I was once your cowgirl and you were my Indian
This was in the San Joaquin valley of California that you planted your seed in me
Boy did we have a pow wow
It was a delicious experience and made me think of the
arrival of the Mayflower so long ago
Yes, I was your cowgirl at the ripe age of forty
And, you looked like such a beautiful Native American Indian
Together we played cowgirls and Indians
He's nine years beautiful
Valencia's Joaquin Sorolla
took the art world by the collar
So prolific was his themes
in impressionistic genre scenes
Joaquin Ovolla y Bastida
born&raised in Espana
Painted oh so very fast
in a genre reminiscent of the past
The Afternoon Moon
Grandmother reclines in the passenger seat,
while sunlight glows through her white wavy hair.
Her cheeks rosy, she smiles at me
as I drive east toward the Blossom Trail.
I beam back, then remember
my mask hides my mouth.
We pass some almond orchards,
the flowers like drops of warm vanilla cream
under the clear blue sky.
Grandmother remarks how some trees
already dropped their petals,
though it’s not even March.
A white half moon climbs the sky,
like it wants to get a jump start on night,
even if it’s only two o’clock.
It tries to rush away my Sunday,
my present moment, my time with Grandmother
into a whole week without her.
Will it hasten the day
she’ll move into assisted living,
where I won’t be allowed to see her?
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Spring 2021 Issue
He is coming again. I can always feel when he is on his way because my heart starts to race and I feel the fear.
The fear of soldiers busting in.
People being murdered by clowns
while I dance like the Joker in a
Green man suit.
Fear of the outside world betraying me
With it's reality while my clock stops and laughs at me. I start to shake and he knows I am struggling.
My stomach knots and a wave of sheer terror has an axe in my door.
Music throws confetti at me and the hair on my arm makes me breathe funny.
I think I might get sick.
I reach for the wastebasket but my arm is stuck in the wall.
My emotions escape me except the fear who sits like a parrot on my arm tangled in the hair. Today is tomorrow and yesterday is next week.
Life is grinding to a halt inside a house that is not mine. Someone else lays in my bed and pretends to be me.
It is him and he is wearing Joaquin Phoenixes head.
This has to stop.
It needs to be fixed.
I put on my green man suit and crawl into my arm hair and wait for the end.
It never comes but it's morning and
It starts again.
When Grandma Tutu said she owned a gun,
my mother freaked! She gasped! How she was stunned!
She wanted Tutu to throw it away,
but then forgot. The gun was there to stay.
We never knew where Tutu had it hid,
not even when she moved and she got rid
of lots of stuff. But in the nursing home
where Tutu died, my mom went through each tome,
and trinket, and shirt. She thought she was done,
but opened a drawer. There was the gun!
My mom’s dropped jaw I wish I could have seen.
The gun was thrown in River San Joaquin!
5-9-21
Contest: Guns
Sponsor: Anthony Biaanco
SONATA FOR CHRISTMAS EVE RAIN
I. I sit in my friend’s armchair,
waiting for her to get ready for church.
Pianissimo, the raindrops fall in quick, staccato rhythm
on the windows, the roof, and the pool.
I imagine the circles they make on the water.
expanding in echoes only angels can hear.
II. We drive through the valley’s empty green pastures,
to the old country church in Academy.
The raindrops run down the windshield
like notes connecting in smooth legato phrases
made by a piano’s pedal.
III. A fire crackles in the church’s ancient woodstove,
joining the outside rain in an animated duet.
Lead by the antique pump organ,
we stand to sing, becoming part
of their Christmas carol.
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Winter 2018
J-ust
O-btain
A-uthor's
Q-uote
U-sing
I-ndividual
N-ame
Topic: Birthday of Joaquin (November 03)
Form: Vertical Monocrostic
Hot, sweaty, summer
Fans, sun-hats, flip-flops, ice-tea
Sunset, come quickly
September 3, 2020
6pm PST
( El Faro means the lighthouse)
El Faro #1
salt is in my tears
for the grace of god go I
Fiddlers Green awaits
El Faro #2
brothers and sisters
Joaquin cries tears of sadness
forever leeward
El Faro #3
El Faro now rest
sleep deep on your mothers floor
she has called for you
El Faro #4
no wave for granted
my heart is heavy today
listen to bells ring
El Faro #5
list fifteen to port
Edmund look for your cousin
hold fast the mid-watch
El Faro #6
no lighthouse to watch
irony not lost at sea
I long to hear you
El Faro #7
you believe in god
it pounds you like a hammer
green water swallows
El Faro #8
with culpability
I think of the storms survived
when resolve is breached
Joaquin: paint-besotted at sixteen.
The color silver was your favorite --
it had the craved-for, biting glint
of a dagger dizzying your brain,
twisting as it mixed and chopped
your few surviving thoughts,
which floated, glittering,
in an icy silver mist.
Your classic, sculpted nose,
bearing a single dot of silver
smaller than a dime, expelled
the smell you struggled to breathe in.
And your eyes drowned in a sea of silver.
This is a portrayal of one of my favorite paintings by
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida: Spanish painter 1863 - 1923.
The title of his portait I am writing about is called
"Paseo a orilla del mar" or "Walk on the Beach"
Joaquin’s Girls (Caught on Canvas)
Beside Valencia’s blue sea,
two graceful women walk along.
Their beauty and serenity
could be the lyrics to wind’s song.
Two graceful women walk along.
An artist’s fair and precious pearls
could be the lyrics to wind’s song:
his wife and daughter, Joaquin’s girls.
An artist’s fair and precious pearls,
one with parasol and one with hat in hand,
his wife and daughter, Joaquin’s girls,
in long white dresses, walk the sand.
One with parasol and one with hat in hand,
both, caught on canvas with an artist’s ease,
in long white dresses, walk the sand.
Lace trailing them is billowed by the breeze.
Both caught on canvas with an artist’s ease:
their beauty and serenity!
Lace trailing them is billowed by the breeze
beside Valencia’s blue sea.
Andrea Dietrich/ Nov. 21, 2010
For Paula Swanson's Pantoum Contest
Blind from the age of three
In his heart,music, set free-
A concierto exemplar,
Fashioned for a guitar..to make it sing
Memoria..... to a still-born offspring.
Tribute to Joaquin Rodrigo 1901-1999 Concieto de Aranjuez
Frankie
Human, Virago, Poet, Dreamer
Mothers Raisha Therese and Joaquin Andres
Lover of butterflies, opals and tulips
Who feels loneliness, strength and hope
Who fears failure, heights and drowning
Who would like to see Europe, heaven and recognition
Resident of Manila, Philippines
Torrelavega
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