April 30, 2004

The poetry workshop ended on a good note for me -- including going out afterward for a burger and beer with a couple of the other poets.

My revision of Still Life With Lunch got a great reception. All the scaffolding is gone. In all honesty, I do believe that it's a better poem. I had to take out stuff I liked, but the stuff I liked wasn't adding to the power of the piece. So, what I learned from Grennon is that it's worth it to keep revising and revising -- IF what you want is an artistically crafted and meaningful poem. I'm still learning.

Meanwhile, my Road Runner connection keeps coming and going, so I have no idea how much I'll be able to post.

There are some poems written by some of the other poets in the workshop that I'd like to post here. I'm going to email them next week and get their permission. Maybe they'll let me post their "before" and "after" as well.

There were some changes suggested for my final Vermeer's Lady poem (as well as a comment by Grennon that I was being "weird" and "shades of Sylvia Plath". I think he was just trying to be funny, since my poem was the only one that was, indeed, a little weird.) I'll post the final version when I make the minor changes.

As a final learning experience, Grennon shared copies of the umpteen pages of revisions that finally resulted in this poem by Elizabeth Bishop. Her papers are in the archives of Vassar College.

Now I've got to clean up around my computer, so that when the Road Runner guy comes over tomorrow to figure out what's going on, I won't have anything incriminating hanging around. :-)

April 29, 2004

I keep tinkering. But at some point you have to cut it loose. This is what I'm taking to the poetry workshop tonight (changes, while small, I think are signficant):

Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter

at night she dreams of rubies
crystalline and star-filled
burning shadows bloody,
crushing seas of pearls
to evanescent dust

and so she closes her door
against the burdens of moment
turns to quill and paper --
a mirror freed by sunlight
and rich ruby dreams

April 28, 2004

If you've been following my labor pains as I make the effort to complete the assignments for an advanced poetry workshop at the New York State Writer's Institute, you know that

--the first assignment was to write three different possible first stanzas (of 11 lines each, each line between 9 and 13 syllables) based on this Vermeer painting. At the first session, the group came to consensus about which of each of our three stanzas was the one we should each go with.

--the second assignment was to sharpen that selected first stanza and write three second stanzas (I only could get out one). The same consensus process followed -- except for mine, of course since I gave them no choice.

--the third assignment was to write three possible versions of a third stanza. I missed that workshop session for lots of reasons, including that I didn't have the time or energy to come up with even one possible third stanza.

If you didn't know all of that before, you know it now.

Our last workshop session is tomorrow. The assignment for that was to arrive with and share, in whatever form and fomat we finally freed ourselves to choose, our poem about the painting.

Here's mine. Much better, doncha' think? Well, too bad if you don't because I do.

Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter

at night she dreams of rubies
crystalline and star-filled
burning shadows bloody
turning seas of pearls
into evanescent dust

and so she closes her door
against the burdens of moment
picks up the waiting quill --
a mirror freed by sunlight
and rich ruby dreams

We also are supposed to bring in another poem that we had brought in to the workshop for group discussion and share our revisions that resulted. Maybe I'll get to that, maybe I won't.

April 27, 2004

It's almost 1 a.m. I am putting Vermeer to rest for the night. This is what I have at the moment.

Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter

That night she will dream again of rubies
raining like wine from the sky, turning her hair
into fiery wings and her throat into
a necklace of crushed and bloody pearls.
And so she closes her door against the demands
of senseless hands, the burdens of satin and ermine.
She ignores the shadows circling her moment
and writes, instead, of a mirror freed by sunlight,
of the potent truth of ruby dreams.

Yawn.

April 26, 2004

Even here on Kalilily Time, things are changing. Slowly, though, as I wait for b!X to find out why he's been erased as administrator of this weblog and reverse whatever happened so that he can make the template changes that I want.

Meanwhile, over at the sidebar there's a whole new section of links to poets who have weblogs and post their poetry therein. I've just started searching for these kinds of links and I'll add them as I find ones that I like. Thanks to Greg Perry for getting me going in this direction.

