This picture is taken from my upstairs terrace. The dome you see covers the ceiling of my bedroom.
Remains of the day.
Payback Rhythms
The rhythm of the world as it tears us all asunder is of hurricane and fire, rain and wind and thunder. Fissures, ashes, ruins waterlogged and crumbled— all advances of mankind his foolishness has tumbled. What we do to it it does right back to us. This scientific fact is not so nebulous.
Prompt words today are nebulous, fissure, sunder and rhythm. With the exception of the UPI photo of the hurricane, all photos taken by me. Click on any photo to enlarge all. Please give photos a few seconds to load and focus.
Why are you waiting in the dark listening to the wind’s sharp bark? Elsewhere is diversion enough–– Internet and other stuff. Distraction is the modern mode, emoticons to speak in code. Don’t place yourself upon a shelf. Come take a photo of yourself and post it on your Facebook wall. Introspection won’t do at all. Log onto Tinder and make a date. Only losers sit and wait.
For the dVerse Poets theme of “Waiting.” But, since I missed the post cutoff by 54 minutes, I’ll post it here!
I garner information in the library from books. Determine facts from faces––from grimaces and looks, antagonistic letters and notes pinned up on fridges, in the garden, piles of dirt and lawn pushed up in ridges.
But all the little signals the world puts out today are more complicated than they were in Grandma’s day. Emails, texts and messages sent us through the air sometimes are just more than one person’s meant to bear.
In light of all this input, I’m afraid I’m going to snap, so I think I’ll grant me clemency and go down for a nap. Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook can’t intrude upon my sleeping. I’m safe away from “to do” tasks and all the world’s sad weeping.
Sleep gives retreat from telephones and all that information that’s leading me to bouts of excessive consternation. It’s the one place left to hide, or so, at first, it seems until I get there and I have to put up with my dreams!
I’m not your typical hoarder. I don’t save balls of string. Five foot stacks of newspapers really aren’t my thing. Boxes of garage sale items do not line my halls. Jumbles of castoff treasures do not obscure my walls.
My collection is more upbeat and easier to store. I have thousands of them and room for plenty more. And lest you think my hoarding is of objects more absurd, I’ll tell you my obsession is simply for the “word.”
Those who have collected them all throughout the ages are lexicographers and scribes, poets, writers, sages. Sometimes they swirl around my head and leave it in a fog, so when I run out of room, I store them in this blog.
Words like ships floating around, looking for a moorage— I simply help them out by arranging for their storage.
Got a bit mixed up with my prompts today and used two from yesterday, so here is another poem with additional prompts from today: jumble and upbeat.
photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.
The Education of a Prodigy
It’s true he was sardonic, which made it rather hard for him to assimilate in the schoolyard. In short, he was precocious, advanced beyond his years. It’s when it came to social skills that he was in arrears. He couldn’t really bat the ball. He failed at pitch and catching, and when it came to fielding, he just excelled at scratching. When other kids made fun of him, he whipped them with his tongue— a most distressing habit in one who was so young. His teachers merely shook their heads and gave him up for lost, for he took instructions poorly, refusing to be bossed.
It wasn’t until college, when he met a certain “Miss” that his sharpened tongue was rounded by a simple good night kiss. Surprising how true love can bring an end to lifelong ills. Now she gives the instructions and he just pays the bills.
Prompt words on this Friday the 13th are sardonic, assimilate, precocious and scratch. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.
He called his dad a troglodyte, his sisters, basket cases, although he was not brash enough to do so to their faces. He felt himself the underdog—blamed for everything. He felt his wings were clipped, although he dreamed of taking wing. Someday he would spring the trap and he would show them all. But until that day, he’d simply hang out at the mall, checking out the chicks and panhandling when he could. He knew he could do great things and some day he would, but no one gave him chances. The Mexicans and Arabs with their Virgin Marias and their half-moons and their scarabs were taking all his jobs away. He didn’t even try. Why should a decent white guy bother to apply?
