Tag Archives: RDP

Comeuppance

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photo by Mari Lezhava on Unsplash, Used with permission

Comeuppance

His behavior was egregious, his actions purely shocking.
With combat boots, upon each leg he wore a nylon stocking.
Never appeared in public totally alone
lest he meet his comeuppance and be asked to atone
for all the calumnies he’d voiced upon the telephone.

Yes, a shocking gossip—slanderous at best.
A million little rumors started at his behest.
Diamonds on his fingers and slander on his tongue,
he had become a legend while he was very young.
How Cher was such a harridan and how Sonny was hung!

Needless to say, he did well there in the Hollywood scene,
his appearance so eccentric, his behavior so obscene.
Until that certain story spread both far and wide
concerning certain juicy bits where he had surely lied
that led to an untimely death—this time from suicide.

He tried his usual posturings, excuses and false proof,
but this time all his public chose to remain aloof.
They pointed at his nylons. They snickered at his boots,
speculated that his rings were diamond substitutes.
He and Donald Trump, they’d heard, were rather in cahoots.

Dropped now from the A list, he barely made the C.
Got tables near the kitchen, his meals no longer free.
His rise to fame so rapid, his fall was just as fast.
He became a pariah, a definite outcast.
Of the victims of his venom, he was the very last.

Prompts for the day are comeuppance, public, alone, egregious and legend.

 

 

A Privilege to Serve

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A Privilege to Serve

They zoom around in airplanes, looking for support
for their favorite programs, which they soundly purport
are for the good of country, homeland, liberty.
They’re all there to help us for a very cushy fee!
Feeling very saintly, they sit upright in their pews
scheming on legislation they can use to abuse
all the common citizens that are so easily led
to line their betters’ pockets while children go unfed.
In their ivory towers, how the privileged must laugh
at all the bleating sheep as they gild their golden calf!

 

In the U.S.: The top one percent of the usual income distribution holds over $25 trillion in wealth, which exceeds the wealth of the bottom 80 percent. That is more than all the goods and services produced in the U.S. economy in 2018.Jun 25, 2019

In Congress: The total wealth of all current members was at least $2.43 billion when the 115th Congress began, 20 percent more than the collective riches of the previous Congress, a significant gain during a period when both the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose slightly less than 10 percent.–David Hawkings, Feb. 27, 2018.

Prompt words today are saintly, cushy, ivory, support and airplane.

Interlopers

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Click on first photo to enlarge all.

“I don’t know that there are real ghosts and goblins, but there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids.”     —Robert Brault

Interlopers

They watch the clock, waiting for dark,
impatient for their All-souls lark.
Small ghosts and goblins screech and moan,
their ghastly act to finely hone.
“Eye of newt and toe of frog,”
Mother prompts, as off they jog—
little witches in Walmart capes
with itchy tags upon their napes.

Meanwhile, other ghastly things
soar in on brooms, flap in on wings.
They’ve found that yearly secret door
under the earth, under the floor,
and creaked it open. Joining the flood
who lust for treats, they lust for blood.
Who among us might ace the task
of sorting countenance from mask?

That little vampire, newly gone—
was his blood real or painted on?
“Double double toil and trouble,
cauldron boil and cauldron bubble.”
Were those lines recently rehearsed
or are these witches instead well-versed
in brewing up a recipe
of wing of gnat and eye of bee?

Which ghoulies real and which ones playing?
Which ones begging? Which ones preying?
What other night of any year
do we open doors, devoid of fear
for such strange beings? Who thinks of this—
Hershey’s kisses or vampire’s kiss?
A silly poem. When small ghosts boo, they
offer no real threat. Or do they?

 

IMG_8456

 

Prompts for today are the secret door, adage, screech, treat and clock. Since one of the prompt words was “adage,” rather than use the actual word in the poem, I used a quote (an adage of sorts) by Robert Brault as inspiration for this poem.

All Hallow’s Eve

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All Hallow’s Eve

The children are ebullient as Halloween grows near—
the day when even scaredy cats put away their fear
and dressed as itchy scarecrows with straw stuck in their britches,
 go to meet with zombies and ghosts and ghouls and witches.

Little tiny mummies wound up in mommy’s sheet
naively think they won’t run home at the first witch they meet.
When they knock on neighbors’ doors, it is their fondest wish
that they’ll be met at once with piles of candy in a dish.

M&M’s or Hershey bars, popcorn balls or Snickers.
When their bags get full, they stuff the pockets of their knickers.
If any folks procrastinate in answering their door,
retaliation calls for soaping windows. Maybe more.

Only Scrooges turn out lights, do not hand out treats,
and when they hear their doorbell ring, sit stubborn in their seats.
So get your candy ready, for night will soon be falling
and all your neighbors’ ghoulish kids will for sure be calling!

Prompts today are falling, procrastinate, naive, ebullient and dish.

If you’d like to see a recap of last year’s Halloween in Missouri, here ’tis. https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/10/31/happy-halloween-from-morehouse-missouri/

Feeling Poorly

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Shades of pumpkin face. What I look like!!!

I’ll do you the favor of not taking a selfie of my grotesquely swollen face. A 1 a.m. mad dash to hospital emergency last night did not seem to do anything to solve the problem so I need to be off again to try to find a solution after zero sleep last night. Poor, poor Pearl. What am I doing blogging? Just passing the hours until the lab and dentist office open up. Then another trip to a doctor to get results of blood tests. 

