I Am Mother Earth

 I am Mother Earth  

Round and big  

Full of valleys mountain and caves  

Ripe with life 

Watery  

Fiery and icy 

Rest in my comfort  

Thrive on my land  

I am yours

Georgia P.

11/30/20

Princess Wu's Teapot

A note from the director:

The following is based on recent writing prompt/suggestion as follows:

Assignment: Take a good look around your home, including its nooks and crannies.  Hunt around for an object that seems to you to suggest the possibility of an un-told story.  Make up a story associated with this object.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wong’s Antique Shop 

11 Hyacinth Drive 

Somewhere on the Asian Continent 

01-321-555-5555 

1830 Tea Pot 

Weeping Willows with gardens and homes inlaid on a blue and white traditional porcelain tea pot said to have been owned by Princess Wu who was a renowned practitioner of Chinese shamanic religious tradition. She was called upon by common folk and Emperors for advice and divination, her powers were beyond reproach. As you entered her dimly lit pillow covered home, she would serve tea from this very tea pot. The cup has been long lost, said to have been taken by pirates to divine the future. Those pirates mysteriously disappeared.  

After drinking from this tea pot Princess Wu saw your past, present and future with precise accuracy and gently dispensed advice. It is said by the current owner that the tea pot still retains its magical powers. 

 Warning: use at your own peril, once the tea pot is used it will growl for water and shake for jasmine tea and insist that you give it a prominent altar for all to see.    

Please call for a price; we are very selective in who will be its next owner

Georgia P.

Nov 2020

Thanksgiving Memories

 

The year is a giant rotating Ferris Wheel bringing each holiday around to us, each occasion residing in one of the gondolas. With Halloween ascending away, the Thanksgiving gondola landed unloading its holiday contents from this enormous spinning wheel of joy and amusement.

The tines punctured my slice of turkey breast covered in gravy, and I used it as a shovel adding mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes as well as peas and carrots along with a dollop of cranberry which melted in my mouth and transported me back to an earlier Thanksgiving…

The memory materialized in my mind, pots and pans were being resurrected from their hiding places and assembled for proper cleaning. These vessels would now be used to create a symphony of smells and tastes for the annual feast. With decorating and cleaning previously completed, the men’s turn involved setting up folding chairs and a card table extension to the usual dining table. The men definitely had the easier task.

 Wonderful overpowering, scintillating smells invaded the cellar. I was drawn up the stairs to the main floor almost floating on a wave of the most wonderful aromas imaginable to see a busy hive of activity with my Mother, Grandmothers and Aunt swirling around each other in a delicate seemingly choreographed ballet, never colliding as the final touches were completed and food put out on the linen covered tables decorated for the occasion. Wine glasses resembling glass tulips with their thin stems, beautiful ceramic bowls, ornate dinner dishes their perimeters painted in a golden halo, crystalline salt and pepper shakers and polished silver utensils brought up to a mirrored shine, covered the tables.

A general announcement was made that the meal was ready and everyone joined the table, finding their seat and participating in a prayer of thanks. 

I had been assigned to the card table, a location of dubious, rickety distinction. Sitting on my folding chair my sister and I kicked our legs back and forth under the table, as the large heavy round plates were placed in front of us.

A mountain of pristine white mashed potatoes, the peaks of which rose to the heavens, accompanied by an orange hill of sweet potatoes crowned my plate. A flow of hot brown lava issued forth down the lofty peaks of potato mountain infusing a gravelly bed of bright green peas and orange carrots which bordered on a felled forest of exotic green asparagus trees and streamed onto the plains of turkey which were nearest to me, along with a cylindrical gelatinous purple lake of cranberry sauce. Stuffing meteors had crashed down on the turkey plains as additional lava gushed over them and the feast began.

The smells and tastes were not a disappointment and everything was delicious. My eyes had proved to be larger than my stomach, resulting in little room having been saved for dessert, which thankfully was put off for a few hours until the meal was digested and all the washing, drying, and storing completed. It was just as well as Mighty Joe Young, followed by The March of the Wooden Soldiers were starting on T.V.

 

Jim

Nov 2020

Happy Bird Day!

