Doing daily multiple haiku on facebook-
the new version of FlashPaperPoetry may be coming on tumblr
writing .....
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
and another random bit of prose from way back when
Chapter 2- 672 words
I dream about houses. Sometimes they are almost like a real place I might’ve lived once, but usually they are a strange aggregate of a house and hotels and public buildings. When I am very tired there are stairways and doors, when I feel good about myself, there are big windows with long lacey curtains blown into the room by a slight breeze. Occasionally I am looking for my children or friends, other times I’m being pursued by a person or animal that intends to do me harm. Every few months, I dream I am a child and waiting for my parents to come and get me.. Those dreams leave me disturbed and disoriented the rest of the day.
When I was four or five, Nanny moved to a old red brick house that had red flocked wall paper in the main room. The windows wouldn’t open and the rooms were dark and scary. The worst thing of all were the black floor vents around the edges of the rugs. They scared me just by being there and when the heat came on, it was terrifying. I hated being in that room alone, hated playing on the rug, hated that dark and gloomy house.
Fortunately, by that time my brother Chucky had come along and I didn’t stay with her as much anyway, and nanny wouldn’t really keep anyone but me. For the rest of her life she practically ignored all the other grandkids, starting with Wesley, who was born when I was 2 and didn’t make much trouble. Eventually there were five of us, so Nanny rented every empty bedroom in her house, for money, sure, but certainly so she would have no where to keep us. It was okay, though, cause Momma needed me at home so she could nap or read out back on the chaise lounge and get a tan.
Momma and Daddy used to laugh about how whenever she went into labor, Nanny was nowhere to be found. She had some sort of sixth sense about being needed. She could disappear faster than extra money. I couldn’t tell you where she went, maybe to her sister Ruby’s or her brother Falvey’s but Nanny hated his wife so I doubt that. My Dad would have to haul us to Mamaw’s house (he always called her Pete, I don’t know why) and then go the hospital to find out whether or not he had another mouth to feed.
Chucky had the nerve to be born on my birthday, which is not a present no matter how much they all pretended it was. He was underweight and cried more than any baby I’d ever known. He didn’t thrive, they said, so my mother had the worst time getting him to be happy. Of course, I could calm him. I was four.
He was like the baby in Alice in Wonderland, the one that turned into a pig when Alice got him outside.
When I was in college in Tucson years later, visiting my folks at their crappy apartment near Davis Monthan Air Force base, he hid in the closet and watched me take a shower and then play with myself naked on the bed (they had this huge mirror over the dresser and you could see everything). I would never have know he was there if he hadn’t decided to jack off in the closet. He was 15.
That was the last time I went home, though it wasn’t my home anyway. I was living in the dorm, if it hadn’t have been a holiday I’d never have been there anyway. They didn’t wash their sheets, or towels. The whole place smelled. I gave them all the cash I had left over from my student loan check and made my dad drive me back to the campus. The next time I saw them, they were living in Mesa in a motel room. Four kids, Mom and dad, and at least one cat. But there’s more to that story coming up later.
When I was four or five, Nanny moved to a old red brick house that had red flocked wall paper in the main room. The windows wouldn’t open and the rooms were dark and scary. The worst thing of all were the black floor vents around the edges of the rugs. They scared me just by being there and when the heat came on, it was terrifying. I hated being in that room alone, hated playing on the rug, hated that dark and gloomy house.
Fortunately, by that time my brother Chucky had come along and I didn’t stay with her as much anyway, and nanny wouldn’t really keep anyone but me. For the rest of her life she practically ignored all the other grandkids, starting with Wesley, who was born when I was 2 and didn’t make much trouble. Eventually there were five of us, so Nanny rented every empty bedroom in her house, for money, sure, but certainly so she would have no where to keep us. It was okay, though, cause Momma needed me at home so she could nap or read out back on the chaise lounge and get a tan.
Momma and Daddy used to laugh about how whenever she went into labor, Nanny was nowhere to be found. She had some sort of sixth sense about being needed. She could disappear faster than extra money. I couldn’t tell you where she went, maybe to her sister Ruby’s or her brother Falvey’s but Nanny hated his wife so I doubt that. My Dad would have to haul us to Mamaw’s house (he always called her Pete, I don’t know why) and then go the hospital to find out whether or not he had another mouth to feed.
Chucky had the nerve to be born on my birthday, which is not a present no matter how much they all pretended it was. He was underweight and cried more than any baby I’d ever known. He didn’t thrive, they said, so my mother had the worst time getting him to be happy. Of course, I could calm him. I was four.
He was like the baby in Alice in Wonderland, the one that turned into a pig when Alice got him outside.
When I was in college in Tucson years later, visiting my folks at their crappy apartment near Davis Monthan Air Force base, he hid in the closet and watched me take a shower and then play with myself naked on the bed (they had this huge mirror over the dresser and you could see everything). I would never have know he was there if he hadn’t decided to jack off in the closet. He was 15.
