Signs along the beaten path...

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sorry, I just feel like I'm Dragon today

The Dragon soars once more,
freed by the greed of those with no need,
peaceful prosperity yields way to Horror's rancor.

The savage swoops o'er stoops and through peach basket hoops
preying upon peasants; man, woman or child.
Torn like a thorn by tarragon with horn,
forlorn families mourn through their scorn
tormented by scaly winged serpent so wild.

Idle slaves hoist their glaives with raves
against wyvern parlayed by pampered knaves.
How to conquer? How to defeat?
What treasure laid at monster's feet
will alleviate appetite with allure so sweet?

None knows what it is that eases the throes
of those dying horribly from basilisk blows.
But As hydra haunts, and future daunts
the heroes survive by delaying their wants.

And as behemoth retreats to rest from it's feats
I implore, you do not find the fiend at fault
instead chastise those with the keys to It's vault,
Instead buy up their lands while their blood's in the streets.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

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

Friday, January 9, 2009

Weekly Assignment



For this weeks assignment I am going to combine two of the prompts as they fit right together. My dog, Brutus, was actually my first bloggy friend. I remember it well. I was just starting my blog and put my settings together (with lots of green because I like green, not green as in money - but I like that too - but green as in nature, because nature just amazes me) and posted my first entry. The next day I came back and was shocked to find that I already had a comment. Cool!! So I clicked on in and read the first comment on my blog. It read like this:

Commenter: "Woof woof woof woof woof. Aroooooooo, woof"

Shroomzilla: "Well, that is sweet of you Brutus. I like the green, I think it looks good too!"

Commenter: "Woof woof woof woof."

Shroomzilla: "Yes, I am new at this. How am I doing?"

Commenter: "Woof arf arf arf, meow."

Shroomzilla: "Thanks and no, I will not post those kind of pictures and I don't care that you have a thing for cats."

Commenter: "Woof woof woof, pant pant pant, woof woof bark bark aroooooo."

Shroomzilla: "Yeah. I guess poodles are okay. What does that have to do with this blog?"

Commenter: "Bark bark bark, woof woof, arf arf , aroooooooo, meow."

Shroomzilla: "Wow. I didn't know that about poodles!?!? And when did you start watching Ellen?
Commenter: "Woof arooooo arooooo arooooo, bark bark bark. Yip yip yip, meow."

Shroomzilla: "Now I just don't believe that. Why would Ellen have a show on poodles and cats that love big strong dogs? And when did you learn to speak Cat anyway??"

Commenter: "Woof woof woof, arf arf arf bark bark meow yip yip yip. Pant pant."

Shroomzilla: "I don't care if you get bored easily!! Part of the reason we keep you around and feed you is so you will protect the house. If you are at the college, how are you doing your job??"

Commenter: "Woof woof woof bark bark yip bark woof."

Shroomzilla: "I really don't think that the squirrels are the same thing. How many scary squirrels have you ever met?"

Commenter: "Bark bark arooooo woof woof woof."

Shroomzilla: "I don't care if they go nuts on a stalkers nuts, you leave your post again and I'll have a bone to pick with you!! Now get off the computer and get back to your job, dog!!"

Brutus is my man!! He is my dog and my best friend. Not like a human best friend with whom you fight over something and then make fun of after you are victorious, but as in "man's best friend". He always is happy to see me. He can't wait until I get home and has trained his inner alarm clock to my schedule. He waits anxiously at the front window for my return in the afternoon. He wags his tail like a ninja swinging his katana; not side to side, but in every direction thinkable. And he is forgiving. When I first got Brutus from a rugby teammate back in 1998, he was a little more than a year old. He was shacked up in a house with five guys, four other dogs, an iguana, a calf and two baby alligators. It took two full years for him to get over his cowering fear complex, and he still is timid when confronted by a loud or aggressive personality. But he is soooo lovable. He thinks he is a lap dog and is not shy about pushing your hands to let you know that you should be petting him.

I still love rugby!!!


So I rail on and on about my love for this silly sport, but it has it's drawbacks too. Part of the reason that I have been MIA for the last month is due to an injury suffered on the rugby field. December 6th in Dallas, we played against the Dallas Athletic Rugby Club Knights and they handed us a pretty lopsided ass whooping. I mean it was a "drag us to the woodshed and switch us raw" whooping. 53 to 6 was the end score, although I didn't finish the game. We traveled light and had a team of players that was not our best fifteen on the field, but we showed up to play and play we did. Over half way through the game, the Knights physicality took it's toll on our numbers and I got rotated into the tighthead prop position. The tight-what???? I hear you cry. Tight head prop, usually your heaviest and one of your strongest players on the field. He is meant to be one of the work horses, and is expected to do a lot of rucking, mauling and tackling (as well as some smash mouth running). I have never played this position and got the call by default, and I payed for it dearly. I got pushed up in a scrum and my head got bent so far down that my chin rubbed against my spine. As I am there trapped in this sweating, stinking mass of manbeasts licking my own spinal cord, something had to give way. My neck popped. When I say it popped, I mean it sounded like a bone snapping. It got my attention immediately and as the scrum disengaged I knew that it was off the field for me.


Well, it has been a little over a month, three doctor visits, four prescriptions of muscle relaxers and pain medications and I can just now start turning my head from side to side. Neck injuries suck and I am seriously contemplating giving the game up for good; but alas, they do not call me Uncle Stupid for just any reason. I am anxiously awaiting my return to game fitness so I can deal out some severe payback to those vaginas in blue from the DFW area. It may have to wait until next season, but if I am lucky I will get to step on their heads (you pick which one) this season. ETD (estimated time of DESTRUCTION) is February 21st. Wish me luck I am gonna need it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

It's a long weary trek....




My true love, where are you found hiding?
Your prolonged absence keeps me deriding
my own resolve, which is now back-sliding
due to long lonely days so unabiding
to my psyche which seems to be gliding
along in its manic depression. I'm chiding
myself for believing I must keep riding
into the bleak dark night so uninviting.
Your possible existence fuels my minds' writing,
I pause to smoke in the wind so biting
and rest my eyes from dreary dim lighting
Ignoring the impulse to yield from my fighting
for my struggle, I, the queen should be knighting
until then I'll partake some more white lightning
to help keep my weary spirits from alighting
thereby crushing my hopes, how frightening!