IRENE’S STORE

EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI

As a caravan of misery unfolds before our eyes
Shocked brains can not absorb such destruction
The earth trembled and rolled in waves
As Port Au Prince collapses
In a cloud of concrete dust
Crushed arms, legs, bodies and heads
Black injured faces covered with white dust
Bodies trapped with a piece of metal
A wall or roof sitting on others
Screams of pain come from the rubble
....And the moon darken the sun in total eclipse
Anderson Cooper, of CNN reports...reports
This child needs surgery
This woman needs blood
There is no food, no water, no medical supplies
Whole street are down in a massive tangle
No help, no doctors, no shelter
Thousands on the streets
This leg needs to be amputated
Work fast...the first 72 hours are critical
Rows of dead bodies line the streets
And a wall of faces spring up
People looking for loved ones
People begging for help to find a child
The orphans, what will happen to the babies?
The Presidential Palace is destroyed
The UN building gone and also many employees
The prison in rubble and prisoners free
The earth rolls again in after shocks...after shocks
Truck loads of bodies are dumped into a mass grave
Dr. Sanjay, of CNN, passes the night with the critically injured
When a medical team pull out for security reasons
And more survivors are released from the rubble
A girl of five is saved, but later dies calling for her mother
A 72 year old grandma buried in a church survives
A boy's head is bloodied by a brick slung in a food riot
The police kill two men, who lived, for stealing rice
A small black eyed boys if found
His haunting eyes tell of his 7 day ordeal
Everyone is wearing masks against the stink of rotting flesh
Help! Help! Where is help? Planes can't land
The ships can' arrive, the port is gone
Medical supply are sitting at the airport undelivered
The Red Cross hospital ship has not arrived
The outer towns have not even been looked at
People are dieing that could have been saved
With equipment, antibiotics and surgeons
Now many orphans are on a bus to...nowhere
Big eyed children, packed in together...are turned back
Their caretaker is crying
Don't leave by boat...they warn
The lucky ones fly out...some orphans are permitted to leave
Money! Can you give money? Donate...Please!
Twenty-seven million given in 3 days..many countries helping
Watch for fraud... and Clinton and Bush are working together
Obama pledged billions... Haiti benefits everywhere.
Call 90999 and $10 will be added to your phone bill
They need more...so much more..money, food, water, tents
How many dead? Nobody know..200,000 and counting
Bulldozers moving...Many unrecord, going in mass graves

How could this angry, polluted, buckling and dieing earth
Strike people already colored in so much misery
So hungery and poor to have already eaten mud cakes
Is this the earth we call mother?
Can a God rule all this?
Can a God rule this?
Is Allah..Is Buddha...Is Voodoo lost in the rubble?
Is Human slavery really gone?
Will the bribes and greed of the ruling class ever be gone?
Haiti is most corruption among nations
Will the rich see the misery of people in Haiti
And reach out to them... and the poor of every nation?
....An earth...A world calls for real change

Change has come to Haiti
The moon darkened the sun
The Mayans foretold of disaster
........Earthquake
...Linda King 1/22/2010

NEW YEAR RUSHING IN

The new year is rushing in
Washing away yesterday's madness
Washing away hatred
Washing away bombs
killings and murder
Washing away, pounding into sand
All the the beliefs that
sent one man against another
Washing away anger
anger...so stained with wrong
Washing away those stubborn
hurts that cling like burrs
Washing away the wrongs of yesterday
Lay down sorrow and revenge
and let it go...let it be
Wash it away
Let us try a better way, brother
Lets start clean and new
Let the New Year wash it away
Oh stubborn, stubborn beliefs
Set in stone, that also crumbles away
...Linda King

Ocean Beach at Sloat

The sun is setting over calm water
A dog chases a ball into water pools
Surfers are catching their last ride before dark
Teenagers are frolicing in slow moving waves
The sun is at the horizon
One can looking into it's yellow eye
At this hour and see infinity
With mutted protective rays all around
The sky is a pale orange
I hear the calm humming of the ocean
And breathe in the fresh salt air
Ah, yes, so full my lungs happy with oxygen
The yellow ball sinks to a strip
Tiny clouds sparkle like gems above
A black winged bird crosses through
The ocean now silvery blue/grey hums and hums
Happy dogs sniff by and are released to run
They weave down the rocks and frolic wildly on the sand
They chase a third dog barking happily
Lovers kiss at the point of the hill
A muscluar surfer removes his wetsuit
A mother strolls by with her baby
Wet children are wrapped in towels
One lonely surfer meditates on his board far out
Three brave swimmer splash each other
Pink bottomed clouds appears
They look like a blue-eyed dolphin with wings
I must do my stretches and omms
...Linda King -ll/2/09

NEMO

This is the updated poem that Gerry read on her blog. I am practicing my computer skill to see if I can actually move this poem from desk to my blog, a skill I don't know.

