9-4-20 WHEN IN DOUBT, TURN TO JOSEPH CAMPBELL

You’ve dragged me into
A cave I fear
Yet the treasures I crave
Await me there

Always a mind-bender

To contemplate Joseph Campbell

And his Hero’s Journey

Cetus means whale

And once again I think how I am stuck

In the Belly of the whale

In a metaphorical

Campbell way

I suspect there are zero whales

Cruising thru the Gulf of Mexico

So my best view of a whale

Is in the night sky

Where Cetus patrols

The sea of the water constellations

Named by Ptolemy

But everyone knows

Aquarius is an Air sign

Despite being the Water Bearer

Important to know

If you’re into elemental characteristics

Supposedly,

The Sun passed through the sky

During the Rainy Season

And that’s why that area

Resembles a watery place

But I never knew outer space

Had seasons

The Florida joke is

We have two:

Summer and Hot

Anyway, lately,

So much rain

That even the frogs are seeking shelter

In my cave of a trailer

Diphda is the Arabic word

For frog

Diphda is also a star

AKA Beta Ceti

Brightest in the Cetus constellation

I layer all this scientific

All this mythic

Information

For your edification

But what is my point?

Well, who knows?

That’s why I’m squatting

In my cave

Hermit of the stars

In this time of prison bars

To stay safe from germs and

Worms of doubt

Trying to make sense

Out of events

And when I do

You’ll be the first to know

Hang in there with me…

© 2020 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Cetus Constellation from Urania’s Mirror & Midnight Frog

8-11-20 ON SEEING THE PERSEIDS

Perseids like a jolt of adrenaline
Ripping across the crowded sky
I am lost without my map
But I gaze at the stars
Absent-mindedly plunking my guitar
Munching on crackers, cream cheese
And cheap caviar
Here at 28° 14′ 38″ N / 82° 43′ 9″ W
A mere few miles from the Gulf’s sandbars
Musical waves with the
Melody of twin sitars
So I gaze at the sky
Mapless
Clueless
Stars like exotic bazaars
Each one offering a new evolution
Each birthed from a quasar
And I remember to be careful
In the night
Because like the stars
It is often safer to
Avoid black holes and other strangers…

© 2020 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Star Chart (Earth & Sky)

SERPENT-BEARER

Midnight south sky
Peering through mist and rain
Serpens Caput
Separated by Ophiuchus
The Serpent-Bearer
From Serpens Cauda
Severing gravitational pull
I drift to the 2nd Century
Imagining Ptolemy
Gazing at a pristine sky
On clear, Alexandrian nights
Naming three of the
88 constellations
That still seduce me
In this 21st Century
What were your dreams?
Did they extend past your
Actual titles of
Mathematician
Astronomer
Geographer
Astrologer
Did you compose music
Or paint
Or flirt with temple priestesses
Did you break the hearts
Of your poetic Muses?
Or did you crane your neck
Night after night
Seeing with your naked eye
But sadly missing a beauty
From lack of technology
The Hubble Telescope’s gift
Pillars of Creation
Part of that constellation
A colorful majesty
Unseen
But oh,
How you would have loved it
I suspect you’d have named it
The same as
Jean-Philippe Loys de Cheseaux
Swiss Astronomer
Who called the nursery for stars
The Eagle Nebula
But as I watch
Serpens Caput
Serpens Cauda
Who almost seem to be writhing around
Another serpent bearer
Asclepius
I am reminded of the caduceus
And take it as a sign
The healing time
Has come
For Earth and her children
And gravity
Once again restrains me
As I float down to the pre-dawn light
And know all will be all right…

© 2020 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGES: Ptolemy / Pillars of Creation / Serpent-Bearer Ophiuchus

UNDER URSA MINOR

Can’t sleep

May in Florida

Seventy-two degrees

Seventy-two years

Maybe seventy-two coffee beans

Waiting to be ground

Walk outside

Stunned by humidity

Probably seventy-two too

There’s Ursa Minor

Fading into the

Early morning sky

Grayer than my hair

Cardinals eating

Wrens rapping

Woodpecker pecking

The metal TV aerial

Blue Jays aggressive

Those colorful Corvids

Cousins to Crows

And my two faithful dogs

Howl in joy

Blissful ignorance

No Covid-19

Or approaching old age

Or life-changing events

For them

And the Bear fades

Completely

Asleep until its stars

Wake up tonight

Fixed in the sky

So far one will die

Red giant

T Ursae Minoris

Already erupted in a thermal pulse

As one day our own star

Our lovely sun

Will also leave

The ceiling of my world…

© 2020 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Under Ursa Minor

LEPUS (HARE)

(WHETHER WE CELEBRATE OSTARA, EASTER, PASSOVER, RAMADAN OR ANY SPIRITUAL HOLIDAY, WE ALL WANT ONE THING THIS YEAR: GOOD HEALTH! HERE’S TO REGAINING OUR CENTER ❤ )

Red starry show
Orion struggling in a sea of blood?
No! Just the red glow of
Hind’s Crimson Star
Alpha Leporis
Fourteen times the mass of sun
Drawing all eyes to
Constellation Lepus
Rabbit
Hare
Easy to see
The mythology
Of Orion’s dogs
Canis Major and Minor
Pursuing this incandescent body
But thanks to Ostara
Goddess of Spring
She is granted swiftness
And once a year
Will appear
On the Moon
After traveling 1,300 light years
Syncretizing Eastern myths
With Western ones
Bringing eggs to the
Moon Rabbit who is
Fiercely pounding
A lunar mortar by pestle
Grinding out the Elixir of Life
An Asian Philosopher’s Stone for
Immortality
Mystically produced
By the mating of the
Hare and Rabbit
For is not reproduction
A form of immortality?

