ENGINE BLOCK HOTDOGS (1991 MEMOIR)

Hard to glamourize being poor

Especially when shopping at the Scratch & Dent store

My hourly wage was four twenty five

Just barely enough to keep us alive

Two teenagers eat a lot…

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We couldn’t afford the air conditioner

No help from the county commissioner

Didn’t know about free food and power

Just lived from second to minute to hour

But I was out of icy Philly and in Florida…

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My sons wanted to see the beach

An hour’s drive, certainly in reach

But no money for charcoal and BBQ-ing

Wanted to impress them for family renewing

Why don’t they like peanut butter and jelly, my favorite…?

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Bought cheap hot dogs and wrapped in buns and foil

Couldn’t afford ice and didn’t want them to spoil

Opened up the hood of my dusty old car

Saw the engine block and had an idea so bizarre

To us trailer trash, engines are for cooking…

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Parked by the Gulf, sat on the seaweedy beach

That day my sons learned what I was trying to teach

As we munched on the lunch

I delivered my punch:

Stay in school and never, ever be poor…

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© 2014 Clarissa Simmens, Poetry of Memory: Six Decades from the Space Time Continuum

IMAGE: Hotdogs and Tortillas

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True story but lots of love and not so bad being poor…

SIMPLY THE SUN

(a tribute to the star of our show this autumn/spring equinox)

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The sun is not mysterious enough

To rate writing about

Moon mystique is endlessly

Fascinating

Appearing in the darkness

Drawing our blood, tides

And ruling our emotions

Contrast the sun

A necessity for all life

Dosing us with Vitamin D

Nothing enigmatic though

Just there

Even if it seems invisible

Like during polar winters

Of utter darkness

Or on stormy sub-tropical noons

Even on cloudy beaches

Evidenced by the wind-blown skin damage

It is there on twilight evenings

As night-bloomers like Evening Primrose

Open and stretch

Toward its sleepy rays

Dark or light

Dim or bright

The sun is always there

No, nothing mysterious about it

Just a burning ball having

Occasional tantrums

As the spots explode

We understand its punishment

On desert roads

Our bodies mercilessly drying

There are so many moon songs

But not many sun ones

So what’s to write about?

Yet, my favorite time of day is dawn

When the sun sails above the Earth

Breaking through the horizon’s rim

My heart thuds loudly because another day

Another chance for a good day

Is once again hovering in the dawn

Let it be today, I think longingly

Let it be today…

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© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Morning Sun June 2016

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HEALTHY & HAPPY AUTUMN EQUINOX TO MY FELLOW-NORTHERN HEMISPHERE FRIENDS AND HEALTHY & HAPPY SPRING EQUINOX TO MY SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE FRIENDS XOXOXO

DREAM (WORK-SONG-IN-PROCESS)

We met

And I get you

You got me

Then what did us in?

You are ruled by your hands

The buzzing of fiddle strings

The healing of minor dings and pings

The writing of songs

And the curse of touching hands

Suddenly knowing when life will be gone

You used your voice wrong

Saying no more songs

Until I apologize

For what?

Inappropriate laughter?

I’m sick of saying

Read about autism

SorrySorrySorry

I’m me

And I leave

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The thunder did rumble

I felt myself stumble

Come back, you mumble

No way, I grumble

Apology from you a fumble

I want out so I tumble

A somersault across the border of Newlife

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Finding myself in my dream house

Not “dream” house like

Someday I will live in a

Cape Cod on the beach

But DREAM house

Where you sleep deep

Finding yourself in a

Confused crap world

In a long low dark house

With endless corridors

Walls with bathroom ceramic tile

Or wallpaper from a Victorian horror

Finding myself in childhood South Philly

No houses like that there

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The walls are on fire

Like some ancient funeral pyre

I run to a door sealed with barbed wire

Desperate to run higher

I find what I require

Stone steps a pacifier

And new scenes begin

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But the house grows like

The book House of Leaves

And I suspect the need for

Camping gear and

Climbing ropes and

Pitons before the first ten hours

Of the march through the

Hallway to hell

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How to escape from this dream?

