Tick Tock





Morning that is supposed to be full of snow, but nothing yet. Friends in Copiague have snow, but not here. I am not complaining as I have errands to do in my newly returned and already breaking down car. Blue morning and need to go to the doctor today. Out of meds. Listening to Sinatra which is making me bluer. Reminds me of dancing with Sonny at my wedding. Oh lord, hard to keep it together today, which I am only admitting because I know there's not much of a chance anyone will read this. Like writing on the wind.

Miss my dad so much. And my mom. Tired. Bone bone tired. And teary. Gonna get myself to the doctor before I get worse...damn.

Depression in Winter

There comes a little space between the south
side of a boulder
and the snow that fills the woods around it.
Sun heats the stone, reveals
a crescent of bare ground: brown ferns,
and tufts of needles like red hair,
acorns, a patch of moss, bright green....

I sank with every step up to my knees,
throwing myself forward with a violence
of effort, greedy for unhappiness--
until by accident I found the stone,
with its secret porch of heat and light,
where something small could luxuriate, then
turned back down my path, chastened and calm.

Jane Kenyon

And So it Goes, 2010



January 3rd and getting ready for the journey home from Weehawken. Not sure how I am going to drag the boy away from the football game. Girl child stompy and sullen cause she wants to go home. I have to say I am not looking forward to the sub zero temps out there. Spring, spring where are you? I'd even take global warming today.

Got an anonymous message from someone regarding this blog that made me pause. I have become a Facebook Junkie, but maybe I should spend some time back here again. Wrote a good poem the other day, another Mary poem. Think now I want to focus on Mary as opposed to different women in the bible. Jack got a bible for Christmas and I have been reading it. Funny how some books are grim and utilitarian in their writing, and other books more like poetry. I know next to nothing about the bible so the reading is fascinating to me. And makes me angry. I hate how Jesus is depicted as interacting with his mother. Always imperious and demanding. And referring to the her as "woman." No wonder we have so much trouble.

Kate now has her coat on and Jack is refusing to budge off couch. Must shepard everyone out the door. Oops, now we are staying for pizza because auntie is indulging the boy who is not allowed to watch football at home. Kate fuming. No way to make everyone happy.


The Wind Cries Mary

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers Mary

A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries Mary

The traffic lights they turn up blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sags downstream
‘Cause the life that lived is, is dead
And the wind screams Mary

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past
And with his crutch, it’s old age, and it's wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries Mary.

Jim Hendrix

Off the Couch



Sunday morning and kids with BFI. Friday night I did a reading at Barnes and Noble in Huntington and it went very well. Good friends, including the lovely Jr. in the audience. Drinks and dinner afterward at Applebees. Jr. invited the libertarian with the petition to join us, and suggested that he and I do the two for one on the menu. I will pay her back. I decided that I am no longer going to read any of my old work at readings, which means I have my work cut out for me before the next reading in September. Why is it so hard to get back to writing?

Saw Julie and Julia last night and was delighted. Inspired me to focus, and on the way home I passed the sign in front of the Korean church that always has a message. This week it was "Burying your talents is a big mistake." Amen.

Judy, my beloved roommate from the University of Bridgeport, 1978, was at the reading last night. All the years pass and it's as if nothing has passed. We both have kids now and our daughters are the same age. We plan to get together very soon as we live a half hour's drive from one another now. Facebook may have lots of negatives, but it does bring people back together.

Oh swami, I am going to find a poem from "She Rises Like the Sun" which is sitting on the broken printer next to the keyboard here, and find something apropos for this post.

The Two Gretels

The two Gretels were exploring the forest
Hansel was at home
sending up flares

Sometimes one Gretel got afraid,
She said to the other Gretel,
"I think I'm afraid"
"Of course we are", Gretel replied.

sometimes the other Gretel whispered,
with a shiver,
"You think we should turn back?"
To which her sister Gretel answered,
"We can't. We forgot the breadcrumbs"

so they went forward
because
they simply couldn't imagine the way back.

and eventually, they found the gingerbread House,
and the Witch, who was really, they discovered,
the Great Good Mother Goddess,
and they all lived happily ever afterwards

The Moral of this story is:
Those who would have the whole loaf,
let alone the house
had better throw away their breadcrumbs.

Robin Morgan

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