MEMORIES (song-in-progress)

 

I look at the gang of girls

Lucille with cultured curls

Me in radical chic

Dymphna long and straight

Dolly daily ironed-hair

Celia’s thick as a bear

And Reds like Raggedy Anne

A decade away from chemoed hair gone

All of us facing gray someday

 

Drinking espresso or jasmine tea at the Cage

No alcohol since still under age

But sometimes we’d get some guy to buy us beer

Drink it near hidden bushes at the Square

Listening to guitars late at night with zero fear

 

And how about the boys caught in the Draft

Bizarre Shirley Jackson-like Lottery

As the USA sent our 19-year-olds away

To Vietnam, a social class war

Didn’t have to go if they could afford

College and willing to be teachers

Or help clean up druggies as street preachers

Or could marry and have kids

We girls good for something at least

So there was cousin Rich the Marine who made it through

And some neighbor boys killed dead

(Mourning, as their death messed our head)

My boyfriend said we’d hide in Canada

Instead, he joined the Air Force, living in Thailand

Leaving me with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Facing a ring-less future, worrying about our harmony

So married a vet who sat out the war in Germany

 

Aging memories of our personal history

When correctly recalled is the true mystery…

 

 

 

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: My Peace Ukulele

 

 

 

 

 

 SPIRIT DOLLS (POETRY OF THE ELEMENTAL) - Kindle edition by SIMMENS, CLARISSA . Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

My newest poetry book on Amazon (kindle edition).  Paperback will be available in a week or so!

 

THANKS to my son, Micah Rosen, for an early birthday present.  I can’t thread a needle so he created each doll, sewed, and decorated them to represent Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.  They are incredible!  I received them in the mail today and felt each one vibrating with health and love and happiness xoxoxo

 

FROM THE INTRO TO “SPIRIT DOLLS (POETRY OF THE ELEMENTAL)

(used for “marketing” my next book of poetry to be published in a few weeks)

 

I always had a love for folklore

Growing up in a family of

Drabarnis and Cartomancers

Herbs for curing the body

Cards and tea leaves for curing the mind

Taking seriously the vow whispered

By my Grandmother: Na Povreda

Do No Harm

I also believe there is no harm

In poppets or dolls

Some cultures use them in different ways

But for me, there is only healing

I believe the world would be a better place

If we all felt healthy in body and mind

So I have my own poppet companions

To spread good thoughts into the aethers

They are spirit dolls, with faces,

Adding to the goodness of the sickroom environment

My four main ones are named for the elements:

Earth, Water, Air and Fire…

 

(For the intro to Spirit Dolls (Poetry of the Elemental)

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

© 2024 Images: Spirit Dolls by Micah Rosen

 

TICK-TOCK, TOSS AWAY THE CLOCK

REPOST FOR NEW FOLLOWERS

 

Waking with Ben Franklin’s
“A penny saved is a penny earned”
Rattling around the brain
For an exciting hero of mine
He could be thriftily boring
And then
In 1784
He wrote an essay
For the French
“An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light”
Essentially, how to save on candles
By changing the clocks
Love Ben Franklin
I’m originally a Philadelphian
What an inventor
Scientist
Statesman
Writer
But come on
Time is so personal…

Woke up

Forgetting to spring forward my clocks

But Bill Gates did it on my computer

T-Mobile took care of my phone

Never wear my Janis Joplin watch anymore

But the microwave refused to change

And the light outside is wrong

Long, long hot days in Florida are coming

We need less daylight here

The scary thing is

I am so sure

That something magical happened

At the real two in the morning

The hour that no longer is

Surely contained

The secret of life

Or magical herbal cure

Or a song of such beauty

That so-called angels

(Ukulele-wielding ones)

Could never eclipse

Think of all the children born

Whose Rising Sign

Based on hour of birth

Will be wrong

I want that hour back

I’m sick of statesmen

Screwing with my life

Including all important time

As always, I follow my dogs

They remain true

To their biological clock

Dining by celestial clues

Einstein said it best:

“Time is an illusion”

So don’t ring my phone

When your time says 7 a.m.

I’m forever on Eastern Standard Time

Drifting in an early-morning dream…

(c) 2016 Miniature Worlds Sublime, Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Benjamin Franklin, creative commons

 

 

Wrote this as a folksong in 2017 but never got past this fragment. Although we have many wonderful role models, this is dedicated to us, the everyday women who keep the world going xoxoxo

 

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!

 

We borrow Earth Mother’s gifts to feed

Those we love and all in need

We borrow water from the well that glitters

Life blood of the planet and body transmitter

We borrow music and words swirling in the air

Soothing the mind, showing our care

We borrow the fire of sun-kissed kindness

Sharing with all a woman’s unsung largesse…

 

© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Mother Earth among my tomatoes