Recently I quoted someone to the effect that if you didn’t have a language how could you think.  I’ll write more about that some day, but for now my head is being flooded with thoughts–maybe a manic episode.  So many things pushing to get the limelight, to make it to paper and to Word Press.  Silly, isn’t it.  My readers they number maybe three. That’s okay if many of my  followers are commercial.  It’s getting it all out of me that counts.

For instance, I realize that the way I’m surviving a caustic world is by padding myself with Ann Perry books.  Occasionally lines float down into my consciousness from somewhere. Today it was “How Great Thou Art.”  When I was writing a poem the other day the tune “Help Me Make It Through the Night” played repeatedly on my mental victrola.

When I’m being good to myself I select memories that comfort me.  One I treasure is from a visit to my aristocratic grandparents in Chevy Chase from down home on Tremont Avenue next to the city dump in Charlotte, North Carolina.  We were at the dinner table flanked with candles and  finger bowls and my grandfather was observing that men like the Shriners were declasse–tho I’m sure he didn’t use that word–“common,”  maybe, whereupon I piped up immediately, with certainty. “Unh unh!  My uncle _____  back home is a Shriner,”  whereupon he very gently said, “Then I must be wrong.”  The love and caring behind those words still warm me.

Lionhearted

By Nan Mykel

I smell a cat in the house.  That means my time on earth is limited.

Hmmn. What can I contribute to the world during my shortened lifespan?

I know!  The stepfather who sneaks into his stepson’s room at night silently, on tiptoes to molest him!

There he is, stealthily approaching the sleeping boy.  Now on his knees, pulling back the covers. Strike now!  Nails extended, I rush up his feet, up his legs and high on his head. I dive triumphantly onto the boy, whose screams are echoed by the perpetrator.

Lights throughout the house.

Goodbye mouselife, hello glory.

(The tune of Help Me Make It Thru the Night was running thru my mind)

I CAN’T

I can’t play hopscotch any more

Nor skate across an icy floor.

I know headstands would break my neck

I drove my car and caused a wreck.

It’s hard to write a funny verse

‘specially when you’re glum and terse.

I wonder if  I’ll ever see

A poem that’s sadder than my knee.

Oh I know it could be much worse—

I could have Trumpkin as my nurse,

Pointing at me and saying he

Would never make a pass at me.

BUT

Now I don’t have to clean my plate

Or remember to stand up straight

Oh what fun to say shit and damn

While chasing Mary’s little lamb.

Yet no one tucks me in at night

Or hugs me as my mother might.

Home made peach ice cream’s the best

I’d not swap it for all the rest.

I STILL KNOW

Little orphan Annie can say

Watch out for the Goblins today

They’re bigger than ever

And terribly clever—

Citizens United foretold

The capitalist manifold

That can squeeze you to death,

Smirking with glee at your last breath.

I guess there’s a Devil after all

Call him a Goblin, you say?

But the evil’s outrageous,

And it’s even contagious!

GOOD LUCK

For the next century—

I’m outta here.

JUST JOKING

Though not very funny, I guess

The whole thing’s a horrible mess.

Oh I’m moved now to barf

Do watch out for my scarf.

NEXT SCENE

Maybe it’ll be better after

My next round trip down home.

I’ll be pushing up sod

Only second to God

You watch; I’ll be back.

…you were about to die and were overpowered by a great need to get everything inside expressed in a hurry?  I’m not worried about the dying, but about not squeezing everything out first.  I find myself making several collages at the same time,  re-starting my genealogy program, editing another video of years past and writing here.  Wait, wait…I want to tell you something else…

It’s a “poor me” post.  I don’t like those myself. In the therapy group I was in (as a participant) we would always begin the meeting by describing how we feel, while acknowledging that most of us feel several different ways at the same time. I’m shedding a tear or two for me, which isn’t usual these days, so I know I’m feeling sad.  I feel like I’m  a number of uncooked hard peas on a flat plastic platter. The slightest tilt and I roll one way and then another, not falling entirely off the platter, but shifting off center  time and again.  I shouldn’t have told bloggers I’m old. No one wants to be tainted by old, but I’m still loyal to truth, or what seems to be truth.  I’m lonely and avoidant, not a happy combination.

I don’t want to fall into criticizing myself–I do enough of that. I write but realize that I can’t talk about what matters. I don’t know if that was always true.  Years ago I decided I won’t ever commit suicide. That frees me up not to even consider it.  Guess I’ll get back to my Ann Perry book.  The image above is my current screen saver.  Google says it’s from the brickwork site, but I got it by going to wood collages.  The tot was from an innocent world.