Things I Will Never Do Again.........by Julianna Rowe

 Things I can, will never do again due to the fact I am a couple years from 80 years of living:

Wear high heels, go roller skating, do the jitter bug, drink milk, get drunk, smoke, ride a bicycle, climb the bleachers, have sex in a car, I know dumb but a very old memory anyway, ride a horse, lift the sofa to move it, wear fancy underwear, take ballet lessons, walk away from the stove when its on, run, lift my grandchildren, ice skate, wear make up smoothly, laugh and not pee, same with sneeze, drive a sportscar at night, drive any car at night, get a kitten and outlive it, go to my grandkids football games, go on a fair ride, go to Italy and walk around, go anywhere and walk around, get on a ladder and hang a curtain, or Christmas lights, clean the storeroom, go to a movie theater, be listened to, be respected,  vacuum under the bed, move furniture, cook a large holiday meal, carry groceries upstairs, carry anything upstairs, be held passionately, snow ski, take ballroom dance lessons, feel and look beautiful, travel, physically defend myself, skateboard ha, wear a mini skirt, jump on the bed, stay up past 8:30pm, remember I already saw that movie until it’s over,  stand in long lines, tell funny jokes because I forget the punch line, take a road trip alone, walk into a store without leaning on a grocery cart, wear a lift ‘em up bra comfortably, ride a motorcycle, drive at night, walk downtown, have a snowball fight, make angels in the snow, change a tire, chase a dog, be a bridesmaid, catch the brides bouquet, be a godparent, be a foster parent, buy a new car, go to Sante Fe into the canyons to hear the spirits, fly anywhere, meet friends for drinks and be able to drive home, open a can of soup, put air in my tires, tear open the bag of crackers, sing reasonably, wear false eyelashes, get out of a speeding ticket, fall down and get back up, sit Indian style, sit on the floor with the grandkids, eat before bed, live in a high rise in New York City, purchase a Brownstone in Boston, run a marathon, wear a thong, hate them anyway, hang curtains, carry or drag luggage, no where to go anyway, iron my clothes, they are no iron I guess, figure out my computer issues, have more than one alcoholic drink, get support stockings on, get support stockings off, reach my toenails and I am not fat, well a little in the middle, walk on the grass, walk on unlevel ground, march in a protest, learn to swim, climb a tree, flip my mattress, put air in my tires,  and more?  Send me your thoughts!  I am sure I have missed a lot of things people closing in on 80s year of age can no longer do.  Of course some of these are of a personal nature.  

 

The Auschwitz Train: by Julianna Rowe

 POEM: The Auschwitz Train

Some are blessed with gifts to make a good life,

But get caught up in messes that cut like a knife.

One bad after another keeps shaving their dreams,

And little by little they fell into life schemes.

It’s hard to climb out of a pit of sand,

And when they do, there’s nowhere to land.

They crawl until they reach the wall,

Then someone shoots them in mid-crawl.

Nowhere to find the kin that has passed,

Hurt by humans, and they were not the last.

The last to drowned or be shot down,

Leaving the little ones nowhere bound.

Put in cages like circus freaks,

With little food and no decent drinks.

What has this piece of land become?

Where the hearts of many have become numb.

So rich men can build big casinos,

While hunger and bullets kill little bambinos.

Greed has crossed our borders

And allowed these ten thousand murders.

We sit in warm baths and many get high,

While mothers watch their children die.
Who will stand on their behalf?

No one can, for fear of “his” wrath.

The golden one who waves his flag,

Does nothing good and merely brags.

While humans die wearing bloody rags.

And he builds prisons to house the poor,

Saying they're criminals so he can pick up more!

The white supremacist who copies 1944.

The Auschwitz train has descended our earth,

Filling more prisons worse than old Leavenworth.

The color of your skin is your only crime,

Or in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We pray to be saved from the greed of rich men,

Who kill and destroy while living in sin.

Oh God of the Universe, we call for your aid,

Please rush to help all those you have made.

Our Holy One, how can you watch them die?

I know you are there; it can’t be a lie.

I praise you and thank you, please turn this around.

Turn our world back to its fertile ground.

Amen

By Julianna Rowe

 

 

 

 

 

BURN OUT! A Single Parents Day!! by Julianna Rowe 1990 something

 I wrote this along with a very long list of what was on my mind being a single mother and foster parent.  I left out a lot!  My song may not hit the top 10 or even the top anything but it is a very true list of what single parents go through.  I believe this was written back in 1990 something.  But times have not changed for single parents, in fact they may have gotten a bit worse.  I tried to make is somewhat comedic.  

         

The Thorn 1990 by Julianna Rowe

The title should probably be "My Thorn." The bible speaks of Paul's thorn but never said what it was.  I believe we all have one or more thorns. I wrote this in 1990. 

