David Jackson

There is a new website out for a new yard or field game that is emerging. A gender neutral game where the boys have no physical advantage, one where running faster, being stronger or bigger has no merit. A game which requires finesse, skill and strategy rather than aggression would give the young girls confidence. A game where the boys can’t push them down and win. So many of our games are for “bulls in a field” and are male designed. The stronger bull wins. In our games, the ladies have to form their own league.
Some states are making laws about gender in sports. It’s refreshing to see someone trying to invent a field game that is gender neutral. It’s also a social distancing game. Opponents don’t come near each other. The SoccerTargets people have put up a site. They’ll be putting up stuff about their game.
If you are in a position to set up a field and give their game a try, they would so want you to contact them. Here is their new website about their Gender Neutral Game, SoccerTargets

Oh it’s gettin’ too hard
to vote and pee in Tennessee.
I gotta have my birth certificate
and photo ID with me.
It’s good I get no water
while I wait in line to vote
’cause the restroom
it’s getting too strange to go.
So I think I’ll just wait
until I get home
’cause it’s gettin’ too hard
to vote and pee
in Tennessee.

 by David Michael Jackson

We’ll share a message for Mother’s Day:
Hello Dave- this is Jesse – Summer Breezes’ eldest. Reflecting on my Mothers Birthday today May 8th. I was given a few editions of Moongate my mother published many years ago by a friend. It stimulated me to “google” Moongate and I made it to your site you are maintaining. What a wonderful and delightful treat! Thank🙏 you so much! That it took me so long to get back here makes me feel guilty, but what is guilt but a silly thing as Summer might suggest. Now I’m quite excited to introduce sounds, pictures and poems of my Mother to her Grandkids both those she knew as young ones and those she never met. Again – Thank You

A Mothers Day blessing from our founder and muse, Summer Breeze:

These songs were written by David Michael Jackson at Artvilla. These two sites were started together in 1998. Motherbird was founded by Summer Breeze and Artvilla by David. This release is on the Artvilla.com label and has been remastered and we are proud of the result.

The Vietnam Effect
by Jennifer Schoch

The aroma of lilac drew me
away from my son
quiet as a crystal bowl in his stroller,
the early curious mosquitos almost kept us home.
Am I able to appreciate
this lilac,
her symmetrical perfection, without conjuring your pain?
I am fearful of this flower
I am panicked by her swift impermanence,
of my inability to hold her comforting fragrance
for those mostly marshmallowed mugs of hot chocolate days,
sequestered from the dirty New Jersey snow
where the radiators’ imbalance
from room to room
would make you yell when we opened the windows just a crack
“Goddamn waste of money!”
And the belts sang in their choir on the back of the closet door,
because the boys were fighting over remote controls again
And then, after my downward gaze had watched your darkness dissipate into the cracks
between the hardwood floors,
You would read me Shakespeare:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Is this
why I ran away?
To places where there are no seasons
to the endless
summer days,
where flowers never seem to die.
Your toes were stained with cigarette ash the last time I kissed you goodbye.
Did I
even kiss you?
You hadn’t showered for weeks
and I was scared.
Scared of your skin
scared of your scents
scared of my
shame.
The blue of your eyes was bright
against the rivers of bloodshot.
Mom says your eyes were green
It’s like she never knew you.

Sad and lonely, you asked me to stay
“Live here.”
You said.
“I hate LA.”
Like my brothers also bound to plastic liters?
They were small like my boy,
like you were once.
I am fearful in the face of this flower and her reminders.
Your grandson screams now like a broken dish
and
I wonder if you are there
silently crying
out into the black jungle for God to spare you
for your mother
for a future with mom
for a future with me
with a grandson you will never meet.
How could you have known this jungle
it would never leave?
Dying on the old hardwood floor in May
did you make it to the yard that Spring?
The worst death you died is not your final fall
it is the tree outside our window
cowering with dainty, dusty stars
you could not notice.
Did you glance outside that morning
and think to tell me of the lilacs that had bloomed?
Was your fall swift?
A small, unopened purple “bud of May”
gently shaken free?
The pain you healed, my father,
by noticing the lilacs
reading Shakespeare in Irish accents.
The unfolding damage it has caused,
in the tiniest creations
this unreconciled war from long ago.

The Vietnam Effect Copyright 2021 by Jennifer Schoch. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published at Artvilla The Vietnam Effect Poem