black is white is black
we all want our babies back
what’s a little scat
instead of rat
poison
just watch chicken
little as the sky
fades to black
bones and skulls,
bloody tongue
Bronx Cheering
more as more or less
negative capability
*link

From Conjure Wife:
Tansy Saylor:
“There are two sides to every woman… One is rational, like a man. the other knows. Men are artificially isolated creatures like islands in a sea of magic, protected by their rationality and by the devices of their women. Their isolation gives them greater forcefulness in thought and action, but the women know. Women might be able to rule the world openly, but they do not want the work or the responsibility. And men might learn to excell them in the Art. Even now, there may still be male sorcerers, but very few.”
Norman Saylor:
“The distinction between physics and magic is only an accident of history. Physics started out as a kind of magic, too — witness alchemy and the mystical mathematics of Pythagoras. And modern physics is ultimately as practical as magic, but it posesses a superstructure of theory that magic lacks. Magic could be given such a superstructure by research into pure magic and by the investigation and correlation of the forumlas of different peoples and times, with a view o deriving basic formulas which could be expressed in mathematical symbols and which would have a wide application. Most persons practicing magic have been too interested in immediate results to bother about theory. But just as research in pure science has ultimately led, seemingly by accident, to results of vast practical importance, so research in pure magic might be expercted to yield simlar results.”
“The work of Rhine at Duke, indeed, has been very close to pure magic, with its piling up of evidence for clairvoyance, prophecy, and telepathy; its investigation of the direct linkage between all minds, their ability to affect each other instantaneously, even when theyare on opposite sides of the earth.”
Tansy Saylor:
“I believe it is more akin to psychology….. Because it concerns the control of other beings, the summoning of them, and the constraining of them to perform certain actions.”
HEADOLOGY, I say. And a few strands, scribbles and scrapes just to make sure.
Here a cackle, there a cackle.

I don’t think I ever had a black eye before. It’s kinda cool, really. Of course, it would be a lot cooler if I didn’t get it tripping myself while stepping up on a high curb — if I didn’t get it because I was talking to my grandson in my daughter’s arms and didn’t watch where I was going. It was almost worth it, though, to hear my grandson walk around all evening saying “boo-boo. Fall down. Grammy.”
I went out to Boston again, unexpectedly and last minute to take them too look at a house that sounded affordable. (The “gnome home” didn’t work out; concern about insulation……) Another marathon trip with no tangible results — until they asked me stay another day……and I did…..and they found and put and offer on (which was accepted) a really nice little ranch house right next to a nature conservancy in a little western Massachusetts town with a great school system.
Before that successful house acquisition, I was looking for something to read while others were napping, and so I scoured my son-in-law’s sci fi collection and came up with Fritz Leiber’s “Conjure Wife” . And then, in a fit of witchy inspiration, I took some hair from their hair brushes, and when we were looking around the house that they wanted so badly to buy, I dropped the hair on the property and casually stroked a few auspicious rune symbols into the nearby dirt.
Now, combine that with my son-in-law’s in-jest comment after my tumble that, now that we’ve made our blood sacrifice, the fates would find them a house, I might figure that our little magics worked. But we all know that those things are not the case, right?
While driving back and forth across the state of Massachusetts,I did listen to a wonderful novel on audio CD — The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg. I’ve read some of her other stuff, but this is her best so far. I’ve also begun listening to a collection of Elmore Leonard’s short stories When the Women Came out to Dance. I couldn’t resist the title, and they’re also quite good.
Of course, what I really should be doing is working on the grant proposals that I’m getting paid to write. I got off to a great start and then got interrupted by the unexpected Boston trip. But now that’s all over and I can get back to work. Black eye, bloody knee, and all.

“Kill Bill” — a metaphor for amerika
(1st draft)
she

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.

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.