Tag Archives: RDP

The Church of Zeke

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jdb photo

The Church of Zeke

Zeke was a very handsome man, well-schooled in vendition,
yet some said his lifestyle had him headed for perdition.
When others went to church, he said he preferred to go fishin’,
He couldn’t stand the piety or the erudition.

He wasn’t their sort of spiritual. When they made a tape
of the preacher’s sermon, he made a grand escape.
Even taped religion to him was not a treat.
When told to go down on his knees, he remained on his feet.

When grilled on his decision, he’d been known to just repeat
that when he kicked the bucket, he’d rather face the heat
than listen to those preacher boys with their great oration
the subject of which, without fail, was his own damnation.

He fed the poor. He did not judge men by their lifestyle or their race.
What he said to others he repeated to your face.
Helpful to his neighbors and faithful to his wife,
he did no ill to others for his entire life.

All of his religion was garnered by his doing—
his piety in action—not in listening or viewing.
And when he faced the pearly gates, they welcomed him right in.
It seems the key to heaven is not talking about sin,

but how you treat the needy and your actions toward others.
Do you accept all people as sisters and as brothers
no matter what their skin color or sexual decision?
Do you face even “different” folks without scorn or derision?

Picking up a prayer book and sitting in a pew
is not retribution for what you say and do.
What you state in piety, others are out doing—
preferring to dish out the fat that you are only chewing!!

They carved on his tombstone what his whole life he’d been saying.
“What others only talked about in sermons and in praying,
he put to practice in his life by not judging his brother
 and not letting his actions be dictated by another!”

 

photo of fisherman by Chris Sarsgard on Unsplash. Used with permissionjdb photo


Not an indictment against religion by any means. Just a reply to those who claim piety but seem not to understand the words they read and preach by putting them into action.

“Actions speak louder than words.”

“Suffer the little children to come on to me.”

. . . . Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

James 2;1-4 KJV:  My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel,and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?

Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.

Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you. shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

And, my friend Christine Goodnough, after reading this piece, added this scripture:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8

Prompt words today are spiritual, tape, handsome, vendition and treat.

Christmas below the Tropic of Cancer

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Christmas below the Tropic of Cancer

Those venerable among us have long since passed away,
so we’ll make do with newer friends on this Christmas day.
We will light our candles and cook the spiral ham.
Eat the sugar cookies filled with nuts and jam.
We’ll enjoy the babble around the Christmas table
and squeeze another helping of pie in if we’re able.
The sounds and tastes of Christmas are fraught with memories—
with bubble lights upon the tree and packages to squeeze,
but the nice thing about memories is that we keep on making them,
for supplementing memories does not mean we’re forsaking them!

 

Prompt words for the day are candle, fraught, babble, venerable and sound.

“A” List Groupie

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Image by Clint Patterson on unsplash. Used with permission.

“A” List Groupie

I don’t need to pay cover. I came with the band.
See the bracelet I’m wearing? The stamp on my hand?
I can come, I can go wherever I please.
I’m the favorite of all—the lead singer’s main squeeze.
Don’t gauge my importance by my appearance.
I’m a V.I.P. I have backstage clearance!
My jeans may be ripped, but I have tons of dough.
I pay my own way wherever I go.
The band extols my virtues. They know I’m no skag.
I may look like a groupie, but I drive a jag!!!

Prompt words today are band, go, gauge, extol and ton.

Knowledge by Committee

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Image by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash, Used with permission.

Knowledge by Committee

Any person worth their mettle
would not deign to ever settle
for any type of education
that offered no irradiation

of the true facts of subsistence,
even though at the insistence
of the elected powers that be
to hide the facts of history

and science and of common sense
in order to make kids more dense
to matters of ecology
and climate change and chemistry.

Minds should be buoyant and not settle
on myths of village or of shtetl
in place of those proven by science.
Minds can’t be shackled by compliance

to nonsense garnered from the dockets
of men who seek to line their pockets—
carpetbaggers and buffoons 
who spout untruths and whistle tunes

taught to them by corporations
who feed them piecemeal their orations
that they’re doing for our good
those things in fact which place a hood

over our heads to hide the truth.
When government has grown uncouth,
what’s left except to rail and shout
that we must throw the traitors out!

 

Prompt words today are buoyant, settle, irradiate and tune.

