How could he not think
Before slaughtering Cecil
“I will be despised”?
Dentist inflicts heartless pain
And a beheaded king dies
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
Month: July 2015
GOOD VEINS
Already know the story of my palms
Life line, heart line and one for the head
I desperately need more information
Although the answers I somehow dread
Small hands telling a story
Pulsing with life, at least
Once delicate and pretty
If only they weren’t creased
Does the blue vein signify character
Or is a fortune waiting to be foretold?
If correctly interpreted it would parallel
Crossing my own palm with gold
The veins look like meandering roads
Connecting and leading where?
The left could be a prancing horse
Tempting me with a dare
The right hand appears more sedate
Resembling an after-the-rain mushroom
Both images explode with life
Replicas heady as the finest perfume
Healthy life is what I seek
Now that a bit of wisdom has surfaced
Things I’ve known forever, yet ignored
Have suddenly become repurposed
Yes, I will follow my intuition
That I will live until I die
And drink extra coffee tomorrow
Altering the shape of a predictive scry
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
SIMPLY THE SUN
The sun is not mysterious enough
To rate writing about
Moon mystique is endlessly
Fascinating
Appearing in the darkness
Drawing our blood, tides
And ruling our emotions
Contrast the sun
A necessity for all life
Dosing us with Vitamin D
Nothing enigmatic though
Just there
Even if it seems invisible
Like during polar winters
Of utter darkness
Or on stormy sub-tropical noons
Even on cloudy beaches
Evidenced by the wind-blown skin damage
It is there on twilight evenings
As night-bloomers like Evening Primrose
Open and stretch
Toward its sleepy rays
Dark or light
Dim or bright
The sun is always there
No, nothing mysterious about it
Just a burning ball having
Occasional tantrums
As the spots explode
We understand its punishment
On desert roads
Our bodies mercilessly drying
There are so many moon songs
But not many sun ones
So what’s to write about?
Yet, my favorite time of day is dawn
When the sun sails above the Earth
Breaking through the horizon’s rim
My heart thuds loudly because another day
Another chance for a good day
Is once again hovering in the dawn
Let it be today, I think longingly
Let it be today…
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY (7-26-12)
Aisles of tables crammed high
Smell of bacon mingling with musky perfume
Morning coughing from the smokers as they
Sneak their fifth one of the day, hunched outside the doors
Coffee scent, the morning sustenance, dominates
The aisle of dollar breakfast booths.
Slinky long dresses promise me admiration
As they shimmy off the hangers to the floor
Colorful pottery chipped by careless buyers
Glitters in the morning sun, begging to host a plant
Tattoo parlors and gun shops, coin and pawn booths
Harley boots and leather vests alongside polished crystals
Nestling in sachets of smudging sage
Layers of masks litter the bargain table
But who cares what they are concealing?
I have an objective in this endless flea market
Crowded with shoppers who walk the aisles disguising
Hopes and dreams and the need to spend money
To make the pain go away.
There she is, waiting for me, I just know she knows
I saw her sitting there last week looking tired and discouraged
Her sister was taken away and she was in mourning
Three months old in a cage quickly becoming too small
I didn’t rescue her last week because I could hear the refrain
“Boycott puppy mills”
But where do these puppies go if we do not rescue them?
Testing labs? Euthanasia-oven-ashes-in-the-trash?
Her eyes haunted me all week and here I am
She is on sale today. When I ask to hold her she gives me her best
Face licking, smiling, staring into my eyes: Take me, please!
And I do.
What a healthy, happy girl she is
Type B, not really interested in living up to her breed
Or her name: Kali the Rat Terrier, the Warrior Goddess?
No. But definitely a sacred clown
Knowing the right laugh buttons to push
Born under the sign of Leo, yes, she is a classic Leo
Happy Terrific Threes birthday, dearest dog Kali
I cannot imagine life without you.
© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), Poetry of Memory: Six Decades From the Space-Time Continuum
BATTERED
Fantasies of the rich and famous
More, more, more?
How about the fantasies
Of the working poor?
Do abused victims
Fantasize?
Begin with hope and love
Only to morph into another
Abusive scenario
Because that is all they know?
Is it possible to imagine
A happily-ever-after ending?
What is the dialog like?
Loving, positive
Or angry and demeaning?
Is there no relief for the
Physically or mentally abused
Even in the imagination
In an alternate reality
Or is there a place
A private world of escape
From what is and what can be?
