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(For those following the poet’s adventures and misadventures, she is parked for one more night in this relatively remote lot, pending completion of automotive repairs.

Her stalker and  some of his targeting team members are on foot and in vehicles around her from time to time, making little noises since closing four hours ago.

Any little noise, of course, means exactly the same thing as a big noise: 

You are not safe. You are actively hated by many people. You are biometrically monitored. Every time you take a deep breath ~ literally ~ you will hear from us, night and day, seven days a week. PS: Don’t lie down.

Not one but several of these employees left the lot this evening making distinctive noises in sympathy with his program.

He probably told them she’s a child abandoner. Or a whole list of other opposites to what she really is .

They probably believed him.

Whatever.

She knows there are seriously good people here also, who have totally gone the extra mile for her in the past, and she is trusting that near them only good things will happen tomorrow to ever faithful Chloe du Vanne.

Perhaps the poet will be allowed to sleep for more than three or four hours tonight. Enough to publish affirmative work tomorrow on some other subject than the mind-bending reality that is her nation’s explosively expanding hatred level.

…Or perhaps she’ll be wakened, in the box out of which he keeps her afraid to move, helpless with fury and sorrow, still more sleep deprived, pain ridden in every bone and muscle and despairing of ever being given anything like relief.

Then her poetry will be bitter, hopeless and sad.

Wouldn’t yours be?

So let’s try to fit in one more normal, ordinary piece before the poet lies down ~ or as close to it as she can manage in this van ~ as the night’s orchestral contributions tune up for gradually increasing volumes around her)

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Recorded Reading (1:51): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1jq7bgr4lr1zsgdl9vtq5/Time-Out-of-Mind.wav?rlkey=3bqu105w5ha66hfkqk56wjk4e&dl=0

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Time Out of Mind

In days of ancient Maya they
Measured every passing day
In a very different way
Than we moderns do today

We to but one calendar,
They to seven did refer
The meanings of time so infer,
To the cosmic flow defer

Though it seems to us bizarre
Just the simplest of those are
More complex by very far
Than that which we find popular

Days were not identical
As our own blank days befall
When we post them on the wall —
Rather, back then, each and all

Pictured were according to
What it might be best to do
If it seemed all good to you
In your own personal view

According to its pages seem
Some days good to gently dream
Compete, on others, in a team
Or possessions worn redeem

Other days described as good
For walking through ones neighborhood
Just in case somebody should
Be hoping to be understood

This for salting safe away
Provisions for a future day
And that for recreations gay
Another to travel away

It so fascinating be
Unto contemplating me
In my inner eye to see
The flow of that society

Folk living together there
Ever shiftingly aware
This day darker, that one fair
Another lounging in the lair

This one out ‘neath sun and sky
That one something new to try
Each its own sense distinguished by
Nor live them all alike, foreby!

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone, surviving at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S.

Please be aware that it takes several days for the poet to be notified of contributions. International patrons please contact the poet via email or post a comment for the necessary numbers.

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