 Out of the dark silent night a door slammed and shook the whole house.  “Everyone okay?” Dad yelled.  Groggy voices answered from the bedrooms.  All of us present and accounted for – except one.  Where was Princess?  She must be sniffing the ground outside in the back.  Probably got out before the door banged shut. 

Our little black mutt was definitely part bird dog.  She never chased cats, but all her hunting skills would surface if a bird happened to be nearby.  Instantly she’d stand stock still, tail erect and ears cocked.

Knowing this about her my brother, Steve, gave me two parakeets for my eighth birthday.  I named the green one, Hansel and the blue one Gretel, of course.  Once in a while one of them would get out of the cage and fly around our apartment until it was  hungry or something. 

Then one day Gretel got out and I couldn’t find her anywhere.  I was so worried that she’d escaped through an open window or door but what could I do?  The next morning after breakfast I took off my pajamas, deciding what to wear that day.  As I pulled open my top dresser drawer, there was a strange ruffling sound followed immediately by a blur of blue wings jetting out of my underwear drawer.  

Gretel,  you poor thing!  I cried.  How did this happen?  She must have been in there twenty-four hours.  When I examined the contents of my drawer it appeared that even though she’d rummaged around in there, nothing was soiled or stained.  As I walked out of my bedroom dressed and heading for the front door, Princess was having fun chasing her madly around the living room.  Boy, did I make sure to close the door tightly behind me that morning.

 

Yvonne A.

Rocket Man

 The smell of a crisp, fall New England morning was so vivid I would have sworn it was real.  But it couldn’t be real here.  Not on the space station.  Was my imagination that good, or had Sam been messing with the ventilation system and using aromatics to enhance our moods and improve the group dynamic?

It was certainly working for me.  The stale emptiness of the atmosphere is an unforeseen sensory deprivation - the effects of which aren’t fully known yet.  We’ve studied many ways our five senses affect appetite.  Researchers have also studied pheromones and how they produce physical attraction.

Odors can, without a doubt, repel just as easily and promptly as they lure.  It’s always disgusted me when people attempt to mask unwanted odors with sweet-smelling bouquets or perfumes.  It signals the distinct possibility of chronic uncleanliness.  Gross! 

Here in our space suits, recollections are remote but if I wish to evoke memories from a happy time or am feeling a bit wistful, I can do so in one of three ways, either visually, musically or olfactorily.  Come to think of it didn’t David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Elton John’s “Rocket Man” water the seeds that were planted in my brain by movies like “2001 A Space Odyssey?”

Graphic prods may take a while to transport me but do likewise linger and remain in my mind’s eye the longest.  Musical prompts quickly bring me to my desired state of reminiscing and generally return periodically whether by accident or design.  Nevertheless, the stoutest push of them all rises and rests directly between our eyes and lips. 

The olfactory cues strike like lightning.  These are the most immediate and bold.  They are as swift in their departure as in they are their arrival.  One whiff and I travel through time and space without delay or failure.  I bet you Sam has invested a great deal of time experimenting with aromatics and how to use them while we are up here floating in this tin can sans genuine fragrance.

Yvonne A.

Nov 2020 

Unexpected Return

 Everyone in the house was still asleep.  As I sat in my living room drinking my first coffee of the day, I could identify every sound that came through the window.  The best part of living in the same place your whole life is knowing things feel right even if they don’t to everyone else around you. 

This year the Blue Jays are back.  For a long time, they went away, and it felt as though they’d never return.  Yet this fall they showed up again here and there one or two at a time.  Their return surprised me and brought a wonderful sense of order and restoration with it. 

They were here all through my childhood.  “Look!  A Blue Jay,” one of us kids would tell the others with glee.  They’re not especially beautiful.  Nor do they sing beautifully.  Still I’d missed them and wondered where they’d all gone. 

Honestly, they don’t stir me the way a Red Cardinal with its bold scarlet mantel and cap of bright feathers does or captivate me with the coordinated flight formation patterns of a lot of other winged creatures.  Still the wild and untamed Blue Jay has an unpredictability in his nature that I like.  “I’m back,” he communicates wordlessly. “Don’t get too used to me being here.  If I decide to go I will.” 

