Saroya's: What Did You Say?

Saroya's: What Did You Say?: What You Say how you say it Did they understand or misinterpret? Reword speak slower try not to give offence Yet…..It didn’t work ...

What Did You Say?

What You Say how you say it

Did they understand or misinterpret?

Reword speak slower try not to give offence

Yet…..It didn’t work

They take offence where none was given

Try again saying it different, and then wait

Ah not again I cannot say another way

Seems to give offense no matter what I say 

I wonder if they really listen

Notice that they do not try to phrase their words

Just open mouth and blurt it out, no care

Then expect you will not care or will forgive

So they say all manner of things that show no thought

Just open mouth insert foot, I have done that, with no ill intent

But sometimes I wonder do they really listen or only to themselves

So maybe for a while I will say not at all, and then only say what I mean

No matter if they understand or take offense

If they have to think just what was said will they know or not

The issue is, can I do that, yes I can

But will I do that, I know how,

But it has been so long that I am not sure

Should I shouldn’t I only time will tell

Saroya Poirier     October 30, 2012

The Vietnam War and the Traveling Soldier

Traveling Soldier

I was working at the Carvery Restaurant at Seattle Tacoma Airport in Washington State during the Vietnam War. In 1968 I was 20, not really old enough in those days to be considered an adult, 21 was the golden age of legal adulthood.  Still I had married at 17 to a Navy man we had two babies by the time I was 19, separated when I was 20.  I moved out of Seattle proper and into the suburbs, in south King County in the winter of 1968 my son Dale wasn’t even a year old.    

There was at that time a large anti war fight going on, not a happy time for our GIs no matter what, where or who, coming home or being deployed.  To give the illusion that they were sending fewer troops overseas they adjusted the times the troops moved though the Sea Tac airport.  This false front was supposed to calm the anti war hippie movement.  Now before you jump on my hippie remark, I had been married to a Sailor stationed aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam, RR was in Saigon.  I was young, not well informed, and under educated at the time.  That happens when you quit school 16 to get married.  

Recently someone said to me that troops travel by military planes yes and no.  The government was sending a lot of troops to Hawaii and Guam (?), before they deployed them to bases in Vietnam. I only know they flew out of Seattle Tacoma Airport using commercial airlines.   

When I first started working at the airport I would see the boys wandering through the airport, reading, eating, sleeping, or just talking together.   They were already there when I went into work at 4 PM and fewer were then when I left at midnight.  Then it changed, it reversed, fewer GIs when I went to work, then at 10 PM the airport would be flooded with all branches of the service.   

The point of this walk into my past is the Song, Traveling Soldier song By the Dixie Chicks (they have been punished enough so get over it). We would be swamped the hour before we closed with America's finest young men ages 17 and up, many drafted and those who volunteered.  

They would sit at the tables and flirt, laugh; was I available, did I want to spend the rest of the evening with them.  More than one young man who asked me to marry him so he had someone to come home to, someone take back to Missouri (insert state of choice) to meet his folks.    They laughed, smiled, and were scared, would they come home, or would the die in that war. 

It was the first war where film came quickly, the first war we saw on TV sometimes as it happened.   

I had not a clue what to say, so I smiled said I hoped to see them on their way back home.

Then there was the young man from New York, he wouldn’t smile, not just scared, but sure he was going to die that he would never see his family again. I tried to say "don't say that"  but he was sure he would die, just like his brother. What do you say, what he said could happen, it did every day? I wanted to tell him he was wrong he would be fine, in the end it was all I could do not to cry.  I don’t remember if he told me his name.  But I listen to this song and cry and think of all those eager young men I saw in the airport night after night, and I hope some of the boys I waited on in the Carvery Restaurant came home alive.

Saroya Poirier   October 30, 2012

Travelin Soldier, written by Bruce Robison in 1996

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile
And he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me,
I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go

So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

Chorus: I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

So the letters came from an army camp
In California then Vietnam
And he told her of his heart
It might be love and all of the things he was so scared of
He said when it's getting kinda rough over here
I think of that day sittin' down at the pier
And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile
Don't worry but I won't be able to write for awhile

One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang
A man said folks would you bow your heads
For a list of local Vietnam dead
Crying all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band
And one name read but nobody really cared
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair

Chorus: I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

No One Else to Blame

I did this to myself; no one else is to blame

I was blind I saw what I wanted to see

When things went bad I stayed I should have walked

I stayed; more fool me, blind stupidity

Why did I do this? What happened to me?

Why did I let this happen to me?

