To make a POINT ABOVE and beyond the usual, she decided to SCOLD the girls and boys about the damage to the FROCK rather than letting it go as she normally would have. It was not as satisfying as she had hoped.

Georg’ann

They had paid a lot of MONEY for the show. Whew, they were demanding to be wowed. Never had she been in front of such a TOUGH CROWD. Finally she gave them a thrill they didn’t expect. In a single, deft motion she flung off her FROCK and continued her performance without missing a beat.

Heather

Across the REALM there was a rumor that whomsoever dared to take on the quest to rescue the prince would be richly rewarded. Every hopeful subject – from lowest peasant working the meanest CHORE to the high courtier idly at court – dreamed of those riches. Few, however, had the means or the strength to carry through. The SPIRE of the tower where the prince was being held prisoner, rose above the land, taunting all – “dare you try to scale my heights, storm my ramparts?” it seemed to say.

Georg’ann

Katarina never minded time spent in the waiting room if they were well stocked with magazines. This morning she flipped through the latest issues of STYLE and SHAPE while sitting alone in Doctor Corning’s enjoying a cup of tea in a cozy chair. A bit of quiet before her annual checkup. There was nothing pressing for the day ahead to impinge on mindless reading about the latest fashions and best exercises. When the nurse opened the door to call her in, Katarina was chuckling at an article that outlined how to maintain one’s lower SPINE, likening it to the base of a church SPIRE in an article titled the Sacred Sacrum.

Heather

Wiping my hand across my brow, I am rewarded with a dirt SMEAR, providing evidence of my hard work. I kneel down, ready to PLANT more. The QUAIL family scuttle about the enclosed space. The LOACH swam in the pond, and the KOALA slowly blinked at me from the tree. I love my job at the zoo!

Georg’ann

Waking in a cabin suspended between two time zones
watching an hour come and go as I walk a few steps
Experiencing the construction of time
Part country kitsch
Part yoga studio woo
As desperate as today’s words
From which I wrestle
to find a cohesive narrative from SHINE, QUOTA, KOALA
irony being I have come
here to write

Heather

I PLEAD, I beg with the gods – how much longer can this task take? Feeling like a mule in the old ad for BORAX, scrubbing like that famous team of 20, I straighten up out of a SQUAT. I am almost there – in my goal to UNJAM the cabinet door from its grime and stickiness. How many decades – is it centuries? – of HUMAN and animal life did it take to create such a mess?

Georg’ann

It’s CLEAR that our SQUAD is able to perform almost super HUMAN feats.

Heather

It was a FEAST for the HEART. A moment when she chose to trust, acceptance of the hand she had been DEALT. As she LEAPT into the unknown, she pulled on a deep well of compassion for herself and her partner. “All will be well,” she murmured to no one in particular, and she walked into the kitchen.

Georg’ann

This morning we went to assess the JOINT. It was GREAT, exceeding all expectation. A FEAST for the eyes, such a BEAUT. We LEAPT without hesitation. It’s ours!

Heather

PROUD, she was, the previous grande dame of the social scene, though most would whisper behind their hands as she passed by. “FADED,” they would say. “Frail,” they would murmur. Her posture upright, she wielded her cane more as an accessory than as a necessity. She could still part a crowd as surely as Moses did the Red Sea, walking smartly, if a bit more slowly across a hotel lobby or ballroom. The general consensus was that it would take more than age to ADDLE her. Truth be told, the looks she garnered as she swept toward her SEDAN revealed the continued high regard -or was it envy? – in which she was held by the crème de la crème.

Georg’ann

Words are like wine
some so luscious and evocative,
the mouth delights in them,
Lips shape their passage out as the breath carries them forward
Others brash, hard, bitter, repugnant.
Spit them out quickly.
The entire face wants to wince, recoil even as it sends the word forward.

