30 Days of Haiga 2022: The House of Dark Dreams

 

Original image

Murmuration by Lee Madgwick

Used with permission of the artist

text

my favorite tales

born in the house of dark dreams

conceived in shadow

notes

I'm grateful for today's prompt from D'Verse Poets, which provided me with the amazing artwork used to create the Haiga.

https://dversepoets.com/2022/09/13/the-strange-houses-of-lee-madgwick/

I'm okay with you using the Haiga if you wish, but you will have to credit both me (Cara Hartley/Ornery Owl) for the digital manipulation, text art, and poem and the original image creator Lee Madgwick. For me, a link back to this blog is acceptable. Here is a link to Mr. Madgwick's website. https://leemadgwick.co.uk/

I used Pixlr.com to create the text art and the decaying effects used on the image.

I've got a few thoughts, but nobody is beholden to stick around for them.

This day started badly. One reason it's hard for people with psychological issues to maintain relationships is that prospective partners think they can fix us, but when depression or anxiety flares up (or never completely leaves) said partner becomes put out that they have not, in fact, fixed us. The trauma that led to my multiple nervous breakdowns occurred 25, 30, 40, or even 50 years ago. I should be over it, especially if I received the wondrous healing love that we're all taught to expect will totally happen if we're worthy of it, right?

I don't have a partner and I won't again. I no longer see this as a failing on my part or see myself as a failure because I just don't do romance right. I am just learning at nearly 60 years old to respect and care for myself. That it is necessary to be coupled to be a complete human being is an erroneous idea that does many people a great disservice. Some of us truly are better off without it.

I also found myself yet again explaining to some know-it-all who totally understands how metabolic health and issues like poverty, stress, and food insecurity work (bask in the sarcasm, I've slathered it on with a trowel) that a "war on Teh Obeesiteee" in which individuals are shamed for their physique and assumed to be constantly shoveling "bad food" into their gobs and never lifting a finger to do anything but play video games is not only ineffective but harmful.

After that, I was just tired and discouraged. Sometimes I tire of explaining reality to dimwits, especially dimwits who want to keep on feeling morally superior for their simple-minded stance on complex issues. I also caught (probably) a cold last week. So I took a nap.

I still felt bad about myself when I woke up from my nap, but as I worked on today's Haiga challenge, I started feeling better. Then I was able to remember something I already know.

Fat is not the worst thing a person can be.

However, being a sanctimonious jerk who shames other people's bodies is bone-headed and boorish.

I'd rather be fat than a boorish bonehead.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Ornery Owl

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

Hangin' with Hangry Wyrm

If you're Hangry--eat!

Free use image from Pixabay

NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 14 + April PAD Challenge 2020 Day 14: Your Legacy

Image by Barbara Bonanno from Pixabay

I

am not

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the legacy that you created

I am your Frankenstein monster

built from the things

that made your life

worth living

I am a

twisted

sorry

awful

mockery

a failure

of a person

I am not 

what you hoped

but I am, nonetheless

the gifts you gave me

~cie~

NaPoWriMo: write a poem about the people who inspired you to write poems

April PAD Challenge: write a form poem

notes

I think the shape above is a chess pawn. It started out as a simple diamante but turned into what you see. It is what it is.

This poem addresses my late father. He was a professor of literature and humanities who also taught technical writing. I was a precocious little skidmark who learned to read and write by the time I was four years old. I think my father believed that this prodigious spark meant that I was destined for greatness. He read poetry to me. I started reading Edgar Allan Poe's works when I was six years old.

My father wound up tremendously disappointed in me. I was a fuckup who could never do anything right and I had a slew of psychological problems. I was singled out and abused by my peers. I married too young. I had one abusive relationship after another. I engaged in self-harm. Possibly, worst of all, between a fucked endocrine system and years of yo-yo dieting, I ended up fat. My father believed that being fat was a sign of failure. He always went to great lengths to prevent himself from being fat. He ran six miles a day for many years. However, his vascular system was a disaster. He had a major hemorrhagic stroke at 68 years old. At the time of his death at age 74, he had suffered several more strokes, had congestive heart failure and vascular dementia, and was confined to a wheelchair.

If anyone's first inclination is to tell me "cHeEr Up, U cAn StiLLL LUz3 tEh WaTeZ!!111!!!" my suggestion to you is to check the ever-loving fuck out of yourself. Preferably on ice during a hockey game. I tried to hate myself thin for 33 years. With my endocrine problems, it is highly unlikely that I will ever be thin unless I do what my great-grandmother did. She developed acute myelogenous leukemia, dropped from 300 pounds to 95 in the space of a year, and dropped dead. But hey, she cut a svelte figure in her coffin, and, apparently, that's the only fucking thing that counts. Never mind that she was now, you know, DEAD.

In any case, I'm not going to waste another goddamn minute of my time trying to hate myself into the body that other people think I'm supposed to have. Thirty-three years of that shit is long enough. People who think I, or anyone else should do that, can slam down a hot, steaming cup of STFU, read the following fine books, and fuck off forever. Or if you're not a brainwashed, narrow-minded asswipe and you simply think: "say, those books look like they have some good information," you can read them while drinking what you want and omit the fucking off part. I'd think that was pretty cool.