NEMO
(This poem was based on a young artist/paint, Everett Reuss who went into the canyons around my home town of Boulder, Utah and he was never found. Only his burro was found and the name Nemo scratched on canyon walls. The stories caught my imagination.)

In the ledges and the canyons
In the hollows and the creeks
There is a ghost of a wanderer
Lost and alone
He went into the canyons
For adventure to seek
But he never came home
He never came home
It was Nemo
Nemo who loved the silence
Nemo who loved wind and colors rare
It’s the ghost of Nemo
Who still wanders there
Nemo who disappeared without a trace
I believe he chose to stay
And his ghost among the canyons race
Nemo is for the sad and lonely
He can entwine your sad heart
When the whistling winds
In the canyon starts
With Nemo you can fall upon your knees
And cry out the grief in your heart
He will dry your tears
With a warm gust of desert breeze
Nemo knows
He knows the beauty of sadness
He knows of silence
Nemo know of death
He walked that trail
And it will be told always
In the crying canyon wail
The dark depths opened
And took poor Nemo
The black clouds blotted out the day
High ledges towered in triumph
As rumbling floods swept him away
Where they chose to lay his bones
They keep a secret still
It’s told in the dove’s sad mourn
Or the jaybird’s jabbering trill
Nemo rose that same day
A rainbow was his face
In it his artist colors play
And through that arching rainbow lace
Nemo, the painter
Nemo, the writer of verse
Who inspires everyone
Whose thoughts with death immerse
When you are in the canyons
For an hour or a day
Turn your thoughts to Nemo
Let him have his say
He will comfort you in sorrow
He will lift your spirit low
He will raise your eyes
From the canyon depths
To see he bright rainbow
Keep your eyes on the rainbow
See God’s promise there
When your eyes are on the rainbow
Your heart can not despair
When you look at the rainbow
You, too, may see a face
It may be the face of a loved one
You thought had left no trace
Nemo is lost when the rainbow’s gone
He’s found when it arches the sky
Nemo became a mystery
When life and death he tied
Nemo’s the name he gave himself
Nemo that means “No one”
Night shadows remind one of Nemo
The last glimpse of the setting sun
Nemo is lost and “No One” is lost
That’s how it will always be
Nemo lies close to the open heart
For each man to look and see
Nemo in the canyon
Nemo in the arch
Nemo in a jutting peak
Nemo in a fiery sunset torch
…Linda King - 1962




I did it. I have been trying to do that stupid little step ever since I started my blog. I think I have it mastered. Ann, if you read this here is the copy of Nemo that you asked me for. I suppose this might work on a e-mail as well. This poem was written way before Bukowski and Peter laughed at my rhyming poetry. I told them I loved nursery rhymes...still do.