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Lepus (hippity hoppity for the kids)

#18 THE MOON (4 PHASES)

WAXING

I’ve seen men walk across your face
Stabbing you with red-white-blue
Waving on a pointed pole
I’ve seen you cloud-white in a daylit blue sky
I’ve seen you fat and thin
I’ve seen your sallow skin
No matter how dark the nights
You’ve wrenched blood from my body
Sanity from my sometimes struggling mind
Caressed the beach with your tides
And been my poetic muse while I cried
You are so familiar, iconic
But you always retain the magic of your name
My Moon

FULL

Red starry show
Orion struggling in a sea of blood?
No! Just the red glow of
Hind’s Crimson Star
Alpha Leporis
Fourteen times the mass of sun
Drawing all eyes to
Constellation Lepus
Rabbit
Hare
Easy to see
The mythology
Of Orion’s dogs
Canis Major and Minor
Pursuing this incandescent body
But thanks to Ostara
Goddess of Spring
She is granted swiftness
And once a year
Will appear
On the Moon
After traveling 1300 light years
Syncretizing Eastern myths
With Western ones
Bringing eggs to the
Moon Rabbit who is
Fiercely pounding
A lunar mortar by pestle
Grinding out the Elixir of Life
An Asian Philosopher’s Stone for
Immortality
Mystically produced
By the mating of the
Hare and Rabbit
For is not reproduction
A form of immortality?

WANING

Fragment of a dream
Me in helmet-less
Astronaut’s suit
Disembodied voice:
“We no longer have the
Resources to get you off
The Moon…”

NEW

Rolling through my mind
Catchy-tune theme song
From some 1960s bad TV
Expect to see
Go-Go booters
Dancing the Monkey
On colorful boxes
Piled on the stage
All that energy
Brought by the once-again new
Moon…

(c) 2019 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGES: NASA moon crater/Smith-Waite Tarot card/CS disk Drom Romani

(combined 2 moon poems and added two observations)

LEPUS (HARE)

UNTITLED W-I-P FOR UPCOMING BOOK

Red starry show
Orion struggling in a sea of blood?
No! Just the red glow of
Hind’s Crimson Star
Alpha Leporis
Fourteen times the mass of sun
Drawing all eyes to
Constellation Lepus
Rabbit
Hare
Easy to see
The mythology
Of Orion’s dogs
Canis Major and Minor
Pursuing this incandescent body
But thanks to Ostara
Goddess of Spring
She is granted swiftness
And once a year
Will appear
On the Moon
After traveling 1300 light years
Syncretizing Eastern myths
With Western ones
Bringing eggs to the
Moon Rabbit who is
Fiercely pounding
A lunar mortar by pestle
Grinding out the Elixir of Life
An Asian Philosopher’s Stone for
Immortality
Mystically produced
By the mating of the
Hare and Rabbit
For is not reproduction
A form of immortality?

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Mortar & Pestle & Baritone

FOR MY DARLING DESCENDANTS

Star book and amulet
In this plastic box
For those nights
We need to dream
Our ancestors gazed above
Saw many of
The same stars we see
Did they dream, too
Most importantly, who
Was able to time travel
Take quantum leaps
Through fabled worm holes
Are we warned about black holes
Swallowing us whole
Like early explorers
Were warned about
Falling off the flat Earth
A time-honored way
To control
By those inside the
Moneyed walls
Against us the have-nots
But thinkers, all
Yes we are
So who really has the best
That life can offer
If you are reading this
A charm, a book, a song of freedom
Is yours
My darling descendants
Be bold
Let your mind search the aethers
Through dark and cold
Following the dim light
Of possibilities…

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: AMULET, BOOK & BARITONE UKULELE

“SPIRITS ARE USING ME…”

Southern Cross–Crux–once again visible in my Florida backyard!  Wanted to write a new poem but my old one says it best:

 

(scroll down for YouTube video)

Ancient museum piece
Finding its way
From saline, sunken galleon
To pristine, icy backdrop
Of the sky’s exhibit
Southern Cross
Crux!
Visible in the Northern Hemisphere
And all I can hear
Is Stephen Stills’ voice
Hitting those high notes
Thinking about how many times
I, too, have fallen
No thought of crucifixion
Redemption
Religion
Although a brief vision
Of the tarot’s Hanged Man
Sacrifice
Flashes through my exploding mind
Crux!
On April 8 at one in the morning
Florida, Hawaii and Texas
Are given the gift
From the Southern Hemisphere
Of their circumpolar Crux
Always above the horizon
The Earth poised just right
Stars gracing my life in the night…

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), Miniature Worlds Sublime

YouTube video Southern Cross, Crosby, Stills & Nash
https://youtu.be/iuLBhxZUkmU

APOTHEOSIS

Orion jogged across the Autumn sky

Dog at his heels

Scooped up Ariadne’s crown

The Corona Borealis

Laced it through my hair

As I rose above the trees…

 

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)