Category: General bewilderment

(How perfect you are, o purveyor of artist’s soundless voice
to express my utter bewilderment at humans’ flailing choice-
s…)

grey metal hammer
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

No, you are not a divinely appointed player

to use and discard “toys” as you see fit

the creative souls in cyber land

to pluck as you cry, “I quit”

while winking at another

fingers crossed behind your back

be creative with your score card –

notches? or marks scrawled in black?

 

O precious souls so broken,

your self worth is left in tatters

I know you crave deep healing

but this is not what matters –

 

to be “chosen” by a phantom

when your worth is beyond their sight

you matter just in being,

their attention – darkest night.

 

Take the hands of those who care now

the lifelines that they offer

protecting pride is useless

when it’s safety that they proffer.

 

Humans, look what we do

when we confuse the tools we need

 

to really see each other…

 

 

by Categories: General bewilderment, Poetry, UncategorizableTags: , , 25 Comments

skein

And while she was

clawing out

the sub conscious ponderings

on definition a, b or c

(in the smallest font in the quietest corner)

of her defeated-ness,

she saw their labyrinthine thread

had finally severed.

 

Her heart stilled,

begging for calibration,

a gentle reworking –

the intricate cut-outs of their pain

into simple shapes.

 

(this beautiful song, and video of estranged brothers reunited)

by Categories: General bewilderment, PoetryTags: , , , , 23 Comments

it’s been so many years, mr anderson. where are we again?

A friend sent this article to me this morning:

Elon Musk’s chilling Artficial Intelligence warning

(Edit, the video on there has since been removed).
Very interesting to say the least. I think it is a bit of a must read/watch. Also because ignorant me would love the input of anyone who knows a lot more about this than I do. On the video: “facebook recently shut down chat bots after they started speaking their own language”. What does that even mean?

And no, I don’t plan on getting a self driving car any time soon. I just bought a second hand car that’s manual for crying out loud. It’s been a long time, and gosh darn it if I don’t love the heck out of it. Manual cars are super fun. And as my elderly friend in Colorado has always said, “I like to drive my cars, not have them drive me”. If she only knew where that was really heading…

by Categories: General bewilderment, UncategorizableTags: , , , , 15 Comments

let’s try breathing

passing around

these truths like hot potatoes

coming aground

on sooths from tenured sayers,

 

this chartered territory

is predictable and free not free

 

let’s try this other fork

in the road, forest, desert, Wiggles song, social media

mind map

to our lungs…

 

 

I, oh so love, that Murray is in this…

Lyrics:

Continue reading →

by Categories: a little fun or something, General bewilderment, PoetryTags: , , , , , , 20 Comments

title? but I’m trying to restrain myself

Life, its cruise, untils and snooze and streams of semi-consciousness,
time and ruse and bills and flus and beams of demi-righteousness,

cracks and crevices,
furtive nemesis,
falling in
deceitful fetishes,

the current, it fools
in ego pools

and just how many tsunamis can fit in here,
exactly?

I’ll be over here with my tea,
retracting
ly

 

 

im sorry
Remember this? I mean the meme. I mean, I hope you didn’t drive your truck into a tree…

 

 

by Categories: a little fun or something, General bewilderment, PoetryTags: , , 57 Comments

mercy

*Trigger warning: there’s a picture of a clown in this post

 

 

clown

I have started cleaning house.
I’m going to be brutal. (No, really…)

Then two days ago I found this.
It belonged to my twin brother.
Why I have it, I cannot answer.
(Mostly due to temporary paralysis, and now I just can’t remember).

But it is,
truly,
the stuff of nightmares.
(And italicized, centralised, poetic importance.)

And I swear, I heard some synapses burn out when I saw it. And others that absolutely refused to be created…

(Also, if you can, take a moment to listen to this…
oh my…)

by Categories: General bewilderment, personalTags: , , , , 60 Comments

it begs a poem, doesn’t it?

pin cushion (2)

I was recently at my parents’. 
And I saw this-

a small pin cushion I had made for my mother when I was in high school, when I first learnt some cross stitching.

I can’t believe my mother is now eighty years old, and she is still using it!

Her sense of humour well and truly intact, as that spear of a needle in its right ear, was, initially, right in the middle of her forehead (that innocent bunny’s, not my mother’s).

It is funny about memory, because I had completely forgotten about it, of course, but as soon as I saw it, I remembered how upset I was that I had made a stitching mistake on its left ear. And I had somehow missed a couple of stitches on the other ear.  My sweet mother didn’t want me to fix it, but I remember how utterly crushed I was.

Yesterday I watched a video on a science site about intelligence.
Behold a short conversation I had with my husband this morning:

Me: I watched a video yesterday…blah blah…and it turns out I could be a perfectionist.
Husband: slowly closing refrigerator door…
come to think of it, I can’t describe, accurately, the look on his face…

by Categories: a little fun or something, General bewilderment, personal, prose, UncategorizableTags: , , , 27 Comments

resemblance? reassemblance?

