Been unable to find help and no longer able to post. Find me on Blog spot as Blogetressa or on Facebook as Clarissa Simmens or on email as drabarni1@gmail.com but tell me you are from WordPress or I will not answer because of the hacking. I can still read your wonderful works and want to thank you all for support over the years! Good health to us all! Clarissa (poeturja)
GREENHOUSE
(Poem? Song? Novel?)
🌻 🌻 🌻
So excited
Couldn’t sleep
So like a little girl
On Christmas Eve
Waiting to see Santa
Grabbed the cell phone
And slipped through the
Sliding glass door
Dogs lifting their heads
And returning to sleep
Briefly thought of Max
At 105 pounds
He’d never let me go into
A dark yard adjacent to the swamp
Alone
But my current dogs
Are children of my old age
And don’t demand much
🌻 🌻 🌻
So I quietly close the door
And there it is
In the darkened light of
The New Moon
Delivered by UPS
Put together by Roomie and me
The perfect 8 x 6 greenhouse
Housing unsheltered plants
From the storms of rain and thunder
Just another hurricane season
In the Lightning Capital of the nation
🌻 🌻 🌻
The plants were fed fertilizer
After moving them to their new home
But now I bring out the
Important food for the soul
Corn meal
Himalayan pink salt
And the sweet smoke of
Home-grown Sage
I greet and lightly touch
Each gift in its pot
Hello, Three Sisters:
Corn, Beans, and Squash
They nod their heads in the dark
While the Nightshades:
Tomatoes, Peppers, and Potatoes
Sisters to Belladonna
Remind me of their Vitamins A & C
With lots of antioxidants
Loaded with nutrients
And always welcome in my kitchen
🌻 🌻 🌻
Suddenly a figure appears and I
Recognize the 4-square symbol on her dress:
Mokosh, Slavic Earth Mother
Associated with the destiny of women
Can’t help thinking what a magnet I am
For all the Fates from many cultures
But I welcome her
Mokosh, meaning “moisture”
Perfect because moist earth
Is essential for gardening
As is the earth quickly drying
From flood and torrential rain
🌻 🌻 🌻
As she fades
I look around at my little structure
Unlike the portals I wander through
In previous descriptions
Like the Bathhouse and Swamp Crossroads
The greenhouse is anchored to the earth
There is no magic portal
Just a rolled-up door
Leading merely to my backyard
The magic is in the food
Growing in my pots
For health and safety
Briefly, though, I contemplate
Naming the greenhouse Esplumoir*
Merlin’s little cabin harboring
Twelve Damsels, oracles of the future
Neighboring Perceval, famous
Holy Grail guardian
🌻 🌻 🌻
But magic often visits us
If we look and listen
And I see the shadow of a woman
Playing a big old bandura on her lap
And another shadow strumming
The three strings of an unmistakable
Ukrainian-crafted balalaika
And I know
My plants will gladly grow…
🌻 🌻 🌻
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Greenhouse & plants & ukulele
🌻 🌻 🌻
*From Wikipedia:
The esplumoir is thought to be the place where Merlin, who is fond of transforming himself into a bird, would resume his human form.[3] According to the Didot Perceval it is a cabin or a small house that Merlin built himself near the home of Perceval, guardian of the Grail, to prophesy.[4] It is also imagined as a high tower or a rock, in other texts. In Méraugis de Portlesguez it is described as being atop a high cliff having no doors,windows or stairs; it is inhabited by twelve damsels who can tell the future.[5]
AGROHOMEOPATHY (WHITE FLY)
Oh, beautiful April garden
Burgeoning with green bell peppers
Cherry tomatoes
Onions, Garlic and Ginger
Fell under the spell
Of the wicked witch
White Fly
Leaves departed
And all began to die
No matter what I tried
(Dish detergent included)
They relentlessly nipped all
Pumpkins, potatoes
Roots and vines
Curled up and died
While I tried not to cry
Oh, though,
I dose myself with homeopathic cures
And sure enough
There it was online
Agrohomeopathy
Homeopathy for plants
And decided to fight
The blight and bought
Silicea for strengthening
Zincum metallicum
(also great for human leg cramps)
And the “Corpse Reviver”
Carbo veg
For “desperate blossoms”
The Last Chance Saloon for healing
Mortar-and-pestled the pills
Sprayed on roots and leaves
And yes, healing
And yes, sprayed the
White Fly troops swarming
And yes, I think it will work
My bell pepper looks lovely still
Tomorrow is Sci Fi Friday
When Roomie and I
Watch Dr. Who
And eat homemade
Cauliflower pizza pie
This one will have a
Beautiful gift from the
Earth, Water, Fire, and Sky
With slices of green pepper
Kissed by the old root queen C
(Me)
And woken up
Some may say
To die
On the pizza pie
But it transitions into
Another life as the seeds
Compost, feeding the worms
While fulfilling our needs
To survive
Thank you dear plant…
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Green pepper with homeopathic remedies
FLORIDA BARD ANTHOLOGY
This is a post from the Florida poet and artist Denise Fletcher (who is also a wonderful friend). We both have poems appearing in this coming Florida anthology. My poem is titled “Gulf of Mexico Musical Nexus.” I believe the link is for preordering. I have read through the proofs and conclude that there are a lot of amazing poets in the state of Florida!
