TANKA (NEW YEAR’S DREAM FOR FRIENDS & FAMILY)

Two Tanka about what was important to me then and now. Wishing you all a happy, healthy & fun new year! Sastimos (good health)! ❤

My dreams then:

Wishing us true love
Money, careers and travel
Home and family
But midlife did unravel
Youth and strength fading too fast

❤     ❤     ❤     ❤

My dreams now:

Wishing us good health
So we can be wild and free
Posture confident
Striding around life’s runway
Facing future mystery…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: 2020 Norfolk Pine 1 year later 2019 Norfolk Pine newly planted

Jen, here is the one I planted 12 years ago (Here are 2 pictures of the Norfolk Pine I planted 12 years ago from a tiny sprig that was stuck in a flower pot. The trunk is spindly but the leaves are lush! ) 

 

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS

*Scroll down for a Greensleeves video

All the same
Church still saving souls
Lovers drowning in heart holes
Soldiers marching through peaceful lives
Bankers stashing gold in secret hives

Look at the year 1520
With the exception of Magellan
Plowing through the Pacific Ocean
Our favorite online global encyclopedia
Lists events of the year
WAR WAR WAR
Religious upheaval
WAR WAR WAR
Denmark and Norway
Fighting Sweden
What would Beowulf say?
He gave his life fighting the dragon
And now the boys withdrew the
Welcome wagon
WAR WAR WAR

But okay
Obviously some historian
Shared his/her opinion
Of the most important 1520 events
Surely something more
Will be apparent on another site
So I research
Drinking my first black coffee of the day
Hoping to have something good to say
About how all has changed
How civilization has improved
How the population is no longer
Deranged
First event I see
The artist Raphael dies
On his 37th birthday
Come on researchers!
Historians!
Surely we can be
Positively
Upbeat?

Henry VIII was still toddling around
Maybe he composed Greensleeves?
No literature except religious
Art? Titian painted Venus
(Love Titian’s voluptuous, relatable women!)
Desperate conjecture from me
When all I see is
Nothing, nothing
The word of the year is fear

And remember
Not much fun in the Americas either
Wiki did a countdown of the
Worst years to be alive in history
Yep, 1520
Smallpox gifted to the
Aztec Empire
Thanks, guys

So I give up
Perhaps a search another day
After I’ve consumed mass quantities
Of coffee
Will reveal
A past of
PEACE PEACE PEACE
ART ART ART
MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC
POETRY POETRY POETRY

And why am I
Dousing us with this negativity?
Just a reminder
We are the caretakers of
Our universe
We can shape life
Toward happiness and light
Let’s make 2020
The best year to be alive in history…
(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Wiki Commons, Conquistadors bringing smallpox to the Aztec Empire
*YouTube Greensleeves Mozart/Henry VIII https://youtu.be/cfjN2fGHjUY

INSOMNIA (AGAIN & AGAIN)

Insomniacs like me
Sleep from life
We don’t always wake
Dropping important parts
Of ourselves
Like entering a dream world
Where all is strange
But oh, so real
I cannot write
In this morphial place of
No-sleep
But one day
My eyes will open
And the words will be there
Once again
Tumbling
Maybe stumbling
Across the white page
Of the Universe
The creative spirit:
Writing, music, art
Will return
Gardening
The simpling of herbs
Will suddenly appear
Yet I know
What I want most
The beauty of romantic love
Has disappeared forever
But even in its absence
It will be an
Awakening
At last…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: entropic tractor 2 sm px

SOLSTICE #19 SUN

Happiness and health to all my friends & family (whether you celebrate the summer or winter solstice) Saturday, December 21, 2019 @ 11:19 pm

Winter sunshine often glides
On beams astride a tilted Earth
Sun at its southernmost post
North Pole plunged in darkness
But it is the moment of the
Solstice (meaning “Sun Stands Still”)
When it stops, reversing
Moving northward, a path to fulfill

Ancient calendars in Mayan Tulum
And Salisbury’s Stonehenge
Honored this scientific moment
Capturing the speck of light
Before the longest night
And we continue this in modern times
Among the mammals hibernating
The serpents brumating
We humans manically do our preparations
Baking, cooking, buying, greeting
Dancing, singing, talking, eating
Because we understand how fleeting
Time is for all on Earth

The Sun, long worshiped
Warmth and light to keep us safe
Unconditionally touching everyone
Sun doesn’t care about my autism
Sun doesn’t care about my aging
Sun is there even on the cloudiest days
Even through the dampness and haze
I greet this gorgeous, golden Sun
One of the few constants in my Earth span
Revolving around the Cosmic Plan
That is you…

(c) 2018, Chording the Cards & Other Poems, Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Night Solstice

