Vettriano ‘Back Where You Belong’
Wrapped sheets
do not his embrace make,
Nor bunched up pillows
His body replace.
Time
Has become
A cruel god
I bitterly worship
As my soul exists
On the dark stretch of void
Named I-80.
Sleep
Has become
An eager lover
That I succumb
To willingly
As it is the only road
That bridges the gap
Between
Goodbye and hello
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Have I mentioned how much I love I have for the human male species at the moment?
In the past few days I have witnessed, viewed or were directly told / know about…
Witnessed:
A friend and I were window shopping. As we were not in a particular rush, we strolled behind an elderly woman using a walker in front of us. A teenager, apparently not happy at the rate of speed we were moving, huffed and rushed around my friend and I to our left. However, the elderly woman decided to move to the left at the same time. Somehow the teenager’s foot caught the leg of the walker effectively wrenching it from the woman’s hands and causing her to tumble forward. The only reason she did not fall flat on her face was because my friend and I both grabbed her at the same time, steadying her. Still it was jarring for her. The teen mouthed off an obscenity as he just shy of threw the walker in our general direction and kept going.
I was about to call out something related to his upbringing, or rather the lack thereof when the teen suddenly dropped to the ground. I looked up and saw a very strong-arm extended straight out. The arm belonged to a gentleman, perhaps in his mid-30’s, who had clotheslined the teen. The man then grabbed the teen by the back of his coat and marched him back towards us. I never saw the man’s mouth move, or heard anything, but he clearly had said something to the teen between dropping him and lifting him. The elderly woman, my friend and I were near flabbergasted as the teen picked-up the walker, stood it properly in from of the elderly woman and apologized to all three of us, but especially the elderly woman. And where one would have expected him to be belligerent or at least sullen, he was actually contrite in his apology. Once the gentleman let go of the teen’s collar, the teen made another quick apology and walked away. The gentleman gave us a short salute and a nod, which looked almost like tip of a hat, except he wore none and merely walked away without a word to us, not even acknowledging our effusive thanks.
I have no idea if the man and teen knew each other. It was a situation that could have become; really bad, really fast if the teen had chosen to fight. Instead we had a wonderful example that a) chivalry is not dead and b) that there is hope for the future, as at least some can be corrected of the error of their ways, at least in regard to manners.
Viewed on Facebook:
Several companies in an area share the local diner. After some time everyone gets to know the regulars even those that work for other companies. K, a person I am already proud to call a friend was shocked when a fellow diner not only openly admits to watching child pornography that he “found”. There was no shame in his actions. K’s co-workers were aghast, but not wanting to confront to issue were trying to exit out of the sickening conversation. However there was soon regret when the scumbag begins to speak of the little girl in the found cache in terms that should never be used with a child and finds himself slammed into a wall with K’s fist drawn back, ready to deliver what I’m sure would have been one hell of a blow. In a complete Murphy’s Law move, that would be the moment K’s boss spies the situation.
Long story-short: K still has a job and the police were called on Mr. Scumbag. As I commented on Facebook, we need so many more like K, who will not only be instantly enraged by such, but will take the perpetrator to task and actually Do Something.
Told / know about:
So with March, and thus Women’s History Month fast approaching, while we’re still in the month of love and I’m still in such a gregarious mood, I just want to give some love out to all my male friends in particular but spread some love out to the rest of you guys too.
Just try not to make me lose this feeling for you all before the week is out okay? 😉
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Each morning I wake up begins with a stare
An urge to see who’ll be staring back at me
Life’s hectic, I’m moving, yet going nowhere
Adrift in life’s ocean, yet so lost at sea
My jammed nerves so frayed to the point of threadbare
Dark circles don’t lie to the mirror I see
I usually manage, to give all my best
The effect of make-up hiding lack of rest
Most days, I can get by, with little fanfare
I’m trying to live past the title of wife
But some morns, like this one, just too hard bear
The last place one think I’d go, to release strife
I’m gallantry trying to right the unfair
When breathing without you, just cuts like a knife
I fall to my knees; bowing my head in prayer
So strong in the love that came so late to life
Sweet serenity falls down on me in there
And I stand now slowly, still with upturned palms
Your presence surrounds, like church bells in the air
Its notes resonating; yes I’ve found my calm
My favorite music, only I can hear
Alone at your crypt I am relieved of fears
I leave and the sun finds me through clouds above
A kiss to the heavens “’till next my love”
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Today’s form is technically three forms into one poem. Welcome to the Sicliano, Romagnulo and Toscano types of the Strambotto.