Sly Speaks + Fat Friday + Friday Flashback: Diet Culture Rhetoric Is Not Poetry

This poignant gem was originally published on 17 January 2010 on my now-retired poetry blog.

life It would be far easier to diet if I didn't like food.

This, apparently, was the entire-ass poem.

A year later, I would finally take the long-needed step of ditching diet culture for good.

That is a terrible statement, let alone being a terrible poem. 

It isn't even a poem, it's a blurb. A very stupid and brainwashed blurb. It's a tweet that shouldn't have been tweeted. It is a lot of things, none of them good. A poem it is not. 

The Chili Bean Tanka is a better poem, and it is not a good poem. In fact, it is close to Vogon poetry in its poetic injustice.

It goes a little bit something like this.

I ate the chili

between the beans and the spice

digestive horror

beneath the cover of night

noxious eruptions take place

As I mentioned previously, I struggled over the holidays. My abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) reared his ugly head and I relapsed into my old restrictive eating and self-loathing patterns. Which, by the way, never made me thin, they just fucked my metabolism over and made me hate myself even more. 

However, reading this micro-poem that should not be, I could see where I'd been myopic in my criticism of a poet whose book I reviewed recently. I gave the book overall high praise, but I stated that her "poem" which read as follows, and I quote:

love ends but calories are forever

was not so much a poem as unfortunate diet culture rhetoric, and I wouldn't want to read it as a tweet, let alone in a book of poetry.

Given the unseemly evidence above, that critique was hypocritical of me.

However, there is a lesson to be learned.

Next time you think publishing a pithy pearl of poignant perspicacity such as this...

Go to the kitchen and grab yourself a snack. Or at least have something to drink. Your blood sugar may be low because if you think that's worth publishing, you obviously haven't been thinking clearly. Step out for a breath of air and clear your head of the Diet Culture nonsense. You've obviously bitten off more of it than you can chew.

That being said, Words Written in the Dark is, overall, a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume of modern poetry, and I recommend it highly.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Ornery Literary Services

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 10: Tyranny of Perfection

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

so I got to thinking

what if Death 

isn't a grim dude in a black hood

but is instead

an annoyingly perfect and perfectionistic

aerobics instructor

who chirps at you

that it's time to do your cardi-oh-oh

and when you do those leg lifts

you've gotta squeeze those glutes

because if you don't squeeze 'em

no-one else will

and I kind of got to thinking

what if I don't want my life

to revolve around whether or not

some dudebro wants to

play grab-ass with me

and then that chipper death

chirped at me that I

need to mind my carbs and calories

because fat is the very worst thing

that a person can possibly be

and then I got to thinking

that maybe that's not true

that in fact the worst thing a person

can possibly be

is a sanctimonious twat

who refuses to respect

other people's lives and conditions and preferences

and bodily autonomy

and who really can just fuck off

and then I got to wondering 

if maybe that's the way Death works

is by annoying people to death

by making them fight all day every day

with vicious inner voices

that tell them they're no good

because they have dimpled thighs

or chunky butts

or saggy boobs

or tummy rolls

or they just aren't perky-werky enough

and then I got to thinking 

that maybe what happens

is people get tired 

of hearing Death's annoying voice

bleating at them to get up and at 'em

because nobody who isn't perfect

deserves to have a life

and so they smash the snooze bar

on their internal clock

one too many times

in an attempt to shut the annoying bitch up

once and for all

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge asked for a (blank) of (blank) poem. I initially went with "hands of time," which is how I found the image of the perky aerobics instructor looking lady with her watch. I started thinking about all the years and time and money I spent trying to hate myself thin, and it really pissed me off that the message people (especially women) are sent from the moment we draw breath isn't "take care of yourself because you are worthwhile regardless of your size or looks," it's "if you girls aren't thin and pretty in a very specific way, you are garbage and don't deserve happiness." 

So, I changed the title of my poem to Tyranny of Perfection and wrote about what it feels like to fight with the hateful internal dialogue that has been crammed down my throat for as long as I can remember. It would be nice to be able to just BE, without having to fight with these horrible messages from the cradle to the grave. Doing so is the biggest fucking waste of time and a waste of a perfectly good life too.

Hungry For More

Writing Prompt and Image Source

Hungry For More

I know this is the proper portion

Of tasty, healthy food

Which should be enough

To satisfy my body’s need

But I’m hungry for more

I need sweetness

Not just icing

But the whole cake

A little lovely substance

But not too much propriety

I’m sick of obedience

To rules I didn’t choose

Meat is good and vegetables fine

But what about a little wine

I crave a morsel of decadence

My need lies sweet on the tip of my tongue

My mouth waters for what I truly crave

The unspoken

Forbidden

Excruciating desire

For something I can never taste

~Cie~

The Prompt:

Light and Shade Challenge