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Yes, I know. Can’t I move on to something else? But I am in a drawing mood and the elephant and dog just seem to be at my fingertips. Hope all have had a great Christmas or if you do not celebrate it, a great break!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category
More Dog, Elephant, Christmas
December 25, 2013Little Dog, On Mishearing a Holiday Greeting,
December 25, 2013
Little Dog, On Mishearing a Holiday Greeting,
cheddars with delight.
‘Merry Swiss-mas!’ That’s what I
call good cheese…errr…. cheer!
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A ho-ho-ho-ku for Mama Zen on With Real Toads.
Christmas Eve Tree Decorating = Better Late than Never!
December 24, 2013
One set of thoughts on Nelson Mandela’s Death
December 15, 2013
One Set of Thoughts On Nelson Mandela’s Death
When I think of them talking about South Africa, we are almost always at the Hot Shoppes, Friday nights, around a circular wooden table, its brown veneer smeared with sponged shine, swirled by demonstrative maple,
eating from gold speckled trays, my mom finally off the next day, mashed potatoes and thick white plates–
and there is always the word “bloodbath”–which seemed the only possible outcome–mixed in with the phrases “beautiful country;” and “such a shame.”
The shame seemed to arise on several levels–some I could not, as a child, quite trace–but the contours of the word “bloodbath” were easy enough to come up with–gorges slit throats, rivers sliced arteries, valleys marooned–
My mother, at least, was of a mixed mind–pained by the injustice–while her widowed friend who came along with us, had a daughter whose boyfriend was a rich South African, white, and so, there were these sighs–he really was quite rich–that what was going on was terrible, but not perhaps as bad as red-soaked streets–
As I listened, I would think of the guy who’d just cut my Dad’s roast beef–we lived in the semi-South, and all the workers at the Hot Shoppes were pretty much black–his skin shining so warm in the glare of the heat lamps, the puddling of blood on the carving board and the brilliant droplets oozing from the beef’s crimson core, the starched white hat that implied (without my consciously thinking of it) safety, an acceptance of rules and a life of their imposition–
and I thought of how kindly he smiled, looking over to me as my Dad tried to decide how he wanted his meat done–
and of the carver’s hands, the skin translucent below the lamp, the creases of his palms pink against their tan, the fleshy base so soft around the pine stem of the great grey knife–
I did not even know Mandela’s name back then–nine or ten–but when I did learn it, it came to mean one thing to me–”no bloodbath”–
It was something that seemed impossible–I mean, there were race riots the very next year in my home town, me just eleven–
and I write this now not meaning to diminish the suffering, but only to describe my awe at waters that have washed so blue along jagged coasts, green riverbanks, and of a translucence of flesh/spirit/smile that was completely human, yet able, like the divine, to let there be light.
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Here’s a draftish prose poem written for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads, to write a personal response to the death of Nelson Mandela. Like all of us, I’ve got many responses, but this was one set of memories that came up. I’m also linking belatedly to Mary’s dVerse Poets Pub prompt about light.
Insomnia- – Friday Flash 55
December 13, 2013
Insomnia
I remember
nights slept–
I mean, I don’t
remember them,
memory rolled shut
like the lid to a
business, closed-
for-the-day, the only trade
on its corrugated gray waves
that neon graffiti
tagged REM.
Oh, for those hours that abandoned me
in their not-wake,
oh for that now not-here,
oh, for that dark night’s alley.
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Here are 55 insomnia-honed words for the G-Man Mr. Knowitall. Ugh. (That’s to myself only, not the wonderful G-Man.) I have cheated a bit through the hyphenations. (For those 55 sticklers who do not believe in hyphenated words being a single word, cut out the last line!)
Spuyten-Duyvil
December 10, 2013
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I ride the trainline on which the tragic tragic MetroNorth accident occurred just after Thanksgiving. I had ridden the northbound line since the accident, but yesterday was my first ride going south, towards the City. Here is a pic I took shortly past the site of the accident. I confess I was not thinking about it directly, but more about the beauty of the snow until I realized how dramatically the train had slowed. The picture was taken in color and has not been edited in any way. (For those who do not know, this is at the edge of the Bronx.)
Sad Something
December 9, 2013
Some of the things that happen when you put a dog down.
You become conscious, in the middle of the injections, that there is no going back.
How soft their bodies are, as the vet turns them over, in the case of a small body, looking for a vein. And warm. Even that fur that got so matted as they aged, that you could not torment with brushing any more or too many baths.
You realize, looking, that one reason you have always loved the dog is simply because it is beautiful—-even a dog not at its best–and how amazing it is, if you have not always felt beautiful in yourself, to have this beautiful creature love you back.
It fell asleep in your arms, what with the sedative, and is not in pain now and maybe you should run away with it before they give the death solution.
But how long it seems to breathe, its veins collapsed so the solution does not carry. The doctor says you might want to look away as he points the needle at the heart itself. He is kind but in a hurry.
