Previous sorrow
today’s bloom
Parting gift
the way you saw me
I’ve tried to find
someone else to see it
No one else has
I saw it for the moment
that it flickered in your eyes
You left me
still holding what I am
because of you.
The wind chime was complaining of being battered by its partner
The air didn’t mean to be so mean
Something stronger was provoking
such violent movement
Pressure from above
divinely scheduled
or did man
More usual that it was soft, almost soothing in its
less than metered choreography
In the wake of its chaos the wind was felling leaves too
perfect timing
There was no complaining coming from grubs
on the ground
except for where humans did use their violence to rake them
from where they should have fallen
Can all mammals choose to hold their breath
while under water
Nature selects
Nature meant for caterpillars to have their leaves
Leave the leaves alone humans who can hold their breath
as they please
under water
unless someone else is holding them down.
Darkness falls
leaves fall
it’s fall
It’s almost Halloween
All Hallows Eve
the language of symbols to express the inexpressible
did you pray beside a beloved’s grave
Samhain
are they liberated
Innocent kids play
it should now be free of speculation
or suspicion
It’s just dress up
Grownups need to grow up
Don’t you think
it’s time for grownups to grow up
and quit pushing an agenda
on the Innocents?
The little boy was crying as he walked in front of his mother out of the food joint. She shoved him in his back with her knee. Highly overweight and loaded with a high pile of more food in her arms she shouted, “Move!!!” He kept crying while stumbling forward. She shoved him again with her knee so she could keep balancing the food and her phone. The grandmother yanked him up and struck him on his shoulder with her fist, “Shut up, she murmured.” Did she notice that I was watching, disgusted?
Didn’t they have any empathy for a little soldier crying? Was he tired? Had he eaten bad food or was he being bad? Maybe he was hungry. What can possibly be so bad when someone so little is less than two? Did any of it merit a shove and a punch from a so-called loved one?
I hate people more often than not and it’s why I stay so isolated because there is nothing I can do but watch in horror — and I don’t want to watch it and it’s everywhere I go, so I stay home, for the most part, so that I can live in a little bubble where everything is precious.
The one time I stopped to explain that the black asphalt was blistering her puppy’s feet while she was flirting, I got blasted for being nosy.
Why have a puppy or a child if there is no time for trouble? Stuff your face. Bury your head in your dysfunction – your plate filled with dead animals you didn’t think of either. Some good looking guy to notice how good looking you are strutting across the car park with your thin self and your little hybrid puppy and then stop to let him compliment you for awhile while your little hybrid puppy’s feet burn.
Yes, I’m judgmental – but I will keep it to myself except for here where I am talking to myself.
Dogs as props, babies too. What a shame.
It was just Monday and now it’s Sunday. Tomorrow it will be Monday again.
Whirling fast the days go by and leave dust in the cracks time leaves on its track.
If it weren’t for things to hold on to, it might be impossible to remember.
How important is it to remember?
Marie Kondo doesn’t seem to hold it in very high esteem or is she just minimalistically selective.
I was just ordering rooms to be more what they need to be and going through some bits and bobs and ran into a tiny brass safety pin.
They don’t make them like that anymore.
It might just be a museum piece.
It wouldn’t take much space in a landfill but millions of them might make an overwhelming anthill.
There are billions of us now and if every single one of us had a tiny brass safety pin and threw in the pit, how big would the pit have to be?
Who knows?
Does anybody?
Is there a scientist working on the problem?
I’m glad that I kept that safety pin. It will come in handy to keep Barbie’s dress closed while I look for hooks and eyes
or snaps.
I know they’re around here somewhere.
I push you away, you drag me back — we never fight
I can’t seem to do without you
It’s debatable whether you’re worth it
but you’re worth it to me
Rich, brown, strong and robust
nothing added — barefoot coffee
I just love you
exactly the way you are
I hope you’ll love me back
good morning glory and here and there
in our days together
all day through
here’s my ode to coffee
Whether you are good or bad
I can’t help but love you
It must be nice to wake up and know that there is someone still in the bed that will wake up soon too and you will have a daytime friend. Just them lying in the warm covers still sleeping is enough for company. I’ve never known that as a consistent occurrence but I have an imagination — it’s happened a little enough to know and remember.
It must be horrible to wake up knowing that fighting will ensue and go on instead of play and that the lying there together was, all night troubled. That hasn’t ever happen even a little but I can imagine and it seems that it would break a soul. There has been tension but it was sweet because of love and not unsavory or maybe I’ve forgotten.
