Moonshadows
The moon casts silver shadows across my pebbled way.
Stones echoing the velvet recesses where they lay.
My heart follows no compass as it weaves its random path.
No drone marks its progress or charts its vagrant math.
A clipped leaf dries upon my chest where it has been thrust
and slowly, in the evening wind, turns from green to rust.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 772 the prompt words are:
velvet compass echo random rust silver shadow pebble stone drone clip dry
Sole Survivor
The colors flow early, stirring the air,
waves churning stray strands to mix in her hair.
She stands in her spot behind the large cake,
not sure if she is asleep or awake.
Sincere salutations buzz in her ears.
Until all of a sudden, the truth reappears.
She sits at her table, alone and forlorn.
on this 95th year of the day she was born.
For The Suday Whirl Wordle 771, the prompts are: waves cake strays strand churning spot buzz colors sudden flow early stirring
Me, at age 2, journeying into inner spaces.
Night for Day
Night holds me like a basket, shaping answers to my dreams
as all the truths my days have taught leak out of me in streams.
One reality of heart chanting truths that stay,
while truths of badges, guns and sirens slowly pulse away.
Our startled world thus vanishes and for some hours dies
as sleep sweeps over us and soothes day’s agonies with sighs.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle, the word prompts are: siren chanting pulse sighs night basket answers heart shape badge stay
Netherworld Chorus
Bone needles weave the cord that draws us to the underworld–
that pit of desolate terrors where sorrow is unfurled,
in pleas for absolution–– futile as they are crazed ––
expressed in screams of torment by voices that are raised
in spirals toward a populace just currently recruited
to those nether regions to which they, too, are better suited–
that temple where they’ll have, they think, leisure to simply sin
without blame or sanction, but instead, will join the din.
If my words have sparked your interest, you might come along
to furnish us a chorus for our infernal song.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 768, the words are: screams desolate they’bone sparks s voices underworld spiral current. (Illustration made with assistance from AI.)
Daily News
Voices from the underworld weave in spirals through my dreams
like a current passing through my bones, prompting silent screams
that echo through the temples of my former faith,
their desolate chambers now the home of this hopeless wraith.
Sparks of past enlightenment now simply shed sparse light
in this pit of loneliness whose shadows fade to night.
What dreams may I yet follow to light my upward path
Dispelling enough darkness to cancel out my wrath?
for the Sunday Whirl Wordle #768, the prompt words are: screams desolate temples bone sparks pit voices follow underworld spiral weave current
Successful Crossing
I crossed the wilds, my staff in hand,
the first to conquerl this wild land.
My hood in place to combat the sun,
I would not stop until I’d done
the task I’d set to cross this space
that had been the burial place
of so many, from first to last,
who had found their lot was cast
as they had tried, only to find
the task to be a hopeless grind:
trails split by crevasses deep and wide,
cliff ledges with no room to slide
back to cliff, from right to left
across the mountain’s mighty cleft.
As said before, so many failed––
died in the act, or merely bailed.
Only I succeeded, by machination
to cross in my imagination.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 767 the prompt words are: wild cross left staff last split burial grind space land room hood
Back row: Patti Dykstra Arnieri, Val Lecke Halla, Ed Jackson
Front row: Mick Penticoff, Judy Dykstra-Brown and Mick’s granddaughter Melissa
School Reunion
Wind strums the grass
around the Dakota town
where we gather under a prairie sky.
Back home again after sixty years
all the world constricted to this gymnasium––
forgotten friends are again remembered,
denied loves again brought to mind.
Folklore of the past is stirred up to reveal new truths
as facts and rumors buzz around our heads
like bees that store old stories like honey,
then lie fallow to be stirred up again in 5 years.
We leave each other again, then,
for one more time,
wondering with departing sighs
whether pleas to keep in touch
will be remembered.
For The Sunday Whirl, the prompt words are: home world denied bees pleas forgotten folklore wonder fallow sigh sky strum
I am riding home from my 2-day school reunion in South Dakota as I write this poem wherein I’ve added the restriction of making use of the twelve prompt words above. It was the best reunion ever–the 61st year after my high school graduation, but since the all-school reunions (meaning they are for every class who ever graduated from the school) for the tiny high school I attended are staged only every 5 years, it was only my 12th reunion, not all of which I’ve been able to attend. It was, however, the best one to date. (But then my sister says I say that every time.) This time there were lots of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of schoolmates who attended and it was wonderful to see these additions to their lives and continuations of their stories.
More Photos: 
Reunion Parade combined with 250 year celebration..Horsemen with flags of all 50 states. Photo by Patti Arnieri.
Whirlwind
The voicemails that the wind exhales could terrify a ghost.
Wailed as stories in the storm, they are the Devil’s post.
Scared mortals wander unaware, their journeys to begin,
Caught in the glow of lightning, they struggle and they spin.
Tossed helpless in the tempest, they must wonder why,
like the fragile lotus, flung high up in the sky,
the breath of air that gave them life is now how they will die.
been din grin kin men pin sin tin then vin win
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 765, the prompt words are: voicemails high exhale wind begin unaware scared glows ghost storm story lotus
Yikes! is that a scorpion? Actually, this is a bottle of mescal my student Eduardo gave me last year for my birthday. Inside were three giant scorpions and a coral snake. So far everyone who has visited me has given it a miss, as have I. It is rumored that a sip of it will bolster a man’s virility.
Creature Discomforts
Lest you suffer a hot foot in the darkness of the night
as you journey to the bathroom and feel a sting or bite,
best slip into your shoes first before you journey there
lest a scorpion or spider gives a wound that you can’t bear.
Then in the brightness of the day, out in the prairie grass,
God grant that you’re not bitten in the ankle or the ass
by a coral snake who wounds you and is off, then, in a shot,
leaving you with ashen face, intestines in a knot.
Wishing you were dead, perhaps, instead of in such pain
that you vow that you will never walk in waist-high grass again
lest it lead to the resurgence of encounters with that snake
who surely you could fight off with a pistol or a rake
Better that you face it in bottle of mescal
than bushwhacking through the grasslands or walking down the hall.
if only you had seen it, but now that subject’s moot.
If you ever walk this way again, you’ll bring a gun–and shoot!
The words for Sunday Whirl this week are: shot foot dark bright prairie grass hot ash dead resurgence fight god
Love Poem to Poets
Who am I to judge you as you tinker with words…
reveal their bounce and loop de loop
from Heaven to brutal Hell?
May your poetry never end,
but instead stream in strings of metaphors ,
down that track from up to down
from brain to welcoming heart,
driving the truth to every corner of the world.
For the Sunday Whirl, prompt words are: judge tinker bounce loop heaven brutal end stream string track welcome drive
And also, for dVerse Poets, because these prompt words seemed to lead me back to your prompt as well.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 