Luanne Castle: Poetry and Other Words (and cats!)

This week has been difficult for me because the gardener and I are self-employed and our businesses are shut down temporarily for the pandemic. I spent my week dealing with the resulting issues with nobody to call for advice.

So today I am reeling from a week of that. And frustrated by all the stuff I didn’t get to do that I wanted to do. But I did keep up with tweeting for the shelter (takes longer than it would seem to as I have to collect the info first) and other animal work.

I hope that I get to work on my Scraps scrapbook and write and go for walks this week.

On top of the government and bank crap, the gardener has been damn grumpy. Anybody else living with someone who is grumpy during the pandemic?

Today I will give you a couple of photos of the grump’s handiwork in the yard .

Both these photos are at the wall we share with the neighbor.

The flower wheel was made by my father, and I think I’ve posted a photo of it before. The metal flowers are fading, but I sort of enjoy seeing them become different shades over time.

I sure hope that I get to do some writing before National Poetry Month is over.

By the way, Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus is now available for purchase through Amazon. Why should you buy it other than reading a lot of poems about a Very Timely Subject? Because the purchase price goes toward both Doctors Without Borders and Partners In Health! The poets are from all over the world and from all age groups, even a 7 year old! Makes me tear up to think about it. POETRY IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

Hope your week is good enough and, most importantly, that you and yours are well.

Sending LOVE!!!

Reporting In

Reporting in from the pandemic, as I sort of promised last week. Not going too stir crazy yet, although my concerns about all the changes to our collective and individual as-planned futures has me a bit shocked.

I wrote a few poems about the Thing happening to us, as I mentioned last week, but have agonized over a weird about-what? poem all week on and off. One of my pandemic poems is coming out in the anthology Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus, ed. G. A. Cuddy. I read a bit of it for PITTOC, and they posted it on their Instagram account. I reposted it on my Instagram account. The poem is called “Another Elephant Poem,” of course related to the elephant in the room.

Another one of my pandemic poems was published by Headline Poetry and Press: Monkey Mind

I would not call either one of these poems uplifting. They simply are. The third poem I sent out to a journal so we’ll see: that poem is a bit more upbeat.

On a positive note, Hermione Wilds reads one of my pre-pandemic poems on Youtube.

You know that video found on Instagram that I mentioned above? I kid you not: I absolutely did not have this many wrinkles, bloatings, and sags before March. Yes, I am getting older, and my face is showing it. But, WOW, what a difference a month makes. I have not been sleeping well. Rather than having insomnia, I have been sleeping, but my sleep has been plagued by nightmares. One night the dream went on forEVER, with me trying to social distance and people not allowing it. No matter where I went, people crowded up around me.

Is that creepy or what, that I am apparently now afraid of people?!

Now here are some good doings.

Funny: at the cats’ dinner time I shut our bedroom door so Sloopy Anne doesn’t run in there after dinner. She likes to lie in wait for us, but she can’t sleep with us because she and Tiger get jealous of each other–and Tiger gets to sleep with us. So now the second I try to sneak to the bedroom door, Sloopy Anne anticipates and races me for the door. I keep trying to figure out ways to trick her, but she is ON to me. Pretty cute.

Making: I wrote a story about a fabric scrap for a page in my SCRAPS scrapbook. The edits took me all week. I might make two pages out of this one because the story is so long. Or I might just insert the story inside a pocket or somesuch and keep it all to one page. I haven’t started making the page yet, so I will have to see how it turns out.

Content: I’m so blessed to have my cats. I am celebrating Pear’s birthday today. She turns 20. I will celebrate Tiger’s birthday this week, too. She turns 16. They are the oldest of my six. All but Perry are seniors. As my poem “Monkey Mind” mentions, I wish everyone who is lockdowned or isolating had pets to give them love.