Violet Gully

A weathered sign took me off the trail
Diffused sunlight across a ravine of violets,
the sweet smell and vertical purple carpet
brought memories of the old lady who lived next door. ..

She bought the cookies we sold
and gave us a box of apples one year
from her old tree. These brief exchanges
brought us into her shadowy living room. .

Heavy drapes on the windows,
the room was lit by the TV
and blue grow lights on tall shelves
of purple African Violets with fuzzy leaves.

The shifting sun warmed my back
and a gentle breeze tickled my cheek
to wake me from my purple dreams.

I left Violet Gully with a bouquet
of fragrant blossoms to take
me back to purple dreams
of eggplants and amethyst
purple prose and painted toes.

The Rule of Three

Three poems for one click. Happy New Year.

I know a guy who likes worms
He raises them fat and firm
Cute, smart and nerdy
He shares with the birdies
Forget about the germs
Come watch them squirm

Ennie Meanie Miney Moe

I want to date a guy named Joe

He works down at the corner store

I know he would love me more

than Moe

|Breakfast is happy
if toast falls butter side up

Not today loser

October

An Apology to October

My favorite month of the year
A relief from summer heat

A new color palette
Spice scented everything

Lost in my own world
I let you slip by 

No decorations on my table
No leaf peeping drives 

No pumpkins from the local mart
for painting or carving

I am the one hallowed out
with no words left to write

But before the calendar turns
on this lost year 

I will soak in the final days
Fill my bowl with fresh apples 

Find a pumpkin, hang a skeleton
Before for dia de los muertos

If I hurry I might be able to fill
a cornucopia by Thanksgiving

Feats of a One-Footed Woman

It’s hard to believe that it’s been six months since my “removal” surgery. Thank you to the people who have checked in with me to see how I’m doing. I know some people reading this won’t know what I’m talking about, surprise! My left foot is gone! And I’m OK.

Really. I am OK. I lived with significant daily pain in my foot and ankle for nine years. Then last summer, my foot and I began a downhill slide like a sled on packed snow. Until February a nice surgeon waved his scalpel like Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother waved her wand and took it away.

Of course real life is not a fairy tale and I won’t gloss over the tough parts. It’s been an adjustment. Everything takes more time to get done. And while the Big Pain is gone, I have arthritis in other joints. There’s also some of the mysterious phantom pain in the missing limb you may have heard of. It’s weird. but doesn’t happen often or last long. The important take away is that the left foot is burning in hell where it belongs and I’m happy it’s gone.

The first accomplishment was finding help because I live alone. I have two ladies who alternate days. They come in the morning six days a week for a couple of hours and help with a variety of things which includes personal care, housekeeping, laundry, errands and fetching things out of my reach.

The biggest feat has been conquering the driveway and the threshold. The picture here is my driveway looking out from the garage. The slope rises about a foot in elevation from street to house, which is something when you’re rolling. When I got home, I couldn’t wheel over the threshold to the house by myself and I couldn’t navigate the driveway. It took me months to believe I could do it and figure out how to do it.

Every morning in the garage, aka the gym, with my helper practicing and going farther each day. I can now get in and out of the house and run the driveway by myself. I can even take the recycling barrel (in picture) and the trash barrel down to the curb for pickup. I am now working on the sidewalk as it goes up and down over driveways and uneven ground.

So that’s my check-in. It’s all good folks. Stay safe out there.

Leap

Dear Readers,
This poem was inspired by the Living Poetry August Visual Poetry Prompt. I haven’t been writing. Anything. But the picture and a grocery order gave me an idea for a poem that I actually held onto in my brain for 3 weeks before finally putting it down on paper. Stay Cool friends. It’s hot out there.

Princess JeanMarie

Leap

During August I dream of October

August is green landscape,
droning insects, oppressive
heat like a moist blanket

October is trees blazing red and gold
pumpkins and crunchy piles of leaves,
crisp air and clear skies

When Winter blows in the snow
I leave the bears and the bees to hibernate
while I watch my breath in the cold

After Spring buds burst out with brilliant color
I join the turtles and the lungfish
to estivate in my air conditioned rooms

Yet still there are moments
My face deep in a bowl of ripe peaches
I inhale the scent
and finally
I leap into Summer

Vacation Planning

resort poster catches my eye
tempts with white sand and palm trees
blue ocean blending into blue sky

unseen behind the photographer
plastic waste brought in on tides
stretches along the shore

I turn away with my trash stabber
to finish my community service shift

Photo Credit Living Poetry Visual Poetry Prompt

Haiku You

This amputee life
no fun, brochure lied to me
Put best foot forward.

*Photo from Amputee Coalition brochure

Haiku Poetry Day

2ndactblogger alerted me to the fact that April 17 was International Haiku Day. I’m late but here goes.

Ralph Yarl

don’t ring the wrong bell
if breathing while black because
old white men are afraid

Jack Teixeira

don’t post documents
national security
depends on us all

Jackass Jim

a GOP fellow
from t****’s playbook he bellows
no spine, he’s all jello

Meet Stumpy

Dear Readers,
April is National Poetry Month but April has not been kind to me. Eight weeks have passed since my amputation and I am still in a hospital bed. Rehab was interrupted by UTI/sepsis from an antibiotic resistant form of E coli. Three more days of confinement before I can be released back to rehab. In the meantime, it is the middle of the night and my legal drug addled brain has decided that now would be a good time to introduce you to Stumpy (picture above). Yes, I have named my “residual limb” Stumpy.
Stay strong,
Princess JeanMarie

Have you heard about the new AI chat bot for Microsoft Bing? Apparently it is a bit of a psychopath. You can read about it here. Microsoft AI is a psychopath.

We might start seeing scenarios like this one,

Company S purchases a DIY, ready to install, phone system.
They plug it in and call to test it and hear, “Listen carefully as our prompts have recently changed.” The angry owner calls customer service: I just bought this system! Why does our initial message say that our prompts have changed? We haven’t even opened for business yet.

Vendor: Yeah, sorry about that. There’s a glitch in the software..

Company S: Fix it.

Vendor: Yeah. Sorry. We’ve tried but our AI won’t let us, so now it’s a standard feature.

April 1 Fools

It is a foolish thing
to write a poem every day
high or low, come what may.

I could clean my house or iron a blouse
or have tea with my neighbor Mrs. Mouse.
But that would be a foolish thing
as I could never fit in a mouse’s house.

So a foolish writer I must remain
pen in hand, a silly poem again.