CRYING

Cried on the bathroom floor

With a puppy on my lap

Cried alone in my car

In a deserted supermarket lot

As lightning crashed not ten feet away

And empty shopping carts rolled untended

One hitting my door

XXX

Tears did not make anything better

Once I passed forty years

But no way to stop them

Occasional devastation

Calls for water

To quench the fiery anger

When faced with injustice

Listening to barbed wire words

That increase my fears

XXX

Laughter was once more steady

Now, it has a desperate sound

Phony, hollow, hysterical

And it sometimes ends in crying

Waxing or waning

The moon rules my inner ocean

Salinity dueling with sanity

I am no longer ready

To pretend strength and fight

XXX

Singing carries me through the night

Choosing a theme, like rain

Alphabetizing singers

Then singing each song in my head

While lying stiff and silent in bed

Yet the relief of rhythm and words

Is surely similar to a baby being

Sung to sleep

As I mother myself

XXX

Life is so sad sometimes…

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

HAPPY NATIONAL COFFEE DAY (USA)!

Seem to have only written two poems about coffee that I will repost in honor of this grand day:

https://poeturja.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/kafa-coffee-haiku/

This one is mainly about music but coffee makes it so much better:

OPENING RIFFS

(c) Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

SURVIVAL MECHANISM #7,019

I treated the Universe

As Cassandra was dealt with

Prophecies

Preceding eye-rolling

Although it has a track record

Of being right—the Universe—

All the time

I still chose to ignore warnings

***

How many times

Did It conspire

To break apart

A damned, doomed relationship?

But no

Although

I speak and understand the language

Of the Universe

I pretended that the words

“Run! “   or

“Stay put!”

Were gibberish

And I mentally ridiculed

The insistent Voice

***

Now I’m older and

Truly want advice

But the Universe has flung

Its starry hands

Out into the void

In frustration

I’m sure I hear it whispering

“You are too old to waste time on now”

***

Mom was going to name me Cassandra

But someone told her it was bad luck

Can’t see that Clarissa is any better

Did you ever read the epistolary tome

By Richardson

Titled “Clarissa”?

The book goes on and on

Until you wish Clarissa would just

Disappear or stop writing letters

The book doesn’t end well

***

Should have been more sympathetic to

The Universe

I can relate

Despite my name not being Cassandra

No one listens to me either

And some of my useful knowledge

Will be forever lost

***

But I’ll use the Universe

As a role model

Does the Universe complain

When no one cares?

Does the Universe eat chocolate

When others ignore It?

The Universe goes on and on

Despite the warnings of

Physicists, Astronomers, Mathematicians

Religious leaders and maybe even Astrologers

***

Survival, I’ve learned,

In spite of not making use of the insight

Starts with a thick skin

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: CASSANDRA, Flower Garden of Kromeríz, Czech Republic

6- Mangen Pes (Love Each Other)

(ANNUAL HATE-FREE DAY SONNET)

Love each other, often hard to endorse

So what if we cannot always feel love?

Tolerance is an acceptable course

Distilled from burning passion undreamed of.

See our fellow humans who suffer too

Spreading hatred causes life to be worse

Anger poisons the aethers wafting through

Hovering like an everlasting curse.

We specks of life on each other depend

Yet we form tribes of separate masses

Mistaking charisma as our best friend

Further separating into classes.

Although love is a precious rarity

Honor the emotion with clarity

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Madame Sosostris Explains (a poetry patchwork)

BAXTALO TAMNA SUVA! (FORTUITOUS AUTUMN EQUINOX!)

