MIRAGING WITH TEA

 

Me, love coffee

Espresso or the strongest 

Dark Arabican roast

But once in a while

Like tea

Favorite is Russian Caravan

Lapsang Souchong, a black tea

But smoked in bamboo

I see myself on the Spice Road

With Marco Polo or Genghis Kahn

Early dawn with grazing horses

And misty mountains

Or drinking delicate Jasmine

Discussing herbs with the Yellow Emperor

Whose Materia Medica

Is still used for healing in China

Sometimes I'm in a long, flowery, silk dress

Sipping India tea with Queen Vicky

Prince Albert in the distance

Planning Victorian technology

For the Crystal Palace Exhibition

Me, just like the taste of tea

But true love reserved for

Coffee…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Coffee & Tea

 

 

 

SARA E KALI DAY (MAY 24-25)

 

My heart will be in

Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer

Where my soul will dance

In Languedoc, Camargue

The South of France

Not only a refuge for the Knights Templar

And Mary La Magdalene

But also home to countless images

Of Black Virgins so serene

Reflecting peaceful love

Sara E Kali—Sara the Black—

Confluence of the Hindu Goddess Kali

Women warriors combatting political folly

Some sinners but certainly

The church-approved saints

One version of the story

Tells of Marie Jacobe and Marie Salome

Accompanying Mary Magdalene

When she fled the Holy Land

After attempting to make a stand

We believe that

Sara, a Gypsy,

Saw their boat floundering and

Tossed her (head scarf) diklo

Upon the waters, when they could not row

This enabled the three Marys to

Walk or sail across the water to shore

Establishing a rapport

Between the women forever more

As they brought their message of peace

The Roma come to the town

These two dates in May

To celebrate Sara E Kali

Patron saint of Gypsies and Travellers

To show their love on a feast day

In an alcove stands the tall, lovely statue

Serenely gazing out of large, dark eyes

Covered in beautiful, filmy diklos

Presented by those who ask for help

Or have received help from one so wise

Saint Sara E Kali, carried into the sea

Violins and voices of praise

This sublime personification of a

Saint-Goddess-Woman surrounded by bouquets

Apocryphal representative of our bloodlines

© 2015, 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

https://youtu.be/sshwtkEAxvY

 

 

 

BLUE IN THE NOW

 

Following the Blue subtle charm

We feel neither peace nor alarm

Living in the moment

Blue Oyster Cult guitaring

Glorifying the dead

Once in a Blue moon

I agree in my head

Who is this mirror face

About to cross the Styx in

Charon’s boat race

Across time?

Dylan may be tangled but

I am mangled in Blue

Like Hesse’s Magic Theatre

Different doors in Steppenwolf

Slipped through the first one

I am born

Stomped through the next door

Eloping into adulthood

Sped in the auto train out of Philly

Through another door into Florida

Decades of tiny doors don’t count

Because now the final door is here

Now Now Now

Where am I going

Do I dare to care?

TS Eliot dared to eat a peach

I’m not sure if the moon is Blue

But as long as the music plays

Guitars and violins bluesing and brightening

Years Years Years

I can still hear songs through the years

I’m willing to go as long as the backdrop

Stays in the Now

Under the Blue Moon

Sitting out here in the wind

Storm about to blow

I think of my T-shirt that says

We are the granddaughters

Of the ones they could not burn

I have a T-shirt with books that says

I’m with the Banned (get it, like band)

And one that says Square Root of

5625 Years Old

And then there’s the one that says Poet

As if…?

No matter, I want you to know

That I’m like the Animals who sing

“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”

And I think of the song “Blue Moon

You saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own”

That works out well for the singer

Because we were all so young

And we weren’t living in the Now

We were living in the future

And there was so much ahead

And now there isn’t

And now I’m just in a

Blue Blue Blue

Funk

But you know what?

