Songs Not Encumbered by Reticence

To a Favorite Granddaughter

Never love a simple lad;
Guard against the wise;
Shun a timid youth, and sad;
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son;
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather up your skirts and run
From a wistful way.

Never give away a tear;
Never toss and pine…
Should you heed my words, my dear,
You’re no blood of mine!

Healed

Oh, when I threw my heart away
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall.
And this was all I had to say:
“I thought that he was tall!”

Superfluous Advice

Should they whisper false of you,
Never trouble to deny;
Should the words they speak be true,
Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Afternoon

When I am old and comforted
And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed,
And Peace to share my fire.

I’ll fold my hair in scalloped bands
Beneath my laundered cap;
And watch my cool and fragile hands
Lie light upon my lap.

And I will wear a spriggéd gown
With lace to kiss my throat.
I’ll draw my curtains to the town, A
nd him a purring note.

And I’ll forget the way of tears,
And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blesséd years
Were further than they be!

Swan Song

First you are hot,
Then you are cold;
And the best you have got
Is the fact you’re old.
Labor and hoard,
Worry and wed;
And the biggest reward
Is to die in bed.
A long time to sweat,
A little while to shiver
Is all you will get—
Where’s the nearest river?

Dorothy Parker

Stop and Go

People cannot
Learn in schools
The truth about
The traffic rules,

Or gauge the temper
Of a cop
And when to steal
A light, or stop,

Or swiftly shift
From gear to gear
To save collision
In the rear.

My chassis was
Designed for speed,
My engine does
Its stuff at need,

My brakes are new
And working fine,
I could skid close
To the danger line,

But with safe margins
I’m content—
I hate to get
My mudguard bent!

Angela Cypher

I Stand With Mason

George Mason University is under attack. If you have any affiliation with Mason, support our president and protect our university. Stand with us.

Conjugation

I sleep, thou sleepest
It sleeps—
A dream that nobody
Keeps.

We wake, you wake
They wake;
A desperate
Mistake.

A dream is pure
And mural,
While living life
Is plural,

And three or four—
Dimensional,
With number and tense
Declensional.

So then I try
To live
In the
Infinitive,

To love, to learn
To die.
No heroine
Am I,

But the subjunctive
Mood
Still offers something
Good—

So, might I, if I,
Should I
By chance, perhaps,
And could I,

Dispense with “if”
And “maybe”—
I’d have a black-eyed
Baby.

Angela Cypher

Random Reflections

Reminiscent

When I consider how my life is spent,
I hardly ever repent.

On Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Veracious

Purity
Is obscurity.

Helpful

A good way to forget today’s sorrows
Is by thinking hard about tomorrow’s.

Ogden Nash

Mandatory IT Security Training

Each year I have to take the dreadful mandatory IT security training. It’s 40 minutes long interactive video. Luckily, it provides a pre-test to determine how much I already know. I got a perfect score within 15 minutes thanks to AI. I only had to watch a few minutes of the intro and the conclusion. I don’t use AI too often, but this is an exception.

Building a Personal Brand With a Personal Website

Even though Ann LT has a presence on social media, such as Flickr, Instagram, and Facebook, she would like to have her own website. She posts her works on social media, but they get lost in the infinite scroll of materials. In addition to moving at lightning speed, these social platforms dictate how her photos are displayed.

On the other hand, her own website gives her complete control to present her works, in which she has meticulously selected each photo for the homepage and the galleries. Her website also gives her viewers a chance to slow down and absorb her works without constant distractions including annoying ads and third-party scripts.

One of the many advantages of having her website is the freedom to tell her own story. Owning her personal website is owning her personal brand.

I invite you to visit annlt.com.

New Site for Photographer Ann LT

Ann Lưu-Trọng is a storyteller. Through her len, she captures the beauty of isolation, displacement, and solitude. Her photography is often mysterious and ambiguous—leaving her visual narratives open to interpretation.

To showcase her work, I settled on a dark mode. The user interface recedes to the background to put the attention on the photography. The homepage features an automated slideshow to display a wide range of her work while the individual galleries showcase specific themes.

For typography, I chose Roboto Flex, designed by David Berlow, Santiago Orozco, Irene Vlachou, Ilya Ruderman, Yury Ostromentsky, and Mikhail Strukov, for its robustness and no-nonsense finesse.

The site is designed and developed using HTML, CSS, and bit of PHP. The galleries are powered by Flickity, developed by David DeSandro.

Visit Ann LT website.

No More Camping

After another year at First Landing, I am done with camping. I hate bugs. I hate the heat. I hate the rain. I hate packing.

Because of the weather, I could barely sleep at night. I didn’t bring an AC. Most families brought their AC. As a result, the kids ended up either staying in their tent, EV, or RV to stay cool and to be on their phones. The phones ruined the kids.

The backstabbers talking shit behind your back were annoying, but I decided a long time ago. Never let anyone’s words get me down. What people say or think about me has no effect on me—friends or foes. That’s my survival mechanism.

On the bright side, I had a great time with food, liquor, and friends.

Breasts

I always thought
they were small—
my breasts.

But they filled
my baby’s mouth.
& my lover’s tongue
loves them,
& my memory is
filled with all
the pleasure they gave
over the years,

while my mother’s
100-year-old breasts
still hang
waiting.

For what?
For the tongue
of God?
For the spinning Fates
to release them
into the clouds
so she can remember
how to paint
again?

The sky awaits,
& earth itself.

She used to say,
we all
go back to earth
& become
beautiful tomatoes,
peas, carrots.

She was an
ecologist
before the term
was invented.

O Mother
I love you
despite everything.

Peas, carrots,
cauliflower.
Even cabbage.

Erica Jong

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