Tag Archives: Poetry

Green Brownies

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DSC07902

(This poem evolved from notes that I scribbled into the margin
of our Mexican Train score sheet while visiting my friend Gloria.)

Green Brownies

The brownie that she serves me
crumbles when I try to break it into two.
Her sense of humor allows it and so I tease her.
“Gloria, this looks like the kind of food
my grandmother tried to pawn off on us—
weeks old and crusty from the refrigerator.”

“Those chocolate chips were like that when I bought them!”
she insists, even before I question their green tinge.
I think that this is even worse than the alternative,
and say so and we both laugh as she eats her brownie
and I reduce mine to dust. Not a hard task, as it turns out.

She’s had a bad infection for a week or more.
“I’m not contagious,” she insists each time she coughs
a long low rasping rumble that threatens to avalanche.
“Now stop!” she tells the sounds that explode
without permission from her chest.

“Perhaps,” I say, “These brownies are a godsend
and that’s penicillin growing on the chocolate chips.”
Then her deep coughs transform into
gasps of laughter that echo mine.

The young man there to rake the garden
looks up at us and shakes his head
at two old ladies drinking rum and
eating something chocolate,
and it occurs to me that perhaps
what the world sees as senility
is simply evolution
out of adulthood
to a higher
stage.

The Prompt: Locked and Sealed.  Can you keep a secret? Have you ever — intentionally or not — spilled the beans (when you should’ve stayed quiet)?  Yes, I must admit that I regularly mine my life with friends and family for topics for my writing.  As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much all I write.  My friend Gloria, however, has no qualms about my writing about this occasion.  In fact,  she insisted I send it off immediately to a local magazine/newspaper whose editor may or may not find it as funny as she did.  With one exception, I’ve had just one friend object to this practice of writing about friends and family.  She has always refused to read anything I’ve written about her.  “You haven’t spilled any of my dirty little secrets, have you?” she says (no small amount of dread in her voice)  every time I tell her I’ve written about her. No, I never would.  The only dirty little secrets I ever reveal are my own!!!

Note:  So amusing that today’s prompt, “Locked and Sealed” takes its title seriously!!!  Its link does not work. For this reason, I’m posting today’s blog in yesterday’s topic and counting down the hours until they discover this.

“How good are you at keeping secrets? Today’s @postaday prompt is Locked and Sealed: wp.me/p23sd-njA 2 hours ago“—This is a quote from the WordPress site.  And yes, the prompt truly is locked and sealed.  9:08 and still, none of us can post on the site.  At least this time they posted the topic.  I imagine by now there are at least 80 bloggers straining at the prompt, ready to spring into action to post as soon as the link works.  To the starting gate, bloggers!

10:58  133 bloggers standing in line to post…still, no link. Locked and Sealed?  Is it April 1 by any chance?

Mob Sob

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The Prompt: Moved to Tears—Do movies, songs, or other forms of artistic expression easily make you cry? Tell us about a recent tear-jerking experience!

Mob Sob

I know that it is corny—sorta sentimental
and probably some cruel folks might even call me mental,
but something about people gathering together
in protected malls or out there in the weather
to dance or sing or orchestrate, coming one-by-one
has the effect of making me come totally undone.
First a knot forms in my throat. Then I start to sigh.
And then (I must admit to you) flash mobs make me cry!

To that first person dancing or with a violin
there soon comes another, anxious to join in.
Another and another, in singles or a pair
send chills right up my spine to exit through my hair.
They dance and sing, play music and entertain us all.
We stop what we are doing as we are held in thrall.
Babes on daddy’s shoulders or holding grandpa’s hand
cease at once their walking to sit or lean or stand
to watch this little miracle that folks have orchestrated
only for the wonder of it—rare and understated.

No flyers advertise them. They seem to be spontaneous,
though months of planning go into what seems like instantaneous
gathering together to have a spot of fun
creating such a spectacle. Then suddenly, it’s done.
One by one they leave us—go into their own lives
like swarms of busy honey bees retreating to their hives.
I don’t know why they do it, who starts them all or why.
I only know that flash mobs always make me cry!

If you want to see a sterling example of what prompted this poem, please click on this link!

Casting Reality

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The Prompt: Cast Change—You’ve just been named the casting director of your favorite television show (or movie franchise). The catch: you must replace the entire cast — with your friends and family. Who gets which role?

Casting Reality

Instead of casting TV shows with folks you’ll never know
I’d rather cast my life with actors from a TV show
that all of you have seen and so you’ll understand the jokes
better than if I had cast TV with common folks.