Also, thanks to Ramona Moormann, a non-blogging reader who's in my age and interest range. She's having some trouble getting onto my weblog and emailed me about that and about the fact that she does stop in and visit here. She's the editor/publisher of a small family-run newspaper in southwestern Michigan and is a political and environmental activist. She's a truly interesting woman, and I'm glad she found and contacted me.

On the other hand, I've seem to have lost a blogpoet to whom I was going to link in my new sidebard section. Ray Sweatman seems to have "gone fishing -- indefinitely."

Meanwhile, I've got to stop procrastinating and take another stab at the Vermeer painting poem so that I have something to take with me to the last poetry workshop session this Thursday. It's going to be a long night.

That means "What Would Dad Do?" That's my dad, I mean. He's been dead just about 20 years, and he was far from a perfect dad. But he never failed to be there when I needed his money or his time. He would leave someone else in charge of his business, pack up my mother and the car, and make the three-hour drive up to my house on the hill if I needed them to stay with my kids when I had to travel for my job. He bought me more than one car over the years, gave us money toward the house we bought, and substantially contributed toward my kids' college costs. When my daughter got really sick at college, he dropped everything, drove out and bundled her into his car (he was closer than I), and even got a doctor to come to his house to see her.

And that's why I drive across the whole state of Massachusetts to pick up my daughter and family (who don't have a car) and then drive half way back again to help them look at houses for sale (where they hope to live, soon) and then drive back across that half I just drove them out across to take them back home. Of course, I do stay over a few nights, play with my sweet, sweet, toddler grandson, and read the books I never get around to reading at home. (This time it's "Sweet Dream Baby.") And that's why I send more money to help out b!X than I really can afford.

I think that I inherited most of my personality traits from my dad -- even the traits that laid dormant in him because no one ever enouraged them, like his creative urges. I remember that he tried "paint-by-number" paintings once, and he bought some reproductions that he thought were valuable art from places like the Franklin Mint and such, for which he paid exorbitant prices for stuff like Norman Rockwell plates and a replica of the Liberty Bell (including plexiglass case) and an odd concave enamel-on-copper supposedly three-dimensional winter scene. He thought they were an investment and would be worth more someday. In many of the ways of the world he was amazingly smart; he just didn't know squat about art.

But he was smart enough and loving enough to try to be a good father in the only ways that he knew how. His own father, who is reputed to have beat him (and who was finally relegated by my grandmother to a room of his own on another floor of the apartment building that they owned), was hardly a role model.

For all of his flaws, though, my dad always extended himself to help me when I needed his help -- even though I broke his heart by eloping and depriving him of his dream of walking me down the aisle of the cathedral-like Polish church where he spent so much of his energy volunteering, even though my teenage years were dedicated to flouting his authority, even though I turned my back on the religion that sustained him through all those difficult times, even though I divorced and lived a free-wheeling lifestyle that he couldn't understand.

And so, driving back from Boston today in the rain -- back to the demands of the care of an ailing 88 year-old woman (who is my mother and many of whose traits I have tried very hard not to emulate) -- I think of what my dad did, what he still would do, what I choose to do.

For many of us, life is more important than art, family more important than frolic. But then, again, over the years, I have had more than my share of frolic, and I have been on the receiving end of much generosity.

Driving back from Boston today in the rain, I think about what my dad would think of me now, this tired, grubby granny who is still trying to grow up, who would really like, one day, to become one of those unerringly compassionate matriarchs, one of those serene and classy crones.

April 22, 2004

I should be getting ready to go to the poetry workshop at the Writers Institute.
I should be outside taking a walk in this great weather.
I should be making dinner and packing to go to see my toddler grandson.

Instead, I just watched The Banger Sisters and loved every minute of it.

Instead I polished my toenails because it's warm enough to wear sandals and I've still got great toes.

Instead I left a comment on Tom Shugart's weblog about a subject that apparently started at Yule Heibel's weblog and about which I care a great deal.

Instead I post this.

But I promise that when I get back from Boston, I will have my poetry assignment done. And after I get back, I'll make sure I get Greg Perry into my weblog, along with some other weblogcleaning I need to do.

