Tempest

I googled "tempest in a teapot" and liked this best,
on another blog: http://zaetsch.blogspot.com. Didn't read
it, so I don't know if I agree or not. But I liked the graphic.

Tempest in a teapot,
much ado about, well, nothing
much of any consequence to
me, at least, or anyone I know.
But I suppose it matters much
to others somewhere, so it
should be something I have
researched to the point that I
can offer an opinion, if I'm asked.
Or not. The people who'd agree
with me don't need my hand
to pat them on the back and those
who wouldn't, well, their minds
are set, and have been set, in concrete
for much longer than they realize.
Why should I bloody my own brow
to beat against them now? The
unconvinced don't really care,
and those who are will rarely change,
and never (I've observed) because
I took the two cents from my pocket
and threw them in the air.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Flashing Lights

The rain came down in sheets, so heavy
that the cars no longer sped but crawled,
emergency lights flashing "Look at me!"
People sometimes do that too, though
we cannot see the rainstorms they are in
within their atmospheres, the darkness
of the clouds surrounding who they really
are. We only see the desperation in their eyes,
flamboyance of an affectation or an outfit,
bizarre behavior, smacking gum
or speaking loudly, all the ways they call
attention to themselves. How can we know
if their respective lights are flashing, calling
us like moths to pay attention, or perhaps
prevent our nearness altogether, launch
a strike preemptively, avoid colliding,
keep us back, protect us from themselves?
Or is it they who feel the need to shield
their fragile souls from us, afraid we
will not ever understand the storms
in which they live?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Donkey Haiku-Rhyme

Donkeys by the road
were clearly mad I had no
treat for them to eat.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

First World Problems

The walk-in closet's bulb is on the blink:

theberry.com

a room for clothes, and I can't find the

one thing that I want for lack of light, which

stinks. Then just hours after sitting for a

manicure (I hardly ever get them done), I 

broke a nail! One of the television's acting up-- 

the DVR, at least, so now we'll be behind, the

kind of problem that some other countries

never have to face. And speaking of my face,

I'm pale. I need some sun! Perhaps a beach day

would be nice, but it's so hot outside, perhaps

I shouldn't go. When I filled the car up (one

of three we own) I didn't get my "cent's off"

from Winn-Dixie since my card was in

another purse, left home. I need some exercise,

but now my car is in the shop, and biking to the

gym would be too far. I had to buy the bargain

brand because the one I like was out of stock.

I got green lights this morning all the way to

work and so I didn't have the time to check

my texts. My tattoo got infected. That elective

surgery I've talked about will have to wait

until my new insurance kicks in later in the year.

We're out of water in the cooler, and the city's

smells of chlorine, don't you think ?

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

X Marks the Spot

She made a map that led straight

to her heart, giving copies
to a few. Another one or two
searched high and low and found
some maps with trouble and at
much expense, then found her,
clutching parchment
in their greedy sweaty hands
that were not worthy. X did not
mark the spot, therefore, for she
saw them coming, smelled them
from afar, relocating her
affections lest they find her heart
and cause it damage even more
than what, throughout her life,
it had endured. But one man,
only one, will find her heart one day
without a map at all, because his whole life's
led him there, and she will be
somewhat surprised when he shows
up, but thankful, joyful, and fulfilled.
And X will represent not just her
heart, but how two hearts have joined,
how blood has mingled, how their
laughter sounds, to others, like one voice.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Mirror, Mirror

Some women can't walk

Director Mindi Fetterman explains
the Image of Hope mirror to an
open house gathering in 2013.
The custom mirror was designed by
Lake Worth artist Berne Born.

past a mirror without checking

their reflections. Is the diet

working? Is the make-up still

okay? The women who look

into this one have to make 

themselves. It's hard to look

into a mirror when all you've

heard is that you're ugly, that

it's all your fault what Daddy

does to you when lights go out

and no one reads the little girl

a bedtime story. They've carried

so much guilt and shame they

fear they'll see a twisted horror

when they look into the mirror.

And when they do, the day they

finally have the courage to

connect their mind with all

the skin they walk around in

every day, it's such a monumental

moment, so surprising that

the women smiling back at

them are beautiful.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Tuesday Silly

High coup or low coup

It's a thought. Not necessarily a
good one.

