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“Some lady thinks this is the quiet car–“

May 21, 2014

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“Some lady thinks this is the quiet car–”
Anonymous but not unplumbed passenger

Dear man, the back of whose head is crew-
cut in front of me.
I really don’t want to hear about
your relationship with your father
Memorial Days–
how he only cared about himself
and you were stuck doing nothing
except that one time you stayed over
a drug store in Rehobeth
and your grandma came too
and she told him a thing or two–

I’m also not truly interested
in your brother who just
took off, had friends/adventures unlike you, who didn’t,
so you say, know how to socialize.
(Why am I not surprised
to hear that?)

Or how you love car trips
(believe me, from this train seat where
I was sleeping till your cell rang,
I wish you could achieve that love.)

I’m sorry but your trip to Rome doesn’t actually sound so fabulous,
not even the FANTASTIC Vatican–

Nor do I much care
about the person on the end of your line who is helping
with your healing process–

I confess that it bothers me that I am so eager
to shut down your narrative since it involves matters
that I myself might write of at some length–

Outside, the crinkled surface of blue water shines with a startling brilliance
through trees, their limbs managing delicacy
despite the blur, the green glowing by–but you have your curtain drawn–
oh, why would you want a window to distract you
from your flow–
and I wonder, with as much focus as my disrupted
internal monologue can muster, if I am trying to shut out
your landscape of gab
in some parallel (if not striped woven)
way—-

“That’s what I said,” you throw in,
and yes, I think, we know.

*********************************
A poem written on an Amtrak train for Mary’s “quotation” prompt on Dverse Poets Pub.

I’m sorry; it’s an old picture that doesn’t quite fit. All rights reserved though.

ps==this poem slightly edited since first posting.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 19 Comments

Across the Bridge (the day before giving birth)

May 18, 2014

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Across the Bridge (the day before giving birth)

 

I walked and walked the whole day through to give
my baby the idea that Brooklyn
was pretty nice, a place she’d like to live.

Even with the fear of bladder buckling,
I crossed the Williamsburg–quite a feat–
no baby was I.  Still, dear Brooklyn,

I whispered, at the water’s wished retreat
(as belly nosed its way to other shore.)
Yes, crossed the Williamsburg on swollen feet,

but baby still stuck fast; she needed more
than just the span of river crossed to coax
her belly to nose its way to other shore–

So, sure, I told her, we would be good folks,
and promised too all I could of this side’s world–
spans that were just, rivers not too cross to coax–

for I so wanted to know you, little girl,
I walked and walked the whole day through to give
a promise I could not make–that this my world
was pretty nice, a place you’d like to live.

 

*****************************

Here’s kind of a weird poem–a terzanelle, which is combination terza rima and villanelle (meaning that it has interlocking rhymes and lines)  written for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads. Check out Kerry’s prompt and her own poem for a much better explanation and version of the form. 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 17 Comments

The morning before a funeral for another–out for some air

May 17, 2014

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The morning before a funeral for another–out for some air

From its handsomeness
and smallish size, I know
it must have been hers
and hesitate.
But it’s a raincoat
left in the hall closet
and it’s raining too hard
for no cover, so
I put on what’s not been worn
for ten years
and jog/walk out.

Buttoning the collar–it’s cold
in the rain–I catch the scent
of her lipstick–
a perfume of waxed
flowers–not
a favorite scent, but I inhale
as much as I can, so that my breath
is out of sync with the
slow fall of my feet
through the sluiced streets,
then the damp tow path.

Though, even as I’m conscious
of the particularity of her
in that scent,
I know that what I’m really trying to find
is life itself, life
after death–
some whisper from the ghost
of lipstick ten years gone
of the soul’s
perseverance.

As I turn
towards the river, a cardinal settles crimson
on the misted rail that separates the walk
from the muddy flow, less
than an arm’s breadth
away–
Just on, come roses,
a profusion of pink-red,
and beyond, a perfect cadmium line hangs
like a sign
from a man’s neck–the leash
of the dogs he lets roam-

and I see now in the scent at my own neck,
her smile, a bright crescent whose shape
I try to compare to a sliver
of sideways moon, but that I realize,
as I jog on, is more truly like
the outline of a child’s palm cupped
to receive wonder–

suddenly there is a surfeit of water
everywhere–the path gleaming,
the river swollen, a fountain someone forgot
to turn off, and there–
and there–
a splash in the current
of something adept at surfacing
and diving again
that I never quite
catch sight of.

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Here’s a draft poem, written just for myself, that I am also posting to With Real Toads Open Link Night.  I call it a draft.  I have a strong inclination to take out the entire third stanza.  It’s also been suggested to me that I should take out the leash!  Any thoughts from readers would be much appreciated.  