Then comes the fine art of pairing,
Layers of interplay
Rhymes and alliteration
what makes it fun to say
“I don’t mean to brag, I don’t mean to BOAST but I like hot butter on my breakfast toast.”

She sells sea shells by the sea shore;
She has a SANDY SEDAN.

Heather

GREAT GROWN GRUBS
On the GRILL become GRIMY

Georg’ann

I never liked getting a GRADE based on efforts of the GROUP
More often than not I provided the most GRIST while others slacked off. When it came time for the instructor to GRILL us, I again put forth the effort. It always felt GRIMY to carry their dead weight toward an excellent outcome for all.

Heather

“I’d like to share a CHEAT or two today,” Bridget said with a conspiratorial smile. The budding chefs glanced at one another, a ripple of excitement moving through the kitchen classroom like a wave of AMENS on a Sunday morning. “This menu features the AREPA and its versatility, so I want you to think of constructing the menu as less of an OPERA with a diva at the center, and more of a music hall romp, with the same characters showing up in different roles. But all united to a single delicious purpose. Now about that shortcut I mentioned, Marie will you get the tray out of the walk-in freezer?”

Georg’ann

In diction class we repeated, “The rain on the PLAIN in Spain…” as we learned to SPEAK clearly. Each vowel and constant given proper annunciation. It was only from these simple basics, infinitely done, that we could ever hope to become OPERA singers, regardless of our expansive diaphragms and vocal range

Heather

STEAM begins to rise from the pot. I sort the fruit, looking for only the best, the PRIME selection. This is a labor of love, one I am MOVED to each season: ripe tomato of summer; apple and pear of fall; orange, LEMON, grapefruit of winter. Only spring with its tender ephemeral joys – the delicate greens and pea shoots – evades my eager attempts to hold time still, to preserve in a jar the essence of life.

Georg’ann

Years of biweekly video calls
To SPEAK of universes that exist
in an earthen pot by the fire
and other mysteries familiar
to the CRONE and me.
In her presence
I gave birth to myself
without killing my mother,
wept from the depths of the universes within me
about my baby brother
now middle aged
TONED blue black grey
his skin carries stories like cave walls
released FELON seeking
simply to be released
Before me now, a still life
LEMON nesting in the blue earthenware bowl
What bittersweet universe exists on my kitchen table

Heather

“I cannot take my eyes off her- I don’t mean to STARE.” Polly shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Belinda leaned avidly over the edge of the balcony. “Oh, come on, Polly. You know this is the WHOLE reason we sprang for these prime seats up high: to be able to watch her.” The two kept their gaze locked on the large white PLUME, attached to the elegant fascinator. They followed its progress down the aisle, kept track of every cheek that was kissed, every hand that was touched, every ear that was whispered into.
Indeed, Polly’s discomfort was not to be trusted – the pretenses of reluctance and misgivings truly BELIE her deeply felt satisfaction. Tonight- oh yes tonight- she would get her revenge.

Georg’ann

There wasn’t a SHRED of evidence. The case was LEAKY from the start. The prosecution attempted to DELVE into Bernard’s research on the genus MELOE to see if his interest in the secretions of the blister beetle could lend weight to their negative characterization of him overall. The hope being that the jurors would find him less appealing and therefore leap to the conclusion he must be guilty of something. Image after image of black bugs did nothing to BELIE his innocence. Acquittal was all but guaranteed when the final arguments were made.

Heather

I am going for the LEAST SLOPE, as I attempt to climb my metaphorical mountain. Perhaps, if I walk around it enough times (what to others may look like procrastination, but is really time well spent assessing the situation), I can find the path of least resistance. Didn’t work, hasn’t worked prior to now, but perhaps I am a touch SLYER than before. I aspire to be like a SLEEK animal – a weasel, perhaps, or maybe like it’s cousin, the otter. Yes, that’s it: I will be clever and playful as I sort out my approach to the daunting tasks ahead of me.

