Category Archives: 7 sins and friends

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Enemy

A friend and I are talking this morning and he is talking about praying daily. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. That turns into a discussion of enemies and ourselves. It’s easier to have an external enemy identified than to deal with ourselves, isn’t it? Here is today’s poem.

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Enemy

Do you have an enemy?

Do I have an enemy?

maybe I have no enemy
I have people I have forgiven
I have people who I have asked to forgive me
I have people I have forgiven
but keep distanced
no reconciliation
possible if they continue abuse
blind and deaf
saying “We are righteous!”
over and over to each other

A book teaches me
asks what are you most proud of
in yourself?
Three things:
strong, smart, tough.
The mirror is what you fear the most
weak, foolish, vulnerable
I shy back, hate the author
and he is correct
at least for me

Like the sutra
sometimes I am weak
sometimes I am foolish
sometimes I am vulnerable

When there is a person
or people
I want to hate
What aspect of myself
of my past
of my psyche
are they bringing up?
Are they stronger, smarter, tougher?
Are they weaker, foolish, more vulnerable?
Why do I want to hate them?

It’s easier, I see
to hate another person
and cast them out like a demon
then to look in the mirror
and see the aspect of myself
that I long so much
to hate

That demon
once cast out
will return with seven more

Mirror mirror
on the wall
tell my why
the angels fall

if an angel gets it’s wings
every time a bell rings
each time we hate another, as well
an angel falls heaven to hell

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BIRGing in Memories

Let’s see, I am thinking of famous people, not just that I’ve seen (from a distance) but that I know or knew:

Frankie Manning, one of Whitey’s Lindyhoppers who danced lindyhop at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. He came to teach at the Savoy Swings Again dance weekends in West Virginia in the 1980s. He came to Port Townsend, too, for the dance camps here. I got to dance with him years ago and took classes and watched demonstrations. Hooray for him!

Bernice Reagon Johnson PhD, both for being an historian at the Smithsonian and for being the leader of Sweet Honey in the Rock for 40 years, and it’s still going! Ok, I don’t know her, but she is from my Washington, DC stomping grounds and I love that group.

Darryl Davis, for being an African American man who made appointments with KKK Grand Dragons to talk to them to try to understand. And some have quit! And he’s a fabulous Baltimore blues man and he and his band played at our wedding in 1989. He ran the Centrum Blues Fest for years too.

Ted talk here and music website here: https://www.daryldavis.com/.

Musicians and activists and dancers, that seems to be who I want to BIRG about!

And the photograph is from our wedding.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: BIRGing.

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Mica

I found this rock on Marrowstone Island, last week. All of the rocks are bright in the sun, especially right after the tide washes over them, but this one stands out.

The surface has layers and layers of mica. Apparently there are 57 different mica minerals, here, so I am not enough of an expert to know which it is. I can see the layers of flakes of mica. This is a beautiful rock.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: grasp.

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Fear

When someone tries to hit me
I fight back
I didn’t worry much in clinic
even when patients yelled
it indicated they were upset
and usually I knew why

Not much fear there.

So what do I fear?

Abandonment
and lies
the one who says they care
that we will be friends
even that they love me
and later walk away

But that has already happened
more than once
and I survive
and the Beloved is still here
and there
and everywhere I am
and everywhere you are
and everything is connected
so there is no fear
and even a chance
that abandoned
I still thrive

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The photograph is from Marrowstone Island in July 2022.

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The Witch and Silk

This is part of a series called The Witch of Fourteenth Street. I wrote it when I was hanging out with someone very very inappropriate. After another pneumonia, so I can blame that. Inspired by Louis Carreras’s story: Covert.

The Witch and Silk

The Witch is hanging out at the Giant Shed, watching the Cave guy work. She admires his muscles. She is listening to him talk, sort of.

“Men’s group meets tomorrow night.”

“A men’s group?” said the Witch, disbelieving. These guys are hyper conservative. “You play drums and beat your chests?”

“No!” says the Cave guy. “We meet Tuesday nights. We are learning skills for the coming collapse. You know that civilization as we know it is going to collapse. Spengler said so.”

The Witch has the book now, but hasn’t it read it. She doesn’t care. “What sort of skills?”

“Lighting fires last week.”

“What, with a bow and wood?”

“Do you know how difficult it is? Wait, how do you know about starting fires with a bow?”

“Another set of kids’ books. Earnest Thompson Seeton. Also tracking and snares and shelter building.”

The Cave guy rolls his eyes. “KIDS’ books. This week we are building rabbit cages. Rabbits for meat.”

“Ok.” says the Witch. “Can I come?”

“NO. THIS IS MEN’S GROUP.”

“Ya’ll will need some women when civilization collapses, though. Unless ya gonna be the last generation.”

“What skills do you have for the collapse? You must be prepared.”

“Two major ones.” says the Witch. “One: I am a physician. That is hella useful. Two: I know 500 or more songs, all twelve verses. I am entertainment when the televisions go dead. Very valuable.”