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Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 26 Comments

Fault Lines

May 14, 2014

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Fault Lines

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa–
mostly, I say it sans latinate hoopla.
I’m sorry, my fault, like the big San Andreas,
cracks me in two–the scales that do weigh us
find me as lacking, as far from perfection,
as star from Mariana’s entrenched mid-section–
it’s not generalized failing–that much I know–
but what wrong I’ve done, I will not say now.

*****************
A poem of sorts for Mama Zen’s Words Count on With Real Toads--to write a confession in 65 words (or less.) Just made it, without title.

Process note–the Mariana’s Trench–deepest place in the ocean.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 16 Comments

Update from Train/Novel

May 13, 2014

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I am right now sitting on a train going backwards. This is not the same as sitting backwards on a train going forwards–that is, upon a back-facing seat.

This is sitting on a train that is, as it were, backtracking.

In this case, although we have all paid a substantial premium to take a train that is supposed to be faster and more reliable than the other trains on this line (in other words, we are on the Acela); we are hampered by an engine malfunction and are undergoing some kind of backwards maneuver to allow the back (functioning) locomotive to take over for the front (problematic) locomotive.

Ah. And now, we are stopped–with a dirt and gravel slide out one window and a stone wall on the other.

It reminds me today of noveling–i.e. trying to finalize and publish a novel.

Those who follow this blog may wonder–oh yeah, wasn’t she talking about that months ago?

Oh great. So, now we are moving backwards again–past cheery penguins and a worried polar bear painted on the side of a parking lot–they have big black gaps in their middles where the walls break to ventilate exhaust.

As in, yes, I was talking about this months ago.

The conductor, by the way, said that this delay would take about ten minutes, but it feels like at least fifteen. The good news is that we are moving quite quickly now; unfortunately, all passengers agree that we are still heading in the wrong direction.

So, about that novel.

Finalizing, publishing, seems to be one of those things ready any minute now, only not. This is my fault. Small corrections take an unduly long time as I just can’t bear to attend to them. (And also because I always sense that I should instead be doing major corrections.) I feel as if I’ve lost all sense of discrimination about the stupid thing–i.e. is something boring? Flowing? Awkward? Good?

By the way–we have been going backwards now for about twenty minutes and really fast too. (Since when do train conductors feel that they have to live out my metaphors!)

One of my problems now is deciding about the formatting. The paragraphs look way too tightly spaced on the page. I feel like I can hardly read them. On the other hand, when I pull books off the shelf and look at them, they seem to have similar tight spacing. Have I never noticed this before in books off the shelf?

By the way, it turns out — all passengers now agree–that we have NOT been going backwards for this last speedy half hour.

On the other hand, the train will be about an hour late.

Above is the picture I did for the novel’s cover. (All rights reserved.) I’ll save posting the actual cover till it’s ready. Any day/week/month now! (Ha!)

Categories: iPad art, Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life, writing
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Comments: 7 Comments

What I love– (painting oranges from the imagined perspective of Seraphine Louis, an outsider artist)

May 11, 2014
By Seraphine Louis

By Seraphine Louis

 

What I love–  (painting oranges from the imagined perspective of Seraphine Louis, an outsider artist)

–That when I hold a brush
I go away,
that only the eyes
stay.

And the orange.

As a child, I’d pull the sheet full-up
so that no one else could see
the pale blue me
breathing shallowly cloth’s suffocated folds,
but this moment’s neither muffled blue
nor me, but the airy light of orange,
where canvas is freely taut and breath
comes in the easy vein
of leaves, vining.

Sometimes, they are one eye
that inhales the altogether,
but mostly the eyes are many–
they peer from my grip
on the brush and from the tip
of the brush itself,
as it redampens in the blink
of pigment,
and as it looks up too,
in the quickened stare
of the I that is not there.

The tip circles up, around,
a twirl that could dance the sun, the moon,
that could pirouette any
planet, but arcs right now
an orange,
this truly and forever only orange,
until the next one.

The peekhole of the orange looks out at me,
that place that once connected it
to green,
the peekholes of all the oranges.
I don’t need to press them to my eye
knowing as I do what they do hold–the souls
of oranges-
able, with brush in hand,
to see into them
from arm’s length, and maybe even
from a greater distance.

******************************************************

I’m calling this one a draft.  It is written belatedly  for the prompt of  Fireblossom, (Shay of Shay’s Word Garden)  on With Real Toads to write about an image of Seraphine Louiw, a naive/outsider artist, who ended life in a mental institution, not painting.  Look at Shay’s wonderful prompt to read more, but the poem really has to do with painting, I think, and its absorptions, especially for someone who approaches it without all the concerns of a more established/professional painter.  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

Wild Things in Washington (photos)

May 11, 2014

I have been staying in Washington, DC for a little bit. These are photos of animals I’ve seen in or by the Georgetown Canal, where I jog very slowly. My husband is convinced the snake, over six feet long, is a boa constrictor that someone must have released. I didn’t get close enough to get a definitive pic unfortunately !

