A Weed on The Curb

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #191 . The old rain in the ditch; cold claws on uneven brick Come sing glass to flickering Come pull a blanket to your shivering Broken feather set adrift; round eye searchlight swift Come where the light casts opening Come find the new path wavering ----------------------------------------- TL:DR:  Hope you have a warm & cozy holiday and much happiness in the new year.  Could I have resisted the last Muse of the year? Apparently not. :) Trying to balance out the unease that seems to be lurking at the end of the year with hibernating with the dogs and enjoying a holiday spent with more of the family than last year has been, especially lately, leaning toward just hibernating. Once it gets cooler, I'm going to make another book fort by the shelves and dedicate a few days to catching up on my reading. Looking forward to baking carrot & peanut butter dog cookies next week and to finding out whether James' experiment with mincemeat pies (...

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #190 ,  hosted this week by Carrie. Keaton was great in that show—the one with wings— Where he was constantly a [man]child on a ledge  dreaming an angel who became a superhero.   She was a sarcastic (fake?) angel—it was the 80s— But always good, on time, her lessons easy, Easy as it would have been for him to fall.   The metaphor so obvious...but I didn't get it. Nor the easy and obvious good. (/s)   I watch the TV movie every other December Remembering believing in easy And crushing on this character, that city...   Angels should be sweet, sarcastic figures, knowing (like nurses and social workers) we prefer Sleeping on the ledge, reckless to call for "heroes." To clear up any confusion:  there is no Michael Keaton movie we watch every holiday season. Although, if there were...I'd probably watch it.  -- Chrissa

  Sharing today for Shay's Word Garden Word List #3.  Can the Christmas wreckage of empty shelves lean through shadows rooting in rainy weekday puddles in deep places where the road bends toward the root- tatted sewers? Can a splash stricken from this fresh print of daylight tremble the neon stillness of sports drinks in a cold closet whose dim light hums automatic, endless prayers? I didn't quite get this right--I used too many of the words and the whole thing doesn't quite get at the sense that as the world spins back up after lockdowns and vaccines and the special kind of madness that comes with losing the everyday felting of one experience into another, we're not going to catch back up. We went out to look at Christmas lights and found the Christmas sections of most places empty of stock, rows Grinch-stocked with hooks but no ornaments. And that could be a good thing--we're apparently collectively the worst about plastic production, consumption, and waste--but ...

  Sharing today with T he Sunday Muse #189 , where Shay is hosting. Come and read and share a piece! On a web-white, wool-quiet morning I found the girl our stories gave us The one who survived She wore the meadow, carded and sewn Long since burned for field Still, she knew me Her stories named me fierce, feral She might have feared  The one who devours Neither of us spoke, patient at morning Breath, warmth, silence Innocent of power We know the stories kill us both We know that we become Fearsome by survival Hello and welcome. It's 67 degrees outside this morning and a warm December weekend might seem like the kind of thing that would prevent me from following through on a plan to hibernate with a good book for the rest of the weekend...but it's the doomscrolling that's run down the charge on my phone that's preventing me from doing that. Also, I may have developed an intolerance to long stretches of quiet during the past year and a half.  Anyway. Looking forward to r...

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #188 . It's always dark in the mall that died; the seats feel gritty, the windows are blank and all the stores empty. There's one door open back behind the large department store I slip in and walk over the torn, glassy floor. Someone has filmed the life as it left, most people prefer it gone; consumption is always deadly, some moan. But I continue to walk through these laminate halls to remember the books, my friends, the lit windows... It's always dark in the last hallways; the hard seats left empty; I'll rest between starvation and plenty. The benches remain, the walls rot, and ceilings spread stains I close my eyes and wait. This is the first last stop at this station, open since devastation. Theoretically, with Thanksgiving past and a chill weekend to remind us it's no longer a lingering summer/fall combo, we're supposed to have moved on to decorating for Christmas. In the spirit of fiction, let's say that happened. Let...

