Screams Loudly at Hollow Wimps

The man they vote for

sloshes his words like

a lushy wimp who enjoys his beer.

The dull continuation of another lumpy privileged protagonist whose time has expired,

whose salty tears no longer contain any seed of rehabilitation;

empty as the impotent reflection of Narcissus’ dried up well.

Get those rusty coat hangers, boys.
You’ll need them to protect yourselves from
the ghosts of unwanted babies crying in your nightmares.

They scream more loudly than orphans ripped from their parents

and placed in privately funded cages.

They scream more loudly than your fear
of dark-skinned rebels lurking in the
basement
of your souls.

Groundhog Week

Blogaday prompt: Groundhog Week
If you could relive the past week what would you do differently?

Last week I had a wonderful time visiting with our son and his lovely girlfriend. I was so happy to be able to hug my son again and enjoy a laugh together. He made us a breakfast. We went to the Musical Instrument Museum here in Phoenix. It is exquisite. They have Pablo Casals’ cello and the piano on which John Lennon wrote “Imagine.” Elvis boots, guitars, and outfits are fun.  Plus, there is a room where visitors can play an assortment of instruments and gadgets.

With headsets one wanders through spacious rooms with exhibits from all over the world.

Why do we respond to certain sounds? I love strings, horns, bass, gongs and bells, all of it. Some music doesn’t move me. After studying past lives through channeling and hypnotherapy, I felt a strong kinship with the sounds of what may have been the locations of my previous incarnations. No, I wasn’t famous. More on that later.  In essence, I floated through history.

The second week switched into some moments of minor tension. I generally put myself into a funk over the topic. The take-away from the crunchy part of the week is I had some nice phone conversations. I held my own. I made a decision not to fret over any of it. Voila! If it doesn’t feed the Spirit and Soul essence then it’s not worth it.

My only regret is not exercising more. I may not have that body image (yet) I was chirping about a few posts ago, but I am working on trying to stay healthy. Another 15 minutes per day on the treadmill would have been nice. Onward! And….no worrying allowed.

Oh, and I saw an interview with Don Miguel Ruiz  author of The Four Agreements. YES!

Until next time…

Bikini Bodies and My Big Ol’ Blues

Hello readers! I am so behind on WordPress assignments-and comments-so sorry! It’s great to be a part of the community. Hope you all are having a good week. I love reading all your posts.

Today’s WordPress Writing 101 assignment was to open the nearest book to page 29 and see what word jumps out.

The nearest book on the shelf as I walked into my office was a writing text recommended to me back in community college, The Fourth Genre, Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. Page 29 is a Frank Conroy story, “Running the Table.” It’s a memoir piece on growing up in New York City and attending Stuyvesant High School. He loves the orderliness of the local pool hall because his own world is “a  tunnel of  melancholy.” But the M-word  is not the word that jumped out at me.

This is raw honesty here, folks. I turned to p. 29 and Conroy describes a cashier at the pool hall.  I know about all those types of jobs. You learn people, inside and out, doing service jobs. The sentence he used to describe the money-handler at the pool hall was: “The cashier was bald and overweight.”

It was “overweight” that jumped out at me.

I am on the chunky side. Thank you Lord, I am not bald, but I have noticed some hair thinning in the back.

Weight is the bane of American culture, and my ultra-sensitivity at sixty something is mashed every time the subject is spit out at us in the media. We are so obsessed with looks in this country. I think we are all permanently stuck in adolescence. It’s all image, looks, weight, acceptance, and….shame-based, in my opinion. Enough!

I do  try and be healthy,  but I would like to remind you, “never trust a skinny cook.” Feel me?

Coincidence on page 29? I was just writing a body image rant for my blog. I read it to my husband who said he thought it was a bit  “piercing” so I filed it. So, about the body thing: aside from a lower back problem and…knock on wood…some minor aches and pains, things are ok. My husband is a polio survivor and my granddaughter has cystic fibrosis-I’m interested in healing. I want to live a good long life. I love writing, art, peace and love. Real love. Humanitarian love. Can you dig it?

My biggest pet peeve is skinny women who write about how they have great bikini bodies and how they are cool grandmothers, never frumpy. To you all, I say, bite me. One writer had the audacity to rate another woman on a scale of 1 to 10. If I am frumpy, so be it. Rate away, b-words. I don’t use that terrible word to talk about other women, but sometimes it’s tempting. If they’re going to talk about you now, they’ll talk about you later. They will find something to pick apart about another woman like vultures on a road kill.

My response to slender tenders who need a lot of self-adoration is, well, go knock yourself out. You won’t see me in a bikini, and if I had the bathing suit body, I would not be interested in bragging about it. If it happens, you’ll be the first to know.

My point: Over 200 girls were stolen away from their schools in a foreign country. Girls are being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Boys are too. What is important is health and well-being. Ending disease and oppression. My personal weight issue is not as important as character and action.

And this all started because of page 29!

                                                    

                                                        Me keeping up with the moves.