ALL ABOUT LOOSING IT

You haven't seen me on my own blog because I start to write on my computer and without warning it crashes. I have finally found out by having it happen more than once, that my computer crashed when he refigerator goes on...or today the people upstairs got up and they must have turned something on. Everything upstairs and down is hooked to one circuit. As I type I have unplugged my refigerator so that it doesn't go on and wipe out what I am saying.
This is progressive San Francisco where the old building have not caught up with progressive ideas, where old road have pot holes that will ruin your tires and your shocks. Where the telephone man couldn't hook up the phone because it caused one more thing on the circuit. Where it took a month to get Direct TV, instead of next day like the advertisement tell you.
Where healthcare has billed the government for $30,000 worth of tests without giving the patient one treatment. Where politicians keep fattening their pockets as they cut services to the homeless. And since I still have hope of a cure, I don't want to bite the hand who might make me well, but I am full of doubt as I weave down the street, a drunk without a beer, my numb hands and feet always cold. And when I read about my healthcare company making 23 billion dollar profit in 2007, I'd like to see the figures for this year. Insurance companies are always on the top list of profiteers. Ofcourse they need a lot of money, to pay all of those lobbyist they have in Washington D.C.
Can it be that Captitalist greed has become the norm and the Golden Rule has long been thrown out of practice. The Stockmarket, Politicians, the Banks, the hospitals, the Healthcare system, Corporations, almost everyone practicing greedology. We think nothing of not paying our taxes, if we can get away with, for what is the government doing for us? They steal from us with promises they don't keep and we steal from them. Healthcare tries to steal from the Government because they know that no matter what they summit, they will only get a part of it. Keep it high and you might get enough. They steal the health of the poor with tests after useless tests, while their sickness rage on, so that they can keep billing. The Stockmarket knew people had a nest egg they had been saving little by little for years. They figured out a way to steal it, with the IRA...politicans and lobbist working with them. They wanted that nest egg and the people on the job couldn't even choose they own stocks. The Mortgage company employees thought nothing of writing false earning reports so they could earn bigger and bigger pay checks on larger loans and they knew the government insured most of it. And the Healthcare companies helping with medicare for the government...profited like greedy pig in a bucket of swill. And what about me, they wanted to appraise my house for $280,000....sure I'll take it, my little $600 a month SS won't take we anywhere. Why not... rotten wages for a waitress had been $2.13 for years and years and years ...Plus tip, ofcourse. And people are worried about communism where people actually take a fair share. Pigs in the bucket of Capitalism want to go on practicing Greedology and that is why banks are cropping up on far away islands where nobody will ever be able to get their hands on...the hand out money or other untold profits.
As over 85 thousand people have seen death in the middle east, I wonder if greedology and profiteers on guns, oil and war machines are not wanting this war to go on and on and on. As America seems to want to be the only country who can threaten with nuclear weapons. America...come on...This is America....lets forget about all this and go make some money.

HEALTH CARE AND STILL LAUGHING

It's a good thing I have a sense of humor. After trying to get help for 10 months... in America, I didn't have enough money for private insurance, I finally, after going to emergency twice in Phoenix...moved to California after forclosure and got on MediCal.
Trying to find out what is wrong with me, I got two cat scans after I told them I didn't need another...as they didn't find anything the first time. After two trips to emergency and the hospital, they said it was not a stroke, not my heart, not diabetes, not HIV, not allergies, not my back and not my head. They have billed medicare and medical for close to $30,000 and I finally, finally, finally after almost a year they sent me to physical therapy.
This is my treatment...in therapy (I am quoting for the sheet)
1. Toy objects in Beans (and Rice there) Find them, match them with eyes closed
2. Move coins or pen around with hand.
3. Small squat holding on 15-20 2 times a day. Practice balance, feet shoulder wide apart then closed, count to 30. 2 times a day.

This is a good example of how the hospitals are milking medicare...and mediCal. They might have thought of these small exercise first? It's almost a joke. The MRI which took about 1 1/2 hour, alone, was $23,000. Can this be right? $860.00 of that was Pharmacy. I guess that was the shot..$22,479 was the rest. Are other people's MIRs this high? If a government healthcare system passes, they will have to hire as many watch dogs as they do medical staff to keep it honest...and they should have them for medicare as well. I read a letter saying healthcare in Canada is bad and this person would be happy to buy insurance, but what about the millions of poor people who can't afford to buy insurance. They can't even find a job. I am for socialized medicine. Insurance company can't be trusted either. If anybody did anything for me it was the chiopractor or a massage therpist which should be part of medical plans. The chiopractor showed me a spur on my spin shown by Xray that the nureologist did not even mention..from the MRI. I still have numb hands and feet. My balance is still off. The redness of my finger tips comes from inside. After $30,000, they don't have it right. I know, it's my body.
But, Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom has healed me....somewhat...by time...or I have got used to being numb. I haven't fall down this month, well, only once and it might have help me. It could have thrown my spine back into place. But, I will play with my beans, toys, pens and coins...after all somebody is paying, it's the least I can do. I have already squated my squats ***Shaman or Witch Doctor. anyone?