The Blue Jay reminds me of my mother’s outspoken Aunt Rose who could show up without notice or invitation and be greeted as if we had been expecting her to arrive at that very minute even though she lived in Florida.  She was independent, self-confident and extremely resilient.  Her eyes a beautiful shade of icy blue stood out against her white hair and brown skin.  Even at 80 she swam laps in her condo’s pool every morning.  That may not sound very remarkable, but she only had one arm.  When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, they removed her arm as well.  Her prosthetic arm was made of wood and the hand was covered with a white glove at all times.  She never stopped driving, sewing, typing or flying either.

 

Yvonne A.

Nov. 2020 

Smell and Taste

I lost my sense of smell and taste as soon as I got covid back in April. My sense of taste is completely gone and has changed strangely, my yogurt tastes like ammonia, my tea tastes like hot dish water and I get an occasional aftertaste of sugar or salt. Never knew that lots of spices have an after taste, plus some foods that were my favorite taste like chemicals.  

My sense of smell is completely gone too, I am concerned I will miss a forgotten gas jet, or spoiled food in the fridge, even my own hygiene is now in question. Occasionally I get random scents like someone smoking a cigarette or something sweet like perfume. 

Losing my sense of smell and taste has not stopped me from eating though, I still eat cookies and rice and beans and anything else I want to eat. My body knows what it wants, and I have to pay attention to those cravings. Cookies are a craving (happily), don’t judge me.  

My other senses kick in, seeing the food, feeling the texture in my mouth, the temperature and the memory of what the food tastes like.  

In a way food is now extremely boring, I noticed myself scaling down in choices of food, picking more veggies and fruit, soups, legumes, hardly any meat and lots of club soda. Don’t know why I suddenly like club soda, but I am drinking it anyway.  

I went to several doctors about my loss of smell and taste, the ENT said if the senses do not come back in one year it is a permanent condition, same with the neurologist he said there is just not enough information about this condition to make a reliable diagnosis, my wonderful primary doctor predicts that my senses will return eventually. I hope she is correct because I have been living with no sense of smell or taste for seven months now.  

One of my daughters is hosting Thanksgiving this year in her new home, we talked about turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad and soda and pumpkin pie.  

This Thanksgiving I will eat in the usual way all that is served and with my eyes I will drink in the sights. Feel the textures in my mouth, feel the warm turkey as I chew, smash those sweet potatoes around with my tongue, pour gravy all over everything and remember the smells and tastes of Thanksgivings past as I push down the pumpkin pie with a cold drink.

Georgia P.

11/22/20

I Hear You

 Mama how did you know the exact moment I needed to hear from you wherever you may be?  Just the way you call my name, “Yvonne Darling,” as if it were one word satisfies an unnamed need.  Your lilting cadence supplies the antidote I hunger and thirst for.

This morning as I stuck my hand in the drawer to retrieve a watch that needed its battery changed, I came across the CD recorded by Story Corps when they interviewed you in your apartment.  Merely the sound of your voice warms me and causes my heart to overflow. 

When we were together the atmosphere was infused with celestial qualities. Memories of the records, “Puss ‘n Boots” or “Peter and the Wolf,” you played for me still echo through my mind. My happiness and contentment in those moments are incomparable. 

As a grown woman, I never stopped yearning for the outpouring of love your affection granted me.   Even now that we inhabit separate worlds, your legacy has never diminished.  Each time I touch one of your silk scarves or don one of your precious jewels, my heart swells with gladness as I linger and immerse myself in the thought of you.  Admired, beloved and cherished you will always be.

Yvonne A.

November 2020

The Freight Train

 

The morning silence is broken by a murmur in the distance. The steady rumbling of the endless sinewy steel carcass, twisting and turning, slithering and sliding, meandering and curving up steep inclines and down deep ravines, never hurried and never slowing but always a measured, determined pace, the metallic serpent continues on its course. Blub-blub, Blub-blubb, Blub-blubb, untiring, steady and determined, stoic unfaltering and rigid, moving along in its robotic, unhurried fashion, keeping to its schedule.

