The Prompt: From the Top—Today, write about any topic you feel like.
The daily prompt, “write what I wish?”
That’s like ordering the fish
and having the waiter bring a hook
and once you catch it, a pan to cook
it. This is one that I’ll do poor on.
This “prompt” is just an oxymoron!!!
The Prompt: Object Lesson—Sherlock Holmes had his pipe. Dorothy had her red shoes. Batman had his Batmobile. If we asked your friends what object they most immediately associate with you, what would they answer?
My MacBook Air—no contest!!!! There is not a time when I’m home that it isn’t with me…and usually not a time away from home. I have to be able to write at any given time and my Kindle is too hard to type on.
In the morning when I wake, she’s on my bedside table
where she’s been charging all night long, so now I find I’m able
to perch her on my counter as I brush my hair and dress,
put mascara on my lashes and curl them, I confess.
I take her to the kitchen as I blend my smoothie up—
slice the fruit, add soy milk, and pour it in a cup.
To my desk we go then, to write our morning verse.
If I wrote it longhand, I fear it would be worse.
When I do pool aerobics, she sits at pool edge.
(I put her on a table that has a little ledge
to protect her from disasters that might tip her in the pool.
I never take her in with me. I’m not a complete fool.)
That hour of exercise flies by as I watch junk TV.
Old situation comedies are what I like to see!
But when I drive to town I always listen to a book.
Much better than a video, as I don’t have to look.
At the plaza café, at my favorite outside table,
I converse with favorite friends whenever I am able.
But if they’re busy I just take my laptop there with me
and talk to her with fingers whenever they are free.
When the waiter brings totopos and the sauce to dip them in,
salsa on her keyboard would be disastrous sin;
so I have to move her—our contact I must breach—
but close enough so earbuds are still within my reach.
Before I eat, I talk to her with fingers fleet and swift.
During the meal, I listen, for my food I have to lift
from plate to mouth from plate to mouth till it becomes a rite.
Then my computer talks to me. She has no appetite.
She is my secretary and my bookshelf without end.
My video library and my calendar and friend.
She is my photo album and the archives for my writing.
She corrects my spelling and she’s expert at reciting
all my words right back to me so I can see what’s wrong.
And when I need interpreting, her language skills are strong.
So perhaps it’s clear now why she’s always here with me.
For the bond that binds us both is electricity!
A fresh whiff of jasmine on the evening breeze
sends me off in paroxysms—sneeze on sneeze on sneeze.
Lilacs give me headaches, tuberoses make me ill.
Whenever dates wear aftershave, I have to take a pill.
Pinesol makes me nauseous. I’d rather smell the dirt!
And please do not use fabric softener on my favorite shirt.
I can’t believe so many folks enjoy a scented candle,
for they’re another stinky thing I simply cannot handle.
When friends bring friends to visit me, they eschew scented lotions
and tell their friends to do the same, ‘cause I have these strange notions.
What I like to smell is dill, and soil soaked by rain.
The kind of things I like to smell I’m hard-pressed to explain.
Who likes the scent of curry or cabbage in the hall?
But I admit, I like them! They don’t bother me at all.
I love the smell of Popsicles—my favorite is cherry.
It’s floral scents that I abhor, so weddings make me wary.
I hug the bride and kiss the groom, contribute to her trousseau.
But I must always hold my nose and hurry as I do so.
Orange blossoms are the worst, along with the carnation.
Even roses, I admit, are an abomination!
I really do like flowers, but only how they look.
My favorite kinds of odors are kinds that you can cook!
Chocolate cake or popcorn and hot dogs on the grill
are smells that inspire ecstasy—that certain little thrill.
Vanilla poured in pudding, bananas mashed for bread—
swirl around my nostrils and end up in my head.
Such romantic odors. What stories they do tell
of culinary orgasms and itchings they will quell.
So if you want to pleasure me, please, for heaven’s sake,
leave the flowers at the shop and simply bring me cake!
Daily Prompt: Nosey Delights—From the yeasty warmth of freshly baked bread to the clean, summery haze of lavender flowers, we all have favorite smells we find particularly comforting. What’s yours?
(For the end to this story, go to: https://grieflessons.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/you-dont-send-me-flowers-anymore/
Daily Prompt: Full Disclosure—A mad scientist friend offers you a chip that would allow you to know what the people you’re talking to are thinking. The catch: you can’t turn it off. Do you accept the chip?
I don’t really need a chip to know what you are thinking,
for when I ask, “Should I wear this?” your left eyelid starts blinking
like it does whenever you tell a little fib;
and I can tell your “It looks great!” sounds a little glib.
