The Damselfly by Asa Boxer

She is a surveyor of the lakefront, the forest, and the field.
Shifting from angle to angle, the damselfly stops at intervals
to triangulate the picture. She dead-halts in air, threadbare
wings moving so fast, they disappear and leave her dangling,

perfectly still, a hovering stick, a broken rule. She darts
and ducks the deadly possibilities. Her survival depends
upon her ability to distinguish between lizard and rock.
She can’t afford to confuse the quality of patience

with the unshakeable promise of stone. The lizards
attract her with the humility of their devotions, imitating
the hard modesty of pebble and rock. From their head-bones
to their tails, they offer the safe shelter of a jagged ridge.

But theirs is the cold hunger of stone. In her world,
even the rocks hide deadly tongues. This is why
the damselfly darts and flits and buzzes in fits.
She too grows stiff as stone, ever on edge,

anticipating a sudden softening of the hard world,
expecting an agile pounce, awaiting a limber lunge.
She only settles because she must. She’s wired stiff
on a turtle’s back, her thousand eyes alert but unaware

that an eyeball — slow as the world’s turning —
has peeled back its green lid, that a wrinkled head
has decided to inch toward water. The mountains
and the rooted trees are about to topple, the anchored

lake, about to spill its awful weight. She hovers in place
as the turtle-shell leaves her feet with a gulp. She is elated.
She is the measure that flies in the face of nature. Now,
as the damselfly passes, every stone holds its tongue.

The Lobster by Asa Boxer

Sunk behind its dingy window
in a supermarket aquarium,
the lobster turns a muzzy eye
on the great élan of air.

Exposed to every scrutiny; it waits,
claws bound, an antenna snapped.
Not a crawl-space, nor a shadow,
still as stone; invisible, it hopes.

It hopes a lobster’s coral hopes,
cramped upon a shallow shelf.
But its brains cannot conceive the sea
outside the lobster-shell. Desire, thus,

keeps slim to fit the narrow life within.
You will never hear the baffled lobster cry,
“What crime could be so great it moved the sea
to single-out a bloated shrimp like me?”

It’s a muffled clatter, this life that smudges by:
rattling cartloads of death perambulate past;
smutchy children nose and thump the glass;
vague eyes and teeth wink pearl hints

of what’s to come. This wispy world
suffused with light; a lobster’s carnival-
afterlife. Where each impression colours and brews
through nerve, and muscle, and sinew.

Where a thorny heat keeps life fired
to a reddening shriek. And God,
God boils it through.

Grease and Rust by Asa Boxer

Every tool is the anointed king of its work:
even as it waits and fades into the general mess,
even if it sinks to the status of a handle
poking from a box behind the curtain

beneath the counter, a wire coiled
round the grip, its head near drowned
in a pool of screws... A coat of oil
repels corruption while the handle waits.

The vise is seasoned black with grease.
Black grease is cleanest in the shop
where rust is the enemy; clean means
strongholds of metal free of rust.

Everything blessed with oil, like the hair
of heroes and saints, prophets and messiahs.
Grease fills the surface-scratch that’ll never heal,
settles deep into the score against all agents of rust.

Each tool is patient and confident it is meant
for the job it was designed to do best; it will wait
if it is used for only a moment in a rock’s life
or for a thousand years in the tribal life, it will wait.

The workman has observed this waiting,
this slouched hanging from the board,
like the one square hanging in the ready
with a level to get it all straight

the way the other levels laid aside wait
with bubbles of air, like held breaths that can tell
when all is aligned and gravity agrees
that the work is plumb with the heart of the world.

Some say the patience of the workman
is the virtue of his shop, but, truly, the virtue
is motion. Rest is not how things get done.
Rest is how rust creeps into the world.

Life Without Limits by Brian "Porte" Portland

As they say… “Every story has a beginning” mine is no different!!