OK. Now I really do have to make dinner for my mom. And pack. Maybe shave my legs.

Tally Ho!

April 20, 2004

Oh man, you gotta go to this site and see Trump fire Bush.

Got this in an email: Bush as Post Turtle. Love it.

While suturing a laceration on the hand of a 70-year-old Texas rancher (whose hand had caught in a gate while working cattle), a doctor and the old man were talking about George W. Bush being in the White House. The old Texan said "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'."

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he can't get anything done while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor stupid bastard get down."

How sweet it is when a stranger finds your weblog and then emails you a compliment. Such was the case today when Greg Perry, who has a cleverly wine-designed weblog, told me that he's been following my struggles to write poetry-on-assignment. He offered to link to me and asked me to link to him. Well, that's a no-brainer! I'm also going to co-opt some of his poetry links and add them to my blogroll. (Except not tonight. I'm pooped.)

This connection from Greg has come at a perfect time for Kalilily Time, as I struggle with the fact that the blogcrowd around whose edges I've been running since I first began has gone off and left me behind. Or rather I've gone off in another direction. As a matter of fact, I've felt a little lost lately.

I'm not interested in the ins and outs of this technology. I'm a writer. I want to write about two things -- caregiving and poetry. Well, sometimes about my grandson, too. And politics. Certainly politics. Politics and poetry. And loss.

As my mother loses herself in Yonkers, she finds this 1959 photo of me motor-boating up the Hudson River during the one summer I did go home between college semesters. Ah, was I ever that young? That slim? Yes. That "me" is long lost.

I never imagined, back then, when the Hudson River just outside New York City was clean enough to water ski in and life was just one big sunny-day boat ride, that I would wind up here.

So, I take a cue from Greg Perry's post about the meme that's going around and

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

And this is what I find in John Horgan's Rational Mysticism:

"But the infinite can exclude nothing."

Hmpf.

That's where my mom's thoughts are these days -- lost in Yonkers, which is where she lived most of her life and where I grew up. She's spending most of her time going through old photos and organizing them. As she does this, she's transported back in time, back to better times, back to the times when our extended family numbered in the many, many dozens. Now, the few that are left are even worse shape than she is in. She got a call yesterday that one of my aunts is in the hospital dying of cancer. Losing. Losing. Lost. This is my mom in the 1940s having her portrait painted by a woman-artist who escaped the Nazis and whose husband-doctor my dad helped to set up a practice in Yonkers back.

The portrait is no Vermeer, but I can probably write a better poem about it than I seem to be able to do with the assigned Lady Writing a Letter.

I guess I'm feeling pretty lost myself, although not in Yonkers. I'm feeling lost in my own skin, my own life. I can't seem to generate whatever it is I need to work on my poetry. As a result, I'm not at my every-other-Tuesday-night group, and I won't be going to the Grennon workshop on Thursday. Actually, I'm heading out to Boston on Friday to help my daughter and son-in-law look at some houses they might want to buy. Getting ready for that trip is a whole lot more important to me than sitting down and wrestling some more with Vermeer's Lady. My brother is coming up to stay with my mom. And I'm packing up my car with food and diapers and more toys for my little grandson, and bags and bags of Peppridge Farm double chocolate Milano and Geneva cookes that I buy at the discount outlet store because we're all addicted to them.

The poetry will come when it comes. I'm driving out of here to get lost in family.

And then I'll come back and work on getting ready for the last of the Grennon workshop sessions. I don't want to miss that last one, because it's the last workshop I'm going to be doing for a long while to come. I'll either write poetry or I won't. But I will or won't on my own terms.

April 19, 2004

It's hardly a metaphorical "walk in the park," but it was worth getting my mom into a wheelchair and taking her for a walk around our next-door park. Good exercise for me, actually.

Spring is not my favorite season -- something to do with allergies, adjusting to warmer weather and all that comes with it. There's a heaviness all around me -- both in metaphor and reality.

I'd love to be able to "spring clean" my life; I'm hoping I can get enough energy up to throw out those old "corporate" clothes that are left over from my old life. I live in jeans and t-shirts and expect to continue to do so.

