Fear of Flying 

Flying solo to Nashville
Boarding pass in hand
Concourse train to A Gates
People everywhere! 

Feeling alone in the crowd

Going through security
Shoes off, feet apart, hands up, scanned
Surrounded by strangers
Standing way too close 

Feeling insecure in security 

Watching green-winged Covids
Swarming throngs of folks
Like a swatted beehive….
Am I really “safe?”

Feeling vulnerably vaccinated 

Feeling the real fear of flying….

Masks

No one likes a mask

Until they have a lip wax

And suffer wax burn 

I snapped a photo of an inspiring poem on Good Friday as we were having a PL day before our spring break this week. Our #verselove host at http://www.ethicalela.com today, Margaret Simon, invited us to use a photograph to find our writing inspiration today. My verse is a rewording and extension of Micky Jones’ “Invitation to Brave Space.” This is dedicated to all writers who come to writing communities to write, to share, to encourage, to bloom! 

#verselove2021 #SOL21

we come to this space
this brave space
scarred and wounded

turn down the world’s noise
tune in our hearing ears
to the amplified voices
of our community 

to begin
to grow
in truth and love
to embrace imperfection
to work together 

to express
to write
to feed
to water
to bloom

Anna Roseboro inspired me to wrote a poem based on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.” 

I went back and forth between an Etheree and a Golden Shovel form – I decided on an Etheree
– ten lines with that number of syllables in each line. I wrote mine in descending order, using borrowed lines with some rearrangement of words. 

Tortured Souls

Our cries to thee from tortured souls arise,
Christ, we smile, but oh, great Christ our cries!
We sing with torn and bleeding hearts,
Beneath our feet, long the mile!
Let them only see us
while we wear the mask.
It hides our cheeks,
Shades our eyes,
Masks the
Dream.

Say to them

Say to them, say to the chittering chatterers, the nonstop nonwriterss, the pencil-plagued, the drama driven, the social sasses, the introverted intellectuals, the down-in-the dumps depressed, the wordy will-nots:
“For all the talking and thinking and social media-ing you do, for all the ways you feel, for all the changing moods and all the injustices and all the promises and hopes and all the fears, you have stories! Forget the King’s English and the red pens of your past. Turn on your phone’s recorder and use talk to text if your pencil is out of lead for the 32nd time this month. Begin. Voice your story into air like you’re talking to someone, and watch it magically come to life as your words fall onto the screen.”
We all have something to say.
You, too, are a writer.
Work your magic.
Tell your story. .

Fix-it Bop 

this Bop is too small 

to hold all my problems 

20 lines and one refrain – 

which problem to choose?

family issues? 

health and aging? 

mama died, daddy won’t listen 

mom in law died, everyone fought 

thyroid quit, clothes got smaller 

arthritis plagues, we limp along 

IBD flares, applesauce sucks! 

Covid takes hostages, Zoom ain’t the same 

work is exhausting, no time to read 

spring cleaning is backlogged, I just want to write! 

My spirit needs writing 

Bop, Bop, Bop,

when earth’s axis is tilted off kilter 

it’s our hope in this space 

that’s the key! 

2005: The Lying, Cheating Fool’s Day

once hidden:
in the shadows
of the phone bill
between the unknown numbers
and private calls
under the cloak of darkness
in a back seat
behind the bowling alley 

then exposed:
truth spotlight
on a cockroach ~
legs scrambling ~
panicked antennae ~
backed into a corner ~
nowhere to hide 

now shrouded in shame:
all the careful-what-you-wish-fors
came true in an
inescapable twist of fate
where the winner ?
wasn’t you