I guess life changed on October 3rd 1973, when I lost both my legs above the knee in a horrific train accident.
Like most other 21 yr olds, I was “Six foot tall & Bulletproof” well.. I was actually.. 6’1? and fighting fit, loved the outdoors, surfed, cycled, played sport, did all the things one does at that age. I had taken a job working on the railway, shunting trains – dangerous work, but well paid. I had decided to give University a bit of an interlude and go make some “real” money.. I could always continue my studies at a later date, or so I thought. I was to be married on October 20th and life was good!
It all came crashing to the ground at around 4:20pm on that fateful Wednesday afternoon..
I had started work at around 5:30am and was asked if I wanted an extra shift… Not wanting to turn down the dollars, I said yes..so here it was, 4:30 in the afternoon on this hot Spring day and I am laying under a railway wagon, thinking “this is going to be ok”..Well, it wasn’t ok. I did not know the extent of my injuries at that point in time, I figured I had broken my leg and was pissed that I would be in a plaster cast when I walked down that aisle. Little did I know!!
Once I saw the emergency teams arrive, I figured this might be a little more serious. “If I have broken both legs, I am going to be REALLY PISSED”!!
Finally through the heroics of one of the fire crew at the scene, I was pulled from under the wagon. I do remember that hurting somewhat!! and like every young blooded male, all I wanted to make sure of was that I had my “jewels”.
As I was wheeled into the Emergency Department at the hospital, I recall the nursing team cutting away my trowsers, I remembered my mothers words.. “Always make sure you wear clean underwear.. you never know when you’ll be run over by a bus”.. Ok,so a train is not quite a bus, but still I was glad I heeded her warning.! I could hear the bits of scoria being picked out of my mangled legs and dropped in the sterile kidney dish..
Next thing I remember, is one of the nurses letting out a bit of a “OH MY GOD!!” she had gone to lift my foot on to the gurney when it came away in her hand, boot and all. By this time the morphine was more that doing its required job and it was “goodnight nurse”.
I woke some 18 hours later in the Post-Op room with a bunch of doctors & nurses standing over me with somber looks, some with tears.. I remember as clear as I sit here now, writing this.. saying “What’s the problem?” no one was prepared to say a word… “WELL!! what’s the bloody problem?” I think my language may have been a little more colourful, but finally, one of the surgeons spoke.. He just said..”I’m so very,very sorry!” (yeah ok, sorry for what?) at this point the thoughts were racing like a jig saw on a time limit…. “You have been in a horrific train accident and we have had to amputate your legs”…. I just replied..
“Yeah, ok.. I’m alive!!”
At this point one of the social workers in the team muttered something about me being in shock… post trauma shock…and that they should just keep me heavily sedated….
I guess it was at this point that my belief in “ATTITUDE” kicked in… you see, I have always held the belief that Attitude is everything… I did then and I still do now…. “ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE”. HELL, I HAD JUST SURVIVED A HORRIFIC ACCIDENT and am here to tell the tale.
I guess there is such a thing as a “second chance” at life and I had been given it.
The next 48 hours were the most painful, a gamer of “cat & mouse” was being played out unbeknown to me.. I knew what had happened, my family had, or were in the process of being told along with my fiance (after all, I was due to be married in 17 days!) so as it went, they didn’t know that I knew that they knew that I knew. I just really wanted to get on and get out of this place.
Unfortunately things took a bit of a turn for the worse. Infection had set in and at some point, I was given about a 10% chance of making it through the night. That was, until a young doctor, an intern, came up with the idea of putting me in the hyperbaric chamber and pumping pure oxygen through my body. It was a LIVING HELL for the next 5 days, but it actually worked!!
This young man pioneered the technique and as they say, “the rest is history!!”.
If I had a dollar for every conference, every lecture he attended talking about this treatment, I would be a wealthy man, but, I guess he saved my life by taking a chance. For this I will be ever grateful and I thank him for his belief!

October 12th 1973

October 12th 1973

Life just got better from that point and by October 12th, I am sitting up in my bed planning the wedding that was to go ahead on October 22nd in the day room of the hospital, despite many many protests from parents, priests and friends, apart from the only one that did not want it cancelled – my fiance.

So, like the script for a movie, the fairytale wedding took place in the day room of the ward (ward 7) not with the hundred plus guests, but a mere handful which included family and one or two friends, along with doctors & nursing staff, oh, and the reporter from the country’s National newspaper! It was a long tiring day, I had not really sat in the wheelchair provided, but managed just fine.
Now, you must remember this is 1973.. People with disabilities were still considered as “social outcasts” Cripples, Handicapped and some what not the full quid!.. So, when it came time to get into the chair to go to the day room, I had a sheet placed over the front of the wheelchair, “Don’t want any one to be alarmed or frightened!” as the Ward Sister put it. I could not have cared less, all I wanted to do was marry my sweetheart.
The nursing staff, orderlies and doctors had made the room as nice as they possibly could..after all, it’s not often you get to have a wedding in your ward. Let alone with someone that should not have “made it”.
To be perfectly honest, I could not tell you too much about what took place as I was still pretty well sedated, but, I do remember the most important bits – saying “I DO” and the words spoken by the Priest..who, not a week before, he had administered the “Last Rites” as I mentioned. I was not supposed to make it through that night.
As they say, “the rest is history” some photos, a TV reporter gathering comment for her story, glass of bubbly, and cake, along with other little treats ended the day, but not before my new bride and I had some private time. When I reflect on this time in my life, I’m reminded of the strong “Faith” she had, the belief in me and that somehow she knew we would get through this… together!

http://workingwireless.com.au/category/life-without-limits/

copyright Brian Portland

Rise up by Christine Anne Borra #song #lyrics

Rise up and be counted
Your day has begun
The past has been written
By the prodigal son

Say no to the demons
that scream in your head
think only of
Victories that lie ahead

Rise up Rise up
A new days begun
Rise up and follow
the sun

Your futures untold
Like the clear driven snow
Step carefully stranger
Your footsteps will show

Rise up Rise up
A new days begun
Rise up and follow
the sun

Though your days are
all numbered
you know not the day
the hours, the minutes
slip slowly away

Ride on with now with purpose
waste not your time
bow down to high
mountains that you
cannot climb

Rise up Rise up
A new days begun
Rise up and be counted
Times on the run

Regrets are excuses
and lost chances my friend
they all will be counted
when you're at the end

Grasp life with both hands
and hold it to you
and take from the living
as long as it's true

Rise up Rise up
Your time will come
Rise up Rise  up
when your day
is done

Rise Up Rise Up
and greet the sun.......

copyrigth Christine Anne Borra

Sunrise Riverstone Terraces Upper Hutt New Zealand

Riverstone Terraces Upper Hutt New Zealand
 view from my deck 8 September 2011
Photograph by Christine Anne Borra
copyright

The Pro By Marolyn Krasner

I’m a temp.