That was the last time I went home, though it wasn’t my home anyway. I was living in the dorm, if it hadn’t have been a holiday I’d never have been there anyway. They didn’t wash their sheets, or towels. The whole place smelled. I gave them all the cash I had left over from my student loan check and made my dad drive me back to the campus. The next time I saw them, they were living in Mesa in a motel room. Four kids, Mom and dad, and at least one cat. But there’s more to that story coming up later.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Chapter 1- 866 words
My earliest memory is looking through the bars of a crib when I was not quite two years old. I know that because Nanny, my father’s mother told me all the time how that old house burnt down, and I couldn’t possibly remember anything about it because it was long gone in early 1952. I remember there was always a radio on in the kitchen and right next to the crib there was a pole lamp with a big cream colored shade with sketches of shrimp boats in brick red all over it.
Nanny would keep a radio on day and night playing songs like “Cry” by Johnnie Ray and “Shrimp Boats” sung by Jo Stafford. She’d sing those songs over and over whenever I’d miss my momma, and when we’d drive down to the docks to buy shrimp and salt-water trout.
That lampshade is as clear in my mind as if it was a photograph, as clear as if I visited that house this morning. I can hear that funny warble that was her voice, singing away with every song that played. Hank Williams was a special treat, and Lefty Frizzell, sometimes Hank Snow.
She must’ve been about forty years old, having had my Daddy when she was sixteen or seventeen. He was twenty-two when I was born. I can remember her face but not my mother’s, or my Dad’s. There’s no one left alive to ask but I must have spent a lot of time with her, my Momma worked as a secretary up until the time my first brother, Wesley, was born in 1952.
The next house she occupied was a lot bigger, there was a patio out back and a room over the garage where itinerant musicians would stay, at least until she rented it to Melba, but that was a long time later. I met Hank Snow there one night. The mosquitos were particularly bad and he held me in his lap and rubbed each bite and said, “it’s all right, little lady, it’s all right.” On nights like that people would come over after a show and drink beer and eat, guitars would come out and there’d be dancing and flirting all over the place. If Papaw was working at the railroad yard, Nanny would dance the two-step with every man there.
There was a braided rug in that house and she’d take out a big tin filled with empty wooden spools. She’d give me that and a big jar of buttons, a million buttons and I’d play all by myself on the rug while she embroidered pillow cases or watched her stories. Rembert would come home from work and start drinking, giving me the business about those spools all over the floor lined up along the curves of the rug. He was a tall Cajun, full of moxie and ready to fight with anyone, even a baby. The drunker he’d get, the less you could understand anything he said, until he took out his teeth, than every word out of his mouth was complete gibberish. Nanny loved him, so my daddy and mom tried to.
He’d pick me up on his shoulders and carry me all over the yard singing songs in crazy french. I’d laugh and if Momma was there she’d get into a screaming match with nanny about how dangerous it was for me to be that high up.
If they couldn’t settle it, my momma would snatch me up and I wouldn’t see Nanny or Papaw for a week, maybe less, depending on whether or not my other grandmother could take me.
That was always problematic. Mamaw was a wonderful old country woman, smart about a lot of things, like cutting up chickens or reupholstering a sofa, but she didn’t know how to read or write much. She also never drank beer (at least not until her doctor told her she had thin blood and should drink at least one Mexican beer a day) .She also had to take care of my grandfather, Albert Lewis, who’d had a stroke and was in a wheelchair. The best thing about her house was the screened in porch. It had a big wooden swing and you could see up and down the whole street, and the big buildings of Houston off in the distance.
There were always storms coming up off the gulf and we’d all sit out there and watch the clouds rumble across the sky. I saw ball lightning once hit right out front and roll out of sight, I was a little older then, old enough to run screaming into the house and hide under her bed until the sun came back out. That was really something!
It was fun to stay with nanny but the food was better at mamaw and papa’s. Of course, Papa would always spill his iced tea at lunch and supper making a big noisy deal out of it and hit me on the back with his cane if I got too close, but rembert, at least once a week, would get so drunk he’d stand up in the living room and unzip his pants and pee all over the floor.
Nanny would keep a radio on day and night playing songs like “Cry” by Johnnie Ray and “Shrimp Boats” sung by Jo Stafford. She’d sing those songs over and over whenever I’d miss my momma, and when we’d drive down to the docks to buy shrimp and salt-water trout.
That lampshade is as clear in my mind as if it was a photograph, as clear as if I visited that house this morning. I can hear that funny warble that was her voice, singing away with every song that played. Hank Williams was a special treat, and Lefty Frizzell, sometimes Hank Snow.
She must’ve been about forty years old, having had my Daddy when she was sixteen or seventeen. He was twenty-two when I was born. I can remember her face but not my mother’s, or my Dad’s. There’s no one left alive to ask but I must have spent a lot of time with her, my Momma worked as a secretary up until the time my first brother, Wesley, was born in 1952.
The next house she occupied was a lot bigger, there was a patio out back and a room over the garage where itinerant musicians would stay, at least until she rented it to Melba, but that was a long time later. I met Hank Snow there one night. The mosquitos were particularly bad and he held me in his lap and rubbed each bite and said, “it’s all right, little lady, it’s all right.” On nights like that people would come over after a show and drink beer and eat, guitars would come out and there’d be dancing and flirting all over the place. If Papaw was working at the railroad yard, Nanny would dance the two-step with every man there.
