Emotion

Sammi’s Weekender #273 (alcazar)

A 76-word, first-word, acrostic poem, using alcazar, meaning a Spanish fortress, palace, or castle.
I did not use the prompt word as a theme.

Click this graphic to read more writings of alcazar,

Wind, Rain, and Life

All I ask are a few good poems and stories and to have

Lived and loved my seventy-six years as me. My

Children and my children’s children brought me to heavenly happiness

As rain brought new life later claimed by the dry range and the breezes of soft

Zephyrus gently passing us by, like time-forgotten memories

Around our lives with now-shortened horizons pointing to sunsets

Restoring my faith in the discovered purposes of life and humanity.

Look both ways to protect your citadel from plunder and attack.
Mind the gaps of your castle walls which may be vulnerable to the darkness of passing time.

Monday’s Rune: Special Times

Photo by and © Dale Rogerson

Candlelight Creates Memories.

It happens
like this
it all comes together
too seldom,
so brief
but when
it comes,
we feel it
forever.
It’s more
than love,
family,
sisterhood;
life has enough
pain and suffering
and sadness.

Forget that—
remember this—
time always was
always will be
just because when
it’s like this
it’s cosmic.

No
everyday thing.
That wouldn’t work.

The right people,
the right time and place
discovering high levels
of special happiness.

We need to do that
more often—
again soon.

One bottle passed through
snifters near dripping candles
lighting empty chairs
reflections
light and dark
happy and sad
yin and yang
simultaneous synergy
of family energy.

Look both ways to find soul in family.
Mind the gaps. Set the stage. Live the love.

Monday’s Rune: Code Red?

Patience Grasshopper

I don’t give a damn what
you think about what
I think I thought
that am entitled to,
or what is my business.
Motive matters. How are ya
means I fucking care
about you and your problems,
no matter how ya got ‘em.

When you shut me out,
when you will not talk,
when anyone close
informs me just
exactly what the fuck
is and is not my business,

Blood boils, tongues twist,
ears backen, and eyes redden.
Sir, the witness has rights!

Code fucking red. RED!
Read it right. No matter
WHAT! I’m on your side.
Hell, high water, thunder,
fucking flashes of lightning
or the end of my damn sidewalk.

Look both ways and see it as you must,
but I’ve been minding the gaps in this wall for more than 50 years.

 

I suppose it depends upon what it is applied to and how.

 

Friday Fictioneers for July 8th, 2022

Our Friday Fictioneers Mistress Rochelle has spun up her own spinning version photo for us to spin a yarn that cottons to your imagination. But fair warning, some songs stick like wax in your ear.

Click on Rochelle’s picture to wheel on over to her blog for the finger pricking principles of our weekly 100-word (or fewer) stories.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Musical Fiction
Title: Why Women Kill
Word Count: 100

***

Stop talking in circles.

I’m not. I’m making a point. You interrupted me.

If you don’t know, just say so.

If you see something, say something.

What? That has nothing to  do with it.

Spinning Wheel got to go ‘round. Ride a painted pony.

If you don’t stop this shit, I want a divorce.

Drop all your troubles by the river side, on the straight and narrow highway.
Okay, what’s your question again?

Where do you want to go for dinner? What movie do you want to see?

Let the spinning wheel spin.

(Frustrated) Fuck you. I’m out of here.

***

Look both ways on traffic circles and two-way roundabouts.
Mind the gaps when you buy mushrooms at the farmers’ market.

Click on the loving couple for more stories about spinning or something.

***

A little retro music for those who may not know the song.

Monday’s Rune: Independence Day

On This July Day

Born a year after
the last big war,
for decades,
I said the pledge
with hand over heart and sang
patriotic songs.

I took cover under my desk,
was a Boy Scout of America
who could properly fold the flag
and post the colors at twelve.
I prayed every day. I trusted God.

I played at war and we
always won. We were
always right, better,
and stronger. Powerful,
but merciful.

I enlisted before
graduating from high school,
I saluted. I knew, followed,
and respected flag etiquette —
still do. I swore
to protect our Constitution.

I spent two careers in the service of
(willing to, but not wanting to,
die for) my country—my people.
I thought I taught my children well.

Now,
examining my conscience
I find I am a man of a different mind,
No longer as certain of our goodness,
of our unitedness, of our honest
democracy. I feel fooled and
deceived. I feel hated by my own.

It’s not the date, it is the old spirit
where I question my allegiance,
to what or whom?

It is still in me. I still care.
But nothing is the same.
Confidence is dead. For our
freedoms, I worry with dread.

I feel conflicted. Lost.
Our enemies are close.
How patriotic am I?
I should be. I want to be.

In truth, I feel this way
not because I no longer love
my country,
but because I still do.

