Musings

Happy Hour

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The bowl is empty
No longer filled
Four kinds of chips
Nothing but crumbs

Guacamole with spice
A hint of adventure
Is now all consumed
Along with the laughter

Guitar music plays
Yet no real strings
Save for the bus boy
Who changes CDs

People chatter at the bar
Occupy the soft leather
That coaxes them in
at Happy Hour prices

A man with a smart phone
Awaits a pretty girl
To occupy his time
With sweet perfume

The music plays on
Pretends to be Spain
Portugal or France
Some other place

Ceviche arrives
As a trainee
Sets down a plate
On the covered table

A concierge eyes
The tiny shrimp
To assure they show
Their finest face

The bar is occupied
Lonely souls looking
For conversation and
A hint of worthiness

–Victoria Emmons © 2014

Suburbia

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What do you do in Suburbia
when the sky
turns rain time blue
at 2 in the afternoon

and the wind
blows the moss
horizontal for the first
time in months

and the trees
rub against
each other’s boughs
heralding a storm

and the hard, wet
sounds of rain
hit the asphalt
on your street

What do you do in Suburbia
when you wish
you had an Andrew Wyeth field
to run in, but

all you can see is
a concrete gutter
and 14 neat rectangles
of prescribed lots

when you strain to
hear the thunder
but your neighbor’s
mower drowns you out

and you look to see
sky and Earth touch, but you can’t
because TV antennae and dogs
let out to toilet are in the way

What do you do in Suburbia
wait until the cursed shower
hangs on every leaf
and disguises humankind

–Victoria Emmons © 1979

Rings of Time

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In the middle ring
The oldest of the circular
Bands of time that surround
My life in the kitchen
Lies the center of my world

Lively areas encircle me
Hug the very middle in a
Friendly way that feels calm
And loving, comfortable
Yet in need of a dust mop

Yellow fur balls float
In mid-step on a staircase
Filled with 20 years of
Family ups and downs
To nowhere and everywhere

The middle ring houses
Sizzling salmon or steak
Teacups for a visitor
Books packed with recipes
A loyal sleeping dog

A door swings open to
Tables and chairs awaiting
A friend or someone else
Who cares enough to listen
To my pounding heart

Loud voices fill the next room
Strangers in a digital frame
Tell me to swallow a pill
To cure my heartbreak or
Headache or incontinence

Bottles beckon in a dance
Of red and white and brown
Along the well-stocked bar
An adjoining ring of hope
To splash away worries

Beyond the walls lie the newest
Of the circles, those that tell
A story of love, nature and loss
Under an umbrella of shade
That covers my acre of life

Fear prevents me from scaling
The walls to the outer rings
Unable to risk failure
Or satisfaction,
Worse yet, a grand success

Safety is in the middle ring
Protection under glass
My soul divided must be scorned
Shame hidden deep within
Paralyzes me with laughter

Beg you, come out and play
They always try to coax
Knowing I will refuse
In favor of the inner prison
Where I must live to thrive

–Victoria Emmons, © 2014

A Clash of Old and New

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I am somewhere between the Castro Valley and Bay Fair stations. The BART train schedule is on time today. I have to change to the Richmond line in order to arrive at Oakland City Center-12th Street. There I will find Frank H. Ogawa Plaza and the seminar I am to attend.

I am reading an article in The Atlantic about how women can’t have it all. As I flip to page four of the lengthy article, I look up periodically not wanting to miss my stop. I did that once on another train and woke up to find myself in Livermore. I have learned my lesson.

The magazine article has captured my attention, yet I am semi-distracted by the garbled train announcer telling me something I cannot fully comprehend. I am confident that I can multi-task. I glance out the window for only a second and then my gaze returns to the magazine. I press my pointer finger to move the digital page up for a better view of the next paragraph. Only problem was the magazine was paper.

I smiled to myself.

–Victoria Emmons, © 2014

Destiny

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“I don’t like sleep,” Ken announced when Myrna mentioned that he looked tired.

“Why not?” she asked.

“In sleep, you are losing control over your destiny,” he said.

Myrna’s brow furrowed as she chopped carrots on the kitchen cutting board. “What control do you really have over your destiny?” she countered. “Isn’t that the very definition of destiny? Something over which you have no control?”

He continued to change channels on the television, creating a series of rapid screen shots depicting golf, football or soccer. His thumb moved with confidence as he commanded the machine to locate his favorite shows.

