May 31, 2004

"Kill Bill" -- a metaphor for amerika
(1st draft)

she’s the good guy, dresses
in yellow, drives a truck that
blares “pussy wagon” in bright
pink capitals

the bad gals wear black and
white and nothing is the way
we remember

except for faceless men
who reign blood on our dreams
in living color

© Elaine Frankonis 2004

May 30, 2004

My mother sits at the large cabinet-model organ in her living room that's flooded with sunlight. She fingers out "Sunrise, sunset." No chords. Just the melody. She's reading from a music sheet. My cat dozes in the rocking chair to which she always gravitates when my mother sits down to play.

I go for a walk in the park. Families are everywhere -- biking, roller blading, sunning, frisbee-ing, picnicking. A chorus of multi-generational voices floats from a pavilion singing "Happy Birthday to Grandma."

There are not only families; there are friends hanging out together. A teenage couple nuzzling on a park bench. A middle aged couple holding hands, strolling through the dappled shade. A pair of women, seriously power walking and talking. I'm alone. Walking alone.

While I'm not unhappy about the way my life has gone, I'm wishing I could go around one more time. I want to be part of an intact family -- a clan that would be singing someday to me. It's not going to happen.

Instead, I water my little grave-sized garden, start thinking about what to make my mom for dinner, remember the story my daughter just told me about my toddler grandson (186 miles away) seeing a woman who looked something like me from far away and hopefully asking "Grammy?"

It's going to be warmer tomorrow. I think I'll risk the ignominy of baring my cottage-cheese-knees and flappy upper arms and put on shorts and a sleeveless shirt and take on the park again. Maybe I'll get up early, before all those other people come out to play and do my walk before my mom even gets up (which is usually around 11 a.m.) Then I'll do a little more work on my free-lance writing project and maybe make a pizza for supper.

Now I'll watch the end of the rented "Big Fish" while I'm making dinner. (Steak, I've decided because it's my mother's favorite.) Yesterday I watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Kill Bill." I have diverse taste in movies. I especially liked "Kill Bill," -- the good guys and the bad guys are gals and the good gal dresses in yellow and knows how to take a beating. My kinda movie.

A day in the life.

May 28, 2004

I've taken on a free-lance grant-writing project. Why not. I can always use a few extra bucks. And I'm one of those weird writers who actually likes grant writing. The poetry of grant writing. Now there's a book I should write.

I'm getting myself revved up to write by cleaning my apartment. I need to feel order around me before I plunge myself into the chaos of creation. When I had a full-time job, I would clean off my desk and computer station -- file everything sharpen pencils, remove all traces of dust. Now I wash floors, throw out paper, still do a little dusting. Metaphorically dusting off my brain. It's been a while since I've concocted a grant proposal. I used to be really good at the kind of persuasive writing that makes people believe that what the project is planning to do really will change the world. Well, maybe not the whole world; at least a little but important piece of it.

I did a little preliminary ruminating earlier today. I think I've got an approach. As they say, "ya gotta have a gimmick." It's all matter of marketing.

I'm a terrible salesperson when I have to sell actual objects, things, consumables. But I'm pretty good at selling ideas, especially if I believe in them. I might have made a great evangelist -- that is if there were anything I believed in enough to want to preach about it.

I finished listening to The Footprints of God. The ending is pretty much what I expected but with a twist that I didn't expect. I liked it.

I'm ready to roll out the words. Tomorrow. After I wash my hair. Maybe run out and get some fresh corn. Orange juice for my mother.

My mother says "oranjuice" when she means "oranges." One of my most embarassing moments happened in my oral interpretation of poetry class in college as I began to read Wallace Steven's Sunday Morning and said "Complacencies of the peignoir and late/ coffee and oranjuice in a sunny chair....." It's still one of my favorite poems, but I still cringe every time I think of it. Everyone in the class started laughing, and I really had no idea what was so funny. My mother's mispronunciation had become mine and I never even realized it.

