Heart’s Eye
Who can pass a bookstore door
and fail to note the vellichor
or fail to feel within their heart
the message of a piece of art?
A poignant poem or pithy quote,
well-loved and thereby learned by rote,
is a means by which we might denote
that part of us that we devote
to what we can’t repudiate—
that part of us that is a gate
to a special way of seeing—
the heart’s eye of a human being.
Word prompts for today are art, repudiate, vellichor and denote.
A Night in Shining Armor
The royal chambers were impressive, their ceilings high and vaulted,
and the king that lived within them was respected and exalted,
but he’d grown a bit too portly around his hips and bust.
To put it more politely? He was overly robust.
Only once a year was there a problem with his girth.
On the anniversary of his country’s birth
when he had to put on armor, it had become a must,
if he was to fit inside it, to be securely trussed.
Thus girded and then girdled, he was stuffed within
armor made for him before, back when he was thin!
Luckily, there was sufficient room around his face,
so, although the rest of it lacked sufficient space,
he was able to make speeches about affairs of state,
to eulogize and glorify and pontificate!
Then, after the ceremonies, feeling young and sprightly,
he visited his concubines, clad regally and tightly.
But when he tried to exit his protective crust,
he found that he’d been glued within by a seal of rust!
They tried to use a crowbar, a hammer and a chisel,
but, alas, it was a rainy day and all that drizzle
had sealed him tight within the metal of his kingly raiment,
making it a prison, not just a brief containment.
At length, they called a blacksmith who with cutting, prying, hammering,
in spite of the king’s protests, his commanding and his yammering,
removed the monarch from his shell, released him to his ardor,
none-the-worse for all those nightly visits to his larder.
The ladies took him to their beds and comforted and soothed him,
giving him that royal special care that much behooved him.
And when next year the king was placed upon his royal charger,
the armor that he wore was seen to be some sizes larger.
The invoice that the blacksmith sent for the king’s re-guising,
tactfully just charged him for adjustment and resizing,
but in fact, the artisan had made a big improvement
bound to make it easier for future royal movement
if he kept up his nightly search for items that were edible.
Cleverly, he made it out of chainmail that was spreadable!
Prompt words today are robust, invoice, sprightly and exalted. I took this photo in 1969 on an eight week driving tour of Great Britain. It was taken in the castle of Sir Walter Scott. Just this year, I bought a slide converter and converted the slides of that trip to jpegs. I hadn’t seen these photos in almost fifty years! Came in handy today.
Sunday Haven
On Sunday mornings in her pew her countenance was numinous,
her eyes benign, her serene smile was nothing short of luminous,
but by that evening, she had shifted to a mood bituminous.
Dark skies, in short. Her mood and look becoming less than cheery
as she descended into attitudes more dark and dreary—
cantankerous and woebegone, martyred, doleful, weary.
As luck would have it, those of us that she deigned to call friend
suffered through each dark spot, just praying for its end,
waiting for the skies to clear and for her mood to mend.
And sure enough, after a week of musings mired in dolor,
clouds parted and her mental weather slowly crept toward solar,
her mood-swings forming textbook illustrations of bipolar!
If only we could find a way to keep her on her perch
balanced there with hymnal on her pew of gleaming birch,
for the only time we’ve respite is the time she is in Church!
Photograph by Kelley Farrell
In the Garden of the Ice Goddess
It’s been a chilly fantasy living in your world.
In every tiny rosebud, an icycle is curled.
Though all of us are vying to try to win your favor,
every single day you require a new flavor.
When you ask us over to have a friendly dip,
we swim in your excesses and it’s an uphill trip.
With one toe in the water, you declare it to be frigid
and state the obvious now that the water has gone rigid.
You bend to lift your skirts up, revealing silver blades,
then glide most gracefully away in one of your charades.
Who can guess your motives or your next vain act?
What new futile effort do you wish us to enact?
Logic is not your forte and kindness not your thing.
You always cast asunder everything we bring.
One by one, we falter and we fall away,
knowing we too will turn to ice if we choose to stay.
Photo by Kelley Farrell. See her blog HERE. Prompt words today are chilly, swim, fantasy and vie.
Coping with the 2020’s
If These Walls Could Talk
“It’s for your own welfare that we tell you this,”
my four walls all conspired to tell me with a hiss.
Your life is but a fantasy. It’s dreams that tell the truth.
It’s daylight that echoes the things that are uncouth.
If you could but live in dreams, your life would be an idyll.
It’s living with reality that makes one suicidal.