Blue comes in many shades and

All those years there were such

Gorgeous nuances of Blue

There was Neon Blue, Indigo Blue

Turquoise Blue, Royal Blue

Blue Blue Blue

And I sang the Blues

Still singing them

But seeing the good times too

And Now I face a color

Hard to understand

Maybe the deepest, darkest Blue

I will ever see

But that’s okay with me

Because I always had the Moon

Because I always had the Music

Because I always had some

Magnificent people in my life

And I can say, “I tried”

I tried really hard

Quite a feat when autistic

And sometimes don’t know

What the hell’s going on

But I tried…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Blue Moon & Maiden

 

 

 

FEVER DREAM

 

Many years ago 

In the piedmont of a mountain

Airport socked in fog

City ruins in a surround

Member of a tribe*

At 18 didn't know

Hotel room for interrupted flights

Paid by the airline so instead

Wandered around and then slept

On a waiting room bench

Feeling flu invading muscles and head

When waking, all dark except 

Emergency lights and full moon

Shining through the windows

Seeing tarmac where grounded airplanes kept

Guitar music wafting across the darkened room

A boy playing acoustical rock

Fifteen years to my eighteen

Member of the tribe* too

Like me, didn’t know what to do

Running away to the NYC Village

To play in a rock band

We spent the night

Writing songs

Me the poet lyricist

Burning creatively

He the musical genius

Really, quite good

Growing up in New Orleans

But he dreamed of finding Hendrix

At the Café Wha

(I’d stumble upon Jimi several months later)

Because he’d sang and played

Cajun and Creole since six

But who wouldn’t want to be a rock star?

I entrusted him with my words and phone number

The next morning as airport lights flickered on

And over black coffee and Georgia pecans

We agreed to meet when I got back to Philly

Shivering from flu I continued on to New Orleans

He heading for New York

But back then no cell phones, no answering machines

And if he called, I never knew

And one fine day

In the swampiness of Florida

Packing my car for a final road trip

Glanced down at YouTube on my phone

And could swear

At last year’s Jazz and Folk festival

Scraggly and gray

Pounding away

On an accordion

Voice scratchy but true

Singing words I wrote

Over half a century ago

Was Matteo

And I knew

He wasn’t a fever dream that night

But as real as me

And while the dancers applauded

He said: “Dedicated to the poet

Who wrote this song in a fog-bound,

Locked down, airport. If you hear this,

Call me, Ms. C”

And I did…

 

*Tribe is my word for those of us on the Autism Spectrum

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: concertina, ukulele, kalimba & tambourine

 

 

 

 

 I fell. I'm okay. Gotta blog it LOL xoxoxo

LAPSARIAN

Eyes too blurry to read

Insomniac time-passers now

Worst case scenarios

Stitched with best case fantasies

Crazy quilt of click clacking thoughts

Clock ticking precious moments away

I stand, slip, fall

Head cracked on steel shelf

Blackness of seconds

Stolen time

But color returns

Life wrapped in a gift

Topped by a sore head bump

But the magical elixir

Of frozen peas in plastic

Soothes, decreases

Bruised, but strangely

Not bloody or broken

Nor dizzy, demented

Silently thanking karate lessons

Taken in my forties

How to fall, eternal neuro pathways

Baxtalo

Lucky

This time…

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Falling Star

 

SUBURBAN WITCHCRAFT MAGAZINE ISSUE 5

 

The newest issue of Suburban Witchcraft Magazine has been published! My poem CROSSROADIN’ is on page 26 and my photograph of the swamp and ukulele, of course, is on page 27.

Many thanks to the editor, Mirjana M. (a wonderful artist and poet), for gathering a fine anthology of poetry, stories, photography, and paintings. 

 

SUBURBAN WITCHCRAFT MAGAZINE ISSUE 5

 

FREE ONLINE COPY:  https://suburbanwitchcraft.com/issue5

 

 

MAY TANKAS – MAY 4, 1970

(IN MEMORY OF THE KENT STATE MASSACRE)

 

Yin and Yang of May

Maypole dancing, then mourning

Long ago Kent State

Seems like only yesterday

Shocked by innocents’ murders

 

May flowers will grow

We will laugh and sing again

But what comes this month?

This month of beauty and love

No holiday for violence…

 

© 2015, 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Iconic Kent State Photo taken by John Filo (Mary Ann Vecchio, kneeling, age 14)

 

YouTube Video, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, OHIO

https://youtu.be/TRE9vMBBe10

 

 

another great song: Put A Little Love In Your Heart

 

 

HAIKU (AIRY LETTER)

 

Yesterday’s surprise

Messaging me through the wind

Thinking of you, too…

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja

IMAGE: Airy Clouds