Knowledge of a Grandfather
Look before you leap
Or you may just drown
I must have laughed
Headed to prom
Pure abuse
Work hard
You will eventually succeed
Two quarters jingled in my pocket
Left on the washer machine
Enough to buy a cigarette
And a sip of Boones
Trust the government
Believe in the troops
Angry vets
Old men without lives
I knew neither
Love with your heart
And believe in God
Weekly catechism
Confession
Sin removal
I felt better
What was I thinking?
A grey haired fellow knows
Nothing
Something
Everything
The things I will probably never do
I will buy a book at the local book store
and never open the cover
I will plant a vegetable garden
and forget to turn on the water
I will pack my husband’s clothes for vacation
and probably forget to take him
I will sing to the words of Blind Melon
and not even know the words
Perhaps I will apply for a job or two
and not really want to be hired
One day I will wake up from this madness
and realize I am normal
That I am not one of those people who scratch
their name on a bathroom stall
I don’t need to change my identity so that I can
spray paint on the side of a truck or building
I am real, confused, an angel fluttering
searching for direction
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Jim Harrison
First and foremost, it is nice to be back…back to a place that I can attempt to grasp and understand. Where the water is merely acting as water on one level, or a tear being shed from a child’s eye on another. Or a key ring hanging from a belt loop is just that, yet it can also represent the circle or bond of life. There is no need to romanticize ideas when the reality of the matter is that he will probably not be taking his grandchildren to Disneyland in a camper and that is the beauty of the situation.
Jim Harrison is refreshing. Who can’t appreciate a man that gives personal advice throughout his poetry. “Dance with yourself with all your heart and soul, and occasionally others, but don’t eat all the berries birds eat or you’ll die.” This to me seems like words to live by. And better yet, “kiss yourself in the mirror but don’t fall in love with photos of ladies in magazines.” Harrison continues this matter-of-fact tone throughout. His choice of words conveys the tone that everything he says we already know and he is just simply reminding us to take the time to notice.
Harrison speaks of love from experience, loss from tragedy, experience through travels, and children through questioning; incorporating these ideas into the very heart of his poetry.
The dead are not meant to go,
but to trail off so that one can
see them on a distant hillock,
across the river, in dreams
from which one awakens nearly healed:
don’t worry, it’s fine to be dead,
they say; we were a little early
but could not help ourselves.
Everyone dies as the child they were,
(Sullivan Poem)
Although, at times I am perplexed by his ideas I can honestly say his poetry is beautiful, inviting, and inspirational.
Jim Harrison’s poetry is stimulating, provocative, and unfailingly interesting to read. Throughout, he shows himself to be wonderfully imaginative. Through a deep engagement with language and meaning he takes each poem in many different directions. He writes in a multitude of poetic forms and techniques that leave the reader engaged and questioning his approach. For instance, the varying lengths causes me to question the importance of individual poems and why he choose to expand a poem over thirty pages in comparison to his five line Kobun. I appreciate how some of his poems follow the conventions of prose narratives.
One poem that completely puzzles me is “New Love”. I really like this poem although I question how much I truly understand. First, it is interesting to note the body parts that Harrison takes the time to list. On first glance it appears to me that all of these parts are extremely bony and the least “loved” or mentioned parts. Then he throws in the idea of risqué photos of the tender inside of the elbow. The language is lovely but what is he trying to do? What is he suggesting when he talks about relearning the future “as we learned to walk, as a baby grabs its toes, tilts backward, rocking”? And how exactly do we get to the moon after we have dealt with all of this death? Maybe I have too many questions to bring this poem up, but I really like it.
Did I mention that I understand what is going on? Can I take that statement back and rephrase it as such…I understand words and phrases, but not necessarily the entire poem. I appreciate Harrison’s style and use of imagery that never fails to amaze me. Any individual that can invoke the image of a dripping faucet intertwined with the sigh of a cat and cells that are deprived of oxygen is worth reading again. Wouldn’t you say?
Jim Harrison is refreshing. Who can’t appreciate a man that gives personal advice throughout his poetry. “Dance with yourself with all your heart and soul, and occasionally others, but don’t eat all the berries birds eat or you’ll die.” This to me seems like words to live by. And better yet, “kiss yourself in the mirror but don’t fall in love with photos of ladies in magazines.” Harrison continues this matter-of-fact tone throughout. His choice of words conveys the tone that everything he says we already know and he is just simply reminding us to take the time to notice.
Harrison speaks of love from experience, loss from tragedy, experience through travels, and children through questioning; incorporating these ideas into the very heart of his poetry.
The dead are not meant to go,
but to trail off so that one can
see them on a distant hillock,
across the river, in dreams
from which one awakens nearly healed:
don’t worry, it’s fine to be dead,
they say; we were a little early
but could not help ourselves.
Everyone dies as the child they were,
(Sullivan Poem)
Although, at times I am perplexed by his ideas I can honestly say his poetry is beautiful, inviting, and inspirational.
Jim Harrison’s poetry is stimulating, provocative, and unfailingly interesting to read. Throughout, he shows himself to be wonderfully imaginative. Through a deep engagement with language and meaning he takes each poem in many different directions. He writes in a multitude of poetic forms and techniques that leave the reader engaged and questioning his approach. For instance, the varying lengths causes me to question the importance of individual poems and why he choose to expand a poem over thirty pages in comparison to his five line Kobun. I appreciate how some of his poems follow the conventions of prose narratives.
One poem that completely puzzles me is “New Love”. I really like this poem although I question how much I truly understand. First, it is interesting to note the body parts that Harrison takes the time to list. On first glance it appears to me that all of these parts are extremely bony and the least “loved” or mentioned parts. Then he throws in the idea of risqué photos of the tender inside of the elbow. The language is lovely but what is he trying to do? What is he suggesting when he talks about relearning the future “as we learned to walk, as a baby grabs its toes, tilts backward, rocking”? And how exactly do we get to the moon after we have dealt with all of this death? Maybe I have too many questions to bring this poem up, but I really like it.
Did I mention that I understand what is going on? Can I take that statement back and rephrase it as such…I understand words and phrases, but not necessarily the entire poem. I appreciate Harrison’s style and use of imagery that never fails to amaze me. Any individual that can invoke the image of a dripping faucet intertwined with the sigh of a cat and cells that are deprived of oxygen is worth reading again. Wouldn’t you say?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Feeding of the Soul
Myth: is it merely a dream or is it simply our legacy? We have looked to mythological stories for answers to our heritage and our existence since the beginning of time. These stories tell us who we are and who we will become, but why must we always come back? According to Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul: A Guide For Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life “The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is ‘loss of soul.’ When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning…we have lost our wisdom about the soul, even our interest in it… [We] must draw on…past wisdom, taking into account how we live now, to show that by caring for the soul we can find relief from out distress and discover deep satisfaction and pleasure” (xi). Moore continues, “the ultimate cure, as many ancient and modern psychologies of depth have asserted, comes from love…the cure…is love” (14). Therefore, it should be no surprise as to why we search in the depths of myth to give us answers and meaning to our specific era.
To serve this appetite for love, a plethora of mythological stories are being displaced into our modern day society exemplifying the very notion of being “in love with love”. According to Frye, “in every age [people] tend [] to project [their] ideals in some form of romance” (186); which, satisfies our need to “cure” the soul. Mythological stories serve as “a sort of …stage on which to place contemporary characters or [events]” (Eco 68) allowing us the opportunity to fulfill this craving. Therefore, it should come as no surprise as to why we take the mythological story of Eros and Psyche and directly displace it in Cinderella and further supplant it in the story of Bridget Jones Diary.
To serve this appetite for love, a plethora of mythological stories are being displaced into our modern day society exemplifying the very notion of being “in love with love”. According to Frye, “in every age [people] tend [] to project [their] ideals in some form of romance” (186); which, satisfies our need to “cure” the soul. Mythological stories serve as “a sort of …stage on which to place contemporary characters or [events]” (Eco 68) allowing us the opportunity to fulfill this craving. Therefore, it should come as no surprise as to why we take the mythological story of Eros and Psyche and directly displace it in Cinderella and further supplant it in the story of Bridget Jones Diary.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Is This What Nature Is All About?
Walking Sunflower
Every day
corruption
left for interpretation
Smell of orange
perhaps
sunrays
Chilled
shifting
night overcomes
Grab a hold
you are about to be taken
on a bumpy ride
Deception
let your imagination do the walking
or talking
or creating
Hidden
hunger
yearning
Release the emotion
don’t run
sunflowers are inviting
Come home
Dear or Deer
I am waiting
Let go…
it is only a field
of burning bushes
Life
Birth gave you hope of a brand new day.
