Daughter of Zaos

The shift of time helped her to ease into her next chore

Somewhere above the desk on a shelf just out of reach

It sat
Waited for her to bring it down and visit with it a bit
The debate within her was pointless

She knew soon, she would be at the wooden desk
Standing upon it like she shouldn’t and bringing down the figurine with great care
It needed tending
It needed dusting and love to bring it out of its shabby lonely state

Why she left it out of reach she hadn’t decided
It was a lovely object
Maybe this was why

Such a lovely object for sure must be enjoyed but also to relish it
Upon special occasions instead of having it be handled by every passerby in the house
Made it feel largely more special to her

Not every person could be trusted to handle such an object
Twice she had entered the room only to cross over the doorstep without bringing it down
This time, she was certain when she brought the object down

It would gleam and pierce into the darkness of her soul bringing out her happiness
Ending all thoughts that festered instead of bubbling with joy
So she stood, upon said desk with papers strewn about

With careful placement of feet so as not to slip
The turquoise inlay was intact
And the coral was too

It looked lovely and made her smile
She nearly forgot to get down
She turned her heel and slipped on a paper
Grabbing at air and missing everything within reach

She landed sideways In a heap
With the figurine still in her hand
Her body so bruised it hurt to stand

How foolish of her to have it placed so
So that she had to stand on tippy toes
Throngs of dust bunnies had followed her fall

Landed softly on her shoulders and let her know
The maid she forgot to call
Another one that shouldn’t shuffle about and touch things that weren’t hers
Turquoise and coral inlay figurines

Tsk tsk

She held her arm out and stretched her wrist
The eyes in the face looked back at her
With enchantment not disgust she told herself she was sure

She chided herself for falling off task
And rubbed the golden skin with her soft cashmere
Smiled and sort of purred

Daughter of Zaos had found the rapturous song
When you touched the figurine in such a way
It sung a sweet melody that purred back at her

Golden statue with virtue
Despite inlay and sheen of lust
Had a commonplace name that when called out is just

Melody

So fitting and true
Sings a melody when touched in such a way
A melody for you

You could feel the tension
The figurine was still in her adept hands
She soothed herself by rather absentmindedly caressing Melody
While she hummed out the tune that was repeating itself in her head

It was vague
But there
It begged to be let out
Just like the figurine had begged to be taken down from its perch amongst trivial things

Such as old journals and noteworthy notes
Why she kept such things, she scolded herself
She set the object d art upon the desk furthermost further away

From the edge

and reached to the milky white dish for a treat
The chocolate melted
Upon her tongue leaving a trail of goodness to be savored for many minutes

In these minutes that made up her moment of recollection she remembered
Just why she had taken the figurine down on this day

It was Ramadan

But she heard rama lama ding dong in her head and knew this to be sacrilegious
Again with the chiding
Except this time the figurine did look back at her in disgust

Shame shame

Tsk tsk

The monster in her did exist
Really? Rama lama  ding dong?
Such things didn’t exist
Except in her world with Chuck and the twist
The twist that nearly sent her reeling off the desk

She should polish the figurine till it shines
Break out in joyous rhyme
Leave the ram a lama ding dong for another time

Maybe she should not have taken the object
The beautiful figurine down from its sacred perch
Where it was not to be bothered by such feather heads as her
Rubbing and pretending to be dusting but really looking for the secret

To bring out its melody in golden keys
She had seen them before
The keys that unlocked the hidden door

Her father thought she didn’t know but Daughter of Zaos
Paid attention to this
To things amiss

To hidden doors and such
To melodies that sing out as if by bird
On wings of prayer they seemed to fly

To girls and maidens but not to the skies
For they were too open and fragile and at the same time robust
It seemed Melody needed reigning in a touch

She knew her power and wasn’t big headed
Wasn’t even really sure where she was headed

She didn’t have much say and maybe this was why
Melody was happy to peer up at the sky
Daughter call out

Sing to me
Sing to rule
And sing in key

At least a bit she hoped to sing
For this made Melody become Queen
Queen of day and ruler of night

Melody governed over everything in sight
How this mattered she didn’t know
For Melody wasn’t much of anything