Georg’ann

A MOVIE he says I won’t like
is a gauntlet thrown
It sounds intriguing
Is a gesture of goodwill
To watch instead of play
that Scrabble game I wanted

In retrospect it was CRUEL
Not listening to my own wishes
To play with words
Not trusting that just maybe he really does know me

As do friends who later hear how we tried
To ring in this new year
“We loved it, and knew you’d hate it.

What is it in me that yields
My own desire and knowing
Am I me still
Do I want to be
Am I known
Do I want to be
Essence and evolution
Comfort and or constraint

Need everything become so heavy LADEN, can it not
Just be a simple matter
of a choice I made
and wished I hadn’t?

That was how it played

In short, I went to SLEEP
Disengaged gently
Gave us both the space be
This SLEEK panther had no need to use her claws
or growl her chosen discontent
Lithe body languid

Heather

Allow me to SHARE this moment: a quiet place, nowhere to be except here. It’s ABOUT slowing down, escaping the ANTIC energy of the world. I am certain that the world and all that means will still be there when the moment passes

Georg’ann

Listening to Sam Cooke croon
“This little light of mine I’m going to let it SHINE”, Becca felt this simple praise song moving up from some deep place inside. She momentarily lost track of what she was DOING as she sang along, and sliced not only the shallot but also her PINKY. The sharp sensation brought her immediately back to focus as she watched a droplet of blood drop onto the RAMIN cutting board. Panning out from the scene she was amused by her ANTIC performance and the inevitable comeuppance. Such are the dangers of kitchen performance when one is lost in music and motion.

Heather

Do Androids DREAM of Electric Sheep asked Philip K. Dick. And I would have to say that, in my case, a ROBOT dreams of a SHIRT and SKIRT combo that will set off my silver skin. Not an electric sheep to be found.

Georg’ann

It’s the simple tasks that throw me off kilter
chisel away at my equilibrium
Incessant tending to
As I attempt to READY myself
not wanting to start the day harassed by minutiae
Flushes of heat, disoriented finally an internal BROIL
When running late the discovery
No clean SHIRT
No suitable SKIRT

Heather

Standing by the OCEAN, feeling so NEEDY. Realizing at last, I don’t need an EVENT – I can SHINE whenever I choose. Let me release my fears into the waves, allow the WHINE of the distant boats to spark my imagination with fantasies of distant shores and unexpected possibilities. If I could succeed at anything, what would I do? Who would I be? Where would I go?

Georg’ann

Even the SCORE
Drive a WEDGE
Burn hot WHITE
Laugh all the WHILE
Cease to WHINE

Heather

I LOVED the HOLLY, all the FOLKS gathered around the POLAR Express display. Too bad I was distracted by the wad of caramel stuck in my right MOLAR. “Good grief,” I thought, “it better not pull out that filling! There’s no way I can get that fixed on Christmas Eve.”

Georg’ann

What is it I CRAVE? pondered Julia. Her mind was wondering, she’d been on the road for a long time. This stretch particularly flat, driving in that suspended consciousness. No hopping tunes on the RADIO, only lots of ads and static. After a while the attempt to find something was more effort than the results yielded. She turned it off. Her stomach felt uncomfortable with road trip BLOAT. She regretted getting the POLAR pop at the last gas station. It wasn’t just her belly that hurt, the icy sweetness also had a painful effect on her problematic lower right MOLAR.

Heather

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the fear that I will say ADIEU to this life too soon. Like a farmer planning what to PLANT, counting out seeds and multiplying by the numbers of acres and possible FARMS, bewildered and melancholic with the notion that trying to do everything means doing nothing. That the BAGGY, torn pants will never be mended, the WACKO, harebrained schemes left untried.

Seeking to settle in, to quiet the swirling mind, I embrace the HAVOC, the chaos. This, this is the leaning-in worth doing – leaning until it flips and becomes a swirl of energy that I and I alone can contain.