There was a braided rug in that house and she’d take out a big tin filled with empty wooden spools. She’d give me that and a big jar of buttons, a million buttons and I’d play all by myself on the rug while she embroidered pillow cases or watched her stories. Rembert would come home from work and start drinking, giving me the business about those spools all over the floor lined up along the curves of the rug. He was a tall Cajun, full of moxie and ready to fight with anyone, even a baby. The drunker he’d get, the less you could understand anything he said, until he took out his teeth, than every word out of his mouth was complete gibberish. Nanny loved him, so my daddy and mom tried to.
He’d pick me up on his shoulders and carry me all over the yard singing songs in crazy french. I’d laugh and if Momma was there she’d get into a screaming match with nanny about how dangerous it was for me to be that high up.
If they couldn’t settle it, my momma would snatch me up and I wouldn’t see Nanny or Papaw for a week, maybe less, depending on whether or not my other grandmother could take me.
That was always problematic. Mamaw was a wonderful old country woman, smart about a lot of things, like cutting up chickens or reupholstering a sofa, but she didn’t know how to read or write much. She also never drank beer (at least not until her doctor told her she had thin blood and should drink at least one Mexican beer a day) .She also had to take care of my grandfather, Albert Lewis, who’d had a stroke and was in a wheelchair. The best thing about her house was the screened in porch. It had a big wooden swing and you could see up and down the whole street, and the big buildings of Houston off in the distance.
There were always storms coming up off the gulf and we’d all sit out there and watch the clouds rumble across the sky. I saw ball lightning once hit right out front and roll out of sight, I was a little older then, old enough to run screaming into the house and hide under her bed until the sun came back out. That was really something!
It was fun to stay with nanny but the food was better at mamaw and papa’s. Of course, Papa would always spill his iced tea at lunch and supper making a big noisy deal out of it and hit me on the back with his cane if I got too close, but rembert, at least once a week, would get so drunk he’d stand up in the living room and unzip his pants and pee all over the floor.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Cut n' paste because I can't seem to fix the other page
Friday, November 11, 2005
How I became the Grinch
Oh my, Christmas! I love Christmas! Not so much for the gifts, which are eternally lame and mostly useless, but for the doo-dah connected with it- you know, the songs, the lights, the smells, the hustle for time. Everybody wants you but no one wants to really give you what you need, only what they can get a return for. I don’t mean a store return, I mean an ‘owe me’.
The best time I think I ever had gift wise was my second Christmas with my second husband- I gave him a list to choose from and he got everything on it. Went to the specialty kitchen store on Cary Street and bought every single item. And we celebrated with his family in West Virginia.
Of course, it was stuff to cook with- i.e. feed him, to make his life better, that kind of thing. No matter that I use very little of it now- the stainless steel drainer, yes, and....hmm. I’ll have to think about that. It’s possible that’s the only thing left twenty years later.
I don’t cook much anymore. Who does. really? My Thanksgiving turkey comes from Ukrops, so does the Christmas ham- they have these great dinners for $50-70 bucks. Comes in a box with everything: cornbread, sweet potatoes, even green beans that hardly anyone eats. You have to have something green, even if no one eats it. Like how when I was a kid we had the fruit course in the form of Ambrosia Salad Deluxe. Del Monte canned fruit cocktail (thick syrup), shredded coconut (Baker’s only), and baby marshmallows (Kraft). I think the recipe was on the marshmallow bag.
Having an entire meal cooked for you is the ultimate decadence, whether it’s at home or in a restaurant. I’m just that tight-assed Puritan Work Ethic. Having a holiday meal cooked for me is the most irresponsible thing I can do for mankind. And it makes me feel lazy and thoughtless.
"She doesn’t even cook a turkey for her family?"
Fuck that- my kitchen is small, I get not one finger of help and I end up exhausted and stressed from what it isn’t. Buying the turkey pre-cooked is not because I don’t have enough love. I do think it’s decadent, though. And geez- you still have to warm it up!
Not that decadent and laziness are unheard of in my background.
Aunt Wynter used to make pumpkin pie filling in this huge vat, and even then you’d have to stir really slowly so it didn’t spill over the edge. It must have been an old canning pot- the huge kind you use to lower the rack of jars into the boiling water. She’d use canned pumpkin- Libby’s, I think- and then add her own mix of spices. Not teaspoons full, but cups full. Cinnamon, nutmeg- I used ‘Pumpkin Pie Spice’ in one can, Sauer’s here in Richmond, but not her. Every spice was separate, carefully measured, even smoothed over with a knife.
They used convenience items, too. It must have been in the sixties when the pie crust came in sticks, like butter. Uncle Howard would be dispatched all over Houston to get a dozen or more sticks. She’d roll them out to perfection and I’d crimp the edges with a fork- perfectly. Every time, perfectly. I was a crimping fool, flour covered, sticky, tired, but everyone was done perfectly.
She’d be a nervous wreck by the end of it all. I think she had undiagnosed low-blood sugar, depression, and general dyspepsia and melancholia.
Later, frozen crusts became popular. No crimping needed. Only the Pet brand crusts are decent, though. I guess. I’ve never dared try any other. As if I’ve baked a pie in the last ten years. I made a peanut butter pie a couple if times until I lost the recipe. I can’t even remember what’s in it- but it’s no-cook. Ice box pie. Bought crust.