First I try a Hollywood horror scream

Turns out it’s a really bad scheme

My words turn into steam

Heating then freezing my bloodstream

Oh, for a shot of morphine

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Reverse the rhyme

I tell my sleeping self

Only one thing to end the curse

Do the inverse

Tumble in reverse…

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(Actual dream, sorry to say)

 © 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Nighttime singing

MAGICIAN OF THE THREE PORTALS

There you were

My Magician of the

Three Portals

Breaking from the Past

Finally burying those

Just-won’t-die-corpses

Of all that was wrong

In your discordant song

Of early life

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Here you are

My Magician of the

Three Portals

Moving through the Present

Invisible wand

Conjuring

A life built on

The ruins faded and gone

What an archaeological

Dig it is

But you keep the layers separated

Then and Now

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Here you will be

My Magician of the

Three Portals

A Future of promise

But you hesitate

One foot out in the Now

And one foot testing

Intemperate water

Preparing to dive into

Who knows?

But age brings unexpected

Strength

Whether Pleasure or Sorrow

So embrace

Whatever gifts are brought

To you

Tomorrow…

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Magic Portal by Nightcross-DeviantArt

FLORIDA CHICKADEE (POECILE CAROLINENSIS)

Impossible to see the dinosaur in black & white Chickadees

Spurning homesteading in Live Oaks and other trees

Zooming through the backyard like Elon Musk rockets

Devising a nest in drying laundry’s pocket

Tiny eggs somewhat safe from roaming feral cats

And other predators overlooking the safety of an al fresco laundromat

Will the Chickadees return, I wonder, in a mood so bittersweet

Or perhaps empty birds’ homes qualify for an *Abandoned America Tweet…

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES: Chickadee nest in my coat pocket hanging outside / Florida Chickadee

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*Always loved abandoned buildings so this refers to the Tweets from Abandoned America

(I hang my laundry to dry but the winter poncho with the pockets was “abandoned” this winter on the line. Glad the birds discovered it!)

ECSF South Cablegate Rd

AMOR FATI

Nietzsche’s Amor Fati  

“Love your fate, which is,

In fact, your life”

But it’s easy to say

If you have food every day

Or you’re a king like

Marcus Aurelius

Philosopher Emperor

Yet, I admire those Stoics

Wish I could be like them

But I’m a fighter

Even if it is against those

Three mythological sisters

Who heartlessly weave

The future that never

Harmonizes

With what we desire

So for years I chased

The dream of being balanced

And that finally came

Strangely

When I retired

And could rule my own life

Time to look for another goal

Oh, I know, here we go

I gathered some coins

To put in a pouch

To remind me

To love my fate

Elemental coins

(to continue the balance)

Dragon coin for fire

But there be dragons

In water, air, and earth

Flamingo coin for air

But they love water, earth

And have fiery feathers

In the preamble of night

Moon coin for water

Earth’s beautiful follower

Way up in the atmosphere

Bringing us light from the sun

And then a

Sacagawea coin for earth

She who led Lewis & Clark

Across water, shivering in

Evening fires

As wind blew

In their explorer,

Forward-looking faces

And two special coins:

Amor Fati as a reminder

And a Hobo Nickel

With a knight and lady

Discovering the elusive object

A cup, a goal

Acceptance

My Holy Grail…

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: The Coins

MISSISSIPPI RIVER REVERSED

River reversed

Angrily churning South to North

Ghosts of literature and song

Pouring out of the waters

As the hurricane raged on

Doobie brothers singing

Old black water

As the Mississippi moon

Kept on shining its light

Here’s Mark Twain

Steamboat pilot writing about the river

Civil War waiting in the shadows

Always a threat

War, hurricanes, plague

Tonight people fleeing

The city of music

Fiddle, guitar, concertina

Clutched in one hand

Babies in the other

And the Mississippi River

Reverses again

Angrily churning North to South

As nature intended

But how long will it take

Its children

To reverse the devastation

To lives, shelter, electrical power

How long…?

