Other People’s Children
Rowdy jostlers—twisters, hoppers.
Shouting loudly, upsetting shoppers,
they run up aisles and spar with hangers.
Turn shopping cart races into bangers.
They bark our shins, assault our ears,
yet no one stops these mannerless dears;
for the behavior others find so irksome,
the parents merely view as quirksome.
This is what I wrote on this date ten years ago!
Universal Cure
For all the world’s diseases and all life’s little ills
they’ve been inventing medicines, elixirs, syrups, pills.
But those crafty bacteria, viruses and germs
keep running on ahead of us as we come to terms
with ways to counteract them. They’re crafty little mites
who somehow slip inside of us through food or air or bites.
So in spite of all our science—our test tubes and our beakers,
all that malevolent mini-world just don their little sneakers
and keep on evolving a little bit ahead.
Enough to keep us sneezing or roiling in our bed.
And as for a panacea—a cure to conquer all—
although you have not asked for it, still I’ll make a call.
I’m rather sure that there will never be a
panacea.
What was I doing 9 years ago today? writing the above poem. Here reblogged for today’s Throwback Edition.
Sharp Ending
My sharp edges here revealed
are products of wounds left unhealed
by one once foremost in my heart,
accepted from the very start,
who recently reversed direction
and withdrew the fond affection
he’d professed for countless years,
now classified as in arrears.
The corner streetlamp has lost its light,
like that affection, now out of sight,
circling around its plight
and bleeding scarlet in the night.
The dearest love is thus allowed
to hide itself behind a cloud
that provides the night’s collusion
in this act of dissolution
In which I have not played a part,
except for furnishing the heart
that you have left with sharpened edges
from those broken former pledges
created not from knife or swords,
but rather from those stabbing words
with which you faded out of sight
on that rainy autumn night
when you gave a snort and cough,
and then decreed I should fuck off!
Hardly a kind parting word,
but like the rest of you––absurd!!!
oops.. the timeline for posting this ended while I was writing it, so here it is for
jdbphoto
Big, Big World
Remember when your world was new
how in the world surrounding you
everything seemed bigger then?
It often seems that way again
when we see things nostalgically,
for memory boosts them mightily.
Our mother’s lap or father’s knee
becomes a world–a rolling sea
as we remember rocking there—
a child traveling in their care.
The rooms of childhood were immense,
and all the traumas more intense.
Curtailed play and spilled ice creams
were tragedies expressed by screams.
Time stretched out like a highway then,
however short time might have been
for parents, who saw us grow up quickly.
Time surrounded us more thickly.
The days of summer passed so slow
from sunrise up to candle glow.
Voices echoed in failing light
as we took that last long flight
down the road from England’s hill.
It seemed to last for hours until
we reached the bottom and pedaled home
under that vast dimming dome
that soon the starlight would fill in
until the slow sun rose again.
The night was darker and longer then,
as we contemplated sin
that our prayers brought to mind,
and that inevitably would wind
into our dreams to swell and swell
until they became a hell—
our terrors spreading in the night
until our moms turned on the light,
still maintaining they weren’t there at all
as they followed her back down the hall.
All things were large when we were small–
those tiny cuts, that minor fall.
A childish spat heartbreaking when
you could have been where they were then
but couldn’t because you’d had a fight.
and they were wrong and you were right!
And though rage hadn’t lasted long,
they had to say that they were wrong!
And so you sobbed and fussed and pouted,
while outside, the others shouted
gleefully from swings and slide.
The pain more than you could abide.
When we were eight or six or three,
the whole world was hyperbole.
And now that we are fully grown,
living free and on our own,
hopefully we’ve learned to season
ire with pardon, dreams with reason.
And before it all blows up,
let us hope the world grows up!
Almost Ready to Stand-in
If I had a bit more moxie,
I’d be Kardashian by proxy.