The earth rumbles, the houses shake on their foundations and teeth chatter. Like an endless grist mill, huge shiny steel wheels spinning and grinding all that fall beneath them to a fine dust, an endless procession of cold, efficient, mechanical power like a Roman Legion marching through conquered lands.

The vagabond’s highway, a carefree ride, the hobo’s solace and sanctuary, a refuge and haven, the mechanized precision and constant movement rocks the wanderers to sleep, like babies in a cradle. Five hundred cars and four miles long, the steel serpent now disappears into the distance quietly rumbling into far-away lands. Silence and peace return.

 

Jim

November 2020

Sounds

 About five years ago our building owners allowed Verizon to put one small cell tower on the roof of our building; it is right above my bedroom. The portal with the ladder to get to the roof is parallel to my front door on the ceiling by a short distance of about 12 feet.  

Occasionally Verizon passes by to check on their equipment.  

Shortly after all the construction was done and the tower shown in its shiny glory, I heard something.  

The evenings and weekends are very quiet in this building and almost no traffic on the streets, the skylight keeps the stair way lit until sunset, and then the hall lights go on for safety, lights cannot mute sound.  

I truly thought the sound was a ghost planting itself in the hallway, or a phantom dark shadow lurking nearby looking to possess an innocent passerby. But that was not so.  

Only when the wind is wild can you hear it. It’s not a regular machine sound like an air conditioner or fan or idling car engine. Rather it is more like a whistle that comes and goes with the force of the wind.  

Woooooooooooooooo, a high pitched, single note, alien like, war of world’s sound halfway between a handheld whistle, a harmonica and pitch pipe.  It sounds like a low pitch whistle from a very non-human form.  

 I was taken by surprise the first time I heard it. It took me a long time to figure out what the sound was.  It is a small almost unidentifiable sound of the wind whipping through the aluminum fence surrounding the single cell tower and the entire perimeter of the roof. The pitch of the sound does not change, what you hear is the loudness or softness of it.  

After five years of hearing this sound I am still not used to it. When I hear it I stop to take note of what I am hearing and remind myself it is not an alien, ghost or phantom but rather a cell tower emitting microwaves into the atmosphere surrounded by an aluminum fence.  Woooooooooooooooooo 

Georgia P.

11/14/20

The Daily Scripturient

 

You want it?
We've got it!

Trinkets, Baubles, Tchotchkes,
Moldy Books,
Old Wrapping Paper, Dead Batteries,
Expired Lunch Meats.

Birdie says:
"Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!"


See us Monday-Saturday at Birdie's!

**************************************
Birdies Super Crap Emporium
23-40 Review Avenue, L.I.C.

**************************************

From:  

Richard Melnick,

10-31-2020.

 

A country cowboy amidst all this concrete.

A sentimental surfer, in search of his wave.

A writer, a word count, yet so much to say

Don’t be shy, say hi.

#theclichéjackofalltrades

 

I’m meat and potatoes, love Shake ‘N Bake

searching a mate to make my heart quake

Craving adventure, just not at the table

Let’s lick our chops, visit a stable.

#sonotavegetarian

 

WANTED

Wanted Ghost hunters, 

Must be brave in the face of flying dishes, disembodied voices, and terrifying shadow people.  

We have burned sage and prayed, and nothing is working, must be able to communicate with the unknown. Call 666-666-6666

#GP

 

WANTED

Someone to cook, clean house, do laundry, iron, grocery shop, pay bills, make phone calls, do research for everything, schedule appointments, go to doctors, wash dishes, paint and fix things around the house, make returns, be responsible for any and all things at all times until you drop dead. 

I don’t have money to pay you for all of this of course but it would be greatly appreciated anyway because I just don’t want to it anymore and want to get on with the rest of my life like enjoying it once and for all.

Call ASAP to just plain old sick and tired of it, plum tuckered out, before I get any older please. My hair is falling out every day from stress as it is while I place this ad. Gray hairs everywhere. What a mess! Please don’t let me go bald before my time. I am only middle aged. And I don’t need the added expense for Rogaine or to have to buy wigs that would require more endless hours of research and maintenance.

Thanks to all of you out there know who know exactly what the hell I am talking about!

