Tag Archives: RDP

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talking about silence

we are talking about silence
yours deliberate
you don’t want people to know
how you make your money

you are angry, I notice
at how people treat you
you are a self made man
with a lot of money

I don’t much care
about your money
happy for you
& etc

I am more interested in silence
I go silent in Kindergarten
because I am too weird
have no tv
and want to sing

I do not bother to lie
because people don’t listen anyhow
and they don’t believe me

I listen, you say
I read everything you send me

That is not enough, I think
I don’t say it
I think about saying it
I don’t say it

I stopped sending you my poems
months ago
when you got angry
I asked if you would respond
something
a positive
a negative
even just “Read it.”
I don’t understand
why you got angry
and I am not scared
so much as surprised

I guess you brook no criticism
ever
I wonder why you must be perfect
seems tiring to me
at any rate
I am not sending you any poems
any more
since then

you could read my blog
I post some there
selected ones
unexceptional
less personal
though I suppose you could still
be angry

you say you know I am angry
when I go silent

I go silent, thinking about that

you are right that there is anger there in the room with us
you sense it
it is yours, not mine
the bear chained in the dungeon
roaring

poor bear
I send it love
and it is crying
bitter tears
wet and cold
in a pool of tears
I can’t free it
only you can

for a moment you are aware
that I am silent about my poems
then you slam the dungeon door again
and talk about guns and science
and what you will do next

and what you will do next
with your bear
and without me

___________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: distorted.

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needed

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is referee. I might need one. A referee. Or a keeper.

Yesterday I went for a walk. No big deal, right? Except that I am still jet lagged from a trip and I had to stay an extra eight days because of I got (thankfully mild) covid and my muscles are still a bit weird.

I go with my friend J, who usually walks 16-20 miles on what he calls day hikes. We walk from my house to North Beach and then out North Beach nearly to Glass Beach. I bring water. He brings water and cliff bars. I eat one. We turn back. It is glorious and gorgeous and sunny and he is up visiting from Portland. We talk and talk.

I am pretty tired by the time we get to the parking lot and think, oh good. Then I remember: no, we walked from my house. Two more miles. I am trying not to limp by the time I home. He goes off to work some more and I crash on the couch.

After a bit I realize that I am not hungry and I feel peculiar and my legs hurt a lot. Uh-oh. I get up. I can’t remember the name of the muscle disorder, but I remember what it does. Seriously overdoing can cause muscle breakdown. This in turn can be very bad for the kidneys. I need fluids, right away. I mix 12 ounces of water with a little sugar and salt. Later I add bicarb, baking soda. It doesn’t taste either bad or good. I eat three dried apricots: potassium.

After 48 ounces of this and two hours, I start feeling a little better, and my kidneys start working again. My legs hurt less. I feed the cats and I still don’t want food. Ok, well, I won’t starve over night. More fluids and to sleep.

I finally have a little bit of an appetite this morning. Not much. I am tired and a bit sore but not like yesterday. Whew. I need a keeper.

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Egg art

I have been collecting eggshells for a while. I am not sure exactly what I am going to do with them, but this is my first piece of egg art. I keep thinking about the large sugar eggs with the window, with small figures inside, that we got as children. I am saving real eggshells and bits of feather and fluff and pine cones and shells. With Easter tomorrow, I may dye some eggshells.

My mother loved dying eggs. We did not go to church but both my parents sang masses and the record player was just as likely to play Bach or Brahms or Carl Orff as the Loving Spoonful or Bob Dylan or The Beatles. We did elaborate egg dying, with wax and multiple layers of color. The complicated planned ones were often not pretty. It was the ones that we weren’t particularly trying that were often gorgeous. We always had both blown and hardboiled eggs. We would have “egg wars” when we wanted to eat one. We would each hold an egg and tap them together hard. The winner was the one with an intact egg. We ate the less pretty hardboiled ones first and the prettiest last. Mmmmm, egg salad and deviled eggs, yum.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: eggs.