Dear John

My Saturday Centus offering for our 60th week:

i may have to dear john

you before you are gone

arriving as you did

with your heart hidden

inside a business plan

a way for us to be

wealthy in our old age

rich is good my darling 

but kisses sweet and soft

outweigh your 401k

it is your heart I want

your hand enclosing mine

as we walk to market

© cj Schlottman

The Departure

It’s Saturday already, and that means “Saturday Centus” over at Jenny Matlock’s “...off on my tangent...”  This week we have the usual 100 words with which to write a piece based on the prompt “within the stone,” suggested by my good friend Jeff Campbell, whose blog, “Tennessee Mudbug,” is a favorite of mine.

Here’s my contribution.  

The Departure

within the stone cold heart 

of an old man lives  

leavings of love lost   years

of bitterness   faint 

memories of frozen

scorching   blinding anguish

he stands   stares   afflicted

with gloom   melancholy

plagued   undone   wreaking

revulsion of his wrongs

he raises the knife

to his chest   falls on it

black blood oozes through his

shirt   spills onto the floor

leaves a pool of rancor

across the squeaky clean

floor of the nursing home

(I must be channeling Edgar Allan Poe.  That's my only excuse, cj).

The Wall @ Small Stories and Stuff

I know School Marm, Jenny Matlock, likes to see stories and poems on Saturday Centus, but this week’s prompt, “The wall was built long ago,” led me toward a small personal essay. To learn all about Saturday Centus, please click on the button on my sidebar. You can't miss it!

Here is my offering for this week.

I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on Veteran’s Day, 1993, the year the Women's Memorial was dedicated. Clint met with some of the people from his unit, the field hospital in Saigon. During 13 months together, they cared for young GIs, sending some to R&R, others home in body bags.

I was overwhelmed by the simplicity of the wall, engraved as it is with thousands of names, it stretched gracefully across the grass.

It was hot, dozens of people milling around, many of them openly weeping, searching for names of loved ones lost. The directory led me to the name I had come to see - Lamar Smith - dead just two months after deployment, right out of high school.

Lamey, as we called him, was a dear boy. Senior year, he had a crush on me and when I had my appendix out, he came every day after school to sit with me in hospital.

I wept as I traced his name.

He was not “college material,” and if he had lived, he would likely have gone to work for one of the local plants, but he may have come home motivated to persue a loftier career. He never had the chance to know.

© cj Schlottman

Addendum: When you go to The Wall, please also visit the Women's Memorial, a moving bronze of nurses ministering to a wounded soldier, a monument to their dedication and perseverance. I'm sorry it took so long for the Memorial to be erected. 250,000 women served in Vietnam - every one of them a volunteer.

Near

This week, over at “Making Things Up,” Melissa’s cue word for us is “near.” If you need to know the rules and read all the posts, please click on the Six Word Fridays button on my sidebar.

As usual, I am posting a poem with six syllables per line. Here goes:

Near

Away is near when you

call me from the airport

just to say you love me.

Near is away when you

take my heart with you and

I await your return.

© cj Schlottman

Joy

I know it's Sunday, and "Six Words Fridays" was two days ago. Yet here I am, once again late to the party. Each week Melissa gives her participants a prompt around which to use six words, six-lined poems, poems with six words per line, or in my case, a poem with six syllables per line. Whew! To read all the posts and maybe add one of your own, visit Melissa by clicking on the "Six Words Fridays" button on my sidebar. You will find some very good work there!

This week's prompt was one word - joy - and here is my offering. I will publish it here and on "My Poems." Please visit there me if you are so inclined!

Joy comes in sparkling gems

of sunlight, twinkles of

stars in your hazel eyes.

Shimmering refections

from ocean water at

whose feet we linger late

give glow to your visage

radiate to my own.

You flash a smile, fold my

hand into yours as the

sun sinks into the sea.

© cj Schlottman

The End - A Saturday Centus

Love was not enough

to keep him alive.

I could not will him

not to die. The end

was soft and gentle

June eight, two thousand nine.

© cj Schlottman

Too Young

Okay, I know it’s Wednesday, but Jenny really does give us a week to write and publish our posts. Right? I missed all of you last week while I was in Aix-en-Provence with Zona Rosa, my writer’s workshop since 1997. I have to confess that I did not have time to either enter a post or read those that you all wrote. I hope to find time in the near future to read and comment.

If you are here, you probably know the rules for Jenny Matlock’s Saturday Centus, but in case you are new, please click on the Saturday Centus button on my sidebar. Also, please try to read all of the entries and make a small comment. Most posts that are entered late in the week seem to get left behind.

Jenny also has a wonderful personal blog, “...off on my tangent...” Drop by and find out how awesome she is!

This week’s prompt is "The legacy of heroes..." I am taking this prompt in the spirit of Memorial Day, when we honor our fallen heroes who made this country a safe and free place to live.

So, here is my Centus for this week.




Timmy stood on the sidewalk watching the parade slide by. An American flag in his chubby hand, he waved it with vigor, and when he tired, he let the flag fall to his side and affected a salute or placed his right hand over his heart.

“Mommy, why is this parade so important?”

“Well, Timmy, it’s important to remember the legacy of heroes, the people who died in war to keep America free.”

“You mean like Grandpa, who died in Vietnam?”

“Yes, Darling, and like Uncle Jim, who died in Afghanistan.”

“Mommy, will I have to go to to war and die, too?


© cj Schlottman