the grill, sweaty people on the bus — what’s the smell you associate the most with summer?

 

 

Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

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Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

Groundhog Day (the movie) was frustrating for sure.
When that same day kept happening, there seemed to be no cure.
But this was not reality. It really could not be.
And so to write about it has no appeal for me.

Instead I want to write about something on my mind;
and it, indeed, is something day after day I find.
When I look at my statistics on my blogging site,
I see the countries that have viewed my blog each day and night.

And when I see “Sri Lanka” occur day after day,
I wonder who that person is and what they’d have to say
if they could comment on the words that I have said to them
and wish that I could know a little more of her or him.

So if you read this message and know that it is you
who reads my blog, reveal yourself. Say who you are, please do.
I’ve been to Sri Lanka many years ago and saw
Colombo and the stupas—I viewed them all with awe.

The elephants in Kandy, the tea fields on the way,
the little inn called “Bird’s Nest” where we slept at end of day.
We climbed Anuradhapura, we stood beneath the tree
where Buddha sat 2,000 years ago. (How can this be?)

You probably weren’t born then so I’m sure we didn’t meet;
or as a babe in arms, perhaps you passed me in the street.
But nineteen sixty-seven (or was it sixty-eight?)
is very long ago and so I’m sure it’s not my fate

to reconnect with anyone I might have met back then
and it is not important what happened way back when.
To me, it is more vital to know what’s happening now,
and that is why a day or so ago I made a vow.

I mention this thing only to try to drive you to
share a little bit of what it might be to be you.
I’ve told you all my secrets, kept nothing back in shame;
so dear Sri Lanka viewer, please at least reveal your name!

 The Prompt: Groundhog Week—If you could relive the past week, would you? Would you change anything?

 

 

Fame

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Fame

I don’t want to be Gwyneth Paltrow or Pink,
Madonna, Shakira or Cher.
Their kind of renown is simply too much.
Much more than this woman could bear.

Though there’s no famous person that I’d like to be,
it’s not that I wouldn’t like fame.
It’s just that I want to be known for myself
and not by another one’s name.

I want to be known for my words and my art,
but not by my form or my face.
So I can dine out and walk down the street
without all the bother and chase.

I want to go out for a coffee or tea
and see someone reading my book.
And without her knowing, to study her face,
interpreting how she may look

as she reads every page, be it smile or tear,
I’d be known by my writing alone.
Like watching your child go out in the world
to establish a life of its own.

I want to stand hidden, unknown by the world,
to observe someone viewing my art.
To see if what registers there on his face
is what I’ve revealed of my heart.

Unnoticed, unphotographed and unpursued,
I could walk at my usual pace.
I’d get to the finish in plenty of time
without ever joining the race.

 

The prompt was to pick the famous person we’d most like to be.

Stepparents Day

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Stepparents Day

She’s the lady who married your father.
He’s the fellow who married your mom.
Not really your actual parent,
like a date that’s set-up for the prom.
In other words, you didn’t choose them;
and also, they didn’t choose you.
But you now have each other as family.
There’s really not much you can do.

Sometimes you wind up as real buddies,
becoming a sort of strange friend.
Other times you feel resentful,
like you wish that their marriage would end;
and your dad would go back to your real mom,
or your mom would go back with your dad.
Then you realize that’s not really happening,
but only a dream that you had.

Then you notice your mom is now smiling
and your dad seems happier, too.
So you think you’ll just go with the flow now
and you give in and finally do.
You now have two happier families—
two places that welcome you in—
and decide that liking stepparents
is really not much of a sin.

Then you wonder why there is no day for
stepparents and grandparents, too,
and decide that this brand-new tradition
might just as well start now with you.
You declare July 1 to be chosen
as National Stepparents Day.
So even though it’s not official,
and the powers that be might say, “Nay,”

you throw on some burgers or hot dogs
and cook up a fresh apple pie
and buy your particular “steppie”
a nice box of candy or tie.
You tell her you know your dad’s happy
and tell her that you’re happy, too;
or tell him you’re glad your mom’s “single”
has turned into a table for two!

Let’s start up a national movement
to honor our stepparents now;
and ask for our step moms and dads and our grands
to come center stage for a bow!
So children all over this nation
can welcome their stepparents in
and acknowledge they’re part of the family,
exactly like regular kin.

 The Prompt : Familial Feasts. Yesterday was Father’s Day in many countries. If you could dedicate a holiday to a more distant relative, who would it be — and why?

Delayed Happy Ending

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Delayed Happy Ending

Chick flicks of old all told about
mistakes that somehow all turned out.
There every moment led to the next.
One day, the thing that had them vexed
inevitably turned and turned.
The swollen nose, the fingers burned,
led to the clinic in the end
where “she” ran into a long-lost friend
who asked her to be wined and fed
along with “the one” she later wed.

This tale, however, is not my own.
For once, my inspiration’s flown.
This is the prompt I cannot take,
for if I’ve made a good mistake,
I find I can’t remember it.
My memory box has up and quit!
Bad ones? Yes. I’ve made them all.
The step that led me to a fall.
The boyfriend stalker, the friend who turned.
The candle lit, the finger burned.

Decisions made can’t be controlled.
Not all straw can be spun to gold.
I’ve drunk the milk and smelled the flower
with the bee inside. The milk? Turned sour.
I can’t remember a single time
when my mistakes have turned sublime,
yet I don’t believe all luck is rotten
I probably have just forgotten.
So if you know me, remind me, please,
of those times my sour milk turned to cheese.

If you do, I’ll write the theme
suggested to me, ream on ream.
(Or at least a stanza or a line.)
But remember, the story must be mine.
I need reminding, I know I do,
of the time fate dropped the other shoe
and turned mistakes into success—
made happy endings out of some mess
or corner I’d painted myself into.
Come on, dear friend, give me a clue!!!

Today’s Prompt: Favorite Mistake. Is there a mistake you’ve made that turned out to be a blessing—or otherwise changed your life for the better? Tell us all about it.