 I had just moved from Texas to Wisconsin thinking it was a visit only.  It turned out to be forever.  I developed a severe case of agoraphobia that lasted for a few years due to personal issues.  I was divorced and left alone with four children. It all turned out fine but in the mean time I wrote the above poem. I put music to it on suno.com.  

I came out of the troubles waters.  Time has a way of handling things like that.  

 

A Gift From my Deceased Friend, Don....... 1985

Though it may be said that I, alone, am responsible for the condition of my heart, and though I personally have no control over the heart of another individual, only in blindness would I believe that I am not connected somehow to every living being.  Simply casting my eyes on you or hearing your voice is a very real link that truth cannot deny.

It is not the denying or severing of connections with others that brings about inner freedom for that is spiritual blindness.  Rather, it is the recognition of the nature and quality of relatedness which leads to peace.  To be awake is to see the fact of the connection, the link between us all. To be at peace is to allow a Higher Awareness to observe and to transform the nature and quality of our relationship to life.

In assuming responsibility for the condition of my heart…in focusing on the nature of my own relatedness, light is very truthfully cast upon my whole world.

                                To Julianna Rowe - “A gift from a deceased friend, 1985.”  

The Chameleon? Or the Fairy God Sent? by Julianna Rowe

  Sunday Morning: The Chameleon? Or the Fairy God Sent?

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment.

When I was a child, I would pray with my hands vertically placed against the tender skin of each of the other of my innocent hands. While my praying hands pointed toward the heavens like the steeples rising above the trees during our boring country drives, the ones my mother insisted upon after church. Those rides, where I got awfully car sick at each turn. And while praying, I wouldn't throw up; my little nose would point down toward the hell I was fearing while my lips pursed gently on my hand-made steeple, just like when I prayed before breakfast, lunch, supper, and bedtime.

Fear of not praying led me to the center of the earth, where fire would burn me forever, so I was taught. God was supposed to protect me from hell, but instead, he or she scared the hell out of me, making it difficult to trust such an unseen magical person. So, I invented a friend. it seemed at my tender age that God was not my friend, mom was not my friend, and dad was always working. Not to say life was total hell. We had many good times as well. But still, my little brother was annoying, which is normal, and the cousin who was left in charge of me was a horrific soul. He shot me with a bb gun in my foot on purpose. He refused to play with me unless I let him pull my tooth. He and his buddies locked me in his dad's greenhouse, climbed up on its roof, and all those boys peed on me as I stood below, trying to get under a work table. At least they never put my tongue on a frozen metal pole. That narrative reminds me of the old movie The Christmas Story with the Red Ryder and BB gun. Well, maybe mine is a bit more truthfully cruel. I forgot the part where I got hit in the face with a rotten egg. I gagged and threw up all the way home.  I also tried walking to the neighbors and got stuck in the mud. I was four or five years old, but I remember one of the older neighbor boys pulling me up and out of my boots. One boot continued hanging onto me as though it would die if left behind. That boot screamed the loudest sucking noise as though a vacuum had entered the mud, trying to save me by sucking it and me free.

That mud was several inches deep, and I have no idea where my mother was during all these beautiful experiences.

The mean male cousin seemed to oversee me most of my off-school times. Yet he was never allowed to watch my little brother.

I was more like a doll to my mother, who was only sixteen years older than me. When I was not outside getting abused by my cousin, she was putting me in dresses always with an added stiff, scratchy petticoat that hurt when I sat down, walked, or moved. Or cutting my hair and giving me permanents, wrapping my hair around her fingers, making little ringlets to impress her neighbors and other lady friends.

At age five, I walked three-quarters of a mile to school, or was it a half mile? At that age, it seemed like two miles. On the right side of the road to school was a wooded area set in water.  The trees were all grey and dead. No leaves, no life, and I  always feared I was fall off the side of the road or a car would push me into what appeared to be an ocean, and I would go under and never come back.  I was always afraid. I never felt secure. 

The plastic God I saw hanging on a cross at the front of the church sure did not come to my aid. Thus, the birth of my imaginary magical friend came at the age of my intelligence level. "It" did not have a name, but I recall "it" was a tiny human. I have always loved fairies and enchanting forests and still do in my seventh decade on this planet. Steven Tyler wrote in his autobiography how he would sneak off to the woods behind his home in upper New York to play with imaginary fairies. "They" are gentle, kind, and loving, little mythical human birdlike creatures. 