One of the things I asked for and got in the complete list Christmas was a huge canning pot. Not as big as Aunt Wynter’s and never really planned for canning (though I bought a book from the Ball Corporation and another called "Put By" a wonderful old-fashioned term for preserved food).
I mostly used it to make vats of chili and soak Virginia Hams. At least until I admitted I hate Virginia Hams, or more correctly. Smithfield Hams. Way too salty and far too much preparation needed. And the knife. There’s a story.
Digression to the DMV 1971
I worked at DMV- the Division of Motor Vehicles for eleven months in 1971. It was located in the huge airplane hangar looking building in those days, not the slick modern thing it is now, on West Broad Street. The best thing about working there was being a quick walk to the Sears & Roebuck It was a great job in a lot of ways, I learned about the world. I saw first hand how women were treated in the work world, too. No woman in my family ever worked, except Aunt Margaret, and she was single and taking care of Mamaw, since Papaw died in the fifties. All the others stayed at home. Aunt Ola sold butter and eggs, Mamaw altered and made quilts, but all my models were housewives and homemakers. Except Aunt Margaret, but she needs more explanation than I can give right here.
It took me a few weeks to notice all the supervisors were men. It took me a little less to realize all the work was done by women, smart women, some of them, who really knew what was what. It took me hours to figure out Mr. Cooke, my immediate boss, was a creep. He was the kind of mad who got cute girls up against filing cabinets and pressed them into the metal so they couldn’t move. He also had complete control over raises, firing and hiring, and there were no grievance boards in those days. It was a state job, but he was the agent for the state.
I had been given a Virginia Ham and the Boston in-laws were coming for the holidays. He called me into his office and presented me with this long, thin knife. "This is the only way to properly cut good Virginia ham, it’ll cut slices so thin you can see through them. I want you to use it to when your husband’s family comes down." Then he insisted in standing behind me, really close, and showing me, knife in my hand, his hand covering mine, how to cut the ham. He’d lean forward, then pull back, lean, then pull what seemed like endless slices from an invisible ham.
I checked out of my head- it was an accustomed reaction, the next thing I really remember is sitting at my desk with that horrid knife wrapped in the kind of soft cloth you store use to store good silver. I put it under the car seat and didn’t touch it again until I put it on his desk the next Monday, with a little box of cookies and crap from the weekend.
I hated that job because of him (and the other men- there were those who would push up against you in the hallway to the bathrooms, one guy ‘slipped’ and grabbed my breast for balance. I’m not crazy, this stuff used to happen, not everywhere, but some places were worse than others.
My job was to dictate letters onto a tape, put the tape in a box in the wall that opened onto the typists on the other side. Someone would type the letters. give it back, and I’d proof it, put in a request for documents (if needed) by leaving it in another box on another wall where some clerk would pick it up and return it with the documents, and I’d type and envelope and send it to the mail room. When the system worked, it worked well. When there were endless corrections, incorrect documents, or troublesome cases, it all went to hell. We all did everything we could to avoid having to call a supervisor. The women office managers were wonderful, but often mean-spirited and bitter. Why wouldn’t they be? They had zero chance for advancement, low salaries and had to put up with sexual predators. At least the pretty ones had to deal with the latter.
I’d do sixty to eighty letters a day. They eventually put me on ‘special plates’ and problem clients. I was the only one in there who had been to college, and the clearest writer. I learned written diplomacy. Senators would not be re-elected and want to keep their plates, high rollers would want special numbers (and they’d get them) and I got to sort it out. I even met the governor- Linwood Holton? But he didn’t see the stacks of letters they made me hide- we were always three to four months behind in those days.
And I started gaining weight. A hundred pounds went to one-twenty in a one year span, mostly thanks to two mandatory coffee breaks that had to be taken away from your desk. At least we’d walk to Sears during lunch, but we had to go to the break room where there were always, always pastries and doughnuts and I was young and hungry.
Always hungry.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Sometimes I wake up to the smell of catfish cooking. Cornmeal, bacon grease, the sharp hot odor running in my head so strong I keep my eyes closed a few minutes more so it doesn't go away.
That's how I keep the details from fading away, the red checked oil cloth, open window, real plates, real forks, honest to god cloth napkins. I ironed them myself.
I used to. Iron napkins. Water in a spray bottle, the hiss of the iron on scorched brown cloth. There isn't any smell quite like that one, fresh and clean, old and brown all at once. Makes me think of mamaw and Aunt Wynter and the house on Lake Houston, though I don't think we ever ironed much there. That was for fun.
I ironed at home. Or at Nanny's. I must've started when I was four or five. Handkerchiefs, pillowcases, stuff like that. Things that were flat and foldable. No aerosol cans of starch, just the water bottle. The one at home was a spray bottle, heavy plastic that you couldn't see through. I think it may have come from Sears & Roebuck or Newberry's, it was more like something you'd use in a garden, for aphid spray or something.
Nanny's was a tall jar with holes poked in the lid. She was more enterprising than my mom; she'd use what she had rather than spend money on something she could make. It kind of dumped big splotches of water on what you were ironing, though. Nanny was clever and creative, but Momma had class. Or wanted to.