That’s how I know without a doubt you’re spinning a fine yarn;
and that, in fact, in this dress I must look wide as a barn.
If you say this dish is great but feed most to the dogs—
if you say I’m clever but you rarely read my blogs—
if you “want” to get together but we rarely do—
I’ve already read the clues to ascertain your view.
Yet, still I have the option to see the other side
and find a way to look at it that will preserve my pride.
Your eye might blink because a gnat got caught in it just now,
and so I do not really look as broad as any cow.
He just has a small appetite. Her eyesight might be failing.
She might be out of town and when she gets home from her sailing,
she’ll call me up and we will meet and have a laugh or two.
Without this ESP I really get to choose my view
of believing what I want to in spite of what I’ve guessed.
When it comes to friendship, less clarity is best!
There’s a Clue in the Leaning Chimney and a Password to Larkspur Lane,
and no one will ever discover them without me, that is plain.
I’d love to go a-sleuthing, my sidekicks at my side—
George Fayne, who is so boyish and Bess Marvin who’s so wide.
Together we’d read diaries and find each hidden clue,
‘cause no one else but us has ever known quite what to do
with broken lockets, attics, tolling bells or hollow oaks;
for non-teenage detectives seem to come off like bad jokes.
They may have had the clues but never seemed to solve the crime—
these matters just too difficult for searchers in their prime.
I’d hop in my blue roadster with a picnic box from Hannah
and somehow I would wind up in Wyoming or Montana.
Interviewing cowboys is the way I’d have my fun,
returning to Ned Nickerson when all of this was done.
I don’t have other fantasies of being Peter Pan
or Goldilocks, Rapunzel, Cathy or Superman.
Those fairy tales and comic books and novels are unreal.
I’d have to be like Nancy—a character who’s real!
The only mystery I can’t solve of all her mysteries seen
is how I’ve gotten so damn old while she remains sixteen!
The Prompt: Fictional Intruder—Go down the rabbit hole with Alice; play quidditch with Harry Potter; float down the river with Huck Fin. . .If you coud choose three fictional events or adventures to experience yourself, what would they be?
How I (Don’t) Lay Me Down to Sleep
At 2 AM, when others sleep,
computer solitaire I keep
in front of me on lap or chest,
for part of me decrees it best
to put off sleep an hour or so.
That precious time I often blow
on playing Spider Solitaire.
At my computer screen I stare,
moving little clubs or hearts
here and there in fits and starts,
trying to beat my own best time,
this silly game becomes sublime.
I know not why I love it well—
and so I cannot really tell
why I prefer it over all.
Deluxe Free Cell can be a ball,
In fact, I play it hours on hours
trying to deplete those towers
of mismatched cards, quickly I bring
them from below, from Ace to King.
Card by card, I pile them high—
my laptop balanced on my thigh—
until the cards become hypnotic,
my moving of them now Quixotic.
Too sleepy to beat my own time,
my need for rest becomes sublime.
Then sleep fills up my empty cup
till seven or eight, when I wake up
to spill night’s cards clear of my screen
so this day’s daily prompt is seen.
And this is how I start my day.
This time, it’s words I choose to play!
The Prompt: Now? Later!—We all procrastinate. Website, magazine, knitting project, TV show, something else — what’s your favorite procrastination destination?
This big fella appeared on my steps last night—perhaps a harbinger of what I was going to write about today. He’s the first tarantula I’ve ever seen at my house—four inches across, he is a formidable addition to my garden menagerie!
I just have to add a postscript. This reply to my today’s post was just sent to me by my three- months-a-year housemate. I feel a bit like Jeanette MacDonald to his Nelson Eddy! Ha. I absolutely love it, by the way. This is what he posted on his blog this morning:
To your addictions I can attest.
You’re clicking, clicking. You need your rest!
“Sleepy time,” I do proclaim,
And you reply, “Just one more game.”
And so I roll upon my side
and let your clicking, clicking guide
me off to sleep, to dream, to waken
to morning to find that you’re makin’
words to poems to fill your blog.
Keep writing, Dear. I’ll feed the dog.
The Prompt: Seat Guru—You get to plan a dinner party for 4-8 of your favorite writers/artists/musicians/other notable figures, whether dead or alive. Who do you seat next to whom in order to inspire the most fun evening?
I chose twelve guests, plus myself. The seating chart is below. You will have to imagine me sitting in the exact middle of the table shaped like a ring around me.
I have planned the dinner party, set the table, cooked the food,
but decisions about seating charts is ruining my mood;
for I want to sit by everyone, hear every conversation,
and trying to choose only two is causing consternation.