In my mind, I was the only mortal being who knew about this tiny person, which meant I had to care for it. I had to find ways to keep "it" warm and safe. I had to find food for "it" and make "it" clothing. I recall mentally putting my little person in a coffee cup with some scraps from my mother's sewing material as makeshift blankets. Popsicle sticks formed a bed, and more material from mom's quilting stash helped. I suspect the tiny person was the part of me that felt unsafe and insecure. I always looked for someone to help me feel secure, but there never was anyone but myself for that honor, and as an adult and before, the fairy theory went out the window. Dolls helped for a few years. And then boys took over the fairy role. Then a husband or two or three. I continued choosing my mean cousin to marry. I have no idea why I am writing this today, the first day of what is supposed to be the new beginning of another year. Although I was impressed by the doll house miniatures people make that recently appeared on Facebook. Could that be what triggered this conglomerate of words today?

I did learn God is a good God. Not just a scary statue in front of the church, and he can be a friend who I do not have to figure out how to feed or cloth. And I can talk to him, and he will love me no matter what. Humm, he might have been my little fairy friend in disguise who came as a chameleon to help me through some tough times as a little child.

I reference the disciple Paul: I myself don't view Paul as changeable or two-faced. Nor do I think Paul's teachings contradict those of the OT writers or other NT writers.

Paul the chameleon?!

In his letters, it does seem that Paul changes colors, so to speak, depending on who or what issue he was addressing. (Chameleons change more for socializing than for camouflage.)

I'll call Paul the white/blue chameleon as he upheld the veracity of God's written word and moral laws/principles (for gentiles too). Yet…Paul became a red chameleon when confronting Jews who tried to push their oral law & temple sacrifices/rituals onto gentile converts and Christians.

Christians are justified by faith in Jesus' sacrifice for our sins…not by animal sacrifice, temple rituals, or oral law. Paul the red chameleon boldly stood against his countrymen who taught otherwise.

Paul the white chameleon upheld the veracity of God's written word & laws as a way of life for believers via the HS.

Peter loved our brother Paul (2Pe.3:15-17). Although some of Paul's writings are corrective and hard to understand, he held to God's moral principles as valid for mankind.

https://bibletopicexpo.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/paul-2-the-chameleon/

In other words, God can use an imaginary fairy or anything he chooses to come to us when we are in need. Whereas we must be alert and on guard for the mean cousins of life, they can unravel a child's mind that could take years to recover. Not to say God has not sent many different White Chameleons to me. (The good ones, not the puffed-up bad ones.) And then again, I have received some negative ones as well. It is a hit-and-miss world. Sometimes I rather think it's pure luck.

Nah, it can't be. This will probably be discussed at my next therapy session: "The fairy God sent for me to house, feed, and care for."

 Maybe I won't mention this after all.  Emoji laughing out loud.

Written 1-20-23

Good Bye Tim: by Julianna Rowe (The song to the right goes with the post.)

 

Goodbye Tim

I sit before the screen silently waiting

For?

You never married, Tim...

Folding my hands to a tightness unknown.

Search engine for?

Killing time.

Six years and nothing.

Hollow space inside.

You died.

YOU DIED.

Where to go?
Wait, I know.

Here, where I am!

To be the best I can be without Tim.

Goodbye Tim

Good Bye........Tim

I'm leaving with my dog Jim...

Goodbye Tim

I sit before the screen silently waiting

For?

You never married me, Tim...

Folding my hands to a tightness unknown.

Search engine for?

Killing time.

Six years and nothing

Hollow space inside

You died.

YOU DIED.

So I'm leaving town with my dog Jim

Good bye Tim

 

The Love of My Life Really Wasn't: Love or Money? by Julianna Rowe

 Love or Money?  There is a song I wrote in the column to the right.......  

                                                      This is a re-post story- but the song I wrote Yesterday!

