NO-WAKE ZONE

 

Red-right-returning
Channel markers
Red and green
Confusion sets in
For someone like me
Who has a reversed compass
In the brain
My life, then
Has been a slow movement
Fearful of attracting attention
The making of a wake
Sloshing the water
Best to obey
Don’t make waves, they say
But by the time it is okay
To speed up and get someplace
The tide is out
The boat is low
Knee-high
Tow with a rope
All is pull and push
Always that much more
Difficult
By land or water
By air or even fiery balloon
Easy does it
Shuffle-shuffle
Never make a wake…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

WANTED: SERIOUS MUSE

 

Throw-away society

Planned obsolescence

Of material goods

Marriage and partnerships

Easy to toss, too

That includes

The all-important entity

Called Muse

Whose actions

Like the fabled soul mate

Are impossible to predict

Will he always be

Standing over my shoulder

While I type my poetry?

Keats, Byron

Even women like

Wheeler and Walker

Love, curse, cajole

But the Muse

Doesn’t always come through

And me, I’m modern

If he doesn’t work

Find one that will

So here’s my serious plea

If you’re looking for a new job

And you understand poetry

Send your application to me

I really can’t write without you…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

Photo: Nickolas Muray,  Frida Kahlo & her male muse

INVISIBLE

Might as well be
In a two-seater plane
Sky writing across
Earth’s inner atmosphere
Etching in smoke oil
WHO?
Remember, words fade
But names and faces
Imprint
Forever…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Skywriting, Glozine.com

STRATOCUMULUS

High fog clouds
Low in the sky
Wanting to cry
Rain all over the world
To drown the pain
But can barely maintain a drizzle…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Stratocumulus clouds over my swamp

ASPIE ASPECT

The Aspie aspect of me
Conjures up scenarios
Twisting and turning
Through my neurodiversity
Sometimes making them real
They’re so logically true
But when up against
Neurotypicality
So-called reality
Tells me I’m wrong
Am I? I ask myself
How do we know
What is below
The river’s surface?
How do we decide
If there be dragons
Who comfortably abide
In the corners of the world?
Is it a lie?
Maybe I’m neuroacceptant…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: James E. Grey Preserve Withlachascotee River

JUST 5 MORE MINUTES

 

View from the window
Announces 6 o’clock
I can tell because
The dark of night
Has given way
To pale gray light
And the Spanish Moss
Dangling from Live Oak trees
Resembles my morning hair
Tangled and curly

 

I pull the rumpled quilt over
The silver mess
But my dogs
Ever-attuned to my moves
Nudge me, now in breakfast mode
No, I murmur, not yet
7 is my target time

 

Everyone forgets, except me
That I deserve this hour
Most of adulthood
Up at 5
Lighting the kerosene heater
Those years HE refused to fix the furnace
Shivering in my morning shower
In a one-bathroom home for four
Waking the boys
Making the breakfast
Coffee the prime objective
Feeding dogs who long ago
Crossed the fabled Rainbow Bridge
Dressing us all
Gingerly waking
THE MAN
THE DAD
THE HUSBAND
Through the years
Kids to babysitter
Then preschool, then real school
Me to school
Internships
Student jobs
Real jobs
Not much changed
Even when I began my new life

 

Oh, no!
My Rottie is hungry
Sticks his head
Larger than mine
Into my face
Goofy smile
Not yet, I say
View from the window
Announces 6:30
The early birds
Get the dehydrated meal worms
Red Cardinal dads on the feeder
Brown Cardinal moms on the ground
Pecking the leftovers
(No feminism this morning,
Clarissa, I think
Go back to sleep)

 

But I never make it to 7 o’clock
Because retirement, to me
Means an almost hourly pee
Lucky dogs
Breakfast determined by the
State of my bladder
I’m up and out
And the view from the window
Announces 6:45
That’s a nice compromise
Enabling to care
For the dogs and birds
The life I live and love…

 

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Morning Moon and Sun

BARITONE UKULELE SONG IN PROGRESS

(WITH BASIC CHORDS–NEEDS LOTS OF WORK)

 

Am/ Is it our destiny to always be Em/ apart
Am/ Mending fragments of an empty Em/ heart
Dm/ Will we suffer, unable to Em/ touch
Dm/ Love and truth not meaning Em/ much
Am/ Why no gazing in each other’s Em/ eyes
Am/ Why no chance to weave faithful Em/ ties

 

CHORUS

 

A/ Never, never must we sever
G/ Esoteric linkings of us forever

 

Am/ Perhaps we’ll meet in a cold,dark Em/ place
Am/ Celestial bodies reflecting from each Em/ face
Dm/ Silver astral chords tethered to Em/ Earth
Dm/ Experiencing a long-awaited spiritual Em/ rebirth
Am/ Celebrating the moment we finally Em/ meet
Am/ Discarding the sadness of being Em/ incomplete

 

CHORUS

 

A/ Never, never must we sever
G/ Esoteric linkings of us forever

 

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
Baritone Ukulele D, G, B, E

BLACK FRIDAY (AGAIN)

So many theories
About the name
Retailers accounting ledgers
Finally in the “black”
19th Century name for the day
The U.S. Gold market crashed
Philadelphia (yay! my home town)
Coined the word from the chaos
Caused by shopping the day before
The traditional Army-Navy game
Held on Saturday
My favorite was also Philly-based
It was a day the nuns were given
To shop for their Christmas gifts
And dressed in their medieval black gowns
White whimples framing their excited faces
They descended upon Center City
Buying, dining out
Clogging the trolleys, els, subways and buses
Me?
I always held it in disdain
Who wanted to stand in line for a few dollars?
Who wanted to regress to reptilian habits?
Fighting with others for the one toy left
And I have seen people punch each other
Over something so sickening
Anyway, Black Friday starts a week in advance
At my favorite shopping venues
The internet!
(Yay! I can buy night and day!)
Most importantly
I’m feeling a bit blue
So the choice is
Eat chocolate
Or pay, pay, pay
For fun stuff
Just a few clicks away
To get happy on
Black Friday…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

 

 

LITERARY CRUSH

I stand with Emily

She created the perfect man

It’s not that he’s wild and free

Not that he’s handsome as can be

Not even the bad boy syndrome

Attracts me

He’s the man

Who loves his woman

Exclusively

Oh, the words:

 

“Do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my life… I cannot live without my soul!” Heathcliff to Cathy, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

 

So, okay, I know it’s silly

But there he is

Larger than life

In love and not afraid to say it

I’d rather be poor

Lying in purple moors

With imaginary Heathcliff

Than trapped in a secure bed

Lost and alone

In a loveless home…

 

© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: North York Moors (no attribution)

CORNUCOPIA

REPOST OF MY THANKSGIVING POEM WRITTEN 2016 TO ALL MY FAMILY,  FRIENDS, and FOLLOWERS  ❤

 

Smoked round reed for spokes and braiders

Soak them into flexibility

Cross, pinch, entwine and weave

Humming hymns of tranquility

 

Zeus breaking off the horn of his nurse

Heracles wrestling a river god of fables

Either led to an abundance myth

Winding up on Thanksgiving tables

 

Growing gourds, red and green Earth treats

Nuts and flowers complete the increase

Profusion of life’s requirements

Create a still life centerpiece

 

Magnetic pull of voices from the past

Call and text loved ones far away

Laughter, tears, music of the spheres

The beauty of a traditional holiday

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Abundantia