I carry inside
The family pains
The broken relationships
The broken friendships
The broken dreams
How I try do right
Even during the times
When I can do nothing
It is with me always
And I tell no one
I carry inside
The lump in my throat so sore
I scream on the inside
To choke down in fear
Of the love I’ve learned
To never take for granted
For it is far too fleeting
Even while wishing
It will come once more
Even if only to be lost again
It is with me always
And I tell no one
I carry inside
This beating heart
That overflows
With the strains
The understanding
That I’ve been dying
Since the day I was born
And the only thing
That can be done about it
Is to take it to its conclusion
It is with me always
And I tell no one
And I carry inside
A fervent desire
To hurry that conclusion
It is with me always
And I tell no one
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Today at dVerse we are asked to “confess” via poetry.
And before anyone panics, the above is taken from an old journal entry. Yes, I’ve had some bad days in the past that I pray are not a part of my future, however, I promise all of you I am fine.
dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetic Confessions
He was my first Deity, my Lord
All I knew encircled Him
He was the sun and I followed in path
Capitulated to His moods,
Prayed for His mercy
Lived in fear of His wrath
After all he was My Father
But he bowed to a deity
Of his own
That either kept him cold and aloof
or filled with the spirit
of liquid hellish fire
of various proof
We tried to be as quiet as a church
In the middle of the night
But we never found a peace to be still
When I can be whipped awake
At any moment
For some ages old forgotten ill
And where was she you ask
When his fist and my face
Were making connections
How could she save me when she herself
Was in dire need
Of her own protection
Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home
Well the first time I ran
I was soon returned
For I was very under aged
But I aired laundry in the process
And now both of them
Were enraged
Straight A’s brought not a praise
Chores lack brought not a reproach
His indifference became such
That I would push his buttons
With a cheeky little laugh
The only way to feel his touch
Knowing it was all
A fucked way to feel
Just added to vicious revolution
a penance to pay
For which there was never
an absolution
So when I broke out
And ran away part four
I just started living wild
No one ever said a word
what could they say
I am my father’s child
I’m told I should still love him
Pray for him
And wish him well
I say I do in the mere fact
that I simply
never wished him to hell
Some called me cold
Some called me tough
can handle any shit
But I grew up where
whining didn’t change a thing
so what was the point to it
My mother died first
and she I do miss
She did the best that she could
The next I saw him was to bury him
keeping a promise
he knew I would
He’s been gone
nearly a year
without any impact
I was an orphan
deep in my soul
long before I was in fact
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Mining the Memory–dVerse ~ Poets Pub Meeting The Bar :
To You,
There are several in my life, yet…
I desire only you.
What is it about you that suspends time and makes the universe stand still?
We speak on the inane of comic book characters, television sitcoms and movie trivia with as much passion as we discuss the arcane of politics, prejudice and justice and of freeing one’s mind. It is totally appropriate that the Biblical Book of Numbers holds as much sway in our conversations as the Astrological Book of Numbers.
I lay in bed and it is your voice I hear in my dreams, your touch I feel in my fantasies.
I often wonder, is it the charisma in your voice?
Or perhaps, it is the old soul that I see when I gaze into your eyes. That transports me another time when temples honored Ra and Nut, as the pyramids testified to the rules of Ramses and Hatshepsut.
Maybe it is the gentleness of your kiss introduced upon my cheek when we meet or part…
Could it be the truth behind your words? Perhaps it is the way in which you carry yourself with Dignity, with Pride, with Grace.
Or is it the fierce protector /valiant warrior that I see?
Maybe it is the honest way in which you treat people or the compassion within your heart, even as you chew someone out for nth time for the nth stupidity.
How am I so privileged to be let past the cool exterior to the warmth that you possess?
How am I so doomed to belatedly realize that the hidden warmth is your flame and I am your moth?
I am instinctively drawn to you…
You are: my Sower, my Reaper; my Hercules and my Achilles.
Shit! I’m in love with you…
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This “letter” was a near verbatim entry in a journal, from eons ago.
(Apparently, a) I don’t spell as nicely in my hand-written journals as I do when I type – who knew? and b) at 3:41am (the time noted on the entry), when no one’s looking I am one sappy as all get out romantic – please don’t tell.)
It literally was the moment I realized I was in love, down to that last line. It made me laugh to read it again, so I had to include it in the post.