Mom walked in. Gotta go.

April 17, 2004

Sometimes life, like a labyrinth I wrote almost a year ago.

I think that I applied to the Grennon poetry workshop to see if I'm good enough to get in. I got in. Now I'm struggling to keep up. Not that I'm not good enough; rather my attentions are elsewhere. I'm a caregiver. I'm remembering today an art exhibit I went to back in September of 2000, when my life was my own and caregiving was absolutely not an option I would consider.

The exhibitor was Gail Nadeau, and her works were photographic enlargements of collages that she and her (dying from Alzheimer's) mother had put together during the mother's final days. It was called "From Artist to Caregiver: Holding the Edges Together."

This is one of their collages, which I scanned from a postcard reproduction that I picked up at the exhibit. I was drawn to it because it's called "Saffron's Garden," and the cat in it is a replica of my first cat, whose name was Saffron -- you know, like in Mellow Yellow.

I made a point of talking to the artist, who was there at the opening reception. She talked of how she had given up three years of her life to help her mother through the most difficult time of both their lives. It seemed to me that she didn't give up much as an artist, because what she did was immerse herself in an experience that she transformed into the most moving and awe-some art.

Now, in one sense, that's a selfish way to look at it. In another, it's a way to remind myself that life is what you make it.

I was the only one in Grennon's workshop who didn't really do the assignment as assigned. The good part was that, in my private session with him, he helped me begin revising the poem I've been having trouble with. It's now transforming itself into three related poems. More on that another time.

The other good news is that, on my way into the building, I noticed a flyer announcing a presentation/book signing by John Horgan, science writer and author of Rational Mysticism. Now, that's a title that catches my interest. He will be on campus on Monday, May 3. Maybe I can make it.

In the meanwhile, I go and get the book from the library. A blurb on the back cover says "A thought-provoking pilgrimage to the growing interface of science and spirituality..." I start reading the book and am hooked. It's not that he gives any answers. There are no answers. What he does is remind me that it's the transformative power of the journey that's the point. Awesomeness emerges from going deep and being open to the experience of the moment.

Last night I watched an episode of "Without a Trace," that I had taped in which one of the characters finds out his father (with whom he has the same kind of relationship that I often have with my mom) is slipping into Alzheimer's.

There seem to be messages here for me in all of this. The messages I often and otherwise get from the world around me translate into something that seem to say " be more selfish...put your mother aside and live your life..."

I remind myself of Nadeau's choice and the results. I absorb Hogan's reflections on what is truly "awe-some" about life.

My labyrinth. My path. My journey. My choice. Who knows that marvels might result?

UPDATE: Hah! So I go for a walk in the beautiful park next to my building and notice that there are a bunch of guys putting in dozens and dozens of 6 foot high spruce in some kind of pattern. "That's a lot of trees. What's that going to be?" I ask. "A maze," he says, "146 trees and a quiet place to sit in the middle." Now, a maze is a configuration meant to confuse; you can get lost in a maze. I doubt if they'd put a maze in a park where there are lots of little kids running around. But a labyrinth?? I'll be it's a labyrinth -- which leads to a center, and in and out of which there is only one way. How about that for meaningful coincidence?

April 15, 2004

Michael Moore rides again in this post, which reminds me how my cousin's tour of duty has been extended in Iraq so that the war profiteers don't have to take any risks.

First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not “contractors” in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? You closed down a friggin' weekly newspaper, you great giver of freedom and democracy! Then all hell broke loose. The paper only had 10,000 readers! Why are you smirking?

And Moore warns us to watch for the release of his latest cinema expose:

I currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army). They are talking to soldiers and gathering the true sentiment about what is really going on. They Fed Ex the footage back to me each week. That's right, Fed Ex. Who said we haven't brought freedom to Iraq! The funniest story my guys tell me is how when they fly into Baghdad, they don't have to show a passport or go through immigration. Why not? Because they have not traveled from a foreign country -- they're coming from America TO America, a place that is ours, a new American territory called Iraq.