You didn’t quite understand what you would be expected to do
as mother, teacher and wife.
Applauds filled the room for the sweet baby girl. Precious sweet baby.
But what applauds did you get? You were overlooked as you helplessly
coddled this new life form.
You are no more a mother, teacher, or wife than the rushing rain
pounding the window pane. Or the west wind that brings with it a
lawn of tumble weeds.
All night you wonder.
Perfection. Close to the delicate petal of an untouched orchid
or the sweet smell of lilacs in full bloom.
A little slice of heaven.
Every day
corruption
left for interpretation
Smell of orange
perhaps
sunrays
Chilled
shifting
night overcomes
Grab a hold
you are about to be taken
on a bumpy ride
Deception
let your imagination do the walking
or talking
or creating
Hidden
hunger
yearning
Release the emotion
don’t run
sunflowers are inviting
Come home
Dear or Deer
I am waiting
Let go…
it is only a field
of burning bushes
Life
Birth gave you hope of a brand new day.
You didn’t quite understand what you would be expected to do
as mother, teacher and wife.
Applauds filled the room for the sweet baby girl. Precious sweet baby.
But what applauds did you get? You were overlooked as you helplessly
coddled this new life form.
You are no more a mother, teacher, or wife than the rushing rain
pounding the window pane. Or the west wind that brings with it a
lawn of tumble weeds.
All night you wonder.
Perfection. Close to the delicate petal of an untouched orchid
or the sweet smell of lilacs in full bloom.
A little slice of heaven.
Friday, April 6, 2007
What Am I Going To Do???
I am attempting to make sense of everything that is going on in my muddled head. How am I going to take the myth of Eros and Psyche and show how it has been displaced in the story of Cinderella and Bridget Jones Diary. Hmm? This is what I am thinking.
First, I want to look at the significance of the story itself and how it fits into the Mythos of Romance. (Frye)
Then I want to examine what happens to the story as it begins to become displaced directly in Cinderella.
Thirdly, what happens to the myth when it is taken one step further in Bridget Jones Diary. I will examine how Bridget Jones fits into Frye's Mythos of Irony
This is what I am exploring:
a. The relationship to these three stories is that all of the woman are "in love with love"
b. How are the symbols and elements replaced along the way?
c. I am going to argue that the mother figure is replaced with Bridget herself. Idea of the all encompassing female character of contemporary society. Bridget creates her own three tasks keeping her away from the "right" man.
d. I am also going to argue that Bridget Jones is told ironically because we live in an ironic world and not a romantic one.
e. In Hillman I am going to look at the shadow figure and how it relates to the interchangable characters in Bridget.
What happens to the original myth as it is displaced from a romantic story to an ironic one.
First, I want to look at the significance of the story itself and how it fits into the Mythos of Romance. (Frye)
Then I want to examine what happens to the story as it begins to become displaced directly in Cinderella.
Thirdly, what happens to the myth when it is taken one step further in Bridget Jones Diary. I will examine how Bridget Jones fits into Frye's Mythos of Irony
This is what I am exploring:
a. The relationship to these three stories is that all of the woman are "in love with love"
b. How are the symbols and elements replaced along the way?
c. I am going to argue that the mother figure is replaced with Bridget herself. Idea of the all encompassing female character of contemporary society. Bridget creates her own three tasks keeping her away from the "right" man.
d. I am also going to argue that Bridget Jones is told ironically because we live in an ironic world and not a romantic one.
e. In Hillman I am going to look at the shadow figure and how it relates to the interchangable characters in Bridget.
What happens to the original myth as it is displaced from a romantic story to an ironic one.
Monday, April 2, 2007
What is Contemporary
Contemporary poetry…what does that exactly mean? I am not even sure I could give you a working definition of contemporary and how it applies to literature/poetry. I know it deals with what is currently happening and everything that is going on at the time. But when is the cut-off? When is something no longer contemporary or current? When does it become “old” or outdated? Hmmm?
When I think of contemporary poetry I think of Billy Collins. We live in a society that believes the best approach to things is to lay it all out on the line. With all of the “isms” there really isn’t time to beat around the bush concerning your thoughts and feelings. There is no reason to dabble in falsified beauty when reality can create the beauty for us. This is how I see contemporary poetry.
Of course there are the poets (surrealists) who do not give the answer up front. They in turn give you some obscure idea and let you create the image. Although Billy Collins is quite different from these poets they do take on a similar approach. They take the idea of nature and realistic events/people and tell their story in as close of a depiction as possible.
Contemporary poetry doesn’t seem to romanticize ideas. Maybe that is why our current society is so messed up. We have forgotten about love…
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
And replaced it with Roy.
Roy could move a lot of sheep.
He moved them off the mountain
with his arms outstretched
at forty degree angles.
Roy never spoke.
He wore navy corduroys.
This annoyed some of the guys.
He walked like a foster child
stepping carefully
and sometime robotically.
The sheep respected this.
They kept their mouths shut
for once, and flowed down, down,
in a tight and docile band
over the uneven terrain,
because of Roy.
(Michael Earl Craig)
With this being said I personally think contemporary poetry is real. It can be touched and experienced-it is accessible. It can be heard and enjoyed. It is healing yet not sappy. It is obscure yet imaginative. It is our reality…the messed up junk of contemporary society.
Now looking at the poets for this week.
Mary Oliver, (I could not find the “Black Vietnam Vet”) represents her subject intertwined with nature. I am not quite sure how you discuss poetry with nature. I am sure there is some proper way.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
For hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
(“The Morning Poem” by Mary Oliver)
This poem struck me as fascinating. She connects the subject’s imagination to a winding trail with endless possibilities. All of her poems did this exact thing. Whether the subject is being related to wild geese or the earth it takes on the physical characteristics of nature.
Sylvia Platt takes on an entirely different approach to nature. Similar to Oliver her characters do become one with nature but in a very different way. They become nature in its darkest possible way.
I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cacklesProceed from your great lips.It's worse than a barnyard.
She makes no attempt to beautify the image but keeps it very real and visual; leaving no true need for interpretation. It is what it is.
I crawl like an ant in mourningOver the weedy acres of your brow
When I think of contemporary poetry I think of Billy Collins. We live in a society that believes the best approach to things is to lay it all out on the line. With all of the “isms” there really isn’t time to beat around the bush concerning your thoughts and feelings. There is no reason to dabble in falsified beauty when reality can create the beauty for us. This is how I see contemporary poetry.
Of course there are the poets (surrealists) who do not give the answer up front. They in turn give you some obscure idea and let you create the image. Although Billy Collins is quite different from these poets they do take on a similar approach. They take the idea of nature and realistic events/people and tell their story in as close of a depiction as possible.
Contemporary poetry doesn’t seem to romanticize ideas. Maybe that is why our current society is so messed up. We have forgotten about love…
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
And replaced it with Roy.
Roy could move a lot of sheep.
He moved them off the mountain
with his arms outstretched
at forty degree angles.
Roy never spoke.
He wore navy corduroys.
This annoyed some of the guys.
He walked like a foster child
stepping carefully
and sometime robotically.
The sheep respected this.
They kept their mouths shut
for once, and flowed down, down,
in a tight and docile band
over the uneven terrain,
because of Roy.
(Michael Earl Craig)
With this being said I personally think contemporary poetry is real. It can be touched and experienced-it is accessible. It can be heard and enjoyed. It is healing yet not sappy. It is obscure yet imaginative. It is our reality…the messed up junk of contemporary society.
Now looking at the poets for this week.
Mary Oliver, (I could not find the “Black Vietnam Vet”) represents her subject intertwined with nature. I am not quite sure how you discuss poetry with nature. I am sure there is some proper way.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
For hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
(“The Morning Poem” by Mary Oliver)
This poem struck me as fascinating. She connects the subject’s imagination to a winding trail with endless possibilities. All of her poems did this exact thing. Whether the subject is being related to wild geese or the earth it takes on the physical characteristics of nature.
Sylvia Platt takes on an entirely different approach to nature. Similar to Oliver her characters do become one with nature but in a very different way. They become nature in its darkest possible way.
I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cacklesProceed from your great lips.It's worse than a barnyard.
