Thanksgiving – you can’t please everyone.
Or maybe you can.
Happy Thanksgiving.
This is a reposting of older watercolors–so sorry if you’ve seen already. Pearl is still in this world–over 18–I am very thankful for that and so much else (especially your visits and your own work.) Take care.
Aftershock
(November ‘63 – Kennedy’s Funeral, Washington, D.C.; Ruby Shoots Oswald, Dallas)
The black horse resisting its prance,
the turned-back boots, the sense of legs
invisible, and those thin red stripes
at the sides of the uniform
not there,
though there were uniforms
between the sheen
of metal, tears,
pale sun;
legs too, dark grey
as those trees they have in Washington
whose leaves always look turned
the wrong way out.
The stripes now gold
in memory, and maybe were some blur
of caisson; wheels so black
they blanched the avenue,
slow as the word ‘inexorable’.
A terrible hush of waiting,
even after the black bulk passed, for what would happen next,
save us,
my face stuck with the coats,
everything wool but my mother’s hand, and she,
not able to look down–
On the way home–and this did not compare, but still
was special–
we stopped at McDonald’s,
and it really did have arches you could park beside
like the screen of a drive-in movie; and the day
seemed almost to open, a sign touting all the burgers ever sold,
which then read 4
(millions or billions–I never was quite sure)–
till my Dad turned on the radio
over our grease-spotted wrappers–
The voice was back
in Dallas, and my mother repeated after it Jack Ruby? as shocked
as if Ruby were someone she actually knew, as if it were some acquaintance
who’d done something
so unheard of
(though of course she did not know Ruby,
though it was only America she thought she knew)
and every single line on her face darkened
like nightfall or a drawing of dulled lead–
The way she acted,
Oswald’s death seemed almost as important as Kennedy’s, as Kennedy himself
being shot, which I couldn’t understand–
but she stood up from the car, hand on her curled-hair head,
then sunk to her seat again, leaning away from the upholstery
the scaled blue-green of a 60s mermaid, leaning
into the parking lot–
Oh my God, she said–what is–and I kept thinking of that dark horse
whose flanks shone like lightning as it pulled back–happening–
and of the spider quiver of muscle
inside those flanks–
to this country?
And not a one of us–my big brother, me,
my Dad–said anything for a while.
**************************************************
My apologies to all who are saturated with remembrances of the events surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. I do not have a TV! (Too many reasons to explain.) So I’m a bit out of the loop with all the coverage.
I grew up in DC and attended both Kennedy’s inauguration and funeral. I was a very young child and do not remember much, but since I’ve been thinking about it, I thought I’d jot down some of what I came up with it.
I am linking this to the open link nights of both dVerse Poets Pub and With Real Toads. I feel a bit behind with the season but have been working a great deal so have had little free time. Take care, and thanks all for your kind visits and wonderful inspiration.
November 22, 1963 (if Alive then and Over Five, You Remember)
Ushered from pine
desks to blacktop,
the big girls–third-graders–
roamed red-eyed arm-in-arm,
while we, who always spent recess as horses,
studied holding our bowed heads stiff
so that even our hair (the reins)
would not seem to play at anything
but the insurmountable grief
we were only just
learning about.
**************************************
Fifty years. Fifty-five words without the title. I know it’s late in the day but tell it to the G-Man.
I am also linking this to Victoria C. Slotto’s Poetics prompt on calendars over at dVerse Poets Pub. (Not sure this quite fits the prompt, but it is a day on the calendar that pops up for me.)
(All rights reserved to poem and photograph.).
Ode To My Sore Eyes
If I could keep you
comfortable
in my palms
like St. Lucy
on a platter,
I’d wear gloves of water
that would cup you
in blue
as renewing as
morning’s true sky.
If I could keep you
cozy
in the moist squint
of my breasts,
I would slip you beneath
their lids
where you would sleep
till some long rest
had refreshed you
like the sight
of night’s lover.
Oh eyes,
there seems no soothing
your sharp burn.
Lke a hawk that plies
a talon ’round you,
it tries to prise you,
fly you where, mid-air, it would mock, perhaps,
our insufficiency,
or simply let you see for once
the big picture,
while me, I cling to you harder
than a child, than a mother,
holding you faster even
than that which keeps the “I” inside
the head,
no matter the pain of it.
**********************************
Here’s a draft ode to my chronically sore eyes inspired by Pablo Neruda’s many odes, and written for dVerse Poets Pub form for all hosted by Tony Maude. Check out Tony’s wonderful post and the great poems linked up.
The painting above is of St. Lucy, by Domenico Beccafumi, painted in 1521. No copyright infringement intended.
The Matrix On Cheetos
As Long As
As long as there’s bottomless Ping we can drink
and a computerized thingy implanted to sync
with what’s left of our brain and also the right
and Cheetos hardwired all day and all night
so that crunch we can go and snap we can pop
with never and never and never a stop,
then we will feel nearly, gee, almost at home
no matter how close or how far we do roam,
no matter if Saturn’s just outside our glass
or Uranus is left far behind on its ass–
Oh we will be happy as happy can be
in our saucer uncupped by all gravity
in a pod that’s so cute, so very cozy
where there floats just me and just me and just me.