Fantasies
A self-mythology
To brave each day
Or night…
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
“IMPERMANENCE”
Numerous “What you should do”
Advice posts on social media
It all seems so long ago
That I cared
Being old, well,
It is just living in the now
With the bit of fear
About approaching pain
Or an undignified end
Among strangers
Or the loss of my mind
Total, that is, because
Some of it is already gone
Like when I ask myself
Um, why did I come into this room?
What did I want to say?
Or
How can it be Thursday already?
Yet there is the joy of
Being able to recall and sing
All those songs from my youth
That are thankfully still popular today
Rocking out gives as much pleasure
As it ever did
There is trying to diet and exercise
Because the reality is brutal
As it always was
But the wrinkles are reflected back
To my surprised eyes
And I say,
“Surely it is a misunderstanding
Between my brain, eyes and the
Mirror that is obviously a cheap version
Of a real one!”
We are all merely a Buddhist sand painting
A created, colorful mandala
Years in the making
Seconds in the melding
Of individual grains
With the earth, water, wind and fire
I understand the analogy
Just cannot accept it…
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
NIGHT VISIT TANKA
(Another dream about Poe)
Cats and ravens black
Hidden hearts, death, tolling bells
Edgar Allan Poe
Ideal man of mystery
Soul-baring in moonlit dreams
© Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Tanka & Haiku Collection
IMAGE: UNIDENTIFIED from WordPress blog
APOLLO 11 MEMOIR (1969)
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOON LANDING:
Hot July day with
Our first color TV
Tuned to the moon
Wow! The moon!
Humans landing on the moon!
Walking on the moon!
The moon and I have a history
No matter her phase
She is my comfort and my light
Even when dark
I did not feel she was being violated
As Neil Armstrong bounced along her
Silent craters
Even when the flag penetrated
Her virgin soil.
Just 21 and legal
Able to vote and buy wine
Married a few months
Lying on the floor
Bottle of Mateuse Rose
Box of water colors as
Face painting dripped
Below the neck
Dribbling between breasts
Painted with red roses
Continuing past the navel’s crater of skin
Down, down, Dave Van Ronk singing
“Baby let me follow you down…”
Marriage so beautiful in its youth
Like a space program that showed so much promise…
© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
Poetry of Memory: Six Decades From the Space-Time Continuum
HI FALUTIN’ AUTISM
This year I come out of the closet
And admit that I am HFA
High Functioning Autistic
No such diagnosis when young
I only have meltdowns once a year
But everyone deserves a meltdown
My mother, back in those days,
Knew how to deal with noisy children:
Pull the hair, pinch the cheeks
Until we stopped
Thought I was an alien
At school, and later work
If I was a wolf
In a tight pack
Would have been driven out
Then, a few years ago,
My Gen Prac doctor casually said,
“Oh, you didn’t know you’re HFA?”
Tested and yes, I am
So I’ve decided to
Embrace my inner clown
Not a Seinfeld-funny one
Just odd
Just master (mistress?)
Of the inappropriate
Comment
Somewhat unsure
If people are joking or serious
A bit stiff if a stranger hugs me
Overwhelmed by flashing lights
And large crowds
Although I learned to navigate in
The day-to-day and night-to-night
Life
Homo autistica
I coined that word in a previous poem
We’re a new, evolutionary breed
There are so many of us on
Different levels of the spectrum
Too bad I didn’t land in the
Land of Savant autistics
Like Bill Gates
But at least I’m an Earthling
I think…
© Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
CIRCLE SONG
How far I’ve come
From South Philly
To the bayou
Who would have thought a
Relentless cement upbringing
Could produce a swampy old woman
Able to move through the unruly floratam
Twisting boot heels in sand
Skeeving leeches
Or were they alien life forms?
Standing up to a Rottweiler
Staring me down
Because he’s taller
Pedaling on an elliptical
Outside in 100 percent humidity
In 95 degree temps
Walking under Live Oaks in lightning
Extricating a wild woodpecker from my hair
Discussing murder with decimating crows
Growing and eating more and more
Luscious red cayennes like
A dragon in training
Plunking a ukulele
While singing like Yoko
On a bad day
Because only the dogs and birds
Only the leeches and mosquitoes
Only the clouds and sun
Only the earth and water
Are there to hear and see me
Crazy old
Gypsy woman
Stomping around
Yet still wondering how to
Right the world
How full-circle I’ve come
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
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