Ferry Man

I would envy you, Ferry Woman, were emotions allowed;

but I agreed, as did thee, to set them all aside –

how else can you nurture the cleansing,

the engendering of yearning’s fulfillment,

that you provide on the journey to the Isle?

In simple life and fond brief Attention

you were of creation – always woman,

and in shadow’s passing could not let it go –

so now you row that others can know

of living now – beyond regrets.

“For future hope can be molded

by faith and action and love,

and the silver kiss of moonlight

that divinely touches the soul,”

as I have heard you sing from lonely.

Not so I …

the one who idles on the distant shore

in faint hope of a questing call

from an ancestor folding back to when –

a returning by choice of surrendered soul

to assist those few who hear the song.

I do not row nor pole nor sail,

but pull on the silver thread fair tossed

by the Watcher ready to come home –

as one returns and one departs in tune;

and I am but the FerryMan,

bound by neither shore,

but for all of that,

of creation too.

papa

Taking Sides – Beetle Bug

Prompt: murderous self/true creative self
Question: “What is your problem with me?”
__________________________________________
Taking Sides…
Silly woman why has it taken so long for you to realize it is so elementary, ie a case of left vs right brain vying for your soul?
A case of stuffing a right brained mind into a left brain mold….not a bad job either, but all the stuff oozing out around the edges is your essence, poor thing!
Why were you so intent on such disfigurement? Perhaps dear child of the 50’s a revolt against the traditional Ozzie and Harriet life mapped out for you? Ah, an iconoclast out to defile the sexist tradition…perhaps.
Or was it purely monitory? Musicians, artists and poets surely are devalued in their worth…. No?
You thought you could discover the secrets of the universe among the cliffs of hard science, the ‘raison d’etra’?
A bit presumptuous don’cha think?
Climb down from your ivory tower and learn who you truly are.
Relinquish all the self-delusional squabbling over the tattered shards of true self.
Perhaps you have already lost the courage to step into the other hemisphere…however, the gauntlet has been cast down!
BBCM

Dark Thoughts

There it was again, that great slurping sound. My annoyance with the great git in the Lazyboy amplified the sound in my head a thousand times. It was unbearable. He motioned by tapping the side of his coffee cup that he wanted more. He hadn’t actually asked for another cup verbally in years. I might as well be a coffee table.

I looked at him from the kitchen and wondered what on earth he was thinking. He had a sort of smug self-satisfaction plastered on his fat face. The look was almost perverse, dirty, or perhaps those were the memories of last night. Just imagine that great heap in the middle of a hot and sticky night suddenly being”in the mood”. Luckily it never lasted long or I would have died of suffocation long ago. As soon as he was done I showered for nearly and hour, trying to get him off and out of me.

That was him, the once great love of my life. He sighed with great satisfaction after having relieved himself of another round of particularly pungent flatulence. I hated him. I had hated him a very long time now, it had grown ever so much worse when the kids were grown. There was nothing to take attention away from just the fact of living with him, his habits, mostly just him.

It did no good to remember how I had once loved him. if anything it made it worse. He had taken beauty and trampled it to bits. Love was now a dung pile, and I had to find contentment in living in it? That great swine of course, was happy living like this. why not his coffee was served him, his clothes washed and his baser urges satisfied. My soul was screaming for liberation. I had thought of dumping the coffee on him “oops”, but feared the back of his hand, his piggy piggy hand. So I set it down, picked up my book on poisons from the table, and sat next to the window reading, learning, plotting.

aletta mes

Running with Anita Marie’s quote….SoulSister

Quote of the Day:

‘’A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for’’.

Grace Murray Hopper

‘’I don’t know Mary, but it seems to me like these people could do with a little bit of livening up. Soul searching is all fine and dandy, but it seems like they are hitting deep, inner waters, and we can’t have them drowning in their own depths, now can we?’’ Ha,ha,ha!!

‘’Mmmm, you could have a point there now Bridie. What would Brigit do if she were here?’’

‘’St. Bridgit of Kildare, or Brigit the ancient Irish goddess?’’

‘’Ah go on now, sure they’re one and the same, and you know it! Stop the messing. This is real serious now.’’

‘’Yeah, yeah, that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s gotten too serious. Well, you know, one of them gals quoted Grace Murray Hopper and that put me in mind of me old pal Grace O’Malley, or Granualie as she preferred to be known, the Irish pirate queen. Now she sure liked a good storm on the sea, even if she had to make it herself!’’ Ha, ha, ha!

‘’So how are we going to get them back out from their comfy rooms and on to the ships?’’

‘’Let’s lure everyone on to the biggest ship, The Devil’s Advocate, and then set sail.’’

‘’OK round up the girls and tell them to start their whisperings so our guests all begin to think about the same thing at the same time.’’

‘’Isn’t it gas how they talk about getting their ideas on the wind? If only they knew it were true!’’ Ha, ha, ha!

That night is a wild windy night, and all the visitors to the island are feeling restless and fidgety. Nobody knows quite what’s wrong with them. When they meet up later for dinner, they have a heavy discussion about how difficult it can be to keep going on a soul’s journey to the centre of their being. One of the group, faucon, suggests that what everyone needs is some air, literally a breathing space. Anita Marie runs with the idea and asks Heather if they could somehow get the Ferrywomen to take them all out on the morrow for a trip around the Bay. Meanwhile the Ferrywomen laugh raucously with the ravens overhead, anticipating the fun on the morrow.

What strange and unexplainable occurrences happen out on the sea the next day?

In Search of The Ultimate Empyrean Cackleberry

By 

Anita Marie Moscoso

If you can’t sing good, sing loud-

Winston Groom

This piece was inspired by those posts where people have written in and said that they don’t feel like their writing would ‘fit’ with the ‘theme’ of the Café Blogs.