A lot of Grandpa Walton might go into making Dad—
plus one ounce of Archie Bunker (though he wasn’t half so bad).
He was a rugged rancher and an avid storyteller.
One day he’d recite Shakespeare and the other, he would beller
a song of mountain bootleggers or “Old Chief Buffalo Nickel,”
then construct towering sandwiches and top them with a pickle.
So I’d add some Leon Redbone and a bit of old Mark Twain,
a little bit of Dagwood and a whole lot of John Wayne.

Though my mother cooked and ironed, often with no thanks,
she also was a jokester who loved to think up pranks.
Though she was often zany, she wasn’t dumb at all—
a sort of Gracie Allen all mixed up with Lucille Ball.
Add some Cagney and some Lacey and a little Nancy Drew
and of another side of her you’ll start to get a clue.
She always loved a mystery and crossword puzzles, too—
and UFO’s and Halloween—things scary as a “Boo!!!”

Stacey London is the next to join my family cast.
“What Not To Wear”—the show that she has starred in in the past.
Her role of saying “No” to this one, then a “Yes” to that,
(as in, “That one makes you skinny, but in this one you look fat!”)
was just exactly how my sister used to talk to me.
That this skirt did not go with that was plain for her to see.
As an older sister, she was free with such advice;
but often loaned me her own clothes which, I admit, was nice.

Though my oldest sister Betty’s not accustomed to go last,
she’s the one last family member that there is for me to cast.
She was my boss from my first breath, as she was then eleven.
And if she could, she’d boss me still, though I am sixty-seven.
And so I try to figure out whom she would choose to play her.
And though I’d pick Bette Midler, maybe I should Doris Day her.
She was a singer and a blonde, so guess that she will do.
And now I’ve finished casting a whole film you’ll never view!

The Collector

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The prompt: Digging Up Your Digs—500 years from now, an archaeologist accidentally stumbles on the ruins of your home, long buried underground. What will she learn about early-21st-century humans by going through (what remains of) your stuff?

The Collector

Tools, pictures, clothes, shoes,
too much food and too much booze.
Too many games and too much fun
for a house of only one.
A mystery why this big collector
didn’t have the proper vector
directing her away from things:
(potions, lotions, bracelets, rings)
directing to another track—
something that could love her back.

But, for the rest of the story about living alone, go here

Stoned!!!

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Stoned

I don’t like enclosed spaces or rooms that are too small.
Elevators? Closets? Small caves?  I hate them all.
A cellar where no air moves is a place I won’t be found,
and can’t imagine spending days low beneath the ground!
I have a fear of smothering someplace where there’s no air,
so I won’t go spelunking, even on a dare.
And though I know gold jewelry’s expensive—nothing finer,
nobody would have any if I had to be the miner
who went below the ground to try to free it from the stone;
for if left up to me, I’d simply leave that gold alone.
I’ll remain above the ground in the sunshine and the breeze—
not venturing below the ground where sometimes when I sneeze,
the earth and stones might start to move and bury me alive,
streaming down around me like hornets from a hive.
So, no matter what the riches  that down there might be found,
I’ll spend my life in penury, here—above the ground!!!

The Prompt: Nightmare Job—In honor of Labor Day in North America, tell us what’s the one job you could never imagine yourself doing.

Mirror Fearer

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The Prompt: The Mirror Crack’d—You wake up one morning to a world without mirrors. How does your life — from your everyday routines to your perception of yourself — change?

 
Mirror Fearer

Every time I walk past it, I look into the glass
and notice how my hair looks and then survey my ass.
I cannot help but look at it, every time I pass—
criticizing how I look, both fuzziness and mass.
And in my deepest feelings, despite my brains and sass,
I can’t avoid this feeling that men must find me crass.
And so I guess I really feel that it would be a gas
if you took away the mirrors from this self-critiquing lass!

On Skype (After Midnight and 3 Margaritas)

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The prompt:  Tell us about what happened the last time you were up early (or late…).

