Between the garden and the grandkids I have completely neglected NPM. tsk tsk tsk
I must somehow set aside a bit of quality time for National Poetry Month in days remaining. I just must! Maybe I’ll set an alarm for that too. I only have fifty-gillion to five-gazillion alarms already.
So today I said to myself, “self you need to read one and post one.” Of course that won’t catch me up. So I read Too Much Pain by Donna Ashworth. And for a post I went willy-nilly and typed “22” into one of my files and this is what popped up.
Some people do the same thing when looking for a bible verse to inspire/guide/comfort and swear that fate will always give you an appropriate response.
DID YOU SHAKE HIS HAND –? the hand of a man’s man?
Did you see how his eyes searched the space around him as the world grew smaller?
Did you learn the secrets of Africa or discuss his tomes over drinks?
Of course not.
You could not for we were mere children – our wedding day marking the twenty second anniversary of his exodus… his rise to immortality.
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature the year you were born – did you know that?
I was but two months in the womb when he placed the beloved twelve-gauge inside his mouth and obliterated the ciphering pheasants once and for all.
Did you see how he caressed her?
How her cold, soft metal against his finger was as pacifying as the perfect daiquiri… how she (his beloved) alas cured him of the demons.
In a flash she rooted them loose one by one from their hiding place – a place liquor nor currents could mole; a cavern so deep no joule or watt could grasp.
Ahh, but she did.
She exorcized them, set them to flight riding on soft grey tissue laden with hemochromatosis and fragments of bone.
Christ might have offered the fiends a swine but not her or better yet not him…
A sacrifice for the Bay of Pigs?
It was all such folly—such unholy madness for a simple man and a literary saint.
We are still months away from NPM and poetry discussions are abuzz. I love it!
I’m not even upset that one “genre” is dissing the other – I am just happy poetry is being discussed.
I clicked on a link/interview that was shared with a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and then BOOM I was knee deep in reading, searching and lurking a dozen other sites.
I [honestly] never considered a genre when writing poetry and probably couldn’t categorize if my life depended on it. But [speaking of dissing] I’ll share Thoughts on Writing from Getting Me Back.
Thoughts on Writing (The Requirements of an Author)
Desire: A congenital need to tell the story.
Determination: It is not enough to walk a couple of blocks or run five miles on a treadmill, come prepared to hike the Himalayas and explore the abyss.
An exoskeleton: A thick skin will not suffice — no indeed. Colleagues and critics are apt in the sadistic art of shaving and burning the thickest of flesh; their tireless wheel of pumice leaving the toughest callouses raw and bleeding. They will thin your skin; get beneath it and prove your vulnerabilities. Like a flesh eating bacteria they will consume you — kill you if you let them.
A poker face: Never let them see you sweat.
Gratitude: Because no one owes you anything!
Grace: For the rise and the inevitable fall.
Pills and booze and smoke: Because it is a hard and hateful world and you are not a god-damned ant.
Tissue thin, transparent bits and pieces by the millions I gave to you…
To be received, to be tended
or to be rendered useless as you deemed fit
old inhabitants of terra firma.
Slivers of my soul….
What did you do with these pieces of me?
Where are the misplaced microscopic stars of my spirit, where are they laid?
Did they dissolve beneath a soft autumn rain?
Or burn in the heat of a cruel summer day?
Were they consumed by the dust mites of fate?
Giving me away was easy….
Getting me back seems nearly impossible.
I saw a fleck of glitter this morning,
caught in an abandoned web of time.
I retrieved it ever so carefully, pulling away the tiny choking strands; polishing it in the palm of my hand till it shone bright like a minuscule star… exploding…
and I recognized it as the twinkle I once saw
in a smiling photo of me.
*The poem Getting Me Back lent its name (and guidance) in the memoir styled book of poetry. It also lured me back from the land of “bat shit crazy” 😉
Before I share let me say, I am aware of the cynical tone of this piece.
I said, “of this piece” because I am not a cynical person. Sarcastic, yes, but not cynical.
It’s not the quarantine or the Covid 19 bug that is bugging me, hell it’s not even the empty shelves in the grocery stores or having to wipe with an oak leaf. That is not a big deal, remember I was a piss poor country bumpkin so this just reminds me of happier days as a child.
So what brought about this Friday’s Free-For-All on this Good Friday? It’s the peee-puuul! Well not ALL the people – and definitely not you friend. (Insert winky face, smiley face and through in a bunch of virtual hugs)
Sigh. People never fail to amuse me.
So while I am feeling amused during this holy time I thought I’d get up on my Hickory stump podium and compose a poem. (And a picture)
Costumes
You look for your Jesus in a cheap red suit in December and a bunny suit come Easter.
You dress Him in costumes and [unknowingly?] mock His sacrifice.
You keep Him naked, wounded and nailed to a cross; not to remind you that he was the Passover Lamb but to have him languish in his suffering. You sacrifice him over and over again, creating molten images to hold him on the cross.
You have married Him to Santa and a goddess named Easter/Ishtar; you worship their imaginary offspring of pretty packages and hard boiled eggs, savory sweets and bunny rabbits… none of which can save you. Ha! These objects of your affection are inanimate – they cannot even save themselves!
You dress for the occasion – Sunday’s best. Is this your costume?
Donned in your fetching attire you sit down to feast and stuff your belly with unclean meats and your spirit starves. But it’s “holy”. .. So holy! You take it all in and shit it out. Cleansing?
Amidst fearful news you fret over toilet paper and regurgitate biblical verses [verses you haven’t taken the time to read, much less comprehend] and warn of Christ’s coming… of the great rapture.
The Real Janna Hill in 