Painsomnia

A tweaked-up knee, a darkened stair,
a midnight curse, a silent prayer.
You missed the pill, you skipped the dose,
and now painsomnia lingers close.

It takes the stage, demands applause,
ignoring all good sleeping laws.
An encore act you didn't book,
yet there it stands with a knowing look.

So leave the bed. Abandon sleep.

This night's ambitions clearly run deep.
Head to the kitchen, calm and slow,
where fellow insomniacs often go.

Pour up some ice. Pour up some tea.
Negotiate terms with that mutinous knee.
Then grab the AARP, my friend,
a source of wisdom without end.

Forget the phone, the screen, the glare.
An actual magazine waits there!
While others toss and curse the night,
you're being educated outright.

You'll learn of diamond intersections,
and proper seatbelt inspections.
You'll master how a roundabout
can smooth your traffic stresses out.

You'll discover how to safely share.                                                                               narrow lanes with cyclists there.
And, best of all, the crown jewel still:
the proper hand grip/steering-wheel tilt and angle.

Adjust it just so, left and right,
to spare your face in an airbag flight.

Who knew an aching joint could bring,
such useful automotive tutoring?
What started as a swollen knee
became a graduate degree.

I'll leave you here to contemplate
the many steps that age creates:
the pills, the aches, the midnight quests,
the magazines we once called "rests."

Perhaps aging well is not a race
but learning all these things with grace.

 

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

 

Bright Bluets have four 

But Forget-Me-Nots have five 

Petals are the tell.

 

Quaker Ladies form

a tight cross shape and wink.  They

are native stars now.

 

Both have yellow hearts

One bright bloom will eye you up

one will lure you in.

 

The Native Starlet 

is a cousin of coffee.

They love sunny lawns.

 

The foreigner is  

bound to moist and shady banks

Changing color now

 

The dreamy Icon

lush, wild, and packed with folklore

sweeps suitors away.

  

X-Ray Prophets

 X-Ray Prophets

 

These days, you need a machete—

Crocodile Dundee big—

to hack a vein through this jungle of dark.

How does anyone sleep?

Once, young and feral,

I could sleep through thunder,

through houses collapsing in dreams.

Now arthritis tolls its iron bell;

pain sits on the porch with a shotgun.

I turn and turn,

a stranded animal nosing the brush

for one patch of moss,

one warm stone of bliss

inside the swamp-thick doubt

that anything changes.

Maybe it does.

But when strangers climb into my skull

with flashlights and weather maps,

I leave.

No shelter from X-ray prophets

mistaking roots for bones,

blind to the green fire

rising beneath the soil.

The phone hums in my hand

like a tagged hornet.

The zombies know our names,

know the shape of our hunger.

Still, sight is a prescription bottle

with half the label scratched away;

speech, a window breathing itself opaque.

Trust half of seeing,

none of the static.

Believe in a cracked lantern

swinging through rain.

The crow, stitched to the power line.

The thorn, working deeper under the skin.

Pennies dissolving on the tongue

like blood and electricity.

Or the smoke of

black orchids opening

where the dark learns to flower.

 

The Evolution of a Few Words

 The Evolution of a Few Words

Words are slippery little things;
They change their coats and grow new wings.
What once was true may now sound odd—
A prank by language? A gift from God?

Nice once meant a foolish fool,
not someone charming, calm, or cool.
To call you nice in days of yore
was not a compliment at all, for sure.

Explode meant clapping, loud and grand,
a thunderous roar throughout the land.
And loud applause? Well, strangely enough,
meant, “Hook that actor—the show's too rough!”

If something seemed plausible, they'd say,
“It deserves applause!” Hip hip hooray!
Not likely, sensible, or probable—
just clap-worthy and laudable.

A bully once was a darling dear,
a sweetheart you'd hold forever near.
“I love that lovely bully,” they'd coo—
Quite different from what bullies do.

And buxom? Here's a twist to note:
it once meant obedient, not low-cut coats.
A dutiful soul who'd do as told,
before curves and glamour entered the fold.

To disappoint was not heartbreak's sting,
but removing someone from a lofty thing.
To appoint or disappoint—that was the game;

Shakespeare would surely approve the claim.

A fizzle was a modest breeze,
a quiet escape, if you please.
A gentle puff, discreetly sent—
Though sadly, not always odorless in intent.

And luxury? Believe it or not,
it wasn't yachts or a fancy yacht spot.
It meant lust and lechery run amok—
“Foul luxurie!” cried the scandalized flock.