That's not the only time in my life when I've come out looking stupid. It's a good thing I'm not a perfectionist. Good thing I've got a resilient ego. I think I'm better at losing than I am at winning. I've had more practice at it.

Except for grant proposals. I've won lots of them, millions of bucks worth. But not for me. After all, I'm only the writer.

Tomorrow I start, again.

May 27, 2004

If Bush were honest, this is how he would present his record of "accomplishments."

•I attacked and took over 2 countries.

•Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

Dishonest, conniving, enethical, unAmerican, and downright unChristian. Now, what kind of American would vote for this kind of mis-manager and evildoer? Not me.

I have a non-blogger friend of more than 20 years who forwards me pieces on politics and poetry. I got this one from her today, and I just love it!

What We Want

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names -
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

-- Linda Pastan

May 26, 2004

In a comment to my previous post, Adrian Spidle (founder of the Church of the Modern Era [more on that later]) invites me to enter into political discussions over on his weblog, the Public Inquiry Project.

Well, Adrian, thanks for the invitation, but no thanks. And here's why:

While others categorize me as a "leftist," I catorgize myself as an independent who supports human and civil rights, democratic process, the American Bill of Rights, the Golden Rule, and the rights of individuals and cultures to pursue their own destinies. I also believe that we all have the right to defend ourselves from oppression by individuals or by governments; that, while the ideals of our American democracy are good and moral and should be embraced, the current American administration has led us a long way from those ideals; and that, until we in America get our own house in order, we have no right to try to persuade others that our capitalistic or our democratic ways are the best ways.

I will support any political candidate who also supports those same things -- not only in words, but -- so much more importantly -- in action. And I will oppose any candidate that obviously doesn't.

Bush's actions prove him to be the antithesis of everything in which I believe. The fact that he is a Republican is irrelevant. I look at who he is, with whom he surrounds himself, and what he's done to our American ideals -- and I come to the conclusion that I don't want him to continue being my president.

Now, I have to admit that Adrian's site boasts some interesting facts. At least I'm willing to assume, for the moment, that they really are facts. The stuff here, for example.

Having worked at the New York State Senate (for the Deputy Majority Leader at the time) as a writer for several years, I saw how laws get passed, witnessed the "horse-trading" and compromising. It works that way on tv's West Wing, and it works that way in reality. So, legislative facts often become so despite the true desires of the good guys. In the political world, you hardly ever really win. The most you can do is to keep playing the game and keep hoping some good will come of it. (At least that's what you do if you're one of the good guys; if you're one of the others, you try to get as much for yourself and your cronies as you can while you can.) I wish someone would come up with a way to separate politics from government.

So, Adrian, thanks but no thanks. I try not to argue politics and/or religion and/or art. I know what I believe and why I believe it.

Having said that, I have to say that I'm intrigued by Adrian's statement on his Church of the Modern Era site:

The Theology of the Modern Era

The Empirical Path to Transcendent Truth

I find the above interesting in light of a mystery novel to which I'm currently listening: The Footprints of God. I'm only half way through, but as the story unfolds, it looks as though technology is, indeed, creating "god," or at least a reasonable fascimile thereof.

And now I'm off to listen to the next chapter.

people do terrible things to each other, but it's worse in places where everything is kept in the dark.

As made available at Truthout, Bill Moyers quoted the above from Tom Stoppard's play "Night and Day" in his speech to the Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America dinner on May 19, 2004. Read Moyer's eloquent attack on the powers that have plunged the press -- and our associated freedoms -- into darkness.

(I haven't been blogging about government lately because so many others are and just thinking about what those guys are doing makes me want to retch.)

Near the end of Moyer's address, he says:

I believe journalism and democracy are deeply linked in whatever chances we Americans have to redress our grievances, retake our politics, and reclaim our commitment to equality and justice.