Happy 4th, anyway.
Be careful out there.

Look both way as we try to understand.
But deeply mind the gaps.
Even the Nazis thought they were right.

According to THIS Gallup poll, it’s a thing.

 

Monday’s Rune: Pride Month Poetry

Looking Both Ways

There’s tragedy in America
and over the world today.
One that has always been there
brewing trouble bubbling,
either hidden or ignored.

Without love, honor, and respect
inside and out,
sans pity and pride, compassion, and sacrifice,
we are doomed
to be less than
the best of humanity’s history.

Let nature and nurture battle on,
let knowledge
and wisdom wrestle
with feeling and emotion.

Nature’s questions asked without fear,
safe for all, with courage
to face battles between
sweet dreams of hope
and nightmares of reality.

Ally with truth, with
compassion, without weakness or fear,
with hope to continue
standing with universal rightness.

Look both ways and try, try, try to understand, it’s not magic, man.
Mind the gaps in the human condition as you embrace its diversity.

Note: I will be reading this poem (and others) at the Lark & Owl Booksellers in Georgetown, TX, 30 June 2022 @ 7:30 PM.

Sammi’s Weekender #264 (Picturesque)

Click on the graphic for more 54-word wonders and Sammi’s blog page.

Damn Reality

Here I go again reading
Bukowski’s clear vision voice
poems lacking picturesque pastoral principles,
with plainly different aesthetic dispositions
of attitude nobody loves.

We know that deep inside,
his way is part of us;
part of him, hides in us.
How many ways
can we paint the same picture,
or tell the same story.

Look both ways reading anyone’s poems.
Mind the gaps hiding deep within when writing your own.

dVerse – Prosery:“How many more will it take?

This Prosery is written around a line/sentence from a Facebook poem called, Notes on Uvalde. The dVerse line chosen by Lisa was, “These are the things they don’t tell us.”

To read other prose responses, click HERE.

My First Experience

I was barely 20 years of age and newly married when on August 1st, 1966, Charles Whitman, after killing his mother and wife, packed three rifles, three pistols, a shotgun, 700 rounds of ammunition, food, coffee, vitamins, medicine, earplugs, water, matches, lighter fluid, rope, binoculars, a machete, three knives, a radio, toilet paper, a razor, and deodorant. He went to the observation deck of the Main Building Tower at the University of Texas at Austin.

Whitman killed 14 people and injured 31. He was shot dead. For 18 years, it was the deadliest mass lone gunman shooting in U.S. history. It was unthinkable.

Whitman had sought professional help for “overwhelming, violent impulses;” fantasies about shooting people from the tower. He told them what and where. These are the things they don’t tell us.

“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

Look both ways. To the beginning and to the end (if there is one).
Mind the gaps as you live in this moment of grave concern with sadness or anger. 

To see the Notes from Uvalde poem and Prosery rules, follow this link: https://dversepoets.com/2022/06/06/dverse-prosery-how-many-more-will-it-take/.

Memorial Day

I’ve decided to kick the Monday Rune a week down the road because today is Memorial Day in the USA.

My mother still called it Decoration Day even long after 1971, when Memorial Day was declared a national holiday. If you want some good information and background on the day, click HERE.

On this and every Memorial Day, I hope Americans remember what it’s factually all about. It is a day of memorial, a day to honor and remember people who died in service to the country.

Saying happy Memorial Day is inappropriate, but curbing that gets more difficult every year as more people lose sight of the purpose, which I consider unfortunate, if not sad. While it may never be incorrect to thank a veteran for their service, this day is about the dead, not the living. Veterans Day in on November 11th each year and it is totally correct to say happy Veterans Day, which is also a national holiday.

There are entire vet organizations set up for exactly this purpose: to get it right on Memorial Day. While there is a lot of hoopla, sales, and military prominence on this day, the purpose is still to memorialize the dead. I hope we don’t forget that.

 

I realize it’s Veterans Day (no apostrophe), but it is not my meme and it gets them message across.

Sammi’s Weekender #260 (omphalos)

A big congratulatory shout out to Sammi for five years of weekend wonders.

Click on the omphalos prompt for more 91-word creative wonders on Sammi’s blog page.

Navel Gazing

Am I lost, have you seen me?
Am I crying or standing angry?

I listen but I also speak,
I read but I write, I love—
but I also hate and abominate.

I must find myself,
so I may contemplate my bile.

Every day, untethered, to consider
my center, my core omphalos
being wisely chosen.

Not fooled by feelings or desires,
looking deep and true
before winter blows

that last breath from my chest,
before my dust returns to the cosmos
before it is too late,
true to myself, my love.

Look both ways at your best and the worst.
Find the true you without judgment or odium.
Mind the gaps and look there too,
for the stain of truth is better than vain and useless glory.