Georg’ann

Gathering the remnants
of what little we have left
Life WOVEN of memories
My fingers exploring the content of each box
pausing to SAVOR each bit
as I weave it back into me
While jackhammers and wrecking balls
make HAVOC outside
Cacophonous devastation
As I silently rebuild
Gathering the remnants
Of what little we have left

Heather

On the way to the OPERA, I take a SWIPE at my phone. I shift tunes from Verdi to a disco beat, to drown out the PIPED cacophony of sounds in the building lobby. The swell of an orchestra gives way to Donna Summer’s voice, a much better fit for the energy of New York on a Saturday night. My head hums with the sound, my steps pick up to “so let’s dance the last dance…” I look down at my shimmering dress… clutch my evening wrap a little closer. Hmm. Could I possibly IMPEL my date to ditch those terribly expensive tickets to the Met and Rigoletto for a night on the town and Studio 54? Oh yes, I think, we must!! With a shimmy of delight that makes my gown glitter like a disco ball, I push “1” on speed dial. “Darling… I have an idea…”

Georg’ann

Searching through QUOTE after quote,
seeking FRESH perspectives
in someone else’s articulation
Cold air seeps across the back door threshold,
water drips from the LEAKY bathroom faucet
IMPEL me to notice
this morning’s theme
New life in an old house

Heather

I love the SHADE on a hot day
LORDY, how I love to sit
And think a little bit
Even when it’s shade cast
By a bunch, a MONDO
Grouping of a CONDO

Georg’ann

Renata submitted her screenplay, relieved to finally be done, it was getting harder and harder to come up with storylines. She was ready for a something new though she made excellent money churning them out.

In this one the main character was much like herself, a QUIET woman in her early 30s, not much external SPARK. It begins one morning as she is walking out the door. Her attention is drawn to droplets of BLOOD by the mailboxes in the entryway of her building. And so sets off the not so very MOODY story of The CONDO Corpse, a light mystery in the style of Monk, Murder She Wrote, Psych and the like. TV viewers never tired of this genre, even if she were tired of writing it.

Heather

Despite my PLEAS
She took down the statue
ERECT this statue had stood, for years
HOMED from our previous place, symbol of our passion and devotion
I tried to exert pressure, UNDUE I am sure,
But she would not BUDGE
Nor would she FUDGE her reasoning to soften the blow
Only saying at last, please do not JUDGE

Georg’ann

Walking along the shore
Picking up STONE after stone
Round, or not so much
Some FLAKE from the cliffs around, others washed in
I hear the voice of an old friend CHIDE me for gathering
Sticks, stones, bits of bark, discarded nests, seed pods, twisted vines and such.
Believed in something called the Butterfly Effect, leave it be
Would not BUDGE
Still I collect natural remnants of time and place
Who was he to JUDGE?

Heather

On this day, SPARE a thought for yourself, for your DEARY, really for all the world. Wake up and be ALERT to the nuance and the moment. It takes very little EXTRA effort and the reward is great.

Georg’ann

It’s not the SNOWY wonderland
of evergreen branches laden
This one is a bitter dusting
Cold that bites QUICK
GREAT TAMER of expectation
RATHE guests ventured to our doorway,
left their boots by the doorway and
various wraps on the front room bed.
Warmth filled all the cracks
Plentiful in every respect
More than enough for the EXTRA guest,
stranded by his cancelled flight.
gleaming eyes, genteel and fawning
stranger becomes one with us

Heather

Playing the MISER Scrooge required a bent-over SPINE, and a certain surprising amount of POISE to face the ghostly visitors.

