It’s a steamy afternoon in New England, putting me in a snarky (otherwise defined as a testy, irritable) mood. The heat and humidity wilt me completely. Those of you who similarly experience this weather and its effects, I share your pain in this poem.
SCROOGE OF SUMMER
Summer is
too hot!
too bright!
too long!
too loud!
☀️ ☀️ ☀️ ☀️ ☀️
Fireworks booming
Mowers grinding
Horns blasting
Highways jamming
Beaches filling
Bare feet burning
Tourists streaming
Children screaming
🏖 🏖 🏖 🏖 🏖
Oceans packed
Rafts colliding
Car seats scalding
Sweat beads pouring
Hair frizzing
Dogs panting
Bees stinging
T-shirts clinging
🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝
Pavement pebbly
Pond slimy
Midnight steamy
Bed sheets twisted
Ice cream drippy
Sex is sticky
A/C busted
I’m disgusted
😡 😡 😡 😡 😡
Summer . . . not for me!
HAIKU FOR END OF AUGUST
screen door stilled—
summer slamming
silenced by the eye-hook.
Photo courtesy of unsplash.com
That sums me up too! 😳
Thank you sistah!
Couldn’t agree more! Well done
Thank you Judi for reading . . . and agreeing!
I think it’s AC that ruins summer. I recall as a boy in Alabama we would wade through hot mud mixed with cow poop to get to the hot yellow water to swim. Oh what a relief it was. I prefer summer though I wait much of day out so that I can enjoy the evenings. That slamming screen door. Can still hear my Mother yelling at us to not let the screen door slam.
Thanks Frank for sharing your experience of Alabama summers. And yes, that screen door is iconic . . . and I remember that the screens usually had rips, or were puffed out.
You are right on the money in cleverly capturing the misery that summer brings to many. I’ll add mosquito bites, poison ivy and, especially for us in the NE, ticks.
I’m a new reader of your blog and am enjoying your writing so much. Thank you!
Thank you Marilyn for your comment, and welcome to my blog. I appreciate each and every one of my readers. And yes, the bites and the itching, scourge of summer!
Be patient! Daylight is shrinking.
Economy of words, an element of your style.
As a kid i got cool by sticking my back and tush against the cold plaster wall while in bed. It worked and i was happy…. even better was being in Glen Cove sleeping on the floor with my cousins in my grandparents bedroom with AC.
Memories of summer, yes!
Love sweet love!!
Thanks Kathy! Hope you are faring well.
You summed it up perfectly! Neil always says he can take only one month of summer before he gets tired of it.
Hope your summer going well so far, Judy, considering what’s going on . . . .
yes
Hi Barrie, This piece would have resonated with me all of the times when I didn’t have access to a pool. When I was a child and teenager, we had one of those plastic pools in the backyard which was my favorite place to be on a summer day–simply splashing around. Then at 37, I finally learned to swim and started going to a pool in the summer and an indoor pool at other times of the year. Then I lived in some hot countries, and swimming was my means to sanity. In the last 11 years, I’ve had the pool here at my apartment during the summer. Have loved it and it has made summer so enjoyable. This year the pool didn’t open until this past Monday. I’ve spent 99% of my time indoors! Tomorrow I plan on having my first swim of the year. I definitely agree that summer for the most part can be torture. I particularly remember the summer of 1978 in Virginia when I was pregnant with no access to a pool. Horrible! Also, air conditioning has made summer tolerable for me. Back in the fifties, we didn’t have air conditioning in my home. My parents suffered more than we did, I think. It was tough, though, but the pool was paradise.
Hilary, I so enjoyed your account of the part that pools played in your life, your paradise. I’m happy for you that the pool is finally open and you can swim to your heart’s content!
I have a memory of a huge municipal pool that my parents sent me to for swimming lessons as a child. But I finally learned all the strokes at college, it was considered, along with Speech 101 (elocution), to be a necessity for a civilized young woman.
Thank you, Barrie. I may have very few swims this summer. But I’ll do my best.
I have a colonoscopy coming up in August and due to my inadequate system I
have to do low fiber and Milk of Magnesia prep for the week before and then
two fasting prep days. The pool is closed Wednesdays and Thursdays. I’d
been scheduled for one in March, and then due to COVID-19 they cancelled it
after I’d already done the week of Milk of Magnesia which was horrible and I’d
fasted one day (no laxative). So I wasn’t happy at all. But I did manage to eat
a lot that day!
Barrie, this poem speaks to me! LOVE it!
Thanks for your very positive response to my poem, I was hoping it wouldn’t seem too complain-y!
Oh yeah Barrie, I’m feeling this one. As a youngster summer was my undisputed favorite time of year. You couldn’t tear away from the sun. But now it has relinquished its claim as most favored season for many of the same reasons you have brilliantly articulated . Now its in a dead heat (pun intended) with the other three. Whether it’s the rose or the thorn on any given day, still love all four.
Frank
We are fortunate to have four distinct seasons up there, there’s something for everyone through the year, and three months of each is just enough. But I imagine you suffered some painful sunburns as a child with your fair skin!
Whoops Barrie, I meant to say “you couldn’t tear “me” away from the sun”. Yes I did endure some pretty nasty sunburns in my youth but I still loved and relished the sun. After that I worked in some pretty intense heat in places like Arizona and Australia. It was two summers ago that finally did me in. Do you remember building the deck in that relentless, scorching heat ? That was the coup de gras. Ever since I’ve beat a semi retreat from the heat and have become a fan (and love fans) of ac.