Month: April 2014

Dust to Dust

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Choking dust encircles my head

Creeps alongside my bed

Like so many forgotten chores

When life has opened other doors

 

Yet times await in this short life

Places, sites, or smells delight

My fancies for a lack of toil

Instead to be on peaceful soil

 

Where no one asks for sweet perfume

Nor hedges straight and in full bloom

They care not for a new prediction

On yet another health affliction

 

And thus I seek new ways to feed

My already weakened memory

Of he who used to share my bed

Since all that’s left is in my head

 

—Victoria Emmons, June 2012

Alexander the Great

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Unopened mail lay precariously in stacks about the great room, a distraction for which the recent parents had forgone in favor of cuddling baby Alexander. Each winter’s sunrise melted into the next as though days were not meant to be counted, nor even minutes. They marked time by their baby’s latest achievement. He turned his head. His eyes blinked. His feet kicked and stretched out. He grasped his fingers around his mother’s thumb.

When Alexander turned onto his side without assistance, his parents played La Marseillaise in full volume so that the neighbors complained to the concierge. The day their wunderkind held his head up for five seconds, contracts were already being drawn up with local paparazzi for magazine photo rights. His parents were convinced that the Great Alexander would coo, whine, and hiccup his way to fame. Better be ready for the onslaught of reporters and TV cameras. This child was like no other. People would be coming from far and near to greet him.

“Sometimes life…

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Sometimes life hits you right on the head,

like that acorn that fell from the big oak tree in my backyard,

and then you know you’re still alive.

— Mary, character from one of my stories

Serious?

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Dear Sirius,

Are you serious? A $2 “invoice fee” for my SiriusXM Radio service? So when did you decide that I had to pay all your administrative billing costs? That I had to PAY for you to send me the invoice for your services? That is absurd. I protest! I can get a lot of other radio stations for free, you know. In all seriousness, your stations are not so fabulous. I mean, some of them are interesting. The one with the French music from Québec is nice. The POTUS channel is occasionally intriguing. But it’s hard to figure out all the other weird channels. Why should I even keep this service? It just came with my Infiniti when I bought it three years ago, so I decided to renew it when an invoice arrived in the mail about six months later. But an “invoice fee”? That is truly an affront to my sense of fairness. You should pay the costs for your own billing. I expect you want my email address instead so you can just send me an email invoice. Or even better, you probably want to just have an automatic charge to my credit card every six months so I forget I am even paying for it. Then will I get an “online invoice fee”? And once you get my email address, will you barrage my in-box with a zillion email ads like all the others do? If I am paying for your lousy billing costs, have the decency of not adding it to my bill. Just bundle it into the service payment and don’t tell me I am paying for the invoice. Ignorance is bliss.

Bunnies and Things

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There are no rabbits in my yard. Or at least they don’t make themselves visible, if they are there. Could it be that the coyotes have found them all? My cats have never brought any furry creatures to my front door other than mice who have no long ears. Once I saw what I thought was a rabbit all curled up sleeping in the grass just on the other side of the fence. When it stood and arched its back to stretch, I realized it was no rabbit. It was a bobcat!

So where have all the rabbits gone? It is Easter, after all, and warm, soft bunnies should be hopping around the tall grass, shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they be sidling up next to pink Easter baskets?

There are no eggs, either. The eggs are filled with cholesterol and clogging my arteries. No colored eggs this year. No hiding them behind plants on the deck or pillows on the sofa where they were always easy to find. No hiding. I cannot hide this year. There is no one to find me.

X-Factor

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X-tra careful, mate

She is the X

The mate who may strike

With sharp fangs and claws

 

She is the X

X marks the spot

Where horror and lies abide

And a heart full of pain resides

 

X marks the spot

For life changing ways

To clutter your brain forever

And drive you to the grave

 

For life changing ways

She’ll kill your desire

To function as normal and nice

Amidst the clatter of life’s pain

 

She’ll kill your desire

To have another

Or ever be superman again

If you don’t watch out for her

 

To have another

And you will some day

Life must be good and pure

Honor rule the day

 

To have another

Simply pray

 

–Victoria Emmons, 2013

 

Motherhood

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The first time I saw her eyes, I was mesmerized. There she lay in the arms of another, but my own arms ached to hold her. I was impatient, too impatient to wait a single second more as professionals confiscated her to do their bidding. I could only watch with anticipation, my very corps bleeding and in pain. She was wet and waxy with her brilliant newness and my heart leaped out of my chest onto a pool of pride. Life appeared before my very eyes. A life that felt yet another pair of arms before she could feel my own that had carried the growing seed for what seemed a millennium. The strange man cuddled her and offered a smile. She would remember his voice forever.  He could see my anxiety crest as I fearfully took this new being into my life. I stared into a face that was my very own, a reflection of myself with eyes so alert that a mirror came to mind. I gently stroked her crown covered in a cinnamon softness and touched a perfect silken skin. I breathed in her essence and would remember that scent forever, a scent that would refresh me until the day I die.

La Lune Mangée

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I saw it from my open deck

That shadow ate the moon tonight

Slice by slice, the darkness

Slowly swallowed every bite

 

One star hovered to the west

Another from the northeast

A misty cloud of heavenly fog

Surrounded that cannibal feast

 

And soon the moon looked sad to me

Exposed in that black sky

Like a rubber ball hung by a string

In a universe of blackberry pie

 

 Turned into a 7th grade science project

The moon lost its shine and glow

Destined to win a prized blue ribbon

For achieving Best in Show

 

The stars seemed to protect the orb

Saving it from fate or fame

Until it could once right itself

Wrest away its cloak of shame

 

Tasted an eclipse myself that night

Watching an orgy of the sky

Oreo cookie melted in my mouth

The moon be gone, as was I.

 

–Victoria Emmons, 2014