Autumn Equinox is unrivaled

Equal is the sun and moon

Time halved is perfection

As fog overlays celestial couples

Hazing the sky and all that it covers

Here is the day and here is the night

Non-discrimination of the dark and light

When heat and brightness suffocate

Darkness cools like a mother soothing

A fevered forehead with a wet cloth

Give us radiance but gift us

With sheltering shadows

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: 2014 Autumn Equinox morning (sun & moon visible) outside my home

HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

(My annual Poem for International Day of Peace)

Let there be peace inside

My personal universe

Heart and Brain hosting an

Alignment of symbolic planets

Spinning inside the

Dark space that always struggles

To bring the light of truth

Then let it spread to others

Singular experiences

Singing into the aethers

Let there be peace inside

Let there be peace outside

Let there be peace…

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Poetic Alchemy (Talking Blues)

MISSING

Things that disappear

Like being six and

Walking on the Atlantic City

Boardwalk

(Pre-casinos)

In midnight moon

And clouds

Surf and sand

With Gran and some of her

Myriad cousins, sisters, friends

Walking ahead of them

What could they possibly have

To talk about

So intensely

In foreign languages

I never learned

And finding a dark store front

With huge looming animals

(Pre-animatronic)

Dressed in costumes:

Upright fox in a top hat

And cutaway

Upright bull

Horns hatless

Wearing a matador’s red cape

Upright rabbit

Sinister, unlike the Easter bunny

Unlike the fussiness of the

March Hare

Glaring through the glass window

Dressed in black tie and tux

On and on

I could swear they have moved

An eye winks, a drop of drool appears

On the snarling wolf face

Animals towering over me

Yet I am safe in front of the glass

Scared but fascinated

Longing to enter their world

In my own costume

In a flowing gown of

My secret favorite color: red

Suddenly

Unwelcome tug on my long, curly,

Dark hair

As Gran’s friend finds me

Frantically looking at the door

No name on the store

I can read but where are we?

I want to come back in the daylight

But I never do

Never find that cluttered window

Of unfriendly, forest animals

Though I search for years

And in the 80s

Birthday party for my

Sons at Chuck E. Cheese

I get a tingle

When the animatronic

Animal band

Plays on stage

But no, they are too friendly

Not baleful at all

Like my band

From long ago

A time that

Disappeared

Swallowing up

A six-year old

With chills stomping

Up and down her spine

And a glass cage of

Animals

Dressed in their best

As they lure the luckless

Into their darkened window

With a vision

Never to be forgotten

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

I’LL CROSS THAT BRIDGE WHEN I COME TO IT

Looks like I did

Cross it

Tried not to anticipate

Trouble

But no choice

Had to cross

And murmuring the words

Magical words

Did not help

Did not make the problem

Disappear

Is there another idiom

A counter-spell

To make it all right

In the mind?

Well, perhaps

The problem

Will become

Water under the bridge

And all will be right with

The world

Once again…

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Me at Suwanee River

EXPUNGE

Tonight, let us lie in our bower

Together, fast together

Let us not bring into our new life

Our ex-spouses, ex-lovers

Or mothers, fathers and brothers

Tonight is for us

But tomorrow

Let us go on the shoreline

And push each one

Out to sea

In the sunlight

The memory

Of those times and tears

Drowned

Forever from our thoughts

Now cleared for new love…

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

STRING THEORY

Over the years

Played several instruments:

Flute, harmonica, kazoo

Tambourine, bongos, keyboard

Never has anything felt so right

As the guitar from my youth

And the ukulele from my maturity

Vibrations of string

Pulling the heart strings

Brain strung out

***

Perhaps some of us

Are as sensitive as Pythagoras

And his Musica Universalis

Music of the Spheres

Movement of celestial bodies

(Sun, moon and planets)

Emit their own unique hum

Pythagoras, mathematical madman,

Claimed the pitch of a musical note is in proportion

To the length of the string that produces it

Ergo, quality of life on Earth reflects

The tenor of celestial sounds

Imperceptible to the human ear

Felt, though, in the body, mind and soul

***

The first known artist

Depicting an angel with a harp

Must have loved string music

Must have discerned the Musica Universalis

That’s also my idea of Heaven

Although more fun to strum strings on Earth

Because we get to wear cool clothes…

***

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)