Hello Neighbors! Poem: Silence - Will I Die of Heatstroke if published by Adelaide magazine

Something vaguely awful was perched below the window sill. First I thought it was a hole in the wall. Yes, that happened a dozen years ago when carpenter bees worked their way into my house.

Exterminators were here but they were slow, so quickly I grabbed a manila folder and blocked their entry, and then Scotch-taped them out.

  Was reading BECOMING in bed. I've gotta get to page 50, I thought, and then I can go to sleep.

What a remarkable book. I like that the book is not by Michelle Obama WITH... know what I mean?

Went to bed listening to WXPN. Music I'd never heard before and wonderful. I lay there and let it sift thru my mind.

Much of Obama's book reminded me of other things in my life. I kept drifting back to when I lived in San Francisco. I was free from my family, though I did work as a secretary, always a favorite job.

Here's a few things I shared with New Directions.

Think twice about Kidney Dialysis.

Loud noises are bad for your health.

Our writing group liked my short story for Pure Slush. I called it Finding Mailman Dante. I have until April to submit it. That's the worst part! Following directions.

My new friend Margie said she liked this story better than The Great Photographer.

The Great Photographer?

Couldn't remember it!

Ah, there it was on my upstairs computer.

I'm on my downstairs laptop now and will leave for Second Home for the Elderly at about 10, windshield wipers wailing in the light rain.




Am always worried about finding a parking space.

There are several businesses there. Whenever I pull up and round the bend toward the parking spaces a woman is outside smoking. She never looks up.

Marlene will pick me up tonight for the Valley Forge writers group, held right here in Willow Grove.

Have an idea of what to write about. My former BF Curtis B, or an older woman who refuses to go outside.

Will think of a poem right now. It's President's Day, no mail.

Ed Q liked a poem I wrote about silence. Can't remember it, so lemme write anudder one.

SILENCE

A lamp with a long stalk leading up to the light
A rock from Helene's garden
A clay figure of a Buddha
The Lavender Lady, slender arms at rest
Man and Woman from Belgium looking straight out
Ralph Nelms' Mama and Baby Stork
Hut made of Red Clay

Nothing is what they hear.
Nothing is what they say.

I have yet to use my voice
this morning, though I hear
the tap tap tapping of
my laptop keys. 




Stevan from Adelaide Magazine sent me an email that my true story, WILL I DIE OF HEATSTROKE was just published.

It was rejected by Bella Mused Online. Once I was a favorite of Lisa Shea and published nearly everything I wrote.

Now, she spits me out like a piece of used chewing gum.