I think, therefore, I’d put me on a chair right in the center
on a sort of lazy Susan so I’d be able to enter
every conversation and to listen in on all,
seeing how they fare just like a fly upon the wall.
I’d have a little foot pedal to spin me at my ease—
enjoy Chaucer with my salad and Jane Austen with my cheese.
Jesus Christ and Whoopi could gang up on Rush and tell
why he’s the one who’s going to be broadcasting in Hell.
Osama bin Laden would be seated ear-to-ear
with Mohammed who would tell him what all terrorists should hear:
that the truth of the religion has got lost along the way,
for no one who is enlightened wants to kill and burn and slay.
Steve Martin would be there for fun to loosen up Osama
and spar with Rush to get his mind off Hillary and Obama.
I’d ask two people from real life to join us at the table:
Doug between the prophets so he’d finally be able
to be faced with the real men so he can sort out fact and fiction
and show it’s the religions that have caused us all the friction.
The men themselves had peace at heart and must bemoan the end
that power brokers bring the world to as their truth they bend.
The other person that I want to have here at my meal
is Ann Garcia, for I know her pleasure would be real.
Seated by Jane Austen, she would question her and tell
of her appreciation of the books she’s loved so well.
Barbara Kingsolver I’d seat upon on her other side.
She, too, would get much praise but also would have to abide
many interruptions from one listening from the middle,
for I’d be hopping back and forth like water on a griddle.
These people all are here because my curiosity
is whetted by my fantasies of what I’ll hear and see.
There is another guest that I’ve neglected to reveal,
but he is central to the plot of this illustrious meal.
Geoffrey Chaucer would be there to listen and relate
the story of this group of people that we love and hate.
So all the world could hear the tale of what we learned at table.
This earliest father of literature is surely the most able
to see the truth of character and spin a tale to tell
the truth of what will save our world from fire, brimstone, Hell!
And then, one final person I’d invite to be a guest
is Barbara Walters, who would come to interview the rest;
so we’d be sure that all received their moment in the sun,
and we could question them after her interview was done.
If you have any questions that you’d like an answer to,
most happily, I’ll ask them and pass answers on to you.
I will not mind a bit assuming this laborious task.
Just comment on this poem and say what you would like to ask
of Chaucer or of Jesus or of Whoopi or of Steve.
If they’re still here, I’ll ask them, or if they have chosen to leave,
I’ll channel them in poetry and say what I believe
they’d say if your request were one they could themselves receive.
But for now our party’s over and our guests have all departed.
Many better-fed, and (let’s hope) some more open-hearted!!!
P.S. The number of guests at my dinner party is coincidental. In no way is this poem meant to allude to another illustrious dinner of twelve plus one.
P.P.S. Oops..Barbara Walters somehow got bounced off the seating chart. I guess I’ll give her my seat and I’ll just roam around the perimeter, helping my sister serve the soup, but mostly just listening in and butting in. So this really should be called “Party of Thirteen.” I also had Will Rogers on my original seating plan, but he was somehow omitted. It was my first time using the program that created the seating chart and it took me longer to get it together than to write the entire poem. Sorry Will, I’ll catch you later. Perhaps devote an entire poem to you.
I was running from the time I woke up this morning until about 10:15 tonight. My guests have now gone and I’ve had 45 minutes to work on this prompt. It certainly isn’t my favorite, but I felt compelled to finish the assignment, lest it be the first day since April 1 that I failed to post! So, for what it is worth, here’s my near-answer to today’s prompt!!! Please note that much as you might feel you see yourself in this poem, the characters are purely fictional!!!
Today’s Prompt: Long Exposure—Among the people you’ve known for a long time, who is the person who’s changed the most over the years? Was the change for the better?
Our world turns and all of us
without much fanfare or much fuss
change constantly from day to day
in such a subtle sort of way,
we barely notice we have changed
until we find we are estranged
from those once near who now are far,
reaching for a different star.
While once we shared the usual aim
of husband, family or fame,
each thinks the other achieved less
though neither one could ever guess
that each achieved just what she wanted
sailing through her life unhaunted
by regrets of what she’s missed:
the shore unclaimed, the cheek unkissed.
One scored the ring and husband first.
The other sought to quench her thirst
for travel and remained unmarried
satisfying interests varied
from what most others chose to do—
each year her world began anew.
No little hand in hers, no need
to clothe and comfort, wash and feed
anyone except herself.
She sat alone upon the shelf
of life, unchoosing and unchosen—
well-preserved and slightly frozen.
The other birthed, lifted and carried
in a life both full and harried.