Personally I have come to learn we can love more than one person but in different ways. I could go into a long love story here that lasted "three years to life" (some call that a sentence)......add to it all the ups and believe me the downs....add the children, hurt.....the flights back and forth from Texas to Wisconsin every week.....the heart pounding races to the airport with what seemed like movie star red carpet meetings at the entrance gates bounding into the warm passionate arms of one another then building further to gentle yet firm kisses for all to view. Never knowing anyone else was in the building. Carrying luggage, sharing meals, drinks, loving tenderly....dancing closely, laughing uncontrollably, and best of all looking into one an others eye's seeing the reflection of only one of two. We shared a Deep love indeed. I have heard that money is the root of all evil. Pain could be included in that circle of adjectives regarding pain. Grief too. The world says true and honest Love is all good and pure. So there you have my story.  Basically my story is tied up in two sentences or even two words. Love or Money? He chose the money and I was left with the grief and pain. I thought I should die. Long story again.... humm maybe some day I shall have more time for believe me this would be a great book. The tall dark and oh so handsome cowboy, and I shall add, rich cowboy too. He purchased for me a brand new 19 (never mind it would show my age totally) something burgundy and white Grand Prix. Asked me to marry him...... I hear it was something about his "Daddy" that stopped the gentle deep love, the travel, the red carpet meetings, the marriage, the everything, in our tracks. In a motel outside a dusty small town in western Oklahoma, where he was instructed and sent to give me the family decision, we sat on the edge of the bed and sobbed together like two children. Daddy chose new tracks for my fiancé, and I felt like a homeless bum left in a box car on those lonely tracks, alone to die. A lost Love can make a person feel like that. Yet as the years past he was always that little box of a dream I could go to when I needed. He was a photo in the second drawer of my jewel box and a chapter in my life book page 266. He was not my God but he was one of my earthly treasures I always hoped to meet again whether at age eighty on earth or in love in the heavens hereafter. Over the years we spoke by phone a few times, even met once. Oddly the man I did marry lived in a small town in Texas where my love built and opened a business one mile away from our home. Oddly?? I would say. One mile from us. By then he had more children and so had we. The next time we spoke he had 14 Grandchildren and I had 6..... I knew then heaven was about the only place we might ever be together at again. Yes I am laughing. On occasion during a boring evening at home I would Google his name. Yes I did! And finally one night I found pictures of he and his family...all six children, the Grands, his still living Mother.....and Jackpot, I found one of his daughters on a Face Book site. He was bald and I barely recognized him. Looking at his photo I could still feel the warmth and safety of his arms and the softness of his lips on mine. Whoa, hold it..STOP SIGN! My heart dropped at my computer desk...my dreams smashed, my hopes lost, my years of deep wanting and memories crushed like a mile wide tornado came onto my screen and into the furrows of my mind and left me empty. Crap, now that's twice I am left empty by this fellow. My fault...I could have kept my delusional dreams and fake security forever if I hadn't hit that keyboard or joined face book. Now I don't even have a fake memory of a deep love and all that shit! Why I wouldn't even want to be with him in heaven because he might be standing next to Trump!! See the money won out again in the end.... the money even took my fragile dreams. I say I deserve it all back! So the moral of this love story is that it really wasn't. Be careful what you pray for because they say you might just get it!.

Really? Who Cares? by Julianna Rowe

 The song to the right is written by me!  It goes with this Post.  And Copyrighted.

Who Cares?   No one knows I gently placed a photo of them high atop my antique wardrobe within view of my slumber area to view at each days end.  Or at an interval during the day when I am passing and look up at the photo while tossing a sweater into the hamper, then moving on.

No one knows about the wine glass Sarah painted for me seven years ago with broches laying among the beautifully painted flowers holding the glass. How I walked to get the bamboo stool from next to the high bed, walked to the kitchen to reach the grass on the top shelf. To then walk it back to the old antique wardrobe and fill it with grandma's old broches. 

Then set it next to my mirrored jewel box and old doll from Germany not to be seen by anyone, probably ever, as she is hidden back in the dark corner of the tall box.  

Who would know the one broch among the many was worn in 1957 at Grandma Tillie's fiftieth wedding anniversary dance.  Or that the other broch was worn by me a hundred times while I was a successful insurance agent who walked with a spring in her step and a deep kindness in her heart.

No one knows the fur scarf that drapes over the pearl pillow I made came from an $800 coat gifted me by a lover I met while traveling the South.

That lover and I secretly driving to a rendezvous area, making love under a large tree that covered us with a secure blanket of safety. After a lingering time never to see him again. Decades later. No one knows my mind in the dark hours before dawn.  No one knows the lack of breath I feel or the fear of how to walk in it and with it.  The lack of life force energy doesn't offer sustenance. It  maintains my temporary life force but....there is no security at the primal base.  None, unless I create it and earn paper money for what I create.  The broches don't pay. The photo memories don't pay. The rendezvous by the tree is a blip in time for what?  A miniscule dot on my brain, an intangible noting no one in any of the vast Universes knows of but me.  What was it for? Maybe for this moment only.  At 3:11 am four decades later so an old woman could relive that lovemaking rendezvous out in the West Texas countryside with a handsome viral rich businessman just like herself.  Then driving away, free, long blonde hair, loosely wrapped scarf blowing in the wind.  Smile lingering, and secure.  Unlike today. Where nothing matters, no one calls as often, or cares as much.  The body weakening, the mind failing.   The broch lay in its wine glass tomb and I in my tombstone mind. How do I roll it away so I can get paid and live on.  Living isnt free.  Only memories are. 

Snap out of it.  There are more broches under the bed and in the box in the closet.  

Move on Julianna. You got this. It was just a bad dream honey. Although getting older does change our lives.  