I’d be less studious, more frocksie
and trade these garments long and boxy
for a mini dress that’s foxy,
wear heels less Oxfordy and soxy,
hang out with girls named Tess or Roxie,
more cool and definitely less poxy.
I’d be a cockette of the walksie!
This is what was going on in my blog on today’s date, Nov. 4, 2017
For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Sing.
For Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule, this is what I was up to ten years ago today, Nov. 3:
Tete a Tete
She seems to have made a career
out of practicing “sincere.”
Her trembling lip, her balanced tear
as she murmurs, “Oh, my dear,
I’m sorry, I know how you feel,”
work better when they’re meant for real.
In fact, she only lends an ear
because of what she hopes to hear––
shocking, scandalous or queer.
And oh, my dear, she’ll persevere.
Huddled over a drink or meal,
she can hardly hide her zeal
as she brings up your greatest fear––
your erring child or spreading rear,
the lover who’s been gone a year,
that bank loan that’s now in arrear.
She only asks because, you know—
just because she loves you so!
In patience, she is without peer.
She’ll face you, rapt, her face thrust near,
and ply you with another beer.
She is your confidant—your seer.
And though she says her lips are sealed,
her oath will too soon be repealed.
Her parting kiss, it would appear,
is offered to the ionosphere.
It makes no contact. Does not adhere.
It seems like she’s shifted a gear.
The next time she dines out, it’s true,
she’ll be dining out on you!!
The prompt word was “sincere.”
Having seemingly given up on the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump and the officials in his administration are indicating that they intend to steal the 2026 midterm election to maintain Republican control of the Senate.
Trump continues to try to use the power of the government to boost his own popularity. On Friday and Saturday, Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano sent an email to people with online Social Security accounts declaring that under Trump, “the Social Security Administration (SSA) is transforming into a model of excellence,” producing “the best performance in the agency’s 91-year-history.” More than 100 million Americans have online SSA accounts.
In fact, as Tara Siegel Bernard reported in the New York Times in July, the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts of about 14% of SSA staff have created service delays. It’s much harder to get an in-person appointment, and although the agency reports that average phone response times dropped from 11 minutes to 5 minutes, it achieved that reduction by counting anyone who agrees to hang up and accept a return phone call as waiting zero minutes.
But it’s not just in boosting Trump that the administration is corrupting our government. Yesterday, in an astonishing illustration of just how thoroughly Trump and his cronies are weaponizing the government to cement their power, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop threatening local and state election officials with criminal prosecution if they don’t do as the administration demands.
For the rest of the article, go here:
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“Coming and Going.” Although I am in the proximity of this dog and undergoing the same experience, you will note that I maintain my individuality by presenting my best angle to the camera in direct contrast to the dog rather than imitating him. And, as a side note, I was here first.
Some Little Nonsense on the Subject of Copycats
Some folks’ originality comes from what they view,
proving that old adage, “Monkey see and monkey do.”
And there’s another label coined from denizens of zoos.
A “copy cat” is one who mirrors everything he views.
But I find this last one puzzling, and so I’m asking you,
have you ever known a cat to do what you want him to?
Whatever he might see you do as he edges nearer,
is likely what he will ignore, not what he’ll choose to mirror.
It’s true that cattle move in herds and wild geese mimic flight,
and no one knows what sister acts mice practice in the night.
Yet all animals aren’t so easy, in spite of what you think.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
You cannot tell a cat to do what you want him to.
What you desire from that cat is what he will eschew.
Sit or fetch? Roll over? Those things hold no attraction.
Cats simply are not at their best when you prompt interaction.
So let’s dispel this rumor that cats are good at mimicry.
For though they like to bat at strings and other hanging gimmickry,
they don’t want to imitate any other creature.
For in the world of animals, each cat is the main feature.
The prompt today is copycat.
“LocoEmotion”
Pencil me into your busy life,
or, failing that, Ink my memory
across the pages of that brain
that locomotes you through your life
on a track too narrow for company.
For dVerse Poets
Painting by Georgia O’Keefe