Ulanda Williams, a social worker in New York City, fell into a hole when the sidewalk beneath her collapsed last week. Ms. Williams was waiting for a bus and sought shelter under an awning when it began to rain when the ground gave way seconds later. Not falling straight through to the cellar below, she wound up wedged in the hole instead, it took special FDNY equipment to pull her out. She was taken to a hospital and was released the next day. Ms. Williams was extremely fortunate that her injuries were limited to a broken arm, cuts, scrapes and bruises. Apparently EMS and FDNY concurred that a smaller person may have died from the drop. It is Ulanda’s size that likely saved her life.
And that (her size), as they say, is the rub.
Granted, in each article I’ve read, the news sources have taken care to mention that upon inspection it was determined by the NYC Department of Buildings that defective steel doors and a loose staircase were partially responsible for the four- by-six-foot slab of concrete’s collapse. However, that part of the story is almost seems a side-note to the main article. Why?
Because in each of the sources that I’ve read, the story was not that a woman nearly fell to her possible death due to a poorly maintained structure. The immediate focus for each of them was that the woman in question was nearly six and a half feet tall and weighed 400 pounds, according to the New York Post. Yes, Ms. Williams is in one word fat. Journalisms presumed penchant for being unbiased (yeah I know), went out the freaking window once her size was known. Don’t believe me?
Here is the lead-in line for the Huffington Post article? “Looks like she got her big break.”
The New York Post’s opening salvo? “Size does matter!”
Oh, and my personal favorite, the first sentence from RoadRunner: “Whoever says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Ulanda Williams. Williams, who is 32 years old and tips the scales at 400 pounds, claims she owes her life to her trailer-truck physique.”
Oh, look they so funny! So why the hell am I not laughing?
Why is it when something happens to a person of size in the news it becomes all about the fat?
Even in their headlines, headers and web links, the view is already skewed to immediately blame the victim.
*Woman who fell through sidewalk says her ‘girth’ saved her
*http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/too_big_to_fall_Fz8VbWLT2tMkq9gvShHF0J
*Ulanda Williams, 400-lb Woman, Falls Through Sidewalk In New York City
I am not saying that her weight did not contribute to the incident. My complaint is how the media specifically and the public at large focused mainly on her weight as the culprit. Fellow blogger and someone I’m lucky to call friend, TheNatural54 rightly notes that if this were two men of average size who had fallen, or even a tackle for the Jets or Giants football team (because we know tackles are rarely small guys), the focus would be more on the badly maintained property and not their weight.
I generally do not read the comments on such stories unless I just want to be pissed off and appalled at a bunch of strangers who are never worth the energy spent in the ensuing foul mood that will then color my day. Unfortunately, because this story came to my attention from various fronts, I wound up reading quite a few comments and yes, I was pissed. From their view it seems the concrete collapsing would never have happened to someone of a smaller size and that just is not accurate. But for the sake of devil’s advocacy let’s just say it really was all about the poundage. What is it about being over a very subjective number that a person is no longer considered worthy of basic decency and respect anyway? The mocking bullshit tweeted by Rupert Murdock before issuing a not even half-assed retraction (because it damn sure was not an apology), notwithstanding – the general public is absolutely vicious and loves using the mask of the internet to spew its fat hating vitriol, especially fat women.
If it had been a smaller woman who fell there would be much sympathy for her and anger against the building owners/managers. Ulanda Williams has cuts, scrapes, bruises and an arm broken in not just one, but two places from her ordeal, why does her weight not entitle her to such?
