boo

Nearly a year. And why now? Because tonight, I experienced the famous straw as never before. Tonight, my favorite lamp was the straw, and I was the camel's back: We broke nearly simultaneously.

There was no reason for me to react the way I did. As disappointed as I was that the lamp broke, and as frustrated as I was about the circumstances that led it to break, and as panicked as I was about all the broken glass, none of those things -- even in concert with each other -- was enough to prompt the full-on tantrum/meltdown that ensued.

Ted was bewildered, concerned... a bit scared. The wife he's known for so many years usually maintains a freakishly even keel. And tonight, she suddenly hit rough seas and near-about capsized!

He tried to calm me down, but was unsuccessful. The cats rapidly made themselves scarce, which was good because they avoided the millions of shards. And in the middle of this wildly disproportionate fit, I found myself wondering why I was pitching it, why there was no OFF button. And so I, too, was something of a witness to the whole episode.

Didn't last long -- a couple minutes, after which, I regained my composure and set about to vacuuming up the bits too small to pick up by hand (Ted got all the big pieces while I was morphing into a crazed puddle). It was an arduous task to be sure. The lamp had truly shattered.

It's done now, and I've since found several places online where I can get replacement shades. So now life goes on. Right? I've folded laundry, chatted about my day with my husband, checked email, read the news, and written a blog entry. Is it necessary for me to analyze all the pieces of straw in my life? Is that the only way to keep my back from breaking again the next time a fly buzzes by and inadvertently adds a speck of straw dust? There are many pieces of straw these days. And my back hurts enough that it's tempting to openly list and/or complain about them (though I might contend that the list itself would be a complaint). This strays way outside my usual optimism, and although it may explain tonight, I know better than to go there. It's time to climb up the slope, not slide down it.

So, let's talk about something more upbeat. Holidays! Here's a great Thanksgiving poem:

"Yam" by Bruce Guernsey

The potato that ate all its carrots,
can see in the dark like a mole,

its eyes the scars

from centuries of shovels, tines.

May spelled backwards

because it hates the light,

pawing its way, paddling along,

there in the catacombs.

Love it. And then there's Christmas.



I'm not ready for Christmas in any way. Some gifts have been procured. But when my hard drive crashed, it ate my list. That means I have to start from scratch as to who gets what and how much budget is left for everyone, and therefore how much more shopping needs to be done. I'm braving Black Friday with my sister and my Christmas Club money. But I'm not appropriately prepared for it. At a time in the process when I'm typically done or close to it. And I'm still trying to imagine Christmas without my own personal Santa -- Dad.

Oops. Just slipped down a bit. I should call it a night, an entry, a year, and get some sleep. Maybe I'll blog again next August.

a seasonal haiku

Autumn arrives when

The first fallen leaf becomes

Unsolitary.
.
.
.
Photo by Rosie O'Donnell

wordle

Found this cool application which takes whatever text you put into it and turns it into a word cloud. I went with the John Hollander piece.

bob explains poetry

“It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound -- that he will never get over it. That is to say, permanence in poetry, as in love, is perceived instantly. It hasn’t to await the test of time. The proof of a poem is not that we have never forgotten it, but we knew at sight we never could forget it."

- Robert Frost

numbing

You know how some people drink to ease the pain? Here's my drug of choice tonight.

“Variations on a Fragment by Trumbull Stickney”
by John Hollander

I hear a river thro’ the valley wander
Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.
A rainbow stands and summer passes under,

Flowing like silence in the light of wonder.
In the near distances it is still raining
Where now the valley fills again with thunder,

Where now the river in her wide meander,
Losing at each loop what she had been gaining,
Moves into what one might as well call yonder.

The way of the dark water is to ponder
The way the light sings as of something waning.
The far-off waterfall can sound asunder.

Stillness of distances, as if in blunder,
Tumbling over the rim of all explaining.
Water proves nothing, but can only maunder.

Shadows show nothing, but can only launder
The lovely land that sunset had been staining,
Long fields of which the falling light grows fonder.

Here summer stands while all its songs pass under,
A riverbank still time runs by, remaining.
I will remember rainbows as I wander.

Like when your blood is drawn at the doctor's office, and the technician encourages you to look at the picture across the room and tells you a story about a lovely boat trip so you don't focus on the sharpened steel piercing your skin, puncturing your vein, and sucking out your life force. The pain is still there, but the distraction makes it less noticeable.