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #187 .  They come to us in cardboard; we stand them up together. Paper skin and silver bones and hair of green and brown and gold A dancer's reach One key at the throat, one knife in the door, one claw on the sill A glass princess spilled We lay them all in cardboard; we lay them all together. There is no packing or cleaning up stories before the last click A door shuts We've laid them all in cardboard; we've laid them all together.  ----- It's been a week. Our neighbors built a patio that is currently illuminated like a convenience store and which helpfully allowed me to watch a rat running along the fence, yelling at me the entire time. Trust me, rodent...I'm not coming anywhere near you. My dad is home from the hospital (yea!!!) & doing well and I feel...well, really, like this should be a stupendously garrulous note. Instead...I'm just going to say that I'm in the mood for comfort food reading. For stories in which peopl...

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #186 . Sorry. Probably best to skip this one. On bad days I argue with the void: it is empty; I call it full of nothing made pathological; therefore it obsesses to possess mass, to be something arguing with the universe but shouting in the mirror black as starlit backdrop, as stars that fall deeper and deeper into time until they  drag everything into the void and are empty, wrung out of needing to have an argument and then we look at each other, deep in the black fallen forever of our gaze.  I wasn't going to post this week. But that probably doesn't matter...because here is a post. This has been a weird week and, in the midst of much more important things, my NaNo project just [temporarily] self-destructed. There will be a return to that project and I'm already sharpening the knives for it. Just need to let a little off-topic anger abate so that everyone doesn't get flamethrowers and a crazy 80's soundtrack. AAAAAAAAEEEEEIIIIIIIIIII!...

A Sharing this weekend with The Sunday Muse #185. One blessing to break and one to take. Selfish offerings and self-denied boons A sacred mockery of profane recipes Holding out on all the echoed vows: It's just a counter, it's just a response. One blessing to break and one to take. Greetings and salutations from the home of OMG--WHY DID MY CHARACTER DO THAT? Also the home of WHY DID I PICK THIS STORY FOR NANO? I decided to tackle a story from a different angle and suddenly houses are exploding and formerly villainous characters are just insisting on a plot line of their own. And, btw, they'd like to not be the bad guy at the moment. Villains are hard for me. Possibly because I don't want to throw my own people under the bus. And so, here we are: Officially a fifth of the way through the NaNo goal and already lost control of the story. :) Hope your writing week is going well! Is anyone else in the middle of a long project?  -- Chrissa

  Sharing with this week's The Sunday Muse #184 . Come celebrate Halloween with verse and The Muse.  I don't think the lantern needed the day; I needed the night: Lit and close and dark and smelling of faraway fires. I needed the smoky flicker that darkened the late-season field I needed the thin linen dress someone else's jacket hides; I needed the nested shadow; not blue, clear sight. It's already a spooky weekend: one window wedged itself just open enough for the breeze to moan beneath, James heard a drone last night (according to him, circling and circling the neighborhood without lights), and our sometimes neighbors have started to set up their backyard for whatever festivities they're planning for Halloween weekend. So...tomorrow (Halloween) will be a good day to read through the books picked up at the local author Spooktacular hosted by a used bookstore not far from here and to say a few final prayers before NaNo begins. Also, celebrating another zine draft r...

  Linking with The Sunday Muse #183 . Information I recycle my opinions like personal moisture What I absorb is filtered and received as new; Pure. I can't believe we're already a week away from Halloween. I can't believe that I'm considering expanding my vampire story into my NaNo novel. Therefore, a short poem in honor of a very distracted Chrissa. When is it time to hibernate?  

  A Much-Loved Book I won’t follow the predictive poem; those green waves, The ones the software believes I’ve never seen… I saw them beyond the ink, smelled them in the paper; Whether my Cornwall is as imaginary as Camelot, The ocean touched mystery and greened every imagined coast.

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #182 , hosted this week by Shay, whose poetry is a festival unto itself. That chill you feel creeping around your shoulders probably has nothing to do with the images she chose. They're definitely not waiting for you to offer a poem... All the thoughts are curated; vitrines locked and watched; We sprinkle dust along the floorboards, poison to rat and roach. Spiders are swept by the women we bring in early. We choose them for their solitary...strength. Witches? We provide the brooms but not the titles. Here are your dark robes, avoid the stun of the lights. Gather your cobwebs, sister. Here is your shoe box for bodies. No. You are alone among the shadows, here. Go on. All the thoughts are labeled; unbroken glass won't breathe.  Hello and welcome to another weekend poetry blog. My marigolds are blooming this week!!!! This is the second set of seeds that I put out after the first set just fizzled. Celebrating small victories this autumn.  Hope y...