Christmas in a Modern Age

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Christmas in a Modern Age

All around the town and all around the parish,
folks put up decorations wherein they laud and cherish
the Christ child and his mother and his holy birth
then put up lights and tinsel to show the joy and mirth
with which they remember all he represents,
and then they go a-caroling, these ladies and these gents,
overlooking other pilgrims in their present.
Dealing with such immigrants in real time is not pleasant.
They’d slam the door and relegate them to their horrid fate,
for generosity and charity is not the mode of late.
Religion is much easier when practiced from afar,
so those in need of shelter will not find our doors ajar.

 

The prompts today are joy, tinsel and cherish.

House Fairies?

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Book Fairy

House Fairies?

The back door came unhinged in the hovel she lived in.
so when she got back home from wherever she had been,
there had been a kind intruder who sparkled up the place.
Tidied up the dishes and polished up its face.
Brightened up the house by cleaning all the glass—
giving the mirrors and windows more than just a pass.
Plumped up all the sofa cushions, scrubbed down all the floors.
Polished all the bathroom fixtures, fixed all of the doors.
Grime and dust and smudges that had grown over the years
were abolished in one massive cleaning in arrears.
Who the house fairy might have been, she never quite determined,
but her house was clean and glowing, its corners all de-vermined.
At first she was in shock and astonished at the brass
of the home invasion, but then it came to pass
that she kind of liked the order, the cleanliness and polish.
She wondered who it was who might have come in to abolish
all of her disorder, her smudginess and mess,
replacing it with all this pristine loveliness.
She never found the answer, but to encourage even more,
for the whole rest of her life, she never locked the door!!!

Prompt words today are sparkle, unhinged, hovel, brighten and year.

Cold Snap

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Cold Snap

As she awakened from her afternoon nap, she could see the glow of the lit-up dial of the alarm clock even through her closed eyelids. Everything on her body was thinning out. Her hair hung so limply that all she could do was to push it behind her ears and smooth it back from where it formed fuzzy little swirls on her forehead. Her arms sprouted an archipelago of purplish dry torn bruises—new ones every time she knocked up against a door frame or pruned the thunbergia vines. No one ever mentioned these bruises, although her children were perceptive and must have noticed them on those occasions when they stopped by on their way home from work to bring her groceries or to open the damper in the chimney and check that the gas lines had not clogged up over the summer.

Today it was her son who rang her doorbell to check up on her and accept a fast cup of coffee. It was going to be a cold winter, he lectured, so she needed a fire. Did she want him to light it for her? No, she wasn’t cold, but she would do it herself later, she insisted.  For the hundredth time, he lectured her on being careful to make sure the pilot was working every time, then feigned interest in what sparse news she had to impart. She feared her subscription to life had expired along with most of her friends. What new did she have to say about this week’s installment of Mrs. Maisel or even the weather, now that it had turned gray and unchangeable––much like her life?

After ten minutes, he was off to children and wife and supper, and she was glad for this. She kissed him good-bye. A good boy. She had been fortunate in her life. She moved over to the fireplace. It was cold already, she thought, as she  bent over to close the damper and blow out the standing pilot light on the fireplace, then turned on the gas.

Prompt words today are dial, chimney, expired, perceptive and work.

Winona

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Winona

She was disciplined and stern,
rigid, staunch and taciturn.
Her back seemed starched, her mouth a line.
Her clothing smelled like turpentine.
Each morning she dished out our gruel,
then perch herself upon a stool
expecting that we’d finish it.
A spoonful left? She’d have a fit!

She’d stamp her foot in consternation
and deliver an oration
of how hard her life had been.
Abandoned at the age of ten,
working in a factory
not pampered like the likes of me!
And so I’d spoon the gruel up,
or sneak it to my hungry pup,

leave the kitchen and escape
to hall or street or fire escape.
Every yule time was the same
when my Aunt Winona came
to visit us. “She’ll soon be gone,”
my mother told us. “Just play along.”
And so we did, all grateful for
the day that she walked out the door!

Prompt words today are taciturn, expect, yule, duration and stamp.

Macho

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DSC08411Mixed Media Retablo  “Macho” by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Macho

That stern detective, hewn from stone,
is a kid when he’s alone.
Looks at cartoons, lives on snacks—
bubble gum and Cracker Jacks.