And, earlier in his speech he says something that makes what b!X is doing with his Portland Communique even more important than it already is:

The public interest group Alliance for Better Campaigns studied 45 stations in six cities in one week in October. Out of 7,560 hours of programming analyzed, only 13 were devote to local public affairs-less than one-half of one percent of local programming nationwide.

There are very dark times for American freedom, American democracy.

May 25, 2004

The conifer-filled park next to my building is blooming spring green. Shoots. Nubs. Spikes. Little white protuberances. Everything is seeding. Dandelion fluff abounds. Fluffier little goslings waddle along between their ever-vigilant parents. Seedlings, after all, need to be protected.

So it is with my garden, where the herbs are doing fine but the tomatoes are being attacked by something. Tonight I'll boil garlic and onions and red pepper and make the spray that's supposed to repel the evildoers. If nothing else, my garden's smell will make the mouths of passersby water.

Above my sink, one-out-of three avocado pits is putting down roots. It's the season for putting down roots. Except for me. And the two other avocado pits.

I think I was born to be a gypsy. Have inflatable bed; will travel. Boston, Longmeadow, York Beach -- anywhere but where I have to worry about vacuuming and doing dishes and taking responsibility for someone else.

I have this fantasy that my brother will make an addition to his house, to where my mother and I will move. That will be my home base, but I will also spend time at my daughter's, at the homes of my women friends, and even with my cousins who are planning to retire to Florida. I will finally be motivated to get rid of the clothes that cram my closets and will pare my life down to what I can pack into my car.

This seedy season calls me to freedom. But I blog instead.

I've taken scissors to my hair again. It has something to do with dreams. Not the night kind, but rather the kind that have to do with hopes. I'm always hoping that if I just make a few adjustments here and there, it will all fall into place -- my hair, my clothes, my life. I often come close. When is it good enough?

There are some who live in a world of dreams. I think today of Chris Locke (Rage Boy), who blogs of fevered flu-fueled dreams. Who dreams of ways to survive in a world that seems to send suicide bombers into the center of every dream. He just wants to find a way to survive.

That's what b!X is trying to do with his Portland Communique. Survive. The same end, but different means, different motivation, different dreams.

The little house in the corner of a big corner lot is a dream to which scissors have been taken.

I'm wishing a good hair day for everyone.

May 24, 2004

They are out looking for a house to buy. I'm driving. We follow the realtor and stop in front of a little house tucked into the corner of a big corner lot. It looks like a doll's house, dwarfed by the huge old trees that surround it on two sides. "A gnome-home," my son-in-law comments. Later, we laugh about how they can dress it up each Hallowe'en: one year a baby's block; the next year one of a set of dice; next, a Rubik's cube. Later, I discover it's probably some sort of cross between "biscuit box" and "four square" architecture. It was built in the 1920s, empty for a while, and a builder recently bought it and completely renovated it.

The houses that surround it are twice as imposing, twice as large, and architecturally more complex. The little house looks like a spruced-up orphan, undersized and ignored, waiting -- shyly in a corner, alone among all its more obviously desireable peers -- to be adopted by just the right people who could appreciate its uniqueness.

Inside, it's all new and airy -- bright even on this cloudy day. Hardwood floors. Two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. They would need to add on another room. The builder/renovator assumed that would be the case and is prepared to work with them. The price is low enough. The yard is big -- room for kids to congregate and play, vegetables to grow, flowers to flourish. It will take time and nurturning. They have plenty of that.

The orphaned little house on the corner will soon be a home again.

It's all in how you look at things.

May 20, 2004

My father used to say that to me as I would scurry about, doing what kids do when seasons and screen doors turn springy.

Actually, as I discovered, that's not an accurate quote of the original line, but that's beside the point at this point.

I'm heading out to Boston again tomorrow, leaving my mother -- who seems to have rallied a bit -- to her own devices. Her neighbors will check on her, as will I, by phone. It's another house-hunting frenzy, and I'll be back on Sunday. The mortgage rates are low, they have a buyer for their Boston condo, and my daughter is eager to find a back yard with a springy screen door.