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Hurricane reverses river with

ferry floating backwards by Alakananda Bandyopadhyay

BLUE MOON

*scroll down for a YouTube video

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Jupiter’s moons

Ganymede & Europa

Callisto & Io

Seemingly dancing

With Earth’s Blue Moon

A rare sight yet perfectly right

Because Jupiter

The planet of good fortune

And joviality

Has showered its gifts

On a time when we

Need to know

Good intentions

Can permeate our hearts

And soothe our souls

As we gaze at the beauty

Of our universe…

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES: Blue Moon & Jupiter and  Blue Moon Blueberry Pie

https://youtu.be/qoi3TH59ZEs The Marcels, Blue Moon

HEALING CRISIS

Saved by macrobiotics

Yay! I’m not psychotic

Adjusted a food imbalance

Rerouted a bond of covalence

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Vegetable juice fasts weekly

Face, hair and body move sleekly

Healing crisis mimics past diseases

The body banishes it on dark breezes

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Fast forward to decades when age changes

Pandemic now through continents rages

Old immune system grinding to a stop

Vaxxing is the cure from science’s machine shop

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Twenty-four hours after my second vax

Time slips back as the present cracks

Seems it’s like my juicing days

Neon sign pointing to a pulsating maze

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This way! Hurry! The antibody bell tolls

Be careful walking and mind the sink holes

Do you feel that sharp pain from 1970

How about the shingles with its weird chemistry

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Every major pain from migraine to post ops

Ravaged me that day until my mind did stop

Immune system working, it’s all good

Merely a healing crisis, you don’t deserve sainthood

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Finally got through it and feel a bit amazed

Homeostasis in the body can right any malaise

What a piece of work is man, Shakespeare wrote

Healing crisis became my healthy life boat

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Odd theories circulating, the vax is a microchip

To enslave us innocents to government ownership

But sometimes we need to trust science

Those two words a true alliance

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Consider getting vaxxed

Wear a mask, it’s so easy

Please…

© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:Vaccine, header

I try not to write political poems but the personal is political as we hippies used to say. And I sadly know that 1% of vaccinated people have died of covid-19.  But I really wrote this because I’m amazed at the healing crisis I went through for 24 hours.  It was like, oh, hello, knee pain from an auto accident when I was 20, or hi, trigeminal neuralgia, haven’t seen you for 4 years.  Hmmm, was I in a fever dream?  No, pretty sure I wasn’t. 😊

LIFE COULD BE A DREAM (song-in-progress)

*Scroll Down For A YouTube Video

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Sleepless, aimless wandering through the home

Marty  Balin on the old radio believing in miracles

Grace Slick edgily voice-prodding him on

And then that great solo saxophone

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Sleepless, restless yearning for escape

Wanting to Ruby Tuesday out of this place

Where’s the excitement I once craved

Instead I’m stuck here, glued by a ball of tape

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Sure had major plans each decade along my path

Hiking across the Carpathians to see Vlad’s castle

Writing seminal literature, drinking muddy coffee in bazaars

Yet seems like anymore I rankle from my wrath

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Where are the circles of artists and writers

Poets, musicians, and inventors of utopias

When did life stop being magical and mysterious

How did I cease wanting, no longer a fighter

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At what age do we lose our childhood dreams

Start sanding the square peg to fit in the round

Become ordinary, mediocre, basically human

Give up and accept life is never what it seems

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Sleepless, I stare into the darkness outside

Vampiric castles dissolve in my mind

Literati friends fade into the night clouds

Potential miracles evaporating as my desire subsides…

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© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Budapest Dream House (no attribution)

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^YouTube Video Jefferson Starship https://youtu.be/HBWBOGhFDnM