Oh my fingers are freezing
I can’t strum
Maybe I’m too old
To use my thumb
Picks feel funny
They fly off into space
When I’m playing so fast
And my heart does race
Oh my fingers are freezing
Can’t press that chord
Maybe I’m too old
Shoulda stuck with the washboard
But here comes the sun
Warming my ol’ thumb joint
Ukulele, better than computer games
Where I just click and point…
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My tenor ukulele
{Recently went on vacation and lived on hard boiled eggs, veggie cheese and pita. Nothing really changes. On a good note, lost 2 pounds instead of gaining! Here’s a repost of a poem about moving to Florida with my sons}:
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…
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…
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…?
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…
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…
© 2014 Clarissa Simmens, Poetry of Memory: Six Decades from the Space Time Continuum
poeturja 