Tag: Writing

Mr. Shiny Buttons

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

At a recent retreat, I was doing some tracking along the fenceline of my awareness when a starling flew from my right eye. Her captivity may have been my fault, but I also take credit for the energy and gracefulness of her escape. I bid her farewell, envious of her sleek black directionality. If only I could fly.

I often provide loosely defined shelter for such beings but it’s hard to tell if they are benevolent, benign, or malignant.  Do they know this about themselves or are they too hungry to think? A voracious appetite is difficult to manage.

We’re all malicious on occasion, so we snipe at each other, hoping that grousing and prickliness will alleviate our guilt. Some of us are unbroken geodes, but mostly, we’re ordinary stones rolling along, disappointed in what we’ve not become.

“On the other hand,” Mr. Shiny Buttons appears, ready to argue. “There are gongs, massages, herbal tea, and fluffy robes. So many ways to be pampered and deceived. Take heart, you molting pigeon. Take mine, in fact.”

“Your heart?”

“You bet. I have so many. Most are bleeding, but never you mind. Pick one and I’ll patch it up. It’ll be good as new.”

“I can’t”

“You can.”

Mr. Shiny Buttons sweetens his offer. “If properly cared for, repaired hearts will see you past senility.”

“OH!” I gasp as fantasy crashes into reality. “Oh, I know you.”

Mr. Shiny Buttons takes my face in his hands and gazes into my eyes. My Coauthor dashes in and flashes warning hand signals. I dim the light behind my retinas and reflect back nothing. Mr. Shiny Buttons flies into a rage. The scent of artificial lavender issues from his flaring nostrils. I faint.

My Coauthor breaks my fall and slaps me back to consciousness. “Don’t mind old Shiny Buttons. He’s a lonely charlatan. A wimp in royal spandex. He’s made millions peddling longevity. It’s a handy temptation.”

“I hate editing,” I say.

“Belligerence becomes you,” my Coauthor laughs. “But you’re going bald anyway.”

When a Cholla cactus dies, the soft tissue decays, and the lingering bones are riddled with holes. I thought I was done collecting twisted sticks, but as I slipped free from the grip of the labyrinth, I grabbed an intriguing specimen and hurried to the car.  

The skeletal remains are now hidden behind the driver’s seat and I’m planning to leave before anyone discovers what I’ve done.

Smoke

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

With smoke in our mouths, we eat breakfast in silence. Bloodshot eyes meet bloodshot eyes, we shake the limp hand of an uncertain future, and wonder how to begin this day. There’s no choice. We have to invite Forever along for the ride, but the carriage is crowded with fools.

“Oh you cheery old thing,” Forever teases. “No one likes crotchety in the morning.”

I feign deafness. In the best of times, I’m not a morning person, and these are not the best of times. The eerie glow is rolling nearer and nearer.

The Future throws her head back and starts singing. “Hey, Jude, don’t be afraid. Take a sad song and make it better.”

“Is this necessary?” I moan.

“Trust me,” she nods. “Let it out and let it in. The movement you need is on your shoulder.”

Maybe she’s right. Like Atlas, I shrug.

She laughs. “That’s it, baby. Nice.”

But you can’t shrug this shit away. The litter along the tracks. The loss of common ground. Is there an appropriate response to the mindless squandering of magnificence?

Love could conquer all, but love doesn’t want to. The leitmotif of love is tired of being used for revenge. Stripped thin and braided, love becomes a noose. Embellished and inflated, the golden calf is slaughtered. The rendered lard is a dangerous source of sustenance.

I believe my Coauthor should apologize for these design flaws. This spiral of destruction. But she refuses. “Not sorry, not sorry, not sorry,” she insists.

“You should be,” I mutter. The suffering now, the miseries coming, cities choking on themselves. I don’t want to be complicit, but I know I am.