********************************
Here’s a sort of draft ditty for Bjorn Rudberg’s wonderful prompt on dVerse Poets Pub to write a sci fi poem. I don’t know if this qualifies–I do confess to liking the drawing. (An older one by yours truly. As always all rights reserved.)
I am re-posting this poem for Fireblossom’s prompt on With Real Toads, to post a best or favorite poem. I do not think this is my best or favorite poem, but when I was looking through different things, I just felt the urge to go with it, because I like the presentation. I hope it is legible.
Alternative titles were Old Couple Grown Older and That Same Night (which was the original title.)
Prayer Against Certain Kinds of Hypocrisy
Our father who art in heaven,
hollowed is thy name,
when kindness will
not come and the earth
is not seen as a heaven;
when the gift of this day’s lost
in the get of daily bread;
when we forgive us our trespasses
with free-passes against those we pass by.
Leaders knot us into temptation,
and deliver us to upheaval,
for the bottom line is the kingdom,
power glorified for more
and for ever more–ah…..
men.
***************************************
I thought of this in the context of an Allen Ginsburg prompt at dVerse Poets Pub today, but although it has a Ginsburgian aspect, it does not fit the prompt! Still working a great deal but glad to slip away mentally once in a while.
I realized after posting that the above play on the Lord’s Prayer is somewhat derivative of Lawrence FerLingheti. His, which I’d seen in past lives but not thought much about recently, is in The Last Waltz, the movie about The Band, and may be found here. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pE_8WK3tBuE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpE_8WK3tBuE
everything becoming something else (late fall)
all day the crows carry on
over the carrion
the black flags
of their rise/descent
flagging iridescent the gone
and soon to be gone
till bones picked to stone
stick
in the field’s craw
the pick of what crawls
marrow turning to field
tomorrow scrawled by frost
the crows’ raw caws carry on raucous
somewhere else
we stamp our feet
against the fresh shiver delighted
cold
******************************
I’ve been working very hard and had no time to write but here’s something that went bump in the night.
I am someone who ALWAYS uses punctuation and I have no sense of how to use enjambment without it, but this poem seemed to me to have more possibilities without punctuation–on the other hand, it may be difficult to follow. So, for those, like me, who like punctuation, I’ve included another version.
I am posting this for the open link nights of dverse poets pub and With Real Toads.
***********************************************************
Everything Becoming Something Else (late fall)
All day the crows carry on
over the carrion,
the black flags
of their rise/descent
flagging iridescent the gone
and soon to be gone
till bones picked to stone stick
in the field’s craw, the pick
of what crawls,
marrow turning to field.
Tomorrow, scrawled by frost,
the crows’ raw caws carry on raucous
somewhere else;
we stamp our feet
against the fresh shiver, delighted
cold.
*************************************
I’m not actually sure about the punctuation of that “tomorrow” line–.
Ps — I know picture not quite right but have not had much time. Thanks
Sketching An Elephant From Your Head
The trick is not the trunk, the climbing
spine, knee lines or overlapping
ear flaps; it all comes down
to the eyebrows.
Even if their slant alone
does not say elephant,
they must be lines that wonder, like you,
why they’ve been drawn here,
above those dotted eyes,
below that blank sky,
and then remember.
*************************
Here’s my nearly belated Friday Flash 55 for the G-Man. Tell him about it.
I’m afraid I’ve done no noveling this week, just job work. Agh! (Yes, I’m so lucky to have a great job, though I’m a bit disappointed.) Not expecting a break till Thanksgiving possibly, but hopefully then to have a bit of a stretch. Thanks so much for checking in.
I am using an old and early animation for this, done on an iPad app called Animation Creation. Music, such as it is, by yours truly.
I am now taking a blogging break to try to revise and finish an old novel manuscript.
But right this minute I am taking a break from my blogging break because I will do anything rather than revise and finish this old novel manuscript.
Ha.
I very much want it to be done.
I don’t even mostly mind the work of doing it. Not when I am in the midst of such work.
I just have a hard time beginning and sticking to the work:
Here’s where discipline comes in.
Meaning …that if I want to do this, I have to just make myself do it, even when I don’t want to.
Meaning…. better get back to it.
Meaning… Pearl, did you leave any for me? (To have with wine/whine.)
**************************************
Note that for the sake of my sanity and to escape the solitude of a big project I will probably be posting little whining notes like this every once in a while this month. Feel free to comment–encouragement is always welcome, but disparagement will probably feel more familiar (i.e. like talking to myself.) I will try to return visits, but may be slow.
Also, I am doing this during nanowrimo month to get some energy from collective prosing despair – but my project is really one of cutting not writing. This particular manuscript is already written and much too long.
ManicDDaily 
Recent Comments