April 14, 2004

This is what I'm taking into my workshop session tomorrow. I was supposed to revise what was selected (out of three I had written) as the first stanza of a poem about Vermeer's painting and then write three possible second stanzas. I gave it my best shot, but that didn't work for me. What works for me is this:

Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter

She wonders what lie to tell him this time.
A husband returned from trade too soon?
A fretful child awake all night with fevered dreams?
What she can’t tell him is the silly truth –
that she’s taken scissors to her hair, again,
snipped away unruly ends, the ones
caught in the clasp of those perfect pearls
that each day lay around her neck like rosary
stones, heavy with penance and regret.

Her mirror knows the damage of her lies –
not just hair masked with pretty clips. Guilt
sets the line of her mouth, the shift of her eyes,
cringes beneath the rich lie of satin and ermine
and the expectations of perfect pearls.
At night she dreams of rubies, edges hard and bloody,
They circle her heart with fire, pour from her mouth like wine.
Her fingers rage with ruby talons; they swipe at pearls,
sending them like dust into the wind.

I'm ready with an old poem to go over in a private session with Grennon and 13 copies of both the fudged assignment and another old poem for the group to discuss. My brother will be here tomorrow to stay with my mom while I devote the late afternoon and evening to the world of poetry -- and maybe a bagel at Bruegger's in between.

And now I can go out and get some groceries. The Home Care nurse has been here to check on my mom and is going to send a physical therapist over next week to give us some exercises that might help my mom's pinched nerve.

I was going to go to BloggerConII this weekend, but there's no way I can do that now, and it doesn't look as though there'll be much of interest going on for me anyway. Anyway, priorities are priorities are priorities.

April 13, 2004

I'm getting nowhere with revising and creating the poetry for the workshop session on Thursday. My muse is not even a rope; she's a thread -- a worn thread raveling from the edge of my sleeve of care.

Instead, I
-- take my mom out to find a quad-cane that works for her; none of them is the one
-- start trying to root two avocado pits
-- touch up my hair color, which takes some time because I mix two different colors (it's that tinkering thing again)
-- eat some chocolate
-- order a nose aspirator and cheap stethescope for my grandson.
-- check my weblog comments
-- read my son's weblog
-- read my email and follow a link to here
-- finish the fabric book I'm making for my grandson
-- cook up a batch of chicken marsala and freeze some for my next Boston trip
-- leave the new batch of dishes in the sink for later
-- pet my cat
-- blog
-- ponder some more the woman in the Vermeer painting and come up with this:

She wonders what lie to tell him this time.
A husband returned from trade too soon?
A fretful child awake all night with fevered dreams?
What she can’t tell him is the silly truth –
that she’s taken scissors to her hair, again,
snipped away unruly ends, the ones
caught in the clasp of those perfect pearls
that each day lay around her neck like rosary
stones, heavy with penance and regret.

-- realize that I have no idea where to go from there
-- try to figure out how to center the above stanza without the font getting bigger in the process and give up
-- decide instead to call additional attention to this art work of the War President and related discussions
-- check in on my mother, who is crying because of the pain in her spine and because she had a nightmare about some man breaking into her home, hurting people, wrecking things; I rock her in my arms, help her get dressed, give her breakfast and pain pills
-- sit down and have a cup of tea.

UPDATE:
Last night my mother has her violent nightmare. Today, I find out that the house next to my daughter's was broken into and robbed yesterday. And b!X tells about the fire in his neighborhood yesterday that took down a former meth lab. My mom often has dreams that wind up connected to stuff that's going on that there's no way she could know is going on. Just another meaningful coincidence.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
My cousin just called to tell me that his daughter, who is stationed in Iraq and whose unit was packed up and all ready to turn over the transport of supplies and fuel to the civilian Halliburton gang, has had her stay extended. That's what she does there -- coordinate the transport of supplies, often traveling with the convoys.

And, now playing on my tape deck, a line from Tom Robbins while I cook up my favorite (considerably tinkered) homemade granola recipe :
.... hard-luck stories being traded like baseball cards.