I grew up thinking I could do anything. But I should do it with a certain finesse, not in a common way. That was the biggest sin I could commit, to be common. You could be a stripper, but you better be like Gypsy Rose Lee. You could be an actress, but Joan Crawford was everything Bette Davis wished SHE was. Class. Jackie Kennedy had class- even though she was Catholic, which she couldn't help, being raised in France.
Momma made me practice how I would act at her funeral (this was before JFK was shot, but when that happened she must have said a hundred times over those three days when that was all the news there was, "There- That's it, Sharon Ann. Look at her standing like a statue, never making a move. Shaking hands with strangers and heads of state. If you can do that, you will make me proud."
I didn't dare cry, or flinch. She’d say all these awful things. how she'd be mangled in a car accident, how she'd die in my arms from a sudden stroke, or how some crazy person would beat her up and she'd crawl home and die on the front steps.
We'd practice this shit, for god sakes. Once a week, at least. I had a hat and a black veil. I was stone-faced and deadly. If I'd known the word sociopath I probably would have tried for that.
Now that I'm older, some people never know what I'm thinking. I have a hard time showing affection, I've been desperately in love a dozen times and only a few friends have been able to read me. It's good in some situations, but it doesn't help when you want to like someone, or them to like you.
In the meantime....
Amuse yourself with this (found when I was searching google for myself- I've found my poems used in curriculums, posted on websites by checking out google every so often- I don't recall running across this before and I had completely forgotten about it)
The Novel Shann
The Novel Shann
Friday, May 17, 2013
A month of no words
Not entirely true- did a little poetry workshop thing Monday night at the Urban Farmhouse with Tom Prunier (leader), Joanna Lee, and Mark Covington.
Did some scribbling of poems for April but haven't committed them to paper yet-
been very very very busy trying to get the June On The James fundraiser for James River Writers in tow.
Want to come? Go HERE
Want to help? Email me
Want to donate? either of the above
Did some scribbling of poems for April but haven't committed them to paper yet-
been very very very busy trying to get the June On The James fundraiser for James River Writers in tow.
Want to come? Go HERE
Want to help? Email me
Want to donate? either of the above
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
NAPOMO poems eleven through fifteen
I apologize profusely- I had 2 computers out of whack (one for good- my netbook) and the other restored with a complete clean install. I still don't have the printer hooked up or my word processing programs up and running but I HAVE been writing my poems in notebooks- not having a smart phone- I had to wait to send poems - here are poems
eleven thru fifteen - nine and ten are somewhere in another notebook, maybe at work-
Day 15
So she wins a prize
It’s true, she drops her uterus
like it’s a celebrity, filling the maw
with assorted body parts,
mewling proper names and fluids,
while you, timid sister, stammer
at the mention of pussy ‘n taint
(should I edit, should I?)
ask me again and I’ll tell you
the lips that say love can draw blood,
the sharp-tipped tongue craves
your "demure little asshole"* but
doesn’t linger nearly long enough.
Take you proper nouns and sit
on them, I’ll stay properly discreet.
* from Tony Hoagland
Day 14
More Cowbell
At the party, I re-met memories, people long out of my life, now back in because of a mutual friend’s natal observance. They spun elaborate tales of medical procedures as I nodded (just right) and said "Oh, my!" with proper concern. We all face our decrepitude with brave faces, canes and baggy dresses, woven wraps, and sensible shoes. Some have stopped celebrating their years, others insist you know immediately just how long it took them to get this far, as if they took the long way (and are the better for it) while you zipped down the bypass using family money. They ask about recycling. I want to say, yes, the crab dip is soylent green and you are what we eat but some have forgotten even how to laugh, if they ever did. I drive home alone, my generation on the radio, floating between lanes, singing along as loud as I ever could.
Day 13
clip art poem
sunrise, with eagle
new daffodils at the botanical garden
volunteers blooming at the fence
school buses red, yellow, black, slow
farmer’s market kale and gingerroot
biscuits from Hardee’s
hardware store for a hammer
lunch from Popeye’s
nap on an eyelet spread
quick load, colors on cold
healthy stir-fry, orange, green
neighborhood stroll
Maxfield Parrish sundown
guitars on the porch
neopolitan ice cream
cotton floral nightgown, long
fresh sheets
moonlight.
Day 12
That cake again
I made you a cake one year
when we were just divorced
red velvet, but it may have been
dump cake, better than it sounds
some recipe your mother gave me
forty-something years ago
I pretended to care a long time
but always made a cake for you.
Twenty years ago I wrote a poem
about the cake, but it was all a lie,
I think it was, the poem was,
after we separated I stopped cooking.
For some reason, I persist in the farce
that there was a cake I delivered
or didn’t, may not have made. I have
made a hundred since, none for you.
Day 11
She won’t say
what you did, won’t text or call
no indication of the sudden silence-
it may have been something you said
or she could be dead at the landing
from a tumble alone in her big house
blinded by a sudden light from outside.
she could have been hit by a taxi
on her way to the Empire State Building
or taken up in a pre-rapture practice run.
Alien abduction should be considered
though her neighborhood is quiet
and full of frame houses of a certain age.
