The Blues Collector

The Magpie Tales continue...

The Blues Collector


They call me Eeyore at work
and give me a stuffed version of him
to remind me I look on the dark side

Billie Holiday sings the blues
and people pay to ride her sorrow
(Am I blue?
What are these tears in my eyes
telling you?)

I take a blue pill for the blues
and it puts me in the pink
Do you think I might use
your blue suede shoes
to chase the blues away?

Eeyore says to Pooh
It’s sunny today
but it might rain tomorrow
and no one pays to ride my sorrow

I have a blue plate
by Currier and Ives
chipped (of course)
that I picked up cheap
in some thrift store dive

No Limoges for me, not
Blue Willow either
I married an optimist wearing
tennis shoes and I’ve skated
on thin ice ever since

He loves me madly as I am
a collector of the blues
but somewhere down the line
he might change his tune
For now
its Blue skies smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
do I see
I slip on those blue shoes
and go tapping, tapping
down the street



~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out what other bloggers have done with the Blue Willow prompt here.

Stripped Down to the Basics

With Magpie Tales, we’re given a photo and we must tell some story connected to the photo. Above is this week’s prompt. Visit more interpretations of the photo here.

My mother speaks this tale. She is losing her grip on what we call reality but she holds on to what she is: daughter, sister, walker with quilts.

My full life is stripped down to a cane, a sewing table, and an old cedar chest.

I have been an imperfect woman, and many other people along the way: a daughter, sister, wife, mother, lifeguard, meat cutter, cooker of bread and beans in the lean years, business owner, unhappy widow, grandmother, gardener, worker bee.

I have raged, sung hymns, slapped my daughter, loved my husband. I have put my shoulder to the plow all my life long.

I have witnessed the birth of my great-grandsons and I have walked mountains. I have bowed before the giant sequoia. I have bowed before the altar of my Maker, and I have repented.

I have watched my sons grow up to be men. I have sweat and swept and wept. I have lived my life in blue jeans.

Now my life is pared down to this: I seek my way among confusing halls and lost rooms with my cane. I have sent the sewing machine away but kept the slim table my father made. My mother’s cedar chest still rests, as always, at the foot of my bed.

I no longer know the man in the photo on the nightstand. It was all so long ago, and he is so young. I claim nothing anymore.

My mother’s quilt, colorful cotton patches, hand-stitched by arthritic hands, is what I carry now. I take it with me on my journeys through the hallways that spin and wander through my life, and I hold it like a child holds a favorite blanket. I know my mother made this quilt. I know little else.

I know you when you come to me in dreams. I am a girl, walking with my sister through the leaves on our way to school. I see my brother, teaching me to dance. I see your happy eyes.

I know that My Redeemer Liveth. And though I cannot sing, I know the words, and I will know His face, when he comes for me.

~~~~~~

Time to Let Go

(For my mother, dementia victim)


The time has come
without my permission
to remove my arms
from around your neck

I held you up so long
my arms are frozen
in the clutch position

It is like tearing flesh
to rip away
first one arm
and then the other
to release you

and allow whatever happens
next to happen
in your partial, maddened life

My teeth are clenched with pain.

You don’t even notice
I have gone


******

For other creative efforts, please visit Magpie Tales.

******

Pregnant Now with Possibilities

At day’s end I came to the egg.
I had cried all the tears left in the sac.
The time had past to enter the competition.
Too late now to show it off.
Only me and it, and the shadows now.
Did it matter, really, what anyone thought?
I had the magic in my hand. In this egg
were the seeds of the future.
I gathered it up. I would decide later.

~..~..~..~..~

For other creative efforts, read Magpie Tales.

Death by Rose Thorn

~~~~

My hand was on fire in the wee hours. It calmed a little in the afternoon. I doubt if it is due to the vicious rose thorn that stabbed me last week. Something more mundane, perhaps, like carpal tunnel. The mucked-up hand didn't stop me from hopping along with Willow's Magpie Tales, which asks for a spring theme. Here's the tale of how I hurt my hand:

Where I Belong


The dust lies thick
on all the shelves.
I’ve told the bills
to pay themselves.
I just don’t care
about the floors.
Dirty dishes
are such a bore.
To be honest
the bathroom tub
is filthy and
it needs a scrub.
The dog hair drifts
along the wall.
The laundry piles
are four feet tall.

I’ve turned my back
on everything
to do the chore
that makes me sing.
In the garden
I raise a sweat
with hoe and rake
and violets.
In springtime sun
I weed and prune
and hum a bit
of catchy tune.
The house could fall
I wouldn’t care.
I’m happy here
and crabby there.

