vis~a~vis

The Guy at McDonald’s/Cool Grandma

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The guy at McDonald’s doesn’t know…
It was a bitch to get moving this morning
because a million speckled memories of past
mistakes, regrets, sad hours, memories held
me to the bed as I tried to wake up.

The guy at McDonald’s doesn’t know…
the effort it took to “put on my face”
and spike up my hair, searching every kitchen
drawer for a smile to wear and looking in each
closet to find the twinkle missing from my eyes.

The guy at McDonald’s doesn’t know…
I’m swimming around buoys and running down
rabbits in the field in my mind most days trying
to find the course syllabus for life at 53 after
the end of a 20 year marriage & a million lost
dreams that danced a jig out the door with the X.

The guy at McDonald’s doesn’t know any of this
as he leans out the window awed and thrilled
by the sexy black Audi holding a smiling blonde,
purse dog riding shotgun, and asks in excited tones:

“Are you the Cool Grandma or the Cool Aunt?”
I’m the Cool Grandma I say …. Grateful
that the word Cool is still in style.

the Table of Speaking

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Most Muses work with me from afar.
Fickle illusions sent to stimulate
a cranky non-poeting poet.
I swore off them. Decided –
Enough!

Walked away into the bright light
of annihilation and bliss, into
that place of Mystics and Wanderers
(and that was okay! I was fairly content
there
in that abyss of emptiness)

And then — you called me, or
I stumbled accidentally into
You. And You — Lord! More stubborn
than I, than any other Muse before You
showed up all flash and sparkles and
deep-sight serious wise and you can

Sing! Damnit! You woke me up!
And so I trudge to the Table of Speaking,
pick up the cursed pen, and start saying
your name in the silences that come
between the wing beats of my heart.

The Dance

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The days come and go
another winter drizzle
laughing --
I think of mice in the walls
of houses
all that scurrying about
and what serious objectives
move them.

The days go and come
another year rolls in
grinning --
I think of poets and lovers
and all the horror movies
I've ever seen
wondering why
we drink the gore and blood
as if it matters.

The day
comes and goes
quickly --
I think of you
and wonder how many lives
we've lived, how many times
our paths crossed, the touching
of hands
so commonly common
as if dying held no meaning
we take up the dance again.

The Archaeology of Being

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When they dig into the earth, geologically,
the lines and layers speak their trauma.
Floods and fires, apocalyptic damage
showing itself in the thickness, debris,
lean lines and layers of scarred soil.

My grandfather taught me about the rings
on trees, the drought years and hard fought
survival ines showing in the width of the ring.
Natural growth stunted, thinner. This carrying
within its core, growth circles of pain and plenty.

I wonder at the trauma rings of humans —
slice me open in some way, split my center,
dig down the half of me in layers —
The hours of grief, the days of joy.
How deep each layer or how thin?

Slice me open, split my center
study me as the land or tree,
point the place of catastrophic growth —
line, ring, width, depth, expanding
into the archaeology of being human.

Untitled 12/17/20

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We are a million hours of time
away from the boy who wrote
poems and drew pictures --
and the girl so excited to read them,
to know him, to love him.

Those children lost in the fogs
of doing adulthood --
The Serious Business of Living --
That Delusion --
Teaching them to hide away
in the dark shadows -- alone.

Grief is a selfish master.
His remembering what is lost
always living that past image.
The dearness of it roots the tears,
forces the chest to grow upward
in swelling pain.

We grieve the possibility
that died. The honesty we forsook.
We grieve what could have been
if we were other than we are.
We grieve the hours spent believing
we could be anything and everything
to each other -- those doors
always closing in silence, the noise
of our breaking heart the only sound
left echoing through the room.

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Matisse Walk Into a Bar…

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Still seeking artists, writers, poets, Creatives to be a part of print and online versions. Contact me at scmedia620@gmail.com is interested. Submission Guides will be posted on site soon. Blessings, Marissa

Serenity Café Magazine

Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Paris, 1920’s.
Photo Credit: Public Domain

Actually, it is a Paris café, serving beer, coffee, delicacies and solid hot meals. Hemingway grabs a beer and heads for his favorite table on the edge of the crowd. The Fitzgerald’s wave and beeline toward him from across the room – Scott is affable, he thinks, but he can already tell Zelda is a dark mood. Downing the beer, he waves for the waiter to bring another as he sits. Scott and Zelda land beside him within seconds. Matisse steps around the corner, shuffles down the Montparnasse and raises his cane in greeting.

An hour later, they are laughing and drinking, discussing the politics of the world, the latest literary achievements of their fellows, and dreaming of a “next” none of them can rightly define. Their individual genius, heartbreaks, and confusions flow and ebb through the…

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The Artist Enters the Void

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Starting work on the Serenity Café magazine site….Print publication slated for end of November 2020.

Serenity Café Magazine

Photo Credit: Marlon Schmeiski via Pexels

The artist enters the Void with nothing and comes back with something. Her skill is to turn off the self-censor. Her skill is to jump off the cliff. Her skill is to believe.

As artists, what are we believing in? We’re believing in a conception of the universe (or at least of consciousness within that universe) that is not random, not pointless, not devoid of meaning.

Steven Pressfield, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t

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Answer Words Symbol

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man and woman pose on a cross monument

~for Peter

 

The Words are only
and always
only
a symbol
for the truth emotion energy
they seek
to convey
hieroglyphs forms symbols
we forget
they never truly say
anything
this artifice of speaking
writing
symbols iconography
for the internal aspect
of human divine knowing truth
that
mute words can’t speak
these mute donkeys that plod
the garden of living
trying
to reach
thoroughbred status
this
is not possible
but
like us
the words do
the best they can
and I find
they are
the one place
where honesty shows up
in mystical magic
the words speak
a truth
we viscerally
know
and I
would never
take back
any of the words
I bled for you

 

 

~Photo Credit:

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com

wet trail of falling

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pink and white flower with white background

Drizzle of raindrops
across a broken rose
its sunburnt edges
of yellowing leaves
green grass blades

Drip and drizzle
moves shimmers rolls
plops to another petal
falls drifts streaks wet
trail of falling —

like the trail streak tail
of a comet burning

like the sloshed snow
trailing the skier

like the tear glistens
a trail as it wets the cheek

Slow pour cacophony
of water and pain
that floods and fills
with deep misery
or flushes and flows
with deep catharsis

this wet trail of falling
Deeper
Deeper
Deeper

Into

the unknown

 

 

~Photo Credit:

Photo by Evie Shaffer on Pexels.com