Dialing Dialing.....

Click on the below image.



You'll see a larger version of instructions on using a dial-up phone, as taught in 1955. Now, how many of you out there even remember dial up phones?? How many remember party lines? How many remember when you had to place every call through an in-town operator, who usually listened in??:-) (Remember, Windows resizes things to teeny, so click in the enlarge square to see it full size, once open)

Bitch Time

I'm sitting here three hours after my afternoon antibiotic with my tongue and lips on fire again, my throat so inflammed from it that my ears burn. My stomach is puffed out like I'm six months pregnant. I won't even go into the dizzy part. I won't even go into how frustrated my doc gets because I seem to react adversely to every medication created by modern science. How can I blame him? I drive him nuts.

Only problem is that I have no choice with this med. It's been over two months now. An infection that was supposed to be killed in five days by Cipro still left symptoms after an extension to ten days. The symptoms were still there after ten, so I waited to see my CFIDS doc an hour's drive away, rather than go back to the walk-in clinic for this, around the block from my house. Another wider culture revealed a lurking 'resistant' bacteria. Twenty eight days on the med. Nada, though the med killed THAT bacteria. Symptoms still there.

This time my doc ordered a test that covered both arobic and anarobic bacteria, one not routinely done in the labs. Aha, another little bugger surfaced that was resistant to the antibiotic that killed the first one, finally.

Oh, it gets better. Two antibiotics would kill it. Period. That's all she wrote. I tried the one of choice and woke up gasping for air. It was terrifying and I probably should have gone to the Emergency Room, but as long as I could breath and it got better, I chose not to. Unless I thought I was in grave danger, I was more afraid that any med they gave me there might do just as much harm.

One med to go. This one. Now, three days into it, I don't know how I'll last out the next seven days and am wondering, too, if the ten day round is going to do it this time, either.

I feel crazy. The infection hurts enough, but to have the cure hurt even more really sucks.

I also always feel during these times how utterly alone any of us ultimately are in going through these experiences. I have good friends who care and thank god for that. I have a husband who ignored his cell phone all day on the day I had trouble breathing. Of course he didn't check on me. That's not his style. Of course I had the option of 911 if things got worse. My new best friend.

I'm tired. I've been through it all for too many years now. I'm back to pretending I'm a POW and saying 'if they could survive, I can'. A lot of people have it way worse than I do, but i still don't think that takes away my right to say ever so often, 'this is just the pits today'.

If you know how to teletransport, come rub my feet.

Woman On Beach

This shot was taken at the ocean, three and a half miles from my home, about a year and a half ago at the end of the day. During the day, the beach is filled with boom boxes, the scent of coconut oil, and sun worshipers. At day's end, my favorite time, you find runners, walkers, and the occasional person with the metal detector or a few hopeful surfers if it's a windy day.

Friendship

I'm the one peeking from the back, with the glasses, at age sixteen. Amazingly, I'm still in touch with all of the old friends in this photo, except the girl to the left in glasses who died in a car accident right after college and the boy to the far left (from your viewing perspective), who was a friend's visiting cousin. I knew all but two from my earliest memories. That's what comes from growing up in a town of 2500 where your parents have settled for life.

Tribute

Arlene Ang, editor of the Italian Niederngasse, recently lost her father. Arlene, my deepest condolences.

his face
in the moon
lilies rustling

Sara goes flying

She and I were friends for eight years. We spoke on the phone every day or faxed notes. We got each other through the rough times and cheered each other on through the good. She helped me get through my mother's death. I helped her survive a number of disappointing romances. It all ended when her addiction resurfaced.

pumping

sara seeks out
a friend with cancer,
pockets pills when
june is sleeping.
she gulps three down, back
at her place, then binds
her legs tight 'round a stranger.

she dances with the stars
at night, makes bargains
with her demons.
the demons tell her she's
fine; keep pumping pills,
you're bound for glory.

now sarah says she's finally
clean, gone twelve steps, picked
up her chips, found jesus, but
uses people instead of drugs.
still sleeps with any man
who asks her.

her hands, as cold as old
hoar frost, betray her, heart
gone hard as Barb'ra Allen's.

Read this

Read the Tuesday entry on Poet At Rest in my links section in the right hand column. It's a story of my old posting board and the phoenix that rose out of its ashes, thanks to a caring and competent young woman from Wales.

Pixilated

The following little ditty was written by my English friend Geoff Sanderson. Hang your head in shame, Geoff lol. I got even!
Pris



Pixilated Pris

It’s a pity about Pris –
her persona’s lost its fizz
and she’s suffering from shallow
depth of field.

Her ego is deflated
and her image pixilated –
she’s lacking all that strength she
used to wield.

