Monthly Archives: May 2008

major ear worm

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It’s been there all week. I can’t get rid of it, no matter what other music I play.

Famous Blue Raincoat.
It’s haunting me.
As I’m immersed in music, I get this poem from and by Jim Culleny.
The Pumpkin Harvesters
Jim Culleny
In town the café’s coffee buzz
seeps into the street from under the door
as a tender singer moans her song
not as in the old days
(as in rockabilly and rhythm and blues before)
but with power chords
and a fresh monotony
My dad preferred country tunes
and hearing Little Richard first time
stopped where my big-holed 45 spun
and in his best blue-collar voice said,
“You call this shit music?” and I did
as we twirled off each other about then
and went our separate ways awhile
until a fresh dew froze on the pumpkin
in a new late game and the harvesters
off across the field sang both
Coldplay and Hank Williams
as they came.
As we sorted through his CDs, we rediscovered just what an eclectic taste in music in once-husband had. From Willie Nelson to Anrdea Bocelli, with Moody Blues somewhere in the middle.
As for me, Hank Williams and Kitty Wells were my high school idols, which, I know is strange for an urban kid, but I hung around with guys who had a country band.
Gotta get rid of that earworm.

green doors

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Green Doors

Fences are a good thing
and walls, too, as long as
you can see over them.
They lay the line, the bounds,
hold space and sanctuary,
designate, define the personal.
Doors are necessary to
fences and walls, access,
of course, both ways.
But I wonder what is it about
closed doors that draws his eye, stark,
silent green doors..
What is it about closed outside
green doors, and only one nestled
in the green of spring.
elf 5/08

Myrln Monday Memoriam

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For a while before his death in April, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter has been sending me some of his writings to post posthumously, but we were all away all weekend at the party Bill said in his will that he wanted.
So, today, I post my second letter to the dead.
Dear Bill:
Were you whirling in your ashes as so many of those people whose lives you touched so meaningfully told stories about their relationships with you? Even a few with whom you were no longer on the best of terms stood up and remembered the good times.
I know how much you wanted to let those people with whom you felt close at various points in your life know how much they meant to you. Well, obviously they already knew.
I didn’t count how many of the little theater’s seats were filled, but there had to be between 50 and 60 people who came in for the story telling. And there were others who came and left before that time as well.
You would have loved to hear the stories — some funny, some poignant — all remembering you at your best. There is no doubt that you will be remembered by your colleagues and students not only as an amazingly talented writer and director, but also a uniquely nurturing mentor and teacher.
You would have been so proud of our two kids. Well, I should say proudER, since you always have been proud of them.
You also would have loved to see your almost 6-year-old grandson and the (equally young) granddaughter of our friends Pat and Bill. They hit it off amazingly. Word has it that she said that she really liked his hair and was going to marry him. The pairing of our respective offspring didn’t happen last generation. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if it happened with this one.
I wish I could talk to you about that novel Enchantment that you gave me a while ago and I found in my pile of books-to-read last week. I couldn’t help see you and me in the princess and the scholar. I wonder if that’s what you thought as well. I’m only half way through, so I don’t know how it ends. I hope that it ends better than we did as a couple.
On the way back to where I live now (I can’t call it “home”), I played the Famous Blue Raincoat CD that you gave me.

There Ain’t no Cure for Love.

the lone crow

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For the first time ever, I see a lone crow wandering around the area of the bird feeders. At first I wonder if it’s a grackle, but a quick look in the Audobon bird book confirms that, indeed, it is a crow.
I leave tomorrow to join family and friends for my late once-husband’s remembrance party. A lone crow, and thoughts of death.
My mother is now losing her hair. Her digestive system is screwed up. She is always afraid, never satisfied or happy, constantly restless.
I watch the crow march back and forth across the small area where squirrels and doves are pecking at what the finches and cardinals have accidentally tossed their way. He doesn’t seem to be eating. He looks like he’s checking things out.
Is he wondering “Is this the place?”

the last post-it

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postit.jpg

My late once-husband often sent me books that he thought I would like, after he read them. He always had an uncanny knack for selecting both books and music that I liked as much as he did.
As I continue to clean out my “stuff,” I moved a pile of books yesterday and found one I had forgotten about. And so I started reading it last night.
He was right, again. From the Amazon review:

Mixing magic and modernity, the acclaimed Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) has woven threads of history, religion, and myth together into a convincing, time-hopping tale that is part love story, part adventure. Enchantment’s heroes, “Prince” Ivan and Princess Katerina, must deal with cross-cultural mores, ancient gods, treacherous kinsmen (and fianceés), and ultimately Baba Yaga herself.

Thanks, again, Bill.

Myrln Monday: Legacy

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Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words, thanks to our daughter, who salvaged his collection of writings.

Legacy

My children:

I want to leave you something –
but what?
My images are either silver compound
or airy theater –
both without example or duration:
mere light reflecting a moment of existence.
I was, my children,
but how to prove that to you?
What will serve as evidence –
for what is legacy but proof
your forebears were something more
than momentary makers of egg or sperm?

There is only this:
I came from shadows,
and toward shadows I inexorably moved;
I dove (or sank) deeply into shadows,
skirted the light flanking them, reflected awhile
then wrapped myself in them.

(Wrapt myself in them.)

waf 1977

nostalgia runs rampant

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I’m caught up in a wash of nostalgia these days, with friends I haven’t been in contact for a long while emailing photos with messages saying “Were we ever that young?”
And so this poem, one of Jim Culleny‘s dailies, reminds me of just how young I once was and how much has happened since.

In Memory of Radio
Amiri Baraka
Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)
What can I say?
It is better to have loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?
Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake’s hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts…
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot even order you to the gaschamber satori like Hitler or Goddy Knight)
& love is an evil word.
Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean?
An evol word. & besides
who understands it?
I certainly wouldn’t like to go out on that kind of limb.
Saturday mornings we listened to the Red Lantern & his undersea folk.
At 11, Let’s Pretend
& we did
& I, the poet, still do. Thank God!
What was it he used to say (after the transformation when he was safe
& invisible & the unbelievers couldn’t throw stones?) “Heh, heh, heh.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”
O, yes he does
O, yes he does
An evil word it is,
This Love.

should I or shouldn’t I

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That’s the dilemma of every blogger who is considering whether it’s appropriate to post a certain entry.
b!X deliberated and then made the decision to post. And I could have left it at that.
But I see his Deathbed post and photo link as a tribute, a reminder — in a sense, a virtual wake, a moment to say a final goodbye — and, for those of us who were not there to actually witness, closure.
You can read his post and decide for yourself. This entry is my decision.
And, just as an added note that reflects how attuned our little family is to the magical occurrences in life that Myrln loved to recognize, Myrln died just about at 5 p.m. When we survivors were at his apartment last weekend sorting through his stuff, our daughter noticed that the clock on his wall, which was keeping accurate time the last time we were there, had stopped at 5 o’clock.

roses

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I woke to the smell of roses today, but there are no roses anywhere around here. I smelled them in the garage, too, when I went to take out the garbage.
My father loved roses. His wake was full of them.
My mother barely woke up this morning. Her mouth hung slack, her words slurred. She took a few bites of french toast, a few sips of her fake coffee, and now she’s back in bed. I wonder if she’s smelling roses.