The twenty-two text messages you sent
may have influenced her invisible state
advised by a girlfriend to "cool it"
she won’t say, you can’t ask
sometimes the best path is to back up,
back off, and go another way home.
eleven thru fifteen - nine and ten are somewhere in another notebook, maybe at work-
Day 15
So she wins a prize
It’s true, she drops her uterus
like it’s a celebrity, filling the maw
with assorted body parts,
mewling proper names and fluids,
while you, timid sister, stammer
at the mention of pussy ‘n taint
(should I edit, should I?)
ask me again and I’ll tell you
the lips that say love can draw blood,
the sharp-tipped tongue craves
your "demure little asshole"* but
doesn’t linger nearly long enough.
Take you proper nouns and sit
on them, I’ll stay properly discreet.
* from Tony Hoagland
Day 14
More Cowbell
At the party, I re-met memories, people long out of my life, now back in because of a mutual friend’s natal observance. They spun elaborate tales of medical procedures as I nodded (just right) and said "Oh, my!" with proper concern. We all face our decrepitude with brave faces, canes and baggy dresses, woven wraps, and sensible shoes. Some have stopped celebrating their years, others insist you know immediately just how long it took them to get this far, as if they took the long way (and are the better for it) while you zipped down the bypass using family money. They ask about recycling. I want to say, yes, the crab dip is soylent green and you are what we eat but some have forgotten even how to laugh, if they ever did. I drive home alone, my generation on the radio, floating between lanes, singing along as loud as I ever could.
Day 13
clip art poem
sunrise, with eagle
new daffodils at the botanical garden
volunteers blooming at the fence
school buses red, yellow, black, slow
farmer’s market kale and gingerroot
biscuits from Hardee’s
hardware store for a hammer
lunch from Popeye’s
nap on an eyelet spread
quick load, colors on cold
healthy stir-fry, orange, green
neighborhood stroll
Maxfield Parrish sundown
guitars on the porch
neopolitan ice cream
cotton floral nightgown, long
fresh sheets
moonlight.
Day 12
That cake again
I made you a cake one year
when we were just divorced
red velvet, but it may have been
dump cake, better than it sounds
some recipe your mother gave me
forty-something years ago
I pretended to care a long time
but always made a cake for you.
Twenty years ago I wrote a poem
about the cake, but it was all a lie,
I think it was, the poem was,
after we separated I stopped cooking.
For some reason, I persist in the farce
that there was a cake I delivered
or didn’t, may not have made. I have
made a hundred since, none for you.
Day 11
She won’t say
what you did, won’t text or call
no indication of the sudden silence-
it may have been something you said
or she could be dead at the landing
from a tumble alone in her big house
blinded by a sudden light from outside.
she could have been hit by a taxi
on her way to the Empire State Building
or taken up in a pre-rapture practice run.
Alien abduction should be considered
though her neighborhood is quiet
and full of frame houses of a certain age.
The twenty-two text messages you sent
may have influenced her invisible state
advised by a girlfriend to "cool it"
she won’t say, you can’t ask
sometimes the best path is to back up,
back off, and go another way home.
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Sunday, April 07, 2013
NAPOMO poem-a-day April 7
Light a candle (for Yom HaShoah)
On days like this I leave the house dressed for sun
to warm my skin, enough if I get home before dark,
before the night chill rises around bare ankles.
The car is never close enough these times, the walk
too far, I fold my arms tight around me, hunched
against the cold and dark, uneasy but unafraid.
Then I remember her, the Catholic teen from Poland,
swept up in a raid of her father’s shop near the ghetto
where many Jewish girls worked, some she called friends.
Her father’s protests fell on deaf ears, they took her
and forced the frightened girls to walk to a train
on the edge of the city, wearing thin coats, gloveless.
She was the youngest, believing her family would come,
whispering assurance to those with her, as they huddled
in clumps, pushed along by the soldiers that night.
They sang and hugged on the ride, warmer in the car
with so many others pressed against them, then stood
in lines for separation, for assignment, they believed.
She was healthy, many were, the tiniest and frail girls
taken elsewhere, it was so cold! Everyone prayed,
cried until they were beyond tears, until silence came.
Her story enfolds me, I will light a candle for her tonight,
read an awkward Kaddish for them all, for the six million,
so I can say on the other side "I did not forget you".
On days like this I leave the house dressed for sun
to warm my skin, enough if I get home before dark,
before the night chill rises around bare ankles.
The car is never close enough these times, the walk
too far, I fold my arms tight around me, hunched
against the cold and dark, uneasy but unafraid.
Then I remember her, the Catholic teen from Poland,
swept up in a raid of her father’s shop near the ghetto
where many Jewish girls worked, some she called friends.
Her father’s protests fell on deaf ears, they took her
and forced the frightened girls to walk to a train
on the edge of the city, wearing thin coats, gloveless.
She was the youngest, believing her family would come,
whispering assurance to those with her, as they huddled
in clumps, pushed along by the soldiers that night.
They sang and hugged on the ride, warmer in the car
with so many others pressed against them, then stood
in lines for separation, for assignment, they believed.
She was healthy, many were, the tiniest and frail girls
taken elsewhere, it was so cold! Everyone prayed,
cried until they were beyond tears, until silence came.
