Love’s Messenger
If you write me a love letter
with a fine point pen or better,
I do not care with what I talk.
Give me a Sharpie, lipstick, chalk.
No matter what I may use to scrawl,
it is better than no love at all!
Overheard in the Home for Retired Musicians
Though I’m stymied by your crepitus, your embouchure’s divine.
If you don’t have your own tune, would you harmonize with mine?
Your tonality is breathtaking, your rhythm right on beat.
Your syncopation’s perfect. I fear I can’t compete.
As we play, our joints keep time. My knees snap, crackle, pop.
If our music were to lead to love, you’d have to be on top!
For MVB: Heard
Holy Moly
My friend Michael and I love to issue poetry challenges to each other. We once did one on parts of the body: Knees, etc. So, when I noticed his bandaged big toe and asked if it was broken and he replied that he’d had a mole removed from it, I decided it was time for another challenge. Below is his poem and then my reply:
ODE TO A MOLE (recently removed from my toe)
Old friend, we trod the bumpy road
of ups and downs together, you and me –
I send you home with this sad ode
to join your scabby family.
You were an ugly, lumpy one
but always benign in your own way –
you did no harm to anyone,
now you’re cut off and thrown away.
Although your features did not please,
I give you this, my final thought
for one who sometimes smelt like cheese
“They also serve who only stand and wart!”
Michael Warren
This poem was written in reply to Michael’s. May he forgive me for using his personae in writing it.
Holy Moly
Oh mole that graced my biggest toe,
you had a thankless row to hoe.
I did not know your purpose there–
devoid of title and of hair.
Had I but known why you were given,
had you only come and shriven,
I might have given absolution,
reacted with less resolution
to sever our relationship
–to halt the surgeon’s unkind snip.
We have so little knowledge of
digits that fill our socks or glove.
We do not know of strange attractions
that might have influenced your actions.
Oh mole that lived beneath my knee,
my leg, my ankle and most of me––
that chose to dwell far far below,
clinging to my aging toe.
What fierce attraction brought you there
to form this most unlikely pair?
Came you from Nile or from Ganges
to wed largest of my phalanges?
How did you choose from all that were
to settle there on him or her?
(I am embarrassed here to note,
I only know my toes by rote:
big toe, second toe, middle toe, stinky,
little toe, simply known as pinky.
I do not know their names or gender,
only that they’re long and slender.)
True, I clip their nails with care––
remove the occasional long-grown hair––
but I never address my bod
lest others label me as odd.
So you must know this apology
is no means a doxology.
I do no honor to thy name.
I do not wish to spread your fame.
In short, that act would be absurd.
I simply want to say a word
explaining to you that although
your habitation of my toe
was ended by easy decision,
I felt no scorn and no derision.
I hope this ode might serve to leaven
your anger as you speed towards heaven.
I really would not like to think
that once arrived, you’d raise a stink
to blacklist my immortal soul
by making a mountain out of a mole.
–Judy Dykstra-Brown
Gregarious
That Gregory was gregarious
wasn’t a trait nefarious
but still, as he piled word on word,
his excesses seemed most absurd,
and the fact that he was wired,
meant listeners’ interest soon expired.
Thus, the faint-hearted
Soon departed
For WWP 351 the prompt was Gregarious. The answer needs to be exactly 38 words long.
The picture is used for illustrative purposes only, although it must be noted this friend loves to talk!
No one would walk away when he does so, however.
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
Sidewalks
Be it narrow, be it wide,
A sidewalk’s made for side-to-side.
Slab by slab and stone by stone,
I do not want to walk alone.
MVB’s prompt today is Sidewalk
Home Invasion
A curious wood mouse prowls the edges
of our garden’s outer hedges,
penetrates our house’s maze,
invades the kitchen and starts to graze.
Though caught within the streetlamp’s glow,
he can’t be seen as he’s below
while we’re above, still sleeping tight,
immersed in dreams that fill the night.
Crude visitor, though frail and small,
nonetheless invades the wall,
climbs up and up from floor to floor,
down the hallway, through my door.
He hears my sighs, observes my snore,
and water dripping just next door
from the faucet of the bathroom sink.
Impetuous, he goes to drink.
Down in his luck, too bad that he
knew not my dad had gone to pee,
saw the mouse and took a swat.
And now, alas, that mouse is not!
The prompt words for The Sunday Whirl today are:maze penetrates edges glow curious crude frail mouse prowl drip sighs impetuous
Yes, I took the photo and yes, I’m holding the mouse. Can’t remember where or when this was taken, but in another photo you can see my rings so I know it is me.
Blunt Cut
(A Dear John Note from Rapunzel)
If my hair is a ladder, I’m cutting each rung
and closing the window from which they are hung.
Hope you find a good job since my decision to lop
off your means of support when I cut off my mop!
For RDP: Blunt
Fire & Ice
The fatal flakes of swirling snow
covered everything below,
including picnickers too frail
to withstand the frozen gale.
Framed in words, alas, more gory
than what was the actual story,
the fading flame of their last fire
was said to be their funeral pyre.
But they who replace truth with fable
sometimes choose to turn the table,
feigning facts with spurious lies,
creating fiction in its guise.
The truth is that the icy glaze
that covered lovers was just a phase,
for just before it was too late,
they hopped aboard a passing freight,
then jumped off at a neighboring town
where they flagged a taxi down.
Those bodies reduced to mere ember
scattered under snow-decked timber
were not human, but slabs of veal
placed in the fire form their meal.
But since such legends are mostly truthless,
they fabricate details more ruthless.
And that is why, finding the fire,
they named that hollow “The Lovers’ Pyre.”
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 636 the word prompts are: fatal flakes frame phase feign fable fame favor freight flame frail fade
Seesaw
When folks tell me to just do it,
my first thought is to eschew it.
And though I may change my mind,
I’m really not the doing kind.
On the other hand, if you
reveal something you’re going to do—
something of the crazy kind—
I might see fit to change my mind!
For Stream Of Consciousness Saturday, Jan 6, 2024 the prompt is “just do it.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