 Sometimes, it's impossible to get a good square poem. :) The following was inspired by a pit bull sleeping in a window, presumably waiting for his people to come home. 

  Come, my sons and daughters, here by the great trees of autumn where sail the vulture above the field and footstools the brain and bones of the forest yield. Watch dragonflies knit the sky back up  after the sun shattered it to fill the butterfly's cup. Feel the wind's hope as it searches through the leaves for dreaming-to-sail urchins. Stay close; reach far Catch the best of the tales in your jars.

Inspired by The Sunday Muse #181 : This feels like the beginning of a sheaf of rules, Small print, thin paper, ghosting of another language. This feels like a question at the point of a lance: Where are you going and why should I allow you to? This feels like a determinative intelligence test: Guess which bubbles lead to a happy, remunerative end. Except It's only a game  and his board is all set. Hoping everyone is having a bright October and a cozy fall. It's not quite cozy here yet...but Halloween has arrived. :)  -- Chrissa

 Tripped over a book in a Jen Campbell video and fell down an internet hole to the Pretty Owl Poetry site , and further tumbled down to this image and the instructions to create a poem from it: The 8th Month Lingers Heat leaves an impress of the year The mold set by summer's muscles Pressing us into the shadow Of a bow. Summer breathes and you reach To hold its golden head, feel it Rumble like a passing shadow growl. The year is set, it turns, goes Over the fairy hill where bells Ring doors closed, sits down. The eighth month lingers. Summer makes the time.

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #180: He had it wrong with that painting.  Lie to yourself, first. Like self-care. Like a vampire's self-worth. If you find my lost compact, look. Let the monogram be your best self. Silver bites deeper than fangs. A little bit of potential soul-stealing for the first October Muse. For no good reason (it's October, my back is still wonky, the stress is messing with my head, I watch 80's movies and teen dramas when I'm feeling bad) I've decided that this month, I'm writing my own vampire tale, soon to be zine. LOL, writer brain was just like... hmmm, sounds like you've decided to become a vampire.  Anyway. Hope you're having a good weekend/week. :) -- Chrissa

 The following poem is based on Carrie's prompt to use the following words in your piece for the day: Property / Bizarre / Mercury / Melancholy / Indigo / Light / Languish / Purity / Thirst These are the properties of indigo: Long light opens earth to universe above mercury waves breathing soft, dreaming a bizarre, empty purity: Sand bereft of shadow or shell, Water quenching no thirst, Borders languishing void over void. Deep, noteless blue. Melancholy. Pierced. 

 Posting for The Sunday Muse #179. History floods up to the highway; cow pastures, empty towns. We skim them all. The turnoff that takes us deeper rises from a wave of asphalt that bends and crests and races to Austin. Dad reminds us again that we need to be careful. Pay attention. If the snakes or floorboards twist, run to the car. His brother is meeting us there, maybe. Other family might also. We launch ourselves into the dead leaves of the front lawn, waving at our uncle. Yelling away the highway. There are no other family members here, no other houses. A key is passed between brothers. Porch boards tested. We're told to stay in the yard. They don't want us to see old pipes leaking new stains. Greetings and salutations! Fall is running a teaser weekend here in Texas and we're all appreciating the outdoors rendered livable. And the early morning hummingbirds! I'm daydreaming about a small platform tent and napping outside and James is counting the days until he can g...

  Posting in response to Carrie's bonus prompt "Let Your Dreams Be Your Wings."  Here are the threads of a dream, Catalogued at 5:55 am; before the alarm chimes: I saw Dabney Coleman in a shopping arcade In some district of Houston that doesn’t exist, Just as my husband avoided entering a store Full of clothbound books and menswear. I said nothing. I stopped to admire a necklace— A gold and pearl cross that echoed the silver one My mom had loaned me and I had broken In high school. Dabney and his wife (the lady from National Treasure , Tiny as a gymnast in dream life) asked the jeweler To make us open the outer door and greeted us. Then, asking us to wait, Dabney hurried off. I tried to explain the cross, our anniversary weekend, My mother’s call that there were too many people And we should skip breakfast in the city to his wife. I kept a mask crushed tight in my fist. I tried to explain the perfect pictures of a light Texas snow I was going to post later, the ones from ...

