Oddments

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Author Archives: Oddment


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October 13.21: Coping

R-e-v-e-n-g-e!

This is gardener’s smuggery:

hoorah of zinnia frillery

despite cotton-tailed skullduggery.

 

(Apologies to Aretha.)

Yes, dear reader, this is that poor chomped zinnia that I mourned a while back. It recovered and set itself to showing those rabbits a thing or two about resolve. I might not have the zinnia patch I’d planned and dreamed of last March, but I sure got a brilliant pink sneer at the rabbits.


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October 11.21: Coping

In the worn path of the daily

I walked. Bedroom to kitchen,

like yesterday and the day before,

when,

in this moment of the ordinary,

something,

some clanging silence,

stopped me,

stopped my breath.

Under pallid sky

as tired leaves let go their holds

on life,

spring!

Four years have we lived together,

this lilac and I,

but never a flower

until now,

this discouraged, bleak Now.

What forced its bloom?

Anger? Fear? Despair?

Why spring

on the doorstep of winter?

Is this tender-petal’d spire

telling me that

maybe

I don’t know everything?

 

 


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October 2.21: Coping

I know that I am cranky

but it must be more than that

that sends me into orbit

from computer bloat and blat.

To its endless mindless deluge

of must-have things and stuff,

I borrow from the Bard

and cry out “Hold! Enough!”

Gadgets, gizmos, whatnots,

creams and pills and shoes,

dog food, hats, and cure-alls,

bathtubs, nails, tattoos.

“Buy and spend!” And “one left!”

“You have to be like me!”

and my favorite Brooklyn Bridge,

a gift that’s totally free!

Celebrities by the dozens

stream a glam who’s-who,

why are they important?

I don’t have a clue.

My computer gives assist

with Likes and Sends and Shares,

but what I really need

is a key that says Who Cares?


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September 30.21: Coping

I knew a kid

or maybe two

who combed his hair

in such a ‘do,

flat-top or brush

or sometimes crew,

(it was the fifties,

as you probably knew).

But maybe it’s sculpted

more to my eye

like the perfect meringue

on Mom’s lemon pie.

Or could it be

a lamb crown roast?

A woolly anvil?

Chambered ghost?

There’s something grand

about a cloud

that makes us stop

and muse aloud

what can it be?

what dreams inside?

how’d it do that?

can I hitch a ride?

 

 


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September 26.21: Coping

When an autumn sky is at your feet

and the low grasses hum,

and the one of you

is the total sum,

and your bike,

faithful steed,

is all the car

you really need,

do you know

this moment’s rite,

this solitary watch,

to hold it tight?

 

 

Thanks yet again to photographer S.W. Berg.

 

 


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September 22.21: Coping

‘Fess up, dear reader!

You know it’s true;

you have the itch,

and I do too.

Impossible

with such a sky,

with cornhusk rustling

to ear and eye,

to deny temptations

that giant loom

to clamber up

and go Vroom-vroom!

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

for this awesome portrait of autumn.

May this first day of a new season bring blessings!


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September 17.21: Coping

September stands tall

between spring’s childhood

and winter’s dotage,

a bit round perhaps

with pumpkin paunch,

its brow gold-speckled,

but vital still.

One leaf, two leaves,

abacus of mortality,

drop

in quiet obedience

to the authority of time.

A cicada sings of ennui,

its sleepy notes sticking to

wet morning air

where August lingers.

 

 


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September 15.21: Coping

CAN YOU READ, YOU NEANDERTHAL? IT’S A SCHOOL ZONE! 25 MPH SPEED LIMIT! I DON’T LIKE IT EITHER, YOU STUPID BOZO, BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS! GET A BRAIN AND GET OFF MY BUMPER, YOU MORON!!!

My blog subtitle is “Coping.” See how well I’m doing?

I’ve coped by blogging, gardening, cursing rabbits and geese and my muse, baking (and eating), housecleaning (seriously), painting walls, and everything in between.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve tried to cope.

My younger son says we are dealing with low-level trauma, and I like that way of putting it. This is not an annoyance or a mere bother; this is trauma and it is permeating our lives like ammonia fumes. We are all stressed. We are exhausted from being exhausted.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for me. I am becoming a name-caller. YOU DASH-DASHED PEA-BRAINED YOKEL WITH THE WET COUGH! WEAR A MASK! YES, YOU, YOU WITLESS CREEP! Even though this is yelled in my head, it’s not something I would have mind-yelled before. This worries me.

It can justly be argued that these people deserve to be yelled at, to be tarred and feathered, that there’s such a thing as too much tolerance, that if we don’t at least mind-yell we’ll implode. Nonetheless, I am not sure that my creeping impulse to commit mayhem is exactly coping. 

Some day my subtitle will change. I hope I will too.