She makes no attempt to beautify the image but keeps it very real and visual; leaving no true need for interpretation. It is what it is.
I crawl like an ant in mourningOver the weedy acres of your brow
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Everything is Clear...
This weekend as I was sitting with Emma outside she asked me "mama, why is it raining?" I went on to give her this lengthy explanation of scientific hoopla. Deep down I had no idea why it was raining when the sun was out and the sky was blue. Why does this happen? If anyone knows please tell me. Anyways, she was completely satisfied with my answer and went on with playing in the sand box. This is when it hit me...it is obvious that she did not understand what I was telling her but she was OK with that. She wasn't about to waste quality playing time trying to understand everything I had just told her. And the bottom line was she wasn't bothered. She had more important things to do. It is amazing what children can teach us.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
A Dream is Merely an Onion
Dreams provide a valuable glimpse into the "unconscious." The classical psychoanalytic belief portrays the dream as consisting of two parts: The "manifest" dream and the "latent" dream. The "manifest" dream consists of what the dream appears to be about, the surface meaning. The "latent" dream is the "deeper," more disguised, meaning of the dream. A dream is thought of as an onion, with the "latent" dream consisting of multiple levels of meaning, usually having at the core, relevance to one's primary psychodynamic conflicts, emanating from early childhood.
Being
Oblivious, that could be one way to describe the couple sitting in the front seat. Did they realize they had passengers? And for that matter, children. Talking about their upcoming vacation. It must have been the cloud of smoke that separated the individuals. Or age? No connection. No conversation. Two totally different worlds trapped inside the capsule. Destined to go somewhere. Possibly together, but probably not. Flowers line the drive. Names forgotten. Left to dissolve. Memories of love. Happiness. Life. Outstretched eyes scan the scene. Searching for answers. What does this all mean? Life after death? Or death after life? Two worlds separated by blooming orchids and singing doves.
All she wanted…
She doesn’t ask for much.
Good-morning would be nice.
Or a cup of dark coffee
with a splash of cream.
A steaming hot shower.
A massage
by an exfoliating loofah.
Removing dead secrets.
The morning news tells the same tale.
Chance of sun
or rain
or snow
but most definently wind.
Did you know
that your head weighs the same as a bowling ball?
No wonder she grows tired.
Tired before her day even begins.
Someone,
anyone
would be nice.
She is not picky.
All American Girl.
Business woman by day.
Exotic dancer by night.
Who knew?
Hidden behind a mask
of painted red toe nails
and uncertainties
She doesn’t want much.
A cup of tea would be nice.
Good-night would be even better.
Oblivious, that could be one way to describe the couple sitting in the front seat. Did they realize they had passengers? And for that matter, children. Talking about their upcoming vacation. It must have been the cloud of smoke that separated the individuals. Or age? No connection. No conversation. Two totally different worlds trapped inside the capsule. Destined to go somewhere. Possibly together, but probably not. Flowers line the drive. Names forgotten. Left to dissolve. Memories of love. Happiness. Life. Outstretched eyes scan the scene. Searching for answers. What does this all mean? Life after death? Or death after life? Two worlds separated by blooming orchids and singing doves.
All she wanted…
She doesn’t ask for much.
Good-morning would be nice.
Or a cup of dark coffee
with a splash of cream.
A steaming hot shower.
A massage
by an exfoliating loofah.
Removing dead secrets.
The morning news tells the same tale.
Chance of sun
or rain
or snow
but most definently wind.
Did you know
that your head weighs the same as a bowling ball?
No wonder she grows tired.
Tired before her day even begins.
Someone,
anyone
would be nice.
She is not picky.
All American Girl.
Business woman by day.
Exotic dancer by night.
Who knew?
Hidden behind a mask
of painted red toe nails
and uncertainties
She doesn’t want much.
A cup of tea would be nice.
Good-night would be even better.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Eating in Your Dream
Food in a dream seems like a no brainer- the dreamer went to bed hungry. Who was I fooling when I thought it could be so easy. I am going to attempt to highlight the important details from Hillman, although I can make absolutely no sense of it all.
What is truly important to understand is the sacrificial atmosphere that transforms eating into a ritual for the psyche. Hades is the hidden host at the life banquet. These feasts open the way into the fellowship with the "dead person". These are usually family influences from the past. By sitting at the table with them we are feeding them and they are feeding us. This goes along with the idea that the psyche needs to be fed.
So what we eat is not food but images. When we drink a huge glass of orange juice we are actually taking in the sun and rebirth. A cup of tea represents the ritual for starting a new day. It all has to do with the psychic need to nourish images and has little to do with hunger.
Get it...Got it...
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sandra Alcosser
As I read Sandra Alcosser I had a difficult time enjoying her graphically hatred poetry. It is evident throughout that she has some form of built up anger towards men and their presence. I am going to take a leap here, but after talking to Melanie maybe I am not far off, but I think at one point she was raped as a child. Maybe by Artie…I am not exactly sure but the reference to her lover’s body “like water snakes, his sweat the odor of crawfish, boiled” (Pole Boat at Honey Island). She also makes reference to a farmer demonstrating how worms make love or in all reality was it two people?
Some days he’d rub two pegs together
Until they made a greasy hum
like rain, the sound of moles
gnawing the dirt’s grain, the song
soils sing before a quake,
and the red bodies would hang
above the ground in a kind of confusion
or ecstasy. They would writhe.
Her sexual reference is apparent throughout all of her poems. At times, in a disturbing way which leads me to believe that something detrimental happened to her. Possibly by the white-toothed Artie…although, why would she make it so obvious, we all no that is not the “way” of a poet. What is your interpretation of Artie? Am I the only corrupt mind in the room?
Artie
Among the claw-foot sofas, under the looming
mahogany of my grandparents’ living room,
the hoodlum and I played with flames-
while Grandmother slept under chicken feathers
and Grandfather snore in his separate bedroom
above my head. Strop, strop
Grandpa’s razor would bite its black strap.
His bumping hammer could flatten fenders.
Thank god he was deaf and drunk.
Smart ass punk, that’s what people called Artie,
weasel trash, this gypsy who rubbed against me
grating his pink lips into my braces.
Mrs. Molenda’s grandson came from the West Side
to clean her pigeon cages, and he became the rebel boy
of Dixie Highway for girls whose daddies owned
the gas station, the Dairy Queen, the bait and tackle.
Artie had the whites teeth and his dark Hungarian skin sheened
where I reached to stroke behind his waist and earlobes.
I was fourteen and months later found myself on hands and knees
scrubbing linoleum for the first time above a tavern on the West Side
hanging limp café curtains with hopeful rickrack snowballs,
for my friend Laurie, a shy, cracked-tooth towhead
who had the body of a boy, and for Artie and their baby-
who’d curl on their beaten mohair sofa cooing just like us.
This poem makes me think that her virginity was taken by this boy at the age of fourteen. It seems like the stereotypical teenage thing…boy comes to town sleeps with one girl and runs off with her best-friend. Huh?
Anyways, I could go on and on about her sexual reference but truly what is the point, it doesn’t help me to make sense of her poems.
One poem that I did like was “In the Jittering World” (20). I chose a short stanza to share with you. It doesn’t get much better than this…
In a world jittering with possibility,
how did I come to this sour basement
in a Southern city to grade rhetoric,
water dripping all day down drainpipes,
and at night for recreation,
to nurse a lizard? I love his sticky toe pads,
the way he rests
between death and life, leaf-veined, reflective.
Carefully he picks across the blue carpet, as if
it were a globe laid flat.
Perhaps we both are lost in our landscape,
woman and chameleon always changing to save our skin.
Some days he’d rub two pegs together
Until they made a greasy hum
like rain, the sound of moles
gnawing the dirt’s grain, the song
soils sing before a quake,
and the red bodies would hang
above the ground in a kind of confusion
or ecstasy. They would writhe.
Her sexual reference is apparent throughout all of her poems. At times, in a disturbing way which leads me to believe that something detrimental happened to her. Possibly by the white-toothed Artie…although, why would she make it so obvious, we all no that is not the “way” of a poet. What is your interpretation of Artie? Am I the only corrupt mind in the room?
Artie
Among the claw-foot sofas, under the looming
mahogany of my grandparents’ living room,
the hoodlum and I played with flames-
while Grandmother slept under chicken feathers
and Grandfather snore in his separate bedroom
above my head. Strop, strop
Grandpa’s razor would bite its black strap.
His bumping hammer could flatten fenders.
Thank god he was deaf and drunk.
Smart ass punk, that’s what people called Artie,
weasel trash, this gypsy who rubbed against me
grating his pink lips into my braces.
Mrs. Molenda’s grandson came from the West Side
to clean her pigeon cages, and he became the rebel boy
of Dixie Highway for girls whose daddies owned
the gas station, the Dairy Queen, the bait and tackle.
Artie had the whites teeth and his dark Hungarian skin sheened
where I reached to stroke behind his waist and earlobes.
I was fourteen and months later found myself on hands and knees
scrubbing linoleum for the first time above a tavern on the West Side
hanging limp café curtains with hopeful rickrack snowballs,
for my friend Laurie, a shy, cracked-tooth towhead
who had the body of a boy, and for Artie and their baby-
who’d curl on their beaten mohair sofa cooing just like us.
This poem makes me think that her virginity was taken by this boy at the age of fourteen. It seems like the stereotypical teenage thing…boy comes to town sleeps with one girl and runs off with her best-friend. Huh?
Anyways, I could go on and on about her sexual reference but truly what is the point, it doesn’t help me to make sense of her poems.
One poem that I did like was “In the Jittering World” (20). I chose a short stanza to share with you. It doesn’t get much better than this…
In a world jittering with possibility,
how did I come to this sour basement
in a Southern city to grade rhetoric,
water dripping all day down drainpipes,
and at night for recreation,
to nurse a lizard? I love his sticky toe pads,
the way he rests
between death and life, leaf-veined, reflective.
Carefully he picks across the blue carpet, as if
it were a globe laid flat.
Perhaps we both are lost in our landscape,
woman and chameleon always changing to save our skin.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Knowledge of a Child
Everyone Can Learn from My Daughter
Patience
It is a Sunday morning, not out of the ordinary, and my daughter Emma has decided that she would like to help me clean. Our house is very warm, so she wears only her panties and a loose camisole. I envy her for her cleaning attire. We begin the cleaning process in her bathroom. As I begin to spray the shower with cleaning product she insists that “I do self.” So, I let her even though I know I will have to add more cleaning product.
Our attention is then shifted to the bathroom sink that is covered in dried soap suds from the previous hand wash. Once again she sprays cleaning product and begins to wipe the inside of the sink with her wadded up piece of paper towel. I try to help her but she insists that “I do self.” So, I let her even though I know I will have to re-clean the sink.
She then heads to the toilet. I watch as she dumps toilet bowl cleaner into the bowl and all over the seat. At this point I become insistent on helping her. Once again she insists that “I do self.” I take a deep breath and with a stern voice I ask to help her. She lightly rubs my arm and says “mama, it’s ok, I do self.”
Forgiveness
It seems like some days I spend the majority of my time chasing after Emma. Unfortunately, it is not in a playful way and it ends with a few swats on the bottom or multiple times in the time-out chair. It usually comes from her doing things that I repeatedly ask her not to do. But sometimes it just comes from my lack of patience with her constant need to make a mess or get into things.
Sometimes I wonder what I must sound like to a two-year old. “Emma, don’t do that,” or “Emma, why are you making a mess.” I know I am interrupting multiple moments of growth and exploration as I stand over her and point my finger at all of the things that I think she is doing wrong.
Today, like the past five days, I attempted to stop her from climbing out of the rungs in the fence. “Emma if you climb through that fence one more time, you are spending the rest of the day inside.” She stretched her leg and contorted her body in order to fit through the rungs. She turned and looked at me knowing and understanding exactly what was going to happen.
I grabbed her by the arm and swatted her butt as I marched her to time-out. Her big blue eyes filled with tears as she pushed her red hair out of her view. She reached for my hand and pulled me down to her level. Her tiny arms wrapped around my neck as she whispered between sobs, “mama, hugs.”
It’s OK to Cry
Emma is almost two and a half, which is quite different from two and very different from three, and she cries daily. She cries when she gets hurt, when she is sad, tired, frustrated, doesn’t get her way, and sometimes just because she feels like it. I appreciate the fact that she can just let loose at the drop of a dime. It really doesn’t matter the occasion, where we may happen to be, or who we are presently around- if she feels like crying she does just that.
She has taken to the liking of self expression. She now realizes that there are many different forms of crying and each will bring a different reaction from the poor patron who must encounter the yelp. There is the loud cry of agony when she drops the book on her big toe or the soft whimper when her head is ready to hit the pillow. We must not forget the scream intermingled with the word “no” when she is not getting her way or the sniffling as she tugs at my pant leg wanting to be held. There is also the one that drops her to her knees as she pounds her fists into the ground in pure distress releasing the day’s bottled up energy.
Although all of these cries have become our daily rituals, the cry I truly appreciate the most is the one she does just because she can. It is amazing that at two and a half she understands how to manipulate her emotions in such a way that she can produce tears just because she feels like it. Nothing physically, or emotionally that I am aware of, has to occur for big crocodile tears to stream down her cheeks as she lets out a repetitious grunt from deep in her chest. It is a dramatic combination of a yelp and a whimper and usually lasts less than thirty seconds. But for as long as it does last, it demonstrates her power to control the emotions that we all yearn to release as adults.
Patience
It is a Sunday morning, not out of the ordinary, and my daughter Emma has decided that she would like to help me clean. Our house is very warm, so she wears only her panties and a loose camisole. I envy her for her cleaning attire. We begin the cleaning process in her bathroom. As I begin to spray the shower with cleaning product she insists that “I do self.” So, I let her even though I know I will have to add more cleaning product.
Our attention is then shifted to the bathroom sink that is covered in dried soap suds from the previous hand wash. Once again she sprays cleaning product and begins to wipe the inside of the sink with her wadded up piece of paper towel. I try to help her but she insists that “I do self.” So, I let her even though I know I will have to re-clean the sink.
She then heads to the toilet. I watch as she dumps toilet bowl cleaner into the bowl and all over the seat. At this point I become insistent on helping her. Once again she insists that “I do self.” I take a deep breath and with a stern voice I ask to help her. She lightly rubs my arm and says “mama, it’s ok, I do self.”
Forgiveness
It seems like some days I spend the majority of my time chasing after Emma. Unfortunately, it is not in a playful way and it ends with a few swats on the bottom or multiple times in the time-out chair. It usually comes from her doing things that I repeatedly ask her not to do. But sometimes it just comes from my lack of patience with her constant need to make a mess or get into things.
Sometimes I wonder what I must sound like to a two-year old. “Emma, don’t do that,” or “Emma, why are you making a mess.” I know I am interrupting multiple moments of growth and exploration as I stand over her and point my finger at all of the things that I think she is doing wrong.
Today, like the past five days, I attempted to stop her from climbing out of the rungs in the fence. “Emma if you climb through that fence one more time, you are spending the rest of the day inside.” She stretched her leg and contorted her body in order to fit through the rungs. She turned and looked at me knowing and understanding exactly what was going to happen.
I grabbed her by the arm and swatted her butt as I marched her to time-out. Her big blue eyes filled with tears as she pushed her red hair out of her view. She reached for my hand and pulled me down to her level. Her tiny arms wrapped around my neck as she whispered between sobs, “mama, hugs.”
It’s OK to Cry
Emma is almost two and a half, which is quite different from two and very different from three, and she cries daily. She cries when she gets hurt, when she is sad, tired, frustrated, doesn’t get her way, and sometimes just because she feels like it. I appreciate the fact that she can just let loose at the drop of a dime. It really doesn’t matter the occasion, where we may happen to be, or who we are presently around- if she feels like crying she does just that.
She has taken to the liking of self expression. She now realizes that there are many different forms of crying and each will bring a different reaction from the poor patron who must encounter the yelp. There is the loud cry of agony when she drops the book on her big toe or the soft whimper when her head is ready to hit the pillow. We must not forget the scream intermingled with the word “no” when she is not getting her way or the sniffling as she tugs at my pant leg wanting to be held. There is also the one that drops her to her knees as she pounds her fists into the ground in pure distress releasing the day’s bottled up energy.
Although all of these cries have become our daily rituals, the cry I truly appreciate the most is the one she does just because she can. It is amazing that at two and a half she understands how to manipulate her emotions in such a way that she can produce tears just because she feels like it. Nothing physically, or emotionally that I am aware of, has to occur for big crocodile tears to stream down her cheeks as she lets out a repetitious grunt from deep in her chest. It is a dramatic combination of a yelp and a whimper and usually lasts less than thirty seconds. But for as long as it does last, it demonstrates her power to control the emotions that we all yearn to release as adults.
Monday, March 5, 2007
The Dark Side of The Moon
Driving down the road
I notice a bump.
Is it a boulder?
Or a pot hole?
Or did I run over the next door neighbors orange tabby cat?
Or does it matter?
I have four-wheel drive and mud tires.
Bump.
I smell manure.
Did you step in it?
Or is it coming from your mouth?
You stinky slob.
Button down shirt
made of flannel
covers the bleeding heart
that is healing from last night’s wound.
You twisted and turned
until blood shot you in the eye and
forced you to regurgitate all the words
you had just said.
Poor,
Stupid,
You.
I sip the merlot
and smile,
as if I give a shit
about all of these people
who peruse my house.
They gorge themselves,
in chocolate, wine, and cheese
rubbing their stomachs.
What a disgusting breed.
I notice a bump.
Is it a boulder?
Or a pot hole?
Or did I run over the next door neighbors orange tabby cat?
Or does it matter?
I have four-wheel drive and mud tires.
Bump.
I smell manure.
Did you step in it?
Or is it coming from your mouth?
You stinky slob.
Button down shirt
made of flannel
covers the bleeding heart
that is healing from last night’s wound.
You twisted and turned
until blood shot you in the eye and
forced you to regurgitate all the words
you had just said.
Poor,
Stupid,
You.
I sip the merlot
and smile,
as if I give a shit
about all of these people
who peruse my house.
They gorge themselves,
in chocolate, wine, and cheese
rubbing their stomachs.
What a disgusting breed.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Valentine's Day
As I search for information on cupid, I am enlightened with tidbits on Valentine's Day...
The holiday probably derives from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalis (February 15), also called the Lupercalia. In an annual rite of fertility, eligible young men and women would be paired as couples through a town lottery. Briefly clad or naked men would then run through the town carrying the skins of newly sacrificed goats dipped in blood. The women of the town would present themselves to be gently slapped by the strips and marked by the blood to improve their chances of conceiving in the coming year.
"Valentine’s Day," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
There is Nothing Quite Like It.
Melanie, I think you are on to something here...
Sparagmos refers to an ancient Dionysian ritual in which a living animal--or sometimes even a human being--would be sacrificed by being dismembered, by the tearing apart of limbs from ones body. Sparagmos was frequently followed by omophagia (the eating of the raw flesh of the one dismembered).
Regurgitation is the controlled flow of stomach contents back into the esophagus and mouth.
Regurgitation is used by a number of species to feed their young. This is typically in circumstances where the young is at a fixed location and a parent must forage or hunt for food, especially under circumstances where the carriage of small prey would be subject to robbing by other predators or the whole prey is larger than can be carried to a den or nest. Some birds species also occasionally regurgitate pellets of indigestible matter such as bones and feathers.
Regurgitation is used by a number of species to feed their young. This is typically in circumstances where the young is at a fixed location and a parent must forage or hunt for food, especially under circumstances where the carriage of small prey would be subject to robbing by other predators or the whole prey is larger than can be carried to a den or nest. Some birds species also occasionally regurgitate pellets of indigestible matter such as bones and feathers.
In my understanding it appears that both are a form of feeding; they both are very ritualistic and feed the soul and mind its necessary "nutrients". That's all I got.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
One of Many Attempts to Understand
In his magnum opus, Re-Visioning Psychology, Hillman writes of "soul":
"By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment -- and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.
It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate -- an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence -- that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives on the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.
In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second, the significance of soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy -- that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical."
"By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment -- and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.
It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate -- an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence -- that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives on the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.
In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second, the significance of soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy -- that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical."
Monday, February 26, 2007
What's Going on in Their Head, These Surrealist Poets...
It’s been awhile since I’ve ridden a bike.
When men are idle they’ll hold a hand to their face.
Although I can honestly say I can only remotely grasp short phrases, or sometimes only words, within surrealist poetry it’s these few words that leave me questioning and wording. What the hell is going on??? Is it truly “normal” to refer to a bike, a beaver, and REO Speedwagon within 3 lines of a poem? Probably not, to the ordinary eye, but to the surrealist it seems the “odder” the poem or art piece the better. So as a reader, what do we do with Craig and other surrealist poets?
The part that gets me the most is the awkward twists that occur just about the time I am sucked into an idea. For instance in the poem April:
A scraping sound,
Like someone writing his name
in big letters
in the gravel with a Wiffle bat.
It’s the sound of my shoes
skidding over the ground
as I’m dragged by my armpits
in short bursts
from the Buick into the woods.
It all makes me think of
the shadow of a waterfall,
a description of a church,
the absence of metaphor.
These are my last thoughts
is what I’m thinking,
my cardigan ruined,
the Buick almost out of view.
This first section creates an image in my head of a mother dragging her naughty little boy out of church. He is dragging his heals because he knows what will come when he gets home. The mom bypasses the car and heads straight to the forest. Here we go---let the ride begin. In a few words, a vivid image is created of a shadow in a waterfall. Then Craig throws in a little twist with the absence of metaphor. So if metaphor is absence what does this do to the poem? Is everything he is saying literal? Is the character truly being dragged by his armpits into the woods? What does this all mean? Since the boy thinks these are his last thoughts, does he think he is being dragged to his death? Now that I am actually talking about the poem it appears to be the stereo-typical death or kidnapping of a child. At least, the portions that you hear on the news. As the poem continues…
She had said she wanted to hitch-hike
across the country wearing
a pair of cut-offs and a taco hat.
She had cupped my neck with her hand
and whispered this into my ear.
Now it appears to be an older character that is with his lover. What leads me to believe this is the way she cupped his neck with her hands and whispered in his ear. This seems to be very sensual. Although, I may be wrong. It just seems the way she wanted to hitch-hike in her cut-off shorts reminds me of a young couple going on an adventure across the country. Huh…
So why the shift and uncertainty? Of course it is intentional but it makes me crazy. I just want to understand.
When men are idle they’ll hold a hand to their face.
Although I can honestly say I can only remotely grasp short phrases, or sometimes only words, within surrealist poetry it’s these few words that leave me questioning and wording. What the hell is going on??? Is it truly “normal” to refer to a bike, a beaver, and REO Speedwagon within 3 lines of a poem? Probably not, to the ordinary eye, but to the surrealist it seems the “odder” the poem or art piece the better. So as a reader, what do we do with Craig and other surrealist poets?
The part that gets me the most is the awkward twists that occur just about the time I am sucked into an idea. For instance in the poem April:
A scraping sound,
Like someone writing his name
in big letters
in the gravel with a Wiffle bat.
It’s the sound of my shoes
skidding over the ground
as I’m dragged by my armpits
in short bursts
from the Buick into the woods.
It all makes me think of
the shadow of a waterfall,
a description of a church,
the absence of metaphor.
These are my last thoughts
is what I’m thinking,
my cardigan ruined,
the Buick almost out of view.
This first section creates an image in my head of a mother dragging her naughty little boy out of church. He is dragging his heals because he knows what will come when he gets home. The mom bypasses the car and heads straight to the forest. Here we go---let the ride begin. In a few words, a vivid image is created of a shadow in a waterfall. Then Craig throws in a little twist with the absence of metaphor. So if metaphor is absence what does this do to the poem? Is everything he is saying literal? Is the character truly being dragged by his armpits into the woods? What does this all mean? Since the boy thinks these are his last thoughts, does he think he is being dragged to his death? Now that I am actually talking about the poem it appears to be the stereo-typical death or kidnapping of a child. At least, the portions that you hear on the news. As the poem continues…
She had said she wanted to hitch-hike
across the country wearing
a pair of cut-offs and a taco hat.
She had cupped my neck with her hand
and whispered this into my ear.
Now it appears to be an older character that is with his lover. What leads me to believe this is the way she cupped his neck with her hands and whispered in his ear. This seems to be very sensual. Although, I may be wrong. It just seems the way she wanted to hitch-hike in her cut-off shorts reminds me of a young couple going on an adventure across the country. Huh…
So why the shift and uncertainty? Of course it is intentional but it makes me crazy. I just want to understand.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Surrealist Poetry
I crave your mouth... by Pablo Neruda
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
Call and Answer by Robert Bly
Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days
And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed
The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?
I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense
Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out!
See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!”
We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.
Have we agreed to so many wars that we can’t
Escape from silence? If we don’t lift our voices, we allow
Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.
How come we’ve listened to the great criers—Neruda,
Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass—and now
We’re silent as sparrows in the little bushes?
Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.
Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet?
Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
Call and Answer by Robert Bly
Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days
And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed
The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?
I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense
Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out!
See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!”
We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.
Have we agreed to so many wars that we can’t
Escape from silence? If we don’t lift our voices, we allow
Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.
How come we’ve listened to the great criers—Neruda,
Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass—and now
We’re silent as sparrows in the little bushes?
Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.
Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet?
Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.
Surrealism[1] is a cultural, social and political movement asserting that liberation of the human mind, and subsequent liberation of the individual and society, can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind" to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately "truer" than, everyday reality. Surrealists believe that this more truthful reality can bring about personal, cultural, and social revolution, and a life of freedom, poetry, and uninhibited sexuality.
-Wikipedia
Monday, February 19, 2007
What Might You Find in the Shed of a Gardener?
Why--you may ask when you look at the plethora of tools,
hanging on individual hooks lining the wall,
many unused, never to be used by the muddy hands of the gardener.
Some have been gifts, or others I picked up—
maybe at the garage sale down the street, or a fellow gardener
was willing to part. Perhaps I found it in the garden I claimed to be mine.
Others came with meaning. The rusty blades of a hard used tool
that came with sweat stained handles. My grandfather’s hands—
so many memories, I find it odd why I was so lucky to be holding his tools.
My hand fit the grooves that had long since been empty. I rubbed
the handles that lined the wall of the gardening shed and realized—
although, some handles had never been used and others were worn
a story could be told and would be told-
in the shed of a gardener.
I Must Admit, I Wanted To Be Sandy
and have Danny
boy from the beach,
all to myself
love at first sight,
for the secret bird
never expected to meet again
the man with the smooth skin
and letter-man’s sweater
soft voice
and gentle kiss
blessed with virginity
wholesome and pure
gone bad
a member of the ladies
Pink to be exact
tough
untouchable
and bad
the man from Rydell High
snap of his finger
sly dimpled smile
the tilt of his head
in my direction:
Come on Sandy, let’s dance.
Why--you may ask when you look at the plethora of tools,
hanging on individual hooks lining the wall,
many unused, never to be used by the muddy hands of the gardener.
Some have been gifts, or others I picked up—
maybe at the garage sale down the street, or a fellow gardener
was willing to part. Perhaps I found it in the garden I claimed to be mine.
Others came with meaning. The rusty blades of a hard used tool
that came with sweat stained handles. My grandfather’s hands—
so many memories, I find it odd why I was so lucky to be holding his tools.
My hand fit the grooves that had long since been empty. I rubbed
the handles that lined the wall of the gardening shed and realized—
although, some handles had never been used and others were worn
a story could be told and would be told-
in the shed of a gardener.
I Must Admit, I Wanted To Be Sandy
and have Danny
boy from the beach,
all to myself
love at first sight,
for the secret bird
never expected to meet again
the man with the smooth skin
and letter-man’s sweater
soft voice
and gentle kiss
blessed with virginity
wholesome and pure
gone bad
a member of the ladies
Pink to be exact
tough
untouchable
and bad
the man from Rydell High
snap of his finger
sly dimpled smile
the tilt of his head
in my direction:
Come on Sandy, let’s dance.
The Cupid
During the last class, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the idea of the innocent baby and the cupid, or Valentine’s Day. The connections between romantic imagery or the analogy of innocence and the Amor and Psyche story or the cupid seem to provide a very fruitful paper topic. I am looking forward to “diving” into this idea. Any suggestions are welcome.
Death Upon Me
It all began with my husband (Brent) and me planning a camping trip with friends. (For the sake of this dream, I am going to consider them as friends seeing we carried on conversations as if we knew each other from way back, even though I could not place the faces.) We were gathering all of the necessary supplies in our dark basement. I distinctly remember the shag brown and green carpet and the dust smell that lingered in the air. The basement contained no windows so the only light was a fluorescent bulb that made an obnoxious buzz. The smoke was so thick that we had to push our hands to create a pathway through the basement to the stairs. We had an abundance of bags; it seemed, to go on a one-night camping trip to a cabin.
Shift in location…
There was a group of people sitting around the camp fire on the same shag carpet that was in the basement of the house. I couldn’t make out the faces of the people and it almost seemed as if we were being guarded. I can remember the large man that played the bongo drum in the corner of the circle. Some people were dancing and others were talking in a hushed voice. (Which at the time seemed odd seeing the drum was very difficult to block out). I was an outsider looking on. My husband was no longer present.
Time passed…
With no warning a man went into convulsions on the ground. The drumming got louder and the intensity of the scene made my stomach hurt. I was crying for help but few people even noticed what was happening. I was holding the man’s head as he began to pass out or die. I am not sure what was really going on.
Shift in location…
Now I am lying quietly underneath a cedar deck peering through the cracks at the men I previously though were guarding the group. They were talking about the pills that I slipped into everyone’s drinks. They planned to do worse then simply kill me, when they located me. The men paced the deck planning my torture, until I woke up.
Shift in location…
There was a group of people sitting around the camp fire on the same shag carpet that was in the basement of the house. I couldn’t make out the faces of the people and it almost seemed as if we were being guarded. I can remember the large man that played the bongo drum in the corner of the circle. Some people were dancing and others were talking in a hushed voice. (Which at the time seemed odd seeing the drum was very difficult to block out). I was an outsider looking on. My husband was no longer present.
Time passed…
With no warning a man went into convulsions on the ground. The drumming got louder and the intensity of the scene made my stomach hurt. I was crying for help but few people even noticed what was happening. I was holding the man’s head as he began to pass out or die. I am not sure what was really going on.
Shift in location…
Now I am lying quietly underneath a cedar deck peering through the cracks at the men I previously though were guarding the group. They were talking about the pills that I slipped into everyone’s drinks. They planned to do worse then simply kill me, when they located me. The men paced the deck planning my torture, until I woke up.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
FRAGMENT 88
(quoted in pseudo-Plutarch, Consolation to Apollo )
(quoted in pseudo-Plutarch, Consolation to Apollo )
"As a single, unified thing there exists in us both life and death, waking and sleeping, youth and old age, because the former things having changed are now the latter, and when those latter things change, they become the former." Heraclitus
It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.
Heraclitus, On the Universe
Heraclitus, On the Universe
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Painful Smoke
Why am I dreaming about death? It's exhausting and almost as bad as dreaming about typing on my blog. Last night I dreamt that I was holding my grandmother's hand as she faded in and out of "death state". My stomach and chest burned almost as if I had the cancer. Maybe I did. Her cigarette burned on her bedside table. A cloud of thick, intoxicating smoke filled the room. Although she was not "alive" she continually pressed her morphine drip button. She was not in pain. I was the one suffering, crying uncontrollably, as I held the hand of my dying grandmother.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Poem from Valparaiso Poetry Review
SMALL GIRL IN A GIFT SHOP
The nested boxes fascinate her most,
Each with an elephant carved on its curved lid.
She stacks them in a teetering pyramid
A time or two, but soon becomes engrossed
In putting the scattered pieces as they were:
A puzzle whose solution seems to mean
Not everything that matters can be seen.
Her mother calls, and like a conjuror
She turns and rises, flourishing with pleasure
The finished puzzle, cunningly compact,
In whose dark center, shapely as a fact,
There might or might not lie some tiny treasure.
© by Catherine Tufariello
The nested boxes fascinate her most,
Each with an elephant carved on its curved lid.
She stacks them in a teetering pyramid
A time or two, but soon becomes engrossed
In putting the scattered pieces as they were:
A puzzle whose solution seems to mean
Not everything that matters can be seen.
Her mother calls, and like a conjuror
She turns and rises, flourishing with pleasure
The finished puzzle, cunningly compact,
In whose dark center, shapely as a fact,
There might or might not lie some tiny treasure.
© by Catherine Tufariello
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Cheers to Death
Why is it that dreams contain a key into the past that your waking life has some how forgotten? I choose to "forget" certain parts of my life so that I can move on and make peace with my current situations. These are the events that have a tendencay to creep back into my life when I least expect it. Why is this? Now that you have a precurser here it goes... Death takes on an odd role in my dreams. I am always greatly impacted by the death of someone close while the rest of the world continues to go on leaving me crying a silent tear.
Basically, I was hanging out with my friend Marli and Paula in a living room with brown shag carpet and dark wood panelling on the wall. The phone rang and I picked it up with out thinking. "Kacie, it was an accident," was the reply on the other end of the phone. "He's dead, his grandmother ran a red light in downtown Denver." I fell to the floor and sobbed in such a way that my stomach hurt. I looked around and noticed that my friends were still chatting and continuing pouring themselves lava flows. Did they not see me on the ground rolling around sobbing? I continued this behavior for what seemed like a great deal of time. As if nothing happened, I jumped up and toasted Marli and took a long sweet sip of a lava flow and began to laugh.
Basically, I was hanging out with my friend Marli and Paula in a living room with brown shag carpet and dark wood panelling on the wall. The phone rang and I picked it up with out thinking. "Kacie, it was an accident," was the reply on the other end of the phone. "He's dead, his grandmother ran a red light in downtown Denver." I fell to the floor and sobbed in such a way that my stomach hurt. I looked around and noticed that my friends were still chatting and continuing pouring themselves lava flows. Did they not see me on the ground rolling around sobbing? I continued this behavior for what seemed like a great deal of time. As if nothing happened, I jumped up and toasted Marli and took a long sweet sip of a lava flow and began to laugh.
Monday, February 5, 2007
A man with a story
As I glance across
the oblong table,
I know
you have something,
something to tell.
Will it be a story about the many miles you hiked?
Or about the absurd job the president is doing.
Will you tell me about the time you met your beloved?
Or when you left home to be a hero.
I can see it,
it’s in your tender eyes.
There is little doubt of where you have been.
The creases under your eyes
tell of family,
and the dirt under your nails,
tells of hard work.
The laughter in your voice
tells of happiness,
and the gentleness in your touch
tells of love.
You are a man of many,
a bearer of substance,
a man of wonder,
filling the space that otherwise would remain empty.
Don’t worry.
Don’t think your stories
will go untold.
Today is my turn,
woman with a story.
the oblong table,
I know
you have something,
something to tell.
Will it be a story about the many miles you hiked?
Or about the absurd job the president is doing.
Will you tell me about the time you met your beloved?
Or when you left home to be a hero.
I can see it,
it’s in your tender eyes.
There is little doubt of where you have been.
The creases under your eyes
tell of family,
and the dirt under your nails,
tells of hard work.
The laughter in your voice
tells of happiness,
and the gentleness in your touch
tells of love.
You are a man of many,
a bearer of substance,
a man of wonder,
filling the space that otherwise would remain empty.
Don’t worry.
Don’t think your stories
will go untold.
Today is my turn,
woman with a story.
Mama, where's the moon?
You ask,
in your persistent voice,
never missing a beat.
The questions
of when,
why,
and where
or perhaps,
how come.
What it must be like.
You aren’t entirely sure,
what it all means.
Or does it really matter?
Maybe through questioning,
or searching,
you will find reason
and begin to understand.
Or not.
You trail off
in tune,
humming the beat
to the infamous song on the radio
The song will continue to fill the air
until
you get bored.
You glance in my direction,
with knowing eyes
and ask
Mama, where’s the moon?
Before I can answer,
you let me know
it is hiding
and it will be back tomorrow.
in your persistent voice,
never missing a beat.
The questions
of when,
why,
and where
or perhaps,
how come.
What it must be like.
You aren’t entirely sure,
what it all means.
Or does it really matter?
Maybe through questioning,
or searching,
you will find reason
and begin to understand.
Or not.
You trail off
in tune,
humming the beat
to the infamous song on the radio
The song will continue to fill the air
until
you get bored.
You glance in my direction,
with knowing eyes
and ask
Mama, where’s the moon?
Before I can answer,
you let me know
it is hiding
and it will be back tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A Dreamer's Dream...
A Maze of Creepy Faces
It went something like this… I’m not quite sure exactly what the place was or how I ended up there, but my mom and I entered a room filled with a trampoline and balls. It was similar to one of the blow up castles that you see at children’s birthdays. I entered with reluctance. My mom on the other hand dove right in doing a “butt-sit”. We butt-sit our way across the room until we landed on a piece of vibrant red carpet.
We walked through the tall door-way into a room filled with a cathedral ceiling and the most elaborate chandelier. At times the reflection of the light and glass made the room so bright that I had to shield my eyes from the glare. People were running, dancing, talking, and laughing all around. It appeared to be straight out of Las Vegas with the slot machines being replaced by doors. I once again entered the room with reluctance. My mom she headed straight to her door of choice and waved good-bye. It wasn’t really a wave but a hand raise and a smile.
I on the other hand observed the rooms closely and picked the room that said “babies”. I entered into a long skinny hall with yet more doors. I chose the one closest to me. I was beginning to get nervous and anxious and I felt like I needed to hide. Once inside the room the twenty foot ceilings were lined with Cabbage Patch dolls. They were everywhere. Boys, girls, twins, black ones, blue ones, you name it they were there. The difference was in the smile. They all looked down on me standing in the middle of the room with their own identifiable smirk. I turned a circle meeting each of their expressions and jolted myself out of sleep.
It went something like this… I’m not quite sure exactly what the place was or how I ended up there, but my mom and I entered a room filled with a trampoline and balls. It was similar to one of the blow up castles that you see at children’s birthdays. I entered with reluctance. My mom on the other hand dove right in doing a “butt-sit”. We butt-sit our way across the room until we landed on a piece of vibrant red carpet.
We walked through the tall door-way into a room filled with a cathedral ceiling and the most elaborate chandelier. At times the reflection of the light and glass made the room so bright that I had to shield my eyes from the glare. People were running, dancing, talking, and laughing all around. It appeared to be straight out of Las Vegas with the slot machines being replaced by doors. I once again entered the room with reluctance. My mom she headed straight to her door of choice and waved good-bye. It wasn’t really a wave but a hand raise and a smile.
I on the other hand observed the rooms closely and picked the room that said “babies”. I entered into a long skinny hall with yet more doors. I chose the one closest to me. I was beginning to get nervous and anxious and I felt like I needed to hide. Once inside the room the twenty foot ceilings were lined with Cabbage Patch dolls. They were everywhere. Boys, girls, twins, black ones, blue ones, you name it they were there. The difference was in the smile. They all looked down on me standing in the middle of the room with their own identifiable smirk. I turned a circle meeting each of their expressions and jolted myself out of sleep.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Removal of the Fairy
Man and Woman- Together In Partnership
When Harry met Sally he spent a great deal of time confessing his love and commitment to her. Over time he encouraged her to move in with him and share the duties of the house. Harry suggested to Sally that they should put some money away in a savings account so that they could ensure their retirement. He also suggested that Sally take out a five-hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy just in case she tripped and accidentally fell out of the window while she was scrubbing cob webs. Sally agreed and headed to the local bank. That night Harry made it quite clear that neither of them would touch the money, unless of course they were in dire need.
On September 30th Harry woke up and told Sally that he needed to use some of the money for his godson Rich’s college fund and promised to repay the amount that he took out. Deep down Harry was craving the new Rolex watch that his buddy Tom had shown him in the local jewelry store window. Sally encouraged Harry to give as much money as needed feeling confident that he would pay the money back. Harry went straight to the bank and took out half of their savings. As he was heading to the jewelry store he quickly placed his wedding ring in his pocket and walked into the store.
Once inside he noticed a beautiful blond standing behind the counter. He quickly introduced himself and one thing led to another. Harry and his new found mistress spent the day on the beach starring at the matching Rolex watches that reflected the sun. It wasn’t until dinner time that Harry made his way home.
Harry was greeted at the door by the smell of turkey and dumplings and Sally’s smiling face.
“Hi hon, it looks like you had a wonderful day.”
“It went ok,” Harry replied.
“Did Rich like the college fund you set up for him?”
“Oh yes, of course”
Sally could tell that Harry was not in the mood for talking so she let the conversation die. He insisted on needing a shower before dinner and would be back soon.
The next morning Harry woke up and once again needed to see his blond-haired beauty. He told Sally that he needed to be a good godfather again and buy Demi his first car. Sally expressed to Harry how happy she was to have such a special man in his life and suggested he use some of their retirement savings to do so. Harry kissed Sally on the forehead and headed to the bank. He once again removed a significant amount of the savings and used his trusty American Express to take his mistress to the local spa where they enjoyed each others company.
Harry returned at dinner time and once again took a shower and briefly discussed the day’s events with Sally.