April 11, 2004

The dishes are done. The cat litter emptied. Mother has been given her food and her pills. And all the while I'm pondering how I would answer this question that I have asked myself: "Why do you want to write poetry??"

And this is what I have come to realize:
I don't WANT to write poetry. What I want is, when I feel COMPELLED (read "inspired") to write a poem, to know how to make it a really good poem , to energize it with the power of language, technique, form.

That's why I'm in this workshop.

Poet at Work. Blogger at Process.

Last night, I spent three hours in front of my computer screen, wrestling with that damned #3.

In a time of previous struggle, a friend of mine reminded me that "you can't push a rope." My muse is as limp as a rope.

It's Easter Sunday. It's Spring. When does bliss become burden?

I resurrect an old poem.

Waiting for the Fall

Leave me in spring
to wait for the season’s passing,
and look for me then,
when I turn with the leaves
and hold my mouth
to a hungry sky.

I'm thinking that the timing of this workshop is bad. Maybe I'll go to the private session on Thursday and say I can't do it. Too much else on my plate (taking care of my mom and all). I'll bring the poem I need help with. Maybe I'll go to the workshop session as well and bring the old poem (above), bring whatever I have from my struggle with #3. Lay it all out. Without inspiration, perspiration only gets you sweaty with the dishes piled up in the sink and the unemptied cat litter smell making you nauseous.

This is the process.

Another friend of mine once commented about the bureaucracy in which we worked: "process is our most important product."

Maybe that's what blogging is. But it's not what poetry is.

Poet at Work.

Blogger at Process.

April 10, 2004

This is going to be a long post. If you're not interested in how a poem gets written, revised, rewritten and "de-scaffolded", you probably should move on.

I'm struggling to complete an assignment that we in Eamon Grennon's advanced poetry workshop were given to complete by this Thursday. And I do mean struggling. It's our second assignment.

Our first assignment was to write three possible first stanzas based on this Vermeer painting. Each stanza had to be 11 lines long, and each line had to have between 9 and thirteen syllables. At the first workshop meeting, each of us 12 "advanced poets" read his/her three versions, and the group, including Grennon, reached a decision about which version was the "best." Interestingly enough, we all tended to agree.

These are the three I wrote: (Notice that the first version was just something I had to get out of my personal system; the second was based on my doing a little historical research about the era in which the painting was executed; the third was my stretch to come up with a novel angle on the scene.)

#1
You can be sure that picking up a pen,
already dripping virulent ink,
will bring an old woman rapping at the door
armed with a burned pot and dented memory;

Her hands poise lightly above pen and pearls.
She is in no hurry to leave behind his touch,
so fiercely sweet, more honest than the fragile silk that
falls away and tangles in a nest of spotted fur.

Everyone decided that my #3 was the one to go with. I can cannabalize the good lines from the other two versions I wrote and have to refine #3 to be the best I can make it be.

THEN, then, I have to write three possible versions of a second stanza that would follow the refined #3 (same line and syllable criteria), and the group will come to consensus on which version of the second stanza is the best.

AND, and, I also have to bring in a totally separate poem, old or new, for the group to discuss and constructively critique. We did that during the first session as well, and I brought in this poem because I felt it need work. Heh. After the group's discussion (which was, indeed, helpful and constructive) I realized it needs a lot more work.

Grennon talks about how we are using what he calls "scaffolding" as we spin out a poem, and that this "scaffolding," as much as we might like it, is stuff that has to be edited out in order for the actual poem to emerge and stand on its own. Going through the process of analyzing the "scaffolding" with the other poets (several of whom I'm so impressed and intimidated by) is very helpful to me. Good thing I'm not overly attached to the details of my own creations.

I'm having a hard time with this next assignment, with refining that #3 first stanza, with coming up with three approaches for the second stanza, and with deciding which other poem to bring in for the group to critique.

Meanwhile, I also have a one-on-one half-hour with Grennon before the next workshop session, where he'll help me with a poem that's giving me trouble. I know just which one I'll bring for that. It's full of scaffolding that I love, and I need some objective and talented eye to help me see what needs to go.

