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Tag: truth

All Things Beloved

Missing a loved one?

A special place?

A special object that you once held dear?

No matter what has transpired …

All things beloved can be seen in the mind’s eye.

-CD-W

IMG_4432

via Beloved

 

February 3, 2018

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham1 Comment

The Hidden to Light

29774e4b9a1ab066a89292fb4c912052--romantic-paintings-romantic-art

Entertain me with your laughter

not your bravado

dance for me a jig

and smile when I join you

Extend your hand

and walk me across the water

into a field of wild flowers

Run without thought

to catch my hat from the breeze

Talk to me of topics peaceful

and fill me with stories of compassion

Take me to your favorite place

and share with me the secrets inside

Remove the metal around your chest

to show me the softness within.

And I will shelter you from the storm.

 

photo credit

via Entertain

January 14, 2018

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham2 Comments

Just Gimme Some Truth

The plainest coat

of thinnest twine

divinest in

these troubled times.

 

The finest suit

on vainest man

with meanest tone

once business man.

 

The sanest folk

with honest speech

truthful, earnest 

are best to teach

 

via Nest

November 22, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham2 Comments

Damn Straight!

I don’t ride a horse

I don’t shoot a gun

I eat Mexican food and barbecue

and bask in Texas sun

I don’t say “ain’t”

I don’t chew or spit

I can put on a Texas drawl, y’all

but only when it fits

I don’t own an oil gusher

Still,  I’ve got my Texas roots

I can play blackjack, kick back

sportin’ western boots.

IMG_2735

First rate?

Damn straight!

 

painting by CD-W

 

 

 

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-WillinghamLeave a comment

The View from a Gutter Isn’t Always Bad

We didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t planned. But it happened.

On the walk home from our second grade class, my best friend, Vanita, and I took a wee bit of a detour. We walked down the creek bed and into the drainage tunnel. After an immediate right, we discovered a new way of looking at things.

The sight (and site) was pure magic! Whoever thought to build this foxhole was a pure genius!

From inside the gutter, at ants view, car tires whizzed past, feet with voices attached walked above us. Yes, we would be late coming home from school. But the newness, the discovery, the giggles, made it worthwhile.

I’m not sure how much time passed before we saw the car pull in front of us. We recognized the shoes. We definitely recognized the angry voice.

Can you imagine this mother’s horror at seeing our heads in the gutter?

A silent car ride later, Vanita’s mother pulled into my driveway, spoke a few words to my mother, and drove away with my best friend in tow.

Over fifty years later, this brief moment in my life still makes me smile. The world, I’d learned, was not mundane after all. It was filled with shared bonds no one could ever take away and discoveries waiting to be found.

As the world turned, the small heads of two young girls were filled with a new perspective on life.

Untitled-2

Vanita and me – obviously photoshopped. Her mother wasn’t packing a Polaroid at the time.

 

 

Daily Word prompt: Genius

October 6, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham4 Comments

A Power Punch of Memories

Some say it’s peculiar that I remember so much of my first few years of life. But things like the burning of a hand, or the birth of a little sister, stay with you forever. I remember helping to pin Delma’s cloth diapers around her butt, and, later, pulling her toes to make them pop. I’d smile and say, “They ain’t long enough yet, Sis. I’m gonna he’p ’em grow.”

I remember putting a pot on my head to make Delma laugh when I thought she was dying.

And that pocket knife Ike gave me when I was two?  It came in real handy in first grade.

This train has its rhythm going now and the passengers have settled in. Most are trying to sleep just to make the time pass. I lay my head up against the hard window and watch as San Antone starts to slowly slip by. I close my eyes to see if I can nod off like everybody else, but it’s only an idea. Sleep is knocked out by that presence in the seat next to me. More memories keep nudging me, crowding me up against the ropes, where none of my boxing defense skills seem to work. No, these are stronger opponents. They jab my chin, then power punch me in the gut. It’s more painful than a broken nose. They make me remember.

Screenshot 2017-09-10 10.18.38.png

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

 

Daily word prompt: Peculiar

September 10, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham3 Comments

Ike’s Spicy Tongue

scan0004 copy.jpg  Screenshot 2017-08-09 14.04.53.png

(pictures of my great-grandfather, Ike “Isaac Newton” Dennis)

Ike mounts his beans on top of his cornbread, takes a bite, then chomps off the end of his jalapeno. Sweat is just pouring off his forehead and tears have started to roll down his cheeks.

