The Miseries

It’s that time again. Every year about this time I get the sneezes. Better known as allergies. I live in Florida and winter is upon us. Then spring is upon us. Then winter again. Then spring. Again. And all this may occur on the same day. The weather is having a knock-down-drag-out with itself.

The plants die. Then they are reborn. Then they die. Then they are reborn. Happens every year. I see a flower blooming this time of year, I know I am in trouble. Instead of an achy-breaky heart, I get an achy-breaky nose.

They say misery loves company. My sneezes prove that proposition. They come in threes. And I don’t get just an itsy bitsy ah-choo. My sneezes could send a man to Mars. Just one of my sneezes could light up Los Angeles. Too bad I can’t figure a way to can them and sell them. I could make a mint off the utility companies.

In an effort to combat this conflict, I have pulled out the big guns. First it was one medication. That worked for some years. Then I tried another. It worked wonders. I didn’t sneeze. But it upset my stomach. Darn those side effects. Now I have a truckload of a third medication pull up to my front door in January and dump its load into my living room. I know sneezing time is just around the corner. It doesn’t completely stop the itching and the sneezing. All it does is keep it under control.

Soon April will show its pretty face and the miseries will come to an end. Before it does though, the weather will have one final go at me. It will do an April Fool’s. The weather will warm up late in March, then we get another cold snap along about April First. That’s nature saying, “Fooled you.” But I have taken to singing, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I’ll double-up on the meds and have one last go ’round. Then I don’t have to sing this song anymore:

It’s Sneezing Time

(Sung to the tune of “It’s Crying Time”, written by Buck Owens, recorded by Ray Charles.).

Oh, it’s allergy time again, sneezes gonna leave me
You can see that itchy look in my eyes
You can tell by the way the pollen holds me
It won’t be long before it’s sneezing time

Now they say that plants give the world wonder
When they do bud, their blooms they grow
And they say that my sneezing won’t get stronger
What the hell do they think they know?

Oh, it’s sneezing time again, sneezes gonna leave me
I can see that in my very stopped-up nose
I can tell by the way my eyes are itching
Won’t be long before sneezes hit my toes.

You say gesundheits make me feel better
That’s the way it’s happened every time before
As sure as the flowers bloom tomorrow
Sneezing time starts when plants bloom some more

Oh, it’s allergy time again, the sneezes gonna leave me
You can see that itchy look in my eyes
You can tell by the way the pollen holds me
It won’t be long before it’s sneezing time.

First snow

The wind resonates purring
soon to be clawing and biting,
chill crackles the air,
and automobile engines chatter
on this night icy and cold
from the year’s first snow;
Bobbie Ann and David, Warren,
Susie and I, we band of five
inseparably cloister against
the meowing on its prowl,
scratching, raking its talons
against the side of the house.
And then the calm. The snow calls
us from our stories, songs and games
to frolic in a niveous wonderworld
where we and other neighborhood kids
friskily pack and splatter
white balls of algidity while
missiles of ice hiss past.
A crash in the ear, a blast on the skin,
an ouch! and we slosh our retreat
to Bobbie Ann’s house,
hot chocolate and snow ice cream.

It’s February

It’s February
And soon day is over;
Before I know it
It’ll be October.

Barren trees and snowy white
Come and go and come again,
Chilly days and chilly nights
With only a fire for a friend.

The sky a smoky gray
With ghosts from another season
Haunting nights and haunting days
Down streets icily freezing.

The stillness is ever quiet
Till the wind bursts from its cave
A blizzard dancing with snow
Flakes bouncing wave after wave.

A white monolith of mountain
Rushes through cities and towns
An endless white filling the eye.
Then a green sprout through the ground.

It’s February
And soon day is over;
Before I know it
It’ll be October.

And the leaves will fall,
And the leaves will fall.

Snow

Teressa loved wintertime. She loved the chill of it. It gave her a good reason to snuggle up next to her mother. She loved the white of it. A day with snow was so much better than a day without snow. “It just is,” she told her friends. She loved it because sometimes she missed school. That was the best. She wasn’t much of a student.

Sitting in her parents’ house next to the fireplace, she thought about all the stories she could tell about the time it snowed. She could be an Eskimo living in an igloo. She would love to have her own igloo. But where did Eskimos hang their clothes? That might make a good story. An Eskimo who went looking for a clothes hanger and found herself lost on the ice. She smiled, then laughed. What fun that would be.

Her mother heard her laugh all the way in the kitchen. “You okay out there?” she called.

“Yes, Mom,” Teressa called back.

It was a happy home Teressa lived in. But happiness isn’t all its cracked up to be. She wanted a little adventure.

Then she thought of another story. This one featured Santa Claus and the North Pole. Because many of her stories contained Santa Claus and the North Pole, she let that one go. The Santa Claus and the North Pole stories were beginning to repeat themselves.

No, this story about the Eskimo was an intriguing one. The next time she was at the library she would have to read up on igloos and Eskimos and where they hung their clothes. Then she would start that story. Call it “Iglooland”. That would be the best of titles. She really liked it.

She got up and walked to the window and looked outside. The world was white. Snow blanketed everything. Out there was an Eskimo searching for a clothes hanger for her coat. Her warm coat.

micropoem of the day: one last blast

Well, folks, I know one thing. I will not miss January. At all. And I’m sure a lot of you probably feel the same way. We’ve been getting the cold. But we’re not getting the benefits. You know, like snow. There’ll be no Frosty the Snowman for us down here in mid-peninsula. That also means no snowball fights. Soon enough January will be gone and we might just end up being nostalgic for it.

One last blast
of a winter freeze.
Like a skater
ice comes, ice goes