I've loved this poem for years. Its complexity catches me up for long hours. It's easy to get lost in it. Just what I need.

napomo treasure

Every day, I receive an email with a poem. As mentioned before, despite my apparent love for poetry, often when a hundred are thrown at me, only one or two will stick. I guess it's simply a matter of which topics and feelings I best relate to. Sometimes, though, the wordplay alone is enough to capture me, even if I don't wholly jive with the rest.

Today's email poem was "Balance" by Adam Zagajewski. It includes phrases such as "...a certain sort of snowy wasteland bursts from a surfeit of happiness" and "pale grass plagued by winter and the wind." I liked the idea of the alternate existence of being on a plane versus the harshness of reality once landed.

"The darkness of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness, the darkness of the voice that counts and measures, remembers and forgets."

So I went a little further. Followed links to other poems written by Mr. Zagajewski (and translated by Clare Cavanagh). "My Aunts" is quite intriguing, but it is his "Self-Portrait" that most caught my ear.

Self-Portrait

by Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
I live in strange cities and sometimes talk
with strangers about matters strange to me.
I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
The fourth has no name.
I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers--but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.
I like to take long walks on Paris streets
and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
anger, desire; to trace a silver coin
passing from hand to hand as it slowly
loses its round shape (the emperor's profile is erased).
Beside me trees expressing nothing
but a green, indifferent perfection.
Black birds pace the fields,
waiting patiently like Spanish widows.
I'm no longer young, but someone else is always older.
I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
and irony suddenly vanishes.
I love gazing at my wife's face.
Every Sunday I call my father.
Every other week I meet with friends,
thus proving my fidelity.
My country freed itself from one evil. I wish
another liberation would follow.
Could I help in this? I don't know.
I'm truly not a child of the ocean,
as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
but a child of air, mint and cello
and not all the ways of the high world
cross paths with the life that--so far--
belongs to me.

Oh, how lovely. I truly feel as though I know him better now. And what's not to love about phrases like "... a child of air, mint and cello...?" Wonderful.

Mr. Zagajewski's work evoked the idea of a six word memoir. You're familiar with this phenomenon? Here is a slide show from NPR that showcases a number of the memoirs. I've included one here, though the caption is very small. It is, "Naively expected logical world. Acted foolishly." It was written by Emily Thieler.

Sometimes, I think about trying to encapsulate my life in six words. Sometimes, it seems insurmountably difficult to squeeze it all into just six words. Sometimes, six seems all together too many words. Perhaps someday I'll actually give it a try.

Until then, the only attempts at creative writing I make are Tweets in the Westernized form of haiku. Hardly noteworthy. There is a Haiku Writing Center near my house. Ted keeps encouraging me to go knock on the door. I nearly did, the other day on my walk. But I haven't done it yet.

Just around the corner, tomorrow, is Jazzmouth: The Seacoast Poetry and Jazz Festival. Did I mention that jazz is one of my favorite genres of music? And you know about my love of poetry. Why is it I didn't read about this festival until yesterday? And Billy Collins is going to be there! Can I make it to any of the events? Tomorrow's show isn't sold out: I must simply decide whether or not to spend money on my ethereal longing at a time when employment eludes me. Might I go to one of the free sessions? Alas, I have already scheduled my weekend to the teeth. Could I rearrange the calendar to allow? Alas, it is previous rearrangement that has me in my current pickle -- the one which requires me to work all weekend.

Perhaps it is fitting that the poetry and jazz which I seek and which seems so close is so elusive, feeding my longing. Hmm. Perhaps.

I leave you with Mr. Collins. Not only is the animation a unique way to experience this poem, the subject matter hits particularly close to home for me these days. Frighteningly so. And it is that connection that gives poetry its potency. For me.

napomo

It's National Poetry Month. Love this picture. Anyway. It's slightly less ambitious than NaNoWriMo, and perhaps a touch more esoteric than NoBloPoMo, but nonetheless it's a month dedicated to a specific form of writing, and so it earns the weirdly abbreviated name NaPoMo.

