Month: May 2021

Feral Shadows

/ animar64 / 3 Comments

RDP Monday: VENERABLE

By Martin Lewis

I write about the shadows

that cling to the walls

and hide in the trees

and sneak away from fires and splashes of light

as slow as they want, or in the blink of an eye.

 

I don’t joke about them

I don’t tame them

I don’t try to capture them and bend them

into shapes and words we don’t have to fear

and can control.

 

So I sit at my desk

patiently in the dark, with just a little light to see by

maybe some music to keep me company

just waiting for the door to creak open

and I always hold my breath for the Night’s feral shadows to join me.

The Sleeping Gardener

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RDP Sunday: Gumption

Géza Vörös
“, Red-clad girl with dog”

It is nearly the end of May and Summer hasn’t started yet but if Halloween is as a big of a deal at your blog as it is at mine, you’ve been roughing out and post dating stories and poems for a month now.

In that today I realized that since the end of 2019 most of my days are spent working, wearing a mask, sweating bullets until I was vaccinated and ignoring the drab, gray, and boring world around me.

And I’ve been thinking about ‘ after this ” a lot too.

I also keep thinking I could have done more, but what I wished most of all is that I had planted a garden.

That’s my biggest regret. I didn’t plant a garden.

The reality is I am really, really bad at making living things grow. I did wonderful with herbs, but seriously,  they’re like a lawn and dandelions. They’re going to grow  whether you want them to your not.

I kill pretty flowers and decorative bushes  with serial killer like skills that are on par with Jack The Ripper’s.

I would stand there right next to my victims with my gardening gloves on my hands and a big floppy hat on my head and my Ray Ban Sunglasses protecting my eyes. Mozart would be drifting from my pink CD Player on  my potting bench.

It looked normal, it felt normal. I was normal.

Did anyone ever suspect what I was doing to those poor defenseless roses and Pansies and those other flowers whose names I never learned because what was the point? They never lived long enough for anyone to care what they were.

It’s not like anyone was going to point to their little dried up corpses, point to them and say, ” Ooo, what’s that one called?”

I was just a dumpy faceless lady who wore funny hats and  Ray Bans and spent all day in her garden with a trowel in one hand and nothing in the other because it was usually clenched shut.

I did wave and smile when people strolled by.

I was pretty good at that. You know. Acting normal when the moment demanded.

Still.

With some effort I could stop off at the grocery store on my way home from work and pick up some flowers in those plastic trays. All I would have to do is pop them out and put them into the containers that I keep on hand- hidden in my storage shed like a guilty secret, because they are most certainly evidence of my shady gardening past.

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s the boredom. Maybe it’s because I’ve been locked  up in a gray and dull world. Maybe it’s gotten to me.

But all I can think about now is planting a garden and hunting down the perfect blooms to put in it.

 

 

 

It’s Saturday Night

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

As Rod Serling famously said in the opening of the ” Twilight Zone”

:Pleased to present, for your consideration:

Here are two versions of the same song.

One version is ” Saturday Night ” which was a monster hit for the Bay City Rollers in 1976. I was 12 years old when it came out and that is the reason why, over 40 years later I play the guitar.

I’ve also posted here the same song by Ned’s Atomic Dustbin which was featured in the film ” So I Married an Ax Murderer “.

I actually love both versions of the same song- they both have energy, they certainly both have a lot of Spirit and in both versions you get the sense that you are moving along to somewhere great and that you will be dancing the entire way.

But here is the difference for me.

Had I been 12 when Ned’s Atomic Dustin released Saturday Night, I doubt if I would have pulled out my Dad’s guitar and started taking music lessons because of it.