Someone, save me please!

#DVB

 

WANTED

CHORUS LOOKING FOR A NEW MEMBER.

NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!

THE GROUP MAY APPEAR VERY RUSTIC AND HAIRY AS WE DERIVE OUR INSPIRATION FROM SINGING TO THE FULL MOON. 

NAME: THE LYCANTROPIC SOCIETY

LOCATION: FOREST PARK BANDSHELL

TIME: 12:00 A.M.

DATE: OCTOBER 31^st FULL MOON

(Free membership, no initiation fee!)

#BigJimHyde

The Art of Revision - "The Chinese Ring"

  A note from the director:

October was National Revising Month.  (I'll bet you didn't know.)  Now is the time to revise our thinking, our priorities, our plans for the future.  And for us writers, it is, of course, also a clarion call to revise our writings.

The following excerpt comes from a piece submitted by Scripturient, Steven T. in response to the October 17th assignment to revisit a written piece and consider some revisions.

The Chinese Ring Before and After Paragraphs

Steven L. Thomaschek

Original Paragraph

            The Chinese ring is a yellow gold man’s ring. On the left side the initials ST are engraved diagonally downward from left to right. The initials are in a style that imitates Chinese characters. There is a diamond beneath the letter T. A mermaid faces away from and nearly encircles the initials and diamond. Her arms are outstretched with her right arm raised half way above her right shoulder and her left arm lowered half way below her left shoulder. A few strands of hair hang over her raised right bicep.

Revised Paragraph

            The Chinese ring is a yellow gold man’s ring. On the left side a downward diagonal relief with the initials ST stands out above a darkened background. The initials are in a style slightly suggestive of Chinese characters. A diamond sits in a tiny little encasement beneath the letter T. The initials and diamond are partially encircled by the sensuous slender figure of an aquatic mermaid. Her arms are outstretched as she poses with are arched back to the initials. Her right arm is raised half way above her right shoulder and her left arm is lowered half way below her left shoulder. The curved tip of her tailfin stretches beyond the stone reaching just beneath the letter S. A few strands of her free-flowing hair hang over her raised right bicep as if she has just emerged from the deep blue sea.

Gratitude

It was July 1, the beginning of the summer school recess. As a ten-year-old, I looked forward to being with my friends. I got out of bed and when standing up, I experienced intense pain in both ankles which also appeared to be swollen. The pain was so bad, I had to go back into bed and I called my mother. When I told what I was experiencing, she called our neighborhood physician Dr. Bernstein, and explained I was unable to walk to his office which was several blocks away. Since it was a time when doctors did make home visits, he came to my home that morning. After examining me, he told my mother I had rheumatic fever which caused the swelling and that I had a heart murmur. It was the time when penicillin did not exist and the only treatment was complete bed rest. By complete, that meant I was not to get out of bed for any reason even to go to the bathroom or take a bath or shower. That meant, my mother would have to carry me on her back, like a pack mule, to and from the bathroom at least one or more times a day. She would also sponge clean my body as I lay in bed.  Since I was not able to do any exercise, I began to gain weight and made it more difficult for mother to lift me onto her back. Dr. Bernstein would visit every two weeks and it turned out I was confined to bed the entire months of July and August. By Labor Day, I was able resume my normal life and return to school. About a month later, I had a relapse and was again confined to bed and mother had to reassume her pack mule existence. By Thanksgiving Day, I was completely cured and led a normal life without any relapses. I would never forget subjecting mother to having to lift me onto her back and carry me to and from the bathroom.

     After graduating from law school, I worked in a small law firm for about ten years. I then decided to leave and practice law on my own. It was a time when I had very little savings, a home mortgage, two small children which prevented my wife from resuming her school teaching job. When mother heard I had left my job, she came to me and said that If I was going to practice law on my own, it would take about a year before I would earn sufficient money to pay my bills and support my family. She knew I had very little savings, and told me she would give me all of her savings. I did not know how much she had and assumed it was about $25,000. How she, a person with no formal education or any business experience, knew I would face a possible financial problem for at least a year, I never figured out. She was right, it took me one year and I was on my way to financial success. While I never took any of the money mother offered me, it had been comforting to me that if I experienced a financial problem, she was there to help.