I'm guessing there will be no

coup d'état today.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Publix Princess

I had not planned on seeing royalty
this morning as I stopped for groceries
but as I loaded them into the car
a shimmer caught my eye and when I turned
I spied a princess, glittering in pampered
pink, assisted by the driver of her mini-van-
slash-carriage. When my comment made them grin,
I left them to their royal shopping and though
I did not bow (as commoners should do)
perhaps she knew that it's because I am
a princess too, but wearing a disguise.
Every lady who is loved is such;
many, it is true, just do not realize.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Cautionary Tale of A Cocoon

I could write about the crushing weight

I found the photo with a British article about
sleep positions that is interesting:
http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/
love-sex/relationships/what-sleep-says-
about-your-love-life-1.1407771#.U6dii_ldXQo

of disappointment and frustration but
instead I choose to write of love, of
joy and bliss and more than this, of
couples who awaken in the morning all
entangled and entwined and barely break
away in time to get to work or school
or if it's on the weekend, maybe lie there
in each other's arms all day. They push
aside the stress of daily life, won't let it
reach them, their cocoon of intimate and
tender conversation, protected with a
fierceness that is also more than wise,
for let a pinhole pierce it, and the toxic
fumes of life soon penetrate and soon
they find themselves face daybreak back
to back, both hugging pillows, almost
falling off the bed they are so far apart,
and it will be full years before they realize
they've drifted past the point of no return.
Listen, lovers. Listen well, and let no person
or particulars press in, disturbing the cocoon.
It's worth the wait, to have a mate who's worth
the being there entwined with you, and when he's
found (or she), the keeping is worth even more
because if lost, the death is slow. I know.
I've smelled a corpse or two long years
before the funeral; it's not a pretty sight.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Dog's Life Haiku

Find a pile of clothes.
Claim it for your very own
and leave hair behind.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Breyer

Johann Breyer volunteered to join
the Nazi SS as a teenager, and was arrested
this week at the age of 89 to face
charges in Germany. 

He was only 17, but he knew. Deep down
he knew that it was wrong to beat a naked man
into the mud or laugh at someone's Oma
stumbling off the train because she hasn't had
a bite to eat in days. The smokestacks weren't
a mystery, the bodies piling, Jewish vermin
with no value (he'd learned that lesson well,
which was the problem). Seventeen and proud
to wear the shiny-buttoned uniform and strut,
a bully who forgot too much too soon.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Birthday Card for Jill

My friend Jill is a dedicated worker
with Habitat for Humanity,
but that doesn't define her.
Happy birthday!

Passion that's far-reaching,

helping families turn vacant lots

into warm homes, building

bridges from community to

citizen.
Big jobs can overtake
a person, though. Dig so
deep into the core it's all you are,
identified with projects,
losing self
within the need, the vision.
Not here.
Not her.
More than just a mission,
more than someone's
title on a letterhead. Woman with
a life and love and laughing with
her friends. Birthday woman,
and she doesn't mind the years
at all. She's lived them well.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Late Night Haiku

I can't remember
when last I stayed up till 3.
Sleeping late felt good.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

A Thimbleful of Poetry

Digitabulists collect them,

When Wendy offered to kiss Peter Pan,
he was confused.
Instead of embarrassing him,
she handed him a thimble.
Had she really kissed him, he may well
have given up playing with the Lost Boys
and fighting Capt. Hook. 

but they've been around for

almost two millenia, a covering

for tender fingertips, protection

from projectiles pulling thread

through any fabric. Fancy ones are

fashioned from some precious metals

and adorned with glitt'ring gems that

catch the light like this, but Peter Pan 

was tricked by Wendy, sweet and

innocent, to think that what we know 

as "thimble," was instead a kiss.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Missing the Fisherman

The ache is stubborn,

need to smell the salt

and feel the heat again.

She could jump

into the car and drive

and drive and drive

and not look back

until she finds him on the beach.

Too much to answer for,

she throws herself into

the task at hand and wonders

if the fish are biting.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Father's Day, 2014

When I was just a baby, it was often

My own sweet Daddy,
Herbert S. Pendergraft, Jr.

he who walked with me upon his
hairy chest, singing lullabies
into my ear one decibel above a whisper
so my mother and big sister wouldn't wake.
And as we grew we walked beside him in the
snow, dragging sled and giggles all the way,
and when the snow had melted and the river rose,
we fished along the bank. flew kites and mowed
the grass, and made spaghetti. I saw, through him,
that learning new skills is a joy and honing old ones
is a must. The differences in woods and subtleties
in photographs. Function winning over fussiness,
the need to keep ties to the past. Bear hugs. Singing
and commitment, faith. He doesn't always understand
or realize the time that's flown by since he walked me
down the aisle or held a grandchild, saw the grandkids
marry and begin new families of their own. He
gets confused, but not about the things that really matter:
he loves his wife and daughters. He still dreams in French.
And when he hears a song he danced to long ago,
he still remembers all the words.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Dexter Haiku

Dexter marathon.

