BLOGETRESSA: February 2024

Thursday, February 29, 2024

KYBERIA

When Microsoft turns against us

Downloading crap ads and invented news

And we’re about to do a video call

That can enrich our life

Who can we turn to?

NO NO NO I scream

NOT NOW!

Quickly trying to stop this

Microsoft madness

Minutes before my call begins

Surely technology

When one is not a techie

Must be fought against

Magically

That is my strength

And the creaky old brain

Sifts through the pantheon

Of world gods and goddesses

And here, an inventive blogger

Writes about Kyberia

Claiming she is the daughter of

Hermes and Eris

Well, Hermes is Mercury in Greek myth

And he certainly is the god of communication

Eris is Discordia in Roman myth

And she certainly is the goddess of discord

There is no proof that they are the parents

But I love the name Kyberia

Sounds like Syberia

A favorite adventure game

And so like this creative blogger

I eclectically build upon her modern goddess

Imagining a hacker, super-tech, and

Mensa-off-the-wall smartie

In seconds I desperately buy into her powers

Lighting my favorite incense

Opium, based on the spicy perfume

Not the drug

Select elemental crystals

And walk my protective circle

Appealing to her to protect my computer

From the ravages of the mindless machine

And oh, the hour-long video call

Speeds by perfectly

No buffering, no dire threats

And an hour after the call

The system insidiously wends its way

Into the game I’m clicking for relaxation

But it’s ok and

I thank Kyberia for her protection when needed

Promising her an ode, a poem, a song of praise

Written by me, a woman so crazed

Then saved

By the new Techno-goddess Kyberia

Long live her light…

IMAGE: Kyberia as imagined by me

TANKA (ELEMENTS)

Rain softens the earth

Clouds aiding them in the act

Fiery sun says no

You appeared from way down there

Now elementally one…

IMAGE: Love Elements

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

WATER POPPET

Earth is mainly composed of water

Our body is mainly composed of water

Yet the Ancient Mariner cries:

“Water, water, everywhere

Nor any drop to drink”

As the dead Albatross

No longer skimming the ocean

For evening dinner

Hangs around his neck

Warning the wedding guests

Too happy to listen

Speaking of poets I think

Of early Bob Dylan singing

“The pellets of poison are

Flooding their waters…”

So at fifteen I

Pressed my worry dolls

To my breasts

And eventually sighed

As I aged and not many died

Of poisoned water

But it’s back, the threat

And I think, I just cannot cry out

My voice no longer carries

Across land and sea

The coming generations are on their own

And I hide, nestled among intellectual thoughts

From the Materia Magica of my mind

Water represents emotions

I cooly note in my poetry

How easy to take an essential element

And turn it into a symbol

When all life as we know it

Can disappear with the Water so dear

No less than Earth and Air and Fire

How do we save the plants and animals

How do we save the birds and fish

How do we save the sun…?

IMAGE: Worry Dolls

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

VALENTINE’S DAY 2024

I remember so many years ago

Tony Orlando & Dawn singing

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the

Old Oak Tree

But for me, now,

It seems to be

Tie a pink and red scarf

Round the Leyland Cypress tree

And cry, cry, cry

For love lost?

For love never found

But then, I’ll say it again

Love is a sweepingly general

Concept

Because we can love words or music

Or family and friends

And how about our pets?

But must we qualify “love”

With the adjective “Romantic”?

So while everyone cheered

Back in the day

For the Service Man and his

Loyal waiting woman

Things so different now

And let’s not feel sad or forgotten

If love never found us

Sometimes those Cupids

Did over-celebrate and

Couldn’t shoot their arrows straight…

IMAGE: Valentine’s Day 2024 #1

YouTube Video Tony Orlando & Dawn https://youtu.be/Z8fhciUojQ0

Friday, February 9, 2024

AIR POPPET

Air on earth so invisible

Portal to the paradisiacal

Artful design from a special cloud

A talent so very well-endowed

Continuing to move upward we see

Our Milky Way Galaxy

But many others are concealed

Often hidden behind a mythical shield

The James Webb Space Telescope

Reveals what was once a hope

AzTECC71 a hazy speck of light

Appears as it was in the long ago night

900 million years after the Big Bang

When only the Music of the spheres sang

Here on Earth the element of Air

Assisting our breath and happy to share

Healing poppets of Air quality remind

Air is the responsibility of Humankind

Representing logic and intelligence

Imperceptible yet laden with elegance

Air is wind and fog and ice

Let’s keep it clean or we’ll pay a price…

{c} 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Baby Air Poppets (to be changed to Air poppet)

