LOSING (AND GAINING) MY PERSPECTIVE

 

Lost myself

Mostly in a good way

When retired

Got to play

Ukulele

Write poetry

And strumming-type songs

Found a new self

So I thought

But as long as I live

With another in my space

Nothing changes

Roommate in my face

Left early, first light

Hardly ever drive

But I drive to

A Burger King drive-through

Haven’t had cholesterol on croissant in years

But I do, while gulping the largest black coffee

Arguing with seagulls

It’s like I find myself

Back in pre-retirement

And no, not working

But yes, working

Blue Gulf, blue sky

White clouds

Gulls cry

I do too

So I type on my phone

Doing social media stuff

Drinking fast-cooling coffee

Sitting in steamy sun wearing black

Shirt and boots

Like some little dominatrix

But I’m not

Just want to look thinner

Even if it’s hot

Just want the security of being able

To kick an attacker in the shins

Wearing my vegan boots

If needed

But gotta go home sometime

Face the day

The reality show of my life

Wish I wasn’t so emotional

Must be my Moon in Cancer

Doesn’t harmonize with

My Sun in Aries

Id, Ego

Does it matter that my Superego

Is Libra Rising

Or do all these astrological influences

Keep me from moving forward

Growing up

Must say

Despite this beach being a small sandbox

It is finally quiet

And I’m decompressing

And I’m ready to return

Into the Now…

 

© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Seagull staring at me, Green Key

WATER WEAKNESS

Despite red tides and

Sewer plant pollution

Negative ions on the beach

Continue to work their magic

On my mood

Decompressing

Feeling okay with being alone

Feeling energized enough

To face the day

Perhaps when one of

Nature’s elements

Is endangered

The other three

Collaborate

Working extra hard to

Balance the Earth

And those of us rooted

Into the beach bleached loam

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Robert Rees Park, Green Key, Florida

“THINK, WAIT, FAST”

Repost: Wrote this last August, longing for winter. Now it is not even Summer Solstice and I’m wishing to leap ahead in time. Says a lot about my ability to WAIT…

 

<dream fragment>

Where is the sea?

Familiar salt smell

An invisible pull

Of negative ions

Grains of sand

Tumbling in the wind

Arranging lines of code

On a sun-screened body

Salty water invading platinum hair

Curls being tossed everywhere

Temporarily blinding

Hiding the sea from

Searching, gritty eyes

Where is the sea?

***

<reality>

I come to the pocket-sized beach

In winter only

No longer liking to be close to strangers

Alone, where I can dream

Green Key Park on the Gulf opens at dawn

Sip coffee bought from the Burger King drive-through

Not as good as mine

But convenient, tolerable

Birds, palms, sunrise on the Gulf

I pretend it is the sea

Here, it is warm like a bathtub

Some tidal action

A bit of wave hiking up to the shoreline

Sand and negative ions

Water and fiery sun

Elemental balance

I go inward more and more each year

Feel like Hesse’s Siddhartha on the river

He, like me, can think, can wait, can fast

Well, fasting, ok, not quite there yet

But able to do the rest

Because the inner life is best…

***

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), Parallel Universe Café and Other Poems

IMAGE: Robert K. Rees Memorial Park

#TBT POEM 1991 CHANNELING

(VISION FROM CLEANING THE BATHROOM WITH BLEACH & CLEANSER IN A SMALL, CLOSED UP APARTMENT 🙂  )

I have always been a woman

Coming alive in a starlit sea

Pummelling waves my only music

Salty foam decorating me

Body rocking with the tides

Hair silvery in dawn’s sunlight

Sleeping in the sandy warmth

Awaiting the moon’s kind night

 

© 1991, 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Desktopimages.org

BLOOD THINNER

 

I say the sun

Is salicylic acid

Like aspirin

It thins the blood

So we sub-tropicals

Find it impossible

To tolerate 45 degree weather

(That’s Fahrenheit)

And you northerners

Swim in our Gulf

Sixty degree splashing

(That’s Fahrenheit)

Showing off on our beaches

Calling us wimps

With your sneering eyes

As we huddle in fleece

Tucked into the sun-sparkling sand

Because after all

The negative ions are worth

Shivering for

As we decompress

Overdressed

On a rare Florida day…

 

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Anclote beach, Pasco County, FL

“THINK, WAIT, FAST”

<dream fragment>

Where is the sea?

Familiar salt smell

An invisible pull

Of negative ions

Grains of sand

Tumbling in the wind

Arranging lines of code

On a sun-screened body

Salty water invading platinum hair

Curls being tossed everywhere

Temporarily blinding

Hiding the sea from

Searching, gritty eyes

Where is the sea?

***

<reality>

I come to the pocket-sized beach

In winter only

No longer liking to be close to strangers

Alone, where I can dream

Green Key park on the Gulf opens at dawn

Sip coffee bought from the Burger King drive-through

Not as good as mine

But convenient, tolerable

Birds, palms, sunrise on the Gulf

I pretend it is the sea

Here, it is warm like a bathtub

Some tidal action

A bit of wave hiking up to the shoreline

Sand and negative ions

Water and fiery sun

Elemental balance

I go inward more and more each year

Feel like Hesse’s Siddhartha on the river

He, like me, can think, can wait, can fast

Well, fasting, ok, not quite there yet

But able to do the rest

Because the inner life is best…

***

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Robert K. Rees Memorial Park