You do turn away, thinking of the two women in the parking lot earlier–an old lady who looked half like a fairy tale godmother, half like a gnome, short squat her face all pink and dimples wearing a large turquoise cape, which may have been meant for hip length but descended to the ground. A bit odd-looking but not unattractive but then her daughter (I’m guessing) who got out of the car too seemed to have inherited all the gnome aspects with none of the boppity boo- her hunched shoulders leading straight into shrunken hips, actually her head leading straight into shrunken hips–her body seeming almost a cork with facial features painted on and stuck black hair–but she smiled, she hugged the old lady, she laughed, and in the midst of their good-bye, she pulled from one of the cars a perfect Papillon–well, that kind of dog always looks pretty perfect, what with the symmetrically stroked fur, and heart-pointed face/muzzle, and the cork woman held the dog above her own tubed face, beaming love, and the dog looked down from her grasp, beaming uncritical, if slightly distracted, cuteness, and then the dog was brought to the face of the old boppity-boo woman who smiled, playing with its paws, and to the driver’s window where some similar loving interaction happened even just through a crack in the glass–oh such enthusiastic happiness–until the cork woman finally took the dog back to her own car where she and the perfectly beautiful being that attends her in a way that, you know, a human Papillon might not, drove off into the muted distance.
And my poor little still-soft dog, who has done that for me, lies now on the metal table which has these clouds on it, smears from being wiped down through long-pawed days– and they ask do I have something to hold her in, and I say yes, pointing to a cloth bag, but they suggest plastic–bringing a dark garbage sack, which my face must say is too much, but the nurse mumbles something about leakage and how I can always take her out again and I thank her and even help hold wide its dark lip as we slip the dog inside, so that it–and now I’ll say she–for she was a girl dog–stays even, and so when I do take the dark plastic in my own lone arms, I can be sure that what feels like the head is held higher than the rest, the way that one might hold a child, or anyone truly.
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So sorry to burden readers with this–many know I lost my 18 year old dog just after Thanksgiving–and am still thinking of it–a short prosey drafty piece.
Balanced (Even in December)
December 8, 2013
Through the Crinkly Boots
December 7, 2013
When I put on my boots this morning, they felt really cold and crinkly.
I remembered that the last time I wore them I tried to hike over a stream.
I think the correct word is “ford.”
But I only had my own two feet, which have a lot less traction than most tires. Especially modern ones .
I kind of wished I’d put on my special thick socks, with the super cool stripes, but, hey, the boots were laced up already.
And after I wore them around the house a while either they relaxed or my feet grew crinkly. Either way, they felt more or less in sync.
Then I went outside.
Have you ever felt your toes get cold? Have you ever NOT felt your toes get cold?
As I trudged around, I thought about my special thick socks sitting so cozily in my drawer, their cool stripes useless in its darkness.
But I kept trudging.
No-toes and all
Tree trunks striping the snow,
but my feet in frozen solids.
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I am linking the above to the dVerse Poets Pub prompt by the wonderful Claudia Schoenfeld to write something about Through the Looking Glass/ Alice in Wonderland and/or Advent. I’m not sure this fits but it is what I have done!
(All rights in the pictures, such as they are, as well as the text are mine, and cannot be reproduced without permission. Thanks! )
Happy Saturday and do check out the other wonderful poets at dVerse.
Ode To Black And White Film (Photographic)
November 28, 2013
Ode To Black And White Film (Photographic)
I.
You turn spider veins
below the one-piece to
inroads into
the intimate,
make pimples spots
almost capable of coupling
with the word “beauty;”
wrinkles, under your auspices, shape
a face
like the tentative tries of
the sketch artist,
while the cross-hatch of liver stains
grants depth.
All skin,
no matter the shade,
turns as velvet in your grip
as Colbert’s (Claudette):
all grins claim Clark Gable
as their close kin.
II.
Old names fit
because we enter
another age
between your frames–
time turns back
to a when we mourn
for its lost grandeur,
at least simplicity.
Then one pictures
the harsh-bright hunch of shoulders/breasts/bellies
lined up beside the charcoal-wooled SS;
the black and white stripes of
limbed kindling–
Sheriffs’ belts in the South, the highlit teeth
of snarl, blinding shirts over backs
beaten–
III.
Maybe what we miss is a time when man,
for all his good and cruelty,
operated the machine, the machine
that now runs us–
Maybe what we imagine in your
stilled life
is the machine turned off,
maybe what we hear
in your dark/light are whole minutes
as buzz-free as forests covering with snow,
lost streets pooling in lamplight–
IV.
But even before the machine,
there was a kaching-ching-ching
beneath most human doings,
gold that worked
its own gradations,
sometimes even
posed for its picture.
In its portraits, the ermine borders have spots
frequently, and the strands of fur can almost
be counted.
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Forgive me for the length of this very very drafty all-over-the-place poem, written for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads to write poetry in black and white. The idea, explained beautifully by Kerry, was to write something using various types of contrast, and not necessarily about black and white photography. My literal brain had a hard time with it, though it really is an excellent prompt. Check it out!
The above photograph is not black and white, but it has a very monochromatic feel (and in the distance are forests covering with snow.)
ManicDDaily 
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