Category Archives: word-welding

here’s the text in the mirror…..musings on women’s work & thriftiness

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A woman’s work is never done. There

now it’s as good as new. Darn it! I just fixed

that yesterday! Waste not, want not. It’s

perfectly good…that’ll hold it for a while. Wasted knots

not wanted. A stitch in time saves nine.

Nine stitches, just in time. (She thought she was done.) Idle

hands are the devil’s workshop. Not

again! Here let me have that… (Knot again.) A penny

saved is a penny earned. Sometimes, it seems I’ve

only earned a penny spent. A woman’s work is done.

Kathleen C Cooper 2015

IMG_3794

When I dream of being other people

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When I dream of being other people

When I am other people in my dreams

It’s usually ominous, augural

Like the time I dreamt I couldn’t walk and found out

The next day that she

Got a diagnosis of ms –

multiple sclerosis – parading, coursing over her nerves and muscles.

A terrifying dream of getting beat up, or threatened,

Was remembered the next afternoon during a telephone chat

While he

waited for a bus

And he started yelling and cursing – warning someone to ‘back off, man!’

My heart was stopped, and panicking

I begged him to get away-

To call for the police.

Or the time

I dreamt of my teeth

Becoming like wood

Peeling and starting to crack like old shutters or window frames

At an old beach cottage

I looked it up in a dream dictionary

And learned that some Hispanic peoples

Consider problematic teeth dreams to indicate

That a loved one is not well

And then that day she

Fell

And gashed her head – her ancient and solid head full of nearly all its teeth –

The concussion was making her vomit.

That’s why I was startled when I saw you today.

Kathleen C Cooper    October 8, 2013

Running

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Running

I ran into my day today

Out of bed on two feet and down the steps to sugary cereal and hours of tv cartoons

I ran into my day today

Quickly to bus stop grabbing at my things and hoping it was all there

I ran into my day today

Across the room to silence the offending alarm after a long long night of books and beer

I ran into my day today

Unwillingly pulled from a dream by my beautiful crying baby

I ran into my day today

Into a daily routine of loving and watching

coaxing urging praising feeding nagging supplying

I ran into my day today

And there was nothing there

I ran into my day today

One foot in front of the other watching the bricks and pavement go by

I ran into my day today

Nov 20 2009

starlings

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This is the time of year when the starlings flock.

I can’t help but inspire deeply and quickly

with quickened heart, and smile

when they are wakening in the morning,

firing from their eaves

or whatever lodgings they’d been hiding in,

waiting to ambush our very existence at first light

loudly – insistently – rousing each other and

anyone lucky enough to have an open window, able to enjoy the event with

a morning coffee.

But I love it best when

starlings flock at dusk,

when the crescent moon reclines and

the sky comes into lavender blue perfection – the hue

of periwinkles and heliotropes.

Singing, they flock and gather… a blanket of dreams o’er a cloth of day’s tales,

a thrilling signal that all should hurry

home for nightfall –

hurry home to loved ones and favorite places.

Evening, now, goodnight.

-kathleen c cooper. october 1, 2012