Will you forgive me if I just give a link to a poem I wrote about a clown ten years ago? HERE is the link.
For MVB-Clown
The Clown, For MVB, Feb 17, 2024
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Tag Archives: reblog of my earlier post
Mellowing with Age!!
Rushing to get ready to leave to drive to the coast, but want to post something, so HERE is a replay of a blog from long ago which makes use of the word Mellow.
The MVB prompt is mellow
Meat Market for SOCS, Nov 3, 2023
Meat Market Surprise
Her low-cut dress clearly bespoke
her dire need to meet a bloke.
When she removed her swathing cloak,
a dozen men at once awoke
from barroom reveries to choke
on swallows of their Rum and Coke
or beer or whisky. “Okeedoke!”
their eyes said, as they shared the joke.
Which one would have the night’s best poke?
One chugged his drink, as if to stoke
his courage. One more took a toke.
They circled round, craving the yoke
of one night’s spree–perhaps a soak
in penthouse hot tub most Baroque?
Then, as though wishes could invoke
more luck, a mini-skirt and toque-
clad example of fine womanfolk
appeared , more passions to provoke—
another goddess made to evoke
a duel, heart attack or stroke!
But then, alas, their bubbles broke
as she sauntered up and pulled an oak
stool to the bar and spoke.
Her voice was sultry—fire and smoke—
as she killed their dreams in one fell stroke.
“Darling,” she said to the other miss,
enfolding her in an ardent kiss.
For #SOCS: Meat (This is a reblog of a 2019 poem, but since all of my writing is stream of consciousness, I figure it meets the prompt.)
Elephants Now and Then
Here is my recent acquisition of elephants hand-crocheted by women in my village. Much as I do not need any more objects in my house, I couldn’t resist.
You can see my earlier elephants in this blog: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/12/29/two-facts-most-significant-in-considering-the-elephant/
Posted for Monday Portraits: An Elephant Aletta at Nowathome suggested this non-sponsored prompt. You can see her elephant HERE.
Kiss and Tell
“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.” – Jane Austen
Kiss and Tell
How did you make your way into my heart?
Quick, tell the answer before we next part.
Come into my comfort, then comfort me back.
The way of the pair beats the way of the pack.
Reasons are given for all that we do—
For the ways that we love and the ways that we woo.
Approving my actions in loving you is
What wins you my love and wins you this kiss.
We swear to each other that we will be true
Like all the lovers in storybooks do.
Like brides and their bridegrooms and lieges and kings,
We shall swear our obeisance and seal it with rings.
What others have done is what we will do.
Approving tradition will make one of two.
For the rest of our lives, if they revile and chide us,
Reason’s just one of the things that will guide us.
The love we keep strong will keep us together.
Come be my steed, and I’ll be thy tether.
Quick, take my hand and give me thy pledge.
How we’ll kiss in the meadow and roll in the sedge.
For dVerse Poets
This is actually a poem I wrote 8 years ago, inspired by a line of Jane Austen’s. Read the first word in each of my lines to see her line, first forward and then backwards.
and HERE is the prompt, if you’d like to kiss and tell yourself.
Six Gifts for My Sister
For his Flashback Friday post, Fandango asked us to republish a post made on this exact date in a past year. Mine is from 2014, the first year I posted a blog on that date.
The Prompt: The Language of Things—You have to write a message to someone dear to you, telling that person how much he/she means to you. However — instead of words, you can only use 5-10 objects to convey your emotions. Which objects do you choose, and what do they mean?
First of all, I have to say that this is my all-time-favorite prompt, so kudos to its creator. It is original, thought-provoking and fun.
Older sisters are our teachers, our critics, our cruelest enemies and our best friends. When we were younger, my sister was no exception. With age, however, some of these roles have fallen away. The others I often take for granted even though I know they are still there.
This year I will be, as I have been for most years in my life, far away from my four-year-older sister, Patti, for Christmas. Betty, my…
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Advice to Dorothy as She Elopes with the Tin Man
Advice to Dorothy as She Elopes with the Tin Man
I can’t fathom your reasons. Why would you settle
for an older lover who’s made out of metal?
It’s good to be flexible, but don’t you think
that this is a rather impossible link?
Your honeymoon’s bound to be rather a bust.
If you go to the beach, he is likely to rust,
or if you go skiing, his joints will freeze rigid.
It’s hard to make love to a tin man who’s frigid!
You’re young and you’re limber. Your life’s at its start.
