The Mag 189

 

Photo credit crilleb50

 

 

RUMINATION

 

The ticking-

the constant ever after ticking.

I sit for this

I sit for that

it weighs one the mind

it bends at the heart

 

of it all, I see no reason

I hear no rhyme.

I do not cherish this passage

of time-

 

after which I know nothing of.

The grass it grows

and flowers and blooms

and goes to seed-

My knees ache

 

all the while I ruminate;

then conjugate things

of despair-

 

things I remember

that brought me here-

those that were painful

and some that were dear.

 

this ticking continues

I suppose that is good-

it's all quite foggy now

like I knew would.  

 

 

 

Michael A. Wells

 

 

 

 The Mag

 





Confession Tuesday - The Delayed Edition

Yes, it's Wednesday and I acknowledge, even confess if you will, that I missed the appropriate day for confession Tuesday. Let's get down to business.

Dear Reader,

It's been Two GI prep bottles, 4 glasses of water, a lot of discomfort, a day of strictly liquid diet, one upper, one lower GI scope, one government shut-down, the last episode of 24 and no acceptances and no rejections since my last confession.

Yesterday was a day if prep for a double GI scope which occurred this morning. It's probably been 10 years since I've done one of these before and I forgot how much I hate the prep for them. First there was the liquid diet. It went exceedingly well till oh about 3:30 yesterday and at that point I was craving  something to eat. I didn't know what I wanted (specifically) but I wanted something besides bullion, Gatorade, or White Grape Juice. I might add it's a real juggle to keep your blood sugar numbers steady on a liquid diet if you're diabetic.

On the way home I stopped to pick up a prescription for my wife and was introduced to rows of Halloween candy on displays. I confess I could  inhale the sweet smell of Candy Corn. I was week at my knees with want for it, but of course I was a good boy.  Throughout the evening there would be other foods to crave but today I still crave Candy Corn.

So I've moved past the prep and procedure and am getting back into the swing of things and will return to office tomorrow. I confess I've looked at my office email and can already tell I have a challenging day ahead.

This week our family  lost another dog. My son's Mastiff named Church died without any kind of warning. My son found him dead and his body was still warm. Church was one of Mike's dogs that I would dog sit from time to time when he was away. Church and Hoss were my writing buddies when I would stay over to sit. Both have passed.

I confess that  I'm still emotionally a bit tinder as a result  of the passing of our own dog Mo recently and the news of Church added to my  broken heart. We are dealing with some health issues for my Dachshund Barry  who has been diagnosed with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency and requires special enzymes added to his food in order to derive nourishment from it. He had lost  lots of weight but is coming back slowly.  It's tough when your pets are getting along in age.

The arrival of October  has been hard to believe. I confess that it  sort of sneaked in under my radar. So three fourths of the year is gone. I can honestly say that I already consider this year one of my best for writing and publishing. I believe much of the success is due to my strict adherence to Submission Saturday.
I've sent out  more material this year them any since I've been doing this and the results clearly tell me that if I get my work out there, it  will find a home.

I confess that I am not ready to put a nail in  2013 yet. I've still got nearly three months for icing on the cake.
Two poems that were recently accepted will appear in print in January so I feel like am already loading the bases for next year. Anyway, I confess that it's nice to feel like something is going right and I am ready to raise the bar for the future.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Church

Sometimes Words Just Won't Do

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. ~Ingrid Bergman

Will Extremes End The GOP Control Of The House?

I'm going to take a little time and a little space here to veer a bit from poetry. I owe this juncture to the likes of Representative John Duncan (R-Tenn) and Representative John Fleming (R-La) in the House and Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (T-TX) who have been hell bent on playing blackmail with the health care of Americans and risking the stability of a fragile American economy.  

The question I have to ask is this... Are the House Republicans about to go the way of the dinosaur?  As easy as it would be for me to say what do I care...  the bigger question is why do these Republicans wish to crash the stability of this nation's economy or play with the health of millions of Americans. These are the two options they are sending to the President. 

I realize that not all Republicans are happy with that extremes have been brought to the table by those who make up the Tea Party members of congress, but the House GOP leaders have failed to show any sign of leadership in this instance. We are talking about members of Congress that should well recall that impact the last government shut down had on their own party.. The obvious is that the Tea Party members of Congress want something that has nothing to do with keeping the government funding and they are willing  to piss on everyone else to get what they want. They really are the Pee Party... and they just want to piss on the Affordable Health Care Act. 

