- wander aimlessly through my house
- stress clean the kitchen
- read a lot. And queue up reviews for weeks in advance
- trim my hair
- Tell myself not to panic
- trim tech boy’s hair
- tweeze my eyebrows
- tweeze my leg hair
- look up trichotillomania on WebMD
- rearrange the fridge
- rearrange the spices by height
- rearrange the spices by alphabetical order
- stress bake cookies with no recipe
- ask God WHYYYYYYYYY multiple times
- wonder where that one figure skater is doing now
- sigh a lot
- dust mop beneath the couch
- analyze the dirt in the Roomba
- discover where earring backs have gone
- rearrange my earrings
- stress clean my desk
- write notes to myself
- find a spider. usher him or her out
- ponder the pile of laundry in the laundry room
- consider doing one load. consider doing ALLL the loads
- lie on couch, staring, dry-eyed
- Panic. Just a little
- imagine names for pets
- argue with self if pets are cats or fish or turtles
- write faux jacket copy and abandon it
- try outlining, then laugh wildly at how bad it is
- full on panic. Wheeze
- organize notes to myself by writing – neatest to scribbliest
- read novel notes from 6 months ago, laugh wildly, edge into hysterical sobbing
- make a serious stab at a novel synopsis
- begin novel-as-movie paragraph, “In a world where…”
- wail. Loudly.
- find a spider. Usher it from this life
- promise the muse nonexistent firstborn
- take back promise, because kids would make this even harder
- close my eyes and imagine the character
- remember whatever the character wants needs to not happen
- rediscover the concept of CONFLICT
- write a letter, telling story of novel so far to mother
- whisper, “Ohhhh…!” as light breaks
- is that a spider? Huh.
- mutter prayer of thanks and GET BACK TO WORK
Month: July 2016
{there is sadness as well as loss in the promise of love}
Where Do You Enter
Where do you enter
A poem
At the same place
I enter you
with balance
and trust
and a jazzy sense
of adventure
Painting outside
the lines
wearing clothes cut
against the bias
with spices
among the flowers
A poem unfolds
like a baby bat
testing her wings
or a kitten taking
her first steps
or a good dog
moving arthritic limbs
toward the door
There is sadness
as well as loss
in the promise
of love
We begin a poem
with longing
and end with
responsibility
And laugh
all through the storms
that are bound
to come
We have umbrellas
We have boots
We have each
other
– Nikki Giovanni
{for all those born beneath an angry star}
How Fragile We Are
If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one,
Drying in the colour of the evening sun,
Tomorrow’s rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay.
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime’s argument:
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are.
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are.
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are, how fragile we are how fragile we are…
– Sting
Poetry Friday today is hosted at cousin Mary Lee’s A Year of Reading.
{…hope with wings}
Did you catch this year’s Newbery winner on NPR? I am grateful that, when asked, he had something good to say to the world – to his child – to other kids about recent events in the news cycle. People who can are modeling behavior on How To Deal for the rest of us, and I appreciate it. Mr. Alexander reflected,
“…Does it mean I’m oblivious to what’s going on in the world? No. I choose to write for children. I like to make this remark, the snide remark that I’ve given up on the adults. And it’s a half-truth. But the real truth is I really want to focus on the children. I believe strongly that the mind of an adult begins in the imagination of a child.”
I admit to having given up on adults long ago. Here’s hoping for better from the imagination of children, right? And yet, I refuse to leave all the weight and the pressure on the next generation. We can’t. Meanwhile, as we figure out how to balance the world as adults, I hope you’re being kind to yourself, and taking a break from the big thoughts, to have little ones about pleasant breezes, the sound of birds, and all the things which make summer still a beautiful thing.
WHEN
When the world is not so beautiful
the flowers waste waterthe women can no longer find their song,
the children refuse to playthere are no men to teach to love
the ground inside collapsesthe coldest winter screams
the summer burns red
the sea is full of blues
and the sky opens up,at least I’ll have poetry
– a gathering of words,
a get-together of emotions,
a font of ideas,
hope with wings.
