This piece by Karen at Momshieb asks some of the best questions I have heard asked about our present situation.
Here we are in the United States of America, in the year of our Lord, 2020. We are in an election year. We are in a year of record high temperatures around the globe.
And we are in the year when the world is grappling with a new and deadly disease for which there is neither a treatment nor a cure.
I wonder why our conversations online don’t reflect these facts? I wonder why the headlines aren’t focused on how to address any of these concerns?
I wonder.
Today I read about whether or not we need masks. I didn’t see a lot of factual information, and I didn’t see any ideas about how we might make the wearing of masks a more positive experience. I didn’t read much about making masks free or affordable.
What I did read is that people who wear masks are weak snowflakes who are…
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It’s my big sister’s birthday today. We won’t mention ages, but suffice it to say that she was always four years ahead of me in everything except birthdays, because mine has been happening six days before hers ever since I was born. Happy birthday to my dear sister who always has my back.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Fallen Star
Is it love or obligation? I am driven to inquire.
It’s the sort of information that I’m not going to acquire
unless I ask you bluntly. He’s a noxious sort of fellow—
shriveled-up and cranky, and his fingernails are yellow!
He’s a worn-out western movie star, but I swear his past
is not the sort of glamor that’s been shown to last.
Marry a guy for former fame? My dear, it isn’t groovy.
If you want to see him at his best, may I suggest a movie?
Prompts today are shrivel, acquire, obligation, noxious and western. Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash. Used with permission.
King of Fools
It’s a virtual world we sink into for fun
now that our worldly contact is done.
Facebook is our friendship and Skype our salvation,
Zoom our replacement for kids’ education.
It’s our succor in sadness, replacement for sport,
when others malign us, our means of retort.
Our childrens’ frondescence confined to Twitter,
how can they resist being surly and bitter?
We’re culpable, all of us, I must confess.
How could we let things get in such a mess?
Money our God and diverted by pleasure,
we sacrificed a more vital treasure,
giving up liberty, we were distracted
by a buffoon who reenacted
presenting reality just as a show—
impressing with posturing, bluffing and dough.
And those for whom books were replaced with a screen?
They couldn’t tell the difference between
what entertained and what was for real
and that’s how he managed to posture and steal
liberty—both on a scale that was national
making decisions stupidly irrational,
and our own liberty, now that we’re trapped
within our boxes, trussed up and wrapped
with only the foolish wandering round
making decisions, unmasked and unsound,
the dupes of a Mother who’s finally decided
that all of these humans whom she has abided
for thousands of years are on their way out,
aided by their foolishness, without a doubt,
and by their leader, that king of all fools
who will bring down the world with his asinine rules!!!
Prompt words for today are frondescence, culpable, virtual, succor and sink. All photos thanks to Unsplash, used with permission.
My poem “How Many Cats?” was published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul’s newest edition, “The Magic of Cats” The book is available online , on Kindle and in bookstores.
Mixed Bag
The gleam of ruby slippers, the taste of Jujy Fruit—
sensations of our youth that aging can’t refute.
Obliged to eat our green beans, jelly-roll came after.
Midnight loneliness gave way to breakfast table laughter.
Good and bad mixed up in each. The freedom of old age
compared to flexibility of youth? It’s hard to gauge.
Red wine or hot cocoa, a warm cat on your lap,
nodding off in hammocks versus a daily nap
prescribed by Mom no matter how unsleepy you might be.
Whether you sit under or climb the cherry tree.
All your life lived here in this same small town,
morphing from baptismal to your wedding gown.
Eight years old or eighty, good times follow strife.
All of them together making up a life.
Prompt words today are ruby, taste, aging, oblige and loneliness.