Who would have thought a killer
could be so charming?



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Possibilities

Possibilities are endless,
infinite as numbers.
Whatever door has closed
or heart has broken, whatever
job was lost or disappointment
weathered, whatever loss is
grieved or test was failed (or
passed) there are a myriad of
choices, steps to take, decisions
to weigh carefully. Every conversation,
new encounter, interview,
the possibilities are vast, and if
eventualities don't suit, pursue
the next. It is our reason for existing,
going through this life and learning
who we are, the wonders of
which we are (oddly) capable.

Snap

A little troubling that I'm understanding

more and more the people in the world
who take it, take it, take it, then just
snap, a branch that has some give,
but not an infinite amount. Normal,
supple twig that's destined to support
green leaves and fruit and fragrant flowers
but it snaps in two, a part of something
bigger, better, grander, falling
to the ground to rot. I want to put a brace
beneath the branches on my trees, but
sometimes it's the wind, not the fault
of anything or anyone and no one sees
it coming. Sometimes a limb just needs
to fall before new growth can start,
and sometimes things just have to die.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Get Along

Simple, really. Get along.
As much as it depends on you,
just bite your tongue or look
the other way. Return a smile
or kindness, let the other hurtful
comments and behavior go,
ignore the source. Breathe deeply,
count to ten. Keep hatefulness
inside -- it only hurts the other
person once it's spoken, after all,
and then it's done, and so much
time and energy are needed to
repair the damage. I understand
what drove the King of Glory to
throw up his hands (if hands he
has) and wish he hadn't even
started with this people thing.
Let the Flood remove all remnants
of the human race, their snarkiness
and lack of gratitude, that stubborn
bent to negativity and sin. But then,
eternity would be so very boring.
So here we are, all ornery at times
and those who care are often tempted
to throw up their hands and call
it quits as well. It's simple, really.
Get along. Just get along. And if you
can't, you've tried and tried and
they won't let you, get away and find
the space to breathe and think and
settle back into a person you can
live with, someone who has not
forgotten, altogether, how to smile.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Sumer Is Icumen In

Heat meets me as I open the front door,
step out into the glaring sunlight. Summer.
It's arrived, make no mistake, but it's too
early, unofficial, trailer to a movie we
all plan to watch. Odd. The season's clearly
here, like heat and passion, love between two
lovers but they're not considered married
til a certain day, when paperwork is signed
and stamped and filed. Summer's passion has
indeed pushed milder spring back into fading
memories of cooler evenings, yet the solstice
waits another week or more, the wedding night
when sun embraces earth more tightly than
at any other time, when pagans dance round
bonfires to keep the dreaded dragons far away,
and on the beaches here, where dragons aren't
believed, we dance because we like to.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Quiet House

A third of all Americans and
ten times more than halfway 'cross the world
in India, the single person household.
What is to me a rarity, a luxury,
a state of mind I either have to leave
to find and purchase cheaply to maintain
my mental equilibrium or this,
surprising morning when the schedules
of a busy household work together to align
the planets and I waken in a quiet house,
no bustling in the kitchen, coffee
maker perking a hello when once I prime
it. I don't putter, otherwise, in bedclothes,
unkempt hair, no contacts so that everything
is blurry, edges softer, no harsh words to cut
me as I go about my business, and
nobody's business but my own. It does not
last, nor would I want it to, but neither
do I mind it when it happens, an unexpected
gift: a reminder of what many people
live with, loathing it or loving, every day.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Disney Memories

Disney shaped my world before Orlando,
afternoons with Tommy and Annette,
their Mickey ears and Colgate smiles
with dancing groups, cartoons, and mysteries.
Then Sunday nights with Walt, so solemnly
and kindly introducing nature shows or movies
or more dancing animals drawn skillfully
with just a touch of pixie dust.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Change-of-Plan Haiku

Three guys went fishing.
Two came home 'cause one felt sick;
kids' TV all day.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Unsettled

At sixes and sevens, as the British say.