How dare his dad declare that he has nothing on the ball? He is kept plenty busy holding up this wall. When the other wall is built, his life will come together. He’ll get some fancy job and break the family tether. Get a real cool crash pad and party with his friends. He’ll make some just as soon as this foreign invasion ends. Time enough for school once Trump takes out the trash. Then he’ll ace his classes and rake in the cash. He’ll show every idiot who claims he is a bum that he is the genius. He’ll show them who is dumb! Those guys who hang out at the mall in every sort of weather? If we could read their thoughts, they just might be birds of a feather.
Prompt words for the day aretroglodyte, brash, underdog, spring. Mall photo by Neel Tailor, used with permission. Other photos by Judy D-B.
A cricket and a katydid in need of some excitement when the cold winds started, and with no other incitement, set out on upon a sea journey, their ship an old guitar. (It wasn’t very roomy. Oh, but it was yar!)
They christened her as Lulabelle after an old amor. They thought they’d sail the whole wide world from shore to shore to shore. Setting off from Mexico, they drifted with the breeze, their water and provisions stacked up around their knees.
The cricket sang such lullabies. The katydid chimed in, a catfish as a tagalong stroked rhythms on its fin. Guileless in their motives, they sought no fame nor riches. From port to port they drifted, with only minor glitches.
On Isla Mujeres, they met a small land crab that had been used in research in an oceanic lab. It lit up in the darkness with a thousand little lights. And so they offered it a ride to light up starless nights.
They drifted off to Cuba atop an ocean swell, telling all the stories that they had to tell. Traitorous loves and conquests, flight through the summer night. The sand crab told of capture after a valiant fight.
The cricket had such stories of houses he’d been in. The katydid could mime a leaf: long and green and thin. When they made their music, the crab just clacked its claws. All night they chirred and clattered—sometimes without a pause.
By the time they got to Cuba, they had a stirring act. They drew the gulls and pelicans to listen—it’s a fact! They got a gig in Havana, playing in a bar, drawing folks to hear them from both near and far.
The cricket’s name is Chirrup and and Katydid is Slim. The Crab’s name is Oblongus—based on the shape of him. Their act can be heard nightly in the ocean dunes,
where they will serenade you with their blended tunes.
No remnant of credibility that he might have had at the start of his dark odyssey clings to this foolish cad. Claiming to solve problems that his actions just exacerbate, mere echoes of his words still chide enough that they infuriate.
Of the seven deadly sins, he’s had a taste of all. When, if they are so deadly, will they bring about his fall? Lust and gluttony? For sure. Greed? No doubt about it. Sloth and wrath, envy and pride? What sane man would doubt it?
He’s left his presidential desk, preferring his own throne. He borrows other people’s deeds to claim them as his own.
He manufactures science, quoting no valid source. Lessens the force of hurricanes while altering their course.
There’s nothing that he cannot do, at least in his own mind. To serve his ends, he’ll put entire countries in a bind. He’ll trump the hand of anyone. This game is not so hard. If it’s lacking in his hand, he’ll just invent the card!
Half over-achiever, my other part is zen. Sometimes I concentrate on now, other times, where I’ve been. This morning’s evanescent. I can’t remember shit. I know I found my car key but what did I do with it?
Ameliorating circumstances? Sorry. There are none. I simply have no memory of what I have just done. I know I wrote a poem, but I can’t recall a bit. I haven’t the foggiest memory of what I said in it!
It’s said I have good judgment and a judicious mind, but as to short-term memory? I fear I’m in a bind. I remember blow-for-blow what happened as a child. My college years I recall well. My twenties are well-filed.
When I write, the memories pop readily to my brain. It’s only hours later that the memories don’t remain of what I have just written or the words that I have used. The present and my recent past simply are not fused.
So if you want a memory, please choose one in my past. The farther back, the better, if you want my reply fast. Fifty years ago are fine. The details I’ll relate. But details of this morning? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.
Information Overload
photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.
