Saturday with Demons



The children are watching a movie about children who dig an opening to the mouth to hell in their backyard. Kind of like Goosebumps on acid. We certainly are family.

Taking the kiddies to Weehawken tonight, bad movies, lasagna and a game of catch between Jack and Uncle Troy. The Girl and I are going to Washington DC for a class trip beginning on Wednesday morning at four a.m. I'll have to get an alarm clock. Or since the girl and I are both insomniacs maybe we'll just stay up and sleep on the bus. The boy is going to stay with BFI, which means when I get back I'll be paid back in angry 13 year old boy behavior, in spades. I think before his teen years are over I will either be dead from stress, or he'll have been given away to a traveling circus--step right up and see the meanest 13 year boy in captivity.

Katie mama has volunteered me to chaperone another little girl on the trip whose parents can't go. Thank you Kate. Please say a little prayer it's a nice kid and that I don't lose her somewhere. You would think the principal, who is well acquainted with me, would have picked somebody more mother like for this kid.

Happy weekend all.

My Heart

I'm not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don't prefer one "strain" to another.
I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says "That's
not like Frank!", all to the good! I
don't wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--
you can't plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Frank O'Hara

Poem Medicine

Sometimes you find a poem that comes to you just in time.

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in here, and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living, I remember you.


Marie Howe

For Jack



Because I Told You So

if i gave you the sky
if i laid down my life
would you believe me then?

if i promised to change
if i carried the blame
would you believe me then?

could you see it like me
and believe what i see
could you listen, and remember that i love you
only, because i told you, because i told you so.

if you told me you lied
but i stayed true and tried
would you believe me then?

and if your beauty was gone
but my love lingered on
would you believe me then?

could you see it like me
and believe what i see
could you listen and remember that i love you
only,
because i told you, because i told you so.

you take the wheel for now
i'm too tired to drive this one home anyhow,
for now

and when you mention my name
let this one thing remain,
my love,
believe me now.

Jonatha Brooke

Mother's Day 2009



Happy Mother's Day to all the excellent moms I know...Am, Camille, LiaLia, Kath, Linder Loo, Alison, Jen, Stef, Pamela, and on and on. And me too! And to my mama, who never let us want for a thing and taught us how to love and, by example, to be strong women. Sending a big bunch of celestial Irises to you, Vi.

Sonnets are Full of Love

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.


Christina Rossetti