Tired but turmoil stirs up restlessness
and when the eyes are closed, the thoughts
begin, the nagging questions, deadlines,
disappointments and concerns.
Relaxation would be pleasant.
Will be, when it comes. Turn the brain off,
park the expectations and frustrations in an
empty lot and take a shuttle to tranquility.
Stretch out, deep breaths, forsake responsibility
for just a bit. I seem to need these respites more,
as time goes by, a symptom of my age or
commentary on the daily stress, or maybe
I'm just getting used to what it feels to
be at ease, at peace, unwilling to
deny myself again for any length of time.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Twenty-Year Crush

Pre-teen crush she hid so well, watching him

from the metal stands and once in her
front yard as he played catch with
her little brother. Alone, she wrote his name
over and over with painstaking care, shy and
clueless that he'd ever notice her
or even know her name. His crush on her would have
surprised, been daunting at the moment.
Two decades later, though, with lots of miles on both,
they reunited for the day, and all the years
washed out to sea, a little bit with every wave.
Two kids again, sun-kissed and playing in the surf,
their own respective children asking inwardly what all
the grinning was about. And whether destiny
had worked to bring them there or not,
the day felt right, as did, in time, the night.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

Pees of Mind

The woman just ahead of me at Dollar Tree
was clutching something in her hand a tad too tightly,
crimping edges til she laid it down without a word
onto the moving black belt to be scanned- a bit unnecessary at a place where everything costs just a dollar, but let's get back to the story, for a story there must be when someone goes out rather late at night and looks to be too old for such tomfoolery as this, which I will get to soon. Perhaps it was
a pleasing errand for an errant niece? Granddaughter? Girlfriend of
her son? Not she, at any rate. Gray hair and lines upon her face
bespoke of the absurdity of such. The test for pregnancy she bought
was surely for another, and the peace of mind it would evoke
was worth a buck and more, unless the luck was of a different sort, and
two pink lines would tell another story altogether.
If only I could follow her, I thought, and find out
for myself. I could have asked or, Southern manners barring
that, struck up a conversation, for I sensed her stress and might
have lessened it with some kind gesture or a word. On the other
hand, if I were she at Dollar Tree and someone saw
me buying one of those, I'd be stressed as well, so
I left her to her thoughts.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

As I walked into the Dollar Tree I saw not one or two, but five men sitting in their cars waiting for, I assume, their wives. I wonder which man went with the woman I saw in line?

5th Grade Ceremony

The kids marched by in brand new clothes
still pleated from the factory, girls in satin
(someone went a little overboard) and boys
uncomfortable but proud in ties and vests,
a few who didn't care and wore their jeans
defiantly. Well-behaved they walked in time
to Pomp and Circumstance although it wasn't
really graduation, moving up to middle school,
the end of elementary. Perhaps we have too many
celebrations, five-year-olds in caps and gowns
who have no understanding what it means. But
most of us will likely get applause on only one
or two occasions in our lives. Just think of it.
A portion will drop out. A few will spend their
high school years in prison, one or two may die
of some disease that no one can pronounce.
But not today. Today was fun, a happy memory,
all bright balloons and dress-up, punch with cookies after.
Shake the teachers' hands and thank them for their
service, put the tie and fancy headbands up when
back at home. Let them have today, remembering
the morning that a sea of smiling faces watched them
from the audience, and every hand was clapping
when their names were called.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

The Train Pulls Out of the Station

That moment when you've run as quickly as you can
and reach the bottom of the staircase just in time
to watch your train pull out. Goodbye, it seems to say,
but not unkindly. I would wait except for all the regulations. See you next time, though. Get up a little earlier. Set your watch ahead, perhaps. I want to get you where you need to go, but I can't do it all alone.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014

June Weddings

April showers bring May flowers,
but in June the tune that's often heard
(though you may think this quite absurd)
is "Here Comes the Bride." One-third
of weddings will unite those who have
wed before, such optimism shown that
this time, they will get it right. They might.
The odds are in their favor. Despite
the often quoted 50-50 chances, or that "half
of all the marriages will end," the latest numbers
now contend it's more like 60-40 with the
weddings out ahead, and I would bet you that
the ones who stay together, more than likely
play and pray and bed together, too.
Some make it work despite the lack of one
or two or all of those, despite the other
challenges that life presents. I wonder, though,
what fraction of those married are as much in love
as when they started, for in my opinion, if
they aren't, perhaps they never were, not both.
And one can only keep it going for so long.
One often hears it said, "Relationships take work!"
but I've observed a few, a very few, that seem
to contradict, who never quarrel, laugh together
every day, respect and touch each other constantly.
That is the model hoped for all the Junes, both
brides and grooms, who take their vows this month.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014