Stop Playing With Your Food



“Stop playing with your food,” Mom said between clenched teeth.

A million times I heard this, at least.

Pushing food around on my plate, making mountains out of mashed potatoes, slippery with gravy along the roads to the top, spilling aimlessly, growing colder on the spot........

“Stop playing with your food.”

I nicked the top of the mountain, as I obediently scooped a forkful, shoving this wallpaper paste and slimy congealed glue into my mouth.

I glanced at the green beans sitting on my plate, cold and neglected, quietly minding their own business.  As if reading my mind, mom reminded me to eat my vegetables.  Ah, green beans, Lincoln Logs, if I could just prop a few up against the side of this mountain, shoring the river of gravy so I could pour more onto the top, I watched the flow snake between the little logs.  I’ll have to figure out another way to stop that current, a lake is forming in the middle of my plate.

“Stop playing with your food.” 

I picked up a green bean with my fingers, propelled it into my mouth while holding my fork in my other hand, tines useless against the leak the log revealed.  Mom shook her head, and put a bit of salad on my plate.  Her face said, “I’ve failed as a mother.”

I guess cold salad will blend nicely with the rest of my cold food.  But by then I had no interest in eating, I would rather play with my food.

I saw a lettuce leaf become a boat.

A radish, a baby toad.

I pushed them around on the lake, and laughed to see them float.

“Stop playing with your food or no dessert for you.”  Mom said as she brought out a strawberry pie she'd made that morning.

I put down my fork.

I couldn’t eat another bite.

How could I eat a mountain? 

How could I eat a road? 

How could I eat a river, a lake, a boat or a toad? 

How could I tell my mother.....your pie looks like a mound of coagulated blood? 

I was lost to this world of make believe, with gravy the color of mud.

The Wind Whispers

~From my journal – VW – June 11, 2008~
A tribute to Virginia Woolf - I'll remember her always.  She was bigger than life, and only a moment in time separated her life from death.  She takes wing, and lives.

Quietly, softly, pulses the air

I hear it, I feel it

Knowing you are there

In a whisper, in a sigh

In the wind, I hear you cry

In a song, in a breeze

In my arms, you are free

Quietly, softly, you swim out alone

You stagger, you fall 

Moments have flown

I hold you in the air

You go, you are there

To be young, to be old

We are two, it is cold

Quietly, softly, you breathe not a word

You sleep, you dream

Murmurs are heard

Catching the wind, and capture the crests

Sealed to its folds, as nurturing breasts

Fly away fast

Fly away now

Fly to the air

To be found
Somehow

Winds will whisper

Your name will sing

Then sail away

On a gulls white wing

To The Lighthouse

Virginia remembered

Blues solid blues

By day

And into the night

Reds solid reds

Setting suns

Towards Beacons

Solid lights

Flashing lights

Fortress solid fortress

Formidable might

Shines the mistress

Through

Becomes

    Waves crashing waves

                  Shells tossing to creatures

Becomes

Wavering quivers a beacon

Flashing and signaling

Buffeting braving storms

Becomes

Pitches and screams

Sounds of the sea

Dodging within buffeting

Becomes

Cracking the seams

Thunderous stabs

Pounding water

Treacherous

Threatening breaks

Exposed pitched calls

Blows upon blows

Salt upon salt

Taste upon taste

Signals to ship

Tight against storm

Signals away
Becomes                             

Beacons by night

beauty

by day

becomes

The Waves

To The Lighthouse

Through The Years

The picket fence

new

waiting

to be touched

The picket fence

grayed

weathered

endures

The picket fence leans on its side

worn yet strong

hold on to the picket fence

I will walk near you

lie down beside you

I am yours

She Was Loved

   

     I saw a butterfly today. I saw her fly into the wind, catching the current, and then swiftly soar into the breadth and sounds of air.  She was grand, and regal, and elegant, clad in her color of wings so fair. 

     She was beautiful.  She was my daughter.

     I watched her fly all through the day.  I saw her land, amongst the trees. I saw her hover above our heads.  She was watching, and waiting, and hearing, listening to what was said. 

     She flew with the butterflies, today, but she was more than the Swallowtails in their flight, she was there, knowing she was loved.  She was more, today.

     She was silently giving back to all who watched, tonight.

     She was beautiful.  She was my daughter. 

     She took flight.

Megan remembered

THE CLAMBOR OF BELLS and The Jingle In My Head

What can I say when I hear the peal of bells in my head, sending me off into a field of stampeding thoughts?  HELP!  Not a horse in sight, just thoughts running amuck – running sideways, backwards, running head on into each other.  That’s what I’m feeling at this moment.  I’ve just run amuck, along side every other writer who can taste the finish line.

Who will finish their assignment without ripping out every last brain cell that ever managed to think a coherent thought, then sending an innocent into the brink of disaster, including oneself? 

I’ve never been in a stampede of horses, much less in a writing frenzy.  I hear those distant bells approaching, but I have no idea whether they’ll be ringing in the new year for me, or tolling out the old year; taking with it my new baby, laying prone at the bottom of the muddy field.

I can see it now, mud-covered limbs flailing haphazardly.  Those are mine. Did I dot the “i”?  Did I cross the “t”?  The comma splice somehow mysteriously snuck in - and heaven forbid I should loose my frame of reference.  Where’s the body of the text, the beginning, the middle, the end? Blast! I think it was stomped down into the muddy mess which was to become my new year’s resolution for a manuscript.

Clanging again, my life is a never ending toll of a bell, just short of that congested field we call writing; all hoping for a mixed metaphor, coming vaguely close enough to call it creative.  Forget the horses; forget the public and the mud-splattered field of vision, just look at that clean spot on the end of your nose; and you say, “What clean spot?  I’m sure there must be one someplace.”  I grab for the Kleenex box, whip out a tissue and smear the mud to one side. Ah, that’s better.  Straight ahead I stare, trying to hold focus, driving full speed until my eyes are crossed and those brain cells are threadbare.

The clanging finally starts to subside.  A new calm takes its place…The saddle is off....Focus, focus, focus - My new year resolution is met with a word, finished.

An Introduction to An Artist

Is whatever I write a work of fiction?  Are names, characters, places and incidents the production of this author's imagination or used fictitiously?  Are resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales entirely coincidental?  Maybe all misspelled or misplaced words are intentional, with the sanction of Freud.

It's always fun to take what comes off the top of my head, and throw it down into print.  Some of what I write is the truth, some not.  Some of it is my way of using fiction to translate the truth, as I know it.  Any way you view it, it’s who I am.  Give me a word today, and I'll run a mile with it tomorrow. 

Prosetry is a combination of prose and poetry, coined for me by my friend and wonderful writer Harlee Lassiter.

Whether prose, or poetry, this is my love affair with words.