She’s selfish and high maintenance, flirtatious, rude, and self-centered. Her vanity is unmatched, and her intentions immature and materialistic.
He is a womanizer, intent on remaining unmarried and able to sow his wild oats. His loyalty is only to himself and wealth, and never becoming burdened by love.
With time and travail, the realities of war, loss, separation, and the ordeal of survival, she grows into a woman of substance, and he, an honorable man.
@Home Studio – 249th poem of the year (After watching the Korean drama My Dearest.)
Kim Seong-yong, My Dearest. Namkoong Min, Ahn Eun-jin, MBC, 9ato Entertainment, 4 Aug–-18 Nov 2023.
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:
This time what struck me was the intimacy of Hermione and Harry’s friendship as young adults trying to endure hardship. They leaned on each other for support and inspiration and literally for survival in dire times. To have even one friend you would trust with your life and vice versa is a miracle, yet this story depicts those depths of friendship as the norm…what an aspiration.
@Home Studio – 244th poem of the year (After watching it at home while Lydia & Charlotte watched it at Cinemark on 8/31/24 for Back to Hogwarts Week)
Yates, David. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 1. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Warner Bros., 2010.
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.)
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.
According to society, a woman of a certain age should guard her propriety and seek only suitors who are older. If she happens to find herself drawn to a man of younger persuasion, she is depicted by those who have opinions as a wild hunter who laid in wait to pounce on some unsuspecting man-child and forced him to mind his manners. When the roles are reversed, there is little batting of eyes because double standards always seem to benefit those who sit on the biggest thrones in the patriarchy.
@Home Studio – 181st poem of the year (after watching The Idea of You.)
The Idea of You, Showalter,Michael, Amazon Prime Video, 16 March, 2024, Hathaway, Anne.
Runner ups for the Cougar photos to accompany my poem:
This sweet baby wanted the endless skewer platter parade of chuleta, costela, and alcatra, filet mignon, and especially the cordeiro at Estancia Churrascaria for his birthday. He has little use for the polenta, and will not touch the fried bananas, but fights me for the hottest pao de queijo on the table. Yesterday, he was everyone’s answer. Today, he’s back to being only mine. So, I was pleased to celebrate the marking of the occasion with flaming Crème Brule Cheesecake in honor of turning 43.
You are not the kind of book with a slick jacket I can collect on my shelf; nor can I mark my place with sticky notes, gum wrappers, or old receipts.
You are an audio book with raucous laughter, one-liner quips of witty dialogue, random philosophical musings about religion, and societies latest great failings.
Sometimes I need to slow the playback speed and crank up the volume to discern the subtle nuances of your narration and tune my ear to your frequency.
Other times I realize you’re on full blast in the middle of a raunchy scene in public rather than coming through my headphones like a gentleman.
Actors (clockwise from top C) Martin Luther McCoy, Dana Fuchs, T.V. Carpio, Ekaterina Sknavina, Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Kiva Dawson, Joe Anderson and Halley Wegryn Gross are shown in a scene from the film “Across The Universe” in this undated publicity photograph. https://images.app.goo.gl/VGx3qPKwxrQnu3xp6
i’m just a Girl standing here wanting you to Hold Me Tight so i can give you All My Loving. I Want to Hold Your Hand. though i endure tough times With a Little Help From my Friends, It Won’t Be Long before i need more than they can give, but I’ve Just Seen a Face that i can never forget, and that is saying a lot for me. i pray that god will Let It Be our destiny that we will Come Together forever, and if we ever get married, Why Don’t We Do It in the Rain? If I Fell, would you catch me? I Want You to be the one who always catches me, not the one who says, “She’s So Heavy”, and shirks the hard parts of love. Dear Prudence will be our saving grace, for our future will never lack with us in it. we’ll be Flying high the Blue Jay Way over the rainbow and off to neverland where I Am the Walrus and you are the Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite because you make my heart soar. Something you said to me changed my perspective forever, Oh! Darling. you loved me as i was, freckles and paleness, green-eyed simplicity, and Strawberry Fields Forever. it was a Revolution to be loved for myself and celebrated for my curves. you love me when i suffer, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, you hold and comfort me, transporting my grief Across the Universe. you love me when my anger has turned our world Helter Skelter and i have forgotten Happiness is a Warm Gun aimed at a Blackbird the only way to handle strife? no, you have shown me that it’s ok to walk away, to pause, to let things simmer down, then say Hey Jude-iciously discuss our differences. Don’t Let Me Down, my love. don’t ever become someone other than who you are. whoever said, All You Need Is Love, never got a divorce. you also need the right person, a person who makes you feel like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds when things are rough and you feel like lana in the dirt with slime.
@Home Studio – 89th poem of the year
Todd, Suzanne., et al. Across the Universe Widescreen., Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2009.
You make me so angry. Then you want to go on with conversation as if nothing has tilted my axis, forever altering my perception of you. I am not designed as others. Once you lose my respect, it is difficult to gain it back. Refusal to explain when confronted seems to be your protective measure to maintain privacy, dignity? I am man, I owe nothing to no one, hear me roar, but to me it is weakness, denying vulnerability, insisting others accept your reality without a hint of clarification for those of us whose realities include other humans in community. How strange to be a lone commuter on this subway of life without a care for anyone else.
rebekahjmarshall 