Thursday, February 8, 2024

ACCIDENTAL ART

Writing poetry, for me

Is like recording in a diary

But often, real art

Is done accidentally

On New Year’s Day

Under a tree

Roomie

Plucked a yellow

Flowery weed

And handed it to me

With a flourish

Wanted a picture

Of the brightness

So fumbled with the

Phone camera

And Bandit

That 5-pound genie

Sitting on my knee

Turned to gaze into my eyes

And I snapped a piece of art…

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IMAGE: Bandit & flowers

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

MISUNDERSTOOD FIRE

Fire, most misunderstood element

We like when it cooks our food

Warms our homes and baths

Encourages campfire ghost stories

Fear of fire, and rightly so, is

Uncontrolled conflagrations

Loss of life and possessions

Scarring from accidents

Raging fever in the body

Yet without Fire--

The Gift from Prometheus

Punished by Zeus

For sharing his knowledge

With mere mortals—

The evolution of humanity

Would not have been possible

Science has now realized that

Fever augments the

Performance of immune cells

Providing defense

Inducing stress on pathogens

Fever almost always

Burns out an infection*

But in early times

Fever was seen to devastate

Beloved family members

Patients misunderstood the fever source

Believing the cause is the infection

When, in reality, it is

The body’s response to infection

Perhaps this is why

The Ancients

Saw Fire as a Spiritual Element

A mystery in itself

Because our bodies also burn

With a passion for knowledge

Lightning bolts that jolt

As we seek the answer to

Why we are here…

IMAGE: Fire Poppet in Progress by Micah Rosen

*Let Fever Do Its Job, Sylwia Wrotek, et al

Saturday, February 3, 2024

ANCESTORS’ FOLKLORE

Imagining a centuries-old ancestor

What part of the person do we see?

The face, yes, but swirling around

That person is an

Underbelly of Folklore

Part of Reproduction, I guess

And that's how we got here

Transcending the circuitry of technology

How did they survive?

Performing anonymity for money

Well, lies, about who they were

Moving from village to town

Always aiming for the largest city

Diverse communities willing to pay

Unusual services rendered

Lines on palms or arcane cards

And leaves of tea or grinds of coffee

Depending on the culture of the country

“Tell me your dream” said great-great-gran

“Let me shoe your horse” said her long-haired man

Dark skin fading over generations

As couplings out of the tribe began

Until crossing the Sea on a borrowed map

To the place where There Be Dragons

And the Reinvention began

Truth laced with revision

Darwin’s Adaptation

Regenerating like Dr. Who

Squeaky-clean family history

But always one child in each generation

Is lucky enough to learn some of the old ways

And although it may seem adulterated

As the purists decree

Ancestry is still a living, breathing organism

Like sourdough yeast used for bread

And often the new

Mixed with the old

Can be something so bright and just right

For the Age we inhabit

A marble poundcake

Different but still delicious

Different, not wrong or weird

Different, like Autism…

(Aha! My Dear Readers know the punchline of most of my poems is part of my A-Team: Autism, Aries, Aging, Ancestors and other alphabet letters!)

IMAGE: Paleolithic Cave Art, Discover Magazine

Thursday, February 1, 2024

PLATINA (ALCHEMICAL SUN AND MOON)

The Sun sets the Moon on fire

And although many see it as silvery and cold

It’s my old friend, a lighter shade of hope and beauty

And during the Dark of the Moon phase

I miss it, feeling like a prehistoric woman

Calling out, Who Swallowed You?

Yet she returns as a young sliver of silver

Growing in the sky, pregnant with future love

And despite being disguised as a dead hunk of earth

I feel a burning from its elemental equality:

The Moon is Earth in its rocks and dusty soil

The Moon is Water in its control of the tides

The Moon is Air in its gravitational orbit

The Moon is Fire burning our spirit in mystery…

IMAGE: SUN & MOON SYNERGY (Platina1)