Tag Archives: Health

Poetry, Writing

How to Hold a Cockroach

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(Poem 260 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/W0ZpTf

I know how to hold a cockroach.
That is not the problem. The real
problem is in the willingness to
hold the cockroach because I
don’t want to. I absolutely know
intellectually that the cockroach
will not harm me, and I absolutely
know spiritually that cockroaches
are God’s creatures, too, and I
absolutely know psychologically
that the exercise is good for my
psyche and all that jazz, but I
still don’t want to extend my hand
and allow the cockroach to climb
aboard and scurry all around. I
just got chills up my spine thinking
about it because the story is still
too strong that my mind makes up,
and I’m just not ready to let it go.

@Home Studio – 260th poem of the year (After reading How to Hold a Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell.)

Maxwell, Matthew. Illustrations by Allie Daigle. How to Hold a Cockroach – A book for those who are free and don’t know it, Hearthstone, 2020.

Runner ups for the Cockroach photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

A Beck 50

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(Poem 258 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

(Photo from my Family Ladies Lunch for my 51st Birthday. This is the last photo I have of myself as a 50-year-old.)

My husband reminded me today that
it was my last day to be a Beck 50, and
I scolded him for coming up with such
a great line on the last day of my 50th year.
Why couldn’t he have thought of it sooner,
so I could have been using it all year long?
He only thought of it after remembering
that his cousin Cynthia was 50 Cent for
her 50th year of life, and I am disappointed
to have missed the opportunity to use
the pun because am the sort who would
have used and abused that moniker.

@Home Studio – 258th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Skinny Liver

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(Poem 255 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

https://images.app.goo.gl/RwwLHcQb6mTPEofY9

The ultrasound test today
was unpleasant and long,
as the technician dug into
my rib cage to search for
my liver, pancreas, spleen,
kidneys, and gallbladder,
along with some arteries.
Apparently, they were hard
to find due to my habitus,
which is a medical way to
point out just how fat I am.
Fatty infiltration, adipose
fat, and overlying bowel gas
are just more ways of saying
I’m too fat and full of hot air.
Ef’ you and yo’ mama with
your skinny little perfect livers.

@Home Studio – 255th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Our Blooming Youth

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(Poem 251 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“Confucius told his disciple Tsze-kung that three things are needed for government: Weapons, food, and trust. If a ruler can’t hold on to all three, he should give up the weapons first, and the food next. Trust should be guarded to the end: without trust we cannot stand.” – Baroness Onora O’Neill

https://images.app.goo.gl/2e3cEvwWiB9oASsKA

Ghosts casting curses, hiding
behind every false smile of those
who claim to be loyal, will poison
trust and hope until all faith dies.

The only way to prove innocence
is to leap into the arms of fear,
give yourself permission to endeavor,
and outsmart evil with persistence.

The truth will win out when you
refuse to give in to the superstition
that strives to steal your joy with
lies that discriminate and demean.

Only by lifting up the oppressed
who cry out for mercy and plead
to be vindicated by righteousness,
can you free yourself from the curse.

@Home Studio – 251st poem of the year (After watching the Korean drama Our Blooming Youth.)

Lee Jong-jae, Our Blooming Youth. Park Hyung-sik, Jeon So-nee, Story & Pictures Media, 6 Feb.—11 Apr. 2023.

O’Neill, Baroness Onora, “Without Trust We Cannot Stand (Excerpts from the Reith Lectures, 2002)” University of Cambridge, Trust & Technology Initiative, http://www.trusttech.cam.ac.uk/perspectives/technology-humanity-society-democracy/without-trust-we-cannot-stand

https://images.app.goo.gl/oXUM9NrWR3TMvMuy6

Poetry, Writing

Losing Beauty

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(Poem 248 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

Beauty & Aiko in all their regal gorgeousness. They know they rule the kingdom.

To be without Beauty
feels plain and bare,
lacking in something.
A presence at once
regal and understated
has gone missing, and
in its place is an ache,
a pang, maybe a twinge
of listless longing for
some undefined touch
of elegance that is both
gracious and aloof,
familiar and unknowable.

@Home Studio – 248th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Losing Beauty photos to accompany my poem:

1
2
3
4
5

1. Beauty & Kage on guard duty.
2. Chika, Beauty, & Cotton Eyed Joe snuggling.
3. Beauty & Chika sharing my chair.
4. Beauty holding hands with Kenji.
5. The last picture I ever took of Beauty—Beauty & Aiko holding hands. 

Poetry, Writing

Making the Call

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(Poem 247 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/l27VBQ

Making the call to end a life
weighs heavily on the spirit,
even if the conclusion is an
act of mercy for the beloved
by relieving pain and suffering.
Only those who have spent
years with another in close
proximity, shared their lives
intimately, and were tasked
with taking the initiative to
usher in the end know the
reluctance with which the
decision is made and how
heavy the heart to speak the
truth that life has become a
burden rather than a blessing.

@Home Studio – 247th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Making the Call photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

COVID’s curse

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(Poem 246 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/zxz2Lt

COVID’s curse is that it lingers,
hangs menacingly in the air, and
recapitulates its previous threats
with symptomatic diminishment.
Not as serious, less deadly, return
to work after only five days now,
means everyone shares the virus
and those concerned are viewed
as disproportionately cautious.
Do they remember the terror so
recently fresh to those whose
cats lost their owners and children
lost their grandmothers and we
lamented the death counts daily?
This time when my husband got
sick and I could not touch him
for a week, I still checked to make
sure he was breathing and sheltered
in place and social distanced,
though no one uses that language
these days anymore…so 2020 of me.
Perhaps it is the lack of the sense
of smell that was stolen from me
or the worsened sense of vision
that was purloined or the lessened
oxygenation ability that was pilfered
or possibly the energy I once had
to function all day that was looted
after my fourth run-in with the
offender who is nothing more than
an unwelcome, tiresome loiterer.

@Home Studio – 246th poem of the year

Runner ups for the COVID photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

UFO

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(Poem 234 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/6xE6e6 (It looked like this, but triangular shaped.)

Nearing dusk in the
falling in love time
of year when we said
our goodbyes longer
than was necessary,
a UFO floated above,
slowly, gracefully, for
a machine so large,
its triangular shape
at once distinct and
completely unclear.

The size of a city block,
it made no sound,
shone no lights, nor
revealed exhaust,
but simply hovered
like a kite out for a
leisurely jaunt taking
a moment to survey
the neighborhood
from the best vantage
point in the clear sky.

My lover and I pointed
heavenward in awe and
disbelief, unsure of the
images our eyes relayed
to our brains, unable to
fully process a craft of
solid black smoothness
suspended in disbelief
as gently as a cloud,
then race north and out
of sight like a memory.

@Home Studio – 234th poem of the year (David and I saw a UFO one evening in 2013 or 2014, when we were still dating.)

Poetry, Writing

Starbucks Sunday

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(Poem 231 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

 AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/wbUNo3

It’s a Starbucks Sunday kind of day
with a Texas August outside and
chilled artificial air cooling us in our
fishbowl drinking iced tea and pink
fluffy milkshakes with fancy names
like Strawberry Cream Frappuccino.
Fellow goldfish scurry from their cars
into the inside where it is safe and
comfortable with the sounds of music
and laughter, frothing and cash
registers, clip clop of flip flops, and
pleasant conversation that dips and
swells and matches the happy serenity.

@Starbucks Studio – 231st poem of the year