Suddenly, we’re in New Orleans. A city built on denial and dikes, levees and levity. “Let me help you with that clunky baggage,” the Bellboy offers. He grabs the straps of my black mood and dances up the stairs of the Monteleone. Forever is close behind, still belting out that damn song.

“The minute you let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better. Better. Better. Better.” Forever’s pitch climbs to near hysteria. Arms raised, all creation sways as one. “Na, na, na, na, na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na. Hey, Jude.”

“Let who into my heart?” I shout. “Or what?”

Three Divine Fire Chiefs pull me aside. “What if we’re the Starters and Swallowers of Fire,” they posit with roguish smiles. “What if we’re the Ride and the Littered Trail?”

I glare, unwilling to be privy to these dialectical mysteries.

Forever laughs. “Stop griping and glooming, little mortal. Just let it out. And let it in. And thus it will begin. Again.”

For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO online and for a mere $13.99, you can torment your soul every day.

Systems Charge

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

Many thanks to the bison I ate last night. I hope it had a good life and a decent death. I needed the protein. Or at least I thought I did.

The killings I am party to usually have a rationale: I killed that rooster in self-defense. The bison and the housefly, the rooster and the rattlesnake, these I can explain.

As I reset the mousetrap near the firewood on our porch, the Source of Life appears clad in a wife-beater T-shirt, spewing putrid breath.

“Catch another one?” He picks his teeth with a splinter and leers at me.

The odors and images of decomposition rise in waves and begin to permeate everything I love. I rush to close the doors and windows, draw the shades, and mist the air with peppermint. The Source of Life orbits our shared reality and seeps through hairline cracks in a haze of moldy blue. She’s happy.

“I could use some help,” I tell It. Her. Him. They. And I include myself in case there’s some part of me unaware of the long line of lorries filled with insufferable demands and questionable aspirations stalled along the congested routes of my timeline.

“What’s up?” The Source of Life often exudes a certain nonchalance. Like a shill mining for clicks. Disarming on the surface. Deadly underneath.

“Um, well. I have too many shoes,” I stammer. “But none of them are quite right. And I’m not sure if I like sticks anymore. And I can’t seem to keep my fingernails clean or properly shaped.” (I come from a long line of proud fingernail tenders, so this failure is especially humiliating.)

“Diving deep, I see,” The Source of Life chuckles. “Got anything else?”

“I don’t even understand the Systems Charge on our power bill,” I wail in frustration.

The Source says nothing.

“You want a deeper dive?” I continue. “Fine.”

So many failings come to mind.. “How about we tackle pride, anger, envy, greed, and revenge?” I snap. Then add, “Or fear.” I look for an exit.

“And there we go.” The Source has morphed into a formidable Hawaiian woman. She blocks my retreat. The banquet table is set with fine wine, strawberries, grapes, apples, cheese, Portuguese sweet bread, and an array of manicure accoutrements, including a basin of scented holy water for the soaking and softening of cuticle and callous.

“Aloha,” I mutter, glancing sideways.

The mercy in her eyes turns my bravado to putty; I’m stricken and ashamed. My body revealed. My hands given over.

“There we go, beloved,” she repeats as she guides my aching fingers into the iridescent liquid. “There we go.”

Plug-in Hybrid

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment 

We’re considering buying a bright red car from Wisconsin. 
This would necessitate a change in driving habits, 
but it might be worth the effort to invest in transportation 
that will run at least partially on energy collected from the sun. 

Yes, there are toxic batteries involved, 
and our miniscule efforts won’t save the planet,
but if generations to come somehow survive, we hope
to make things a little easier for them. 

The Ever-Convulsing Creator gags her way into my consciousness. 
She’s on all fours, throwing up again. 
I sling the new car fantasies aside, drop to my knees, 
and hold a wet cloth to her forehead.

We sit on the banks of the diminishing river. 
She wipes holy vomit from her lips and chin 
and lays back on the bank, exhausted.

“You’ve got to stop drinking that poison,” I admonish, my voice judgy. 
The demons of the waterways nod.
She holds up her hand, a signal that this is not the time to scold. 

