An acquaintance, having just attended his high school graduation 50-year-reunion,
said he has arrived at the place in life where he doesn’t have to spend time with
people for whom he doesn’t care and so he only visited with certain people at the
reunion and then he left probably never having to think about some of those class-
mates again.

I’m so jealous.

I want to do exactly that but I can’t. Why? Every day of my life I have to spend
time with someone I do not like, someone I deplore, someone who gives me acid
indigestion, headaches and facial tics.

I’m beginning to feel like Inspector Clouseau’s boss.

I could get away from anyone else on the face of the earth except this person.

He’s ubiquitous. Remember the old Greek attributes of God: omnipotence, omnipresence
omniscience? The only one that applies to this narcissistic guy is omnipresence (thanks to the ratings obsessed media) even though he thinks he’s a Greek god.

If I’m not shielding my eyes from his face and sticking my fingers in my
ears at his voice, I’m having nightmares about him.

I’ll give you three guesses as to who this person is. Of course, you don’t
need any guesses. Thanks to me you already know it’s a male. But you knew
that before I identified the gender, didn’t you?

I can see it on your face — the grimace as you swallow the acid reflux, the
rubbing of your temple to ease your headache pain, the twitch in your left
eyelid and the bags under your eyes revealing your sleepless nights. Yes,
you know. He’s the person you can’t get away from either, isn’t he?

Well, it turns out misery does indeed love company and my company numbers
in countless millions upon millions.

Okay, everyone. On the count of three, who is he?

One, two, three — Oh, my, millions are gagging. We can’t even bring
ourselves to say his name.

I know. Let’s play charades. His name sounds like…. Everyone turn and
stick out your rump!!!

What? Nothing? You don’t want to insult your butt?

I understand.

Okay, just think of him in tennis shorts.

No! Wait! Where are you all going? Stop screaming. Don’t trample each other
on the way out.

It’s like a scene from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Don’t anyone fall asleep! The Donald will take over your body
and mind but keep his rump.

Oh, no! A fate worse than death.

Help!!!! Somebody, please, help!

I’m worried about what might happen.
We are worried about what might happen.
Everyone is worried about what might happen.
To be honest, I’m not worried about what one of the nameless does.
To be honest, we are not worried about what one of the nameless does.
To be honest, no one is worried about what one of the nameless does.
It is all a matter of particular power.
I’m worried about what the powerful personages will do.
We are worried about what the powerful personages will do.
Everyone is worried about what the powerful personages will do.
The only saving grace is that the powerful personages are made
up of the same flesh and blood as the nameless are.
“Do not put your trust in a prince for when he dies his plans go down with him.”
It’s what he might do in the meantime that worries me.
It’s what he might do in the meantime that worries us.
It’s what he might do in the meantime that worries everyone.
They have come before, they have done evil and they have gone down to dust.
The creation has survived.
There is one nameless one born at a particular time in a particular
place to whom the powerful personages paid no particular attention.
This particular nameless one became the light of love for eternity.
That One beckons to my, your, our worries in this particular moment.
“Fear not.”

*idea from a quote by Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
used in a meditation by Richard Rohr

First photo of their plight —
two Chocolate Lab girls
in a maximum prison in a
Southern Illinois
cell together —
perhaps for life —

(No! No! Not another night!)

in a heavy-duty kennel out
of something like…

the Texas Chainsaw
Massacre.

(Not one more night!)

The second photos  —
release from their plight —

one girl lying on her back,
her tummy being rubbed.
She is loved!

the other girl standing tall,
statuesque, a woman of color.
Loving homes beckon and call.

St. Patrick’s Day.
Irish names for the lasses now free —
Fiona (condemned to be a swan,
released
by the bell of St. Patrick
and freed)
and Maeve
(one who intoxicates) —
from abandonment to freedom
from slavery.

It wasn’t too late!

— released by loving doves
who broke open the hellish
cell —

(For women’s poetry month, a top o’ the day, to ya, ladies)

free, Chocolate Labs
on their lucky Irish day
from captivity to liberty.

You go, girls.

The obituary read,
So and so, 89,
went to be with
his Lord and Savior,
Jesus, March 12,
at Appledorn North.

