Choices

Thursday’s Rune: Cotton Eyed Bull

I don’t see much shit
lying around where I live.
Some. But even dog poop gets
green bagged and dropped
into special green dog doo
safe deposit cans for the man
to stop and retrieve. What a job!

Sometimes
I like a thing, like a picture;
or I write a thing, like a poem,
just because I like it, or I want to.
No other reason. It has nothing to do
with any other motive or person.
(usually).

I like a color cuz I do,
not because of where I went to school.
I write about things
because that is what comes out.
Be it dog, bull, or horse shit.

To be fair, it is often true that
there is a reason or emotion
pushing the words out or maybe
influencing my smelly choices.

But sometimes, it’s just
bull shit, or horse shit, and there is
a difference. Bull shit
is a downright lie, while
horse shit has a softer, roundish,
teasingly fibbish, straw element to it.

And sometimes it’s just a song and a dance.
“Where did you come from, where did you go?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?”

Look both ways and watch where you step.
Mind the gaps in your cow pie-ology.

***

Gloss: it’s a stretch, but this poem was inspired by the song and country western dance, the Cotton Eyed Joe. The song, said to be over 200 years old, likely originated in the USA South with black slaves before the Civil War. Over the years there have been more than 130 recorded versions of the song. During the modern line dance, people are encouraged to yell Bull shit while shaking same from their boots.

Horse
Cow or bull

Photos I took while visiting my daughter and SIL’s ranchette, which pastures horses, cattle, cats, jennies, and more.

***

A version as Cotton “Eye” Joe by the Swedish Eurodance group Rednex. There are other Rednex videos just as crazy.

Friday Fictioneers 12 24 2021

Each Wednesday, the wonderful and majestic Rochelle sends a photo to inspire us to write one-hundred or fewer words that tell a story. Friday Fictioneers is fun. Click on the prompt photo for the access to her special page.

Here is the prompting picture and my fib.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click on the photo to be transported to Rochelle’s blog page.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Title: It Is What Was
Word Count: 100

“This SUV is a time machine that transports mentally, not physically. You can only go back during your lifetime, not forward.

“That mirror shows exact time and place holographically. You go from now to then for about five minutes, then you are back here. You may change any past decision of yours, but rules disallow affecting life or death—kind of a prime directive. Your life will change based on the new decision. Any questions?”

What if I change my mind afterwards?

“We allow one free return trip to reset things. So far, everyone has done that. Ready?”

Not yet.

Look both ways, regret little, love much, and be yourself.
Mind the gaps and SUV, time machine sales staff.

“Finish each day and be done with it.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

 

Click on the time machine module to read other stories.

Poetry: Thanks, Mom (MIL, Grandma)

I came across this, so I tweaked it a bit for Mother’s Day. At the time, I didn’t agree with Mom about my decision. But I now realize that she was probably right.

Combatant

It could have been me.
A nod, a blink, or an “okay”
and the next forty-five
years …

(Had I not been killed, maimed,
or driven insane,
as so many young men were.)

… would not have been anything
like the memories I have today,
fifty-seven long years hence,
with contrition, feeling a strange
impersonal loss mired in guilt.

Personal, hidden, illogical
survivor syndrome. I can’t
make sense of it. The feelings
of a warrior, but who wasn’t.

Life choices are often made
thoughtlessly, in a blink.
I could be dead. Change the past?
Not on your life. Or mine.

And Mom would have been
so pissed at me, Jack M.,
and the entire fucking Corps.

Thanks, Mom.

Look both ways at guilt for life:
fortune or folly.
Mind the gaps in the mindless wars with reality.

J – Juxtaposed Minds (NaPoWriMo #12)

Do you ever feel like you’re more than one person? Do we have inner duality — the light and dark? Is there another voice? Juxtaposed minds is as close as I can get. This invokes minor gender differences. My apologies to women if it is seen as stereotyping. It only applies to me. That’s how it seems in my mind(s). It’s how the light gets in.

 

Juxtaposed Minds
by Bill Reynolds

As always, you’re here with me,
As children, you survived my foolish resistance.
As we pondered our thoughts, I sensed yours in me,
As we bind together, into one two-sided existence.

 

While passing through this life,
We two spirits were always so real.
Through our eyes and ears, we see and hear;
Yet, with one heart we together feel.

 

You walk in my footsteps, always with me,
When you talk to me, I hear your voice,
And I feel your presence within my being.
We share one self, as we sense we are two.

Leonard Cohen. We have his music.

I know you, but not so well,
As you know me.
One and the same, we’re forever to be.
Your she melds to one, within my inner he.

 

You’re a guardian of two spirits, one soul.
One guides the other through all time.
You’re a muse to me, to my sum of being.
Your reality balances our one life,
As we console and debate, together we decide.

You’re the lady in me, who’s never been seen.
Kinder and softer, more willing to hear.
The knower of wisdom, the source of mine.
To the world you are silent, but you talk to me.

 

Your duality of truth overshadows all lies,
Your love overpowers this emotional being.
With a power and difference,
You have captured our two-sided soul.

 

 

 Look both ways and be true to yourself.
When you see gaps, mind them.