I love poetry, which is an odd thing to say because quite often, I'll only really enjoy about 10% of any given anthology. But I find great satisfaction, comfort, and pleasure in the pieces I do enjoy. There are some poets whose words all find welcome in my heart. There are some things written by absolutely obscure poets that rank among my favorite writings in the world. In truth, the vast majority of poets are unknown. Superstar poets are rare, though I grew up in a town where one such master once lived. A town which now includes West Running Brook school and Promises to Keep wedding hall.

Once, I wrote poetry. In my youth, regularly and with much self-importance and melodrama. The closest I come now is tweeting in haiku form. C'est la vie.

In honor of NaPoMo, here is a piece that combines two of my favorite writing forms -- poetry and journaling.

What's in My Journal by William Stafford

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

the end

Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. I have failed at any imagined attempt of writing some poetry myself this month. But I've quite enjoyed reading the daily poems that arrived to my inbox. And despite my inaction, it has motivated me at least subconsciously. I like this one from the 27th better than today's, so I'll include it as the capstone for this celebratory month.

Apples
by Grace Schulman

Rain hazes a street cart's
green umbrella but not its apples, heaped in paper cartons,
dry under cling film. The apple man,

who shirrs his mouth as though eating tart fruit,
exhibits four like racehorses at auction:
Blacktwig, Holland, Crimson King, Salome.

I tried one and its cold grain jolted memory:
a hill where meager apples fell so bruised
that locals wondered why we scooped them up,

my friend and I, in matching navy blazers.
One bite and I heard her laughter toll,
free as school's out, her face flushed in late sun.

I asked the apple merchant for another,
jaunty as Cezanne's still-life reds and yellows,
having more life than stillness, telling us,

uncut, unpeeled, they are not for the feast
but for themselves, and building strength to fly
at any moment, leap from a skewed bowl,

whirl in the air, and roll off a tilted table.
Fruit-stand vendor, master of Northern Spies,
let a loose apple teach me how to spin

at random, burn in light and rave in shadows.
Bring me a Winesap like the one Eve tasted,
savored and shared, and asked for more.

No fool, she knew that beauty strikes just once,
hard, never in comfort. For that bitter fruit,
tasting of earth and song, I'd risk exile.

The air is bland here. I would forfeit mist
for hail, put on a robe of dandelions,
and run out, broken, to weep and curse — for joy.

"Apples" from The Broken String by Grace Schulman.
Copyright © 2007 by Grace Schulman.

~~~
Song: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Patti Smith. I've only heard one other cover of this Nirvana song (by the Bad Plus), and both do it justice in their own unique ways. I really admire Ms. Smith's take on it, adding a "Deliverance"-reminiscent banjo and with a whole new section in the middle where she rants about everything that's wrong with the world.
Other: Busily piling through stuff...

unexpected absence

I thought I would have been blogging more, this first week of unemployment. But alas, I spent much of the first three days of this week fixing my internet access. First the cable modem died. Then the router. It was Wednesday afternoon before everything was functioning correctly again. And I just haven't bothered to write anything since then.

Until now, that is.

And what am I going to write? I don't really know. I am inclined to include today's "Poem-A-Day" from Poets.org (did you know that April is National Poetry Month?). I actually started writing a poem on the 1st, thinking I might try to write one every day. It's been a long time since I've written any poetry, and so the stasis has slowed my attempt. That, and a bunch of errands and chores that have commandeered the week.

Here's what I'll do for now. Include today's poem and dust off an old favorite. I'll find some sort of graphic to include in this entry. And then I'll call it a post for now. Maybe I'll work some more on my own poem during the day and come back later to share the results.

Poem-A-Day for April 6, 2007

Bent Orbit
by Elaine Equi

I wind my way across a black donut hole
and space that clunks.
Once I saw on a stage,
as if at the bottom of a mineshaft,
the precise footwork
of some mechanical ballet.
It was like looking into the brain
of a cuckoo clock and it carried
some part of me away forever.
No one knows when they first see a thing,
how long its after image will last.
Proust could stare at the symptom of a face
for years, while Frank O'Hara, like anyone with a job,
was always looking at his watch.
My favorite way of remembering is to forget.
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull's wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.

And now, to dig into the archives.

A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! -- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

I'm also changing up my typical post ending. In addition to the song currently playing, I will now include the book I'm reading, and maybe something else unique to my work-free life.

Song: "Faith" by Elmer Bernstein
Book: "Doing Nothing" by Tom Lutz
Other: Played "Promenade" and "Gnomus" from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on the piano