I Can't Get This Out of My Head


Freedom '90

I won't let you down
I will not give you up
Gotta have some faith in the sound
It's the one good thing that I've got
I won't let you down
So please don't give me up
Because I would really, really love to stick around

Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be
I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place
On your rock and roll TV
But today the way I play the game is not the same
No way
Think I'm gonna get me some happy

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take

Heaven knows we sure had some fun boy
What a kick just a buddy and me
We had every big shot good-time band on the run boy
We were living in a fantasy
We won the race
Got out of the place
I went back home got a brand new face
For the boys on MTV
But today the way I play the game has got to change
Oh yeah
Now I'm gonna get myself happy

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I stopped the show
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone I forgot to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Don't think that I'll be back again
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take

Well it looks like the road to heaven
But it feels like the road to hell
When I knew which side my bread was buttered
I took the knife as well
Posing for another picture
Everybody's got to sell
But when you shake your ass
They notice fast
And some mistakes were built to last

That's what you get

I say that's what you get

That's what you get for changing your mind

And after all this time
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes
Do not make the man

I'll hold on to my freedom
May not be what you want from me
Just the way it's got to be
Lose the face now
I've got to live

Bad Movies and Eggplant for Memorial Day


Hello from beautiful downtown Bed Stuy! The boy and his uncle are watching a hockey game, Kate is eating a ham sandwich against her will, and I have been enjoying the gift of sight! Got my new glasses from Sears and I can now read without squinting and holding my reading material at arm's length. It is a beautiful thing! I love my new glasses, they have thin pinkish frames that twist in a cool weird way on the arms. They feel weightless and I CAN READ AGAIN. I don't need to make the computer print enormous anymore either. Saw bad movies last night, including Ghost Ninja which was SOOOOOOOO bad, shots at night were indeciperable (even with my glasses) and there were several makes absolutely no sense sex scenes that the boy was forced to look away from until fast forwarding could occur. Thanks for that a fine choice LC! One good part was when the little Japanese kid BoBo was whipped into the air by bad ghosts and spun around at about 100 miles an hour. Why do little Japanese boys in bad movies always have on micro shorts? It is very disturbing. Saw an EXCELLENT movie after that called Zombies on a Plane (I think) which, after Ghost Ninja, seemed like fine art. Jr. outdid herself with the food again, yummy eggplant parmesan. Have to get ready for Brooklyn outing. Happy Memorial Day!

Dedication for a Plot of Ground

This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in a Brooklyn boarding house,
went with him to Puerto Rico
bore three more children, lost
her second husband, lived hard
for eight years in St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed
the oldest son to New York,
lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"
seized the two boys of
the oldest son by the second marriage
mothered them -- they being
motherless -- fought for them
against the other grandmother
and the aunts, brought them here
summer after summer, defended
herself here against thieves,
storms, sun, fire,
against flies, against girls
that came smelling about, against
drought, against weeds, storm-tides,
neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,
against the weakness of her own hands,
against the growing strength of
the boys, against wind, against
the stones, against trespassers,
against rents, against her own mind.

She grubbed this earth with her own hands,
domineered over this grass plot,
blackguarded her oldest son
into buying it, lived here fifteen years,
attained a final loneliness and --

If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.

William Carlos Williams

Happy Birthday Buddy/FP!


My best Acquaintances

My best Acquaintances are those
With Whom I spoke no Word—
The Stars that stated come to Town
Esteemed Me never rude
Although to their Celestial Call
I failed to make reply—
My constant—reverential Face
Sufficient Courtesy.

Emily Dickinson

Pie, Eyeballs, Rodeos and Mary Magdalene


My belated Mother's Day brunch with Jr. and Troy June was excellent! Food fantastic as was my pecan pie (pah!) dessert. Jr. and I had margaritas served in little jars. Mine tasted like the punch they used to serve out of garbage cans at dorm parties. Afterwards I dragged everyone to my old apartment on Perry Street so I could forlornly rattle the wrought iron gate to the courtyard and beg "Take me back!" After I got bored with that we walked up to Chelsea and visited a couple of flea markets. Jr. found a hopping bloodshot eyeball for LC which I duly delivered when I met him for dinner. I was instructed to say "plastic eyes" in a weird falsetto voice as this was an EVP we are all familiar with from a mortuary that we heard on the Art Bell show. LC was duly impressed.

Dinner with LC was great, Thai food instead of mac and cheese as mac and cheese place was tiny and packed with people. Pad Thai and thai iced coffee for me and a steamed veggies and rice for LC. LC thinks he is going to move to Philadelphia. I like Philly and as that is not too far away, I approve. Discussed Jr's insane idea to go visit some evil place in Jersey called The Devil Tree. LC will go with her, I will not. I do not want any malevolent spirits attaching themselves to my aura and coming home with me.

The "documentary" Bloodline was interesting but I am not sure it wasn't a hoax. Movie states Jesus did not die on the cross, but 21 days later in France with his wife Mary Magdalene and his kids. If that really was Mary Magadalene's tomb they found in France, I wouldn't want to be those film makers. They ripped open her shroud, said stuff like "This is gruesome" and ripped some of the hair out of her mummified head for DNA analysis. Jr. and I may be in trouble too as she gave me a mug for mother's day that says "Jesus Shaves." You pour hot liquid into it and Jesus, who is holding a pair of shears and a fistful of money, loses his beard and mustache. I am drinking out of it right now. Russ and I tried to make Jesus lose his beard last night but my coffee was not hot enough. This morning, while talking to Jr., Jesus lost his beard. Guess the coffee was hot enough. Can everyone please go see Bloodline so we can discuss? Thank you.

