[I think my response to today’s poetry prompt is simply my mind escaping from the too serious busy-ness of the holidays.]

To breakfast on a roller coaster
Is quite absurd
Even more absurd
With candy cigarettes and pop

But, really, my dear,
What were you thinking?
A roller coaster party in winter
Early in the morning
Is not merely in bad taste
It is in no taste at all
Even with karaoke
Or perhaps I should say
Especially with karaoke

No, really, it simply won’t do
With not even a slim chance
Of being acceptable
Or memorable

I don’t care if you did buttonhole Casper
To run the coaster
A ghost to host the coaster
Just misses the mark for charming

Although I must admit
I did enjoy meeting the Kirbys
And Captain Gregg was such a treat
Though Mrs. Muir took quite a fright
As we gathered speed
On the downward plunge

As dreams go
It has this single virtue:
‘Twas no nightmare
But I would fain hope
For something somewhat classier
With a touch more savior faire, n’est pas,
Tomorrow night

[My bit of a poem in response to today’s prompt from Two Sylvias Press.]

Some days
I can almost taste
the memory of you.

Some nights
I can almost hear
the nearness of death.

Some wheres
I can almost see
the wonder of hope.

Some whens
I can almost smell
the absence of grief.

Some haves
I can almost feel
the glory of life.

Some nots
I can almost know
the realness of love.

Some nows
I can just believe
the manger of God.

[Today, I wrote to the prompt from Two Sylvias Press, more or less, but my mind was on its own somewhat undisciplined path, today.]

to see the sky
the hawk needs
only her own
mineral lens

to pound the keys
the woman needs
only her own
weed fingers

to work the land
the man needs
only his own
tree strength

NO

this vision is not
truth
never only but
knotted together
blind sight
written silence
strong weakness
black and white
one not evil
not through the universe
the other not good
not through the future

to live is need
to die is want
to see is dark
to write is silence
to work is rest
coming going
in out
up down

Can we encompass all?

more fits
than knots
thanks be for color hopes
flowers bloom through war
christ crosses rise on green grass

Christians claim Saturnalia
for their own
sing of stars, God’s grand design
though the dark planet
continues circled in crystal rings
pagan on parade ages old

Christians cry foul
when others celebrate
though light finds every crack
though dark cares not
for doctrine

prayers are the bits and pieces
that win wars
while money repairs plantations
of greed
in internet fantasy worlds
of good grades
and saddled dragons
slaying evil

At my desk I type my prayers
in my husband’s repair shop
watching TV
in front of our fireplace
I pray
for beating old swords
into new plowshares
for lions and lambs together
for Amish simplicity
for a son in Austin
a grandson in Summit
for children everywhere

for peace
for life
for truth
waiting to become
waiting to come
again
into the wholeness
of me

[My poem in response to the 11th prompt from Two Sylvias Press. Here’s a link to Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong doing the song of this poem’s title]

What reaction do you get, I wonder, when you name your birthplace?
Not likely to be the reaction I get.

I am soon 72:
Attended four or five
(I lose count) universities
Earned three degrees
Lived in three countries
Worked in four
Taught in several universities
Married more than once
Divorced more than once
Widowed
Raised children and stepchildren
Watched grandchildren grow up
Taught Sunday School
Led Bible studies and women’s retreats.

And never once,
When I answer the question
“Where did you grow up?”
Never once, has anyone ever said,
“New Orleans? Where is that?”

What they say is:
JAZZ!
GUMBO!
MARDI GRAS!
BEIGNETS!
BOURBON STREET!
RED BEANS AND RICE!
THE FRENCH QUARTER!
JAMBALAYA!
STREETCARS!
ANTOINE’S!
CAJUNS!
HURRICANE KATRINA – SO SAD!
I LOVE NEW ORLEANS!
MY FAVORITE PLACE!

I grew up on Havana St.
in a quiet all-white neighborhood
in Gentilly
just a block from the London Ave. Canal
(that flooded the neighborhood
during Katrina and its terrible aftermath
But I was long gone by then
and the neighborhood was no longer all-white).

