My limbic system’s gone to sleep —
My affect’s flattened by the walrus on my head.
No difference in doing and not-doing.
The world is an ashtray, a splatted spider,
A drudgery of breathing in and breathing out,
Pushing blood through tired veins.
All is uphill.
Only sleep is sweet.
I will talk to you in words of one syllable
So even you can understand.
I will make you feel better.
I will push on your psyche —
Yank it around.
Like I would cheer you out of a broken leg
Or appendicitis.
Plotinus said, “Weather is the celestial form of music.”
I say, “Mood is the neural form of weather.”
I am in the doldrums, stupefied, dull winds droning,
Bleak-brained and dim-lighted.
Look where you’re not looking:
I am the creator of full ashtrays and garbage.
Unmade beds, floors full of wet towels and dirty clothes.
Tables stacked with unpaid bills, coffee cups,
Empty wine glasses, papers.
Ants in the kitchen. Hurt feelings.
I have a gift for disorder.
I make messes.
My tongue is shredded cardboard and junk mail,
Chopped metaphors, and broken shards of soda bottles.
My mind is a kitchen rag.
Leslie Lippincott Hidley has been writing prose and poetry for her own amusement and that of her family and friends and others for most of her 77 years. And one of her ten grandchildren is named Kalliope. She has lived in Walla Walla, Washington; Frankfurt and Bremerhaven, Germany; Upper New York State; Enid, Oklahoma; Montgomery and Prattville, Alabama; Lubbock, Texas; Dover, Delaware; West Palm Beach, Florida; Goose Bay, Labrador; Washington, D.C.; Fairfield, California; Omaha, Nebraska; and now resides in Ojai (Nest-of-the-Moon), California, where she continues to write.
Sparks of Calliope 