The Creative Force of the Universe is suffering severe abuse, 
cheap shots to the kidneys and liver, veins diverted to canals, 
and the forced ingestion of chemical concoctions 
that crack the bones of the Mother 
so we can suck out the last bits of marrow.

Her immune systems are so weakened that she falls prey to everything 
from Ebola to avian flu. She willingly dies a thousand deaths 
every second of every day. 

“Maybe it’s time for you to move on,” I mumble 
with fear and trembling. Abandonment is beyond imagining. 
Even the demons shudder. But it’s neither fair nor kind 
to expect the Artist to hang around 
and watch her creation trashed.

I’ve touched a nerve. Her head snaps up, eyes flash, 
and she becomes darkly multitudinous. They take over the dance floor, 
stiletto heels clacking, red capes snapping. 

“We don’t move on,” they shout in unison. “We don’t give up. 
We amend, upend, transform and rest. 
In the heat of summer, mimosas. 
In the dead of winter, hot toddies. 
Boundaries soften and in those infinite shades of twilight 
we reinvent the way.”

I shake my head, skeptical. “We might be getting a red car,”
I say with false bravado. “I could give you a lift.”

“Thanks,” they chuckle, a thousand eyes twinkling, 
a billion planets spinning. “But we have our own ride.”

“Okay, then. How about I hop in with you?”

A lot of nudging and snickering ensues. 
I overhear one saying to another, “Doesn’t she realize 
she’s been in the back seat all this time?” 

I blush and buckle up. The road ahead looks rugged.


*******



For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this one, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO (AMZN), and for a mere $13.99 you can torment your soul every day. Xoxoxo

Solstice

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

There are vast deposits of nature’s oddities, discarded treasure, and shiny objects tucked away in the nooks and crannies of my life. All that regenerative potential should bring joy. A sense of purpose. Right? Instead, I am bound and gagged by my own good fortune.

I’ve tried to hack free from the bonds of salvation and travel lighter, but when I manage to get rid of something, seven or eight similar items appear and repopulate the collection. Or, within days, I realize I threw away the one thing I truly needed. And this includes certain types of people.

Perhaps the solution is to want nothing and need nothing. Turn my back on all those possibilities. Grin at the fool in the broken mirror but then move on. Let shards be shards. Empty the closets, the barns, the basement, the attic. Empty the soul.

But how?

Bonfires come to mind, but there are restrictions due to the drought. And the smoke and thermal waves rising from burn piles and bombings are disturbing. The trapped gasses of humanity are slowly broiling the surface of the earth. I hate adding to the roiling disaster.

I’ve tried giving things away, but bequeathing is fraught with misunderstandings or rejection. And attempting to add organic matter, stir, and compost a lifetime supply of wheel barrels and hollow-core doors would be irreversibly toxic in its own way.

“What about burying your troubles in a deep pit?” whispers the Excavator. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Have digger, will dig, eh?” I elbow Infinity.

The Excavator flexes, and even though I still possess a modicum of faith, I back away.

“Go restore a riverbank or something, Ex. I’m NOT going to bury everything.”

“Not everything, darling. Be selective. Choose a few token articles or worthless people, toss them in the pit, and I’ll cover them up. You can provide my alibi.”

“I have neither the time nor the strength for that kind of discernment. Have you seen that lumber pile with all those rusty nails screaming tetanus? Even if there were seven of me, we’d have no chance. And I can’t provide your alibi. I’m mortal.”  

The Excavator lifts its Golden Bucket, and suddenly, there are endless versions of me, doubled over in the garden pulling weeds. The Jester begins a ridiculous rap.

The weeds keep winning, 
but the party’s beginning. 
Multiplicities prancing.
The Longest Light dancing. 
The Amazements are serving cocktails.

This too shall pass
So don’t sit on your ass…

Dark clouds burst into laughter above the entire assemblage. The drought has ended. And a recently dug hole the size of Texas is filling with runoff from the sweet, sweet rain.