Some people write poetry that's meaningful to them and they don't really care if anyone else gets it. Some people love every word they use and refuse to change anything.

Me, I want my poems to sing, and I want others to want to dance to my music. And trying to make that happen takes lots of work. And a ego that's not easily shaken by criticism.

Poetry is creative expression. It's also art. And it's also craft. The art part is either going to be there or not. But I can work on the craft. And that's what I'm doing.

There will be more on my struggle through this current assignment. There's going to lots of process and crafting before there's are four poems I feel comfortable taking into the next workshop session.

Poet at Work.

You can't have a war without people getting killed. You kill them. They kill you. But in this modern era of smart bombs that are really not that smart at all, we too often wind up killing our own.

My friend and former therapist, Ed Tick, has a letter to the editor in today's paper that begins:

David Morris' March 26 commentary on fratricide summarizes several incidents in both the first and present Iraq wars in which American and coalition ground troops were killed by our own A-10 attack jets. These American deaths due to friendly fire underscore an ignored but persistent problem of modern war.

I have worked with a grunt who was the only survivor when our own forces dropped a bomb on his sleeping squad, a spotter pilot almost shot down by our side, a Gulf War veteran trapped in a firefight in which both the enemy and our own forces tried to destroy him because his tiny position was in the way of their big fight. The pain, outrage and sense of betrayal caused by incidents like these do not disappear over time. These are but a few recent examples from local veterans of a much larger problem endemic to modern warfare.

Ed now works primarily with Veterans who have Post Traumatic Stress. The stories he tells about what this country's whoring [sic] has put our military men and women through are enough to turn anyone but the most war-mongering into pacifists.

I have never understood why we just don't send those who want war INTO the war to do the actual fighting. You want it? You should bear the brunt of it.

April 08, 2004

The audio CD I listened to on my way back and forth to Boston last week was Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito. I tend not to read too many male writers, but Tom Robbins and Terry Pratchett are the ones I read when I need perspective -- the kind of combined comic/ cosmic view of life that is more humanly true than any factual narrative. Robbins, in particular, connects the dots of disparate (human and non-) lives in the same way that my mind tends to -- although without his playful literary talents.

Like, just before starting the Robbins' CD, I had been listening to the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which is located in Botswana. (Actually Betsy Devine gave me a copy of that book last year; I started it and then got sidetracked. So, instead, I decided to listen to it on a CD from my public library as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep.)

In that novel, the main character talks about how much she loves Botswana Blossom Red Tea (which I'd never heard of). When I get to my daugher's house, tired of driving and ready for a cup of tea, lo' and behold doesn't she have a tin of Botswana Blossom Red Tea on her shelf. That's the kind of dot-connecting coincidence that makes me smile and feel that all's right with my world. For me, it becomes more than a coincidence; it becomes a synchronicity.

Interspersed all through Villa Incognito are stanzas of a poem. I wish I had a hard copy of the book, because I would love to copy down the whole thing. From here, I found the last part of it:

Just because you're naked
doesn't mean you're sexy.
Just because you're cynical
doesn't mean you're cool.
You may tell the greatest lies
and wear a brilliant disguise
but you can't escape the eyes
of the one who sees right through you.

So better listen to me sister,
and pay close attention, mister:
It's very good to play the game,
amuse the gods, avoid the pain.
But don't trust fortune; don't trust fame.
Your real self doesn't know your name,
and in that we're all the same.
We're all incognito

This piece on Villa Incognito from here says it all:

Observe: the first sentence of Villa reads, “It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute.” This kind of thing is the heart of the book—Robbins’s descriptions, not the plot and the places, but the manner in which they are communicated are what’s compelling. What Robbins does for spring (“Spring was on the land like an itch. The whole countryside seemed to be scratching itself awake—lazily, luxuriously, though occasionally scratching so hard its nails hit bone, that old cold calcium that lies beneath our tingles.”), and birth (“She made it sound as if, following an hour or two of pressure in her lower abdomen, a big quivering gob of plum jelly had suddenly shot out of her to slide down her thighs…Like a tadpole winnowing out of a cocktail straw.”) is both funny and original.