The Cave guy is silent, glaring. “Humph.” He goes back to the purpleheart.

The Witch grins. “Well, have a good Men’s night. Build those cages. Can I build one in the daytime?”

“All right,” says the Cave guy. He shows her the pattern.

The Witch watches the men come and go from the Giant Shed, where the Cave guy holds court and works as a Shipwright. The teen boys are there too, the mountain bike racing team, the Flying Monkeys. This is all ripe for someone to come in and use them, thinks the Witch. For something covert. I mean, it’s perfect. They are conservative, paranoid and listen to Fox News all the time. I’m surprised no one has already used them.

“My son and I are building frames.” says the Cave guy.

“Frames?” says the Witch. Frames are not boats.

“My friend Silk, the computer expert. He wants us to build them because he doesn’t want to source from China. They are our enemies.”

Oh, thinks the Witch. Oh, wow. “Uh, what sort of computer expert?”

“He says he can make any sort of money on the internet. He’s made his pile. Bitcoin early adopter.”

“The silk road? Are you sure you want to be involved?”

“Oh, he didn’t sell drugs!”

The Witch meets Silk. He is small and quiet and has a wife and a three year old. His house has a high earth berm to hide everything and a sheep that is about to die from not being shorn. Poor sheep, thinks the Witch.

“Silk is turning one of his computer programs over to me!” says the Cave guy. “Easy money!”

“And what are the frames for?” says the Witch, but she’s already scoped it. Black frames. For fake certificates, of course, which Silk is turning out. Silk has moved from a big city and perhaps had a different name. Well, thinks the Witch, Silk is busily setting up the Shipwright to take the fall for the fake certificates and the “easy money” computer program. The Shipwright is six foot 5 inches and apparently thinks his size means he’s smarter than Silk and also thinks that he’s leading the group. Silk is happy to be low profile. Silk takes the Shipwright along when he cashes in a huge amount of Bitcoin, as a body guard. And or fall guy, but there is no raid.

The Witch doesn’t think that Silk is as smart as he thinks either. Well, perhaps with computers. His escape plan is not so good. He takes the cash and a boat and his wife and his three year old and heads for Panama. “He’s taking his three year old daughter there right in the midst of Zika?”

“Silk knows what he’s doing,” says the Cave guy.

“No he doesn’t,” says the Witch. “Um, he may understand computers, but not infectious disease!”

“Zika is all hype, it’s not real.”

“Guess they will find out, won’t they.” And the Witch is not sorry for Silk. Only for the daughter.

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The photograph is of another project that is not a boat.

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Breathe

I was trying to think of a debacle. Oh. Getting my fourth pneumonia, March 21, 2021, Covid-19. This is the first pneumonia that put me on oxygen. The fast heart rate, dropping ten pounds, and feeling anxious were familiar from the other three. This photograph was from December 2021, visiting Maryland. We did a bike ride. I was pretty happy that I was able to do it, though the last mile had a sloping uphill that made me think I was not very strong. Oxygen helped.

And Covid-19 is a debacle that we are still trying to understand and absorb and avoid and heal and recover from. I am reading an article that entirely denies viruses existing. I guess it’s like porn on the internet: they say if there is a story, there is a porn version. Every possible idea of what has happened over the last three years is out there, though this article doesn’t make any sense at all.

I don’t remember who took the photograph of me. It may be a steathie. I needed oxygen at night and whenever I was being active, but not at rest. Ok, at rest talking.

Things and people were lost and found and lost during Covid-19. I spent a lot of time on our beaches. I am so grateful for the beaches.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: debacle.

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Mycelium network

The network of mycelium can be enormous and there is increasing evidence of communication between species: mycelium to trees or rhizomes to trees or trees to other trees. But it isn’t infinite, is it?

Taken in 2018 hiking in the Olympics.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: infinity.

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Laid bare

My mind and heart talk daily, argue back and forth.
They takes sides on everything and often disagree.
Why is this such a threat to some, what crooked course
makes them hate my inner talk with such intensity?
I thank you for the clarity, discussion and the clues.
The angry bear that attacks you in your sleep.
I see the split and wonder what to do.
The bear protects your heart, hidden deep.
I hug the bear and monsters through bars of steel.
The silly mind thinks feelings are controlled.
Buried and locked away but every day more real.
Under horror, grief and pain lies the gold.
Each must heal the split by going in alone
Invite the bears and monsters of the heart to come back home.

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Stone heart

My mind is done and unsurprised. My heart a stubborn rock.
My heart does not give up: loves where it loves. It doesn’t care
about reality or whether it is derided or mocked.
My mind moves on and kicks my heart, wondering where
this tenacity stems from. My heart is done with tears.
It agrees to new friends and joys in dance.
When my mind says forget, my heart jumps and steers
my body into a warrior fighting stance.
My mind is cynical and laughs and derides my heart.
I let them fight back and forth every day.
I cannot reach an end unless I start
to honor my feelings, the heart must hold sway.
My mind moves on, ignoring what you do.
Yet my stubborn heart remains a friend, strong and true.