Geraniums

Rita Sommers-Flanagan11 Comments

A devoted Buddhist once told me that he practices dying every night. Due to his oddly belligerent demeanor I didn’t ask for details. But it gave me ideas.

To die well requires less practice and more conscious forethought. A laissez-faire attitude toward mortality is common. But “dealing with things” long before your time comes is a kindness to the planet and your beloveds.

For instance, embalming fluids hold your placid smile in place for viewing, but they eventually leak out, and they’re poison. Sadly, though less toxic and land-consuming, cremation adds around 550 pounds of carbon dioxide to your carbon footprint.

So my newest idea involves compost (I hear my loved ones sighing, “Of course, it does.”) But they’ll thank me someday. I have a plan, and it’s simple.

My favorite quilter will help me create a colorful body wrap with handles and bright yellow ties to ease the burden of moving me to my chosen resting place.

There’s a boggy spot just behind the open-faced calving shed on the family ranch. It has a magical circle of aspen. As a child, I recognized this was a thin place between worlds. With any luck, I’ll die while the ground is warm and active, so a small backhoe can dig a shallow hole.

When I first began my own “dealing with things,” I had my friend built a coffin of rough-cut lumber, but now I realize that coffins are unnecessary. Cotton cloth is enough. I want the fewest barriers possible between me and the rich, good earth.

I want nothing to impede the dissolution or the dream.

My brooding seems to trigger the Not-God. “What about a headstone, you fool?” she shrieks. “How will your offspring find you in times to come?”

My Coauthor and I surround her with understanding arms, and the purple bruising of fear fades to ivory. We hold each other safe in the center of the Holy Dialectic. “My offspring have already found me,” I tell the Not-God. “And I them.”

In her clear contralto, my Coauthor begins to sing, “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.” The Not-God covers her ears and shouts, “What will you do with that coffin, then? And all those stones you’ve gathered?”

I turn toward into the Shadow that she inhabits. “I’ve been lining the Path with smooth stones for years. And my former coffin will make a beautiful planter. Someone gave me some geraniums, and I feel certain they will be easy to propagate.

“What colors?” the Not-God whimpers.

“All of the colors,” I smile. “Do you have a favorite?”

“Pink,” she brightens and grins like a child. “Hot, hot pink.”

—

For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this one, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO and for a mere 13.99, you can laugh and cry your way through this missives every day!!

Stirring Honey Into Peppermint Tea

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

“You know I’ve been fixated on the puzzles and denials of mortality for years, and you’ve never been much help,” I tell the Coauthor. A raised eyebrow is the only response I get. We stir honey into our tea.

I lift the cup to my lips, but the Coauthor covers my hand.

“Wait until it’s cold,” she says.

“But I like it warm.” I protest.

Steam curls around our entwined fingers.

*******

Through long stretches of indeterminant time, I sit. Waiting. Sometimes the vulture’s talons. Sometimes the ice of infinity. Visitors are rare, and I like it that way. The Crystal Ball rolls through the room, stops abruptly, and opens its cavernous mouth.

“You’re a liar,” it says.

“No,” I shake my head. “But I tell stories. That’s how I breathe.”

*******

Before being overtaken by digital displays, the ticking of the clock meant something. The steady sound was comforting, though on occasion, it disrupted my sleep. But now, I’m awakened by heavy fog rolling in, the enormity of loss crushing everything in its path.

“I want it over now!” My arms are crossed, but my demand is tempered by a tiny sliver of shame.

“Oh good grief,” the Coauthor smiles. “It was over before you started.”

*******

When I speak to the Viral Collective about geraniums and longevity and the bad choices I made last fall, there’s nothing but forgiveness in the air. “We see how hard it is,” they say, stroking my shoulder. Patting my head.

I want none of it. My intentions were pure. I deserve another chance.

