Retablo: Love Charms by Judy Dykstra-Brown
Besotten
I’m inundated with your charms and blinded by your light.
If you wished to bewitch me, I’d give in without a fight.
I’d gladly be your handmaiden if you were just to ask,
and I’d say yes to overtime if you were my task.
Prompts today are overtime, inundated, yes, bewitch and light.
Swarm
It’s the dance of the bees with drone after drone
leaving the hive and the queen on her throne.
Carlos the Bee guy seems most disconcerted,
and I wish that we had been sooner alerted.
The air’s raining bees. They are buzzing and winging
into my gazebo and soon might be stinging.
We leap from the hammock, Morrie and me.
He’s licking his nose and I’m slapping my knee.
We run for the house with one bee giving chase.
Its wings scrape my ear and my arm and my face.
We get to the house before it gets mean,
but again and again, it butts into the screen.
Honey is sweet and well worth its labors,
but creatures that make it do not make good neighbors.
When I tried to hire someone to clear off the empty lot I own next to my house, they ran into a problem—two hives of aggressive bees that made clearing the land impossible. Carlos the dreadlocked bee keeper is coming today to remove the combs of one hive that is reachable and to trap the bees to move to his own apiary, but when he came to check out the situation yesterday, the event described in the above poem occurred. He’s back today, and Morrie and I are going to stay inside!!!
Prompts today are dance, drone, raining and disconcert
This photo and all photos without attribution on this blog have been taken by me.
muhammad-rizwan-VnydpKiCDaY-unsplash Used with permission
High School Commencement, 2020 Style
Here in Coyote Valley, we’ve had a small preview
of just what can happen when the world has gone askew.
High School Graduation might have gone without a hitch.
A certain senior’s choice of clothing was the only glitch.
When he approached the platform, parents nearly had a stroke.
His classmates simply had a laugh. They all enjoyed the joke.
His Hazmat suit was timely, though his mortarboard was tilted.
It beat the valedictory speech, which was a little stilted.
Thus Billy Jenkins pulled one over getting his diploma.
First the face mask and what with the principal’s glaucoma,
he missed the fact of who he had just handed an escape
from another year as senior without the dread red tape
of actually passing history, keyboarding or biology.
English, math or woodshop, PE or sociology.
Without opening a single book, Billy counted coup.
Add this to the statistics. COVID-19 got him through.
Prompts for today are coyote, valley, graduation, stroke and preview,
Street Smarts: Flo Educates the Ivy League
Slip me a quarter, flip me a dime,
and you’ll still have your meal in the usual time.
When the diner is full due to inclement weather,
and your rowdy squad descends all together,
understand that you’ll just have to wait your fair turn
or the fries will be soggy and the hamburgers burn.
I have a hunch you’re an ivy league boy—
a chip off the old block, your mom’s pride and joy,
but when you come slumming to this side of town,
it’s best that you play your fancy side down.
We don’t cotton to folks who think they’re our betters
or cater to jocks with their varsity letters.
Some day you’ll no doubt be someone of renown
with your designer suits or your medical gown,
but for now you’re a kid sitting there on a stool—
a self-declared prince with no country to rule.
So shut your damn mouth. Move to that empty table,
and you’ll have your burgers as soon as I’m able.
Prompts today are quarter, understand, squad, hunch and street.
Ph
Photo by Ryan O’Niel on Unsplash. Used with permission
The Banker, the Doctor, the Rabbi, the Priest
The banker, the doctor, the rabbi, the priest
used to jam back back in high school and never ceased.
They’ve been meeting on Saturday nights all their lives
leaving their girlfriends and bishops and wives
to drink beer and rap and have deep discussion
about riffs and choruses, notes and percussion.
The priest is the drummer. He wields a wild stick.
The rabbi’s a string guy. The cello’s his schtick.
The banker plays sax and the doctor’s on keys,
but they’re all pretty good at shooting the breeze.
It’s as hot as a sauna and still they play on.
All through the night and into the dawn.
the priest squeegees his glasses off with his left thumb
while his right is engaged in beating the drum.
He’s a stickler for rhythm, enthralled with the beat.
He stirs a small zephyr while stomping his feet.
When they’ll stop playing is anyone’s guess.
It’s obvious they overlook my duress.
They’ve had a good jam. A most excellent session,
but the priest better scoot or he’ll miss my confession!