I’ve worked at 29 companies so far this year and it’s only April. Temping is my way of observing – I like to think of it as modern day anthropology. I’ve seen all there is to see in cubicle land. Food fights, irate upper management meetings and the aftermath of the old itching-powder-on-the-toilet-seat trick.

Last Valentine’s Day and I was working at Sycamore and Sons when I looked up from my stack of files to find a lazy-eyed, buck-toothed, pregnant redhead who wasn’t a day past 16 years old standing over me.

“Hi, I’m looking for Mr. Sycamore. He’s my daddy.”

At first this really didn’t seem like a big deal, aside from the fact that this little girl with a big tummy looked like Pippy Longstocking—on glue. But as it turns out, it was a big deal. You see I had met all of Sy Sycamore’s children. All four were boys. All four were the offspring of Sy and Louise Sycamore, neither of whom had red hair. But this new addition to the Sycamore clan came via Waco, Texas, where Sy had attended a trade show about 16 years ago.

Little Samantha Sycamore found here daddy through that reality TV show Family Reunion. So that day it wasn’t just Samantha who showed up to surprise her daddy. The young woman was accompanied by an entourage including a 10-person television crew and a lawyer representing the southern angel, who was due to give birth any day.

Well, bless Louise Sycamore, she knew all the girl really wanted was some love. The surprisingly media savvy Louise agreed to a rehearsed, on-camera reunion then sent the crew, cameras and the lawyer back to Hollywood. Little Samantha was accepted as an official member and moved into the family home. Now the Sycamores are enjoying their new grandson—in separate bedrooms, I’ve heard.

 Back to Cynthia.

I think I’ve proven that I am in the ranks of what we in the biz call a pro-temp. In fact I feel I deserve a metal, a badge, a bronzed fluorescent light bulb. At the end of a month-long tenure at one office I did receive a flower planted in a coffeepot. I thought that was creative as well as thoughtful.

I was a hardened veteran ready for anything that came my way. No data entry assignment was too monotonous, no chair was too ergonomically incorrect and no coffee was too old for me. But even the most seasoned office worker can be brought to her knees by a supervisor like Cynthia.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to throw your boss on the table among the cream cheese and hummus on bagel day and have your way with her? Or have you ever felt the need to enter your superior’s office dozens of times a day to ask:

“I’m sorry, how many copies of this report did you need again?”

“The courier is here to pick up, is there anything else you need to send?”

“Can I get you some coffee?”

“Would you like a foot massage?”

“Does this door lock?”

Stuff like that.

No?

Well, me neither, until I met her. I have no apologies. I knew that she was the one.

Everything had been perfect so far. She felt it too. From the moment she first took my hand in hers and said those magic words, “I’m the office manager, Cynthia. I’ll show you your work station.”

Could it have been any more obvious?

All morning she had been playing hard to get, just talking on her headset. I knew she was thinking about how to ask me to dinner and calling all her friends to tell them how glad she was that she hadn’t called in sick that day.

After my 13th visit to Cynthia’s office I needed some space. Some time to regroup. After a good 10 minutes in a bathroom stall reciting the mantras of a successful seducer, I emerged to find Cynthia in the doorway of the bathroom. I froze. She looked up and our eyes locked. I knew it was meant to be. I went for it. Before I knew it we were on the floor. Rubbing. Kissing. Moaning. It was blissful. It was everything I expected it to be. It was magical.

It was sexual assault, she said, and I was out on my ass in front of the building in less than five minutes. I was undaunted. I love a challenge.

After multiple failed attempts to re-enter the building, I slipped the parking lot attendant a $20 to point out Cynthia’s car.

Her reaction to me waiting for her in the backseat was not as positive as I had hoped.

I never knew the sting of pepper spray lasted so long.

The next day and a half that I spent in the cells allowed me time to step back from the situation and gain perspective on what had gone so wrong between the two of us. At first I thought maybe it was too much too fast. My passion was so strong and I guess Cynthia just couldn’t handle all the love I was offering her.

Looking back from an even further distance, I guess I may have misread Cynthia’s signals and she probably wasn’t as interested in me as I had hoped. It seems Cynthia has a partner and a couple of young ones at home already. I don’t think I’d be welcomed into the mix. There are some couples who are into that sort of thing, you know, multiple partners. I think I’ll give Cynthia a little more time before I broach that subject.

My temp agency has since dropped me and I won’t even be paid for the two and a half hours I worked in that pretentious office.

It’s all right because there are thousands of opportunities out there for a pro with credentials like mine.

Maybe I should see if the Sycamores need a nanny.

Marolyn Krasner's novel You Know You Wish You Were Me
is available for free download here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/82175

copyright Marolyn Krasner 2011