I went to St. Rose de Lima kindergarten
St. Leo the Great grade school
St. Joseph Academy high school
(Girls only)

Just about every Sunday
we visited the Big House
filled with great aunts
and my tiny New Orleans great-grandmother
who spoke only French
(though the family was generations in New Orleans)
And always sat in her rocker, crocheting.

We visited my Jeanerette great-grandmother —
not so tiny and always moving —
almost as often.

We took the ferry
across the Mississippi
because there was no bridge
to visit my father’s father
and his second family.

We went to the carnival grounds
at Pontchatrain Park
ate cotton candy
and rode the ferris wheel.

We had fried chicken
and fresh donuts
from MacKenzie’s Bakery
every Sunday after church.

We watched white banana boats
on the river.

We had one floor-furnace for heat
and no air conditioning:
Every summer
we tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk —
Every summer we failed.

And yes
We got beignets and café au lait
from Café du Monde and Morning Call;
We ate my mamman’s gumbo
and mom’s red beans and rice;
Dad took us to the parades
every Mardi Gras season
and we shouted,
“Throw me something, mistah”
as the amazing floats rolled by;
we stayed up late on Mardi Gras night
to watch the meeting of Rex and Comus
at midnight,
and then got up early to go to church
to get ashes on our foreheads.

We rode our bikes and played hopscotch;
We jumped rope and skipped rocks;
We did homework and said our prayers.

But no one ever asks.

[This is the first daily challenge that I felt was more trivial than challenging – but I am not sure I correctly understood the intent. As I thought more about today’s prompt, I had an AH HA moment and decided I had indeed misunderstood it, and so I rewrote the original poem. I leave the original here, although it somewhat irritates me, for comparison purposes.]

TAKE ONE

Love’s sweet silent chords
Binds my heart with soft cords.
Love’s weight in precious metal
Tests my strength and my mettle.

Love’s promise needs no prophet
To reveal all that I might profit.
Love’s garment is a seamless piece
That encircles my heart with peace.

Love’s rising sun brings bright morning
To end forever morbid mourning.
Love’s magic makes two become one
With lonely battles fought and won.

Let not my soul to hatred fall prey
For love, to all the gods I pray.

________________________

TAKE TWO

Love’s sweet silent music binds my heart with soft chords.
Love’s gold and silver beauty shines like precious mettle.
Love’s rich revelations unfold my present and future prophet.
Love’s garment encircles my heart in a seamless peace.
Love’s sun rises to noon at the end of mourning.
Love’s magic brings victory with bright battle one.
Love’s loss will not on my soul pray.

[A word of explanation about today’s poem: My response to the prompt from Two Sylvias Press grew from my anger at the first reading for today’s feast day, in the Catholic Church, of the Immaculate Conception. This is one of two high holy days honoring Mary, and yet the prescribed Old Testament reading was the Genesis story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit.]

My temper rises as I read:
Genesis casts Eve as sin’s originator.
My metaphorical foot stamps hard on a metaphorical brake.
My faith is in flux;
the sheer scale of misogyny overwhelms me.
I cannot quench my anger
at this persistent drawing of the first woman as evil temptress
whose appled bite blasted Adam’s cozy world to ruin,
hardened God’s heart,
wilted paradise’s bloom,
doomed us to slush forever through guilt’s muck and mire.
I can no longer cope with this monstrous mythology.
I file this imagery under poisonous patriarchy;
I refuse to dip even a metaphorical toe into their all too real slime.
I live my life in recovery from such toxic teachings;
I discard it all: Adam, Eve, snake, apple, core and consequence.
I feel the sweet wild wind of the goddess blowing through my purified soul.

[Yesterday’s gospel reading inspired my response to today’s prompt.]

The fisherman had left his work, his boat, his nets;
he had left his home, his family, his life
to follow this man who had filled his nets
and then called him to leave them, to follow him.
And he had gone.