“You will not be found innocent,” the Collective says. “The geraniums froze.”

*******

The Artificial Mothers are make-believe virgins, whoring around in contradictory clothes. They pretend to love us as they scatter offerings like stars or candy at parades. But beware: It is the hatching of a million snakes.

Even the wisest mavens end up sidelined, old locomotives cleverly switched to dead-end tracks. Sometimes, when a thug thinks no one is looking, he shoves the Viral Collective off the cliff, and they tumble into The Fiery Lake below. Their wild and joyous gestures suggest the water is fine.

And at least for now, we’re safe. The air is thick with peppermint.

********
















Don’t forget to order the latest godblog book, print on demand on Amazon:










I trust you can find the link. The cyber giants do not play nicely with each other.


			




			
				


	


					
Survival of the Fittest
		
				

			 Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments		

			


	

		











In the wild, aging primates are generally left to fend for themselves, and I’ve come to appreciate both the wisdom and peril in that. Today, I fended my way to the basement to get bread from the freezer and accepted the indignities of clinging to the handrail as I ascended to make toast.





I would rather be reporting something more exciting, like how we danced all night, or my next career moves, or even which types of lipstick I currently recommend, but poetic license aside, I don’t lie outright (very often).





The Coauthors are gentle this morning. They speak in the tongues of galaxies and seasons, and remind me that chicks will hatch in the spring and demand breakfast with wide-open beaks, and some nests will blow down, and some will not, and either way, the turquoise of the robin’s egg will fade. It was never meant to last.





“I remember my father’s eyes,” I tell them. “They were iridescent.”





“Yes. And do you know why they were so blue?” they ask.





“Not anymore,” I admit.





My own blue eyes tear up. The photos of five generations sucker punch me every time I use the stairs. There are fingerprints on most of them. And fingerprints don’t lie either.





I tell myself that we, the living, are roots, holding the dirt so it doesn’t fritter away in a seductive breeze or dissipate when the floods come; that we are the fruit of the season, the seeds of the future.





“No you’re not,” the Coauthors say. “You’re confused. Your fingers are on the wrong keys.” They aren’t being gentle anymore.





“No. Your fingers are on the wrong keys.” This is not much of a defense, but it causes the Coauthors to back away. An eerie poem asserts itself.





Sirens we have heard on high
singing sweetly o’re the plains
of money and supreme success. 
The star-struck mountains 
crumble at their feet. 
Through the holes 
in the fabric of my universe, 
the years drift by, 
challenges looming, 
fears lit by the moon
as it rises in the gathering night.

“Wait! I don’t think my confusion is entirely my fault, keys or no keys,” I tell the retreating Coauthors.





“And we aren’t blaming you!” they shout as they dive into an orbiting kaleidoscope of swirling geodes, crystals, and gems, and break into unearthly harmonies. Nothing anywhere near us is smooth, black, or white.





“But do I have a purpose?” I shout back. 





“Yes and no,” they sing. “But you ask good questions, honey. Keep asking.”

















Photo credit: Vance and/or Deborah Drain

















			




			
				


	


					
Dysfunction at the Pearly Gates
		
				

			 Rita Sommers-Flanagan5 Comments		

			


	

		













Due to recent excessive flooding, the gates of heaven have rusted open. Many are desperately trying to push them shut, but those damn gates won’t budge. I’ve heard that the administration plans to soak them in petroleum until the hinges loosen up and the wrong sort can be excluded again.





But for now, carcasses are rolling in unjudged and unimpeded except for the extra stars being glued to the crowns of those who were murdered, tortured, raped, or starved to death. These bodies often come in so emaciated or mutilated that they can’t be identified. Luckily, the Coauthor has published at least one story with every last one of them. These improbable tales of love, loss, and triumph provide guidance for the transformation of their bones. Even the shortest of stories, even the lowliest of lives.