“It happens to you,” she said, competing with the blunt sound of her knife slicing through raw vegetables. “You don’t make it happen. You accept it, manage it, deal with it, maneuver it; but you don’t really control it. Destiny controls you.”

Ken stopped at ESPN to listen to Michigan’s latest football score, then groaned as he changed back to a PGA tournament in midstream.

“You may think you are in control,” she said. “But there are other factions that come into play in life.”

Myrna slipped behind the bar and poured lemon-flavored Grey Goose® Vodka and Vermouth into a shaker, added ice cubes and began to mix. She opened the small refrigerator door under the bar and retrieved a jar of Spanish olives. Two martini glasses filled with dust required washing. She dried them with her starched apron and set them down on the bar. The martini mixture flowed into each goblet. She stabbed six olives onto two skewers and added one skewer to each glass. She carried the martinis over to the coffee table and set them down next to him along with a blue cloth cocktail napkin that he ignored.

“Yes, we make decisions about any number of twists and turns that life presents us,” Myrna continued. “We can choose to go left, turn right or continue straight ahead. But destiny will find us.”

“Damn, that green is a fuckin’ mess,” he said grabbing the stem of the martini glass and taking a sip, never diverting his gaze from the oversized television screen on their wall. “How do they expect those guys to putt on that crap?”

She had told him once in a former decade that he was her destiny. She now had second thoughts.

–From the novel in progress titled “Dinner Party” by Victoria Emmons, © 2014

D-Day

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Paula had warned me they were there. I had my doubts. It had been 15 years since I moved into my house and I had never seen one. She was certain they were hiding out there somewhere. I just hadn’t found any yet. Today was the day.

I was washing the brick barbecue area in my back yard. The sink next to the gas grill was filled with dry, crinkled leaves that were clogging up the drain. It is nearly autumn and my oak trees have begun to discard more of their leaves and twigs. I reached in and pulled out a handful of the debris that had filled the sink. And there they were hiding under the mulch….two medium-sized scorpions each with their claws extended. I had been cleaning this sink with my bare hands. I took a step backward in disbelief. I knew I could not wash the creatures down the drain. I searched for a sturdy twig on the ground, picked it up and began my task. The pair had to be destroyed.

The larger one, the female, was slower since she was carrying her future children. She went first. As she died, she deposited her eggs, a final effort to assure her progeny survived. I felt like a beast. The smaller of the two, the male, fought hard. Even when I thought he was gone, after my sword had crushed his body, his wiggling claws demonstrated his vitality.

I was still uncomfortable about my own safety. I knew a scorpion bite could be very painful and even deadly. Only 30 of the 1,500 species of scorpion can inflict potentially fatal stings. But which 30, I asked? I didn’t have time to look that up before I dealt with these two scorpions that had taken up residence.

Despite the huge variance in our sizes, the scorpions and I battled until the end. The eggs were washed down the drain to their own fate. I snagged the scorpion bodies with my twig and moved them up onto the brick countertop. I needed to reassure myself that they had been properly exterminated. And then I saw a third. He had escaped my sight earlier, hiding along with a medium-sized black spider under the mass of gunk in my sink. This one seemed to move slower than the other two. Yet he was equally as difficult to destroy. All three of the scorpions living in my sink were unaware that today was D-Day. The spider was set free.

—Victoria Emmons, © August 31, 2014

White Horse

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Rescue me, mon ami,
from the debris of life
save me from the
threads that weave
my heart to yours

I need saving now and then
my head is tired and
my body aches for you
to save me some day
on your white horse

I’m not your Fairy Godmother
flying in and out of your life
to save you from yourself
I carry no magic wand
to make it all better

I can only offer one gift
my eternal love for you
wretched soul that you are
so rescue me, mon amour,
save me from myself

–by Victoria Emmons, © 2014

Open Doors for Baudelaire

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BaudelaireI will not be ruled by my cat. No more is he allowed to curl up in the warmth of my lap. No longer is he invited to live under my roof. I brought him home five years ago when he only seven weeks old. The cute, little champagne kitten stood out from the rest of the litter in the cage that day. I only needed one kitten. That’s all. But the volunteer with the pet shelter convinced me I should have a pair. This kitten would need a playmate, she advised.

I have had cats for over half a century. I know all about cats. Or so I thought. I did know the volunteer’s suggestion had merit. Kittens like to play with one another, especially when I am off at work and they would be otherwise all alone. Having a playmate helps keep them from climbing curtains, scratching furniture and other untoward behavior.

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