Robbins dabbles in weighty subjects, but he doesn’t fully engage them. Instead he pokes and foils from afar. His vindications and refutations are interesting, but there isn’t much substance to argue against, or with, for that matter. The author’s presence hangs over every sentence, defying you to forget he’s there. What could be a burden in most books is all right here, simply because Robbins is a lot of fun to read. The book never gets bogged down, and always returns to its foundation: the humor, the winding story, and the quality writing.

So, now I'm onto/into Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas -- on tapes from my library, of course, which I listen to in bed at night so that I can distract my brain from worrying about all the weary stuff I worry about all day long.

SOCIAL Security, that is.

Many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and we are being taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the federal government to "put away" for us. As we approach the presidential election, it is as important as it is angering to review some crucial facts about the history of Social Security, which was instituted by FDR (D), and for which the premiums we pay were increased by Ronald Regan (R).

Q: Which party took Social Security from an independent fund and put it the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Richard Nixon and the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which party put a tax on Social Security?
A: The Republican Party.

Q: Which party increased the tax on Social Security?
A: The Republican Party with Dick Chaney casting the deciding vote.

Q: Which party decided to give money to immigrants?
A: That's right, immigrants moved into this country and at 65 got SSI Social Security. The Republican party gave that to them although they never paid a dime into it.

Then, after doing all this, the Republicans turn around and tell us that the Democrats want to take our Social Security-- and the worst part about it is that so many People believe the Republican lies!

April 06, 2004

Little picture, big picture. They both suck.

I'm back from three therapeutic days with the cutest little guy in the world, as he lead me around by the hand and names all of the things in his world. Truck. Trash. Plant. Water. Elbow. Cat. Tea. Cup. Handle. Elmo. Tigger...... And, of course, his favorite thing in the world, vacuum cleaner, which, in his language, sounds like "mwaamuu."

I'm back, in a better frame of mind but not much better frame of reference. I've contacted a Home Care agency to set up an evaluation and figure out what we need to make this work. Mom is on her feet, shaky tho' they might be, able to get dressed and sit at the table and eat. I find that I'm distracted from whatever I'm doing at the time, whether it's something for her or something for me. My own back is acting up -- probably because I really want to "act up" and I can't. I want to be bitchy and mean and self-centered. But there's already one too many of those around here.

The Big Bush Picture gets worse and worse as well.

From BuzzFlash.

In his book, "House of Bush, House of Saud," journalist Craig Unger lays out a compelling case that the Bush family is so inextricably bound up with the Saudi royal family that it could not hold them responsible for the role that many Saudi Arabians played in the 9/11 day of terror.
[snip]
In essence, the Bush Cartel has sold Americans a bill of goods. They have diverted our attention from the major nation state supporting Al-Qaeda because they don't want to attack their own business partners, including the Saudi who bailed Harken Oil out. He's the same guy that was deeply involved with BCCI, the corrupt bank that Poppy Bush and many of his cohorts were associated with. There are plenty more like him. Just read Unger's book.
[snip]
It is hard to put your arms around the gravity of Bush's betrayal of our nation. Americans just don't want to believe that anyone sitting in the Oval Office, even if unelected, could be a traitor to the interests of his own country.

Unger, a respected journalist, concludes that Bush must believe that "the billionaire Saudi royals are somehow more worthy of the government's concern than are the victims of 9/11."

"As above, so below,".

Certainly seems so from where I'm sitting, so tired of sucking it up.

April 02, 2004

I left my mother's house at 17 never to go back for a good reason.

A naracissist is a narcissist is a narcissist. Right to the end.

She's finally tossed that back-breaking straw.

How much does one owe the person who gave birth to you and who, over the years, has probably given you somewhere around $150,000 to help you out with various life situations?

I think four years of the full-time and loving caregiving I've provided, only to have to endure the kind of emotional abuse only a life-long narcissist knows how to inflict, is enough. My debt to her is paid in full.

Now what?

My brother is coming up tomorrow and I'm heading out to my daughter's for a few days. After that, who knows what.

Don't expect anything here for a while.