Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019 + Tuesday Platform: Coming Full Circle: Not Your Summer Tryst Under the Big Moon

Big Moon copyright Alicia Dunn

no summer love here

hope for a rainstorm to come

far from any beach

on a faraway seashore

as the children gather shells

couple making love

I want a garden

perhaps a small waterfall

spilling over stones

don't want a French kiss

I take tea with sunflower

won't lurk in shadow

~Cie~

Note:

I've never been keen for flings and I don't like being anyone's dirty little secret. Finding a summer love never appealed to me, and I've only been to the beach once in my life. I'd much rather spend my time on mundane activities such as gardening than engaging in an ill-advised mating dance which will only end in heartbreak for me. 

Frankly, in many ways, I'm quite content not to be young anymore. I only wish I had the strength and endurance of my youth. The impulsiveness, stupidity, and desperate lovesick puppy behavior is more than welcome to remain in the past.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Twilight

Image by DarkWorkX from Pixabay

Looking forward to

Finally seeing twilight

From the window of

My new home on the prairie

Will the day finally come?

~Cie~

Notes:

When you invest in a historic property in a way-off-the-beaten-path town, there can be holdups. This place is not move-in ready, and getting it to that state is proving to be a challenge. It's been like pulling teeth for the electrician to get the necessary permits. He's trying his best, but the people who are supposed to be helping him aren't being very helpful. He said that usually permit people are more than happy to take your money.

It's also been like pulling teeth to get the proposal from the plumbing company. Why don't these people want our money? If they don't get the proposal to my email tomorrow, I'm going to tell them that we'll come to the office and sign it. 

With my health issues, these 250-mile round trips are knocking me on my ass. I'm an old night shift worker who has never slept well at night and these contractors like to get cracking at the ass-crack of dawn. 

I may suggest to my son that we consider packing everything from the townhouse into a pod and staying in one of those by-the-week motels in Greeley so we don't have to keep making this drive. It's really taking a toll on me. Of course, we'd have to find one that would allow cats...hell, it's always something.

Anyway, this bit is going to start coming down today, so that's a start.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Flowers and Bees

Summer Flowers

depth of a flower

flying away with the bee

some mystery

depth of a flower

more than human eyes can see

beneath its petals

flying away with the bee

nectar gathered for the hive

pollen on their legs

some mystery

why foolish humans can't see

how necessary

~Jane & Cie~

Notes:

The "sleigh" of this Troiku was created by Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016). The trio of bees pulling the sleigh was wrangled by me.

Learn about ways to help pollinators through the Butterfly Pavilion's PACE Program.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Beach Party for Every Body

Image by David Shaw from Pixabay

What I have been wondering for a long time is this.

Why is it that when you have a bunch of stupid guys on a beach and a person with the “wrong” kind of body walks by, and they yell terrible and mean-spirited things at this person who is minding their own business,

Why is everyone’s response to ignore and even justify their behavior rather than shouting them down?

Why shouldn’t everyone be allowed to relax and have fun at the beach or the pool?

Why is it only fun for those whose bodies have been deemed attractive enough?

Why shouldn’t fat people and skinny people and people with scars and stretch marks and ladies with saggy boobs and men with round pot bellies and hairy folks and scrawny scarecrow guys and gals with arms and legs like Betty Spaghetti have a nice time too?

I think it’s rather boring when the only people who can go for a swim without feeling self-conscious and like they must keep covered up are young people with the “right” kind of body.

Shouldn’t we have gotten past the idea that the only people whose bodies should be seen are sleek, unblemished, photoshopped visions of pornographic “perfection?”

Shouldn’t the beach be a place where everyone can cool off, not yet another spot where only the hottest hotties are allowed?

Beach parties are fun

For those with the right body

Not so much for those

Whose bodies have been deemed wrong

Ignoring not an option

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Shadow

Photographer unknown

I

blue autumn skies

folded into mountains

purple shadow

blue autumn skies

stretching endless before me

skies blue like your eyes

folded into mountains

a felled giant lies sleeping

dreaming of the past

purple shadow

falls over eyes which can't cry

I have seen too much

Jane & Cie

II

such a hot day

my shadow needs to cool down

under the willow

such a hot day

sun beats down unrelenting

upon troubled earth

my shadow needs to cool down

it steals away and leaves me

muscles wracked with pain

under the willow

I find trouble waiting there

in the form of thought

Kyoshi & Cie

Note:

The "sleigh" of the first Troiku was created by Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016). The "sleigh" of the second Troiku was created by Kyoshi Takahama (1874 - 1958). I wrangled all the horses.

