I was at the self-checkout
scanning cans of stuff
searching for zucchini by weight
“a little help here”
for a friendly glitch.
It wants to know
How do I pay?
Card of course.
Push or tap?
The machine speaks advice:
“Please, take your bags.”
“Don’t forget your receipt.”
I wanted to tell the young, attractive,
and helpful (human) workers
about back in my day,
food on credit meant
the grocer or store kept your name
in a book, like a bookie,
then the annoying push-thingy machine and carbons
and you had to sign (press hard).
Do you want your carbons?
I would have bored them
with that not so long ago (true) bullshit.
So I took my stuff in plastic bags
and my receipt, and I smiled
and I thanked them by tagged name.
Two people I’d never set eyes on again.
Look both ways, AI (key word is artificial) is coming, scary or not.
Mind the gaps as some things (like legal pot) are still cash only,
but the drug dealers still allow limited time credit.
Click here for Sammi’s blog page and more 39-word bibliopole works.
Larry Jeff
He had much to say
about Texas, Texans, Mexicans,
and the cowboy way.
McMurtry, best known
for essays, books, and movie scripts
which Hollywood’s Oscar would pay.
But Larry most loved book scouting,
a proud bibliopolist,
another dying breed.
Look both ways learning about history, myth, legend, and reality.
Mind the gaps because therein may hide the best of the stories.
Larry Jeff McMurtry (1936-2021) was an American novelist, essayist, bookseller (book-scout) and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. Dying breeds, historical truth, and books attracted him personally and professionally. My favorite McMurtry quotes are:
“People would be bored shitless if they had to love only the good in someone they care about.”
“Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look – historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.”
“Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.”
Click to open the prompt page and links to more poems in new tab.
Today, my NaPoWriMo assignment is based upon an Irish poetic genre called aisling. An aisling recounts a dream or vision featuring a woman who represents the land or country (typically Ireland) on/in which the poet lives, and who speaks to the poet about it. I had the option to write a poem that recounts a vision of a woman who represents or reflects where I live: Texas.
la dama de texas
I looked, but bright sunlight and a vast blue sky
tempered my curious gaze over her vast wonderment.
She was like a kaleidoscope of diversity,
capricious changes over her sensuous body
constantly looming; inviting, yet hostile.
Her hair was a big thicket of trees:
pecan, oak, palm, cedar, and holly;
her brows were of pine, and elm above
lashes of ash and cherry, anaqua and yaupon.
Her brown skin and dark eyes testify
to her Mexican heritage, her breath was of
sweet orchid, redbud, and magnolia. Temptress,
with a capital T.
Her breasts were like mountain ranges:
Chisos, Guadalupe, Franklin, and Davis;
at her sides and hips Chinati, Boquillas,
Hueco, Christmas, and the lower Palo Pintos.
In her swaying curves the hidden canyons:
Palo Duro, Santo Elena, and Mariscal with
the jewels of caprocks, pinnacles, and hoodoos.
At her back, the Llano Estacado horizon rolled
smoothly into her Balcones Escarpment to
plateaus named for Edwards and Stockdon.
The moist whites of her eyes shown like cotton bolls,
lids like sandy beaches, her fingers like rivers:
the Pedernales, Neches, Trinity, Comal,
Brazos and the majestic and mysterious Rio Grande.
Her arms were like Devils River and the Pecos.
Her desert skin shimmered like moist sand.
I saw her holding an abundance of animals
and insects that staggered me.
The diversity of people standing in her shadow,
waving their ubiquitous flags, while protected by her,
spoke languages mixed with southern or western dialects.
Beneath her beauty, a sweetened but exaggerated history
belied the truth of a dark, slavishly embarrassing past.
An enigma with something for everyone
yet comfort for only a friendly few.
I’ll take Texas over Hell
with my eyes wide open.
She said I may stay,
but only if I see things her way. I try.
Look both ways to see the good and the bad.
Mind the gaps and accept the facts.
Everyone must be somewhere, even if they’re going nowhere.