In this weekend's actions the Republican House added these extremes to a straight up and down government funding bill:

• de-fund the Affordable Care Act
• repeal a tax on medical devices that helps finance the health care law until December 15 in order to delay Affordable Health Care Act
• to allow employers to opt out of women's preventative health care coverage including contraceptives

Quite frankly I'm tired of people in government that are acting like spoiled children.If they want to act like spoiled children within the parameters of their own family life that's up to them, but imposing this behavior on the rest of our lives has no place our government. 

The Pee Party Republicans have a one track mind. Stopping "Obamacare" as they like to refer to it. This nation had this debate and it is over. I have been fortunate to have health care coverage for many years now. Delay or repeal is not going to directly impact me,  but I remember the days when my  family and I did not have health coverage. This country has come a long way to get to this point and I seriously am tire of the lies and efforts to stop this from happening. I've heard some members of Congress encourage people not to sign up for coverage. What self-centered assholes. 

Removing Obstacles - September 2013

anticipation contains an element of doubt
they agreed not to shake hands
agreement is good - right?

some will always want failure
act quickly - but not too fast
it seems peace often is left
to some degree of chance

Tuesday Confession on Wednesday

Dear Reader:

It's been 3,657 coughs (more or less) one dysfunctional DVR, another child out of the nest, 2 1/2 boxes of Kleenex, one Minsky's Pizza, another season of 24, and two new light bulbs since my last confession.

I confess that I've driven myself over the edge coughing and blowing my nose this week and very likely others around me at the office as well. I'm so ready for this to be over, especially since I have a GI scope next week and I don't want to have to delay it.

We had Minsky's Pizza tonight. Usually I would really enjoy a Minsky pizza. I confess I was so-so about it tonight. Cathy felt the same. She felt there was not quite enough hamburger on it, I felt it was too limp. I confess I do not care for limp pizza.

If I sound cranky, I might be. I mean feeling crappy has been the order of the day since oh, Friday afternoon. I'm thinking that tomorrow when I get up I am going to disavow this sinus crude. I confess that this approach is an exercise of mind over matter (or mucus) but I'm ready to try a fresh approach... a positive one.

Our DVR is not working tonight. it actually stopped doing what a DVR does yesterday. I need to get to Comcast tomorrow to replace it.( New season of Glee starts tomorrow night.)

I'm looking for a positive charge all-around. I'm coming into the blue season. The time when I often feel down even if I'm not feeling sick. It's time to do a head check and try and move forward with a positive frame of mind no matter how things are going. So here's to a upbeat week ahead!

Weekend Postmortem

Thursday and Friday were especially grueling days at work. As a result I was so looking froward to the weekend to relax and recharge my batteries. But Friday, my work day was so intense I was only vaguely aware how lousy I felt till I arrived home and the rest of the world  stopped moving a warp speed.

Friday evening it became crystalline that I was being held prisoner by a sinus-mucus-drainage-headache-burning chest, loss of appetite thingy that kicked my ass into bed.

Saturday came, more of the same. Lots of fluids, medicine, Kleenex, hacking (I know, we are getting a little too graphic) but my weekend that I needed to be normal was anything but normal.

By Saturday evening I attempted to work on an essay that I had due but my eyes hurt so much that reading was simply too frustrating and I gave up on the essay that was due by 6AM Sunday morning eastern time.
This left me sick and in a bad mood.

Mid-day Sunday I was feeling better but not especially steady or energetic but I ventured out to help load a trailer with varying furnishings of my daughter Shannon and my wife and I drove them to her new house where the two of them mostly unloaded. We returned and a second load was taken over by Shannon and my wife. I again crashed.

Of course the better part of the weekend is over. My eyes are able to read with out adding to a headache and although my nose is now running like a faucet, I am setting up and able to do this post on my laptop. Clearly the weekend is a lost cause and emotionally I will head off to work tomorrow mostly feeling like no weekend ever happened, of if it did it wasn't  one worth remembering.

 Also lost on this weekend was my submission Saturday. I've been so diligent about it for so many months it feels like another something important is unresolved. I suppose I could try and crank out something yet tonight but I really have been giving a lot of thought to these submissions and I don't want to do something half-assed just for the sake of doing it. Perhaps I can do something during the week to catch up.

I'm nursing a 52 ounce diet coke (which is half gone) and thinking I need to stop and do a breathing treatment. Maybe tackle a little reading before I go to bed and see what the world looks like on the other side.