If I could only plagarize love......

Mandala's Divine Love Swing

For my assignment from Mama Kat this week, I chose to tackle the prompt she deemed hardest. Not because I love a challenge (which I do), but because the poem from which I am stealing the last line touched my life.

While living in Fort Worth after my marriage failed, the concept of a loving relationship was lost to me. I floated in and out of a long distance relationship which also failed and I was pretty down on the whole idea that I might find someone special to me that would find me special to them. I was having a hard time coming to grips with my belief about what love should be and encompass. Eventually I stumbled across a book of love poems written by Nikki Giovanni. I read most of it in one sitting in the nearest Barnes & Nobles to my house, and I purchased it before leaving the store. I still have it and reread it on occasion. Her style of writing, as well as her vivid depictions of how deeply she loved those who she was writing to and about tuned my heart strings in again so that I could make wonderful music within myself and feel once more the possibility that I might love again. As Diane says, it was a defining moment in my life. One particular poem reminded me just how innocent and light headed love could make me feel. Here is her poem that touched me in just the right spot in my heart to jump start me again.


I WROTE A GOOD OMELET

I wrote a good omelet...and ate a hot poem...
after loving you
Buttoned my car...and drove my coat home...in the rain...
after loving you
I goed on red...and stopped on green....floating somewhere in between...
being here and being there...
after loving you
I rolled my bed...turned down my hair...slightly confused but...I don't care...
Laid out my teeth...and gargled my gown...then I stood ...and laid me down...
to sleep...
after loving you

--Nikki Giovanni

After Loving You

After loving you.....
what else was there left to do?
All I could smell and taste and hear
could not ease or abate my fear
that true love wouldn't visit again
as prolonged penance for my sin.
Things that used to make me smile
no longer held power to beguile,
and the things once pleasing to my touch
chaffed and chapped as if much too rough.
At first the gaping wounds felt so deep
as if doomed to ooze and forever seep,
as a festering wound is known to rot
viler my disposition towards love got.
But as time would slowly tell it's tale
my anger ebbed and gradually fell.
I found myself with book in hand
at one lone stop in wandered land.
Twas a book of odes to love was writ
that my melancholy made me forget.
I bought the cute little hard back tome
and many days, reading I did roam.
And the joy and exuberance of words within
my forlornness and gloom helped do in.
And free once more my feelings flew
and the hope to love grew anew.
My spirit climbed and rose so high
cartwheeled, flipped and danced through sky.
Once more the feelings of possible love
let my heart barrel-roll above.
And as I free fall from skies of blue,
to Nikki I say, "God bless and keep you."
This time I know what not and to do
To give me a chance at loving.....who?
Who knows?? It may even be you.

Stu Pidasso 14Jan2009

Discovery

I took up this writing challenge from Pictures, Poetry and Prose. I found this wonderful site by reading the offerings of the Bard from OZ, J. Cosmo Newbury. If you haven't stopped in and read his material, you are jilting yourself, but he does request that you visit with a glass of pinot noir in hand (I made that up, but he may adopt it in the future). So with no further ado, I present to you, my interpretation of the photo above, entitled Discovery.

DISCOVERY

My college professor for freshman English
assigned us the essay, "Look at your Fish".
I was so unprepared, my head he could squish.
To be anywhere else was my only wish

The story involved a scientific pupil once hesitant,
who had to keep reinspecting his droll assignment,
and each day he took up his mind-numbing regiment
he discovered a new symmetry or minute alignment.

I now find it simply amazing and amusing,
that for twenty-five years his insight I've been using.
The lesson which he strived to make so unconfusing,
was for us to be in a constant state of perusing.

Long ago, being the student who had finally caught on
I now look at my "fish" until dusk, from first dawn.

The paths my mind wanders....

I offer to you some random limericks, written for my own enjoyment, but I hope you find them entertaining too. I will preface these by saying that I am completely comfortable with the balance in my brain between my raw sexual appetite and the softer, gentler longing for affection and romance. The two are intertwined and if done right are experienced at the same time with a loving partner in a sharing environment. But my mind jumps around alot and those are not the only things swirling around in that stew pot of mine. So feast on my preaparations and savor every last drop of sustanance that I can convey to you, my hungry readers. As usual, comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. And the winners of the last Caption COntest and the new photo will be offered up tonight.


I endeavor forever to find you.
In each nook I look, as is due.
Like a coon dog on a scent
My tenacity won't repent.
My pod is a pea short and won't do.

Like Icarus I soared thru the sky
In my exuberance at getting to fly
I buzzed the great ball of joy
my wax wings held up like a toy
As I spiral downwards I'm left to ask, "Why?"

Jesus walked for forty nights and days
trying to navigate his own mental haze
Even as Satan did try to detour
twas our Savior he just could not lure
into partaking in his decadent ways.

I won't deny the natural truth
that men are inherently uncouth
we like to burp, fart and fight
and shag day and night
changing us is like pulling your own tooth

I have two chips off the block not just one
A lovely daughter and a handsome young son
My first ex-wife I repeatedly implore
of their time, to relinquish me more
she resists and just twists the blade for fun

My hands get all clammy and cold
Every time I get close I am told
My heart starts to race
at an incredible pace
For me, love just never gets old

From the playground he did abscond
with a redhead, a brunette and a blonde
vigorous lucky young Georgie
had his sights on a four-way orgy
And finished "the tour" like Greg Lemond

beads of sweat tend show up yet
ever shorter as my breath does get
I embrace the quivering flesh
of the woman with whom I mesh
And I find I am not the only one wet.

After her succulent thighs did I sunder
With an Austrailian kiss did I plunder
If you have yet to have one of those
I assure you it will curl your toes
It's just like a French kiss but down under.

Mutated Caption Contest

That's right kids; Tuesday IS my favorite day. That means Caption Contest time (and the crowd goes wild). This week I am going to try something different. The photo for the contest is from my personal collection. I took this during a road trip in the northern extremity of Texas. My son and I took my mother to the north. We were going to see my sister, but she and my favorite brother-in-law had high-tailed it to Mexico for the week. We found her teenagers hanging out at the house SOLO!! No big dealio though, they are smart good kids who seem to keep their noses clean. The Son had a blast with the cousins, I got some writing done and some photos taken, while Mom got to relax and spend time with the grandkids. Those two cousins were a good influence on The Son, he learned the inner workings of a potato cannon and a hover craft. He is now in full blown engineer mode, downloading stuff to build exciting new toys.

Instead of a caption, per se, I want all entries to be your own written thoughts on this particular photo. I will post mine next Monday and I will award a prize to the author I deem to have the best submission. They say a picture is worth a lot of words, so let's see what some of those words are. Good Luck and enjoy your time composing.