Dogs can move out lonely. Cats too. They usually wake up first though and require playing sooner than later and sleeping in becomes rather out of the question. But they often go back to sleeping and lying there reminding you of a friend to play with later and because they don’t speak the exact same language — it’s hard to know if they’re saying something incongruent.
The steadfast place of trees and plants with critters in their midst is not a substitute but can be some to complete empty spots with color and fragrance that allow forgetting holes were made that still might need a little mending. They die too or get disease and need more care but they can’t take up roots and leave. They honor their commitment never flinching.
Who flinched. More often than not, both did. Humans have a way of having trouble staying or if they stay, not cheating — somehow. Selfish little brats we all are — wanting everything we want. And it isn’t a matter of not speaking the same language — or is it.
The cat’s crying and meandering around consistently meowing like I should just know exactly what he is saying and I want him to quit it or learn my language. I want. Selfish little brat me. He has some need he’s trying to express and I’m busy. It’s my way or the highway except that cats don’t allow for that.
Now I see three little birds on the rim of a glass dish taking turns dipping but apparently there is too little water in it so I must quit this and go out and fill it for them. I filled three dishes just in case they each want one or so that there will be plenty for others but they aren’t selfish — they were happy taking turns. I filled all the water features everywhere. The birds fill holes too like cats and dogs but cats and dogs are softer and fit better in arms and mold to the arms that hold them. Birds don’t seem to like to do that. But they sing pretty and fly around so nicely.
Now the big stray cat is waiting at the bowl just filled with water. I suppose he wants the birds back and a little snack. I always find it hard to reason how any bird gets caught — they fly — cats can’t fly.
It’s another day to get things done and there is no one that might want things to go a different way or play. The march is on but it’s like playing all alone as I have always known just as well as others have known how nice it must be to wake up with someone still in the bed sleeping.
https://www.gruffalo.com/world-of/books/julia-and-axel-s-books/room-on-the-broom-paperback
Is writing philosophy
Thoughts congeal and eek out for better understanding
of this or that or somewhere in between
What does everything mean
Is a billion dollars worth a life spent playing concerts
the same songs over and over and living among all the lonely beautiful people
leaving all the lonely lesser we’re not beautiful ones
clamoring for a touch
or left with tears
Is it their own fault
What is want
What is enough
Enough is enough except
enough is never enough
Congratulations
We sincerely wish you the best
Justin’s married now
without a prenup
He’s one of the talented beautiful people
millions more are hiding in the shadow of his spotlight
He never hunted bottles to ever know what hunting is
He has a lot for more tattoos
champagne and rolled-up notes
How ’bout a Judith Leiber cupcake for your little cupcake
Who’s to blame you if you have enough
Who put the crystals on
that’s all you need to ask
to answer yes or no
Can giving make up for poverty
Did your charity break you
or is it just a write-off
did you steal it from them
before giving a little crumb back
Who measures all the wanting
Who says “enough”
Dream big or small but don’t let your dream go by you
or rob another
in their silent begging for enough
Everyone is among the beautiful people
and cupcake bags are all sold out
If you should ever want one
maybe Kim would let hers go.
It was a nickel for milk and I remember our mother struggling to find three of them for us to take to school for when lunch time came. Now I just hope they have nut milks for the children.
We hunted bottles for deposits and were excited to get a dime to spend at the candy store. The girl up the street got a quarter handed to her from her father, who owned a furniture store. She never hunted bottles. She had lots of candy. She got very fat.
The year three new bikes were lined up under the Christmas tree, we were re-convinced Santa was real — because our parents could never have afforded three new and shinny bikes with saddle bags upon their fender racks. That was before any awareness of credit even though the from Santa tickets were really starting to look like Mom’s handwriting. We wanted to believe and she’d just tell us she was helping Santa. She liked to string us along.
Bought clothes cost a LOT, so everything was handmade — except for the girl whose father owned the furniture store who bought her clothes at the People’s Store. It turned out that she envied us. She learned to sew to try to make it up to the children she’d have later.
We rode those bikes all over the neighborhood. There was never any fear of where we’d go. I used to ride alone around a four or five mile square that lined a giant potato field and was below and in front of a hill we called a mountain and never saw a car. I don’t think I even told my mother I was going.
The thing about collecting bottles is that it requires walking or riding a bike and bending and lifting and talking to strangers and risks of looking in and under things and negotiating with the candy store owner and then feeling mighty pleased at all the hard work paying off so well for a brown paper bag full of candy.
It’s too bad that there aren’t deposits any more and there isn’t freedom for children to roam.