Those are miles! It seems like a long drive, but it’s only about 10 hours if you go 90 miles per hour non-stop.
To balance my blogosphere life, I shall henceforth post my unprompted poems (or prose), called runes, on Mondays (formerly Thursday) so I can plan to post about every other day.
I claim King’s X for April because I hope to be working my way through 30 poems in 30 days with National (Global) Poetry Writing Month (napowrimo.net). I try to write to the daily prompts/assignments (it’s optional, I’m not that masochistic).
Thus, I shall post every day in April. When possible, I will combine or do a second post on Friday Fictioneers and Sammi’s Weekender. I will also try to read and comment on those challenges when I can.
Why Can’t We Be Friends?
What is the difference between
genocide, slavery, life,
and freedom?
It’s war. Granted. War is bad.
It’s literally hell on Earth.
Innocents and soldiers are killed.
War’s destruction is
without logic or proportion.
But pacifism is worse.
Evil cannot be appeased.
War is the symptom.
Humanity is the cause.
Hate is the disease.
Choose well but take a side.
Peace is a dream guarded
by nightmares. History proves
we always get the war we want.
There may be no winners in war,
but there are losers. I’d rather not.
Look both ways in the real world.
We must always fight for what is right.
Mind the gaps for seeds of hate and find the first casualty of war: truth.
Mistress Rochelle is on a twisted tantrum with tilted photos and pictures of leaning towers in the swamplands of Italy. If this photo, supplied by Anne Higa, inspires you to write a story on the straight and vertical, click on the Pisa Plaza picture to gondola over to the Maven of Purple (Rochelle) for the rules and regulations and how to post your square right over there.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Holy Land for Pisa
Word Count: 100
***
“Drudo, tomorrow we sail for the Holy Land.”
“Good, Gotto. I’m sick of this damn tower. The world isn’t impressed. Every tower in town leans. Merda!”
“We’ll return with holy cargo from Calvary in Jerusalem for this Square of Miracles. Pisa will be famous. The excursion is funded with riches we took from Sicily.”
“We’ll never be known for our towers, Gotto. What bounty shall make us heroes?”
Gotto grinned. “Fifty-three shiploads of dirt.”
Drudo whines, “We battle for riches. We spend blood-won bounty on shiploads of dirt for a cemetery in a swamp. The tower is a better idea.”
Look both ways.
Historical truth need not make sense.
Mind the gaps in the foundations of towers.
Fame comes as much from failure as from success.
(It could have happened like that.)
Click on Superman straightening the tower to read other creative stories.
About one year after his birth, Galileo was baptized in the Pisa Baptistry of the Square of Miracles in 1565. And yes, it is historical fact. 53 shiploads of dirt from the Hill at Calvary in Jerusalem for the cemetery.
An army of one
Pompously preened
Proud Field Marshal for
Pearl of the Orient Seas
Baroque of dress
Greater than grace
Without humility
In defeat or dismissal
Pride over human life, yet
Human to the core, to the corps
Look both ways. History is prophecy.
Mind the gaps and seek the truth that may never be told.
Only one American has held the title of “Field Marshal.” Douglas MacArthur was appointed Field Marshal of the Army of the Philippines in 1936 when the island nation achieved a semi-independent status. MacArthur was to create an army for the fledgling country. He wore a special uniform, complete with a Field Marshal’s baton.
Many beautiful lyrical poems pine after the Philippines. Here, “Pearl of the Orient Seas” alludes to the phrase coined by Juan J. Delgado, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, in 1751, and to a poem by Jose Rizal (Mi ultimo adios), wherein he refers to the Philippines with that name.
Sounds and shots signal long, hot, dry August days
in El Paso, Texas, at Walmart,
where hateful hearts sang out in murderous joy.
Supreme white-hot hate hammered home death
& destruction to familias con niños.
Pathetic politicians paraded past.
Look both ways into the hearts of men.
Mind the gaps. If you see only good, look again.
