Saturday, September 30, 2023

 


ANCIENT MYSTERY

 

Desecrating the laws of voice

Forced into reading your writing

Envisioning the

Ch’u Silk Manuscript

Soft and seductive

Yet cryptic like the stars

With indecipherable

Calligraphic messages

Will I ever understand…?

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Ch’u Silk Manuscript

 


Monday, September 25, 2023

 


DARK PAGES

(SONG IN PROGRESS)

 

Our connection was written 

Into the river 

As it deltas

Into the swamp

Disintegrating

Like the road to nowhere

Sadly reminding me

How many endings there are

Quantum possibilities

With me standing in a

Camera obscura

Waiting for cars that never come

Messengers of love and luck

Not finding their way

Down the rutted road

Of muddy muck

In a rhythm of rain

Our hearts severed

Not seeing

Your perfection lying alone

On the marshy ground

Soon to be

Swept away

By the delta-maker

Ruthlessly pruned so

Neither a pantheon of gods

Nor a hagiography of saints

Can help me now

And in self-pity

I stare at the dark pages

My poems sitting alone

In unbought books

Waiting

Like Miss Havisham

To walk down that aisle

But no takers

And yet, elementally

The wind fanned the flame

That heated the water

That quenched the earth

And you came

With a poetic rescue

By breathing life

Like a careful midwife

Infusing your Music

Using it to shape my words into a

Universal soul

While making me whole

At last...

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Broken Pottery         

 

 


Wednesday, September 20, 2023

 


AUTUMN EQUINOX

(Saturday 9-23-23, 2:49 A.M.)

 

*scroll down for a YouTube video

 

Moon Phase

Waxing Gibbous

In the Earth sign Capricorn

Almost that date

To celebrate

Equal Days and Nights

And, only one thing is right

Oh, yeah, let’s plant

The healing-est herbs

Once called simpling

But now kitchen

Or, off-the-spice-rack

Check your almanac

To see what’ll grow

How about those

Sung in an Old English

(Or mid-20th century)

Haunting Ballad

From those two harmonizers

Simon and Garfunkel?

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme…”

So I present you with a photo

Of my 20-gallon fabric pot

Home of my just-planted

Simon and Garfunkel Garden

And here is the song to

Encourage you to do

Something fun

To honor the harvest

Of sun

As our solar year

Winds down

Healthy and Happy

Autumn Equinox…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Simon & Garfunkel Garden

 

https://youtu.be/5AwsrrROCx4

Scarborough Fair, Simon & Garfunkel

 

 

 


Sunday, September 17, 2023


 

FRIENDSHIP BOUQUETS

 

Living the Folkloric life

On my tiny swamp

A friend today

Sent me a virtual bouquet

Of colorful flowers

There has always been

A language of flowers

Where a bloom was worth

A thousand words

So I translate her

Morning Glories

As growth, healing and hopefulness

And the yellow sunflower symbolism

Is health, happiness, and friendship

And now from coordinates 28/83

To coordinates 45/72

I send her a virtual squash blossom

Beloved by a part of her heritage

Symbolizing healing and friendship

But also the wish that there is

Always food on the table

Because that is life itself….

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Morning Glories & Sunflowers © 2023 and thanks to Gail Larose

IMAGE: Squash Blossom © 2023 Clarissa Simmens




 

 

 




 

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

 


FAIRY RING

 

Found a fairy in my terracotta pot

Holding pretty,spotted

Red and white fly agaric

Moving among the fragile

Toadstools taller than she

Caught between the

Horrendous heat of day

And moist dampness of night

For some reason

When I shook her hand

I shrunk like Alice

And the pot became a busy land

Of Fairies and music

Flowers and spicy scents

We ate, drank, and danced

Me drunk on dripping honey

Or maybe ‘shrooms?

And suddenly, yawning,

Fell asleep on the shoulder

Of a hunky fey man

When I woke,

Definitely back in my back yard

Alone

Saw my reflection on the

Glass door streaked with algae

Years older than when I left

When climbing into the pot

And I knew

It was true

One hour in Fairyland

Equaled 25 years in reality

How can that be

Once young and free

And now aged…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (Viata Maja)

IMAGE: Fairy Ring

 

 


Friday, September 8, 2023

 


REGRETS TOO LATE

 

Cat 5 hurricane

Storming up the Atlantic

While pathetically plastic

Greenhouses held by

5/16th inch rope

Bravely face their fate

Why does my money

Get spent on romantically

Stupid wampum and structures?

If I found fifty thousand

I’d spend it on bricks

Spend it on strongest metals

Build a safe fortress

But year after year

I forget the fear

And then when danger visits

I blame it on autism

I’m too disordered, I say

To know what to do today

So I exist on wild swamps

Of regret yet also

Mysterious excitement…





© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES:  flamingo garden 9-8-23 & south greenhouse with ginger

 


Sunday, September 3, 2023

 


HAG STONES

 

Standing in salt water

While wind and rain

Wrestle my hooded jacket

Exposing tangled hair

Waves too close

To old leather boots

Questing for holey/holy or,

As legend calls them,

Hag stones

For protection

And therefore good luck

I bend over seeing a few

With eroded holes

Lifting to the sky

Gazing at weak sunlight

That cannot dry

The early morning dew

But think,

That hole

Worn by crabs or

Sand or stones is

So like the hole

In my heart

Worn by aching grief

Of a love

Never fulfilled

Of a garden

Blighted from

Heat and storm

A once beautiful Shangri-la

Of dreams

Torn to pieces

Missing an essential

Life force no longer

Part of me

The hag stone, then,

Perhaps a reminder

Of what wasn’t to be…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Hag Stone 3

 

 

 


VEGVISIR   Walking through the dark of night Aging eyes not seeing quite right Some say the runes are from the Huld Manuscript Per...