Georg’ann

a season of constant adjustment to weather, illness, complicated schedules
Are the LEAST of what unsettles
ineffable, intangible strings move me like a marionette
Moods vacillating creates sensation of seasickness
The way nothing feels quite steady after a long boat ride, even solid ground seems to shift
FRESH rosemary and sugar cookie scent
olfactory portals open delight then drop suddenly into sorrow
Please puppetry master guide my performance delicately give me POISE in all movements through this scene

Heather

GRIEF, that the ROAST must be set aside.
Anxiety, that there is to be no reading from the TORAH, no lighting of the six candles, then the seven.
Furtive touches to the chest and a sense of wonder that the heart keeps on – ventricles, AORTA, vena cava – despite the sense of breaking

Georg’ann

Such thick FROST
Windows are white, I cannot see out.
Cocooned under layers of blankets.
Wind howls, occasion sounds of something human or animal
Am I imagining it? Pervasive thoughts of danger outside these white windows
Thoughts become a piercing THORN
What am I to do with GATOR?
The Shining or Florida? Unappealing associations.
Change channel, ponder a TORTA rich enough to clog the lines to any AORTA

Heather

She placed the carefully crafted WHEAT stalks on the dough. Giving them a pinch and an adjustment, she decided that the bread was ready to place in the brick oven. Taking an EMBER from last night, she stoked the fire back to life. Morning efforts ENDED, her thoughts turned to her studies. She really wants to escape the hard life of a baker and to do that must EXCEL in school.

Georg’ann

Her brain is functioning, she will surely EXCEL, though the town will sorely miss her morning efforts. Her breads were works of hearty art.

Heather

To expose a CHEAT:
Lift the heaviest rock you can find without a GROAN,
Seek out the clearest body of water not more than one mile from you dwell. Stand by that body of water, and under the full moon, drop the rock into the LUNAR reflection in the water, saying “Deceive me not, deceive me no longer, deceiver appear!” The image of the one you seek to expose will appear in the water as it settles back to calm.

Georg’ann

We’ve come here to
DRINK
in the silence
perhaps too expectant
of an imagined epiphany
abundant insight and outpouring
at this writer’s RANCH
Utilizing both
Solar power and
LUNAR energy

Heather

It was only LATER – after years, in fact – when she had occasion to reopen the TRUNK, that she realized that the small statue, a TORSO of Vulcan did in fact resemble that TWIRP she had married, her THIRD but not last husband.

Georg’ann

Olive’s bright blue eyes sparkled under her towhead blond bangs as the GREAT magician performed his last TRICk. Watching intently as the cards were shuffled, she was enchanted. Finally his hands stopped their sleight. A long pause, tension building, before he bent down to her and pulled out the THIRD card from the right in the broad fan of cards.
She squealed with delight as he handed her the 6 of diamonds.

Heather

“It will help our CAUSE to start with a clean SLATE, but that may not be possible,” said the fox eyeing the henhouse.

Georg’ann

Eyes look upon the FANCY window displays, enchanted.
Cranberry clafoutis baked in a shallow 2 quart dish.
Hoping for a STAMP of approval,
I purchase a black SLATE cheese board.

None of this has yet to pass, only aspirations beginning to form
as the stillness of Advent is pulled
into movements of the next season.

Heather

I will DANCE. EAGER to release the pain, find the joy, ground myself in connecting to the floor. I cannot wait for LATER, for it never arrives. Let me defy the dark, light the TAPER, and begin

Georg’ann

BAKER wakes early
Lights a TAPER, gathers bowls
Kneads flour, water, yeast

Heather

Swinging her legs, Gretchen hugged her teddy bear close. The pew was hard and she was BORED. It was only adults, winter dresses and suits for as far as she could see, a CROWD of browns, tans, and an occasional bright scarf. She leaned back, closed her eyes and waited for the opening CHORD. It was a magic she could rely upon: the moment when the standing grown-ups would turn into a flock of tuneful birds. Her eyes closed, she is lifted up by the song, feeling alive and peaceful, suspended and yet energized. Many years later, when she was among the elders at the Zen monastery, she would speak of this as the beginnings of her search for God.