Her story enfolds me, I will light a candle for her tonight,
read an awkward Kaddish for them all, for the six million,
so I can say on the other side "I did not forget you".
NAPOMO poem-a-day April 6
There is no bad day to die
In my teens I begged for my life
to see what was going to happen,
twenty years later I whispered
silent prayers for another decade
so my children would know me.
As time rolled on I wanted to have
all the "things" I’d missed
before the end, leave my mark.
I wrote furiously raw poems,
until I learned to be careful.
Right now, I want to sleep
with some assurance of morning,
rest in spite of your snores,
let silence embrace me when
you are gone and I’m still here.
Friday, April 05, 2013
NAPOMO poem-a-day April 5
Bringing them down
Roy Rogers liked rough sex, I can only say,
"Oh, Dale, dearest Dale, did you?"
It’s as if I caught my parents on the couch
naked, I know it happened but I can’t imagine
it was anything but perverse, no love lost.
I don’t need to hear what famous men
did with cigars, the stains they left.
How everyone knew (when we didn’t).
No stranger to animal instincts, I have
found solace there, in cowboy hands.
To those who live undamaged,
love themselves enough to know
pain is never reward, I offer blessings
and apology, the urban definition of sin
is good, dirty fun: a truthful lie.
There are so many transgressions,
so little secrecy, and less discretion.
What childhood hero will be outed next?
Did Eisenhower diddle little girls?
Madame Curie do it in the lab?
It’s not the desire to turn a blind eye,
but those pictures were set long ago
before I knew of harsher things.
Let the dead lie in restless peace,
the living keep me busy enough.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
NAPOMO poem-a-day April 4
Fashion
Salt is the new lava in lamp-ery, that is
not to say lamprey (better suited to pie
and spice world worms).
Sometimes I hold my Himalayan close
longing to lick the luscious pink,
sad cow that I am.
It warms my breast as I breathe in,
say: ocean, ocean, ocean,
alternating nostrils.
I am what I have been made to be
by The Martin Agency, TV,
classic rock.
At twenty I would watch the lava
stoned, a mantra of bubbles.
the rise and fall.
This solid rock reassures,
I, too, am not impermanent,
but preserved.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
NAPOMO 2013 poem-a-day April 3
Babysitter
It wasn’t hunger that made her
punch through the skin,
scooping soft vanilla wafers
into her waiting mouth,
drove her to lick fingers
and go back again and again
until the Pyrex dish gaped
half empty on the shelf.
They had told her "help yourself"
to whatever she wanted
but they couldn’t have meant
the untouched dessert
covered in Saran wrap
well after the pudding set,
the big chunks of bananas,
twice the cookies called for.
The baby wouldn’t stir-
her role was watchman, only
there because someone must be.
She rocked in mewling shame
on the Danish modern couch,
house perfectly decorated
in Bayshore Estates, nicer than
where she usually babysat.
What remained beckoned her,
whipped cream splotched
in lazy design, the soft wafers,
shut-eyed pleasure filling
empty spaces, she ate and ate
licking her palm clean,
as the sudden flash of headlights
made her heart clutch.
Not them. A neighbor.
She filled the sink with water,
scrubbed glass too clean.
"It slipped. I’m so very sorry.
I cleaned the mess." She wouldn’t
work there again. The husband
drove her home, where nothing
would be as good, or all hers.
Monday, April 01, 2013
NAPOMO poem-a-day April 2
April 2
Richly colored night (after a quote by Van Gogh)
There was a time when
drinks in sunrise shades
colored shy conversation.
Morning, the last thing
on our minds, always came
too soon, too bright, loud.
Walking back to your place
or mine, even the puddles
threw rainbows back at us.
My hair was long and red,
yours: plentiful. The moon
washed across our bodies.
Thousands of nights passed,
we shut the shades, put kids
to bed, fell into dark dreams.
Now we are alone again,
almost strangers. Unfamiliar,
uncomfortable, unsure.
The city streets are better lit,
angled, arched in yellow,
spattered with flash of neon.
In the old cafe, orange glow
paints our faces smooth, young,
we remember how to be foolish.
NAPOMO Poem-a-Day April 1
Giving up the ghost
I saw you in the corner of the room
just yesterday, I was humming a song
we sang a long time ago, how was it
you knew to make an appearance right then?
If we’d been that connected at the time
you’d still be here or I’d be there with you,
none of this slow fade to forgetfullness
rising everyday a little dimmer.
The face I see in my head is not you,
it’s a photograph from the Facebook page
I memorized before you took it down,
your half-smile my addiction, secret fix.
If you quit showing up I can forget
but you’re the shoe sticking out from under
the bed I almost fall on each morning
you always kept me slightly off balance.
Even this poem is another way you
intrude unwanted when I was thinking spring,
Easter eggs, taking down storm windows.
It was April, I was playing piano.Tuesday, March 26, 2013
NAPOMO page over on google +
I'm trying.
Between my connection being cranky tonight my unfamiliarity with the plus,
there will be a delay.
Not a DeMolay (wasn't that like the Mason's for young men, like the rainbow girls was the junior Eastern Star?
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?)
try here: shann's still talking
Between my connection being cranky tonight my unfamiliarity with the plus,
there will be a delay.
