Strawberry Short Cake with Candles

Hot as hell, hell on the front pages of all the newspapers, hellish day at work with computers gone beserk...hell hell hell. Happy birthday Sonny! Hope it is cool and verdant whereever you are...with excellent golf courses. Miss you.

FOR SONNY

I watched my father die
And it was gentle;
A simple cessation of breath
After so much suffering.
I grieve for my loss
But not for him.
He is in some celestial pool hall
In eternal Brooklyn
With a full head of hair
And a sharp suit.
Later he will grab a cab
To Manhattan to see Sinatra
And dance at the Copa.
Dawn will find him
On a bridge
Tossing coins into the mythical Hudson.
One for Jack, to keep him safe;
One for Kate, "Be content baby";
And one for Matthew, "Stay warm."
Then he lifts off for Japan
After the war.
The sun glints off guardian wings.

M.J. Tenerelli

Hot

Will this summer never end? I dream of ice cold lakes to plunge into, central air, seeing my breath on a winter morning. Where is the arctic wind?

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

by Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Happy in the House

Lazy Sunday. Kate's best friend Christine slept over and after a late breakfast of biscuits and bacon all three kids are busy on the game cube. Last night was a bachanalia of candy and cupcakes and Nanny McPhee on pay-per-view. The house is relatively clean and the kids are happy so a kind of peace reigns. My bathroom was flooded after a round of wash all of Kate's dolls in the sink, and I am curiously unconcerned. God bless Lexapro. Applied yesterday for what seems like an extremely cool writing/research job in nearby Port Jefferson. Place does "computer forensics" to track down hackers and security breaches. Everybody keep their fingers crossed, and Jr. please conduct some wiccan spells and ceremonies! What a happy day when I find a job that pays all the bills (and doesn't require a costume).

Te Deum
by Charles Reznikoff


Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.

Not for victory
but for the day's work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.

Hello world...it is finally cool enough to sit in this room and type. And my keyboard which spent a good part of the week inoperable is suddenly working again. Glorious Friday, looking forward to napping on the couch before feeding babes. My friend Frank got through his surgery fine, I was happy to find out last night. My car died and I had to WALK home from work twice before it was fixed. It is about a 45 minute walk...walking in this town is looked on with much surprise by most of its denizens because EVERYONE drives. It was a lovely exercise in embarassment, dressed in my idiot Kiddy Academy outfit, walking along busy roads with no sidewalks. Thank god that nightmare is over now. Must go lay down...old and tired...can't think of a poem to add...google Frank Simone and read his poetry. He rocks...

Two Cool Blogs

I was at this blog: http://the-flight-of-the-grievous-angel.blogspot.com/, which I got to from http://bloggsend.blogspot.com/, and found the words to a Dylan song that eerily seems to have been written very recently. Both blogs are really interesting and funny. Below are the lyrics to the Dylan song. Thanks for the idea Grievous Angel!

Eve of Destruction
by Bob Dylan

The eastern world it is explodin',
Violence flarin', bullets loadin',
You're old enough to kill but not for votin',
You don't believe in war, what's that gun you're totin',
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin',
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you feel the fears that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away,
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave,
Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin',
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of Senators don't pass legislation,
And marches alone can't bring integration,
When human respect is disintegratin',
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin',
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
But when your return, it's the same old place,
The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
Hate your next-door-neighbour, but don't forget to say grace,
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.
you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Another Saturday in July

I have just burnt my breakfast, which I ate anyway, and plan to spend the rest of the day writing. I almost had chocolate chip cookies and milk for breakfast, so I consider burnt sausage and black eggs a healthy choice.
The happenings in Lebanon/Israel are scaring the hell out of me. Jr. and I both fear "the end of days," as confirmed by our phone conversation this a.m. In Jr.'s case, I think the killer pit bulls who live across the street from her will get her before a terrorist attack does. She has been feeding them by shoving dog food, a plastic forkful at a time, under the fence of the chop shop they patrol. Seems the dogs go weeks on end without food or care and so the neighbors (i.e. Weezer and her friend Rich) are giving the dogs food. The dogs are vicious and try to snap off jr.'s hand when she feeds them...a UPS man today found her a stick to shove the food under the fence with, so now she feels safer.
My kids are with their useless father this weekend and I'm listening to Live365.com. The station I have on is called "Siren Songs." Perfect Joni Mitchell type music to listen to while working. Later I have a poem to work on...most of it got jotted down in a whirl yesterday, and I need an ending now and to do a little editing. "Blood will out" to paraphrase Robert Frost.