Georg’ann

My 5th grade teacher had us start each morning singing
“You Light Up My Life”
And “Morning Has Broken” while she played the piano
Mrs. Johnson let me know I was no GREAT singer, her appraisal still smarts.
True, I may not have been destined to join the CHOIR,
Yet what was the need to make my joyful voice constrict,
in the midst of her intended musical praise for our day?
Struck the wrong CHORD
A lifetime reverberation

Heather

I claim my space in the kitchen. A meditation begun in YEAST, sung in cinnamon, and spread with the MINCE across pies, breads, cakes, and rolls. A space WHERE, despite the assumptions of others, I have nothing to PROVE. Where I can, paradoxically, in solitude or in community, PROBE the depths of love and give expressions to my own honest joy and creativity.

Georg’ann

I’m READY for the SHORE,
ready to go for BROKE
PROBE no further
Truth revealed where land and sea converge

Heather

Shall I embrace or tame the BEAST within? Which do I choose as a guiding AXIOM for my life? Is one more VALID than the other? I find myself struggling with these RIVAL approaches.

Georg’ann

Waiting for the kettle to ping
Steam rising from the spout
Will it eventually damage the cabinet, this daily deluge
Inside the dim kitchen
Outside it’s MISTY grey
Moisture
My fingers assesses the avocado
They RIPEN too quickly
This one is past usability
Waste
Pouring water over rich grounds
the RIGID folded filter softens
My RIVAL wants blueberries
In his oatmeal
I want cherries

Heather

Clapping his hands, Bertram called the cast back. “Listen up, people! Let’s go back over the scene where Dimitri steps center stage right. And go!” Dimitri steps and sings, “I will FLING /Into your arms /No more MEALY man /No more shying away /You are worth every bit of LABOR /My darling, my USUAL, unusual gal!”

Georg’ann

Pause to say, “I’m stuck”
Clears the block
Come back with FRESH eyes
And she emerges immediately
Larger meaning not lost
Learning to take STOCK
Everything is layered and useful
Enjoy the QUIPS, let go the barbs
Restructure the USUAL into meditation

Heather

A noisy DREAM in a QUIET night… No doubt PHONE-induced anxiety, driving my brain to imagine one voice and then another, overlaid with a podcast and a playlist, all SPOKE to me in a cacophony of directives and emotions. I open my eyes, deep relief floods in. I replace the chaos with the sweetness of birdsong.

Georg’ann

Entering the room I sense more than see his SHAPE, contorted as if his SPINE were made of something elastic. Neither of us SPOKE as we move toward the body.

Heather

The MEANS and wit ABOUT you, ’tis a moment to seize and APPLY yourself with vigor, tackling that which had ere felt nigh impossible.

Georg’ann

Spiders, Spanish moss, and mosquitoes inhabit warm MOIST places
Abundant dripping and creeping foliage,
Not BLEAK and chilled like the highlands
Where people speak in a languid DRAWL, LAUGH AFFLY
Rigid rules APPLY over
Crisp Linen and tea cakes
Broken and decayed beneath

Heather

It is the LEAST of my concerns – focusing ABOVE anything else on how I will get through the day. A decision about what I will (should?) wear – the MAUVE dress or the black suit – definitely feels like a trivial thing that I can WAIVE. The thought both releases me and tortures me: am I being NAIVE? Will the whole project collapse because I made a sartorial error?

Georg’ann

magenta LIGHT cast upward
Clothes the tree’s shapely trunk and lace like branches
Womanly form, statue of wood
Darkness in the immediate surround,
twinkling lights in the distance.
This one commands center stage sensual and dramatic

She invites me to dance, my own solid form responds
as SPINE undulates slightly

From here comes memory
Father making lunch
Daughter surreptitiously takes the KNIFE,
retreats to her room

Dichotomies of emotion
No option to be NAIVE
All present all the time
A universe within
Every element distinct
Nothing goes to the background, rapt attention
to too much

Heather