Tke a ltr
We ar rdy to du bsnss
Udstd our dcmnt
Tet rms spk fr thmslvs
We ar a lge cmpy
Rvw our fncl of our annl rpt
Hpe to du bsnss wth u
Lts pln a mttg smt nxt wk
I wll fllw up wth u on a latr dte.
Alphabet Soup
Everywhere I look, I see acronyms…
A language all of its own for each category.
A shorthand of sorts.
Outsiders confused and aggravated.
They requested clarification.
Only to be answered with jargon shorthand.
Sherry Emma-Pederson Barton
April 13, 2024
X marks the Gospel spot
He’s the chiasm of B.C. to A.D.
Like the Chi-rho symbol or ichthus fish
There’s no disrespect, says R.C.
X reminds us of Christ,
[The Star that’s shining bright]
It’s 1st Century shorthand communication
While under persecution it was their elocution
The 1st letter of His title in Greek
Hear Him in His Word and His Speak
Was it Winter was it Spring
Was it Fall or another season
Whichever, He is the reason for reason
With angels bending, and the
Act of God condescending
Bringing peace to the Earth
This we rejoice in outside the inn
That X marks the spot of a King-sized manger
The birth of our Savior
And our release from sin
The Rock that rolls away the stony heart of dearth, also
Is rolling back the curse
some people type right into the computer
I never thought I would be one of them, but I am
At this second I am sitting my car, writing on a clipboard
As the words appear, I realize how Gemini I am
Words appear in three ways – cursive, print and shorthand
Wait. Four ways, some are abbreviated with periods
If I knew a foreign language, I am sure I would throw that in too
I am such a Gemini!
This gray sky
Of May does lie
In lackluster color
A futile eye
With birds too shy
To sing, or fly
Through April's chill
March lingered still
Soaking in chains
Of rain's domain
Why this delay
Of lilac days?
If I could task
A humble ask
A bit of warmth
To bloom, to bask
On cloudy spheres
Which seldom clears
If I should seek
The season's heat
Beneath a leaf's misty rise
Will I find flowers
In disguise?
I am fated to wait
In this northern land
On a summer created
By shorthand
Where silver threads
Of rays are spun
Into an alabaster sun
05/06/24
What's with this 'X' perplex?
It marks the spot to dig for treasure
It marks a crossing out
A signature for the illiterate
A cheeky peck on lips
An addendum end to a letter penned
Its shorthand for when you cannot remember
For whom you cannot name or reveal
For what you cannot be bothered to spell
In scrabble its score is 8,
second highest embodying is rarity.
Its only saving grace is that
it remains the same whatever way
you spin it, up and down
and round about.
Let's show X and Mr X
the eXit.
In my family, a convent in Lucerne, Switzerland loomed legend large.
It’s name is “La Madone Noire” (the Black Madonna) and according to my mom, it is a “finishing school” where captious girls, who lied or who wouldn’t
behave, were sent to live with and be schooled by nuns.
It was, from all reports, a terrible and stern place where there was never any
ice cream or bedtime stories and the toys, when there were any, were made of straw.
Most of the time it was my older sister Annick getting the dark Poe-like lectures, but I was there, in my high chair, listening wide-eyed. The very idea that Annick could be snatched up, for some infraction, and sent off to the nuns horrified me to the point that my heartbeat seemed to come through my whole body.
Eventually, as we grew, “Lucerne” became a shorthand for “shape up or else,”
and oddly, it never lost Its potency. Hmm, you know, come to think of it - there
was no equivalent monastery for my brother.
No one ever said anything of any
importance during those long, lonely years at the
dinner table. Awkward ugly silences filled
with talk of pars of roughs of lies
as metaphor for truth
while discussing this club used in that sand trap
or that swing always creating this slice or that bogie
as if each item offered legitimacy for life itself
instead of thinking or taking part
reality sparked their unique shorthand and
drowned out veracity as strongly as scotch
or gin or failure or even
the loss of dreams.
Hopping along in my Guggenheggly mind
I laugh my thoughts away, many unkind.
Keeping them to myself gives me the giggles.
I am fiercely powerful in this land of the wiggles.
Curiously but secretly stealthily insane
I juggle my thoughts in my poetic brain
Writing in shorthand so interlopers will not know
I am loonier than a Marshgiggle, don’t you suppose?
Gemini magic oozes from my soul
Interested in everything, I flit from one thing to another
Dressed in my butterfly disguise, I land, but fly away fast.
I have had over thirty jobs, and quit some before noon.
I want the best for everybody.
If it is not a good fit for me,
they deserve better and so do I.
I have never written a whole page in cursive, for it would not be me.
I draw pictures, use cursive, shorthand and long hand.
Not necessarily in that order.
I am creative, and funny, and I love to laugh.
Not at people but at their idiocincrocies.
I have empathy, and passion. I have love in buckets.
I am easily hurt, but you will never know for I lick my wounds in private.
Listening to others stories, but keeping mine down inside my soul
to bother no one. I am a Gemini. I am woman. I am a warrior.
I am magic, I am mystery, I am here and if I fall in love with you watch out.
I am a giant puppy, that will follow you home and love you to death.
That is what a Gemini does.
boring meeting.
faculty
we have them weekly
every Wednesday it takes me an extra ten
or twenty-five minutes to get home
mandated
Even though it usually talks about
teaching math and reading
I teach neither
I begin to write poetry
A co-worker asks, “What are you writing?”
it is about her. She glances at it.
but can read nothing.
I am glad I know shorthand.
Being Taciturn
(TASS-uh-tern)
By: Miracle Man
8/29/2018
She’s often outwardly taciturn in a group setting,
Opting to be inconspicuous, “Like a fly on the wall.”
Being attentive to others while mentally vetting,
Often, her shorthand is chosen method of scrawl.
Death and life—literal or figural?
Maybe both,
Now that there can be death in life or life in death,
As for poets, notably, Bharati and Yeats.
The dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna:
Is it interpersonal or intrapersonal?
Darsan or Epiphany—cling to it we would,
For seeing is believing.
The commandments, though heard,
Had to be attested by the burning bush.
Aha! Come to think of it,
Could Darsan as well be figural—
As is vipasana?
As is epiphany for Joyce?
A shorthand like light years?
***
How quickly life passes by
We wonder who we are
How we fit in
We are small, mobile creatures on two legs
Foraging, we use an odd mixture of concocted
shorthand
to communicate
And often to miscommunicate
Do Have Hillary Doll
Bernie has been in Congress many years
And can't find him because he disappears
If memory serves me right when I look back
How can clumsy chicken get lost in a haystack?
Bible again I recently over and over read
There they say it was eye of needle instead
And of course as usual what we all dreaded
Bernie any needles he has never threaded.
Then we did have to wipe our tears dry
He never can cross a t nor does dot an I
Still has lanky head lost in the deep sand
Has typewriter and writes things shorthand.
To our society is swiftly becoming a dreg
And if it hadn't been for good old Gregg
We would still be laughing quite a load
He mixed up shorthand with Morse Code.
Instead of Bernie being an upper fixer
His mind now has become a big mixer
So instead of him sealing all of our door
Have a Hillary doll assigned to each room.
Ho ho ho, Jim Horn
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