         “Damn, that’s good,” he says, “A good go for short dough.”

         We all laugh, even Ike, about how something that hurts so bad can also be so good at the same time.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C.Dennis-Willingham (my father’s story)

 

Screenshot 2017-08-09 14.05.58.png

daily word prompt: Spicy

August 9, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham1 Comment

Can’t beat it with an ugly stick

Screenshot 2017-05-03 09.21.52
Cono and his sister, Delma 

At least we are together, Delma and me. It’s just another place that I plan to watch over her. I want to keep her close by, so nobody can snatch her away again. As long as I can do that, it doesn’t make no difference where we are.

The car keeps humming slowly down the highway. I try to sleep but I can’t. Instead, I think about Mr. Ed Rotan and decide right then and there that “Cono, Texas” has a real good ring to it. Cono, Texas won’t just have snow gypsum under the ground and a railroad on top of it. It’ll have oil underground and derricks on the top, pumping night and day. I call them jacks “grasshoppers” because that’s just what they look like when they’re pumping up and down. They’re grasshoppers trying to hop away, but they’re stuck and have to settle for hopping up and down in the same place.

My town will have at least two good cafés that serve T-bone steaks and tea iced in clean tin jars, free to me since it’s my town. I don’t know much about T-bone steaks since one’s never been in my mouth, but I do know about cold iced Tea. A while back, Pa and I went from farmhouse to farmhouse following the thrasher and it was the first time I ever got a swaller of iced tea out of a fruit jar. A couple of them farm ladies knew how to make it real good. But the best was when one of them lady’s had cleaned up an oil can good and shiny. She poured the tea in the can with a bunch of ice and sugar and when I tasted it, it was the coldest and best drink I ever had. Ice is few and far between, sometimes as scarce as food. So when Pa took a sip he said, “Aye God, ye can’t beat that with an ugly stick.”

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Daily word prompt: Tea

July 26, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham1 Comment

Forgivenss: NOW OPEN!!

Screenshot 2017-07-15 18.41.16
clipart by CD-W

Grandma parked her Ferrari

and rushed through the door

of the Moxie Courageous Everything Store.

“I need one sturdy jump rope,

two twenty-pound weights,

elbow and knee pads

and blue roller skates.”

 

“Will  that be all?” the salesman said.

 

Grandma looked at the ceiling

and then shook her head.

 

“I need a large sack of forgiveness,

‘No cost,’ I was told,

‘If you give it out freely,

it will lighten your load.'”

 

He pulled down the sack

from the highest of shelves

and smiled when he said,

“I might give some myself.”

 

She lifted her items

and knew who she’d call

for the bag wasn’t heavy,

not heavy at all.

Unknown-1

 

Daily word prompt: Moxie

 

 

 

 

 

July 15, 2017July 16, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham3 Comments

Shootin’ Sunshine

Screenshot 2017-04-11 09.20.36
Cono Dennis, my father

Here I go again, on the way back to Sweetwater. Not to get a donkey but to shoot Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.

Driving down the highway, Aunt Nolie doesn’t talk much, at least not with her mouth. She clutches that steering wheel like she’s about to squeeze all the Texas sand and Grit out of it and that’s a whole conversation in itself.

We finally get to Sweetwater and park in front of the Lucky Star Bar.

“Cono, ye wait right here.”

“OK,” I say, since I’ve already met the woman, who’s about to be shot anyway.

I sit in the car, again. I watch the people come and go, again, except this time, the ones that had been going were coming and the ones that had been coming were now going. I wait for the sound of a gunshot, the sound I’ve become familiar with when I hunt with my dad. I wait alright ‘cause there’s nothing else for me to do.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

 

daily word prompt: Grit

July 11, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham1 Comment

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Does the Internet promote depression?

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées   I learned of this quote years back during a yoga class. It’s stuck with me and I wanted to share it. That’s how I came upon this curious “wow” moment. So here’s what happened on the way… Continue reading →

September 14, 2017

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham

Do you have ASS?

I don’t want to cut my fu..king ear off like Van Gogh. Instead, I spit on creativity when I can’t sleep. (Not really. I love creativity) How do you bloggers and authors, when your cozy and warm in your bed, stop thinking about what to write next when all you really want is to sleep? I close… Continue reading →

November 14, 2016

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham

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