Calla lilies’
heart-shaped smile
and hyacinths’
perfumey style
dance with tulips’
cherry red heads
and iris flags
in flower beds.
Sweet freesia plays
with daffodils
and rambling rose
grows where it will.
The fennel fills
the air with scent.
At dusk I ask
where daylight went.

A garden’s joy
is heaven sent.
I understand
what God once meant
to show us in
His Eden, see?
A garden grows
serenity.

~~~~~

A new double daffodil in my collection

You Nailed Me

Condemned


You nailed me
with your comment
that I am an addict
and yes I do see
the truth in your view

but truth isn’t always
the whole fuckin’ story
and truth isn’t always
the sole way to see

You stalk me
with pamphlets
designed to appall me
with babies deformed
by their mothers’
addiction

the truth isn’t always
the whole fuckin’ story
and truth isn’t always
the sole way to see

It’s true I’m addicted
but I want this baby
an abortion is bad
for my imperfect soul
I have to say no

the truth isn’t always
the whole fuckin’ story
and truth isn’t always
the sole way to see

Leave me in peace
I will bear this alone
I’ll clean up my act
and be a good mother
You asshole, you’ll see

the truth isn’t always
the whole fuckin’ story
and truth isn’t always
the just way to see

~~~~~

This poem is based, ironically, on a true story, an event that happened in my life.

Tuesday is Magpie Tales day. Willow publishes a photograph to inspire a piece of fiction or poetry. Follow the link to see what wonderful creative minds are doing with nails.

Today is my AA anniversary. I mark two years clean and sober. In an earlier life I had far more years but never this much serenity. I remember clearly what happened two years ago today, and I am content to be what I am.

Good News, Bad News, Plus Poem

This is a news post and a poem prompt. I have good news, and I have bad news.

On the gopher front, we have one casualty. R.I.P., Mr. Gopher.

In the bad news department we have some serious developments in Haiti to discuss.

I’ve been following a very good blog by a humanitarian worker, Ellen B., who works with the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation. They’re receiving spinal-cord-injury patients out of Port-au-Prince.

She has posted some links to utterly thought-provoking articles written about the aftermath of the earthquake on Jan. 12.

Ramifications that come as news to me:

Institutions of higher learning—universities, vocational schools, medical training schools—were demolished in the earthquake. An entire generation of students, those who survived the earthquake itself and whose skills would have aided the future of that poor country, have nowhere to go anymore.

From the New York Times, dateline Feb. 13, an article by Marc Lacey begins:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Christina Julme was scribbling notes in the back of a linguistics class at the State University of Haiti when, in an instant, everything went black.
“You’re in class, your professor is talking, you’re writing notes and then you’re buried alive,” said Ms. Julme, 23, recounting how her semester came to a halt on the afternoon of Jan. 12 when the earthquake turned her seven-story university into a towering pile of wreckage, with her deep inside.
Read more here.
~~~~
Another group of survivors I haven’t considered until yesterday: Women and girls. In the struggle to obtain food, they’re less able to compete against stronger men. Living in streets and tent cities, they have little protection from sexual violence (one study found that over 70 percent of Haitian girls have been raped). And dead in the earthquake are leading women’s rights activists.

In “Cracks of Gender Inequality: Haitian Women After the Earthquake,” writer Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, explains:

“The circumstances under which many Haitians in Port-au-Prince, Leogane, Jacmel, Petit Goave and surrounding areas have been living since the earthquake present unique challenges to women and girls that must be addressed in relief efforts, recovery programs, and the re-construction of the state.”
Read more here.


Ellen deserves a salute for doing what she can to help circulate situations like this. It helps open our eyes, and gives those who pray specific needs for which they can pray.

What do you think?

Photo by Ellen Bolden
*****************

Willow over at Magpie Tales has published a poem or fiction prompt. Today's the day we post our offering. Here's the photo, and my offering:


A Woman’s Mettle


I don’t own any silver.
My purse is empty.
My life is all the silver
I will ever see
and it is tarnished
believe you me.

My lack of precious metal
doesn’t make me poor.
I’m finely wrought
if a little bit battered
and unlike glass
I haven’t shattered.

My shape is still as shapely
but with no filigree
the design as plain
as the day I was born.
It’s for working
that I was formed.

I’ve envied other houses
where rich people live.
They have gold and silver
but still I love my own.
Burnished, cared for,
I have really shone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~