Sigh.

I am on Facebook. And a number of things have happened recently where I have really re-pondered social media.

Then a pastor friend posted this video about Facebook, including interviews with a couple of the original players. It was timely. If you find yourself with a spare 15 minutes sometime, I really recommend you watch it. You may have already seen it, and I know a lot of you have the same concerns etc. (Something I have loved about WP, it seems that generally there is a shared spirit amongst users that it doesn’t become toxic like these other platforms. Of course, it does sometimes, but overall, my experience has been wonderful. I hope yours has too.)

(It does have a clickbait title, unfortunately. But it is a very worthwhile video.)

I have thought about ways to be a little more real on here, too..I did record myself reading one of my poems, but I have had trouble uploading it. Not a hard process in theory, and I followed all of the steps, and it is still not working. I will persevere…

In the mean time, I thought I would add a selfie I took today. I really don’t like taking them, so there won’t be more for a while and it is in black and white because, geez, I don’t want to be that real… Plus, I didn’t want to make you jealous, northern hemispherers, by showing off my tan 🤡 Actually, it isn’t a big deal. I hardly wear makeup, after all.

selfie 25Jan18

And now it is really warm outside, and in the spirit of taking my ponderings seriously about screen time, I am signing off for now to go have a drink with my husband. Hopefully catch you soon as I really do love reading and looking at all of your amazing work! Take care WPers. Let’s make a better world…or at least, try.

Vanessa

by Categories: General bewilderment, personal, proseTags: , , , 45 Comments

get back, cavepeople

the hollowing out –

those sneaky,

serrated lies,

the one sided skies

raining entitled cries

of urgency falling

on friends’ patient ears

your _____ ego turned

on a lathe made of tears?/fears?/arrears? what is it today?

get back in your cave

so illumined by you

poor me in the dark

my ‘old fashioned’ world view

of love and respect

so twisted and skewed

by humanity’s addiction

to $%$@ing  up any ideology for its own disgusting selfish power plays

wait, you’ve got me so sad

I messed up the meter…

but I’ll try really hard

to fit in something like peter

 

as in,

out.

by Categories: General bewilderment, Poetry 31 Comments

Dismember the 5th, 1971

flow and ebb

lyrics’ webb

unseen scales

empty trails

of light unburst

municipal thirst

for meaningful muse

the clowns left clues

 

the wrong grave’s exhumed

 

lazy thinking

drowning/drinking

I’m not down for this up

inflatable cup

no thanks.

 

You can’t hear

what I’m not saying

unplug your ears

of all your preying

then light the fuse

follow the clues

or not.

 

Short sentences

are my drop,

 

they’re not wafting

to your heights…

 

22384116_1552242774840905_2528714517370755586_o

 

¬

Inspired by one of my favourite, satirical sites, Scarfolk Council, from their Facebook page, where every Friday is Friday the 13th.

This was, clearly, a very uncharacteristic (cough) stream of thought…but I had been in the sun for a bit…

by Categories: General bewilderment, PoetryTags: , , , 32 Comments

fraud

He nodded. With his eyes. Cloudy with the beers they hadn’t shared yet. And she heard it all through the phone.
She hated letting him down again.

The walking out of the ocean. She, wearing the heaviness like a medal. Then she hit the no resistance of the air.
And she flew.

Until that last wave hit.
Filled with shells and rocks, or maybe the debris of shells and rocks. And the clawing of it inside-outed her.

Lying in the sand of her authenticity, she’s exfoliated down to she’s not sure what happened. But the ocean took that medal back.

Or maybe, she gave it back.

 

He wished she knew.
Those clouds burst, and ran down his cheeks.

 

 

by Categories: Fiction, General bewilderment, proseTags: , , 19 Comments

what depths…

do we plumb

with our layers of numb?

definitions we seek

and the rhymings we tweak

 

existentially freeze framed

monumentally no named.

 

aphonic.

tectonic,

politically

bubonic.

 

mind’s exhale so twee

but my heart

is on its knees…

 

~

An American friend shared this article about Stanislav Petrov on Facebook today. I had never heard of him, I am ashamed to say. If you have the time, read the article and watch the clip. I promise you, it is worth the time. And honestly, I dare you to not cry.

(From article: In 1983, he was on duty when the Soviet Union’s early warning satellite indicated the U.S. had fired nuclear weapons at his country. He suspected, correctly, it was a false alarm and did not immediately send the report up the chain of command. Petrov died at age 77.)

the man who saved the world

RIP you remarkable man.

by Categories: General bewilderment, PoetryTags: , , , 22 Comments