Just a statue without a soul
She smiled back lazily
Admired her own inlay fancy enough to dress a king

That was it she told herself
Why be Queen of all when Kingship mattered more and laid subject to thralls
Slave of lust
Slave of dust

Melody sang to end all calls
The girl, daughter of Zaos lay enchanted by her
Waivered and  giddy

 

Pushed off the desk and stepped to toes
Danced a whirl and giggled a throw
Suddenly heady and heavy as if drunk by wine
Melody and Daughter of Zaos danced in perfect time

 

The keys they fell
and clanked to floor
dented the wood a bit  

and she did implore

 

Melody sing, sing sweet song to me
I care not for what treasures your kings and keys do bring

 

Silly daughter of Zaos, 

the Melody is the treasure
the keys are simply bygone, to be dismissed forever 

TW 352p 4.6.14.

 

 

The Ugly Truth as Written by Ramblin' Rose

The Ugly Truth later renamed so Hollywood wouldn't sue me for copywright infringement. Yahoo Voices has always published everything I have submitted until this one. I think I will adopt my usual attitude and say blep blep em and continue on to write a book.



Begun writing June 26, 2012 6:28pm


The ugliness started at an early age. So early, I can not even remember when. Ugly words thrown about more often than people or fists and even inanimate angry things. My mere survival happened within myself, within papers, collectable rocks, make believe happenings and worlds. Most did not know the oddly imbalanced life we led where mother was a deaconess whose favorite song was “Amazing Grace” and father was a cussing race car driver. I often wonder hwo two such people that crossed paths decided it was a good idea to attempt a happy life together.


I don’t remember my mother or father saying “I love you”. My mother must have, I am sure at some point. I want to throw in a disclaimer and say she did but it is not one of those things that is stuck in my memory. I will acknowledge she said it with birthday cakes she would hide in the kitchen cupboard and with the yardstick she would break across your back. She said it with Ivory soap that would wash my mouth out and stated it again by bringing home government cheese all the while not letting on where it came from. She said it even louder still by surviving ugly dad which I did not discover until much later.


Ugly Dad. Brought up an ugly lad, grew into a delusional ugly old man. He was not physically ugly for he was actually handsome despite his hair that turned not just gray but white before he enrolled in the Navy. He believes so strongly that God speaks to him that he writes endlessly about it, politics, his version of religion and anything else that gets stuck in his head. This from a man who threw my mother down the stairs and smashed both of his kids bikes because we wouldn’t come visit him. I believe it is not God speaking to him but rather his own memories catching up on him that have soiled his mind with such guilt that he can not function in any other way but the way that he does. Delusion. I hope its not catching.

Disclaimer for ugly dad. In all fairness, he is a genius in some aspects. He built his own house on the side of a mountain and built a generator out of a car motor to run his power. He plumbed his house in the most simplest fashion and did not sacrifice shower, sink or toilet unless you don't call a bucket with a lid a toilet. He could name every make, model and year of a car that would fly by us on the highway at lightening speed and he could draw them exceptionally well. He could invent gadgets, drive cars on two wheels and fix nearly anything except for one thing-the most important, himself.



Mother. I fail to say ugly but tainted and troubled, yes. When I was younger I did all I could to please her and always fell short. She was a red headed freckled sometimes christian and sometimes troubled young woman and I understand her woes fully. She lived in a small community after divorcing the ugly dad and lived with constant fear, harassment and irritation. I often wonder if she ever had enough happiness in her life. She died single, with a boyfriend who married someone just months, maybe six months after her leaving us permanently.


Tainted Mother and Ugly father raised two children to their teens almost always together but never really together. Constant fighting it seemed to me. I sometimes search my own memories for something better and I do remember happy times as well. But the fighting... I remember it too vividly.




The fighting escalated more than once to the point that my brother joined in either out of self defense for himself or for mother. Many troubled years later after defending her honor, he took a swung at her himself to which another came back at him. We both left the home this night briefly. This was not the first time we had been asked to leave. So sibling asked to leave because he took a swing at a tainted mother who screamed while drunk and hated the very sight of her children or did she? Daughter who was asked to leave because she screamed at both of them to stop.