Feeling Poorly

The solution to my problem may be labeled as arcane,
for all attempts to solve it have been, alas, in vain.
I’ve visited three dentists but the jagged pain persists,
driven to emergency, gripping the wheel with fists
at 1 am, hoping that I’d soon be on the mend,
but alas is seems as though my pains aren’t going to end.

New antibiotics that have not as yet kicked in,
my pain pills ineffective, I cannot resort to gin.
Two teeth pulsing, face swollen from jaw to cheek to eye.
Skin pulled to the bursting point. I’m barely getting by.
With not one hour of sleep last night, I’d better catch a cab
to take me back to Ajijic for blood tests at the lab.

I’ve got to ask my dentist to try to fit me in,
but all-in-all my patience is wearing rather thin.
Once I’d grown accustomed to all my regular ills,
clear on how to treat them with my handy stash of pills,
it seems that Mother Nature is up to newer tricks.
Is messing with us humans the way she gets her kicks?

If she wants to pay us back for ills that we have done,
could she pick a guiltier target with whom to have her fun?
I’m trying to do right by her by cutting down on trash,
recycling all my plastics, my cardboard and my glass.
And I can give directions to Washington D.C.
so she can plague the guilty guys and lay off li’l ole me!

This is a poor excuse for a poem. Just can’t think of anything else at the moment as I wait for the medical world to awaken. I’ve had a miserable night.

Signs of a sad Halloween

Prompt words today are mend, regular, jagged, arcane and drive.

Blind Date

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OldPaintDuckieSoulRedBlind Date

I’m idling at the stop light, irate at the delay.
Though your chatter is innocuous, my nerves begin to fray.

As I gun the engine, the car leaps from the ground.
Is there a single subject on which you won’t expound?

Every single statement hits another nerve
as the tires chew the road up and navigate the curve.

I finally reach your neighborhood and my spirits soar.
We say good night and I am gone before you reach your door.

As blind dates go, this was the worse. For sure, there’ll be no other.
Never again will I accept a line-up by my mother!

Today’s prompts are light, irate and innocuous.

Karma

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Screen Shot 2019-10-25 at 9.22.14 AM.pngphoto by Darren Halstea, Unsplash. Used w/ permission

Karma

Can we extricate ourselves from all the evil we may we do,
or once we meet our maker will fate drop the other shoe
and will the evil we have done be visited on us?
On our journey to Nirvana, will we have missed the bus?

Will we be held accountable for all that we have done?
Once our life is over, will atonement have its fun?
Will there just be the help for us that we’ve given to others,
so our lack of mercy toward enemies and brothers
will be visited upon us, in spite of all our pleas—
past cruelties unfurled on us as we beg on our knees?

How many lifetimes will it take to extricate our being
from the fate we’ve set in motion? How long ’til we’ll be seeing
that the future ills we suffer are the ills we’ve done the world,
and in each evil act, our own future was unfurled.

Prompts this week are accountable, total, Karma, extricate and help.

Rubber Boots

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Rubber Boots

All the flowers are crying, their petals streaming drops
inherited from rivers flooding over troughs
running up above them, collecting all the streams
that run down the roof top and across the beams.

The rainfall is most copious. It kisses windowpanes
with countless fractured raindrops, each falling where it deigns.
If this were not a school day, I’d run about outside.
This staying inside looking I cannot abide.

I’d rather splash in puddles, damming off the flood
with my rubber rain boots, crushing down the mud
to form private embankments to stem the rushing tide.
What an unfair punishment, this keeping me inside.

Reading, maths and spelling cannot hold my attention,
for I have these new rubber boots I am driven to mention.
I can’t wait ’til recess so I can try them out,
for in rainy weather, splashing’s what it’s about!!!!

 

Prompts today are “a flower cried,” school, crush, copious and kiss.

Photo Credits: Red boots by Rupert Brooks , blue boots by markus Spiske, both on Unsplash, used with permission.

Indulgent Parents at the DMV

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Indulgent Parents at the DMV

You’ve studied so hard and we’re screamingly proud.
You’ve done everything perfect, for crying out loud.

You’ve conquered the manual, drive in the dark,
avoiding pedestrians. Parallel park.

You knew all the signals for stopping and turning.
Looked perfectly calm, though your stomach was churning.

It’s such a travesty  you didn’t pass.
That inspector was prejudiced, ornery and crass.

Your driving test was perfect. Almost.
Anyone could have missed seeing that post!

 

Prompts today are travesty, scream, manual, loud and almost.

Split

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P3310265 - Version 3

Split

They gather round the pool for a glass of wine—
their voices soft as butter with a continental whine.
Their conversation heady. She’s finally arrived,
running from that castoff life that she barely survived.

She changes personalities according to her whim.
She became a baroness the moment she met him.
Tonight in the wine bar, perhaps she’ll be a waif.
In such low localities, a title isn’t safe.

The fantasies of childhood have certainly paid off.
One day she is a Renoir, the next she’s a Van Gogh.
One face follows another with a costume change.
Her various identities show an extensive range.

Being so many people is her brand of fun.
You’d call her a chameleon if you knew more than one.
But she is very careful. One identity per friend.
She saves her next identity for those met round the bend.

 

Prompt words today are butter, heady, glass, pool.*This poem was not written about the girl in the photo. I love this photo I took of my niece and although I felt the image worked to illustrate the poem, it is not illustrative of her personality.