A PRAYER FOR ANIMALS

Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our
friends the animals,
especially for animals who are suffering;
for any that are hunted or lost or
deserted or frightened or hungry;
for all that must be put to death.

We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity,
and for those who deal with them we ask a
heart of compassion and gentle hands and
kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true
friends to animals and so to share the blessings
of the merciful.


Albert Schweitzer

No More Teachers...

Today is a very good day. Jack graduated summer school; my article on nutraceuticals is coming along nicely; and Valerie Plame is suing Dick Cheney!
I went to the school for a teacher conference today and the very sweet teacher said Jack had pretty much aced the test she gave the kids to determine trouble spots. Her exact words were, "As much as I'd love to keep him, he doesn't belong here." Jack's teacher from Gifted/Talented is running the summer school program and lectured Jack on always putting his best foot forward in class so he doesn't end up in Summer school again. We were leaving the school when we ran in to her, and Jack was actually contrite and quick to agree with her. Hope the lesson follows him into Jr. High in September.
A cosmetic company I can't name here has been avoiding me like the plague re: their beauty supplements line which I have deduced they have just killed. TODAY, finally, one day before deadline, they have gotten back to me with a statement. This amounts to a "scoop" in the world of trade mags and I am delighted! This info is no place on the net yet. I used to complain when I pretty much freelanced full-time, but now I'd give anything to be doing the writing instead of godsawful daycare administration.
This a very boring post, and as it is around 100 degrees in here, I am ending it and escaping into the AC in the livingroom. Oh, and hurray for Valerie Plame!!!!!

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Poetry Party

Poetry party at Miriam's was really fun. Met some new poets and reconnected with some old friends. Reading happened in the middle of BBQ, and I got to read first. Had to yell initially to get revellers attention, but it was funny and it got me psyched to do some more readings. Steph was there, as was my friend Frank who has been sick. Frank is a gifted painter and fanastic poet (his love poems are especially haunting.) He goes in for heart surgery next week; hoping against hope it all goes well. Look for his work online, Frank Simone. I'd print some here but I haven't asked him yet.
In other news, Jack has begun Summer school and hates me for making him go. Oh well. Maybe next year he'll do his math homework.

Horror Movies and Lies

Well,all is back to normal here. Animal Planet in the other room and kids having pizza for lunch. We are going to Brooklyn later and then I am off to the poetry party at Miriam's. Really happy about this,and the weather is good and not incredibly hot. Wondering if Jr. can be trusted to trim my hair before I go...NOT the bangs as she butchered poor Kate's around Xmas time last year. Just the ends. Not that she has agreed to do it yet...
Last weekend watched lots of bad horror movies of Spanish and Italian origin...and not bad enough to be good either. What is up with women getting raped in these things, and then showing no ill effects afterwards? Like rape is as normal as eating or breathing for all concerned, and an acceptable thing for men to do. Saw ONE good film in a day full of horror movies--an italian movie called "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times," or something close to that. There was the usual rape scene in that, but at least afterward the woman seemed traumatized. Really missing Badgerdaddy's blog, as I could get his take on this as well as feedback from other horror buffs who read his blog.



Terminus

By Nicholas Christopher


March 9, 2000

Here is a piece of required reading
at the end of our century
the end of a millennium that began with the crusades


The transcript of an interview
between a Red Cross doctor
and a Muslim girl in Bosnia
twelve years old
who described her rape by men
calling themselves soldiers
different men every night one after the other
six seven eight of them
for a week
while she was chained by the neck
to a bed in her former schoolhouse
where she saw her parents and her brothers
have their throats slit and tongues cut out
where her sister-in-law
nineteen years old and nursing her baby
was also raped night after night
until she dared to beg for water
because her milk had run dry
at which point one of the men
tore the child from her arms
and as if he were "cutting an ear of corn"
(the girl's words)
lopped off the child's head
with a hunting knife
tossed it into the mother's lap
and raped the girl again
slapping her face
smearing it with her nephew's blood
and then shot the mother
who had begun to shriek
with the head wide-eyed in her lap
shoving his gun into her mouth
and firing twice