So, even though I just got in, I'm heading out. Again.

Not much time for much else, what with the food preparation (to leave some for mom and take the rest for quick meals among the traveling) and the re-packing and getting the cat set for a couple of nights on her own. She's still annoyed at me for the last trip.

But this should be the last such trip for me, since, if all goes well, those two oddities who never had cars or licenses and somehow managed to find each other and get married should be taking their driving tests and getting their licenses within the next week or so.

And then maybe I'll be "in" for a while. At least until next month when I head out for my annual York Beach solstice vacation.

May 15, 2004

He can say "guacamole" and "sushi" and "calculator" (well, they don't sound EXACTLY like that) and he knows what they are. He can barely see over the steering wheel, even when he kneels on the seat, but he loves to play with the "round round" (steering wheel) and push all the buttons and levers on the dashboard. He likes to eat with one chopstick, which he uses like a spear.

My grandson is just about 22 months old, and I'm posting this from Boston, where we've just finished de-puking the back seat of my car -- where he managed to throw up three times during our house-hunting journey to and from Agawam, MA. My daughter's patience with him is limitless, and he responds by being damned good company. Despite the smelly trip, I feel like I'm on a vacation. No mother to mother. I'm just playing chauffer, hanging out and enjoying the adventure. After all, he didn't puke all over me!

I swear, he learns a new word every other minute, and he remembers everthing. He asks if he can "touch" or "hold" before he grabs onto any object that's caught his attention. When he calls me "Glammy" and takes my hand to walk and talk me around his world, I think I could even deal with his puke.

Of course, you know what his new favorite word is.

May 12, 2004

This story begins in the middle, because that's usually where stuff starts to happen that makes a story worth telling. Especially if the story is the absolute truth. Which this one, strange as it is, is.

This morning, as I'm driving my mother 90 miles downstate to my brother's (so that I can leave tomorrow for Boston and my daughter etc.), a little more than half way down the NY State Thruway, my mother and I start to hear something like a digital alarm clock going off. My cell phone isn't turned on, and I don't have the alarm set on it anyway. I ask my mother if she has an alarm clock in her bag that's in the trunk. She says no. And if it were packed in a bag in the trunk, we probably wouldn't have heard it anyway.

I look at the clock on my dashboard. It says 11:11. The chimey alarm keeps going on until the dashboard clock changes to 11:12. Then it stops. I still haven't figured out where it came from.

Then, as I'm driving back after dropping my mother off, I'm listening, on CD, to James Patterson's 1st to Die. I hear the main character, a female homicide detective, look at her beeper and say "Code One Eleven -- Emergency Alert!" I look at the CD player in my dashboard and it registers the 11th track. I look up at the truck that just pulled into my lane in front of me. On the back are the letters "LRT." (Like "alert," right?) I stop at the Malden rest stop to pick up some iced coffee, and when I start up my car, the clock says 1:11.

I'm not making any kind of judgment here about the numbers; I'm simply reporting what happened. You have to admit, it's awfully bizarre, especially since it's not the first time these numbers have insinuated themselves into my vision for no logical reason.

Now, to the beginning of the story.

Last night, I finished reading John Horgan's Rational Mysticism, which pretty much affirms my own contention that we humans believe that we have mystical experiences because there's something in our brain wiring (probably to do with natural selection and psychological survival mechanisms) that makes us want to. And then there's a machine, called the "god machine," that attaches electrodes to certain parts of the brain and causes a mystical experience. The problem is that everyone's brain seems to be wired a little differently, so it's often hard to know which part to stimulate to get that mystical response. Nevertheless, poke the right place, and you get to see god -- or at least sense some magical mystical presence. Wow! Aha! and Eureka!