P.S. I  had surgery today on a skin cancer and could not bend down to get Grandma's broches out from the bottom of my closet for a photo.  So I borrowed one online from Zaza of Canada.  Those are her broches.... Later's on my Gma Tillie's.   

The Marble Cake Disorder..... by Julianna Rowe

 The Marble Cake Disorder—(Pardon my occasional bad cell "French!")

They never die. They leave their “shit” among us in our cells, our DNA, and spread like diarrhea depending on the percentage of positive or negative cells. 

We grieve their bacteria-ridden skin and put marble stones atop their rotting graves (forgive me), but they are still here. Beware of where "they" have been and still are in your mental and physical body. 

I am no psychics professor, but can you imagine the equation for generations of shit? Cells left behind. Good and bad, however, the bad seem to carry a heavier, louder weight. Say it with a megaphone. Of course, meekness is not a good cornerstone, yet it is preferred. We mentally paint a pretty picture of what we want to see, but the other side of the picture is reality. Some call that black and/or white swirling together like the marble cake mixture of the mind. Impossible. Keep blending it until the black and white levels out and one cannot take over the other. Hard, I know. Not really if good is chosen, but then, as I said, the bad dead cells live on, and depending on their strength, their weight can overtake. So can the good, but the challenge is the rather.

Identify the genes/cells' reproductive shit that is NOT in the grave, rather dancing within you and yours. Kick out the ones that do no good and teach your people the same. (Easy for me to say) The more you “rid,” as in lice, yourself and yours on a continual basis of either the good or bad, they eventually die out and the stronger remains. That is a war that never ends. "The Marble Cake" lives on. 

My reference to lice was referring to the immense difficulty in their removal. The product Rid is only the beginning. Each teeny, tiny, minuscule nit (baby) must be picked out by hand, usually more than once. No different than our grandma's generational cells. At least we can see lice!! Grandma left us an invisible challenge.

Religion calls it good or evil with a Supreme God at the middle in charge of your generational cake mixture. They say, "Praise and worship him, and the off-balance marble cake has no power." That works for many to keep the bad cells from taking over. Balance has never been easy. Physically or mentally. Balancing dead ancestors is the key to life. Because they are not dead. Grandma’s shit is in your bones, and you better not forget it.

We busy our minds. Keep mental rooms with locked doors. When our mental doors are locked, we feel safe and cannot see what is coming. Mentally or physically until it hits us in the head or knocks us down completely. Like a child hiding under the covers. Yet it's all still there, coming at us or in us. Stop running. Thus, the words. Face your fears or simply face your generational issues. Or face your GREATNESS.

It's all in "The Marble Cake."  
We all have MPD or MCD to some degree. Multiple Personality Disorder. Marble Cake Disorder.

You only can manage and balance your generational Marble Cake.

Taint easy. 

The old “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” (or Grandmother etc.) is not true.

 

                                 Linley C. Morrison—Grandfather

                                Grandmother and Great-Grandmother

                                         My great-great-grandfather is on the left. Harry Morrison-Me age 4

                                                

Diamonds Are Forever.. A true story by Julianna Rowe

   Diamond’s are Forever   (A true story)

They say God speaks to me in a quiet, still voice.

Among the traffic and life’s harsh noise.

I lie still in my bed for as long as I can.

To listen and see if I get to hear from the man…

My ears are ringing from God only knows what.

And the TV news is talking nothing but smut.

The next day comes, and I try again.

Finding a way to run from political newsmen.

Sitting quietly watching YouTube’s fireplace scene

Hoping to hear God’s gentle lighted beam.

When a cluster of diamond dust burst out of the dark.

Yes, into the room it was spark after spark.

I counted it roughly fifteen times over.

As I rubbed my eyes gently, begging it to hover.

But it exited the door, and I wondered no more.

If that were the God that loved me to my core.

What a great person I must be to receive a visit from thee.

Never shall I forget how much he loves me.

By Julianna Rowe: A true story

 

  

My Hidden Universe Within?..... by Julianna Rowe

The Brooch?

Who cares? Two words with an ending mark. A question short of emotion... 

No one, or any particular person, knows I carefully and gently placed a photo of them at my day's end, high atop an antique wardrobe within view of my slumber area. A silent offering to my hidden universe. 

At any interval during any day when I am passing, I look up at the photo while tossing a sweater or socks into the hamper as I move past. Its meaning is only for me. 

No one knows about the seven-year-old wine glass Sarah painted for me. No one cares how I walked from one end of the apartment, weak while recovering from a three-week virus, to the other end to get the bamboo stool from the high bed and walk it back to the kitchen to reach that wine glass on the top shelf of the round corner cabinet. Then walk it back to the old antique wardrobe and fill it with Grandma's or my old brooches, set it just right next to the mirrored box and old doll from Germany not to be seen by anyone, probably ever. Who would care anyway? 