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Comments: 7 Comments

What he spoke of

May 10, 2014

 

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What he spoke of

My father did not talk much
except to say, “listen to Momma,” or,
more commonly, “look at Momma,”
for my mother,
a bit of a child inhabiting her,
mandated many
look-at-me moments,
her favorite when she modeled old clothes
to show that they still fit,
or didn’t–
”gee,” holding the two flaps of
zip across a hump
of underwear-covered
hip–”was I thin back then,
or what?”

Though what he said even more frequently, to her, to me,
was “let me give you a kiss,”
which, as illness nestled throughout
his body, stoppering his
throat, bogging down
his mouth, was not always
a pure pleasure,
yet also was–
sweetness way
outweighing decay–

What he did not talk of much
was God–
This was not because he didn’t believe
but because he believed
so strongly.

Oh, he talked of Him before meals–
the Lord,
“who has given us
this bounty,”
but not the Lord
after death–the Lord, who not only giveth
but taketh away-

Because, I think, he didn’t much believe
in the “taketh away” part.

Not that he had not lost things.

But he had no doubt that what was lost
would be found.

So that when that nestling illness reared
its head, and there was talk
of next
decisions–going to the hospital or staying home
to die,
staying at the hospital or coming home
to die–
his only question ever–
“but what will happen
to Momma?”
Even in the moment that he died–
and, believe me, dying
is hard, not-breathing not
what the body
desires–it was her
he patted, consoled–knowing that she
did not hold inside
that same sure light–

I think this morning about stars,
partly because they rhyme with “are”,
and, like being and not being,
are wonders of the universe,
but too, because of a certain kind
of love (”of course, I miss him terribly,”
she says each time life’s
being managed)
whose light is seen, even after
it might be
extinguished–
these are not things that
can be readily taken off or completely
grown out of,
thankfully.

 

*******************************************

A poem for Claudia Schoenfeld‘s prompt on dVerse Poets Pub about using conversation/dialogue in poetry. (I’m not sure the picture quite fits, and also sorry about the rather gloomy posts, a death in my extended family this week, not of my father who died a couple of years ago, but of my very-much-loved father-in-law. I don’t feel comfortable writing of that, but it has made me think of my own dear father.)   

  

Categories: elephants, poetry
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Comments: 27 Comments

So, it seems

May 9, 2014

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So, it seems

In even the most peaceful death,
there is a grimace,
as if the body gives life’s hand
a last tight squeeze, or is
itself squeezed,
the interlace of face releasing
into surprise,
an ah as the jaw slackens,
as if to say, ‘so, that was it, then.’
So, at least, it seems,
holding the hand,
onlooking.

 

*************************

A poem of sorts.  I am linking this to Susie Clevinger’s prompt on With Real Toads about lace.   I have uploaded the photo from my iPhone and fear it may be cut off by some browsers; just click on it, if you wish to see the whole thing.

I have edited this post twice within three minutes of posting!   I’m not sure if I’ve made better–but seems to be my way lately–indecision in editing–

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 11 Comments

Our Hearts Bleed (for Nigeria)

May 6, 2014

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Our Hearts Bleed (for Nigeria)

In last years, Nigeria has lost
most forests,
but the Sambisa seems a place
of bush as much as tree,
or, at least, thorn.

Traditionally, only elephants,
or others with similarly thick skins,
could traverse it.

Elephants are few
now,

but some trucks seem tough enough,
and too the hides of those who treat people
as things–
those who have been trained in the way
of the cutlass;
though the skin of even strong
young girls
is soft, warm, such
that fingers touching it
should sing.

Boko Haram:
“Western education is
forbidden.”
Only the Western part
is a ruse,
it is education
that is
forbidden–

For things
should not read,
property does not write.
What is to be sold, used, fisted–
tethered to post
and slop pail–
should not have tools
to speak her mind.

The terrorizing
of schools
is a kindness truly–
so, they may say, pulling at their hats
and other parts–
for they are very good
at stopping mouths,
but they do not wish
to have to blind, maim, amputate–
no, they want girls
intact,
young limbs spread dark
as woods’ night shadows,
eyes pooling
stripped bark.

***********************************
A poem of sorts for Abhra Pal’s prompt on trees on dVerse Poets Pub, about the horrific abduction of now more than 230 girls in North-East Nigeria. It is suspected that the girls have taken into the Sambisa Forest, a stronghold of the Boko Haram.

Religion has been misused against women and education for a very long time. But what’s happening in Nigeria right now to both girls and boys pursing education is beyond evil. It’s really beyond what I could write of here–just trying to raise awareness,

The drawing, like most on this blog, is mine. — this post has been edited– the last line– since posting.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 21 Comments

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