Category: Uncategorized

1. Oh, no. I will not moan about another birthday coming up next week. I’m happy to be here to see and enjoy it, in good health and agility.
2. Birthday cake. I’m looking forward to mine. I make sure I have one every year.
3. My study group that has begun the book Archetypes by Caroline Myss. It’s gonna be good.
4. 3. My dear friend Tammy who sent her fabulous chapbook The Postnuptial Agreement, the result of ten years of creating & composing. It’s gorgeous inside and out.
5. Heartland the series on Netflix has captured my heart. It’s my alternative life I could have lived if I knew about that lifestyle when I was younger.
6. The Reading Woman calendar by Pomegranate that displays beautiful artwork of women reading even before it was a common event to do for women, with blocks large enough to scribble reminders.
7. A place to donate the books I am purging from my storage unit. They need to be in circulation, not in a storage unit. Sadly I don’t have enough room for them all anymore.
8. The books that are like friends that I cannot part with. I’ve lugged them from one place to another.
9. My cell that shows who is calling so I can block the company connected to my car’s warrenty. Bull!

The writing ideas that come to me when I think they aren’t going to.

Painting is something I loved to do from my earliest years and I asked for a set of paints when I was 8; my step-father-to-be said, “I’m sorry i don’t know anything about paint sets.”

I got a baseball mitt instead.

When I asked for painting lessons which my oldest brother got, I was given tap shoes for my clumsy feet that never fit in a chorus line.

When I had babies, one after another painting portraits didn’t come into the picture.

Once they grew to a certain age, I got to take lessons with the esteemed, internationally known Juanita Crosby, Gail Bracegirdle and years later with Dot Overby.

Alas, talent is needed to get into a successful gallery.

1. Have I mentioned that I love Costco? I fought against the principal of paying to shop in a store and fought against the store, believing it was for families, not for people like me who buy in small quantities. Friends argued for years before I gave in. Now I love it and save money too.
2. The cardinal who looks me straight in the eye each morning, nods his head then feeds heartily.
3. My Tachyon pad that keeps arthritis out of my hands and may have helped heal my Wet macular Degeneration eyes.
4. Grace, who brings bottles of fresh well water to this city girl who drinks awful city, water.
5. Ceiling fans that keep my AC bill lower.
6. The many times I’ve been to Oakley Hall Plantation but have yet to see one of their ghosts.
7. All this new interest in poetry.
8. Coconut water to cook rice in. Yummy.
9. My countertop appliances so I don’t need to turn on a hot stove in this weather.

Autumn is around the corner. My favorite time of year.

The joint was jumpin’ with live jazz and even livelier bodies bouncing around the floor.

She entered slowly one long leg emerging from the front slit in her long, black dress after the other leading her across the dance floor, passing the bar with a wave to the bartender.

As she crossed to the double doors along the rear of the room where the big guy doorman, otherwise called a bouncer, smiled at her indicating she was a regular and welcome indeed.

A smile lit up her own face as she slipped through the opening, glancing around inconspicuously before turning to the left and walking along the thickly padded walls.

Her destination was a few steps away, easily found in the dimly lit room.

She slid onto the high stool as smooth, sexy, jazz oozed from the trio on the small stage, looked straight ahead and said, “It’s still warm outside Sam, so leave the olives and make it a twist.”

This well-worn book traveled with me to waiting rooms and to the laundromat a few years back after my washing machine refused repair. I’ve made pencil sketches on many of the pages as i do when i make a book mine alone. I love David Whyte’s poetry and was happy to reacquaint myself with this book that has inspired many of my poems. His poetry is also for those who think they don’t understand poems.

This poetry book has long been on my shelf but not when it was new. They were my pre-poetry days. Reading her words after 48 years have passed is a treasure. Our country has progressed but not far enough. This is her personal story, not political by subject. I have long been a fan of her works.

1.  Pasta. I love pasta of any size, shape or color; hot or cold or room temperature in the middle of the night. Better than steak any day.
2. For the birds that flock to my feeder early in the day. They continue my day with joy after an early morning walk.
3. For my Kindle where I can read with a black background to ease the strain on my eyes.
4. Silver Sneakers that sends me brief exercise routines that keep me from getting cranky at the computer by un-cranking my body throughout the day.
5. For the wealth of knowledge that rests on my bookcases, an arm’s length away.
6. For white vinegar as a cleaning agent so I don’t have to fill our waterways with poisons.
7. For the family history that I find so fascinating. What ancestors I have!
8. For the crossword puzzle in my local newspaper that keeps my brain reaching.
9. Knowing that soon cooler weather will come, leaves will turn colorful and maybe we’ll have snow.

Room darkening drapes that keep the heat of summer outside where it belongs.

SIDEWALKS

arlene s bice

What reader can breeze past a shop with a table

full of books for sale sitting on the sidewalk  

or the paintings spread out on a tablecloth of an 

entrepreneur artist in Washington Square

see the man selling crisp apples at lunchtime in

Manhattan, he’s next to the guy playing the sax

bringing music to those too busy, dropping coins in

the open, blue velvet-lined case, a bit of appreciation

further down the walk is the fast-talker selling watches

sporting all kinds of fancy bands at really cheap prices

a bargain for the tourist looking up at the skyscrapers

in wonder, his feet firmly planted on the sidewalk

saunter along at an easy pace to the carefully crafted,

handmade jewelry of an artist paying her way through

school, her facial expression cries out to you “at least

buy just one thing,” encourage her to continue her talent 

listen as you move down the sidewalk to languages strange

to your ears, babble on, being understood by another

sidewalks are for living outside, for connecting to people

you’ve never seen before and probably will never see again

travel south to historical Moore Square with its annual

Raleigh Arts Festival, Artsplosure, Sidewalk Painting

Sand Castle Contests, Farmers’ Markets, all alive and well

where people meet and eat, from vendors on the sidewalk

sidewalks are city landscapes, the variety of fauna being

humans, wandering the terrain rather than forest denizens

allowing the concrete squares to lead them to new places

as animals use dirt pathways to make their way thru a wood

ABOUT CRYING OR NOT

A NONSENSE POEM

arlene s bice

For all the years I did not cry

showing the world my bye & bye

and then time passed me  a loaf of rye

and I began to cry—I had no mustard

so my rainy days with rivers high

I recognized the need for us to cry

not a whole river wide

as the Julie London song abides

but enough  to get the sigh

out of your system 

think about flying in the sky

dropping tears to water the crops on high

ground where they will flow and dry

in the meantime the plants will survive

Many of the poems in this book inspired poetry in me.