MEMORY SPOONS

Were TV ads better
In the old black & white days?
Can’t help remembering
The Dutch boy
With his great straight hair
Painting colorful stripes
That imagination changed
From black and white swipes
Of his magical brush

Oh, the Lipton Teabag man!
Dressed in captain blues
(Who knew? It was black & white TV)
And the steam from the cup
On wintry days
Made me send telepathic pleas
To my mother in the kitchen
Turn on the kettle
Let the water bubble up
But she never heard

Jello!
Plain cherry or orange
Or a can of fruit cocktail
Dumped in
(My mother’s cooking method)
J-E-L-L-O
So sweet and always
So little to eat
In small refrigerated cups
Then years later
Dieting
Jello not so much fun anymore
When it replaced chocolate
In a calorie war

How I wanted to be
The Sun-Maid Raisins girl!
In bonnet with basket
Moving through the vines
So exciting for me
Who lived in a city
Not much growing through cement
But I confess
A few years later
When the California raisins
Danced inside my TV
There was no contest
As I sang
“Heard it through the grapevine”

So this poem grew
From my son Micah’s
Winter Solstice gift to me
Not only 4 advertising spoons
For my collection
But also 4 memories
Two gifts in one
Thanks!!!!

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: ad spoons

MOO

(experience as the basis of art?)

So many times
I’ve traded in the
Family cow for the
Magic Beans
I’d do it again
Even knowing what I know
That not everyone’s as lucky
As Jack
Not everyone finds
The Golden-egg Goose
But I’d do it again
All along
I’ve been led
By anything
Wild and mysterious
Beckoning corridors
And any unlit path
Pathetically
For my art
My words
Bad experiences equal
Interesting poetry, right?
Perhaps most poets
Gamble with the future
For that once-in-a-lifetime poem
Maybe for most
Artists
Musicians
Maybe?
Hey, though,
I’d do it all again
Because writing
Is the antechamber
To freedom…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Cow & Guitar, customon.com

element. . . and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

More great poetic replies to the prompt of the week. Mine is “Moment of Imminent Action” thanks to Jamie Dedes!

Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine

Oh lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
Many a thing you did to save me,
Many a holy gift you gave me,
Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;
And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
You wisdom– your waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill against the sky
And look on mountains and the sea
And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.
Sara Teasdale,The Collected Poems

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This week we bring you poems in response to If You Get Another Chance, the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, December 11, 2019.  This interesting…

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SHADES OF A HEALING MOON

Blue box
Overflowing blue and silver
Blue-Water-tides
Silver-sun-in-darkness
Blue Buddha
Medicine Buddha of Fire
Lapis Lazuli of Light*
Blue Jay feather of Air
My dissident Crow
Smirking at the words
Love & Peace
He truly does know
Maiden, Mother and Mage
Three stages of the Moon
Archangels from heaven
Lugging the key of knowledge
To decipher the Earthen gifts
Of silver saints
Matrona
Hildegard der Bingen
Mother Teresa
Healers all
Hear me
Heal me
Or bestow the
Bravery of Kali
On this silver-haired
Blues-singing
Sometimes scared
Cancer-Rising Aries
Clutching her portable altar
Night after night
In healing moonlight…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Portable altar
*Medicine Master and King of Lapis Lazuli Light

From Wildmind.com: (tadyatha:) oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye maha bhaiṣajye
bhaiṣajya raje samud gate svaha Hail! Appear, O Healer, O Healer, O Great Healer, O
King of Healing!

 

CARTOMANTIC CHEMISTRY / PERIODIC TABLE

never studied chemistry
but the tidy rows
of atomic numbers and letters
spoke to me
atoms of protons and electrons
defining characteristics
of each element
and theoretically
i understand the discipline
and now
in beautiful colorful cards
i
the cartomancer of
tarot and lenormand
of the drom romani
and bicycle decks of 52
(or perhaps being a
latent alchemist
made their beauty
impossible to resist)
have fallen in love
with this beautiful set
of the elements
although always
the four elements
accompanying
me
earth, water, air, and fire
will always be
all i need
yet
there is something about learning
what our bodies contain
to ascertain
what our bottles of
vitamins and minerals
do pertain
what all the essentials of life
remain
to help us sustain
life…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Photo card deck of The Elements & baritone ukulele

HAIKU STACK (TO BE JOLLY)

song-in-progress (can I write a so-called “jolly song” in melancholy Minor chords?)

‘Tis now the season
For buckets of red and green
(Florida dreaming)

Soon the shortest day
Sun’s declination stands still
Candles light the night

Wind and coolness but
This Sunshine State is snowless
(December dreaming)

Golden music plays
Red birds blending with berries
Green floratam sleeps

‘Tis now the season
For energy in coolness
(Florida dreaming)

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Bucket of red and green