– Kwame Alexander
{to my tallest little brother}
Ducking social media through July and August doesn’t mean I’ve missed anything, it’s just that I’ve largely held my silence. I would have still, but a young friend reached out to me. He grew up in LA, and is of Mexican American descent, and felt like he shouldn’t speak up right now, as a brown person… but he wrote, nervously, to extend his sympathies to me, as a fellow human being. Which kind of broke my heart. So shines a good deed in a weary world, as the Bard would say. So. I wrote him a note:
Mi hermanito precioso,
I often think that it would be useful to belong to a denomination which follows a liturgy. Because waking up to a news cycle like this has me simply saying over and over again, “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy,” like the words of an abruptly simplified mass spinning out into infinity.
Lord, have mercy. What a mess.
Like a faulty foundation will topple an entire building before its time, the foundational flaw in in our system of laws – that of the 2nd Amendment is not really for all people, only white people – is reverberating throughout the nation. There are cracks in the foundation, the floor is collapsing, and we are sinking down, down, down.
I struggle to articulate how long it took me to look at this head on; it was so much easier to just agree, “Oh, yeah, all lives matter.” As time went on, though, it grew harder to remain silent, as those who complained most loudly about the Black Lives Matter movement seem to believe those protesting police violence put an invisible “only” in front of the words: as if they mean “ONLY black lives matter.” A people clearly receiving a message from a largely indifferent culture that no, your lives don’t matter don’t need salt rubbed into the wound with a tsk-tsking and finger shaking about being more inclusive. As I’ve tried to explain it to more than one person, if you had lung cancer, you would be about treating your lungs, not ignoring the lungs in favor of the elbows, under the lofty idea that “all body parts matter.” You’d be treating the lungs, if the lungs were where the problem was, would you not? It’s about focus, not exclusion. But few people make the effort to understand this — because we are a people who rely on all caps and incoherence. We favor a rush to response rather than slow reason.
Lord, have mercy. We are such a mess.
Know what else is in my liturgy? Those who live by the sword will die by it.
I believe this is so, so true. In every way. I know that there are nations and states who have open carry, but you know how I feel about guns, and the machismo that goes with them. If people don’t respect me and my words, they’ll never respect that I have lethal force, until I use it. If people can’t respect the badge – and they can’t, legitimately, in many instances – then they’re only allowed to fear the lethal force it employs. If I give in to the urge to slice and dice instead of think, even verbally, I, too, will bleed.
We – and by this “we” I mean the law enforcement and the legal system and the larger society – have to become aware that all of us bleed and to become aware that indifference to the blood of our brothers and sisters will assure that we bleed out, too.
MLK and Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X — every one of them spoke of the need to come together and support social justice for each other, as black and brown and white. Our outrage may be what brings us to stand shoulder to shoulder, but our need to staunch the wounds is what will have to keep us standing, long after this immediate disaster is over. It has just happened too many times before – too many times before Trayvon Martin, even – that we’ve all rallied and said all the right things, and then let the momentum of peace and justice for all fade. It’s easy to be distracted by the next thing. But, my biggest prayer is that we learn to pay attention. This has to stop.
Or the endless litany of pleas and tears is basically por nada.
Love you back,
♥t
PS – And, I have no idea what you’re intimidated about. This stuff is hard to write through, hard to think about. What is it with you people thinking writers judge you like they’re your English teacher?????? I’d NEVER do that!! *cough*
May you find a moment in which you extend peace to your fellow human being, and have it mirrored back to you.
{p7 does poetry friday: “in the style of…”}
I’ve always been happy on the internet with my imaginary friends.
Okay, less imaginary than… invisible? Intangible? I’ve met every single one of my Poetry Sisters only because ONCE we all managed to be at ALA at the same time. ONCE. Six years ago. It hasn’t ever happened again. One of my very best friends, and any of my other good acquaintances I’ve never met in person at all. And, introvert that I am, that seems… normal.