My point is that just after finished a book that pretty much discounts the signficance of coincidences such as my 11:11 stuff because they are well within the realm of probability, I have another bout. And it just doesn't seem very probable to me. It seems rather mystical. But then, again, that's how I seem to be wired.

I'm also wired to be a doting grandma, so tomorrow I'm off to Boston for several days, car packed with food, a Lego bulldozer I got for half-price, and a piggy bank to give my grandson a reason to save money. (Something I should have been more conscientious about doing when my own kids were little.) Oh well, I've said it before: Too soon old, too late smart.

11:11 and out.

May 09, 2004

Thanks to all who left comments about the two versions of my poem. In a real sense, my struggle with this poem is the same struggle I have with blogging. For whom do I write? Do I write to achieve some sort of status or simply because I like to write -- both poetry and posts.

At my stage of the game, I've mulled around to these conclusions (to which most of you have already come, and to which I come around periodically; but about which I still have to go through the occasional process of mulling, anyway.)

When I sit down to write, be it poem or post, I do it because I have the urge to communicate something to the world. Whether the world notices it or not is not up to me. What's up to me is to say what I have to say in the best way that I know how. And, at this stage of my game, to find pleasure -- not status or fame -- in the saying. I'm glad that I was accepted into and took Grennon's workshop for many reasons, including having a chance to connect with other poets, getting some tips on revising and editing, and being reminded that what's important is refining my OWN voice, not imitating someone else's.

Getting back to the poem: The first version is mine; the second is based on suggestions made by (much more accomplished poet) Eamon Grennon. While there are things I like about his approach/style, it's not mine; it's his. I don't write poetry with long, prose-like lines. I, like many of my commentors below, like the rhythm of the short lines. I don't know what art is but I know what I like. So, there you are.

And, so here I am, posting instead of poetry-ing, which is what I feel like doing on this gloomy Mother's Day.

I don't bother celebrating holidays these days. My mom doesn't really enjoy much of anything. Not that, I think, she ever did; celebrations of any kind were her way of doing something so that later she could say that she did something wonderful. There was no enjoying "the moment" in my family of origin. Everything was for some effect that could be documented and recounted some time in the future.

I'm still learning to celebrate the moment. Like getting an email from Stu Savory, a blogger I hadn't encountered before but who somehow encountered me (through Frank Paynter, I think). I'm adding him to my blogroll.

There are some other changes on my sidebar as well, like the Kali image with the lily sticking out of her nose, looking like the madwoman-in-the-moon. And the quote underneath, of which non-blogger myrln reminded me and which I tend to think was stuck in my subconscious when I chose the title for this weblog. Strange flower, indeed.

Happy Mother's Day, all you mothers out there.

May 06, 2004

Is what I wrote in yesterday's post a poem? I'm still mulling that over.

In the same vein, here are two versions of one of my poems. Is one better than the other?

Verion 1.
Views

All kitchens should have windows,
double wide and Windexed clear --
if not into sunny vistas,
at least into frames of sky
beyond a stand of trees marked
by clumps of day lilies,
maybe a lilac bush or two --
certainly a bird feeder
filled with lilting movement,
stirring morning’s light.
And just as important,
a wide indoor sill
where green seeds sprout
even when winter
shrouds the pane.

Version 2.
Views

beyond a stand of trees bordered by day
lilies in clumps, maybe a lilac bush or two, certainly
a bird feeder busy with wings and

morning light. Not to mention a big
indoor sill where seeds will sprout green
even when winter shrouds the pane.

Poetry is language and rhythm as well as "registering elemental presence in the ordinary." Personally, I like the language in the second.

The second, however, changes the rhythm, the style of the lines, and I'm not sure about that. Is it just a matter of style?

Why are some poets and other artists considered great and some not? Isn't it more than their message; isn't it a matter of the craft with which they use the medium that presents their message?

With all of that in mind, I'm wondering which of the versions above "works" better. If you have an opinion, please leave a comment. If you don't want to leave a comment, e-mail me.