As for popularity, here's the twist:
it wasn't liked on a social list.
It meant democracy's weighty decree—
A political matter in 1546, you see.

So words march onward, year by year,
growing stranger, shifting gear.
Meanings wander, drift, and roam—
No word stays forever at home.

And if you think language should stay one way,
history laughs and says, “No chance today.”

What Doesn't Kill You

What doesn’t kill you

makes you stronger,

wiser,

and strangely qualified to disappear in a third-world country.

But maybe that’s just the deluxe package.

I’ve been part of this experiment since the '90s,

which means statistically

I should have grown a second head by now.

Food was the best scam.

"Feeding the world,"

they said,

while quietly inventing ingredients

that sound like rejected Star Wars characters.

I don't trust food. I don't trust people who pause too long before speaking.

I don't trust people who remember things

that happened three presidents ago

and somehow involve me.

Get a hobby.

Raise a fern.

Learn pottery.

Stop collecting my life like baseball cards.

Meanwhile,

the gun has fired,

and somehow I'm still here. Actually sitting.

Hydrated.

Moderately annoyed.

Which is impressive,

considering I spent thirty-six years

on an island with a f**king maniac.

He was Trump to the Nth degree,

a mathematical impossibility

with opinions.

And guess what?

I'm here.

He's not. What color are your socks?

Mine are red, white, and blue.

Not all red.

Not all blue.

This isn't cable news.

Try to keep up.

I'm talking fifty shades of survival.

One step ahead of the bread line.

One step ahead of dehydration.

One step ahead of becoming a true-crime podcast episode.

And if they ever find me dead in my car

with the AC blasting

and the engine running,

they'll shake their heads and say:

"Damn.

She was a tough one."

Because she had a mission.

A plan.

An attitude problem.

And absolutely no intention

of letting reality

have the last word.

 

On This Day in History

 On This Day in History

 

On June 10, 1963—
They signed a promise.

Called it the Equal Pay Act.
Set it down inside the Fair Labor Standards Act like a vow:

same skill.
same effort.
same responsibility.
same work.
same pay.

Simple as a heartbeat.
Simple as it should have been
all along.

But a law is not a miracle.
A signature is not a sunrise.

Ink dries fast.
Bias does not.

So the promise left Washington
and ran headfirst into offices,
classrooms,
hospital halls,
shop floors—

into every place
where a woman was asked
to do the same work
for less money,
less credit,
less room to breathe.

And still we ask—
equal where?
equal when?
equal for who?

Because a gap is never just a gap.

It is groceries.
Three months of them.
\$3,291 worth of eggs and apples
and something green for the table.

It is child care.
Three months.
\$3,282 worth of safe hands
and watched-over hours.

It is rent.
Three months.
\$4,461 worth of a key,
a lamp,
a door that locks.

It is family health insurance—\$1,804.
It is student loans.
It is gas in the tank.

It is one more bill saying:
choose.
Choose what gets paid.
Choose what waits.
Choose what part of your life
can afford to fall behind.

So no—
this is not just history.
This is not a date to circle
and congratulate.

This is a promise
still standing in the doorway,
still asking to be let
all the way in.

The law said equal in 1963.
The paycheck still says:
not always.

So let this be more than remembrance.
Let it be rhythm.
Let it be witnessed.

Let it be a chorus
loud enough to carry
from one generation to the next:

same work.
same worth.
same pay.

Until equal is not an echo,
not an anniversary,
not a line in a history book—

but a fact.
but a habit.
but the way this country
finally learns to sing.

Time To Take Off The Blinders

Yesterday, I watched
Substack news podcasts
and learned why ignorance feels like bliss.

I learned more about Trump
and the corruption
spilling from the Oval Office.
The scale of it—
the offenses,
the grift,
the deception—
stretched farther than I'd imagined.

Independent journalists
did the brutal work,
dragging truth from the shadows
and forcing it into the light.

For hours, I tried to make sense
of what I was seeing:
enough to send followers reeling,
enough to make the end of days
feel close at hand.

Fresh out of pardons,
no one seems untouchable,
and even silence feels complicit.

Interview after interview,
the lies piled higher,
the distractions grew louder,
and the cost of ignorance
became impossible to ignore.

The blinders are off now.
Like a horse seeing beyond
the narrow path for the first time,
I can't unsee the widening horizon—
or the cliff edge ahead.