xoxoxo
Gulf Coast Poets
Gulf Coast Poets Florida Bards: A Poetry Anthology
My poem, “Saint Michael’s Shrine” was published in this poetry anthology in April 2023. I am pleased to be included in this fine collection, along with many exceptional poets, including my friend and fellow Florida poet, Clarissa Simmens.
A book of poetry published by Local Gems Press. Edited by James P. Wagner and Larry Jaffe, Beat Poet Laureate of Florida.
To purchase the book, click here.
Labels: Anthology, Books, Denise Fletcher, Florida, Poetry, Publications
Passion Fruit Dessert
Moving through my garden
Red tomatoes
Off the vine
Placed in a battered pot
Red beans
Red cayennes
Red potatoes
Bubbling like the
Song in my valentine heart
Served in rose quartz bowls
Eaten with silver moon spoons
As the sun sinks
In a pink sky
And we drink the
Cool twilight of dreams…
(c) 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
BAXTALO AVGO MAJO
Happy May Day
♥ ♥ ♥
RockStar guards the Sunchokes
Woof-woofing on this first of May
Call it Beltane or Avgo Majo
But celebrate this solar day!
♥ ♥ ♥
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: RockStar & Sunchokes
(AKA Jerusalem Artichokes)
PASSPORT
I own no passport
Therefore, have no access
To the seven continents on Earth
I so long to be able
To enter some of these portals
But I know I will never travel
And the wish will remain
Part of my fantasy life
Ah, for the Paleozoic Era
When all the continents were attached
Before the oceans didn’t interfere
With the pangea
I could drive my 2007 Honda CR-V
Around the world
But no
And so
These places remain unseen
Unentered by me
Should I purchase a passport
Dispelling the claustrophobic need
To move around
Feeling freed
From a place in time
No longer mine?
But no
Just an OCD moment
To right my shrinking world…
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Pangea with modern borders/Visual Capitalist
THIRD WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH
(scroll down for a YouTube video of The Who)
Who are these old people
Clogging up the aisles of Walmart
Buying vitamins, denture cream, incontinence pants?
I ask myself
Impatiently squeezing through carts
Forgetfully left blocking me
While these silver-haired shoppers
Seem to have fallen asleep
Standing up
But then I suddenly recall and in a
Fit of nervous laughter
Realize I’m just as silvery as them
Maybe older than some of them
And I wonder how it can be
When the words to Pink Floyd’s
“We don’t need no education…”
Are beating through my mind
And I feel like a teenager, but then
I recall I’m old and
It’s the third Wednesday of the month
Social security safely snuggled
In online checking accounts
To be spent within the hour
Am I like them?
They’re dressed like proper grandparents
While me in black
Looking like the eponymous nun
In Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Or an aging Goth Granny
Stomping around in combat boots
Still wondering
Who are these old people?