Experienced synchronicity last night! Lc and I were in a coffee shop after the movie. The giant TV screen in the place, directly behind LC's head, was playing a rodeo from San Antonio. LC is from San Antonio and we have often discussed how he always hated it and wanted to live in New York from when he was a kid. All the people behind the counter seemed to be of arabic extraction. Nobody in the place was watching the screen, and for godsakes we were in downtown Manhattan. Very weird.

Well, must face the fact that the apt. has to be cleaned. I will listen to paranormal radio and it won't be too bad (but oh how I long for a maid.) LC has told me about an internet radio station called "Haunted New Jersey" which I will look for. Enjoy your Sunday all.

In Childhood

things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?

Kimiko Hahn

Saturday in May


Meeting Jr. and Troy June for brunch at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Russ later on for dinner and a movie. A beautiful day for traipsing around NYC. I have suggested a movie about the conspiracy to keep the blood line of Jesus and Mary Magdalene quiet, followed by dinner at a place in the East Village that mainly serves macaroni and cheese. Heaven!

Saw Juno last night and loved it. People in Canada are so lovely. I think I should be raising my kids in Vancouver. Speaking of the babes, they are with BFI right now. Boy in trouble for not doing his homework again. Terrified the Chrissy inertia/I am a genius and therefore idle gene is rearing it's ugly little head (tail, chromosone?) in Jack. In nice Jack news, he asked for a haircut and we went to a new place. Guy working at the salon gave him an excellent, fairly short cut. Jack loves it so the green wool cap he's been wearing all day, every day for two months is now history. He looks so handsome and grown up. He had a school concert the other night. Dressed in a white dress shirt and a tie, and towering over me by three inches, he looked like a man. I got teary. Then he ran outside without any shoes and tried to ride off on his bike, and was my 12 year old again.

Have to get ready to go. To music. Hurray for tax returns and a new computer.

My young son asks me...

My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll be understood with little trouble.
My young son asks me: Must I learn history?
What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick
Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive.

Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him.
Learn your French, learn your history!

Bertolt Brecht

I Found a New Poet


There is poet named Anna Swir that I just stumbled across. I think she's fabulous.

She Does Not Remember

She was an evil stepmother.
In her old age she is slowly dying
in an empty hovel.

She shudders
like a clutch of burnt paper.
She does not remember that she was evil.
But she knows
that she feels cold.

Anna Swir

The Greatest Love

She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.

She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
"You have hair like pearls."

Her children say:
"Old fool."

Anna Swir

Happy Mother's Day!


The Daughter Goes To Camp

In the taxi alone, home from the airport,
I could not believe you were gone. My palm kept
creeping over the smooth plastic
to find your strong meaty little hand and
squeeze it, find your narrow thigh in the
noble ribbing of the corduroy,
straight and regular as anything in nature, to
find the slack cool cheek of a
child in the heat of a summer morning—
nothing, nothing, waves of bawling
hitting me in hot flashes like some
change of life, some boiling wave
rising in me toward your body, toward
where it should have been on the seat, your
brow curved like a cereal bowl, your
eyes dark with massed crystals like the
magnified scales of a butterfly's wing, the
delicate feelers of your limp hair,
floods of blood rising in my face as I
tried to reassemble the hot
gritty molecules in the car, to
make you appear like a holograph
on the back seat, pull you out of nothing
as I once did—but you were really gone,
the cab glossy as a slit caul out of
which you had slipped, the air glittering
electric with escape as it does in the room at a birth.

Sharon Olds

My Blog is Two Years Old



Good morning all. Cool,sunny morning and kids still sleeping. Today we are going to see Iron Man with LiaLia and her girls. Robert Downey Jr. Yum. Also going to Sears to order glasses (no more "super magnifier" Stop and Shop glasses for me. Taking kids to get Mothers Day presents as well. Kate wants to be taken to...Stop and Shop. I said "Are you buying me food?" She insists not. Good. If she got me chocolate I could just paste the box to my ass and be done with it.

I have been thinking about re-writes on my Lilith poem this morning. Realize the first half doesn't work cause I wrote it without any personal experience in the back of my head. That's the problem, to make poems work you have to visit places you work very hard to ignore most of the time. Kind of like cutting your wrists and sprinkling blood all over the page instead of watching the Game Show Network. Doctor my eyes...

Little Missy is awake now and Super Smash Brothers Wii playing has begun. Heavy sigh. I'm gonna get more coffee and try to read Jung while Mario and Wario battle it out in the background. Happy Saturday.

Kindness

Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.

What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit's cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,

Its crystals a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.

And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses.

Sylvia Plath

I Miss XP


Good lord, spent 45 minutes looking for the plug in to Windows Media I had to download in order to make the damn player work. Apparently the Player doesn't work with Vista without the plugin. Once I go find the stupid codec and download it, I can't find it on the damn computer to install it. Not listed on the C drive, not in documents or on the desktop, not anywhere. Finally, in desperation I type Applications in the search bar and it shows up with a list of pictures the kids downloaded...don't get why, but click on it and the installation begins...Now I can listen to Coast to Coast AM. Which I am doing right now. Hurray for paranormal radio shows! I will be cleaning to a show on ghost hunting in North Carolina. Jr., I broke down and got my own account so I don't have to borrow yours.

Kiddies with BFI and I am going to the movies tonight to see the new movie by Helen Hunt, Then She Found Me. It has Colin Firth in it, who I LOVE (Oh Mr. Darcy!) and Helen Hunt directed. And Bette Middler too, who is excellent of course. This freedom is still new enough to feel like Christmas.

There is a man on Coast to Coast talking about how he predicts earthquakes by noting the increase of missing cats in newspaper ads. Cats apparently run away from home several days prior to a quake. Who knew!

I went to my boss's going away party after work last night and drank too many gin and tonics. My brain is still soggy so I am going off to do simple, repetitive work. Happy Saturday!

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

Dorothy Parker