Who would know the one brooch among the many was worn in 1957 at Tillie's fiftieth wedding anniversary dance? Or one of the other ones was worn by me a hundred times while I was a successful insurance agent who walked with a spring in her step and a deep kindness in her heart.

No one knows the fur scarf came from an $800 coat gifted to me by a lover I met while traveling in the South. We would secretly drive to a rendezvous area and make love in nature near a beautiful, huge tree that comes into my mind on days I might need it. To never see him again. Yet the memory touch sparked a cascade of beauty from a different world, offering me a beautiful yet silent language in a glass in my old bedroom wardrobe. Security, that is. The lack of life force energy doesn't offer sustenance. It maintains my temporary life force, but....there is no security at the primal base of my life at this time. None, unless I create it and earn paper money for what I create. 

The brooches do not pay.  The photo memories do not pay.  The rendezvous by the memory tree is a blip in time for what? A minuscule dot in my brain, an intangible nothing no one in any of the vast universes knows of but me. What was it for? Maybe for this moment only? At 3:11 am, four-plus decades later, so an old woman could relive a love rendezvous out in the West Texas countryside with a handsome, rich businessman just like herself. Then driving away, free, long blonde hair loosely wrapped in a scarf blowing in the wind behind me as a sign something had passed. Smile lingering, secure. Unlike today. Where nothing matters, no one calls or cares. The body weakening, the mind failing.

The brooch lay in its wine glass tomb, and I in my tombstone mind.

How to roll it away like they say Jesus did on the 3rd day?

I must roll it away and move forward to get paid and live on. Living isn't free. Only memories are.

Snap out of it. There are many more brooches under the bed and in the box in the closet. More stories to tell. 

You've got this. No one said growing old was going to be easy. 

I lean on my hidden Universe within.

No Empty Corners......by Julianna Rowe

 No Empty Corners

I have no empty corners

I am a wall hoarder   

I got this from my grandma Gillie

If there is an empty spot

I will fill it with a lot

At the least a spool, a plant, or table

Anything at all to keep my mind stable.

An empty space means trouble

Probably why I am not a couple

For who could stand such OCD

And park their car to live with me.

My busy home is done in great taste

It is a bit busy but classy at its base.

I am not a woman with thirty-yard arts,

My home is full of items from the heart.

I see my Granddaughter got the same gene

Good luck to her trying to keep it all clean.

There is more than meets the eye in my home

A wonderful place for your heart to roam

My mini museum from the 30’s and 40’s

My walls are my never-ending stories

To make life more beautiful is the rule

The bathroom, the bedroom, using my tools.

Cats and birds and ten clocks read my days

Old and new, striped pillows join the maze

Six TV’s I rarely watch so not alone

Life and color, come love in my zone

A real live cat named Bob quietly sleeps

Near a peacock feather and a strand of pearls

Fairy lights dance among my collection of mirrors

To keep at bay a reflection of tears

Beads and crystals glistening the sun

This happy place is always fun

Or maybe it’s just a lonely love story

Oh, hell no, it is Bogart, love 'n never being sorry

Leather, rocks, wood, and fairies dance in my lighted glory.

I promise this is no fish story!

It is the deep breath I so wonderfully need

By Julianna Rowe   2025

 

The Imaginary Crown......by Julianna Rowe

 The Imaginary Crown

                              I used to be a princess with an imaginary crown.

Then one decade it fell royally down.

Time kept passing. I stopped to the $1 store

And I bought one more.

It was plastic and didn’t shine like the original one.

But it matched my shine I had lost over the years

The old crown stayed the same

Meantime I changed my name

Did it help?

Nope, the crown stayed the same.

It didn’t tarnish; I did. 

I put it back on.

Smile, laugh, come back to your crown,

The one that sparkles and never lets you down.

Don’t look in the mirror

Look into your heart

Then simply go play with your old dog, Bart.

Love yourself, wear the dress

Put makeup on and don’t be a mess

Sing a song from days gone by

Loud and clear for all to hear

Wear your crown to the grocery store

Yes, you can; let them think your insane

Most will smile and see your heart

And realize your old youth needed a jump start

A pretend visit from that sparkling crown

Lifted you up from where you’d been down

It didn’t change the way you appeared

It brought your heart back up from the rears!

By Julianna Rowe

 

The Family Blood We "Share"...or Not By Julianna Rowe

             

                  Family—The Blood We “Share”

Money is more important to some than the blood we share or the heart that moves it. The heart cannot move paper. It cannot purchase medications. It cannot sustain the body with nutrients. It pumps poison thorns or velvet strength. And at that, it cannot without the mind’s offerings. 