 For The Sunday Muse #178 , hosted by the ever amazing Shay. Truth is melting and I'm watching us drown There's a concrete lip; there's always an edge But I'm in the salt, in the water, in that gown We're both edge people, both lurkers, quiet So float the plate of appetizers gentle to me We'll watch the waters dine, toast their diet Maybe we'll find our edge, catch hold again Find our footing in this new damp dance Give the edge a final shove; kick into a spin  Clean these foundations by leaving them Learn to breathe by remembering to swim. This week my craft brain has been focused on the realization that you really shouldn't tell family members you have a room if they need it if you haven't actually cleaned that room out. Fortunately (for all of us?), those particular people have a holy horror of Houston and we were all spared an episode of "Everything in Plastic Tubs, NOW." On the other hand, there's something to be said for spending ...

  The cold front comes; the lizards hear the bells Swelling on the vine through their toes.  The cold front comes; the mint opens wells Dark, down to their spreading roots. The cold front comes; summer goes to dwell Deep, where seeds shed their coats.

 Just wanted to take a minute, as the temps in the morning brush into the upper 60's (for at least the next day or so), to celebrate my favorite summer candles and look forward to fall. I try to have a candle burning when I'm writing, especially during the summer when it's not as pleasant to spend long stretches outside.*  1.  Burnt Orange, by Wick Habit  2. Frog Princess, by Mort & Co. Candles 3. World-Building, by Novelly Yours 4. Suntan, by Bath&BodyWorks Looking at the list, it feels that I'm trying to make up for the past several months of staying home, trying to manage "the new normal" that has consisted of getting out less and less as, frankly, our governor abandoned the state to a continuing pandemic and made it more and more difficult to determine whether even going to a nearby park was a good idea, much less a mall. When you're receiving phone calls from major healthcare providers giving generic warnings about spikes in hospital usage, it...

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #176 . One still before the aliens removed their makeup; They were always us, our future in Lycra and foundation, Our future already laser-fighting irrelevance.  There's always a store on the numbered exit Cold drinks, gas. Virginia packaged dry as the sand gritting your back teeth. It's always open. Even there, they have that still. Somewhere. Everyone sells that print. Or owns it. Or shudders, quick, Underneath it. They were always us.  If I keep it in my desk, cut carefully, the way you do At twelve, on a long afternoon hiding from the sun, hoping for  elves, not aliens...it's no less irrelevant. One still before.   So happy!!! Woke up this morning able to get up with minimal pain! And I think I discovered the stupid thing I did to torque my back into misery. Just wanted to share the relief. :)  -- Chrissa

 We have always believed the most dangerous lie When they brought out the chicken, Laid the egg in our hands... When they read from the book of Fryers The story of the sale and the feast; The Mother Who Feeds Us  With every part of her body and family, We confess our unity. When they say It Has Been Always Thus Covered starving in other truths Excavated by sharp words. We held it steady and waited. This will be our small lie,  Our foundational myth of consumption, Our taking from the Mother Our stealing our lives. We repeat, together, as we cradle the egg Only the bravest can handle the Lie, The most dangerous lie. Truth is hidden. It is weak. It is written. We are to keep it always so. Between us. Unsaid.  The Mother always hid it from the Lie, The, good, wise, strong Lie We have always believed. We will always believe. Thus, we eat. Sharing with The Sunday Muse #175.  There is no interpretive text this week, as scholars strongly disagree about whether words ha...