All of this recounted to the doctor
in a monotone
a near whisper in a tent
beside an icy river
where the girl had turned up frostbitten
wearing only a soiled slip
her hair yanked out
her teeth broken


All the history you've ever read
tells you this is what men do
this is only a sliver of the reflection
of the beast
who is a fixture of human history
and the places you heard of as a boy
that were his latest stalking grounds
Auschwitz Dachau Treblinka
and the names of their dead
and their numberless dead whose names have vanished
each day now find their rolls swelled
with kindred souls
new names new numbers
from towns and villages
that have been scorched from the map


1993 may as well be 1943
and it should be clear now
that the beast in his many guises
the flags and vestments
in which he wraps himself
and the elaborate titles he assumed
can never be outrun
....


As that girl with the broken teeth
loaded into an ambulance
strapped down on a stretcher
so she wouldn't claw her own face
will never outrun him
no matter where she goes
solitary or lost in a crowd
the line she follows
however straight or crooked
will always lead her back to that room
like the chamber at the bottom
of Hell in the Koran
where the Zaqqum tree grows
watered by scalding rains
"bearing fruit like devils' heads"


In not giving her name
someone has noted at the end
of the transcript that the girl herself
could not or would not recall it
and then describes her as a survivor


Which of course is from the Latin
meaning to live on
to outlive others


I would not have used that word.

One Year

Today makes one year since my now defunct engagement. Walked around sad and in a funk today, and it hits me this afternoon what the trouble is. It's been a year since Peter proposed and I said yes. The future looked very rosy and full of love. I don't know what the future looks like anymore. Sometimes I think I am destined to be alone. Sad day; looking forward to it ending.

Independence Day

Happy almost 4th of July! There is a Twighlight Zone marathon on, and we've seen some really classic ones...like the aliens who are on earth looking to make human stew, the dolls trying to get out of their bucket, and the little girl who falls through her bedroom wall into the 4th dimension (this one particularly scared me as a kid). Fireworks already going off outside, and in a little while I'll be taking the elevator up to the roof here in Bed Stuy to watch whatever rockets are going off. Really missing my kids now, and have been calling them frequently since getting a poem from Jack that beautifully describes how much he loves and misses me. My poor babies have never been away from home for this long. I think this seperation is making all three of us appreciate each other more.
I am going to read at the poetry party next week and I am really excited! It has been 9 months since I featured anywhere, and maybe six since an open mic. Miriam is like my poetry fairy godmother. And her site is the best! If you haven't been there yet, go right now! roguescholars.com. You can click the link on my link list. Look for some of her work, which is excellent.

ABIGAIL ADAMS TO JOHN ADAMS
MARCH 31, 1776:
"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.

"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

"That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up -- the harsh tide of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.

"Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?

"Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the (servants) of your sex; regard us then as being placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness."

Jagged Little Pill Saturday

Been reading a lot with kids gone. Finished Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates and can't get the damn book out of my head. It was incredibly disturbing and disgusting and I would like to thank Ms. Johanna for thoughfully sending it to me. Still trying to figure out why this novel about a serial killer has merit...it got great reviews. While I'm sorry I read it, I also couldn't put it down. Then this morning Weezer jr. calls me to tell me about the judge in the Robert Durst case getting a severed cat head left on her front steps. I didn't know anything about Durst and Weezer helpfully filled me in on the wealthy psycho who sawed off his neighbor's head and got acquitted. Is there some message I'm missing here? I'm going with coincidence, and sticking to it. In fact, I'm going to see the Devil Wears Prada today to clear my head. Will remind me of my hellish days in the beauty industry, but at least the back stabbing was bloodless.
This July 4th I will be in Brooklyn to watch the NYC fireworks display from the roof of Jr.'s building. We are having a bad movie afternoon beforehand and, if Russ can find it, we will be viewing Gingerdead Man. Jr. is making a cake shaped like the thirteen colonies. I'm in charge of making little flags with colony names on them.
In poetry news, I just got a poem accepted on the Rogue Scholars site, and there is a poetry patio party on July 8th at Miriam's. She has invited me to "rejoin the poetry community" by attending and I have happily accepted. In some ways this past year has been like falling off the face of the earth, and I'm happy to have landed on solid ground again. No matter how much the landing hurt.

The Gettysburg Address
by Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth.