Monthly Archives: July 2014

Old Friends

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I was running from the time I woke up this morning until about 10:15 tonight. My guests have now gone and I’ve had 45 minutes to work on this prompt. It certainly isn’t my favorite, but I felt compelled to finish the assignment, lest it be the first day since April 1 that I failed to post! So, for what it is worth, here’s my near-answer to today’s prompt!!! Please note that much as you might feel you see yourself in this poem, the characters are purely fictional!!!

Today’s Prompt: Long Exposure—Among the people you’ve known for a long time, who is the person who’s changed the most over the years? Was the change for the better?

Old Friends

Our world turns and all of us
without much fanfare or much fuss
change constantly from day to day
in such a subtle sort of way,
we barely notice we have changed
until we find we are estranged
from those once near who now are far,
reaching for a different star.

While once we shared the usual aim
of husband, family or fame,
each thinks the other achieved less
though neither one could ever guess
that each achieved just what she wanted
sailing through her life unhaunted
by regrets of what she’s missed:
the shore unclaimed, the cheek unkissed.
One scored the ring and husband first.
The other sought to quench her thirst
for travel and remained unmarried
satisfying interests varied
from what most others chose to do—
each year her world began anew.

No little hand in hers, no need
to clothe and comfort, wash and feed
anyone except herself.
She sat alone upon the shelf
of life, unchoosing and unchosen—
well-preserved and slightly frozen.

The other birthed, lifted and carried
in a life both full and harried.
With kids and husband in her home,
she was rarely there alone.
Kept busy by her obligations
to neighbors, friends and her relations,
her life proceeded till near its end,
she chanced to come upon her friend
from long ago and tarried there
while both of them let down their hair.

Each found the place where she belonged
and neither feels unduly wronged.
One found her place in family—
contented in their company.
The other is quick to aver
she found her place inside of her.

No Fear

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No Fear

We know within our hearts that personality
often cancels out what we can clearly see.
We all have known the men who, homely to the eye,
still have personalities sweet as cherry pie,
who win the ladies with their charm and humor that is wry,
causing them to line up for chances with this guy.

And the girl who’s plain until she starts to talk—
her face just so enlivened, you have to stand and gawk.
Made lovely by expression, intelligence and wit,
“beautiful” and “lovely” become the words that fit
when trying to describe this attractive little lass
who simply doesn’t bother with a looking glass.

Both have learned to conquer all their crippling fear—
to find the other side of doubt and kick it in the rear.
To face the world on their own terms and face it unafraid.
To take their rightful placement at the front of the parade.
But though we see what they have done, we do not always take
the road that for another seems to be a piece of cake.

You may find this poem to be most adolescent,
yet the feelings of our past most usually are present
throughout our lifetimes, though we seem to hide what we must feel,
leaving it to novelists and poets to reveal
the truths of all our agonies, the facts of all our fears—
all those things we’ve meant to face but yet hold in arrears.

I long ago discovered that writing must be true.
The only worthwhile topics are the things that bother you.
The lacks you find in others and the lacks within yourself
are what divide the poems in hand from poems on the shelf.
And so I must admit that fear’s my greatest hidden vice.
And since we all could do with taking our own sage advice:

I’ll say that with no fear, I would burn candles at both ends—
be as free with lovers as I am with friends.
I would have burned fingers, but an unbound heart.
All those lovely men, disregarded from the start
because I was too zaftig or not smart enough?
I’d face them nose-to-nose, and then I would call their bluff.

Today’s Prompt: Fearless Fantasies—How would your life be different if you were incapable of feeling fear? Would your life be better or worse than it is now?

Unwrapped Packages

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Unwrapped Packages

It is the difference between that present handed to you
by a person who says, “It’s only a tie,”
and a package under the tree
squeezed and prodded at—perhaps a corner loosened
or a hole poked in through supposed accidental handling,
pondered like a good detective show.

Who wants these mysteries revealed before their time?
What value in the present whose contents you already know for sure?
The magic of Christmas for some is that faith that the girl,
untouched by human lover, gave birth—and it is that sort of faith
that “saved” the world. If we knew the whole truth of that story
would all it prompted fall into the hole covered all these years by mystery?
The whole world seems to be standing more on what we don’t know
than on what we absolutely know empirically—what we can prove.

And so I look at the picture of my young mother
in her cotton housedress and saddle shoes
holding her baby in front of her in her stroller,
whole contraption, child and carrier,
a foot or two above the ground,
and there is mystery in the reveal.
I do not hear what transpired to cause this pose.
I do not know if my father caught her carrying me
from the porch to sidewalk and said,
“Here, Tootie, turn around,” and snapped the picture,
or whether my older sister planned the pose.
Or whether some movie star was snapped in a similar scene
and my mother and sister, like two conspiring fans,
planned the shot to steal the glamor formerly reserved
for “Photoplay” or “Look” or “Life.”

There would be no reel-to-reel
in any normal person’s life for years.
No movie camera to tell me exactly what my mother was like
or my sister or me before my memory took hold and even then,
my mind’s remembrance
more like reflections in a lake that color and change
depending on the clouds or rain,
distorting the light like moods.
My Aunt Peggy’s house,
always remembered as feeling like
the color chartreuse,
and I will never know why.
That smell of a friend’s house that became associated
with her memory more than any concrete proof of reel-to-reel
or spinning film of movie camera.

I do not know my mother’s voice at thirty.
I did not witness myself since birth
by either sound or sight.
There is a different mystery
to a past caught
in boxes of Kodacolor prints
curling and yellowing in a closet
than one documented like a science experiment
with every event taped and filmed.

Where does the mystery of you reside when you see yourself
so clearly, as others have seen you all along?
What does it leave for you to try to discover?
No tapes.
No film.
No Internet.
No Skype.
No YouTube.
No home movies.
All of our pasts were once wrapped up forever.
Only our fingers poking in the edges.
Only our voices asking,
“What was it like the day when I was born?”
What do you remember about the day when. . . .?

The Prompt: Can’t Stand Me—What do you find more unbearable: watching a video of yourself, or listening to a recording of your voice? Why?

Many Me’s

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Nude Descending a Staircase picture

The Prompt: Frame of Mind—If you could paint your current mood onto a canvas, what would that painting look like? What would it depict?

Many Me’s
If I should have to paint a picture of my present mood,
I’d be walking down a staircase, and I’d have to do it nude—
My many selves preceding me and coming fast behind—
for there would be not one of me, but many of my kind.
This scene is a mere copy of Duchamp’s solution to
a person who perhaps has found she has too much to do.

My list of tasks is growing, though I’ve dealt with one or two;
but how I’ll deal with everything, I fear I have no clue.
And so I guess my canvas style would simply have to be
like Marcel’s (though not cubist, still with more than one of me.)
That way I’d send off each of me to do what must be done.
They’d do all my labor while I went to have some fun.

While self 1 wrote my daily prompt and self 2 cleaned my shelves,
I’d go out to the water park with all my other selves.
We’d climb up all the ladders and slide down all the slides
and play a game of tug-rope where I would be both sides!
We’d go out to the ice cream place and have a cone or three
and they’d get all the calories with none assigned to me!

We’d take my bad dogs for a walk and I would be so free
Two other me’s would hold the leashes, not the actual me.
I’d loll here in my hot tub, swing in my hammock, too,
while selves from 1 to 9 would do all that I have to do.
They’d figure out my microwave instructions all in Spanish.
They’d sort out all my photographs and clean my loo with Vanish.

Agreeable to every task, they’d never mention “can’t.”
They’ll pick off all the yellow leaves from every drying plant.
They’ll organize my studio that is a horrid mess.
(It’s been that way for many months—a fact I must confess.)
They’d sort out all my closets and organize my drawers,
then go into my Filofax and sort out all the bores.

They’d shape my canned goods into rows—sorted from “A” to “Z.”
which makes it difficult for them, but easier for me.
And though my other selves keep warm from their activity,
my idleness seems not to create any warmth for me.
So although I like my colors and my brush strokes strong and bold,
I wish I’d put some clothes on us, ‘cause I am getting cold!!

The Brick Throwers

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The Prompt: Reviving Bricks—You just inherited a dilapidated, crumbling-down grand mansion in the countryside. Assuming money is no issue, what do you do with it?

The Brick Throwers

They were five in a chain from truck to rooftop,
each throwing the piles of adobe bricks
in stacks of four, from hand to hand
up from the bottom of the truckload
now nearly emptied.
Two of them waved me on
when I tried to park near,
my trunk full of heavy wall sculptures
to deliver to a gallery just half a block away.

And when I tried to park farther along the block,
again and again, they waved me away
until I was a block away and safe, I guess,
from straying bricks or errant cars that swerved
too far to the right to avoid the bricks or truck that held them.
They were a cheerful lot, and when I passed,
walking towards the gallery
carrying one sculpture after another,
they waved, and on my final trip back to the car,
again, the man second in the chain
who stood balanced on the highest level of the brick pyramid
that remained within the truckbed,
seemed to intuit my purpose, waving from me to them
as I drew my camera from my purse.
They all posed for minutes, miming their labor
as I tried to get them to actually throw, as before,
those piles of bricks, hoping to catch them
flying through the air between two pairs of hands.

Finally understanding, they threw and threw,
asking me for a prompt to help me catch that flight
I feared I’d never catch.

(more)

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Minutes later, I turned to leave
and they, cheering and smiling in their fame,
turned back to that labor which is an art in Mexico:
giving bricks wings before mortaring them
into a permanency that holds them rigid for lifetimes
until they crumble back into that soil that was their nativity.

This poem should be a metaphor for something
and probably is.
Some future day, when I am moldering in my grave
like some lesser Ozymandius,
some graduate student or scholar of mediocre
Twenty-First-Century poetry might publish a treatise
revealing it.
And they will dig this website from the rubble
of the Internet and find
I wrote it as a daily prompt
and if such records still exist,
find how I hired those men to build a monument
from that crumbling manse of brick
that was my prompt on the Daily Post
and tell how they spent their lifetimes restoring it
and how their children and their children’s children
have benefited from catcalls
and instructions to move on down the line
and the clicking of a camera lens
and from one who follows blindly
where each prompt leads her.

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BLOG HOP

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I am so honored that I was asked to participate in this blog hop by Linda Crosfield, a poet whose work I admire greatly. Please see her blog to learn more about her and to read her wonderful poetry at Purple Mountain Poetry.

I met Linda in March in a writing group in La Manzanilla, Mexico—a beach community that most of us in the group visit for a month or two each year. It was a wonderful experience to meet so many excellent writers and I learned from every one. Hopefully, I’ll reconnect with some of them when I go back to the beach for a 2 month stint November-January of this year.

I would also like to introduce two excellent writers who are new acquaintances I’ve met through their blogs. Although their work presents opposite ends of the writing spectrum, they are similar in that neither takes the easy way out. I laud each of them because they both take such care in presenting original ideas and imagery. Please read their blogs to see what I mean.

Laura MacDonald has always dabbled in writing of many sorts. She is a very occasional contributor to the Bard Brawl blog (reviewing film adaptations of Shakespeare plays) and writes sketch comedy and wordy rants at Notes on a Napkin: What were they thinking? (though, much like herself, it was largely inactive throughout her pregnancy). She is currently channeling the ecstasy and delirium of motherhood into her poetry at Purple Toothed Grin and is pretty much making sleeplessness her bitch(/muse).

Robert Okaji lives in Texas with his wife and two dogs. He holds a degree in history but serves as a business officer in higher education and has at various times worked in a library, owned a bookstore and even sold cheese for a living. Much to his surprise and delight, three of his poems were featured in Boston Review’s National Poetry Month Celebration this past April. His work has also appeared in such publications as Clade Song, Prime Number Magazine, Middle Grey, Otoliths, Vayavya, Extract(s) and Lightning’d Press, among others. You may read his work at O at the Edges.

These are the questions I was asked to answer and that I hope Robert and Laura will each be answering on their own blogs.

What am I working on?

For the past two months, I’ve been posting a poem a day on my blog, following the prompts given by NaPoWriMo and WordPress Daily Post. I remember when I did NaPoWriMo last year that it seemed impossible that I’d make it through the month without quitting, but I loved it and missed it when it was over; so this year I decided to just keep going. I like having an excuse to make writing a priority each day and then wonder why I need an excuse. Sometimes I think I should be working on more serious work, but I love doing the blog and love writing the silly poems the most. Life is too short to do what you “think” you should do rather than what you want to do—especially at this stage of life.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, not many people have a daily blog that is 99 percent poetry, with most of it rhymed and metered. There is just something about having to write to a pattern that takes me to a different part of my brain. I never really know what the next line is going to be until I write it and I am continually surprised that it actually (for the most part) works out and comes to a conclusion. I never plan in advance. That takes away all the fun. Guess that is why I’ve never written (completed) a novel, although I’ve started a dozen or so.

Why do I write what I do?

I mainly write about things that I am still sorting out in my head. I discovered a long time ago that I don’t think unless I am writing or talking. A student once told me that my tongue sometimes got ahead of my brain and I realized that was true, and that wasn’t a bad thing (unless it was used for evil!) I try to slow down and think first when I’m mad, but just give my writing and my tongue free rein otherwise. It calls for understanding friends. (And kind of silly ones.) Why not just say what you think when you write? It’s safe because at this point, only you can see it lying there (actually, telling the truth there) on the page. You can always tone it down in the edit.

How does my writing practice work?

I love the computer, because it is the only way I can write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. I write on the computer, always. (Well, almost always. At the beach, I carry a small notebook and pen in my pocket. I once tried a little digital recorder, but it doesn’t work for me. I don’t talk from the same part of the brain I write from.) I remember my first Brother electric typewriter that had a one-line memory. It was paradise, but really slowed me down as it was necessary to edit as I went. I love the freedom of the freight train mode of just writing as fast as possible without consciously thinking of what I am writing. The subconscious is a very interesting place to write from. It’s where we teach ourselves.

Find me online at grieflessons.wordpress.com or on Amazon here and here. (for some reason they can’t seem to get all my books in one location on Amazon.)

My cup runneth on empty

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Laughter Schmafter

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Laughter Schmafter

I used to roll with laughter most every day or so.
My parties were all riotous. No one would ever go
back home again till two or three or four or five or six.
And some would stay for breakfast, prerhaps hoping that I ‘d fix
my special chocolate waffles or orange berry strudels
or curried eggs or cheesy pie or strata made with noodles.
We’d story-tell and play charades and I admit, we’d drink
and stage our paper yacht races within the kitchen sink.
The guests might come in costume and some might bring a friend
for I had grown notorious for parties with no end.
When I was a teacher, I’d invite the whole darn staff.
Away from school, our hearts were gay. We dearly loved to laugh!
But this was years ago, my friend. Our hearts were young and gay.
Now that we’ve lived past sixty, we live a shorter day.
When I have my friends over to play a game or dine,
some find the spices don’t agree and others shun the wine.
Some have little dogs at home they have to feed by five.
Others have eye problems and find they cannot drive
after dark at all and so they have to leave by seven.
I guess our laughter’s done on earth. Perhaps we’ll laugh in heaven.

Daily Prompt: Roaring Laughter—What was the last thing that gave you a real, authentic, tearful, hearty belly laugh? Why was it so funny?

Prompt? Really?

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Prompt? Really?

I wake at six and for two hours and I check and check and check.
Now 8:03 and still no prompt. I wonder, what the heck?
Can they not post the prompt so I can get on with my day?
These lazy daily prompters must be laid out in the hay
when they should be here prompting for we still have things to do!
We can’t just sit here all day long to wait and wait for you.
Just slap some words down on your site and we’ll begin to write.
For we’ve been waiting morning hours and others through the night.
In the hours we’ve waited, we have stretched and paced and stomped
and realized the truth: Your prompt is anything but prompt!!!

Finally, at 11:13, today’s prompt was posted, but I had written my blog entry between the hours of six and eight and then watched for the actual prompt to post so I could establish the link.  Alas, 5 hours of waiting was enough and today I’ll post to a different drummer!  But—I was the first to post!!!!  Ta Dah!

The prompt today, when it finally came, was if you had three wishes to grant, who would you grant them to?  No necessity for thinking about this.  I would grant one each to three women who because of the culture they have grown up in have been sentenced to death for adultery or  because they have been raped or because they have stood up to a brutal husband.

WordPress Blogger Award

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Very Inspiring Blogger Award

I was nominated for this award by my fellow blogger Cindy Knapper at A Slice of Life. Thanks, Cindy, most of all for being such a faithful reader. Although I think most of us write for ourselves, it doesn’t hurt to know others find our words to be of value.

* Recipients of this award are asked to:

1. Thank and link with the person who nominated them.
2. List the rules and display the award.
3. Share seven facts about him/herself.
4. Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated.
5. Optional: Display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you.

Seven facts about myself:

1. I do not know what I think until I speak or write.
2. I have had four near-death experiences and each one prompted a huge change in my life.
3. I abhor all fish and I’m allergic to salmon.
4. Sharon Olds and Mary Oliver are my favorite poets.
5. I have written a poem a day for over 3 months now.
6. I know I should be writing more serious “stuff” but I absolutely love the puzzle of writing rhymed and metered poetry.
7. I never know what I am going to write ahead of time. Line by line, it just comes.
8. I learned as much about writing by doing art for 10 years as I have from any writing class.
9. I studied under Robert Roripaugh, James Cole, Robin Johnson and Jack Grapes and owe them all a huge debt of thanks.
10. Ooops…I was only supposed to tell you seven things, so omit the two you find to be least relevant.

My nominees are:

purpletoothedgrin.wordpress.com—for originality and wit and never ever taking the easy way out by using old or predictable images.

you-monsters-are-people.com—because they, too, mourn the loss of chalkboards and they frequent dive bars!!!

okcforgottenman.wordpress.com—because he is soooooooo weird and the consummate wordsmith.

repocomedy.com—because they make me laugh and because they were some of the first to appreciate my blog.

robertokaji.com—because he is a gentleman and a scholar who is also a pleasure to read.

purplemountainpoems.blogspot.com—because everything she writes I wish I had written!

storyshucker.wordpress.com—because who can resist a good and original story?

jaysonbrownjewelry.com—because his statements are made through beautiful jewelry, each piece of which tells a story of its own.

ogginblog.wordpress.com—because she is my favorite NaPoWriMo poet. Would that she would continue to write after April!

bucketlistpublications.org—because they bring the world to us when we have plenty of time left to still discover it ourselves.

everywhereist.com—because she does the same thing in a totally different manner

dailydickinson.com—because she gives hope to all hidden poets that someday someone will find us and spread our words.

alotfromlydia.wordpress.com—because she professes not to be the world’s greatest mom but is wearing a shirt that says she is.

ninaalvarez.net—because she knows how to be a sparrow and is willing to share her secret.

fearfuldragon.wordpress.com—because they show me what all the places I visited forty years ago are like now.

I might add that if any of you do not wish to go through this process, it is fine with me. It is labor-intensive, but I just wanted to share some of my favorite blogs and perhaps bring you a few new much-deserved readers. You need do nothing more that just receive the acclaim without claiming the badge, or you may continue the process by nominating 15 additional bloggers. Best, Judy