So, you see whatever you do and think daily pumps through your veins. It surrounds your being unseen and even unheard.

Open the mental compartments for release of the thorns. If not, they shall grow onto your bones, sucking and tearing your velvet strength, devouring your living nutrients, and breaking your heart to death.

Don’t let the thorns take your breath of life.

Julianna Rowe

Generations of Clue's by Julianna Rowe

                           

Generations of Clues

I burst into this world covered in the muck of my descendants.

The church poured water, dismissing the demons' rants.

Did “they” really believe “they” would leave?

The battle of the good and evil would forever cleave.

They came from a hundred years present and past.

Fighting for first place to see who would last.

The greed, the giving, the love, the hate,

Hurry, take over fast, and don’t be late.

Kill the mind, devour the body, and don’t let good ride high.

Those cells from past grandmothers caused many to cry.

“They“ didn’t fight them; they laid down and died.

Never knowing how to choose the Y in the road,

Away from death and onto the living mode.

Generations of clues pissed in the winds,

No attention was paid to the past hidden sins.

Sweep the rain that cleanses generations dead cells,

Into the drains and into their Hells

Where they belonged long ago

Before they touched deep into your soul.

Julianna Rowe

The Fairy of Steeple Hill ........... by Julianna Rowe

 

As the gentle breeze rustled the leaves on Steeple Hill, Lily’s heart raced with worry for the injured bluebird nestled in her delicate hands. Its vibrant feathers, now dulled by pain, reminded her of the shimmering sapphire skies. She knew time was of the essence. Welcome to Steeple Hill, my name is Lily, she said as she helped the little bluebird inside. 

What can I do for you, little bird? And do you have a name? Where is your family?

Little Bird did not answer but simply stared at Lily.

Sweet girl, are you hurt?  And that is when Lily saw the tiny tear trickling down her new friend's face.

Oh, my goodness, what can be the problem here? Do not be afraid. Let me see if I can help you.

Lily bent down and lifted the little bird onto the soft, gentle palm of her hand. She raised one tiny blue wing and then the other. The little bird gave out a quiet peep, and that was all. Lily continued checking and talking while she tenderly sat Bluebirdie on her best pink velveteen pillow on her fluffy green bed of soft lavender petunias. Then Lily sat down on her floor made from scrap carpet pieces and quietly stroked the little one’s delicate feathers as she sang and then rose to flutter around and around as though she were dancing a healing ballerina waltz in rhythmic form. Almost hypnotic. Bluebirdie’s eyes followed Lily’s dance until she fell fast asleep.

Lily decided to do some investigating on her own, considering Bluebirdie wasn’t coming forth with any intelligible conversation. Lily flew out and up the steep incline where her house had been built, to the top where she could see forever. But she didn’t see any other families that might belong to her new guest. Lily flew higher to the treetops, thinking maybe the little one fell from its home nest. But nothing. That’s it, Lily thought. I must call upon the forest fairies for assistance. Lily fluttered back to her home to open the locked golden box she kept hidden behind a loose rock in the side of her safe haven, also hidden securely among the deep leaves and trees on the side of Steeple Hill.

She had built it with her fairy friend Lucien when they arrived in the forest long ago. A fire had destroyed their previous homes high above the city among the homes of the rich and famous. After moving, Lucien and his friends had carried rocks and wood pieces for the walls and flooring. They found scraps of material behind the local stores in the trash bins for counters and cupboards. Tiny dishes were gathered from the dollhouse remains found in the trash behind Toyland, the local toy store. They had to be very careful not to be seen because the humans have deadly sprays and big sticks that will kill them. So, trips to town were rare, if ever, now that the homes on Steeple Hill were completed. Trips were made only for repairs, which weren’t needed often.

Lily knew it was time to ring the Fairy Bells because this was an emergency. It had been eons since there had been any emergency where she had to remove the golden box and call forth the Forest Fairies.

She tugged and twisted the groaning rock. She thought possibly some of the mud Lucien had used to seal the outer walls had seeped in near the hiding area of the emergency glass case. After several attempts, she stopped to regain her strength. That is when she recalled the mantra necessary for entrance to the box . How could she have forgotten? she thought. With a whisper of hope, she called upon the Sacred Ramden, known or his wisdom and powerful magic.

Ramden Ramden, enter thou.  Ramden Ramden, enter thou. Come forth Ramden, we need your help. There is a lost one on the hill, and only you can do her will. Ramden Ramden, enter thou.

The wall began to tremble. Lily pushed and pulled when suddenly the glass box began to glow as it slid out of its encrusted grave and opened gracefully. And the luminous, glowing Ramden swirled out in a grand entrance of diamond dust and glory. His gracefully adorned, jeweled, glass-like wings shimmered in the afternoon sun, reflecting his power through his magical garments. He stepped out of his golden chamber, gently placing one silver slipper onto the carpet and then another. Ramden swirled around, taking in every moment of space in Lily’s home. He then took himself a seat on her best box chair covered in velvet with flowers that tied the purple fabric to the box beneath. Ramden spoke.

