TWO POEMS (Happy Horror Week Scare: I’ll take ghosts, vampires, zombies anytime. Aging is my personal nightmare…)

 

CASH-POOR/CAN’T AFFORD YOUTH CULTURE ANYMORE

 

Nightmares about Soylent Green

Hungry? Worried about aging?

Thankfully, no Charlton Heston in the dream

 

Shopped at Walmart yesterday

Tomatoes spilled from inferior plastic tray

Some hit the floor but I’d already paid

 

Nothing grew in my back yard

Lost the planting will, everything’s hard

Sandy soil, anyway, is much too scarred

 

Food and water no longer seem healing

Garden medicine chest no longer appealing

Glancing in reflective glass, aged face has me reeling

 

Food, water, shelter and power

Supposed to create a protective tower

Framework for the body and soul bower

 

Poisoned is the water and food

Houses unaffordable yet devalued

Utilities effectuate disquietude

 

Ah, to be young and strong and ready to fight

To feel the blood pump while mood takes flight

But my side-effect of aging is terrible fright

 

Today is the future…

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Ebay Gothic Skeleton Wall Mirror

 

 

tale-of-the-wife-of-bath-burne-jones

 

“WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?”

 

What do women want

According to medieval storytellers

“Sovereynte”

The ability to make her own decisions

I disagree

Women want beauty

The magic ticket to

Receive it all

When older,

Women want youth

AKA beauty

Let me prove

This to you

Disputing Chaucer and

His Wife of Bath Tale

Or, later, Sir Thomas Malory

And although Dame Ragnelle

Is given the honor of

“Knowing” what women want

The tale would be different

If an actual woman

Wrote the story:

 

So, you may remember that

King Arthur is chasing

(Poaching?)

A deer in haunted Inglewood Forest

Owned by the otherworldly

Sir Gromer Somer Joure

Who in anger, demands an answer

Within one year

(Or he will behead the king)

To the question:

What do women most desire?

 

Despairing, Arthur confides

In his nephew Sir Gawain

So the upbeat knight

Organizes a ride

Through the country

Asking women the question

But all the answers are different

(Okay, no women-change-their-minds-too-much jokes)

Desperate, Arthur returns to the forest

And meets a “loathly” lady

An ugly, old crone

Promising the answer

If he arranges for Gawain to wed her

Gawain agrees, to save his uncle

And Arthur finds Sir Gromer

Who is waiting with his sister

Lady Ragnelle, who happens to be

The “loathly” lady

She has quietly told him the answer is

“Sovereynte”

 

In bed, after wed

Gawain good-naturedly decides

To treat Ragnelle like a beautiful woman

Turning around

He sees she has transformed into a young

Stunning one

“You broke the spell

Cursed, to be old and ugly

Until a handsome young knight

Agreed to marry me”

But her looks will only be restored half the day

She gives him the choice:

Shall she be beautiful at night

When they are together

Or during the day

When they are with others?

Instead, Gawain gives her the sovereynté to make the choice herself

His answer lifts the curse for good

And Ragnelle’s beauty returns permanently

 

Beauty

Youth

Magical words

Why are there no real stories

About ugly, old men

Marrying beautiful, young women?

 

Well, ok, didn’t prove anything

Just another rant by an aging woman

Who happened to take a selfie

Facing the sun…

Um, hey, no knights

In my past or present

Can you lift the spell anyway?

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Burne-Jones, Tale of the Wife of Bath, Victorian Web

 

 

13 comments

  1. So true on two points – if you’re rich enough you can buy young blood and have the plasma insecure in your face. And beauty is a magic ticket. It is insulation against the kind of criticism we expect from a largely misogynistic society.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. (Sighs) … actually, they do matter. And this realisation takes place after the lust dies down. There’s also pride, narcissism and greed. People are too concerned about appearances to put that theory into practice. I’m reminded of a certain presidential candidate who boasted one day that men would weep when his wife walked into a room, but was trying to have trysts with multiple women soon after that.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I must admit, SB, on my good days I do believe that brains matter. And although I’ve sworn not to mention politics for another 2 weeks, I agree about said candidate and what you wrote. Is there a “screaming” icon I can use…?

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  2. Powerful, Clarissa. Personally, I cheat. I don’t play the game by the rules, the rules are lies. I do not believe, either the mirror, or the numbers. Long ago I decided not to age. I learned to walk between the worlds where one is whatever one chooses to be. All curses are lifted there because the physical body is not required. Foolishness? Perhaps, but it works for me. I live in what I call “sudden death overtime” – i.e., I ‘died’ in my mind when I reached the age of 50 and now my body aspects are just going through the motions. I am not aging, I am changing. This body isn’t me, it’s the cocoon housing the soon to emerge butterfly. This planet isn’t my world, it’s my body’s world and both are finite, I am not. When in physical awareness, aging is an annoyance, no more. This too shall pass and I will be young and beautiful and desirable. And I will also be aware, understanding, compassionate and giving. I hold a tremendous hoard of power within me that soon will be unleashed wherever I choose to go. I have seen my future and helped make it. It is my inheritance and it is good. It’s a matter of shift in consciousness, and self-empowerment. What do you think?

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    1. Such interesting and enviable thoughts/knowledge. I can see that you have indeed separated from your Earthly body and are able to straddle the past/present and future admirably. Although I have no natal planets in Earth signs (astrologically), I’ve always been Earth-bound and Geocentric. I like the idea of being “aware, understanding, compassionate and giving” and so I feel that your beliefs are strong and worthy of truth. Thank you so much for sharing this and I will continue to muse on your words.

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