That evening Harry could not get his blond mistress out of his head. He had to see her once again. When he awoke Harry told Sally that he needed to give his third godson Demise a down-payment on his house. Sally was beginning to wonder why her husband all of a sudden felt this dire need to help his godsons. Harry assured her that everything was alright and he would pay the money back. He expressed to Sally that they were blessed to have three great godsons, because everyone knew great things came in threes, and he couldn't possibly help one and not the others. With reluctance, she suggested that he use their savings account and credit cards to come up with the money.
Once again Sally cleaned house, mowed the lawn, and took out the trash while Harry was off at a bed and breakfast with his mistress. He had such a relaxing day that once again he did not return home until dinner. When Harry returned, Sally asked him how Demise liked the down-payment for his house. Harry stuttered and said “umm…it was fine,” and headed to the shower. Sally was shocked that someone who just received twenty thousand dollars could only find it to be “fine”. Sally needed time to think it through and headed to bed leaving Harry alone to eat his dinner.
A month passed and Harry knew that Sally was on to him. Sally suggested that they go to the bank and remove some of their savings to go on a vacation to Mexico. Harry told Sally that there would be no way for him to get away from work so she did not need to bother. Sally decided to call the bank and find out how much money they had in the account and how much interest they had acquired. She was shocked to find out that their account was empty and their credit cards were tapped out.
When Harry arrived home that night Sally immediately confronted him. “How could you deplete our savings and rack up our credit cards?” They spent the next two hours screaming, throwing, and breaking numerous items in the house. Sally kept questioning and finally Harry had had all he could take. If you say one more word it will be the death of you. Sally was already in mid sentence as her body tumbled into the rose bush. Harry wiped his eye brow and said, “this is the way of the world, thank goodness for life insurance.”
The next morning the local newspaper reported that Sally, wife of Harry, had tripped on a ladder cleaning spider webs and fell to her death from a second story window. No further investigation will occur.
When Harry met Sally he spent a great deal of time confessing his love and commitment to her. Over time he encouraged her to move in with him and share the duties of the house. Harry suggested to Sally that they should put some money away in a savings account so that they could ensure their retirement. He also suggested that Sally take out a five-hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy just in case she tripped and accidentally fell out of the window while she was scrubbing cob webs. Sally agreed and headed to the local bank. That night Harry made it quite clear that neither of them would touch the money, unless of course they were in dire need.
On September 30th Harry woke up and told Sally that he needed to use some of the money for his godson Rich’s college fund and promised to repay the amount that he took out. Deep down Harry was craving the new Rolex watch that his buddy Tom had shown him in the local jewelry store window. Sally encouraged Harry to give as much money as needed feeling confident that he would pay the money back. Harry went straight to the bank and took out half of their savings. As he was heading to the jewelry store he quickly placed his wedding ring in his pocket and walked into the store.
Once inside he noticed a beautiful blond standing behind the counter. He quickly introduced himself and one thing led to another. Harry and his new found mistress spent the day on the beach starring at the matching Rolex watches that reflected the sun. It wasn’t until dinner time that Harry made his way home.
Harry was greeted at the door by the smell of turkey and dumplings and Sally’s smiling face.
“Hi hon, it looks like you had a wonderful day.”
“It went ok,” Harry replied.
“Did Rich like the college fund you set up for him?”
“Oh yes, of course”
Sally could tell that Harry was not in the mood for talking so she let the conversation die. He insisted on needing a shower before dinner and would be back soon.
The next morning Harry woke up and once again needed to see his blond-haired beauty. He told Sally that he needed to be a good godfather again and buy Demi his first car. Sally expressed to Harry how happy she was to have such a special man in his life and suggested he use some of their retirement savings to do so. Harry kissed Sally on the forehead and headed to the bank. He once again removed a significant amount of the savings and used his trusty American Express to take his mistress to the local spa where they enjoyed each others company.
Harry returned at dinner time and once again took a shower and briefly discussed the day’s events with Sally.
That evening Harry could not get his blond mistress out of his head. He had to see her once again. When he awoke Harry told Sally that he needed to give his third godson Demise a down-payment on his house. Sally was beginning to wonder why her husband all of a sudden felt this dire need to help his godsons. Harry assured her that everything was alright and he would pay the money back. He expressed to Sally that they were blessed to have three great godsons, because everyone knew great things came in threes, and he couldn't possibly help one and not the others. With reluctance, she suggested that he use their savings account and credit cards to come up with the money.
Once again Sally cleaned house, mowed the lawn, and took out the trash while Harry was off at a bed and breakfast with his mistress. He had such a relaxing day that once again he did not return home until dinner. When Harry returned, Sally asked him how Demise liked the down-payment for his house. Harry stuttered and said “umm…it was fine,” and headed to the shower. Sally was shocked that someone who just received twenty thousand dollars could only find it to be “fine”. Sally needed time to think it through and headed to bed leaving Harry alone to eat his dinner.
A month passed and Harry knew that Sally was on to him. Sally suggested that they go to the bank and remove some of their savings to go on a vacation to Mexico. Harry told Sally that there would be no way for him to get away from work so she did not need to bother. Sally decided to call the bank and find out how much money they had in the account and how much interest they had acquired. She was shocked to find out that their account was empty and their credit cards were tapped out.
When Harry arrived home that night Sally immediately confronted him. “How could you deplete our savings and rack up our credit cards?” They spent the next two hours screaming, throwing, and breaking numerous items in the house. Sally kept questioning and finally Harry had had all he could take. If you say one more word it will be the death of you. Sally was already in mid sentence as her body tumbled into the rose bush. Harry wiped his eye brow and said, “this is the way of the world, thank goodness for life insurance.”
The next morning the local newspaper reported that Sally, wife of Harry, had tripped on a ladder cleaning spider webs and fell to her death from a second story window. No further investigation will occur.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Dream a little dream... if it could only be so simple.
I like my dreams and I especially like that they are MINE. So naturally, you can imagine my reluctance to sharing my personal unconscious to 12 other classmates and the rest of the WORLD. But hey, what the heck, maybe it will end up being fruitful, cheap therapy for a mind that never has time to relax.
My nights consist of a multitude of dreams (I am envious of the people that are only disturbed once a night). Some are exhausting, confusing, disturbing, and rarely happy. I have never really thought about my dreams. They have always occurred in the same manner with me waking up, feeling somewhat disturbed, blinking multiple times to ensure that I am awake, jumping out of bed and continuing on with my crazy life. I guess I just assumed that the uncertainty of my dreams was part of why I enjoyed that realm of my personal life. It's personal...and I never know what part of my life I will revisit or what new story will be created when my head hits the pillow in sure exhaustion.
I am concerned for the people who evaluate dreams, maybe I should be concerned for myself this semester. I just can't help but wonder if this "other life" could in some way become disturbed if we spend too much time muddling through the uncertainty. I can't help but wonder if I truly examine why I continually dream about being lost, or in a maze, will it reveal some psychological problem that exists and end up sending me to a place I would rather not go (possibly a padded room). I already know I have issues- what person doesn't. My dreams are the place that my mental illnesses can surface without be disturbed, evaluated, and ridiculed.
Enough said...
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
I like my dreams and I especially like that they are MINE. So naturally, you can imagine my reluctance to sharing my personal unconscious to 12 other classmates and the rest of the WORLD. But hey, what the heck, maybe it will end up being fruitful, cheap therapy for a mind that never has time to relax.
My nights consist of a multitude of dreams (I am envious of the people that are only disturbed once a night). Some are exhausting, confusing, disturbing, and rarely happy. I have never really thought about my dreams. They have always occurred in the same manner with me waking up, feeling somewhat disturbed, blinking multiple times to ensure that I am awake, jumping out of bed and continuing on with my crazy life. I guess I just assumed that the uncertainty of my dreams was part of why I enjoyed that realm of my personal life. It's personal...and I never know what part of my life I will revisit or what new story will be created when my head hits the pillow in sure exhaustion.
I am concerned for the people who evaluate dreams, maybe I should be concerned for myself this semester. I just can't help but wonder if this "other life" could in some way become disturbed if we spend too much time muddling through the uncertainty. I can't help but wonder if I truly examine why I continually dream about being lost, or in a maze, will it reveal some psychological problem that exists and end up sending me to a place I would rather not go (possibly a padded room). I already know I have issues- what person doesn't. My dreams are the place that my mental illnesses can surface without be disturbed, evaluated, and ridiculed.
Enough said...
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
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