     Carrying me on her back like a pack mule and offering all of her savings, is a debt I would never forget, and until momma passed away at the age of 93, anything she needed from me, did not require a second asking. I made it clear to my children, to always remember how their Babba Lena grandmother whom they knew and loved, took care of me when I needed help.

     I told my children many things during the course of a lifetime do change; one that does not, is we begin and end with family. Mother was a good example.

MOMMA, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ben Haber

November 13, 2020

 

Thankful Days

 

Well, on Sunday, I might be thankful for something I’m not thankful for on Monday. 

On Monday, what I was thankful for walked out the door.

 By Tuesday, I thought I was thankful for toast.

But I realized I was thankful for golden autumn leaves falling from trees the most.

Thursday AM, I was thankful I had a good night’s sleep.

But by Friday, I whispered to myself “I’m so thankful for my jeep.”

Saturday arrived, the week had whirled by and that was okay.

 I was especially thankful that being thankful all week

Had kept the boogie man away.

Ellen G.

November, 2020

Shirley Temple Curls

 During my childhood years, Shirley Temple was the big rage coming out of Hollywood. She was a dimpled song and dance star who reached the level of stardom that no other child star has ever reached. With a hot curling iron, my mother would aim to make my mousey straight brown hair into Shirley Temple curls. If this didn’t work, she would wrap some concoction of sugar watered strips of fabric hoping my curls would achieve the Shirley Temple look.

 

While my momma never seriously considered great fame and fortune for her daughter, but as hope springs eternal, she did get to see me on the stage. Like Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Red Buttons, who all performed in the Catskill Mountain (also known as the Borscht Belt), I too had my start in that area. 

 

There was a time when there were at least 500 vibrant hotels, rooming houses and bungalow colonies in this Catskill region. The cottages and rooming houses catered to the middle class and somewhat poor working-class population like my family seeking relief from the hot pre-air-conditioned summers in the city tenements. My poor family of five would spend the summer in a humble rooming house. While the mothers and children were here for the entire summer, the fathers toiled in the hot city and came up for the weekend. My father, a house painter, made a small salary, but enough to enable us to afford the few dollars the room cost.

 

The neighboring hotel near our rooming house repeated the same show every Saturday night. Hotels catered to a more transient set of guests who usually came for only a week, while people in the rooming houses and bungalows, rented for the entire summer.  The Hotel Roseville allowed members outside the hotel guests to attend the shows. The director needed a child for its weekly Saturday night Jewish show and he somehow enlisted my mother to allow me the be the child in their drama. I was about five years old and was going to be performing as a rich family’s child. I needed a more elegant attire than the play clothes I owned. My mother, a handy seamstress, dug into her bag of schmattas or rags and found a batch of peach colored strips of ruffles which she ingenuously sewed into a beautiful party dress.

 

My role required no lines to memorize, no songs to be learned, and no dance steps to be practiced. This was my entire recurring Saturday night theater role. I am off stage; a loud sound is heard from this area simulating a gunshot blast. My theatrical father then carries me in his arms on stage with my Shirley Temple curls in place, and tearfully announces, “Aundzer kind iz tout.“ (Our child is dead.) Great wailing ensues and the curtain comes down.

 

So, you see, although my further acting career never went beyond being cast in a third-grade school play as Spring, I can truly say I did fulfill momma’s desire for me to look like Shirley Temple and perform on stage.

Thanks, Momma for supporting my acting career!

 

Ethyl H.

November 2020

A Harvest Feast

 

On that joyous day bread was broke.

Despite their differences a friendship woke.

Squanto of the Patuxet tribe had taught the starving Separatists how to survive.

In growing corn and catching fish the skeletal Pilgrims he did enlist.

Forging an alliance with the Wampanoag Tribe for the Pilgrims, Squanto did contrive.

The celebration of a harvest feast was held for three days with the Wampanoag Chief.

Massasoit with ninety men in tow, brought five large deer to bestow.

In our modern times of plenty, remember Squanto and the Pilgrims with stomachs empty.

 

Jim

November 2020

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for so many things. I will make a list. 

