Today
I flung a
Flower
Into the fire
For you
Commemorating our
Anniversary
Of separateness
Scent of rose attar
Floating to the
Silent dimension
Of your stubborn
Anger
I inhale
Exhale
Repeat…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Fire Art, Pinterest, no attribution
Hey you guys
Remember Gidget?
Who was the actor?
Sally Field?
Karen Valentine?
Someone petite
Someone “cute’
Hate that word
Applied to me
Tired of being thought of
As another species
I mean, like Jim Morrison said
No one gets out of here alive
And although he left at age 27
Most of us get old
Battle the gravitational pull
So tired of seeing posts about the “elderly”
Holding gnarled hands
With the caption
“Awww, so cute!”
Cute? Why?
How cute can wrinkled gnomes be?
No matter the age, it is wonderful
To see couples holding each other
Looking at each other lovingly
So while I haven’t been holding hands with anyone lately
Maybe when I go to the Old Age Home I’ll meet someone there
Who will think I’m fabulous and want to hold my hand
(Imagine Beatles background music)
Hope I don’t become a post for some misguided youth
Although, ok, I confess
I was one of those that screamed
“Don’t trust anyone over 30!”
Paybacks, yeah…
In the meantime, Baby Boomers
We’re the ones who tried to bring peace on Earth
We’re the ones who tried to bring truth in politics
We’re the ones getting screwed, now
With impossible costs of medicines
Did you know they’d take our Social Security monthly
For Medicare that doesn’t pay for hardly anything?
So they need to extort more of our (in my case, paltry) money
And use it for “Supplemental Insurance”
I’m still raging against Big Pharma
But it’s easier to yell at you
Warning you not to tell us we can’t wear our hair long
Or wear dark makeup
Or hold hands with a lover
(Yes, we still love sex and rock and roll:
Drugs? Well, legal ones)
Above all, do not call us cute!
Do not Gidgetize the so-called “Elderly”
We’re forever young
And someday, we’ll be able to go to the moon
With zero gravity
And look lovely enough to be photographed
Then you’ll see who we really are
Just like you…
(Rock on)
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Robert Indiana’s LOVE and Philadelphia City Hall
Built to intimidate
Screaming elitism
Old money
No care for new generations
Of loan seekers
Wanting a chance
Willing to work
Just to open morning eyes
Waking up surrounded by
The American Dream
But mortgage payments
Nightmare of businesses
First ten years for interest
Principal stays the same
Family farms, grocery stores
Cottage industries
Swept aside
By the Grim Reaper of Entitlement
So when I look at this bank
I wonder
Where you thought you’d be
And if even the mighty
Will always fall…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Philadelphia Industrial Trust, Title & Savings Bank (no attribution)
Hey all, after much suffering 
the paperback version of my Plastic Lawn Flamingos and Other Poems is now available on Amazon for $5. The kindle version is nice, with lots of color illustrations, but this one has B&W ones. Still, to me, this is like my diary of a particular time. You’ve probably read all my poems anyway on FB and WP. The link is below.
For those of you who self-publish on Amazon, I used their new Beta program that is part of Kindle, rather than Create Space. The interior was much easier to do, but I really dislike my cover. Unfortunately, my phone did not take pictures higher than 1440 resolution and Kindle wants 300 dpi. Mine was much lower so I was limited in what I could use as a cover image. Also, I couldn’t understand a graphics program even if I was teetering on the top of the Rocky Mountains. I’m sure, if you are PhotoShop-savvy, you could figure it out 😀
(Full Solar Eclipse 8-21-17)
Although no Rhesus monkey blood
Flows through the byways of my body
I feel fragments of fear
Originating from ancient landscapes
Of fern and endless flora
And I am there
Looking for the hidden animals
Absent from the water hole
Watching my tribe
Grunting over skins stretched tautly
Being beaten over enormous gourds
A chant arising
From useless fire
Reaching for the circle of what is now known
As the sun
While a shadow claims dominance
Wiping out daytime firmament
Bringing dusk to the home savanna
Behemoth swallowing the familiar fireball
Leaving us shivering on the ground
Grunting, crying, drumming
Scrying the water
For instruction on how to retrieve
Our celestial canopy
Bright and hot
We rock back and forth
In darkness unexplained
Crying in pain
Until the Feathered One
Points to the sky
With a club as high as he
We will not die!