***
Explicación: Next Monday, 3 August 2020, marks one year since 21-year-old gunman and homegrown Texan terrorist, Patrick Crusius walked into a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, with his legally purchased assault rifle and murdered thirteen Americans, eight Mexicans and one German, and randomly wounded 23 other innocents, including children.
Day 24 prompt: write a poem about a fruit. Where do we get the word for the color when we mix red and yellow?
A Norange by Another Name: Orange
What shall we call this yellow-red color?
Geoluhread was, but is not right. From China
came five centuries ago the answer, a round
citrus fruit. We shall call it orange, as is the fruit.
See the color, not persimmon, pumpkin, or tangerine
they are all orange. See textured shiny bright rind
hiding yellow seed, white albedo pulp and triangle
segments of juicy sweet meat for kings and queens.
Feel the firm round breasted textured shape,
softly, almost spongy, heavier than an apple
with a protruding nipple or navel or pedicel
from the flower of past blossoms mating.
Smell the fragrant fruit, the peel, the acceptance
of inviting sensual aroma used in fine perfumes
or arousing essential oils. Hold the orange
to your nose, near your lips, take her home.
Taste the tangy citrus flavor after peeled,
soft, bitter skin is removed, baring mixed taste
and aroma of sweet bliss, a robust exiting,
acidic-sweet flavor sliding into your mouth.
Hear the soft sound of bursting flavor,
for quiet wet eating, the soft thud when
dropped or tapped. Hear yourself masticate
briefly before swallowing treasured pleasure.
Look both ways for the common and the rare.
Mind the gaps, by any other shade, tone, or hue, and orange is still orange.
The fruit came before the color.
Writers are story tellers and researchers who dig up things after getting lost running down rabbit holes. Mix in some historian, astronomer, anthropologist, math stuff, superstition, and observation of nature and mankind, and we charge into where only rabbits need to go.
My rabbit hole excursion involved time and our (USA/European) calendar. I’ve written about this before – Christmas in August, for example. So, I did some lookin’ stuff up.
Our clock time is based on a 24-hour day, determined by one 360-degree axial rotation of the planet. Calendar time is determined by the full orbit of the earth around the sun which takes 365.256 days. The spinning and orbiting do not come out even, so we have that .256 of a day to deal with. Thus, leap year and February 29th. But there is also the problem of the .006. If you don’t compensate for that, over time, things get off. It has happened.
What gets off? Easter. We had to get a grip on Easter. The solution was a new calendar. Can you imagine?
Computing the exact date of Easter is called computus. Obtaining an accurate calendar was one time when science, or observed reality, served the needs of religion. The Church needed to fix this. So, they did. And with the help of more than one mad scientist.
No shit folks. They feckin’ lost Easta and had to hire a guy to find it!
From first being questioned in 325 AD at Nicaea, it took more than 1,200 years to fix – hundreds more to get the Greeks and Turks on board.
Most of the world now uses the Gregorian calendar named after Pope Gregory VIII. It eventually replaced the Julian calendar due to the timing error. That six thousandths of a day made a big mess. But even with all of that, since Eastern Orthodox and Protestants were suspicious of everything the Roman Catholic Church did, it took hundreds of years for the Gregorian calendar to be adopted. The Pope’s authority was limited.
To bring on the new calendar in 1582, and to get dates properly aligned, 4 October was followed by 15 October, thus jumping 11 days. For approximately 500 years the world had two calendars (really it was more) due to religious mistrust within Christianity.
It took almost 200 years (1752) before England made the leap and adjusted from 2 September to the 14th. Historical rumor claims there were riots in London. The last European countries to officially adopt the ‘new’ calendar were Greece and Turkey in the 1920s.
I counted 34 different calendars in use world-wide this year (2018 or MMXVIII). I learned that horology is the name for the scientific study by horologists of time and the making of time pieces/clocks. I could not find an equivalent for calendar experts.