“Where did the socks go?” she wondered aloud as she was putting on articles of clothing that would seal the chill from stealing her heat. She had been doing a thorough going through of all her things to limit what she keeps and must have put them in a different drawer. Now to remember what logic she was using at the time.
With the sun not beating down on the house the hours it does in summer, it starts to chill and stays that way — no amount of sun seems to inch the interior temperature up one iota by this time. She might just have to have the heat pump looked at and the broken thermostat changed out so that it can be turned on for a spell to cut the chill, at least in the mornings — give the house a boost for warming up from the inside out. What she’d rather do is hire someone clever enough to build a rocket mass heater in the space where the little wood burning, useless metal box is.
Ah well. Better things to think of for this day, she thinks to herself. She’d get the space heater.
The sun is a space heater too — it heats space. “Crazy mind”, she says out loud.
Everyday there is some kind of issue to attend. Two days passed with little done other than to soothe a migraine brought on by eating food not from her own fridge — a local joint she and her friend frequent when they want a chat. She’ll have to stop doing that — not the friend, but the food. Once the body clears out toxins, it doesn’t want them back. She keeps thinking that once a week won’t hurt until directly after when the headache starts. What does it take to fully learn a thing?
It certainly doesn’t pay to get sick and the sickening process of trying to ferret out which policy to get from the gauntlet of vultures selling one of their better plans is more toxic than a veggie burrito without cheese.
“Don’t get old” she’s heard with resentment all her life — as if there is a choice. When you’re young, you don’t think much about medical plans but keep that to yourself, old people, she would think. Don’t make young people fear the future. And it doesn’t help a thing to be a pessimist. Happy thinking makes well people.
Now her thoughts go directly to wondering if the powers that be are purposely putting fear and trepidation into everyone’s lives in hopes they’ll die sooner than later and then profiting from the policies they can sell all the way the old folks go down the sick hole. That’s not happy thinking, she thinks and reminds herself that she has decided to quit thinking about what evil people do. She’ll live in her own little bubble — it’s better for her health and might afford her a better policy.
She’s feeling really happy that she has found a wonderful lady to help her navigate the gauntlet. It’s a miracle to have good people in your life and it makes all the difference in the resentment one might feel at the corruption of it all that, at least, there is someone on your side to help you find the best out of the bunch of awful things. None of them had any value that was worth their price, but better one than none it seems since the basic plan is full of donut holes.
Her goal is to find a way to avoid needing it altogether but there is always the chance and that is what insurance is, a bet against chance. After all, she did go flying lately from an accidental trip that could have broken bones.
“So, I was reading about this Medigap thing and wondering if it might be better than having Advantage?” she asked her wonderful new broker.
They got to talking about things and she was explaining to Renata that she’d like to start a brick and mortar business but what it seems is that this shit called Medicare is designed to keep people down because the minute they get one dollar out of one box, they have to start all over and try to find a different box to fit in.
“It seems that the system wants to keep people poor and fearful of starting a business.”
Renata agreed but said, “Let me tell you something. Years ago, I divorced and had two young children to raise and I didn’t have a pot to, you know what, in. I started a business and I haven’t looked back. Don’t let the system steal your dream. I don’t know what kind of business you want to start, but maybe I can help you.”
Trying to remedy her own health issues, she’s been reading lately about being your own placebo and Norman Cousins was mentioned in the book. She looked him up and it turns out that Norman cured himself of a debilitating arthritic disease of his spine by watching Marks Brothers movies and doing a lot of guttural laughing. He had been told nothing could be done, that he’d have to decide which misery he wanted to live out the short rest of his life in, lying or sitting, because his spine would fix and he decided not to buy that idea at all and thought that if his disease had been brought on by stressful thinking, it could just as likely be turned around with happiness. And it worked.
Reading along about Norman, it was also stated of the benefits of a doctor that really cares and who lets the patient have some measure of control in his own treatment and a nursing staff that is truly helpful for people to get well. Something sorely missing in our current, for-profit driven system that hardly gives a doctor time to look into his patients eyes, if he is able.
She was so grateful to know that people like Renata are still out there. People that hold your hand, metaphorically, and truly help.
“Thank you Renata. I’m so happy I found you in this big wide world of poo.”
She had to think also that happy thinking might have brought Renalda to her, that she had had the expectation that things turn out right in the end somehow.
Now to find those socks and bring the boxes of fabrics in to replace the VHS movies she just took down from the shelves in the room that she is converting into a studio in the house so she can get farther along making plans for that business in her head. The timing’s right. People are starting to leave internet shopping looking for real venues. Maybe it’s my time, that’s a happy thought she thinks, maybe that will heal whatever ails me.
Writing Spool 