Her face is out of focus
and her legs all hocus-pocus,
her colours are confused and
not so clear.

That’s as good as I can make it
and I don’t know how she’ll take it,
so I’m definitely getting
out of here!


G. (with affection)

Profile pics from the weird unpast

Got a fav? Pick one.

  

  

 

 

 

Eulogy to the Dead

When he was only 27, my friend Denny killed himself with an overdose of sleeping pills. He was slightly manic-depressive and had talked about it off and on for the four years I had known him, but never made an attempt. This time he made the final decision. Always a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe, he typed out his note, took off his clothes, swallowed the pills and positioned himself much like Marilyn was found. The shock when a friend does this is overwelming. The question arises, 'why didn't he call'? The answer is so very simple. He didn't want to wake up with his stomach being pumped. I'm not sure we ever really get over losing a friend this way. Well, in any way, to be honest. By his or own hand, no, not expected. Denny, the nights come when I still wish I could've saved you.



Coyly tucked beneath a virginal
sheet: electroshock therapy on wheels.
Convenient.
Comes right to you.
Pizza delivery techno in
the mental death ward.

Other candles zapped, one by one
it's my go round at the party.

Forgotten memories smother the room,
then burst through a shuttered window.
A woman kneels on the walkway weeping.
She sees an ashen man on an graveyard bed,
leftover pills, stardust,around him,
that note bequeathing me
his Marilyn books still curled
in the crotch of his battered Royal.


Pris Campbell
(c)2005

Verse Libre

The new issue is out. Click HERE to read.

I have a couple of poems in there but, of more importance, take a look at the art/photography of two of my favorite people. Geoff Sanderson of England is the most fantastic photographer I know and he's a good friend besides. He's always there for me. He also makes the best marmalade I've tasted. Yes, he cooks and he and Jill shipped me a batch from England. Jill, his wife, is an excellent artist, featured in last month's Verse Libre.

I'll brag on Jerry Dreesen's work next. Jerry came out of retirement to become Haiga Editor for Simply Haiku and his work sings. He and I have posted haiga together for probably two years now. He always encouraged even my strangest attempts and is convinced I have a flair for unusual creativity.

Thank you Geoff and Jerry for being part of my life. You're the greatest!

Pris

Afterbirth

Told she would die of
this lump growing in
side her--
go karmic
go spirit
go angels singing
from the realms of glory--
she buys a low
cut red shimmy shammy dress,
seduces the Jamaican lawn boy,
mails her husband's mistress
faked records;

Mr Jonas: herpes advanced stage!!
Oh, so official.

She withdraws their savings in ten
dollar bills, spends weeks
hiding each bill separately
in the gardenias
the A/c duct
under the carpets
inside every bra, dress, shoe and book
she still owns.

The lump,
this lump, now
her baby
come full term,
implodes,
a whoooooosh
of after
birth taking her with it,
feet first, flying
away from this strict
overplushed house
away from her faux-porcelain
mouthed husband,
only
that wrinkled
hand-clenched
desparate red dress
marking her shrunken
sad space on the bed.

A Word With Bukowski

(I'm still posting many older poems while I struggle with this infection. A while back, Didi Menendez, publisher of MiPo Journal, threw out the challenge-choose a poem you like and write a response poem to it. Here it is again, with a link to the original poem beneath it.
_____________________

A Word With Bukowski

It's no good.
Me, doing that
mirror, mirror
on the wall thing,
smearing my
wrinkles with Arden
while you moan
about old chorus girls
and the horrors of
ingrown toenails
in prison.

You always could
out talk me, you know.

I tell you I have visions
of Dorothy's shoes,
empty on the yellow
brick road, and that
mid-earth explosions
will destroy our dreams
anyway, hoping
to impress with profundity.

You roll bored eyes,
tap one finger on the countertop.

I wish you could have
come when my breasts
still burned men's hands
and my laugh chased
away all blackbirds of sorrow.

But those days have been
drained, like fine wine,
so yes, let us talk
about worn-out furnaces,
overdue mortgages,
liver spots,
and watch the buzzards
draw straws over who
gets the last rib.

Pris Campbell
(c)2003

Published in MiPo Bonsai Print, 2004


The poem I was responding to can be found on THIS SITE, The Blackbirds Are Rough Today.

Other Days

This was my grandmother when she was a child. This photo fascinates me. A different world back then. What is she thinking, I wonder? Can you guess?

Pris
(I never met her. She died when my mother, next to the youngest of six children, was 13 years old. My grandfather died five years later when a drunk driver drove him off the road. My mother had just started her first year of college and suddenly had no home to return to)