With kids and husband in her home,
she was rarely there alone.
Kept busy by her obligations
to neighbors, friends and her relations,
her life proceeded till near its end,
she chanced to come upon her friend
from long ago and tarried there
while both of them let down their hair.
Each found the place where she belonged
and neither feels unduly wronged.
One found her place in family—
contented in their company.
The other is quick to aver
she found her place inside of her.
We know within our hearts that personality
often cancels out what we can clearly see.
We all have known the men who, homely to the eye,
still have personalities sweet as cherry pie,
who win the ladies with their charm and humor that is wry,
causing them to line up for chances with this guy.
And the girl who’s plain until she starts to talk—
her face just so enlivened, you have to stand and gawk.
Made lovely by expression, intelligence and wit,
“beautiful” and “lovely” become the words that fit
when trying to describe this attractive little lass
who simply doesn’t bother with a looking glass.
Both have learned to conquer all their crippling fear—
to find the other side of doubt and kick it in the rear.
To face the world on their own terms and face it unafraid.
To take their rightful placement at the front of the parade.
But though we see what they have done, we do not always take
the road that for another seems to be a piece of cake.
You may find this poem to be most adolescent,
yet the feelings of our past most usually are present
throughout our lifetimes, though we seem to hide what we must feel,
leaving it to novelists and poets to reveal
the truths of all our agonies, the facts of all our fears—
all those things we’ve meant to face but yet hold in arrears.
I long ago discovered that writing must be true.
The only worthwhile topics are the things that bother you.
The lacks you find in others and the lacks within yourself
are what divide the poems in hand from poems on the shelf.
And so I must admit that fear’s my greatest hidden vice.
And since we all could do with taking our own sage advice:
I’ll say that with no fear, I would burn candles at both ends—
be as free with lovers as I am with friends.
I would have burned fingers, but an unbound heart.
All those lovely men, disregarded from the start
because I was too zaftig or not smart enough?
I’d face them nose-to-nose, and then I would call their bluff.
Today’s Prompt: Fearless Fantasies—How would your life be different if you were incapable of feeling fear? Would your life be better or worse than it is now?
It is the difference between that present handed to you
by a person who says, “It’s only a tie,”
and a package under the tree
squeezed and prodded at—perhaps a corner loosened
or a hole poked in through supposed accidental handling,
pondered like a good detective show.
Who wants these mysteries revealed before their time?
What value in the present whose contents you already know for sure?
The magic of Christmas for some is that faith that the girl,
untouched by human lover, gave birth—and it is that sort of faith
that “saved” the world. If we knew the whole truth of that story
would all it prompted fall into the hole covered all these years by mystery?
The whole world seems to be standing more on what we don’t know
than on what we absolutely know empirically—what we can prove.
And so I look at the picture of my young mother
in her cotton housedress and saddle shoes
holding her baby in front of her in her stroller,
whole contraption, child and carrier,
a foot or two above the ground,
and there is mystery in the reveal.
I do not hear what transpired to cause this pose.
I do not know if my father caught her carrying me
from the porch to sidewalk and said,
“Here, Tootie, turn around,” and snapped the picture,
or whether my older sister planned the pose.
Or whether some movie star was snapped in a similar scene
and my mother and sister, like two conspiring fans,
planned the shot to steal the glamor formerly reserved
for “Photoplay” or “Look” or “Life.”
There would be no reel-to-reel
in any normal person’s life for years.
No movie camera to tell me exactly what my mother was like
or my sister or me before my memory took hold and even then,
my mind’s remembrance
more like reflections in a lake that color and change
depending on the clouds or rain,
distorting the light like moods.
My Aunt Peggy’s house,
always remembered as feeling like
the color chartreuse,
and I will never know why.
That smell of a friend’s house that became associated
with her memory more than any concrete proof of reel-to-reel
or spinning film of movie camera.
I do not know my mother’s voice at thirty.
I did not witness myself since birth
by either sound or sight.
There is a different mystery
to a past caught
in boxes of Kodacolor prints
curling and yellowing in a closet
than one documented like a science experiment
with every event taped and filmed.
Where does the mystery of you reside when you see yourself
so clearly, as others have seen you all along?
What does it leave for you to try to discover?
No tapes.
No film.
No Internet.
No Skype.
No YouTube.
No home movies.
All of our pasts were once wrapped up forever.
Only our fingers poking in the edges.
Only our voices asking,
“What was it like the day when I was born?”
What do you remember about the day when. . . .?
The Prompt: Can’t Stand Me—What do you find more unbearable: watching a video of yourself, or listening to a recording of your voice? Why?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 