The monster shadow is vanquished
By our chants
Our spilling of blood
Our promises to be good
And the raging fire
Once again
Rules the bright blue plain
Stretching silently above
A sea of heads
I was there
I remember
As today
Wearing a #12 Shade welding mask
I watch
The eclipse fade…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: prehistoric rock-Pinterest
Here I am wearing the welding mask, watching the eclipse:
Certainly not as romantic
As dances with wolves
But I imagine
Being canines
They also have fleas
Drool
Lick their, um, you know
And sniff each other’s hindquarters
But,
The other side of the ledger
Reflects coin of the emotional realm
I’ve had dogs who
Gently place their head on my shoulder
When I cry
Dogs attempting to speak English
Dogs who sleep in the crook of my legs
As I lie
In a cramped fetal position
During the deepest dark dreaming
I’ve had dogs who make me laugh
Who adore my awful strumming and singing
Who love me unconditionally
Well, okay, food is involved in that bargain
But that’s fair
Most of all, I’ve had dogs
Who daily mourn when
I grab my backpack
Signaling
I’m heading out the door alone
So yeah
I sleep with dogs
No matter how they smell
And each one, in my heart
Forever will dwell…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Some of my dogs through the decades
(8th Annual Global Hate-Free Day 9-22-17)
A/ Could not think of a Em/ poem
Em/ With the words A/ love and peace
D6// That was a youthful Em/dream
Em/ Fading into the D6/ dawn’s release
C/ Where’s the kindness G/ in your heart
G/ Why must loving E7/ fall apart
A/ But my mind won’t Em/ let me rest
Em/ Surely anger is A/ not our fate
D6/ There must be an Em/ alteration
Em/ Don’t want a world D6/ full of hate
C/ To old and new G/ I say to you
G/ Let love and peace be part of E7/ each day
A/ Protesting and Em/ marching
Em/ Once part of A/ my past
D6/ Now I’m terribly Em/ old
Em/ Searching for what D6/ will last
C/Words and music G/ into the skies
G/ Allow a new world to C/ crystallize
C/ Allow a new world to G/ crystallize
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), chords & words
IMAGE: My Luna Peace Ukulele
(For baritone ukulele tuned DGBE: just a strumming song by an amateur)
Ooooh that smell
Not really quoting Skynyrd
Smell of life
Merari, my Gran called it
Dill
Chicken vegetable soup
Fresh merari
Tossed on top of the pot
For the last five minutes of bubbling
Hot kitchen, cold winter
But now
Evening in Florida swamp
Smell it growing wild
Well, seed pods begging to be harvested
Must have blown out of my neglected pots
When I took time off from growing herbs
Planted themselves
And now
An aromatic memoir greets me
In the soft gray
End of day
Bringing the ghosts of Gran and Mom
Aunt Cee and Aunt Are
Bumping hips
While dancing around each other
In a small kitchen
With a huge pot
Forgetting I have no pockets
Because women’s clothing
Usually doesn’t include that all-important
Piece of fabric
(Can’t have it interfering with the hip line
Of a voluptuous woman)
But I reach for my pouch
So inconvenient to draw attention
While fumbling with the drawstring
Just to feel the reassurance of
My pocket deities:
Acorn, feather, sea shell and fiery bloodstone
Imbued with my essence
From touching them with
Invisible fingertip oil
Touching, touching
Wanting to keep the ghosts of family
Singing and laughing
Forever happy
Keep those ghosts forever
But soon they fade
And I vow
That tomorrow
I will search the sunlit swamp
For a sprig of dill
Add it to my female pocket
And one day call upon
The memory
Once again
From the scent of an earthen gift…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Dill, Wikipedia
Week of dress rehearsals
On the cosmic stage
Meteors lighting up
Countless trails blazed
Planets whirling backwards
Magnetic storms arrive
Constellations stretch their legs
Stars come alive
Wandering down aisles of life
Seeking answers for my heart
Searching for the perfect soul
Existence needs a fresh start
Ah, the Moon, overshadowing the Sun
Interfering with the brightness of Earth
Astronomical reasons meaningless
When we question our lonely worth
Eclipses demand tribute
So we question all intentions
Who is real, who is true
Who is a self-invention
Wandering down aisles of life
Searching for my matching soul
Eclipses mean new beginnings
O, celestial bodies, make me whole…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Full Solar Eclipse 1999 (Wikipedia)
Clunky sound
My backpack torn
Grab a flashlight
Palm-sized amethyst
Lying on the ground
Trained since four years
After birth
To think:
What’s it mean?
Deep purple
Lavender
Crown chakra
Spirituality
Wisdom
But not for free
Must think about it
Work for a solution
Can’t shrug it off
Can’t let it be
Wisdom comes with a price
Its reward a spiritual happiness
A joyful noise unto the lord
Or goddess
Or mathematical patterns
Divinely spread through space and time
Or whatever power you choose to use
The older I become
The less I care
About the future
Don’t really want to know
I mean, what’s to know?
But isn’t there a reason why
We become smarter with age
Considered a sage
Yet observing elders
Most seem to be arrested
In their soul development
Still whispering about friends they hate
Still picking fights with family or mate
Exploding the myth of
Time healing all ignorance
And so I see
Flashes in the sky
Lightning from the north
Bringing the tang of mountains
Burning leaves
A spiritual pilgrimage
Beckons to me
Insisting I go
To where the air is thinner
Where the dense absence
Of angry masses
Enables silence to assist
Clearer thoughts able to persist
By virtue of upward movement
That will fortify, unify
Dreamy thoughts of a
Wisdom and safety
In the now…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Amethyst Wash Basin-Stone Smiths
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