May 05, 2004

The full moon lit up my sky last night, which was cloudless and star-filled.

My daughter tells me of my grandson trying to water the moon. He loves the moon, stories of rockets going to the moon. "Moooon. Moooon," he croons.

"Moon," he says, holding his watering can. "Water."

She tries to explain that the moon is too far away to water. It's way high in the sky, above the clouds.

He's not even two years old yet. What does he care.

He stands on his tip-toes, lifts his arm with his watering can, positions himself at just the right spot in his perspective, and waters the moon.

May 04, 2004

.....if you're African American, that is, is detailed here. These are excerpts:

On October 29, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Hidden behind its apple-pie-and-motherhood name lies a nasty civil rights time bomb..... [snip]

Florida's racial profile mirrors the nation's--both in the percentage of voters who are black and the racial profile of the voters whose ballots don't count. "In 2000, a black voter in Florida was ten times as likely to have their vote spoiled--not counted--as a white voter," explains political scientist Philip Klinkner, co-author of Edley's Harvard report. "National figures indicate that Florida is, surprisingly, typical. Given the proportion of nonwhite to white voters in America, then, it appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the USA, as many as 1 million votes, were cast by nonwhite voters."

One million votes will disappear in a puff of very black smoke. And when the smoke clears, the Bush clan will be warming their political careers in the light of the ballot bonfire. HAVA nice day

On Sunday, when my women's group gathered for brunch, we got into a loud discussion about my assertion that Bush's America has managed a major escalation of the self-destruction of this planet's human species. While the current lives of us seven women are not that bad (no thanks to Bush and great thanks to the feminist movement), we nevertheess feel powerless to have any effect on the supposed democracy in which we're trying to at least to do a little better than merely survive. Even the major march of women in Washington -- thought to be the largest rally ever held in the nation's capital -- is not making any difference. It barely got any media coverage, and you know that Bush and his cabal couldn't care less anyway. Well, we still have our votes. Oh yeah. HAVA nice day.

I'll meet you on the corner of Apocalypse and Armaggedon.

OK. He really is inspiring. Yesterday I went to a open seminar and a reading by Eamon Grennon as a way to wrap up this experience for me.

"poetry is an interplay between music and meaning.....between sentence and line....a dance...registering elemental presence in the ordinary..."

These were just some of what he tried to expalin in relation to his own writing.

elemental presence in the ordinary

Yes, that's what his poetry achieves and that's my goal as well.

He also spoke about the moment when the poem takes on a life of its own, begins to become something other than you started out with. That's the point that I have a hard time getting to these days. It happens for me when I get into what I can only describe as a meditative state -- drifting in deep and touching that "elemental presence." Hasn't happened for me in a while.

With a Irish lilt in his voice and a rhythmic movement of his shoulders, Grennon read his poetry into music. He talked a little about the background of each poem before he read it, adding his unique humanity and humor to the context of each.

What he said and what he writes resonate with the poet in me. I bitched and moaned about the writing exercises that he had us do, but I'm really glad that I hung in there. I just wish the timing had been better and I had more of myself to give to the process.

In between seminar and reading, I went out to dinner with five other poets, all but one who were in the Grennon workshop with me. Two are in the every-other-Tuesday night poetery group as well. Being in their presence -- laughing, getting to know each other on a personal level, sharing stories -- was amazingly energizing for me. Tonight is the Tuesday night group, and I'm definitely going....

...even though, while I was out last night, my mother experienced shortness of breath and didn't eat the dinner I left for her. I think she's having episodes with her heart, since she doesn't want a pacemaker, since she doesn't want to do anything to prolong her life.

And so it goes.

May 01, 2004

I stayed up last night to watch the faces of our needlessly dead American soldiers move across my tv screen on Nightline So young. So many minorities. All I could think about was how their mothers must feel. And how insensitive ABC was to run pizza commericals between the segments.

Bash that Bush!