  For The Sunday Muse #174 : This is the place where my chin drops  where I can smell  seconds ago. Still in a bit of a writing funk. Reading some good, atmospheric stuff. Trying to balance my brain between absolute, torch-wielding anger (we're all tired of "the panini" but we're all living in THIS world) and the joy that comes from an autumn garden (and some indoor plant geekery in which we're mentally on Tatooine pretending Leia is staying at Luke's pied-a-terre at the edge of Mos Eisley playing laser paintball with random visitors--maybe just don't ask). It's 103 degrees this afternoon. I've been banned from using the phrases "murder death peanut" (about wasps) and "the BeforeTimes" (about anything pre-panini) and, therefore, there was great temptation in writing about a pandemic of wasps and the heat. You've avoided that fate. (maybe) And I've avoided writing a poem. We're even. -- Chrissa

 I did not buy the poetry book whose sample Was page after page of essay and praise. I'm not following the trumpets. Today I follow the ringers-- Huzzah and call out the streets! Lift your arm, swing the bell; Call out the quiet, call out the neat Call out the loud, call out the bold Call out the wrong, call out the wise We remember the bells We shiver the skies.    This isn't about...anything. It's not about nothing. It should go without saying that a poem shouldn't need an essay or a textbook to be what it is. And I'm not sure why, with a stack of poetry at hand to be read, one silly Kindle sample (and writer's block and anxiety and...) would push my buttons so badly. But seriously. Where is my parody book full of fake blurbs that runs for 50 pages and ends with a single (terrible) poem?  -- Chrissa

  Some rain falls like gasping ice, But here, it falls like a cool shower Even as streets heat their minor floods And we go hunting on the edges of lawns, Our feet obscured by the warmth Plucked cooler by the falling drops , for anything fluffy that floats.  Kittens and small possums Squirrels and baby racoons Washed out of the woods, Washed out of the yards, Washed out of the drains. We rescue our dreams by wading And trusting in the towels waiting Back home. Daydreaming about coffee this morning. Thinking about starting a story that goes nowhere because I'm feeling pathless. Wishing, maybe, for a little rain for the yard.  -- Chrissa

  Sharing for The Sunday Muse #171 . "Roots" 1943 by  Frida Kahlo I wouldn't believe in Halloween Without grocery store pumpkin displays; backyard vines yield green, sunken fruit. I plant bright squash décor when it fades, when the fruits sink into themselves.  Dad says the worms are too small to see, endemic to the Texas soil. In the mood for a little Halloween/fall content here in the dog days of summer.  -- Chrissa

  WordCrafters Prompt #2 Welcome to Crowland, Shoppers! The only bulbs are nuclear and whatever bounces light, Muzak whistles drear in sandy hollows dressed by night. Try on the wind, my fellows--fly or lift your bones,  wear the breath of motion or sing with fleshless moans. Come purchase this eternity, I've opened wide the door! You'll never want for finitude upon this sealess shore. WordCrafters Prompt #3 Forgo the Waves No more the drift, the sink, the crash. No more the shadows, no more the silver flash! No more the weedy fathoms, no more the glassy flanks, Run toward our freedom upon those grassy banks.

 WordCrafters Wednesday Prompt #1: Photo by  KoolShooters  from  Pexels Heat draws ghastly thirsts: Atlas sloshes a cold ocean  over a cut on his thigh; Coke bottle green flies descend. Two hollow flies bump; a whimsical note shivers, births a spiral heartbeat. Hurricane Flora wakes to see glass fall. Flora carries the roaring echo through our yard, patio, back door. Atlas tilts the trembling globe. He leans into the tinny horror, listens. He tunes his burden like a cathedral radio. His effort gleams, groans. He washes in a leaking, holy ocean. Flora dances in sodden skirts Calling us to mourn his cuts Flora dances in sodden skirts Calling us mourn his cuts

  I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning scouring my shelves for Crime and Poetry , the book pictured in this post. I'm still recovering from last week's bout of whatever food crime I committed and I'm still mostly off caffeine (and finally sleeping through the night) and one of the things that being sick does is make me miss seeing my family. And if I'm read to road trip, then I usually turn to books. Things I read as a kid (lots of Susan Cooper and Dorothy Sayers) or stories that I've discovered since (the October Daye series) and remind me of sitting on my bed, reading and relaxing and knowing that everything was getting better. Yesterday, however, what I wanted was a book that my dad had given me, because he thought I'd like it. That it looked like my thing.  But we rearranged the bookshelves last year. And despite the idea that "summer is a great time to do indoor things and a pandemic means we're both technically available to work on this...