On Skype (After Midnight and 3 Margaritas)

She: maybe I need to take Frida (the Akita) to the snore doctor.
She: Perhaps she has sleep apnea. She sounds like a lion when she sleeps.
She: Have you ever heard her snore?
He: Yep.
She: Do you miss it?
He: Miss your zzzz’s
She: You miss my snores? Sweet.
She: I miss snoring for you.
He: That’s the first line of a poem.
She: I’ll write a poem starting with “I miss snoring for you,” if you will, too.
He.: I’ll try to remember to do so tomorrow.
She:
You Say You Miss My Snores

I miss snoring for you,
stepping on your shoe
when we don’t dance,
miss that glance
from your alternate self
you keep on a shelf
when you aren’t with me.
How can it be
that both of us choose
to leave our clues
in cyberspace
not face-to-face?
Alone together
with no tether,
our way
for today
perhaps forever
internetedly clever.

He: it just blows me away how you can come up with something like that, so achingly beautiful, in less than five minutes!
She: Ah. You inspire it.
He: I muse you whilst i amuse you
She: Ha. That is exactly it!
She: What you just said couldn’t have been said more succinctly or more briefly. It is the tweet
of poetry
She: sweet tweet of poetry—sweet bird of absurd

(After this, the conversation digressed.  No more shall be said.)

Update: “He” has written his version, as agreed. You can see it here.

Waiting for the Bell

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DSC07814Nine Minutes to Nine–Retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown ( 5.5 X 7 X 1.25 inches)

Waiting for the Bell

From my upstairs bedroom window, I could see it all:
who got to school early to be first for tether ball,
the teachers driving up the street, avoiding children running
some children in the sandbox, and other children sunning
stretched out on the teeter-totters, waiting for a ride—
their friend the perfect size to balance, still locked up inside
cleaning off the chalkboards and dusting the erasers
with others who’d been tardy, or perhaps desktop-defacers.

We could hear the school bell toll the warning for
just one more bite of Cream of Wheat—no time for any more.
I stood and watched as sisters sprinted out the door.
Going on without me, for I was only four.
I waited then for recess, spread out on the grass
waiting for the hours and minutes just to pass.
Through open windows, I could hear all the teacher voices
quizzing all the children and listening to their choices.

The teacher on piano, the class singing along—
long before my school days, I’d memorized each song.
At 10:15, the bell was rung and big doors thrown out wide—
one hundred children, all at once, released to the outside.
Some ran to claim the swings and slides, or lined up for the games:
choosing sides for “Send ‘Em” by calling out their names.
But the creaking of the swing chains and whoops up on the slide
could not reveal the mysteries of what was sealed inside.

Year after year I watched and listened, storing up the clues
for the day that I could put on my new school shoes.
I’d have my school bag at my side while mother curled my curls
and keep it with me as I ate my breakfast with the girls,
spooning up my Cream of Wheat but listening for the bell
that warned the time was getting short for me to run pell-mell
across the street and up the stairs in brand new skirt and blouse.
I knew which room to look for.  I could see it from my house.

And then perhaps my mom would stand under our big elm tree
and the singing that she listened for would finally include me!

 The Prompt: August Blues—As a kid, were you happy or anxious about going back to school?

Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

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Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

The perfect reply that I hadn’t yet thought of
but figured out later? I have had a lot of;
but the problem is that now they still can’t be gotten,
for though once I had them, I now have forgotten!

It’s true.  Great retorts are jewels in the crown,
but truer that one has to write them all down!
And it’s best that you write them down lickety-splickly,
for though they come slowly, they seem to go quickly!


The Prompt:  We’ve all had exchanges where we came up with the perfect reply—ten minutes too late. Tell us what it was, being sure to sign off with your grand slam unused zinger!

My Promoter

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The Prompt: You, Robot—You’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

                                                                        My Promoter

Since Ray Bradbury wrote of one in “There Will Come Soft Rains,”
the list of things robots can do seems to have made great gains.
Some are made to wash our hair. Others shave our heads.
They build our houses, clean our floors and even make our beds.
I grant that it is handy that there’s one that scoops dog poop,
and one to stop our snoring, another to cook soup.
Lonely? One shoots billiards and perhaps it lets you win;
but do not gamble with it, for I hear it cheats at gin.
It’s great that there’s a robot that lifts patients out of bed,
but since I am still mobile, I have other needs instead.
I want a robot that can read and surf the internet
to send out my submissions and to guarantee I’ll get
an agent and a publisher to dispense all my writing
and send it to reviewers so my words they would be citing!
Send it out to libraries, to Amazon and Kindles.
Keep track of my royalties so there would be no swindles.
In short, I want a robot that will publicize and fight
so all this writer has to do is write and write and write.

As far-fetched as these robots sound, they are all based on reality.  For more information, go to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30898/10-robots-very-specific-tasks