Digesting What Is Real

All disease begins in the gut.~Hippocrates

In the surreal aisles of the box store
inedible packages of cardboard
claim to be food. I look askance, select
kleenex and toilet paper and reject

the dubious offerings, even root
vegetables, alliums, leafy greens, fruit
tasteless. The farmer’s market’s integral
to my table. I ferment victuals

my kitchen fills with jars of cultured squash,
curtido, kraut, kimchi and with panache
I create labels for my medicine.
Real food supports well-being genuine.

Inspired by: Squash, Surreal, Integral and Culture.

Featured image: Fermented vegetables from Sommerwhitemd.com.

Message From Beyond

Warm salutations I bring to you, dear
beings of the shifting habitus fear
wrought and taught you, caught in patterns deep
undercover like pop songs on repeat

snappy mind control by CIA fiends
brought over after Hitler failed, proceeds
funded by your own sweat and blood, dark tax
collected in a secret ledger black

democracy is now a fairytale
which corporate greed rebranded, a fire sale
and you deserve a medal as you say
I’ll not support this evil, not today

because, you see, the castle built of sand
requires your free consent. Simply command
and set your fierce intention to break out
of past conditioning and be here now.

Inspired by: Medal, Salutations, Habitus, Snappy, today’s X1 solar flare, and two illuminating books: Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream and Operation Paperclip.

Featured image: Solar flare by new atlas.

New Dog, Who Dis?

Poetry time, my dog goes back to bed.
She’s had a walk, sweet talk, watered and fed.
Her black and white and pink zhuzh are doing
the unexpected. Nascent hope’s brewing

and my raison d’être renewing. Slim
ribbon esperance unfurls bashful, prim
these years devoted strictly to healing
have stitched this glorious flag I’m wielding

Inspired by Zhuzh, Nascent, Renewing and Ribbon.

Venus and Mars Are Alright Tonight

I can tell you about me with stars:
passionate Aries rules my mind and heart
from Mercury and Venus. Moon and Mars
swim in Piscean dreams. Numbers in charts

Aquarian ascendant beams require
to lofty heights and morals I aspire.
Grounded, a Taurus-tempered bull from birth,
balanced in fire, water, air and earth.

You say, I don’t believe astrology.
Then you’re in a pickle, my mystery
not fickle, simply laid out heaven sent.
The sky contributes clues, my fundament.

Inspired by: Pickle, Numbers, Aspire and written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt me.

You Are The Fuel They Seek

You don’t want to know what’s in your water.
You’d be perplexed what is sprayed in your air.
The toxins in the soil and seeds oughta
be outlawed. Greed is a dirty affair.

We are slaves in a yoke of entrainment,
our perception of real in disarray
like a jinx our beliefs are containment
we may resist, they persist, led astray

in the rush frantic strive for survival
too busy to eat well, to breathe, we swing
from a stake unresourced. Our revival
comes outside of time, unrestrained wellspring

the deep inner knowing we touch in dreams
and moments of now found under green trees
a calling bird a falling star sun’s beam
we realize our energy is free

Inspired by: Perplexed, Disarray, Swing and Jinx.

Featured image: The sudden swirl of mystery under a tree as the sunlight opens now.

And yes, I made up a word. Unresourced is when all your natural resources are hidden from you by beliefs imposed by an oppressive system. So of course you won’t find such a thought-provoking word in the dictionary that exact system writes!

Life Cycles

For Carolyn Sue on her birthday.

Sitting on the floor as sun spills golden
through the green, green leaves, puppy emboldened
brings her scrumptious bone and chews by my side
then chases tail. Exuberance provides

the path to rejuvenation
grief and sorrow detonation

I am opened wide before this display
antics, mischief, a desire to play

The need for qualifications release
let experts drone, opine. I am at peace
with wisdom carved from my own conscious breath
greet certainties of life: sun, stars and death.

Inspired by: Scrumptious, Detonate, Rejuvenate, Before and a puppy who is helping me today on my deceased mother’s birthday.

Featured image: After I texted my pup’s former owners with an update, she cuddled with this pink blankie she’s had since she was tiny. Before that, she posed (below).

A Nefarious Plot

“You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.” – Bill Watterson

I have been attending the marketplace
where children’s souls, targeted, are debased
while harried parents rush and race heedless.
No fervid safeguards in that place, creedless

chaotic droning. In the overwhelm
some act out, others try to seize the helm
and gentle ones put down their heads and sigh
earn special prizes when they cease to cry.

My silver hair grants me an audience.
They bring such troubles. My euphonious
compassion as they seek to earn my praise
I give as freely as the sun’s fierce rays.

The children, our sweet future, imperiled
are staring at screens, hypnotized, sterile
while guardians jump ever higher hoops
away, oblivious, exploited, duped.

Inspired by: Market, Fervid, Safeguard, Audience and so much heartbreak in elementary school for an empath.

Featured image: Backyard mandala art with grandma.

Beyond The Seeming

At dusk astounded as double suns swash
watercolors bright across sky awash
with passions from the deep unruly day
I swore to keep my feet on bare earth, pray

with all expansiveness of breath, release
these judgments with compassion and find peace.
Gregorian chants lulled me to sweet dreams
which open channels past the world of seem

stars transfer icy siren songs, plaintive
clear notes drilling through the black domain of
moon. I’m out and walking, face to heaven
celebration of my self-expression.

Inspired by: Gregorian, Transfer, Plaintive and Swash.

A Leap In The Dark

I’m striding underneath the stars, black sky
calming the panicked puppy by my side
outside my head that made my bed a grind
of ineffective self-talk, sleepless bind

how worry frames my love when I account
the ledgers of my life! The debits mount
my unpaid status–I’m a refugee–
gives credit where it’s due new currency

and still the shackles rise to my dismay
I find the rusting keys amid the fray
the healing spiral’s endless, so I breathe
and walk the grounding earth as passions seethe.

Inspired by: Ineffective, Frame, Account and Refugee. My metaphors are all over the place on this difficult morning.

First Grade Snafu

The abysmal ratio of teachers
one for over twenty first graders, each
child needy, lost, bored with the pace, subjects
confined and unattended, anchorless

all of his grief bottled up, the snafu
apparent in school: not enough staff who
watch over the classrooms. He’s singled out
as most egregious but I winkle out

the common theme. And so strategically
I bring wisdom to first grade so that he
under my guiding eye succeeds. Alas,
the covetous eyes of the kids in class

crave my attention, too. I glance and smile
and hug when they run up and all the while
I’m sending waves of balance through the field
the patient grounding we grandmothers wield.

Inspired by: Snafu, Covetous, Strategic, Bottle and recent visits to my grandson’s classroom.

Featured image: artwork by my six-year-old grandson. Oh, the passion with which he wielded his blue crayons!