Never had the fisherman felt so close to God,
never had he felt so free and yet so safe,
never had he seen such wonders, heard such wisdom.

I could follow him forever, the fisherman thought.
I am happy begging with and for him.
I am content to puzzle over his words.
All I want is to stay close to him, always and forever.

Who was this man, after all, the fisherman asked himself.
A holy man, certainly;
a prophet, without doubt;
the Messiah, perhaps;
but also, it now seemed, a crazy person.

Because now this holy prophet
who perhaps was Messiah
told them to leave him,
not to return to their homes,
but to do all that he did
without him.

“Go,” Jeshua said,
“Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse lepers, drive out demons.”

The fisherman struggled with pride and anger.
Pride because the man he called Rabbi and Lord trusted he could do this.
Anger because what that man,
whom he thought might be the Messiah,
asked of him, of them, was absurd.

What had been a privilege suddenly seemed like a trick.
This was more than even the Pharisees expected
and they expected the impossible.

Maybe, just maybe, with intense prayer and strong faith,
he could cure the sick
at least some of the sick
once in awhile.

Maybe, just maybe, with even more prayer and stronger faith,
he could drive out a demon or two
if they cooperated
once in awhile.

But raise the dead? Raise the dead?
His thoughts skewed into panic as he tried to picture it.
He saw himself standing in front of a grieving mother at her son’s funeral
offering hope and delivering – nothing.

Surely that is what will happen, thought the fisherman.
And yet, and yet, I have seen what this man can do,
I have heard his words of wisdom.
I believe in him and he believes in me.

Can I do this, the fisherman asked himself.
And then he remembered the words of that frantic father,
“I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief.”

[A work in progress in response to another challenging prompt from Two Sylvias Press]

I fear no evil says the psalm
As I recline on God’s green knolls
Choirs sing of Gilead’s sweet balm
To heal our sin-sick souls

But I fear that faith is but illusion
A tale told but to soothe my soul
I fear my life’s too soon conclusion
My self, my story just more burnt coal

I long for a simple fear – like heights
Clowns, drowning, living alone
Spiders, snakes, or even flight –
To be my comfortable millstone

Ah, but then, perhaps, I’d live my time
Without the need to ever rhyme

[The poetry prompts from Two Sylvias Press keep me writing – even when my head is too full of gunk for much thought.]

Tonight I believe in

Smelly old dogs
restless at my feet

A warm nightshirt
Warmer slippers
Warmest robe
worn all day

Achy breaky bodies
Endless snot
Used tissues
Tiredness
Hot cinnamon tea
Echinacea
ADP
Vitamin C
But also
Kroger cold and flu meds

Has anyone ever died
of sneezing?

Has anyone ever lived
with an endless cold?

Tonight I believe in
Health
despite all evidence
to the contrary

[A new day, a new prompt from Two Sylvias Press, and what poured out is not entirely comfortable but probably, in the way of poetry, more true than I would like to admit.]

“I think I’m getting sick”
I told my husband
the evening before I drove to New Jersey
without him
for a Thanksgiving family gathering.

(The hardest problem
Perhaps
with a later in life marriage
when original spouses are dead
The hardest problem
as I was saying
is grown children grown possessive
after your years alone
The hardest problem
is the hard pull
over-balancing togetherness
to different children for holidays)

So it was that I sniveled
“I think I’m getting sick”
“Likely the bubonic plague, or worse”
As my bones froze
my heart stopped
my gut wrenched
Another family gathering
on my own.

“I lose myself”
I whimpered
My already melting confidence dissolving
“I can’t find my mind”

“It’s not fair”
I whined
My always shaky adultness devolving
“Your family is easy”
“Mine is terrifying”

Brené Brown tells me
(During one of our cozy chats)
of the difference
between belonging and fitting in

A fascinating but moot point:
I neither belong nor fit in

Still, I went
The odometer on the car
proves that I went

But
terror-stricken
certain of failure
fearful of disappointing
Again
my mind stayed home
or waited, shivering, by the highway

I wasn’t really there.