 “Dear Lily,” Ramden spoke softly, his voice as soothing as a babbling brook. “Fear not, for we shall find the bluebird’s family. We are all connected by the threads of the forest.”

Ramden, Bluebirdie came to my door in distress but has not spoken. I have searched as far as I could to find her family with no results. She is an orphan, and we must find her family Ramden. Please call upon the Forest Fairies, for only they have the powers of flight and invisibility to walk between worlds and to communicate with and manipulate the forces of nature and the four elements.

By the way, Ramden, “Where is your crown?”

“Oh, my fiddlesticks, I must have dropped it when I slid out of that stuck hole in the wall. Dear Lily, that needs to be attended to. I may have others call upon my royal status and authority. I would be stuck in that stucco your friend Lucien messed up. By the way, where is that chap of a fellow? Without my circlet crown, my powers are more limited. Now where is this little orphan you speak of?”

Lily escorted Ramden to her bedroom, where Bluebirdie lay asleep on Lily’s pink velveteen pillow.

Ramden fluttered back and forth and around the little bluebird for a millisecond, and then with a wave of his magical hand, Ramden summoned the other fairies of the forest. They appeared in a flurry of light, their laughter mingling with the rustle of leaves. Each fairy took to the skies, fanning out across the treetops, calling out for the little bluebird’s kin.

Together, they searched high and low, through the shadows of ancient oaks and the shimmering glades of wildflowers. As twilight approached, the fairies’ determination hoped it would bring them closer to finding the bluebird’s family as they wove a tapestry of hope and unity among the forest’s magical inhabitants. Lily felt a spark of optimism.

Magnolia and June lived in the big house at the base of Steeple Hill. Lily’s friends and human sisters with hair like spun gold and eyes like summer skies often conversed with Lily, who was no bigger than their thumb and who resided in a small fairy cabin on Steeple Hill outside the girls’ large picture window that looked up Steeple Hill. They were the only humans that could see Lily and the other fairies. That was only because they believed.   Lily, with wings the color of amethyst, confided in them that her royal cousin, Ramden, who possessed powerful magic, had come to help in the search to locate the injured bluebird’s family.

Ramden, after meeting Magnolia and June, decided to allow the girls to help locate the bird's frantic family. The girls, ever eager for an adventure, readily agreed. After all, the human girls had ways of searching fairies didn’t, and fairies had ways of searching Magnolia and June didn’t.

Using a magnifying glass and a map drawn by Lily on a fallen oak leaf, they searched the sprawling garden surrounding Steeple Hill, considering the hill was too steep for humans.

Ramden's magic guided the other fairies of the forest towards Steeple Hill. The hill, a steep climb even for human legs, proved treacherous for everyone.

June and Magnolia, their hearts pounding with excitement and a growing sense of urgency, continued carefully searching so as not to step on any of the other search parties.  

Suddenly there was a cluster of activity at the summit of Steeple Hill. The fairies of the forest, along with Ramden’s magical powers, had spotted a cluster of anxious bluebirds, chirping incessantly. Their distress was palpable. Ramden and Lily led the family of bluebirds back down Steeple Hill to her tiny cabin outside June and Magnolia’s human house. Little Bluebird was still sitting on Lily’s pink velveteen pillow in her warm bedroom. 

Ramden instructed Lily to bring Bluebird outside, where he spread his magic all about the human girls, circling them as he called upon the other fairies to do the same. With each circle, Ramden’s magical golden dust was shrinking Magnolia and June into tiny human fairies. June and Magnolia kept looking down at themselves and then up at the huge trees as they continued shrinking until they fit inside Lily’s precious log house at the base of Steeple Hill. Ramden instructed the girls what to do.

Carefully, Magnolia and June placed the injured bird amongst its family. A collective chirp, a symphony of relief, filled the air as the family reunited. Ramden's magical lights pulsed brightly, a wave of healing energy washing over the small creature. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the garden, Lily, with a grateful flutter of her wings, whispered her thanks. The sisters, hearts full, were whirled back into their human-sized bodies and returned home, the memory of their magical rescue a treasure to be cherished.

And Ramden, exhausted, first blessed all the forest fairies before their journeys back to their homes.  He gently hugged Lily, and before he backed into his golden home, he firmly instructed Lily to get ahold of Lucien to make sure his next arrival when summoned would be a bit of an easier ride out than the last one. And with that he was magically placed back into his emergency golden glass secure magical space.

By Julianna Rowe