Time (Earth’s rotation on its axis) and calendar, (Earth’s orbit of the Sun) are closely tied, but the sources of measurement are literally astronomically different. We have time zones and an international date line, but we have no such logical place to start or stop measurement of a year.
Lunar phases come into play and there are lunar calendars. The Church had to deal with them, because of Easter. I know the moon is a big deal (especially when full), but I am writing a one-day blog, not a book. Back to my point.
When does each year begin? Whenever we say it does. Tradition and Greg’s calendar say we begin each year on January first. Why? Who says so? A long-dead Pope?
Another confusion issue with the Gregorian calendar is that it was adopted proleptic, meaning that dates prior to its 1582 inception were extrapolated back in time. For a long time, dual calendar dating was common. Born on 5 October 1254? Not so fast. All that work for a good, accurate calendar.
So, what day it is may depend not only on what religion you are, but also on what sect or denomination of the religion you are, what culture you belong to, and what calendar you are using.
I am thinking of the words in the song by Chicago, with a similar title, “Does anybody really know what time it is…” Do we care what day it is? Yes.
Currently, a new year begins when we are about a week into the northern hemisphere winter. Nothing really ends or begins after 1 January, just some ‘back to’ stuff like school or work, the grind, the salt mines. It’s depressing.
The new year should begin the day after Labor Day, in early September. It just makes more sense. The first Tuesday after the first Monday (Labor Day) would be when the year begins with a four-day weekend. Just move Auld Lang Syne and all the other new year’s traditions back a few months. Football would be just beginning instead of ending. Summer would be almost done, instead of the beginnings of winter.
Fall is already the holiday season. It’s when school begins and life changes. What mo’ betta’ way to bring in the New Year?
Get rid of Columbus Day (or whatever you call it, apparently, he was a dick anyway) and make Halloween a day-off – a real holiday. Pass a law that every normal person must costume up and wear a mask. Instead of trick-or-treating, kids must sing songs for money or candy. Make the day after Halloween even more spooky. Maybe graveyard parties? Bring back Decoration Day but make it Night. Cool!
Vet’s Day is good, but can we move Thanksgiving to something other than a Thursday? If we go with Friday, we can have Black Saturday, Purple Sunday (or Advent day one), and Cyber Monday, as is.
Pass a law that every kid with a birthday in December must have a party (and a good one) in June or July. Require gifts for the first 6 years. Align all the other holidays with Christmas and Yule and make the celebrations 12 days long. Light candles. Or move Christmas to August, as I’ve previously suggested. Think of it. All those f**king Christmas decorations gone by Labor Day (another law).
After New Year’s Day, add Saint Patrick’s Day as a day-off federal holiday and call it Green Day. Require everyone to wear green, drink beer, and eat corned beef and cabbage. Have a similar day for every other immigrant ethnic group there is. If an Indigenous People’s Day is needed. I suggest May first. Wait. What day was Custer’s Last Stand? Make it late June and make Juneteenth a holiday, too.
End the school year on or before June first. Make summer work vacations 20 days long. Require everyone to travel and to spend money with friends and family and to have fun for two weeks. The other six days are for trip prep and recovery. It would be an economic stimulus of the happy kind.
We determine how this goes. We, the people, make the decisions. Pass a law making it illegal for elected government officials not to do what we want. Add a law that jails them if they do not do the things they promised to do while campaigning. Include all presidents. Demand a new government agency to determine and ensure that everyone has life (health), liberty (freedom to choose), and happiness (even if they must go to the dentist sometimes).
But first, let’s fix the damn calendar. Remember, Labor Day is the last day of the year and the following day begins the new year, no matter the date. It would dress up one Tuesday of the year for someone and she’d get all sorts of Happy New Year wishes. A lot could change, until the following Tuesday.
Have a good time. Does anyone know what day or time it is? Does anyone really care?
Look both ways regardless of the days or what culture says.
It is only 2018 if we say it is,
and there have been calendar gaps for as long as
this mote of dust has hung on a sunbeam.
The most inclusive happy holiday song ever. A fun watch, if yer up to it.
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