My mental health journey from crushing family dysfunction to perfect recovery, this journey is my life and in my blood. Mental health, mental health, mental health, don’t leave home without it.  

My four wonderful children who are always entertaining and true individuals.  

 My creative life: to the great fortune I had in meeting Dr. Maxine Fisher and my classmates who give positive feedback and encouragement for my writing. To my painting and craft life where I can express myself with wild abandon.  

Books that have helped me through heavy questions about life and for the luxury of fantasy.  

Being alive another day and having a future. 

The 3 cats I have now and the many cats and dogs I have had who have graced me with their love, they are never forgotten and truly missed. 

For being an American, we are not perfect but still the best country in the world. 

Georgia P.

November 2020

Twenty-Twenty

Lenses, lenses everywhere

trained on us where they dare.

 

Now Twenty-Twenty eyes have we

The time has come to look, look, see!

 

The view is much better the higher the tree.

 

All God’s creatures great or small

reveal how deep was the Fall.

 

Fix your gaze on things above

Marvel with the gentle dove.

 

Bold and beautiful we may be

Yet much to learn have we, we, we.

 

By Yvonne Anzolone

November 6, 2020

Invitation

Dr. Fisher sent out an invitation to polish up some rhymes

A writing exercise to take to the sublime 

During such unusual times 

My writing pen was filled with divine Rhymes should never be considered a crime 

They are a great love of mine 

Always a welcome part of my poems 

In my heart they've found a luxurious home 

Wonderful rhymes are 

Like Turkey and Stuffing,

A festive Thanksgiving Table

Followed by great football on cable 

The End (bending ending)

Laura M.

November 2020

Gabriel's Edict

 

GABRIEL HAD MADE HIS WISHES CLEAR.

REMBRANDT, MICHELANGELO, AND TITAN TRIED IN VAIN TO GRAB HIS EAR.

VAN GOGH, MATISSE AND SEURAT WERE READY TO STATE THEIR CLAIM, AND EXPLAIN THEIR VISIONS AND THEIR AIM.

FROM GABRIEL’S OPINION HE DID NOT REFRAIN AND WITH THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON DID PROCLAIM.

“THESE ARE THE COLORS AND I WANT IT DONE NOW. NO MORE ARGUMENT WILL I ALLOW!

EACH OF YOU CAN PAINT A HALL IN YOUR OWN STYLE AND THEY WILL BE BEAUTIFUL,” HE DID BEGUILE.

“IF YOU WORK TOGETHER THE JOB WILL GO FASTER, SUPPORTING EACH OTHER WILL MAKE IT EASIER TO MASTER.

LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER WOULD BE MY OBJECTIVE, AS YOU BEGIN TO APPRECIATE EACH OTHER’S PERSPECTIVE.”

WITH GRUMBLES AND GROANS THE ARTISTS DID COMPLY, REPAINTING THE HALLS OF HEAVEN TO SOOTHE THE EYE.

Jim

November 2020 

The Heron and the Horseshoe Crab (with apologies to Edward Lear)

The Heron and the Horseshoe Crab went to sea in a boat painted peach.

Behind them they saw 20,000 or more sex-starved crabs making love on the beach.

Making love on the beach, the beach, -- all those crabs making love on the beach!


Though she yearned for romance, the Crab saw at a glance t'was not to be found on this beach.

It was then that she heard the kind voice of the Bird:  "My boat, ma'am, is in easy reach."

Easy reach, easy reach!  His boat was in easy reach!


They sailed far beyond the world that they knew while the Moon smiled serenely above.

They dined on a fish, on its bone made this wish: To discover the secret of Love.

Of Love, of Love, -- to discover the secret of Love.


The Heron told all the bad jokes that he knew, and the Crab chuckled, "Oh, my dear!"

Then they sang a duet -- an ancient motet -- which the stars bent down lower to hear.

To hear, to hear, -- the starts bent down lower to hear.


With the greatest delight they drifted all night till they moored in a tropic lagoon.

There they swam to the trees where kissed by the breeze, they danced by the light of the Moon.

The Moon, the Moon, -- they danced by the light of the moon.