Out of such chaos what do you get? One tainted mother who left the earth before the age of thirty seven and one still living ugly father who I wish would vaporize off the earth along with all the other scourge.
One daughter who comes out of it resembling a wild rose. Slightly pungent, a little sweet and thorny who defiantly thrives just enough to see another sunny day. One son who fought for his life and continues to thrive like the rambling rose. We had these, rambling, wild roses that trailed the barbed wire fences and peeked out from behind beat up cars that were left in our driveway to play in.



Rambling rose daughter works each day for what seems a decent wage but for a family of three is below poverty level and just barely above that same level when you add in child support. She lives somewhat frugally and sometimes spends too much. Her family shop thrift stores as they have all of their life and would continue to do so even if more money were to come. At times rambling rose wants to give up and has known at least two people that claims she has saved from uncertain death because she was there for them. Wild pungent rose does not let on that she has had the same thoughts for life has not been easy and she is growing weary of being strong. She just keeps doing what she is able. Rose works. She works for a decent wage and hopes that the tainted and twisted delusional minds that raised her are far from what I she has become so far.



I, the rambling rose daughter has come to the realization and must admit openly that faith in love has been lost and furthermore, at the same time the belief or notion that she ( I ) might find someone that would love her that she could love too seems lost. Loosing love or someone she loved over and over just cemented this sad notion in her head and heart.



I often cry when I write and am reminded that yes, it is a window into my soul. I take little bits of life, memories and what I feel from other people even to write what sometimes makes others cry. I am emphatic and often it hurts me to be around or with people who are hurting. At times, I am better at this than others but often have to exit to save myself. Sometimes, it is I that hurts too much and must exit for fear of falling apart. I wish to be stronger for myself and my own rambling family. I wish to prove to ugly dad that what comes out of chaos can be beautiful. I fear I have fell short once again but don't tell tainted mother for I still have a bit of time. We shall not call it the end until it is truly the end. I am preparing myself.


I have had two cancer scares. Yes, two. It leaves you feeling defeated, cheated and dirty even though you have seemed to gotten a free pass once more. I have lost one child before birth and the feeling of utter despair and wanting to disappear as the life that did not quite come to be leaves you is nearly indescribable. It is a pain so fierce emotionally and physically that it drains you of all desire to move let alone function along with your peers.



I have loved someone and walked away because I knew it was best. I have loved someone and still not forgotten about them even though I know I need to. I possibly sabotage blossoming relationships because I lost faith in love and someones ability to love me and due to my own fear that love just doesn’t exist for me so there is no point. I have loved someone and been moved to words so fluently that I can’t stop them. I have also been moved to the point that what I write I will not share with you because how dare you know whats in my head let alone my shriveling heart.



I hesitate to elaborate on this last subject for I go to extreme measures to not write about love, lost love, someone I love or have loved. I instead write about cranes, death, loss, jetsons, the feeling of the rush of wind in your ear, the gathering of objects and still, about love. For lastly, always, life is about love. Love of one self, love of another, love of what incredible opportunities present themselves everyday and love of simple objects or nature and yes, even created things.


Love must survive a multitude of wrong doings, missed events and misspoken words. Love is fragile yet forever forgiving and ultimately the driving passion that gives us the strength to endure the ugly dads, the tainted moms, the meager paychecks and the screaming kids. Patience of course, helps tremendously. When love is still there but the object of your love has exited, does love really still exist? Yes, I have discovered that it does. Call it what you may. It sits on the back burner, it sprouts and thrives in other places and people.




On to a few closing thoughts. My life so far. Let me sum it up, two years single. A man in her life that befuddles her, seems to love her, hurts her at times without knowing he has and so they go on. Murky and sometimes wonderful for that is how life is. They continue on.


A job. A meager paycheck and demanding tasks that fry her brain. She longs for something more fulfilling, creative and justifying. But she continues on because she must. She is after all, the only one in the household who earns any paycheck.


Two kids. Both special in their own right, one wildly at times hyper four year old and one introverted twenty year old. Paint my rainbow then wash it out is all I am going to say on that subject.