Judge not, lest ye…
My child you’ve asked Me to define
How do you feel a life divine
A presence in the air you breathe
It’s when My child I call you Mine
I’m in the shh-shh of the breeze
Soft flowing through the willow’s leaves
I’m in the chanting of the chimes
The faltering of buzzing bees
I’m wrapped in the most ancient rhymes
Brought through to these most modern times
I’m the warble of bluebird’s song
A testament to changing climes
I’m the magnet whose pull’s so strong
To help right you before the wrong
The crowd you handle on your own
The Single Presence in the throng
I’m in the chances that you’ve blown
I’m in the peace when you atone
I’m in the strength when fears you fight
I’m in the pleasures when you moan
I’m in each morsel that you bite
The prayers you retire at night
I am the final finish line
The practice of a life lived right
So child you’ve asked Me to define
How do you feel a life divine
It’s when My love is mixed with thine
It’s when My child I call you Mine
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“…the winter sets its tears upon us” sung real soft
Old records she listens to, when he’s brought her pain
She knows she’s heard these songs now quite too oft
Two hours to midnight, he’s not home yet
A familiar loneliness comes to her again
Except it’s now tinged with open regret
Outside jolly voices hail the season
While inside her heart breaks, slow as the songs she plays
Brittle and on the edges of reason
The door opens as she hears the clock’s chime
Hearing his footsteps click on the cool marble floor
Stops herself from commenting on the time
Knows just what he’ll say when she sees his face
Knows he’s left even though he’s just walked in the door
Knows that goodbye now sits in hello’s place
Pouring herself shots of liquid spirit
With awe he watches her mouthing the words he says
Her world now spinning, she makes herself sit
Words of apology, words of good-bye
Her emotions tumble-down a deep spiraled well
But refuses to let him see her cry
Forcing a smile, much too tired to think,
Without a second look, she bids him a farewell
Already focused, on the next stiff drink
Before the door closes, her drinking has begun
“…the winter sets its tears upon us” lowly sung
Somewhere in the distance, New Year’s Bells are rung
The tightened grip on her tears is slowly unstrung
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A few of my friends will recognize the following event as it actually happened quite some time ago. However, in the hustle and bustle of this holiday season as I found myself in a very similar situation yet again, I have to tell it here just for the amusement – enjoy!
I walked into a local Victoria’s Secret with my best friend. The music coming through the speakers, greets us with various sultry sounding women with descant reprising the equivalent if not necessarily equal musical verse and chapter of how her man has done her wrong, once more, yet again. Because yes, while I’m alone at home, crying my eyes out into yet another gallon of Rocky Road ice cream and popping chocolate truffles like crack, I will want to be wearing hundred-dollar lingerie – but that’s just me.
Actually, that is a moot point. My best friend is the one buying. I’m just tagging along, as the only thing I can truly wear in this establishment is their cologne. For this bastion of beauty designed to adorn the feminine figure with a tempest of frail looking, but delectable lingerie delights had long ago decided that said feminine figures end at a numerical amount somewhat below the number of the ample mold the dear Lord as blessed upon me.
I touch silver links joining together a triangular swatch of silk I first presumed to be an eye patch before I realized it’s actually a thong. I then make the mistake of catching the eye of one of the pretty little sales girls who then swoops upon me like a hawk upon a tit mouse in a national forest park. My best friend, having endured my “I just want to fuck with folks mood” whenever we enter an establishment such as this, had wisely walked away from me knowing nothing good was going to come of this start of a beautiful friendship.
The sales girl wants to know, of course, if she can help me. Her eyebrow locked in that know-it-all “…because you can’t possibly be here making a purchase for yourself!” arch. I barely bite down the first instinct guiding my tongue to say something sweet like “Gain a hundred pounds, live with it for -oh- twenty or so years and come to a place like this – then ask me that question again”. Instead, because I am already bored, I ask if they carry plus sizes. She perked right up informing me (quite enthusiastically I might add), that they carry sizes all the way up to 38F! I smile sweetly, pick-up the nearest 36F I saw and held it up against my ‘numbers’. It was something akin to measuring golf ball against a baseball – but it was enough to wipe the self-satisfied arch off her brow.
Still, the poor, poor child didn’t take the hint and continued to follow me through the store actually answering what ever inane question popped in to my head. I saw a small black thin band of what appeared to be spandex and stretched it a bit. I was actually surprised, as I held it up for the sales girl to the see just as I was about to place it over my hair.
“When did Vicki’s start carrying headbands?” The look of shock on the sales girls face made me stop in mid-air.
“It’s a bandeau bra not a headband.” You’d think the icy coolness dripping of her voice would have stopped me right? Wrong!
“Oh! You mean like a tube top? Cool! Does it come in plus size?” My voice was dripping with as much saccharine as hers dripped glaciers.
I could hear my best friend losing the battle to stifle a laugh from in front of the cashier as she was well aware that I already knew what it was when I picked the damned thing up. The sales girl however, looked like she wanted to club me. I picked up another eye patch that had star-shaped crystals along the band connecting the material at the waist. Can you say ouch?
“Does this blue eye patch scratch?”
My best friend mercifully, for the sales girl anyway, grabbed me by the arm and snatched me out of there. Hey, I did say I was bored, didn’t I?
You know, I just realized I never did get the answer to that scratch question…
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Raivenne-lations 