Just goes to show you cannot tell
what delusions you must dispel
to find the truth of those you know.
You must look at what’s below.

 

Prompts today are hewn, detective, jack and snack.

Dream’abort’ Annie!

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Mexico, 2002.Annie, my second kitten adopted in Mexico, in her favorite place. She was adopted a year or so after after Talulah, whom I had found in a basket of scarves in a shop in Tonala that she had streaked into a minute before I walked in. The owner, whose daughter was allergic, begged me to adopted her and guess what?

Annie as a kitten and almost 19 years later. Seems impossible. The second two photos are of the day the kittens arrived and I found Kukla on the wall in a standoff with Annie, whose meal they were eating! Fiesty little thing. (Photos will enlarge if you click on them.)

Dream’abort’ Annie

Two A.M. and four A.M., six A.M. and eight.
My nineteen-year-old cat is such a reprobate.
She awakens me with yowling to be fed again
or simply for a rubbing over ears and under chin.

My night’s full of awakenings, my days are somewhat muddled.
I try to block the sound of her. I’m bleary and befuddled.
I’m sleep-deprived, exhausted, and yet she is so old,
how can I consign her to the night air and the cold?

I awake at 5 a.m. with no bleats for attention—
that every-other-hour irritating cause of tension.
And yet what mixed emotions this five-hour rest has brought.
Finally, a full-night’s sleep, but Annie I have not!

I knock upon the closet doors, follow every lead.
I mix up her favorite cat foods, but she does not heed
all these invitations—the water and the calls—
the peering under beds, searching the bathrooms and the halls.

I look behind each open door, behind the stereo—
so many hidden spaces where a cat can go.
The old cat’s turned up missing? It’s an oxymoron that
nonetheless is true when applied to my gray cat.

You may find it silly, putting up with such a cat
once so wild and kittenish, so active and so fat.
An outside cat who never deigned to come inside,
Annie chose walls and bushes as places to abide.

Every year she grew more wild and more free,
making an appearance on demand for only me.
Twice a day for meals, she would jump up on the wall
In between, she vanished—not visible at all.

Two years ago, four kittens abandoned at my door
meant that she just left for good, and I saw her no more.
One month later, she returned, hip shattered, skin and bone.
with stomach and liver problems, she was Annie’s ruined clone.

When the vet said nothing could be done, she came to live inside.
I thought, to make her comfortable there until she died,
but two years later, she rules the house and she won’t abide
any other lesser cat to be found inside.

She eats small portions all day long and though she’s lean and spare,
it seems she’s come into her own in my cozy lair.
The problem is, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since then.
For all the constant roarings that disturb the old cat’s den.

If it isn’t food she wants, it seems it is a rub,
or for me to clean her litterbox that’s found inside my tub
that I haven’t used for the two years she’s been here.
I use the guest room shower in lieu of one that’s near.

Sure that she’s died in some dark corner that I cannot see,
I move aside the furniture. I peer on bended knee
beneath the beds. I search each room with a fine-toothed-comb,
but no evidence of her is left within my home.

I’ve thought so often how much easier that it would be
if she would slip away one night and leave her master free.
What a lovely gift it would be for her to give me,
for often I have thought that probably she would outlive me!

The house seems oddly empty. By her water dish, her meal
left uneaten these long hours has started to congeal.
Her gray hairs left upon the rug where she liked to sleep.
Although I’ve loved her absence, it’s true that now I weep.

When the other cats give voice and I decide to heed them,
I get an extra surprise as I go outside to feed them.
When I open up the door, Annie scoots right in,
dashing from the overgrown foliage where she’s been.

Thus ends her great adventure and ends my great travail.
As I sit here writing, I can hear her latest wail.
I guess we’re back to where we were. Annie’s on my lap,
and as long as she is quiet, guess I’ll take a little nap.

 

“Heading out this morning, into the sun
Riding on the diamond waves, little darlin’ one
Warm wind caress her, her lover it seems
Oh Annie, dreamboat Annie, little ship of dreams
Oh Annie, dreamboat Annie, little ship of dreams
Going down the city sidewalk, alone in the crowd
No one knows the lonely one whose head’s in the clouds
Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles
Heading out to somewhere, won’t be back for a while”

Prompts today are mix, follow, knock, silly and solicitude.