If ever an evangelical
asks, “Have you found
Jesus?” My answer
will be, “At Appledorn
North, of course.
The heavenly suite,
top floor, top drawer,
nothing but the best,
for the Lord,
of course.”

I think my family has a significant aversion
to my extraversion.
They sit and shake their heads
wondering if I should be on meds.
All introverts,
do they think
I’m on the way to being
some kind of pervert? Yikes!
Do they really equate innocent extraversion
with despicable perversion?
They don’t say much,
but it’s in the eyes.
Judging me like therapists
or international spies.
I guess it can be pretty scary
when I explode and scream bloody murder.
Fortunately for me, I’m on the giving end.
But if I ever looked in the mirror, they say,
for the white coats, they would have to send.
Hey, I’m just an innocent extravert
(or is it extrovert? I never get it right.)
judged ever so harshly by a family of introverts.
They think they are smarter,
deeper, more finely tuned.
“What an insult,” I fume.
It’s as plain as the stars in the sky.
I can see it in their eyes.

The good Father held a
fidget spinner in his hand —
three parts in static form.
The fun had not begun.
Then he spun the fidget
and the three became one.
The spinning fidget —
metaphor for relationship,
the nature of God.
Is my fidget spinning
in relationship to the Three-In-One,
have I become part of the One,
have I always been
part of the One?
When I’m only with my lonely one,
spin me, O Lord, into dynamic
love with everything
and everyone.

*idea from a short video by Richard Rohr

Spurinna, the soothsayer, spoke, “Caesar,
beware the Ides of March.” Caesar said,

“The Ides have come,” flaunting a false
prophesy. Another said, “But they have

not gone.” When that Roman holy day
was gone, so would be the deified Julius —

the day god died. Cassius plunged the
knife as did Brutus with Julius asking

as he fell, “E tu, Brute?” Just another
example of political betrayal. If a

certain president with a god complex
reveals profound political vulnerability

causing, by association, party vulner-
ability, the Ides of March could march

any day of any month with former close
allies plunging the metaphorical knife

and once again the question will echo
through the hallowed halls, “E tu, Brute?”

And the soothsayer Spurinna will ask
rhetorically, “Was there any doubt?”

As time has passed, he has
gotten a wee bit claustrophobic
so the idea of climbing inside

the tree seemed ridiculous but
he did and he did just fine as
the tree. He spied a fairly

large rock about sixty inches
in diameter and a foot and a
half high and wondered if he

would be able to breathe inside
that rock. He did just fine when
he became the rock. The tree

and the rock both looked at
him and wondered if they would
be able to breathe inside his

asthmatic body. The tree did
just fine as the man giving
courage to the rock. The man

sat down on the rock and
leaned back against the tree
and the three-in-one sat and

did deep breathing exercises
next to the pond while the
fish watched and asked if

they could come in, too, while
wondering if they could breathe
as fish out of water. The three-

in-one invited the thirteen
fish in. The man took a deep
breath and said, “Om” on the

long, slow exhale. Everybody
giggled because the vibration
tickled.

There are so many blogs
out there — quite profound with good advice;
I’m just trying to find the right literary cogs —
the meter and rhyme so nice.

My poems don’t claim gravitas;
they aren’t heavy with deep thoughts;
though they reflect both anima and animus,
I try to stay away from “shoulds” and “oughts.”

On occasion, a free verse narrative will do,
something with which the reader may identify.
From it, perhaps gaining insight quite new
or a different take on a remembrance
prompting a smile or a teary eye.

Mostly, I just write what pops into my mind,
giving credit to the origin of thoughts I find,
hopefully, with the right meter and rhyme.
Sometimes free verse is just fine.

Another brilliant idea from
Dummy Down Dem. Dumbs —
a former Southern Baptist,
female now atheist runs for
congress in Tennessee
What problem could there be?

But, of course. Makes all
the sense in the world — a shoe-in run,
only in the world of the
Dummy Down Dem. Dumbs
sitting around
with up-their-butt thumbs.

The Dem got drummed
in her Bible Belt run.

Ah, Dummy Down Dem. Dumb — Duh.