Out There
Back when you were innocent—back when you played the clown,
before your mind was jaded by seeking wide renown,
back before the pomp, the glory and the plaudits,
back before the news reports, the surveys and the audits,
back there when a diary preceded post and tweet,
there were words of innocence, secretive and sweet.
Back when every aspect of life was not for show,
back when information tended to move slow,
was there more than one hushed aspect of your life,
secrets not used against you, as lethal as a knife?
Everything’s now out there in selfies and YouTubes—
your angsts and loves and conquests, not to mention boobs.
What is left to grow inside, to flourish and to bloom?
What secrets left confined to the safety of your room?
Everything’s out spinning in the cruel world.
No way to get it back again, no secret ever curled
safely under the covers of a private book
where even your best friend has never had a look.
Do they still make diaries that aren’t electronic
where words languish on pages, quiet and laconic?
Where little girls confide their thoughts to a much-smudged page,
all their secret passions, their hurts and hopes and rage?
“Dear Diary” the sweetest confidant of all?
One that will never tell on you. One always there on call.
What will happen in a world where everything’s on view
forever to be classified, forever part of you?
Never will we ever leave our pasts behind.
Everything is indexed, simple enough to find.
Your sons and your daughters will peek into your past.
Google yourself now. Won’t they just have a blast?
Prompt words today were pomp, diary, jaded, aspect and clown.
I just stumbled upon my old diary from age eleven through thirteen yesterday. What a revelation. Facts garnered: I had someone sleep over at least three times a week, lots of relatives passed through one summer, my best friend went home mad a lot, I called lunch dinner and did the dishes every day, woke up late whenever I could and never revealed the names of secret crushes, even in my diary. I had a “dreamy” boy-girl party the year I turned 13 (a feat never repeated, at least among my friends) and danced with every boy except J (yuck.) Mr. G didn’t like me anymore (perhaps) and we seemed to take a lot of trips down to the Frosty Freeze at night––probably because other kids did the same and we had no other place to gather. Nothing, however, to preclude my running for public office and all easily burned if there were. And that simple event and the thoughts thereafter led to this poem.
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Day of Flowers: Day of the Dead, Ajijic, Mexico
Click on first photo to enlarge all
On Friday, I went to decorate the burial plot that I adopted three years ago. Earlier, Oscar and Pablo had cleared out the weeds for me and Yolanda and I went Friday with flowers and to clean off the grave stones as well as to shovel out dirt that had fallen down from ground level onto the grave on the right. When we arrived, there were three young Mexican girls looking at our plot. They were very curious about who the people were who were buried there, since they had Anglo names, so I told them as much as forgottenman and I have been able to discover about the three people. Then a man from Guadalajara came and asked more questions.
When I started to go down to see about removing the dirt, (this plot of three graves is actually sunk down below ground level about four feet) one young girl said to wait and came back with a young man with a shovel who said he would clear out the dirt slide for me. He did hard labor in the sun for over a half hour, even removing stones and rocks that seemed impossible to dig up. When he left and I tried to pay him, he refused, even though I offered the money the traditional three times. It seems the boys from his school had come in a group to help out anyone who needed it. What a heartwarming experience.
The gravestones cleaned, the marigolds placed, we left and I returned the next day with Leslie, who had strung the papel picado for me that morning. We strung it around the fence surrounding the graves, then lit candles and arranged the dead bread, wine coolers for the women and a bottle of beer for the man, chocolate and more sprays of cloth flowers. Four musicians played very near by us the entire time. People came strolling by to talk. Scorching in the sun, we climbed up and sought the cooler shade. We walked around a bit and as you can see, there was no lack of flowers wherever we looked.
For Cee’s FOTD
When I got back from decorating the graves in the Pantheon, this lone artificial flower was lying by my kitchen door, having fallen off the bunch as we carried them to the car. The marigold I found in the street as I left the Dia de los Muertos art show that I had pieces in. Flowers abound during this time of the year.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
“The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ‘The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation … everything that has black sounds in it, has duende.”
Rude Awakening: Morning Ritual
The duende of the old cat’s wail jars me from a dream.
Her volume grows with every piercing, throaty, grating scream.
And though it seems her hunger cannot wait for light,
when I spoon out her victuals, she does not take a bite.
I rub her ears and skull and chin now that I’m awake
as the first muted rays of light soak into the lake.
The dogs detect my movement and paw their haven’s door,
scraping their metal dishes across the tile floor.
Outside the far-off kitchen, the young cats voice their wail,
calling me too early to my day’s travail.
Reluctantly I slog out to fulfill their rude request,
as the old cat circles and sinks to her warm nest.
Since her breakfast, still untouched, sits crusting in her bowl,
it seems that desayuno never was her goal.
She’s merely been the chanticleer who has done her best
to arouse the world before returning to her rest.
I don’t know what creates these incredible patterns on this palm tree, but I am fascinated by them. I think this one looks like a Chinese scene of people passing. (Click on photos to enlarge.) I’d be interested to hear what figures you see in the tree.
For the Sunday Trees Challenge.
A Halloween Primer
Bloodcurdling screams of banshees and the moans of other specters
are signals to skirt graveyards and other creepy sectors.
Do not go close to water. La Llorona* lingers there.
Hobgoblins roam on Halloween. Please take extra care
that you aren’t impeded by your costume’s girth and weight
so just in case, you can maintain the proper speed and gait
to insure escaping witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls
who inhabit Halloween and make up all the rules.
Heed well my past instructions of where you should not go.
Get home before the witching hour. These warnings you should know
lest you become another statistic of the night
set aside for horrors, for hauntings and for fright.
Halloween is filled with fun: the costumes, pumpkins, candy,
and if you heed my warnings, everything should turn out dandy.
Just stay away from witches of the authentic sort—
the kind with real black three-inch nails and a genuine wart.
Make sure the vampire’s fangs aren’t real, that ghost is in a sheet.
Assure the authenticity of every friend you meet.
It does not do to make new friends. Be guided by your fear
and do not talk to strangers on this one night of the year.
*In Latin American folklore, La Llorona (pronounced [la ʝo.ˈɾo.na], “The Weeping Woman”) is a ghost of a woman who lost her children and now cries while looking for them in the river, often causing misfortune to those who are near, or who hear her.
Go HERE to read more spooky poems.
photo by Mari Lezhava on Unsplash, Used with permission
Comeuppance
His behavior was egregious, his actions purely shocking.
With combat boots, upon each leg he wore a nylon stocking.
Never appeared in public totally alone
lest he meet his comeuppance and be asked to atone
for all the calumnies he’d voiced upon the telephone.
Yes, a shocking gossip—slanderous at best.
A million little rumors started at his behest.
Diamonds on his fingers and slander on his tongue,
he had become a legend while he was very young.
How Cher was such a harridan and how Sonny was hung!
Needless to say, he did well there in the Hollywood scene,
his appearance so eccentric, his behavior so obscene.
Until that certain story spread both far and wide
concerning certain juicy bits where he had surely lied
that led to an untimely death—this time from suicide.
He tried his usual posturings, excuses and false proof,
but this time all his public chose to remain aloof.
They pointed at his nylons. They snickered at his boots,
speculated that his rings were diamond substitutes.
He and Donald Trump, they’d heard, were rather in cahoots.
Dropped now from the A list, he barely made the C.
Got tables near the kitchen, his meals no longer free.
His rise to fame so rapid, his fall was just as fast.
He became a pariah, a definite outcast.
Of the victims of his venom, he was the very last.
Prompts for the day are comeuppance, public, alone, egregious and legend.