I can’t believe that strong women turned into this

For what, more misery, screaming in sanity

I am and was so fucking stupid, today, yes even today

Now I am too old for it to make any difference if I go or stay

I hate being made to feel guilty for every little fucking thing

I didn’t spend thousands of dollars at a bar for years

I didn’t spend thousands more at a country club pretending wealth

I was dunned to death about piddling items on a credit card bill

Now I am too scared to go, to old and scared to start over.

In some way I feel defeated, but that wouldn’t be entirely correct

I wish screaming would fix it, change it, make it better, it won’t

So, I will do what I can to make me happy, fix what I can,

Tell the rest to fuck off

©Saroya Poirier   October 30, 2012

Pussy

There is hair down here to protect your pussy from invasion

The barrier does not keep the snakes out, that is misinformation

This clump of curly hair can harbor some tiny critters, eek have a care

There are creams, lotions, Lysol or complete removal of said pubic hair

Sugar, wax cold or hot, razor, tweezers, scissors and Nair 

So rip it, cut it, pluck it, melt it, and just take care

If you are lucky that short curly hair may disappear

Nevermore would you need worry you’d be forever unfurry  

If all you do is trim your pussy beard beware

Five o’clock shadow can there appear

Prickly, itchy, scratchy, to sharp for flesh so tender

You wouldn’t want to prick a prick of your friendly contender

Bare it or leave it furry, no worry

Bare is how I prefer, not much work now, don’t smirk

No 5 o’clock shadow no prickly pear, no hair there, just bare

Been doing it so long it’s now down to twice a year 

So you see there are some perks for my disappearing pubic works

Now if only when he comes in for a little taste

He will appreciate the softness when we interlace and first shave his face

©Saroya Poirier    October 26, 2012

The Wonderful world of the Internet

The internet is both wondrous and horrific.   We learn, explore, and are bombarded by ads, spam, scum, friends, family, lovers and strangers.  It is all very overwhelming at times.   An email saying this politician lies; this is the truth, when in reality what they are sending you is not the truth.  Unless you are diligent, do your own research you could easily believe all the hype, the crap being sent via the internet.   Oh don’t forget the beggars, send me this, I need that.  Sick children who in reality are all grown up and very healthy, they no longer neither want nor need used Christmas cards or that dollar you are asked to send.

In the privacy of your home, bedroom, study, closet, you say, do and act in a way you night never do in front of anyone you know and certainly not someone you don’t know.  You trust that the person on the receiving end of your email or text is being as truthful as yourself that is if you are really naïve.  Some of us are truthful, honest and open with those we interact with via the air waves of the internet.

As for believing everything you read we worry about our grandparents being taken in, though that does happens, it is our children that can be most damaged by what they post or read online.  Bullying and sexting can you imagine trying to explain to your grandchildren that you sent obscene pictures of yourself to a boy that turned out to be a old pervert when you were 12. 

Heck it was hard enough in the early 1960s for a girl who gave up her virginity to a boy she thought she loved, only to go to school on Monday and have everyone calling her a whore as she walked to her locker.  I had that happen to me. 

There are days I just cannot listen or watch the news.  The problems of the world look at me from my computer. Listening to the radio I will hear several times in the hour local or nationwide news.  Then throw in the international goings on, it can just be too damn much.  Just how informed do we really need to be?  We can’t solve the world’s problems; we can’t even solve our own.

Maybe we should stop trying to help people who don’t want us to help them, and don’t seem to care if they get their own act together. Ever hear of the old adage of “God helps those who help themselves”?  So just when are those other place going to help themselves, fix their own towns, cities, countries?   Ever? Never?  Whenever.

Saroya     Saturday October 12, 2012

Indecision

Wake up, roll out of bed

Cold

Turn up heat

HOT, perspire

Turn down heat

Open window

Cooling

Put on sweater

HOT, perspiring

Take off sweater

COLD

Put on shawl

Goosebumps

Take off shawl

Put on sweater

HOT, perspiration

Cold

Hot cold hot cold

Cold

Hot, fucking sweat

Cold hot cold hot

Screaming

When will it stop?

Horses sweat, men perspire, but women merely glow 

Hysterical laughter fills the quiet void

Menopause, not for the faint of heart

Excuse me while I put my clothes back on, I’m cold.

Saroya Poirier © October 11, 2012

Message Composition

I, we, but… well maybe

No, never…well not really

Time, timely… not enough

You, him, they… oh hell

Then? When? I simply cannot

Here, there… just everywhere

Have you? I have, try it now

You can, I did, so why not?

It isn’t so hard, move your lips

Now stand, don’t just sit

Okay never mind, go to bed

Don’t toss, don’t turn…sigh

Do what? Develop a thought?

Gee whiz, what a concept

But the time is almost up

Alright, if you say so

Good day for now

Typically me

©Saroya Poirier    October 9, 2012

Dedicated to Dave Rose and Luke Burbank