Prompt words today are echo, welfare, fantasy and idyll. This poem was written in response to the below comment on THIS POEM made by my friend Mary Francis McNinch of the Murdo Girl blog. 
HERE is Mary’s own Talking House poem.
Playing with Matches
A family of good repute,
attractive, rich and most astute,
they were nonetheless resistant,
stubborn, pig-headed, persistent
in the planet’s sure demise.
It should have come as no surprise
when they chose to politicize,
using that influence money buys
to become candidates who chose
to rape and pillage, preen and pose
but did not care a single whit
about the planet, but ravaged it.
They paid for monetary gains
with forest fires and hurricanes.
Cared only for self-serving wealth,
forfeiting safety, and the health
of thousands who fell to the threat
of pestilence and grief and debt.
What cared they of the good of those
who didn’t sport designer clothes—
who hobnobbed with the hoi polloi
so lacking in finesse and joy?
And so politicos and cronies,
ministers and other phonies,
rap stars, lawyers, politicians
fed their spoils to the morticians.
That triangle of greed and crassness
together with the cruel vastness
of their dishonesty and greed,
like a virus commenced to breed
foment in what used to be
a bastion of democracy.
Kids in cages, plagues that flourished—
who cared if the undernourished
perished to the awful swell
so long as billionaires were well?
For four long years their riches grew,
feeding on the likes of you!
The monarch yielded royal scepter
as the inept grew still inepter,
ruling with a heedless hand
to rape the populace and land.
Until the nation finally turned
and, finally, travesty spurned,
kicked out the dolt and started to
restore order to the zoo.
Trump’s hand finally overtrumped,
his evil minions finally bumped
from positions they never mastered,
thrown on the junk heap with the bastard!
The whole world hopes we’ve finally learned
those who play with matches are burned!!!!
Sorry, but the prompt words made me create one last rant. I hope this subject is now closed! Prompt words today are triangle, planet, persistent and repute.
Last Meeting
Listen to the nightingale. Do not dispute the loon.
The truth is told by lonely things calling under the moon.
Brought to the brink, their plaintive truth we cannot impugn
as we glide to their music, out into the lagoon.
Waves form spreading circles around our small pontoon.
Internal sorrows follow them, lapping a soulful tune.
Slanted columns of moonbeams are swallowed by each dune.
Like our brief encounter, over too soon, too soon.
Prompt words are brink, column, internal and impugn. Image by Damir Spanic on Unsplash, used with permission.
1960School Reunion
I love school reunions, it goes without saying.
Rehashing our virile youth now that our hair is graying,
our stories grow much shorter as our memories are fraying.
I’ve drunk nostalgia from the cup, but now there’s no delaying.
The past is always with us, but alternatives I’m weighing.
I’ve an acumen for homecoming, but no talent for staying.
Once the bloom is off the rose, I have to be off straying.
The past is a dead horse, whereas my future self is neighing!
2016
(Click on photos to increase size and view as slides.)
If you want to know how I colorized that old black and white photo, go here: https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/colorizer
Prompts for the day are homecoming, acumen, bloom and drunk.
Sated
Flirtation is cathartic—a furbelow of life.
Though it is mainly fictitious, still it eases pain and strife.
It sets our spirits soaring and makes us feel much younger,
but takes the edge off appetites without dispelling hunger.
A nibble here, a small bite there might set our lips to smacking,
but a deeper part of us detects what might be lacking.
Caviar on toast is fine for an initial tasting,
but what we need is turkey,
crisp and golden from its basting,
but succulent inside, or a meal that fills us up
like an egg salad sandwich or pea soup in a cup.
Flirting’s great for starters, but it isn’t real.
What really solves an appetite is eating the whole meal.
Prompt words for today are soaring, cathartic, fictitious and furbelow.
Stories Told by Silence
Silence has a language unique to every ear.
Anyone can hear it if they choose to hear.
Do you listen to your silences? The various tales they tell?
I’ve listened to them my whole life. I know them very well.
Their insistent voices burrow through my thoughts,
trail their separate stories and tie them into knots.
Some seek out yarns in chaos: carnivals and bars,
rodeos and festivals, parades and speeding cars.
But there’s drama in the silence as it gathers round—
stories waiting patiently for you to hear the sound
of voices in the quiet. Hush now. Do you hear?
They’ll settle on your shoulder and whisper in your ear.
Silence owns no copyrights. It’s there for you to steal.
Unsort its separate strands and then spin them on your wheel.
The fiber of your silence can be woven into tomes.
Weave them into novels, storybooks and poems.
Stories are out there waiting. Hush and you might hear them.
Reach out and grab one for yourself when you venture near them.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 