THE BRAID (FOR MY GREAT-GRAN)

The braid the braid

Tangled in my hair

Made me so afraid

Gray like yours and

Seeming like a knot

Tying us down

Almost a burden

A Web of Wyrd

Reminding us of the

Norns of Norse Mythology

Urdr, Verdonde and Skuld

The Three Fates

Determining our destinies  

Especially its span

And now one morning

Prior to my diamond jubilee

I awake with what we now call dreadlocks

A braid a braid

A knot

And I am afraid because,

Because despite brushing and showering daily

How would my hair tangle like that

Sure, apply physics

Restlessly asleep

Tangling on the pillow

But perhaps that braid was made

By you who’s been gone for decades

And now and now

How can I not feel

It was you visiting

One Dark of the Moon

Does it mean that we may meet

Very soon…?

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Web of Wyrd 2

DAEMONIA 2

CANTO TWO

You see me, used,

As a Muse

But where is my visual

Of you?

There you are

Somewhere

Hiding behind the clouds

Like a god

Manipulating life

Perhaps behind a tatty curtain

Like the Ozian Wizard

Or visiting a poor Muse

Like Zeus

As a shower of gold

Can’t see you

Don’t want the Invisible Man

But I do see your scented trail

Sinuously winding about me

A magical fog

Of moonshine and

Sparkling, distant suns

And an aroma of baking berry pie

From oven to sky

Your vague outline appears

In the distance

Snuffling the air

Like a black and tan Coon Hound

Looking to tree its

First prey of the day

This time, though

I fight back

Scenting with

Aromatic herbs, spices, and

My favorite, split pea

Rising out of a bubbling cauldron

With eye of newt

And personal pheromones

Deliberately spun

To stun

You…

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Daemonia Canto 2

Read Canto One here:  DAEMONIA | poeturja (wordpress.com)

75 DIAMONDS

(Square Root of 5625)

*scroll down for a YouTube video

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75 Diamonds

Just a couple of months up the road

And I think of

Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”

Today I’m one Social Security check away

From homelessness

But been lucky to find

(To paraphrase Tracy)

Roomie with a free house and

Me with a job to buy us modern comforts

Visitors can’t visit my shelter, though

It’s the open door-open floor plan

Once had a coral snake

Wrapped around my espresso maker

Screamed like a girly-girl until Roomie

Got a broom and threw it out the door

Also tossed the coffee maker with it but

I managed to hang on, homeless but free

Another dull diamond year for me

But back to Tracy Chapman

Who still has the power to make me teary

When I hear her sing

“I, I had a feeling I could

Be someone

Be someone

Be someone”

I think:

Even though the diamonds no longer glitter

Through the Earth’s crust

And in my life

No man felt I was worth a diamond on my finger

I’m grateful that wisdom comes at jubilee time

And I see

The diamonds are really the years

Many times no glitter

But sometimes yes

With children and grandchildren

And Roomie

Dogs and cats

Books to read and eventually write

Musical chords to strum

Pretending I’m as good as Tracy Chapman

Who did live to be someone

But in the end, we all are

A special someone

If we did not harm anyone…

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© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Diamonds (Pinterest, no attribution)

*https://youtu.be/AIOAlaACuv4

Fast Car YouTube Video

VALENTINE’S DAY 2023

Happy Valentine’s Day

Whether our soul mates have

Fur or scales or feathers or skin xoxoxo

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We love saying

And hearing

“I love you”

Sacrosanct words

Like Om

Vibrating

Like a sustained chord

Resounding along the edges

Of the Universe

I-LOVE-YOU

How spiritually satisfying…

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(C) Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Hearts and Sun and Divine Music

NAME THAT COMET OR…?

(2-9-23 / 6 A.M.)

Waning gibbous moon

Looking like a bit-into biscuit

And nothing else noticeable

In the 6 a.m. sky

Me stumbling around

Dogs howling at bayou beasts,

Feral cats, or far-away sirens

Me snapping sky pictures

But OMG

Do you see?

Moon looks full

And what’s that tinted ball

In the bottom left?

Green-tinged I’m sure

Last seen by my Neanderthal ancestors

Comet ZTF or maybe it’s

Comet 96P Machholz

Chasing its tail

As my dogs are doing now

Herding me back to our warm bed

And I ponder the mystery of outer space

Cluttered in the Southern sky

Despite the vastness

Wishing I could fly…

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Name that Comet 2-9-23 6 a.m.

“HOLLIS BROWN LIVED ON THE OUTSIDE OF TOWN”

*Scroll down for a YouTube video

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Ashamed to say

I was one of those kids

Booing Bob Dylan

When he played his

Electric guitar

At a concert or Folk Festival

But see

He not only created a mood

But he made himself a model

For the Baby Boomer generation

With his acoustic guitar

And thrift store jeans & jacket

And words we’d never heard

Or read in a history book

So it was like meeting Dylan

And his wife Acoustic

We were best friends

But then he divorced her

Showed up at the house

With this trophy wife

Called Electric

And expected us to forget

About our old friend

And accept this new one

And some of us just weren’t

Going to have her in our own homes

I mean, can you imagine her singing

The edgy Ballad of Hollis Brown

In crackling electric?

No sound of fingers

Ferociously pressing frets

How do you build a mood

How do we see and hear

What Dylan did playing his

Lovely wife Acoustic?

But like divorced couples everywhere

We eventually split

Some admire Dylan so much

As did I

And we accepted the new wife Electric

And some didn’t

But if I was stuck on a deserted island

With an old record player

(And a source of electricity to plug it in)

Could pick two of his albums

No contest

Would be those early acoustic albums

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

And The Times They Are A Changin’

I guess that’s what he really meant

Time doesn’t stand still

Ever…

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© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: My Acoustic & Sons’ Electric

*YouTube Video Ballad of Hollis Brown

SCATTERED CLOUDS

Jackson Pollock painting

In white and blue

Snow losing its way

Without a clue

Doves from a magician’s hat

Flapped wings and flew

Wind did a sneeze and clouds

Scattered and grew

Before looking down

I suddenly knew

Seeing runic words

On ripped paper you drew

Recognized your handwriting

Merely Odin passing through

Learning Runic truths

On the World Tree you hung askew

Now you impart the secrets of life

Impossible from my angle of view

Wished-for fishing net appears

And I gather the cloudy stew

Fit them all together

A jigsaw of words to review

Some runes I recognize

They ring so very true:

Do unto others

As you want them to do to you…

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Scattered Clouds 2023

FATE HEALING

Mythology of ancient Greece

Created the Moirai

The Three Fates

Made to ensure that

The gods and mortals

Would live out their destiny

According to the laws of the Universe

Clotho the spinner

Lachesis the allotter

Atropos the unturnable

Working her well-oiled scissors

Snipping the thread

Separating souls from their

Life-long fate

Linnaeus, perhaps,

Father of binomial nomenclature

Designated the poisonous herb

Member of the Deadly Nightshade family

Belladonna

A warning that Atropa Belladonna

Is a deadly venom

But Samuel Hahnemann

Father of homeopathy

Believing like cures like

Saw past the dreaded name

Potentiating Belladonna

Into a miracle drug for some

So whether it is a migraine

Or vertigo

Or trigeminal neuralgia

I place 5 tiny pellets

Sublingually

And like magic

I am cured, restored

Hmmm…

A cousin of the tomato

Must eat more

Atropa Belladonna…

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Atropa Belladonna