Ned’s version is cool, it’s a little gritty . It made me want to listen to it, to dance to it but it didn’t invite me to rock along,

Like I said though, I loved both versions and I hope you will enjoy them too,

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night

Gonna keep on dancin’ to the rock and roll
On Saturday night, Saturday night
Dancin’ to the rhythm in our heart and soul
On Saturday night, Saturday night

I-I-I-I just can’t wait
I-I-I-I gotta date

At the good ol’ rock and roll
Folk show, I’ve gotta go
Saturday night, Saturday night
Gonna rock it up, roll it up
Do it all, have a ball
Saturday night, Saturday night

S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night

Gonna dance with my baby till the night is through
On Saturday night, Saturday night
Tell her all the little things I’m gonna do
On Saturday night, Saturday night

I-I-I-I love her so
I-I-I-I’m gonna let her know

At the good ol’ rock and roll
Folk show, I’ve gotta go
Saturday night, Saturday night
Gonna rock it up, roll it up
Do it all, have a ball
Saturday night, Saturday night

S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night

S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night
S-S-S-Saturday night

https://youtu.be/UZNWXlalMPw

How Did Your Work Day Go?

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

RDP Friday: Soon

Arnold Böcklin
Isle of the Dead: “Basel” version, 1880

Back when I worked as a Mortician’s Apprentice, one of my tasks was to drive out to the Doctor’s Offices and pick up the signed death certificates.

I usually didn’t mind.

It was a chance to get out of the office for a little while because Office Politics are everywhere. Even in a funeral home. So I’d grab a book and my list of Offices to stop at  and I would head out, free of having to deal with the living which was always a relief.

I tried to look put out on my way out the door. ” See you in an hour or six ” I’d say.

Every once and awhile the paperwork would be ready and I’d only have to wait for about an hour to get it. On a bad day I’d be there for hours.

One day, I was sitting in reception surrounded by kids with sniffles, adults looking feverish and pregnant women reading copies of Women’s Day with one eye and with their other eye they were looking at copies of Vogue and Mademoiselle on the tables in front of them and on that one day I had already been sitting there for over two hours.

I was bored. This was before we had the internet in the palm of our hands. So all I could do was sit and read.

And plot.

I do that when I’m sitting there with nothing to do and I’ve been sitting there with nothing to do for hours.

I always sat next to the wall the farthest away from the Reception Desk.  I did that on purpose. That way I could only see the back’s of people’s heads. For my own reasons I didn’t want to look at anyone’s faces and I didn’t want anyone to see mine. However, I did make sure to sit in the center of the row so that the receptionist would see me and not forget I was there.

I’m not sure what happened, why on that day for no reason, all of the sudden, just like that…poof. My patience was gone and at that moment, as my Nan would say the Devil took me by my elbow and whispered in my ear.

When the receptionist answered her phone and bent her head down and started to type on her keyboard, I moved up a row and sat in the center seat.

When she was done she looked up and back to where I had been sitting. She saw me and went back to ignoring me.

I went back to pretending like I was reading my book.

I worked my way from row to row sitting in the center seat over the NEXT TWO HOURS until I was due to arrive at the center of the first row.

The receptionist  looked up, smirked Elvis style  at a nice old lady with blue hair. I’m not sure how the nice old lady with blue hair reacted, but the Receptionist looked like she was choking on a chicken bone or something else sharp and uncomfortable.

I waved at the Receptionist and went back to my book.

A few minutes later the Receptionist waved me to the desk. She handed me a folder, but she kept a tight little grip on it. ” You are not funny. ”

I gave the folder a little tug and it slid from her grasp. ” Not in the slightest.”

I think we both expected I would say something grand and snarky like ” See you soon ”

I just told her the truth. ” I’m new at the Home. So you’re probably going to be seeing a lot more of me. They always pass these little chores on to people in my category. I don’t mind though,  you know why?”

Her face said  no and get the Hell out of here.

” I don’t mind because I can practice driving the hearse at the same time and you guys have the nice wide spaces near the front door so-”

” You did not-” she jumped out of her seat and tried to not run out the front door and I walked out the side door to where my Jeep was parked.

I had a nice drive back to work.

The sun was shining and me and the Devil at my elbow sang to Joan Jett all the way there.