Since I’ve enjoyed reading The Toast for a long time, and because as of today, July 1, they’re kaput, I’ve been thinking about how sad I am to lose… yet another group of imaginary friends. So, when I thought about this month’s P7 assignment, and how we’re writing in the style of the brilliant Marin poet Kay Ryan, I knew that she would be able to do justice to the topic of transient friendships, and intangible losses and imaginary loves in her inimitable, sneakily rhymed, wordplaying, slanted style. I… tried. With mixed results.
Kay Ryan is a deep, deep pool to get into. Depending on the time and how familiar we were with her work, some of us skimmed, and some of us haven’t yet come up for air. A few of us wrote in the style of Ryan’s “All Shall Be Restored, while others of us played with the wording of Turtle, asking, “Why would anyone be X if she could help it?” Despite this being the month when all of us are scrambling – packing, slogging through summer school, kid wrangling, swamped, under the weather and me scraping and stretching to find the turning point for my current WIP — this was some of our most intriguing writing. We bemoaned not having enough time for Kay Ryan. The cure for that? Reading lots more Kay Ryan. I know I’ll be doing that, as the summer continues, and I’ll be ready for this assignment, when next it comes around.
Unmaking The Toast: A Lament
(Vaguely) In the style of Kay Ryan’s All Shall Be Restored
The molecules shall be
stilled; no longer bumping
fractiously ‘twixt ion and atom,
radiantly heated,
demanding rigidity of this densely
supple staple.
The separate slices, softly,
Yield. No segregation slows this
seeking to succumb.
And, the whole –
The whole of the thing,
-unbaked, unleavened, unmixed –
Shall be undone.
And then, unkneaded – unneeded –
the viscid rebound of the dough.
And then, unseen, unsought,
the settling of the restive sea to salt.
Cessation of this sustenance calls
for no half-measures; untake this bread,
undrink this cup, undo this thing. The cell,
Withered, unremarked, this ruled march and sweep
of fields; here, no amber waves of grain,
no vast pure reservoirs,
no sowing into fertile
soil, no seed, no
spark.
not so grandiflora
In the style of Kay Ryan’s “Turtle”
Who would be a rose who could help it?
A fragrant flutter of petals, fragile flora
grown to be gifted in fawning fealty
to females indifferent,
or flung away in elegant arcs
by brides so burdened with beauty,
that despite dethorning
– stiletto exchanged to sweetly spineless –
its weight is wounding.
Even basic blossoms – hedgerow not hothouse –
Soon appear unpalatable, a predictable perfection
tossed off in impotent apology
And presently, putrefying. To grasp
the thorn you also bring the rose,
though the rose – inbred, innocuous – is
inherently, unacceptable.
Harried
In the style of Kay Ryan’s Insult
Beaters circling shrubs
Raise but dust, and queries,
Such as: Is there a point to
this useless maundering,
And, For heaven’s sakes,
could you get
To the point
preferably
before death
or maybe dinnertime?
Neglecting to flush
From conversation
A single syllable of
substance is not virtue;
lovers of truth will,
Like a cheetah on its first kill,
Run it to the ground.
As I said, Kay Ryan is inimitable. However, we gave it a shot even if I did get called *cough* an overachiever for my repeated attempts! It still isn’t quite Kay – I missed her sly internal rhymes, – but this month, we all agreed: it’s about PROCESS. And the process is a gift! Andi for that gift, gave us mosquitoes; Sara found herself poem-ing about poetry once again, Tricia spun words beautifully, and Laura’s unsold house house was added to a rhyme analyzer — I’m afraid to even put my poems in there. Liz explores the dichotomy of the smooth, featureless egg, while Kelly pushes our roundup – uphill – to a close with a poem she “doesn’t mind.” Which is, indeed high praise.
Want more splendid poetry for this holiday weekend? Page through the selections at Tabatha’s.