Snaking a toilet
Unclogging the “snot” makes everything flush much faster
Cheap plastic poncho
Soggy pages will eventually dry into memories never forgotten
Psychotic black and white cat
Turning to “cardboard” won’t keep the medicine away
Poem is dedicated to my husband and inspired by a prompt over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.
It’s rainy today and perhaps that is why my bones ache. No work because it is near the end of the quarter at the high school. I think it’s a perfect day for robins, gardens, sleeping and poetry. Today I am linking up with Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, one of my favorite sites to find poems by the blogging community.
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.
I feel selfish asking. Feels like demanding. Got to ask why. Why do I want so many others receiving what I have to say? In a selfish, human way..to be remembered.
I have had so many experiences and setbacks and unexpected goings on that others may not have had. I’ve been a minority. I have been that fearful, introverted woman. I have been lost. I’ve left many times, married many times. Worked so many blue collared jobs that I can’t count them all. Had children, lost them, I pay child support.
It may come down to being able to hold presence. Hold on in the painful moments. Teach. Explore the lessons I’ve learned. Learn some others from people who have had different experiences. Dream. Open my eyes. Opportunities to act. Give back. Find humanity.
The colorful image is one stage of my most recent painting, “Metamorphasis.” My words are a part of a longer response to Sonora’s 30 Day Journal Challenge. Inspiration for sharing is, of course, Mindlovemisery Menagerie’s Photo Challenge.
A flaxen haired, grinning girl perches among the robins and crows. She peers into the mist waiting for me. The girl is my Other, materialized from lifetimes ago. Her name is Sharon, meaning “plain.”
I write furious first drafts about her. Sometimes Sharon is an angry, scared teenager screaming for release. Other times she is a little white girl among a nation of Navajo kindergartners.
Once Sharon dreamed she was a Roma gypsy child hungry for freedom from filth and destiny. She woke up stranded on a lonely road and taken in by a dark circus. She dreams of fame and flamenco dancing with Carmen Amaya.
Image courtesy of Danka and Peter
In response to Tale Weaver by Mindlovemisery Menagerie
Instant coffee, thin and pale, filled a dirty mug. Deck of Uno and a waiting game of Kings in the Corner sat across from her. Outside her ancient window, Gertrude would watch the hummingbirds spin around like a colorful mobile.
The webs the birds would spin wove delicate lace trim, like her wedding dress so many lives before. Her husband’s name still on the shack door although the Harley doesn’t visit there anymore.
The breath of her four sleeping grandchildren keep time with dreams of sunnies caught down by the docks of the resort, just a stone’s throw away.
Inspired by the Photo Challenge at MindloveMisery’s Menagerie
This is an camera shot taken by submarine from an area assumed to be inaccessible to humans. However, given that the full moon is in retrograde, our team was able to pay off the seadog creature guard at the mouth of the cave, Bukholderia terrae, to gain access. At first thought to be a sea snail covered in ice and rock, we were tipped off by today’s horoscope in the Daily Reader.
What you are looking at is evidence that the origin of our species is not an ape, but a creature with bright yellow hair, icy growths along its sides and mouth area. When country music is vibrated through the water and into its fur, our ancestor emits a yodel in response. This specialized yodeling sends a complex message to the creatures around it causing them to smile and sing kumbaya. The snail is incidental and probably just lunch.
Inspired by a writing prompt at Mindlovemisery Menagerie
I find Beauty in…
in the ordinary, familiar places
the quiet moments in the morning before anyone stirs.
when I breathe in deep.
the rituals and habits we embrace at home that no other place could possibly offer.
stealing a kiss from Shawn’s lips as I make my way out the door for another work day.
the lunches that he packs with love.
night when we reach for each other and find the other there.
biting air because it is clean.
warmer weather than I experienced up North.
Created in response to Mindlovemisery’s Photo Challenge #152