Two bedroom, two bath apartment. Again meager for it is all she can afford. She makes it comfortable, even cozy despite the hot wheels and blankets that get strung across the front room. It will do for now. She grows vegetables and flowers on the deck and misses the gardens she used to have and built from scratch. She does not miss them enough to want her old life back.


So, in final closing~


This wooly mammoth is looking for its last unicorn. Sad, lonely and oddly beautiful mammoth wandering the plains and finding nothing but scraps for life is nearly at its end and time has decided to laugh and mock her. Still, she tries. Often, she cries. So much so that she wakes with swollen eyes and is thankful that no one is around to see. Sometimes she cries because she misses the tainted mother who never was able to see her grow into her own.





She, the daughter, the rambling rose an award winning poet who makes no money at a trade that she wishes she could call her day job. A woman who when she feels broken and down drinks one more drink and dances and pounds her feet defiantly into the ground. When her hair flies as she dances, she laughs instead of shedding tears that threaten to fall. They can all hear her laugh and fail to see the tears that sit just at the corners of eyes that look much younger than her forty four years. They believe her eyes are red from the drink but she is actually on the brink. The brink of despair and the things that save her are also the very ones that drive her there.


Who is she? This rambling rose who lays no claim to be anyone’s daughter...


She is struggling mother
defiant dancer
troubled soul seeker
adamantly helping friends
when she ought to help herself


She is busy bee worker
struggling to keep up
drinking burnt coffee
out of a Starbucks ceramic cup


She is sometimes lover
and dreamer
and hand holder
with a broken heart
that she appears to mend


Yet it falls apart
over and over again



Written by Tera L. Vermillion
finished around 930 pm including a dinner break

It Is That Time Again

To roll back the carpet, turn the music up and dance like it's your last day on earth. If it were your last day on earth, what would you busy yourself with? Hopefully you have loved fully so that you don't have regrets and people to look up in your last days that you need to say apologies to. If the people in your life know they have been loved fully and you wished to spend the last of your days wandering alone, they would understand for you have already given them everything you are capable of.

It's a toss up for me, what I would do with my last days. If I have not had a chance I would like to see Ireland, sit myself in a pub where no one knows me and relax. Walk down a country lane built of the earth and kick rocks. If I had the opportunity, I would swim in the clearest water I could find and let the fish join me. I would find a mountain to sit upon, damp earth touching me and lay back, resting my tired body on the grass and let the sun warm my face.

I have a wonderful family I can rely on, aunts, uncles and cousins. My daughter and a son who is just beginning to talk. What I haven't found is a lasting bond with my soul mate. I hold out for this and wish that in my last days he is here with me to enjoy the walk down the country lane. It's that touchy subject again that I try and stay clear of but will constantly find myself on.

I did find someone....and he is not with me.

So when it is the end of your days and you are alone, who is it that you wish you had at your side? Shall you now seek this person out knowing that it is never too late for love, for forgiveness and for trusting your heart to another?

There is a certain joy that you can find in solitude, spending your last days alone even though you know there are people you could be spending them with. Relying on yourself to find peace at this time....then again, maybe you will choose to surround yourself with the people of your life. Imagine one big farewell, who would be there to share a meal and share a toast with you? Who can you rely on and are these very people the ones that keep you centered here even though you never have had your soul mate.


My last days...hopefully very far off. I start my new chapter very soon and I plan on filling it with all the things I wish to do before I have regrets. My family knows I love them and cherish them, I do not leave this unsaid. I may not be able to travel far away but I know I will fill my days with joy.

Right now, simple joys are already here. Chasing my boy through the house while he plays drums and I play with the electric piano. Blowing bubbles on his tummy and kissing his toes. Having the dog barge in between us while we hug and listening to good music while watching the lilac bushes move in the wind. Watching my daughter grow into a young lady and being proud of her accomplishments.


This is enough for now but I wish for more. Each time I voice my wishes or get them clear in my head something in life happens to change my path. Now, my details are foggy, all I can do is move ahead through the mist and hope for a clear dawn on the other side. Baby steps...a little wobbly but moving forward with eagerness, curiosity and anticipation.

Thank you for joining me this fine day!