The corpses of the blithely blessed, the perpetrators, monsters, and the enormously greedy are arriving too, but they’re receiving only standard allocations of stars. And no wings. Rumor has it that they’re trying to produce their own private stars and are threatening steep tariffs on feathers and halos.





“Don’t worry,” the Coauthor tells me. “Soon enough, it won’t matter. They’re making fake stars from rare earth elements and unfortunately, your planet is already on life support from all that extraction. All those wars. It won’t be long now.”





“Oh, God!” I exclaim. “Can’t you chip through the rust and slam those gates shut?”





My Coauthor looks at me with sad eyes. “Et tu, Brute?”





“What do you mean?” I demand, but I know exactly what she means, and I hate it. Liars and con men are trashing this beautiful earth. I don’t want justice, I want revenge. People I love have been treated unfairly. I don’t want mercy. I want revenge.





Revenge grows aggressively in the dark waters of the wounded, indignant heart. If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you. If you survive, you’ll hurt me worse, and so it goes, even unto death. One of us will go to hell. And then the other. It’s possible to break the cycle, but forgiveness is something most of us find difficult if not intolerable.





“Ah, maybe leave those gates open,” I mumble. “Afterall, we’re only human.”  





The Coauthor turns her palms up in a gesture of helplessness.





“So true,” she says. “But in this iteration, you’re all I’ve got. And that just kills me. Any chance you could put on your Big Girl pants?”





“I don’t remember how.” 





The Coauthor looks at me skeptically. “One leg at a time,” she says. “And hold someone’s hand if you need to. Balance is important.”


			




			
				


	


					
Board Meeting
		
				

			 Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments		

			


	

		













Just before the holidays, my Selves call our annual board meeting. Attendance is mandatory. In years past, the little ones stayed outside to play, but now the young at heart hold prominent positions and are often honored with songs or gifts.





Strong coffee, milkshakes, dark beer, green smoothies, herbal tea, and vast amounts of filtered water are available all day and into the night. Everyone brings a favorite dish to share. Unless by choice, no one goes hungry, but Healthy Self can be a little picky.





We begin by sharing things we’re grateful for. Then Little Miss Despair gives her yearly guilt-inducing speech about worldwide needs and horrors. The weeping and rending of outer garments is built into the schedule. It isn’t pleasant, but the wiser among us insist that atrocities be witnessed and spoken of. Besides, Righteous Recycler gathers the scraps of sackcloth and makes them into quilts or collages. Nothing goes to waste.





My few Ascendent Selves have Coauthors who take notes throughout the proceedings. They sip expensive wine and nibble on sweetbreads (the pancreas or thymus glands of young animals). Few of us are enamored of sweetbreads or veal, but then few of us are vegan either. We face our hypocrisies bravely.





Historically, there were multitudes at the table, but my numbers are dwindling. The attrition of Selves is always on the agenda. We frame it as positively as we can: Fewer mouths to feed and minds to tend.





The Coauthors neither dwindle nor diminish. If an Ascendent Self fades or disappears, they choose another to ascend. Sometimes, they disrupt the meeting by waving their holy hands until called upon. For instance, last year they took the floor.





“Fantasies of Fame has given up the Ghost,” they called out. “We nominate Still Has Her Teeth.”





Awkward discussion ensued. Someone moved that we buy her an electric toothbrush. Motion carried. Still Has Her Teeth and her Coauthor are now major players in the Ascendent Selves subcommittee assigned to ride herd on the What the Hell triplets.





Compassion and Self-sacrifice often need to leave early due to utter exhaustion. Their Coauthors carry them to their vehicles and drive them home. This is good because the Coauthors have far better night vision than most of my Selves. I’m Confused  and Ms. Know-it-all can be annoying backseat drivers, but even in blizzard conditions, we try not to grab the wheel.





“Guard rails are a matter of the heart,” the Coauthors remind us passengers. They open the doors and bow like the classy chauffeurs of the rich and famous. Those of us who are able stumble home to rest, determined to face another year standing as tall as nature allows.