Not a DeMolay (wasn't that like the Mason's for young men, like the rainbow girls was the junior Eastern Star?
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?)
try here: shann's still talking
Thursday, March 21, 2013
poem again, who knew?
Lost Vegas
Mamma has a berth, a slot,
whatever at Bunker’s
memorial midtown.
The webpage says
it’s convenient but
only archives thru 2002.
I was there once
twenty-five years ago,
daddy went with us, now
he’s there, too. I was
so afraid of his power
over me I wasted time
I could’ve spent asking
questions like- when
did you go thru the change?
then I remember in 1965
she had a hysterectomy, together
we watched a brand new soap
on TV, The Days of Our Lives,
all that sand going through
the hourglass, all that sand.
Mamma has a berth, a slot,
whatever at Bunker’s
memorial midtown.
The webpage says
it’s convenient but
only archives thru 2002.
I was there once
twenty-five years ago,
daddy went with us, now
he’s there, too. I was
so afraid of his power
over me I wasted time
I could’ve spent asking
questions like- when
did you go thru the change?
then I remember in 1965
she had a hysterectomy, together
we watched a brand new soap
on TV, The Days of Our Lives,
all that sand going through
the hourglass, all that sand.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
must be getting geared up for NAPOMO
The Tawdry Affair
I was undone by you
grommets loosed,
gussets stretched,
petticoats tossed
thoughtlessly
on the chaise lounge
our lone set-piece
draped in drama
where salacious was
too easily replaced
by lugubrious dark,
heavy as a dental drape
to prevent loss of fertility.
your impression, left when
I was undone by you.
I was undone by you
grommets loosed,
gussets stretched,
petticoats tossed
thoughtlessly
on the chaise lounge
our lone set-piece
draped in drama
where salacious was
too easily replaced
by lugubrious dark,
heavy as a dental drape
to prevent loss of fertility.
your impression, left when
I was undone by you.
a poem for wednesday morning 3am
to be silent
can lead to misunderstandings,
the sky may not have been right
air quality less than desired
humidity off doing its curly work.
in a dark coffee shop somewhere
did you know the actor in the commercial?
I did, but didn’t speak up and now
you’ll never know I was important
before I became a window washer
climbing buildings, squeegee bound.
Why wash glass walls on rainy days?
There are others things we should attend to
one mustn’t be limited by tiny minds,
large panes, pulleys and the inevitability
science brings: what goes up can disappear
I lost two friends today, one to a feral god,
the other to a long line of shot glasses.
One left music, one filled the room with anger,
though both are as lost as keys, gloves.
Next time, speak up- don’t die alone.
can lead to misunderstandings,
the sky may not have been right
air quality less than desired
humidity off doing its curly work.
in a dark coffee shop somewhere
did you know the actor in the commercial?
I did, but didn’t speak up and now
you’ll never know I was important
before I became a window washer
climbing buildings, squeegee bound.
Why wash glass walls on rainy days?
There are others things we should attend to
one mustn’t be limited by tiny minds,
large panes, pulleys and the inevitability
science brings: what goes up can disappear
I lost two friends today, one to a feral god,
the other to a long line of shot glasses.
One left music, one filled the room with anger,
though both are as lost as keys, gloves.
Next time, speak up- don’t die alone.
Friday, March 01, 2013
I heard it on NPR
Most likely
Though we know little enough about him,
Garrison Keillor said Christopher Marlowe
was most likely gay and an atheist,
yet a brilliant poet and dramatist.
In his lifetime an elite few were educated,
most spiritually curious holy men and oracles
possessed of sufficient cleverness to thrive
within the church or off the gold of betters.
To be a man in Marlowe’s time most likely
involved the perks a penis often brings,
the luxury of having others care for him
certainly far more than he did for himself.
The world turns, humankind begets
a fleshy herd of celebrity provocateurs,
rapaciously sexual, outwardly religious,
inwardly as blank as empty clay jars.
They are not brilliant, nor poets, most likely
their legacy will not survive, built on smoke
and what the mirror reflects. Weak flesh
earns its sad reward, it has no substance.
Even the learned die in bar fights or the plague.
And where is God in Marlowes work? In the dust
of groundlings feet, or the muddy Thames, a whisper
on a darkened stage bidding "Remember me".
Though we know little enough about him,
Garrison Keillor said Christopher Marlowe
was most likely gay and an atheist,
yet a brilliant poet and dramatist.
In his lifetime an elite few were educated,
most spiritually curious holy men and oracles
possessed of sufficient cleverness to thrive
within the church or off the gold of betters.
To be a man in Marlowe’s time most likely
involved the perks a penis often brings,
the luxury of having others care for him
certainly far more than he did for himself.
The world turns, humankind begets
a fleshy herd of celebrity provocateurs,
rapaciously sexual, outwardly religious,
inwardly as blank as empty clay jars.
They are not brilliant, nor poets, most likely
their legacy will not survive, built on smoke
and what the mirror reflects. Weak flesh
earns its sad reward, it has no substance.
Even the learned die in bar fights or the plague.
And where is God in Marlowes work? In the dust
of groundlings feet, or the muddy Thames, a whisper
on a darkened stage bidding "Remember me".
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