Caliche driveway
yawns beside
mesquite trees
covered in thorns
and climbing cactus.
Air awash in dust.
This is where
Mama learns to drive
the beetle
that we have.
Hair in curlers
Jerk and joust
against each other
as she
muscles the stick shift.
Delicate knees
kiss
but not her
red heels.
They conquer pedals.
***
This post is a series I’m creating for National Poetry Writing Month. 30 poems in 30 days..
The first cat I ever got was a 3-week-old long-haired tuxedo when I was about 11. This was my pre-puberty moment — and for all the dogs we had growing up that belonged to the family and that Dad kept to guard the house and his stuff — he was my only pet growing up.
Tiny little tuxedo who walked sideways. With that obvious freaked-out curve of his back. Bottle-brush tail included. I called him Zorro with a W: Zorrow. Dad suggested his mask merited the name. Adding the “W” at the end really made him mine.
I trained him to take naps with me when I came home from school and on those long Saturdays, when as a kid living in a small hometown, you really don’t have anything to do. I still remember him lying on my outstretched arms, using it as a pillow. Dappled sunlight would dance on the sheets on these lazy afternoons. I’d stroke his thick fur until he fell asleep.
Then I’d follow along right behind him.
Bumps bump in my wooden seat
as my brother pedals
along
the dirt road.
We look for fields
with dried dirt clots
edged with waving grass.
The canals stand guard
over fertile soil
that lays quiet,
waiting for
seeded surprises.
The wind is
just right.
For a kite.
***
This post is a series I’m creating for National Poetry Writing Month. 30 poems in 30 days..
Just putting this out there for myself to hear. Write, scribble, pronounce and sing to remember and solidify, hopefully help materialize..
I really, really adore essay. Longform. It’s got to be the right subject, though.
I’m a huge cheerleader for humanity, and I like looking at the core of ideas .. I like peering into people’s souls. Good essay does this.
My absolute favorite — and you can’t classify this writing as essay, but say it is so because of how he it was pieced together after his death (I view his original form as essay) — is Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air.
I’ll stop right there.. because I need to sit with the idea of him.
That’s what I want to close with .. as I close this night.
.. Paul Kalanithi. I like looking at his soul.
***
This is for the 2017 A to Z Challenge – a series of alphabetized themes throughout April, based on a theme.
My theme is my writing identity, self-discovery, learning to blog (again) — take your pick!
Visit the A to Z Challenge website to learn more. It’s never to late. I think.
Not likely.
In my life, there’s a fight for time among the many, many things I’d like to do and the things I have to do. It’s a hard battle. I’m at a point in my life where I realize time doesn’t want to just come and visit me anymore. He shies away in the corner and I have to seek him out, reminding him I need more of him .. but he still refuses. I don’t know what his problem is.
I’m therefore left sometimes with sleepless nights and upset tummies in the morning because of the lack of sleep. And I *love* sleep.
It’s not easy. All the things I want .. not easy. I’m coming to this conclusion.
I’ve fought hard for many, many things in my life. Many things. Many ideals, particularly justice and mercy. I know where I came from, I carry it with me always, so I know difficultly. But this issue with time and doing the things I love.. royal pain.
But.. that’s all I will say about that. Because when I created this blog, I vowed I wouldn’t be a complainer about my lack of time to write.
I’m doing it now, aren’t I? : )
***
This is for the 2017 A to Z Challenge – a series of alphabetized themes throughout April, based on a theme.
My theme is my writing identity, self-discovery, learning to blog (again) — take your pick!
Visit the A to Z Challenge website to learn more. It’s never to late. I think.
Edge of music play. Beginning, end.
Cryptic slide to bend.
Different rile,
makes mood wild
For a moment.
Back to jazz
Calm it down.
Normalize.
Begin again.
***
This is for the 2017 A to Z Challenge – a series of alphabetized themes throughout April, based on a theme.