I have chronic, widespread, low-grade pain from fibromyalgia and am constantly hot and easily fatigued due to my various endocrine problems. The summer is not my friend.

Grover and Clem aren't bothered by this weather, seeing as Grover is a ghost and Clem is a mutant Cactus Man, or maybe a Man Cactus.

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Visit Grover and Clem and follow the Grover Hotel renovations at the Good Stuff from Grover blog!

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge + The Tuesday Platform: Midsummer Rain

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

A prairie rainstorm

In the middle of summer

Slow and lumbering

Meanders across the land

Shrouded in dark cloud cover

~Cie~

This poem is part of the Grover series, honoring the first place I've ever felt like I could call home since childhood. I don't feel like a temporary tenant when I'm there, I feel like this is where I live.

Please visit me, Ghost Town Grover, and Cactus Clem at the Good Stuff From Grover website!

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This poem has earned the Cactus Clem Seal of Approval!

Cactus Clem sez: "I shore do like when it rains! As a Cactus Man or may be a Man Cactus, I am always thirsty!"

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Outdoor Shower

Image by Ambady Sasi from Pixabay

I
outdoor shower
bathed in sun colors
of hot water

outdoor shower
a little bird looks out from
the branches of home

bathed in sun colors
its black and yellow feathers
so like clouds and light

of hot water
heat of summer relentless
even for a bird

II
slipping into the pool
naked divides the night
sun-warmed waters
.
slipping into the pool
comes a nighttime visitor
a stealthy raccoon

naked divides the night
those that hide in the daytime
appear bold at dusk

sun-warmed waters
a pleasure as it paddles
silent in shadow

Jane & Cie

Notes:

I was honestly stuck with this one. Then it came to me, like flash--like a vision! I just wrote it down.

The "sleighs" of these two Troiku were written by Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016). The unruly "horses" were led to water by me.

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge 2019: Sundown

Doomed version 7

Photoshop manipulation by The Real Cie

Some sundowns rise on another day of loss and one day set forever on a self ravaged by a broken mind.

~Cie~

Note:

Sundowning is a term for confusion in a dementia patient which worsens as evening comes on. Towards the end of his life, my father, who had vascular dementia, was sundowning. He confused reality with events on television. 

My father was a college professor. I have cared for more than one college professor or other people whose work revolved around using their mind who ended up with dementia. The junk science sharticles which proclaim that exercising your mind helps prevent dementia make me see liquid murder. 

You know what helps prevent dementia? Not having the DNA trigger for dementia coded in your genetic makeup. You could watch nothing but reruns of Jersey Shore and the Flavor of Love for your entire life and not end up with dementia if the trigger for dementia isn't in your DNA. I don't recommend it, but you could.

Dementia is horrible. It destroys lives. The least we could do is not insult those suffering from dementia and their caregivers and loved ones by publishing victim-blaming crap. 

Image created by The Real Cie

Copyright taysuffocation @deviantart.com
I'm hoping one day to get this tattooed on my arm in honor of my father

Carpe Diem Summer Challenge: Red Sweat

Image by Isabella Quintana from Pixabay

A warning that today's prompt did not invoke in me the feeling it would in a person with a normal history when it comes to sex. I instead ended up having a physical flashback. I have not had good experiences in this area. My work addresses this, and thus I give you the opportunity to leave my work unread.

The late 1990s were extremely difficult. My mental illness would not be properly diagnosed until 2004 when I was closing in on 40 years old. Self-harm became a way of coping when I was in my early teens. When I tried to talk to anyone about what had happened to me, they only tried to push drugs on me in the case of medical "experts" and didn't listen when I told them that the drugs only made my situation worse. I have always had paradoxical responses to drugs such as benzodiazepines, and SSRI's make me manic and psychotic, although I didn't know that was what was happening at the time.

My family's response when I told them what had happened was to tell me that I got over it before and could get over it again. 

I had no support and in swooped another predator who saw his chance of getting something he wanted from a very vulnerable person. I have written horror stories from the time I was quite young, and one might think that I would compare this individual to a vampire. Incorrect. He was a ghoul.

My poem is not about impassioned lovers wrestling as one. It is about a discarded and misunderstood person wrestling with herself. It has taken me more than 20 years to finally begin to forgive her for being so broken and allowing predators to harm her repeatedly.

What happened last year

You capitalized upon

Red sweat on my arms

~Cie~