Why pick a lover who hasn’t a heart?
Please take my advice when it comes to men:
no lions, no scarecrows, no men made of tin.
Since they brought up the subject of Alice in Wonderland, I had to publish this one again for dVerse Poets Open Link
And if you need more, here is another.: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2018/08/22/the-tin-man-talks-to-his-creator/
Give Me Blue
Give Me Blue
If it is a blue with no sadness in it:
the blue of the sky above Colima Volcano
with no other clouds in it except one puff
of earth’s hot breath becoming visible
in the cool morning air.
If it is a blue
with no middle ground of safety,
nothing that makes it ordinary.
No hue of boredom
or gray cast of age.
No tint of ever ending––
just pure blue
holding its mood in,
letting you feel however you want to feel.
The blue of glass that reflects the sky.
Iris blue and periwinkle.
Cerulean and cobalt.
If it is a blue with not a smudge of green in it,
or yellow or white or black.
Blue-blue like my sister’s daughter’s eyes
and like the color that a blueberry Popsicle
should be its blue dusted by nature
as though frosted, even in the heat of summer.
Like blue caught in icicles.
The color of a jellyfish
or Noxzema jar.
Bluebottle fly, tenacious,
only its color not annoying.
Blue as a shiver. Blue as blood. Blue as Hawaii.
Not the blue of a heart before forgetting.
Not that blue with a lot of
dullness soaked into it.
But if you have Blue as in Australia.
Blue as in a first place ribbon.
Sky blue,
true blue,
never blue.
Blue that if it’s ever had one gram of sadness in it,
doesn’t show it.
If you have that blue,
and you want to give it to me,
then, sure.
Give me blue.
I had to reblog this poem written in 2013 for RDP: Cobalt
Death Slips in Like a Slippery Eel: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 22
Death Slips in Like a Slippery Eel
We sail life on an even keel,
solving every small ordeal
until one day, it turns surreal.
Death slides in like a slippery eel,
our place in nature to firmly seal,
our invulnerability to steal.
In youth, our lives are stainless steel.
All pain is solved, our wounds all heal.
It’s true these thoughts were never real,
but still, we feel what we must feel.
Then death slips in—that slippery eel.
No second chances does it deal.
A carnival barker with his spiel,
death lures us with unfettered zeal,
to spin us on the ferris wheel—
all our accomplishments to peel
and all our woe and all our weal
to cast from us, reel after reel.
In a fate that nothing can repeal,
it’s our turn to be nature’s meal.
The surreal now becomes the real.
Joining the universe’s wheel,
the organs keen, the bells all peal
as death slides in—a slippery eel.
For NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 22 we are to write a poem that features repetition. Since that is a repeat of a NaPoWriMo prompt from 2017, I thought it was fair game for me to do a rewrite of my poem written to that prompt. Here it is, with changes. The one rhyme used throughout the poem is the first use of repetition, the slippery eel line in each stanza is the second.
“This Little Light of Mine” For Lenz Artist Challenge #176
This Little Light of Mine
I was purified each Sunday, sitting on a child-sized wooden chair, belting out “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” Sure of salvation, my only worry was whether I’d forget the Bible verse memorized by repeating it every morning and every night for the preceding week.
I was glorious holy, worrying about my dad, who put the harvest before church, trying to pray him back from a future Hell. Yes, there were happy ladies shepherding us up the back stairs from Sunday School to real church above; but there were also those who gave us brief flashes of the fires of Hell, who denied that perfect attendance bar for my Sunday School pin even when my excuse was a verified hospital stay to have my tonsils out. Muriel, the preacher’s daughter and my oldest sister’s best friend, stealing the bar to add to my Sunday School pin, anyway. Surely this member of a holy family herself validity enough to certify my perfect attendance in intention if not in fact.
Where did it go, that round white enamel pin with the surrounding gold cluster for the second year and new bar hanging down each year thereafter for perfect attendance? I wore it with such pride. Did it blow away in the tornado that lifted my parents’ roof that year long after I had left? Was it stolen in the burglary at my house where 70 rings were stolen? Did divine intervention finally lift it from my possession?
The only certainty is that this pack rat did not throw it away. I am an artist of little things, joining them together to create stories of my life, the world and thoughts above this world. They are little lights of mine shining words and memories—little song medleys that belt the lyrics as surely as that basement room of children, sure in their conviction that somewhere out there in the universe, someone or something was watching them shine.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 