Bad Sport
I don’t do sports, nor watch them, either.
A one block jog? I’d need a breather.
At volleyball, I don’t excel.
Touch football is a sort of hell.
For passing time, by hook or crook,
Jog on alone. I’ll read a book!!!
The Stream of Consciousness Prompt for Oct 18 is “Hook.”
Photo by Ryan O’Niel on Unsplash. Used with permission
Stickler
The banker, the doctor, the rabbi, the priest
used to jam 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!
The prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is Stickler.
Vanished
The fresh bookstore smell of them,
bending the pages to crack the spine,
notes scribbled in the margins,
underlines,
hearts with initials on the flyleaf,
something to loan or to wrap for a gift,
something propped up on the bathtub edge,
its paper sprinkled with drops–
pages wrinkled into a Braille memory–
that rainstorm run through,
how he put it in his back pocket.
Poetry touched by fingers.
Single words met by lips.
Words pored over by candlelight or flashlight
in a sleeping bag or in a hut with no electricity.
Books pushed into backpacks
and under table legs for leveling.
Paper that soaked up
the oil from fingers
of the reader
consuming popcorn
or chocolate chip cookies
in lieu of the romance on the pages—
finger food served with brain food.
Passions wrapped in paper and ink—
the allure of a book and the tactile comfort.
The soul of a book you could touch, fold, bend.
Books are the gravestones of trees
but also the journals of our hearts.
Cities of words,
boards and bricks of letters,
insulated by hard covers or the curling skins
of paperbacks.
Something solid to transfer the dreams
of one person to another in a concrete telepathy
of fingers and eyes.
Books are the roads we build between us,
solid and substantial–
their paper the roadbed,
the words the center lines directing us.
What will fill the bookcases of a modern world?
Google replacing dictionaries,
Wikipedia already an invisible bank of Encyclopaedias Britannica.
What will we use our boards and bricks for,
if not to hold up whole tenements of books?
How will we furnish our walls?
What will boys carry to school for girls?
What will we balance on heads
to practice walking with perfect posture?
What will we throw in the direction of the horrible pun?
Will there be graveyards for books, or cities built of them?
Quaint materials for easy chairs or headboards for beds?
Will we hollow them out for cigar boxes
or grind them up for packing material?
Where do books belong in the era of Kindle and Audible?
These dinosaurs that soon will not produce more eggs.
Perhaps they’ll grow as precious as antiques.
Perhaps the grandchildren of our grandchildren
will ponder how to open them. Will wonder at their quaintness,
collecting them like mustache cups or carnival glass,
wondering about the use of them—as unfathomable as hieroglyphics.
That last book closing its pages–one more obsolete mystery
fueling the curiosity of a bygone era that has vanished
into a wireless universe.
For Stream of Consciousness Saturday Prompt: i before e.
Directionless
I’m shipping out for northern climes, not knowing what to pack.
Am I leaving here for good or am I coming back?
One thing pulls me northwards and another bids me stay.
I really do not know what I desire from day to day.
Some call me indecisive while others call me weak
just because I do not know what it is I seek.
I need someone to point me in the right direction
since I seem unable to make my own selection.
Crabs!!
A consortium of crabs can be an itchy deal.
Not the sort of gathering that one wants to feel.
Perhaps out on the beach it’s easier to bear,
but crabs should never gather in anybody’s hair!
Yolanda tells me that when Yoli goes to school, they have to be sure to wind her hair up and put it on top of her head as there are people who steal the hair of children and women with long hair to sell it for wigs. Some world.
For Stream of Consciousness Saturday: Itch
Mama Milk My Goat
Whenever anyone in my family was feeling sorry for herself or himself and expressing it to a point where it was noticeable, another member of the family could be counted upon to use the family saying for such occasions, “Well, Mama milk my goat,” and if the person’s nose wasn’t too far out of joint, they might snap out of it. Or, alternatively, stalk away to seclusion where they could fully feel the full extent of their misery without anyone trying to dissuade them from it. Why did we say this? Because my mother had told us all that it was what my grandmother, her mother-in-law, used to say.
My grandmother, a master at martyrdom, used to say it with a small uptake of breath, in a trembling voice. I can remember hearing her do so, although it may be that sort of childhood memory that grows out of a family tale being told again and again. Needless to say, I had no reason to question its frequent usage until I got to college and again and again was met by a blank look when I issued the rejoinder. Finally, when I reported this strange fact to my folks over the dinner table during a trip home, my dad got a twinkle in his eye and confessed.
What my grandmother, who was Dutch, actually used to mutter when when she was feeling sorry for herself was, “Mama Miet mi Dote!” (Mama might be dead.) Only my mother (her daughter-in-law), who didn’t understand Dutch, thought she was saying “Mama Milk My Goat.” My dad thought this was funny so never told us differently. So even now, “Mama milk my goat,” is occasionally what I say to anyone who is playing the martyr, and if they have any curiosity at all and ask me why, I tell them this story.
Note: For those of you who speak Dutch, I know that “Mama miet mi dote” is not how “Mama might be dead” translates into Dutch. Might might be “machen” and dead might be “dood,” but the whole phrase doesn’t translate into “Mama “machen mi dood,” either. Perhaps it was Frisian, which is where both my grandfather was from and where my grandmother’s family was from originally, or a local dialect or perhaps my ear heard the words differently, or perhaps it is just one of those family stories half legend, half fact. At any rate, if you speak more Dutch that I do, I am more than willing to be informed about what it was my grandma really said. (I only know the alphabet, taught to me by my grandma, and “Mama miet mi dote!”)
(The photo, by the way, is of my mother as a little girl with her sister Edith standing behind her. Just a coincidence that it includes a goat to illustrate my oft-told tale with!)
For Linda’s Friday Reminder prompt we were to tell an oft-repeated story.
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.”
This is a blog I made 8 years ago but it seems so appropriate that I’m repeating it for the Stream of Consciousness prompt “Tune.” Click on the blue links to hear the song that goes with each day’s activity. Have fun.
Change of Tune
Tuesday: I met old friends Jim and Ellen (who moved away a year ago) at Adelita’s for ribs and a year’s worth of talk.
Wednesday: I finally met up with the Mac computer repair guy who comes from Guadalajara to pick up sick Macs for repair. I have my fingers crossed that they’ll be able to save the Mac Air I spilled a full Coke on. Later, I made it to my “Not Yet Dead Poets” meeting.
Thursday: It was a “gas” when my stove broke and I couldn’t get the pilot light clicker to go off. The repairman had just been here, but I couldn’t find his number and panicked until eventually it just wore itself out. Still, please don’t use that back left burner. Now it sets off the clicker on the burner in front of it!! I certainly hope nothing bad happens.
An additional thrill for the day that many of you made your own was “The Thing“ that appeared on my garden wall.
Friday: I met my friends Betty, Liz and Larry at Viva Mexico for one of their enchiladas and a naughty tiramisu and one of their killer margaritas. Later, I felt . . .
Saturday: It’s been so long since I’ve seen my friend Audrey, but we spent a few hours at the new quirky cafe named Chillin’ and talked about planning a summer camp for kids in San Juan Cosala and Chapala.
The highlight of the week, of course, was the revelation of just exactly what “The Thing” was. Laura M. beat out a few close contenders for the prize by naming my newest addition to my home the “Lurkin’ Merkin.” Go HERE to see “The Thing” post. And HERE is the tune that goes with it!
And that, my friends, concludes my week in song. Please hit the links to hear the music. —Judy
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 