Well, I was the original Square Peg here at the Café and I just hung and around and kept doing what I do when lo and behold people got use to me… I guess.

So I took Winston Groom’s advice, I couldn’t ’sing’ so I sang loud.

amm

                                          

In an ocean of emptiness a lone Cackleberry floats passed me and I think to myself “ that’s nice.” It’s pretty boring right now. Plus it doesn’t take much to amuse me. You should see my desk toys. My favorite toy is a pair of  wind-up walking feet.

I’ve painted the toenails pink and drew hair on the toes.

Poor old Cackleberry.

So, it doesn’t look like much from where I am. It doesn’t look like it has much promise at all.  Poor old Cackleberry I think to myself.

I could name it, I guess. I could lift it up and give it a home. But, who’d care? I’ll bet that if you set it next to a bunch of other cackleberries and held a contest it’d be out because it would be too small or look, it has bumps and God, what is that?

It’s even the wrong color!

Oh great, I could lift it up, dry it off, bring it to my friends and say, “ see what I found?”

Then they’d all look at me and smile, but it wouldn’t be a real smile. It’d be that smile that you see Psychiatrists give to someone before they whip the straight jacket out from under their desk.

Let it go, I say to myself…we don’t need that.

It would be best to let it go, I tell myself. I’ll just sit here and wait for the Ultimate Empyrean Cackleberry to just come my way on a tide of pure inspiration.

Sure it’ll happen…all by itself…all I have to do is wait for it.

And then in a flash my true nature appears…it comes out in high definition graphics and surround sound and it screams into my ear, “ Anita, what the hell are you doing? Get off your backside and pull that thing in. What the Hell is the matter with you? There could be ANYTHING in that Cackleberry. Anything! So will you move before it gets away?

I wade in and here I am standing up to my err, hips in goo. I reach down and pluck my imperfect Cackleberry up. In clear view of my TRUE NATURE I wipe the cackleberry off on my shirttail and wade back up to shore with it.

On my way up back up to the shore I name it Fang.

I knew a boy named Fang when I was a kid.

Fang’s adult eyeteeth came in looking like Fangs and his parents wanted him to go to the Dentist and have them filed down and capped.

He refused.

Fang was a great guy, he ran his car into the back of a truck when he was about 20 and died.

I make it back to shore with Fang in the palm of my hand and I’m feeling pleased with the both of us when I slip and fall backwards.

I hear Fang hit the ground and then I hear a crunch.

It takes me awhile but I find as much of Fang as I can and I make it back to shore with what I’ve got and then I do what I do.

 Write.

Ferry Woman Series

Lost in Reverie
by Heather Blakey

I am the
Ferry Woman
Ferrying those
who
want to journey
the interior regions
of the psyche

I am the
Ferry Woman
I listen
Hear
See
Comfort
Support
Pass no judgement

I am
the Ferrywoman
who need
say little
For ultimately
each voyager
each heroine
must experience
their own journey .

I am simply
a companion
One who has been
one who knows the way.

Home Away From Home – Ashley Shea

I’ve taken so many journeys in my life. Some have ended at glorious pools of refreshing cool water. Others have kept me running in circles never to find an end. The ones I find most enjoyable are those that take me on a spiral path. With each turn I have the opportunity to gleen wisdom from past experiences and use that wisdom to face what’s ahead of me.

One particular journey was very disconcerting. It ended at a dimly-lit crossroad. There I stood in the middle of the intersection, barely seeing the roads before me, not knowing which path to take. I stood there for years. I was afraid to take any particular path and it be the Wrong path. It wasn’t until after I made a choice that I realized that no path is ever the Wrong path. There’s always something to learn down every lane.

This latest journey, starting here in Duwamish Bay, feels different from my other travels. I am scattered, chaotic, anxious, ungrounded, and uncentered, oh, and a little lost, too. I feel almost as I did at that crossroad so many years ago.

I’ve settled myself at the Duwamish Inn. I haven’t gone out to meet the rest of the travelers who are obviously enjoying each others company. A smile is brought to my face just by hearing the song of their infectious laughter. I’m not ready to step out into the group. I feel mussed up….on the inside.

For now, I’ll listen to the laughter and excited chatter. I’ll let it wash over me, bringing calmness as I catch my breath and settle in.

Breakfast and the Sin of Ommision – Aletta Mes

It made my every hair stand on end to listen to him babble on and on about this sport event and that. He never looked up, made eye contact. I made eye contact only with the endless rivulet of bacon grease running down the side of his ruddy, flabby cheek. He reeked of sleep on a hot summer’s night. He would reek worse tonight. I’d stopped suggesting showers to him, he would bark what an unnecessary use of water it was, and he smelled fine. I concluded he’d lost his sense of smell long ago. He choked on the slice of bacon his stubby fingers were stuffing into his still speaking mouth.

I stood behind him. Waiting. He continued to choke, and I stood motionless except for my eyes which were raised to heaven, pleading for mercy. I could have used the Heimlich manoeuvre. I had done it before. He was bobbing up and down in his chair, his arms were flailing, he was making the most awful screeching sounds. How long, I wondered, before it was over?

Then suddenly it was over. the offending bit of bacon sailed clear across the kitchen, hit the refrigerator door and slid silently to the floor. He reached for a new strip of bacon. I had committed a sin of omission, but could not feel a shred of guilt.

Walking in Dark Thoughts – Aletta Mes

Angry does not begin to describe what I was feeling. He sickened me, utterly. I hated the smell of him, the sight of him, the sound of his body dropping forcefully into his “slackass” model Lazyboy, like a sack of wet manure. For an entire week I’d slept with the knife under my pillow, just working my way up to using it. If his fat sweaty fingers touched me just once more, I swear…Ahh, sleep, comfort. Maybe tomorrow.