We’re hippies and veterans of war
We’re wannabe rockstars
We’re wrinkled grandparents
And loving parents of
Human or furry
Scaley or feathery babes
Dreamers
Poets
Feminists
Hunters
Gatherers
Retired from years of work
From different social classes
Different politics
Different spiritual beliefs
But bonded by the music
And I’m sure most of us no longer believe
The Who’s “Talking ‘bout my generation”
And I’m sure The Who no longer believe
Their line
“Hope I die before I get old”
Nope, not them
And not us Walmart shoppers
Can sing that line today
Without knocking on wood three times…
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: CS & friend Tarot 1974
The Who, My Generation (YouTube)
TERRESTRIAL ZODIAC
(for Earth Day 2023)
The UK has Glastonbury Tor
The US has Mount Trashmore
I have been a Flatlander
Here in the Florida peninsula
But my backyard converts
To whatever I wish
And like conjurers of old
I see a Terrestrial Zodiac
On a two-lot land
An as below, so above plan
True, copying the stellar heavens
Is almost impossible to do
Yet I have special corridors of power
To do my bidding
Scaled down to twelve sections
ARIES, my own, begins the wheel
Lies in the North
Red and green cayennes
Like the finest quartz Bloodstone
Soaking up the Sun
Orbiting to TAURUS
Partially shaded by
Banana tree fronds
A solid, fighting weed
Inflorescence fruit womb
GEMINI up against the back fence
Pure shade to hide the glow of
Duality and intelligence
Live Oaks dripping
Spanish Moss
With Air plants of Red Tillansia
CANCER conserving the foresty ponds of
Aquaplants like duckweed and algae
While LEO, basking in sunlight
Shows off the finest, most colorful
Swamp flowers
Haven for bees and hummingbirds
Now the serious vegetables take root
As VIRGO’S analytical, critical
Earthy nature dominates under the palm tree
LIBRA has a patch of harmony
Growing this and that
But intense SCORPIO
Hides the roots
Of onions, garlic and ginger
Under the water-based ground
And vibrant, reckless SAGITTARIUS
Generously shines on Greens of every hue
As ambitious CAPRICORN
Close to the back of the house
Self-importantly impels the
Growing of corn and sunflowers
Sowed by birds and squirrels
Circle almost complete
As AQUARIUS
Not caring a bit
Who thinks what
Grows whatever blows its way
And inching closer to the beginning
Sensitive PISCES
Lets loose with exotic tropical flowers
Often not based in daily reality
But there, nevertheless
And so, I may never go
To see and feel the breathlessly beautiful
Tors and mounds sublime
But it is always
As above, so below
And I believe
In the great mystery
That if even one person
Out of one hundred
Lives life magically
It is a life worth living…
♥ ♥ ♥
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Today’s 2023 Container Garden (Partial)
KIKIMORA IN DAEMONIA
Canto 4 (brief character sketch)
Kikimora’s webs
Tiny and tightly woven
Are scattered across my floor
She thinks I cannot see them
But can, now that I’m aging
Avoid them if you treasure
Your life, Gran taught
One is for hubris
(Don’t brag or swagger)
One is for luck
(Spit over your shoulder 3 times)
One is for health
(Diet and exercise, it’s magical)
And another for wealth
(Nothing ever worked for me)
★ ★ ★
Maybe she’d like her own home
But the ancient deities are
Similar to dogs and other animals
Ruled by their limbic system*
Remembering what they are bred to do**
Kikimora, like Athena,
Sprung from the brain of
An ancient folklorist
Who mythologized
In his or her earliest mind
Another house spirit
To protect hearth and home
When deities like the Domovoi
Ate a bit too much
Of the bread and salt
Failing to do their duty
Thus, invention of a mean old woman
A syncretized spinner of fates
Demanding a clean house
With the broom used to chase unwanted spirits
(But don’t touch the spider webs)
Or young maidens, children
Would be eaten or beaten
By Kikimora of the bad temper
But we know better
We know who she really is
★ ★ ★
To be continued in the Daemonia novel or chapbook…
★ ★ ★
© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Kikimora
★ ★ ★
*Broca first coined the term “limbic lobe” to describe the part of the cerebral cortex that forms a limbus, the Latin word for “rim,” around the corpus callosum – the large fiber bundle connecting the cortices of two cerebral hemispheres.
★ ★ ★
**Limbic system controls emotions and long-term memory
poeturja 