My theme is my writing identity, self-discovery, learning to blog (again) — take your pick!
Visit the A to Z Challenge website to learn more. It’s never to late. I think.
What type of BuJo’r am I?
So… I’ve discounted bullet journals in the past — as recently as 2 months ago, before I decided to host my own bullet journal party. But even that was a reversal of my first understanding of it. A year ago, I was: complete OCD!
Then one day I was in Barnes and Nobles, looking for something to throw my cash at, and I came across a Moleskine Voyageur. 3 sections of different types of paper – lined, dots and quad. This coincided with a high-stress period in my life when I doubted my own memory, soo..
Look, it’s not for me. I tried it — great starter resources are here, here, here, crazy nuts here, and of course, here with the bullet journaling’s “creator’s” website. I’ve no clue if Ryder Carroll patented the idea, but he’s obviously trying to monetize it with his little shop on his website. It’s full-blown, tho, so watch your back as you go down that rabbit hole..
Funny how the last name of the bullet journaling creator = Carroll… Read more about him from the Wall Street Journal here.
I kept the Voyageur for listing stuff I’d come across throughout the day, because I’m very much a polybibliophile. Cross this with being a bit of a klepto about stealing time to read… and a bit of a little pony out at pasture, grazing all day long. When something crosses my eyeballs, I Can’t NOT Read IT!!!! Documenting in my notebook what I’d come across only lasted for so long.
Grazing
Is it an addiction?
Possibly. But no more than this bullet journaling stuff, no?
I get that it creates a calm in this storm of life, this hyper-technichized society that removes us from the mode of being. Logging forces one to pause in the moment and assess. Think… Realize.. Be.
Much like this blog has forced me to stop the rush of my life and play with language in the measure that I want to consume it.
Think of me for a second, my thoughts.
If you feel a gap and think you’re missing someone in your life (You.), then, yeah, bullet journaling may be something for you to look into.
Just don’t get lost. 🙂
I call
like a chipper, chirpy bird
At night it seems
out of place
but I don’t mind.
“Mary, you gonna come down?”
Fly down, come play
with me.
My had reaches
patting the rough bark
like a pillow
for my forehead.
How do I get her down?
How do I make it better?
I go inside
and bring back
my little red chair.
Set it against the tree
and
I look up
for permission.
Her smile reaches me
through the shadows
And I climb high
In the dark,
but for me
it’s like I memorized
this tree already.
***
This post is a series I’m creating for National Poetry Writing Month. 30 poems in 30 days..
A door shines like the sun in the middle of the house. No light source, so it’s glow is confusing. But that’s not what you’re considering as you look upon this golden door that wasn’t here not a moment ago. In your own home. Why did it appear? What does it represent? And should you go through it?
Doors to the heart,
doors to a room.
Doors for concealing,
doors for revealing.
Doors to peace,
doors to doom.
Doors through conversation,
doors through expression.
Doors on the screen
doors on the wall.
Doors of meaning,
doors just for leaning.
Doors of books,
doors for kooks..
Doors to heaven,
doors to hell.
Doors of the imagination,
Doors of stagnation.
***
This is for the 2017 A to Z Challenge – a series of alphabetized themes throughout April, based on a theme.
My theme is my writing identity, self-discovery, learning to blog (again) — take your pick!
Visit the A to Z Challenge website to learn more. It’s never to late. I think.
I skip in
afraid
of what’s gonna happen.
Would she be mad at me
shrieking like a raccoon
because I lost my watch?
She doesn’t say much
until I start to cry.
Then Daddy rushes in
faster than a hurricane.
I hide behind the bed
but glimpse up
to see
he’s found her hiding place.
On the floor,
behind a little pillow.
I run away
and wait.
Outside she climbs
up the poplar tree.
As high as the sky
to get away.
To get away.
***
This post is a series I’m creating for National Poetry Writing Month. 30 poems in 30 days..
Anything Veronica 