Sammi’s Weekender #141: Imperious

The vertical pronoun was your god,
the long corncob pipe,
a crutch as you’d exude imperious
confidence of irresponsible
narcissistic self-assured vanity.

Brilliance without wisdom never
questions self or knows dark
duality like Hastie Lanyon’s soul.
Your crime, a distant impassioned
supercilious and cavalier concern
for the misery your pomposity
beset upon your courtiers, devout
mindless adventured foolish demons,

lost souls who rose to the peek
of principled Peters with blindfolded
ignorance of history in the future,
now a legacy of incompetence
foddered with pride. With hubris
envied by Xerxes, you forced
your own shameful dismissed
demise.

The wisdom of a fading old soldier
heroically without end is clouded
by the dark shadow of your way,
the way, and the way of stars.

Legacy looks both ways, but history finds truth in justice.
Mind the gaps of human success for the failure of the soul.

Poetry: Famous Shit Float

Not since Mobile Bay’s view
of the infamous Poop Cruise ship
(2013 docked view from I-10)
have I joined thousands on
a wasteful float to who-cares where,
doing nothing to be in the
vulnerable middle of
a watery nowhere.

Cruise food may be good
and if you are looking
for the ten pounds I lost
you may find it there,
but must we live
in postage stamp rooms
with a view of nothing
ever new, to overeat well?

I’m done with cruise line
silliness, getting on and off
and making memories
I’d like to forget,
but I hope not
so much for eating well.
ROAD TRIP!?

***

To look both ways, we must know one from the other.
In the middle of truly nowhere, not even the gaps can feed the fish.

Poetry: Cowtown Sacramento

Checked in on a Saturday afternoon
to a cheap downtown Sacramento motel.
Got a room away from the others,
but the place was deserted at three.

Cowtown Marathon showtime
was at six in the morning. I had to be
up and dressed, ready to drive
with all my stuff to the meetup place
for coffee, food, and start line directions.

At two in the morning I learned why
the motel was empty and the desk clerk
was already apologizing when
the party moved in, filled every room,
with loud voices, the distinct click clack
of hard, high stiletto heels and reveling

drunks having a wild noisy time.
Up and out at four AM, everyone was
gone when I returned at noon. None too happy
with my neighbors of the night, another
greater challenge run finished alive,
but tired and sore with a medal in my hand.

Look both ways and remember the idiom
about sleeping with dogs in cheap downtown motels.
Mind the gaps and the ladies in stilettos, tap-tap-tap.

Prose Poem: Sammi’s Weekender – Devour

Need of Greed

This economy lies with deceptive pleasure – destruction, pending one hell of a bill to pay. We suck and devour the heritage of descendant’s gifts, their demise through our greed. When the well runs dry, the piper calls for payment, recovery of burnt offerings to self without gods who care for a prayer. Easy plunder blinds our need for air, water, food, and fire. Misery awaits death and disaster, sending ignored warnings past personal pleasure.

It’s not yet too late to reverse unwanted ends with the wisdom of science, we can turn the page. What higher cause to save humanity, perhaps the planet, our tiny corner of the universe?

Look both ways to past mistakes, future consequences,
bookends for today’s wisdom.
Mind the gaps in human psyche for sources of timely recovery.

Poetry: In the Stacks

Circa 1890

Some things I’ve always known,
like where the Library was,
especially the one with a funny name,
the Osterhout Free Library,
in my hometown, which to me
was and is The Library.

Looking like the Presbyterian church
it first was in 1849,
with (now gone) ivy covered walls,
hinting of mysteries, adventures,
and the wisdom within;
a mile to walk was nothing
for a keen young lad to go
for a book or two.

Through church doors that open
into the vast, once Calvinistic,
nave with colorless unstained leaded glass,
now with desks and shelves filled
with books and things,
one finds it all.
Hush! Whisper please.
People are reading.

Off to the left dim dark stacks
beckoned like a secret
church transept and silent choir loft.

The true spirits of the library’s haunted
dark and dingy, yet welcoming,
old book-scented stacks, silent
dust and maybe mischief,
with muffled giggles of children
or lovers, each playing with
resident hushing ghosts.

Long ago—a place of prayer,
now a sanctuary
of human wisdom and happiness.

***

Comb the dark stacks of old libraries looking both ways for dusty old history.
Mind the gaps and giggles of the ghosts.

Note: Because this was my first community library during my formative years, it was what I expected all others to look like. Not a bad standard.

Click the image to link to library information.

 

Poetry: Sammie’s Weekender 138, lollygag

Sad how they fooled around
with lollygag, it’s just too bad.
Come with me my sweet,
upon my lap have a seat.
We shan’t dawdle,
but we may well diddle
if you’re up for some
geometric osculation
mixing DNA marks us
a fine pair of
dawdling shillyshalliers
out for a pleasant afternoon poke.
For the best, we both have hope.

Look both ways for that quiet little corner for making memories.
Mind the gaps and camera angles.

“Nowadays, lollygag doesn’t usually carry such naughty connotations, but back in 1946, one Navy captain considered lollygagging enough of a problem to issue this stern warning: ‘Lovemaking and lollygagging are hereby strictly forbidden…. The holding of hands, osculation and constant embracing of WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service], corpsmen or civilians and sailors or any combination of male and female personnel is a violation of naval discipline….’”
(Source: The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lollygag. Accessed 5 January 2020.)
No apologies.