Prompts for today are stickler, squeegee, zephyr, enthrall and guess.
sees freeze geeze he’s jees knees please sneeze queeze squeeze tease wheeze
Empty Datebook
Another lonely Saturday. The singles are all vexed—
a world of restless wallflowers, feeling they’re surely hexed.
If I may be candid, Corona’s not at fault.
You’re not some precious treasure, sealed up in a vault.
If we did our homework, we’d know the truth of it.
You didn’t have that many dates before the virus hit!
Prompts today are Saturday, Candid, Lonely, Vex and Homework.
Kissing Lessons
How you structure your kisses is boringly normal.
Your lips are too tight and your stance is too formal.
Your lips are all dry and your beard like a cactus.
If you’d like to get anywhere, you’d better practice.
In girl’s locker room buzz, I’ve heard it expressed
you’re least likely to see any female undressed.
You’ve been tagged a poor lover—unexpressive and rigid.
If you were a woman, they’d label you frigid.
The shower wall validates you’re a cold fish,
but perhaps I could help you with this if you wish.
A night on the town with a few margaritas,
watching the tango moves of senoritas.
Then a few shooters and you will be ready
to learn how to render your “kissee” unsteady.
Untense your lip muscles. Relax each shoulder.
As you relax more, your kiss will grow bolder.
Look into her eyes when you are not kissing.
Give her time to regret what she has been missing.
If your kiss seems successful, go up one more rung
and carefully dare to try out some tongue.
No slurping and sucking. She isn’t a sucker.
Try to instill some class in your pucker.
Be soft and be hard, alternating the two,
and you won’t need me to tell you how to woo!
Prompts for today are normal, express, tagged, validate and structure.
Morrie
He displays such fierce bravado, barking at the man
who dares to try approach me. He’ll bite him if he can.
If he does not get his nuance, perhaps he’ll get his grasping.
If he can’t heed the exposed teeth, perhaps he’ll get their clasping.
If that human could but read the globes of Morrie’s widening eyes,
he’d need no communication in any other guise
from this dog that has decided he is his only rival
for his mistress’s affection. Every time, there’s a revival
of his barking and his lunging should this man dare approach me.
It’s as though he fears he’s coming with intentions to come poach me.
With everybody else, he is a charmer through-and-through.
He cannot wait to make a friend of anyone who’s new.
His emotions are a crazy-quilt of trying hard to please—
of greeting you with ball in mouth and jumping at your knees.
He cannot wait for you to sit to jump up on your lap
and insists on long ear rubbings before he takes a nap.
He’s every visitor’s best friend. Greets strangers on the beach,
and will bring a ball to anyone he finds who’s within reach.
Never will he wear out when chasing after balls.
He goes to bed when I demand and answers all my calls.
But why he feels my gardener of nineteen years duration
is a threat to me, and such a threatening aberration
that he flies to my defense whenever he is near,
is a mystery that I’ve not solved, and never will, I fear.
Prompt words today are bravado, globe, quilt, nuance and grasping.
Tableau
She found him obnoxious, he found her inane.
Their thirty-day marriage, suddenly insane.
Both were fatigued by exhausting routine.
The breakfast, the paper, the washing machine.
A giant moth fluttered, beating the screen
and the window glass— imprisoned between.
The cryptic message it beat with its wings
sang of detachment and other sad things.
Both heard its struggles and both moved to free
anxious to end at least one tragedy.
Her hand touched the clasp and his moved the screen.
The moth vanished into the fresh morning green.
A brush of his knuckles on the hair of her arm,
his gentle reminder that he’d meant no harm.
Her turning toward him, a touch and a kiss.
Their world straightened out with nothing remiss.
A silent tableau—solution with no words.
A moth soaring free. A chorus of birds.
Word prompts today are flutter, screen, obnoxious, cryptic and routine.
Empty Spaces
The world has stilled its hectic pace, although its clocks tick on.
We stand at windows peering out, imagining what’s gone.
Rapid passings night and day, our reachings and attainings
have made way for the meantime to leave us our remainings.
There is a little secret the Swiss learned long ago
that has to do with leaving space—the worth of going slow.
Their cheese that is the richest is full of empty spaces—
its flavor made the tangier by what nature erases.
The holes are not just emptiness, for factors that have made them
create a richer cheese than the cheeses that evade them.
The blocks with larger spaces have a better taste.
In short, the empty room they leave is anything but waste.
Perhaps it is the same with the new spaces in our lives.
Perhaps the empty spaces are where the meaning thrives.
Prompts today are Swiss, hectic, attain, secret and clock. Image by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash. Used with permission.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 