With the news out of Japan going from bad to worse, I'm thankful to see the sun rising this morning. I'm thankful for my cup of coffee and the electricity with which to brew it.
It seems no one is really in charge anymore as they frantically dump water from helicopters, of which four out of five completely miss the target. Now the U.S. government is offering the use of water cannons but five days and precious time has been lost and still a private company with a reputation for deception is in charge of the reactors. This reminds me of the oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico. Over and over again, around the world, we let the weasal guard the henhouse. It doesn't lend itself to good results here on the farm, and it doesn't lead to good results in the energy industry or in the world at large.
If there is a meltdown at this nuclear facility, scientists say a third of Japan could end up as a dead zone. I've never been there but I've heard it is a beautiful country. What does this mean for the rest of us? I fear for the future with weasels in charge. I fear for the earth. I wish somebody in charge was looking out for the common good.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
SOLDIER
They come home to cameras and flags,
balloons and poster boards.
They come home to old soldiers
in receiving lines with flags raised—
Hip Hip Hooray
old soldiers who form a gauntlet civilians hesitate to walk.
Like the mounds of dirt we skirt in a cemetery
(even after the soil settles),
we are not worthy to walk their gauntlet.
Don’t shake my hand; I only work here.
This receiving line is not for me.
And I wonder . . .
Are these new soldiers in it for the money?
Don’t hate me, I merely ask.
Serving merely for pay, says Webster,
is the definition of mercenary.
With the flag sewn backwards on their sleeves,
do they know what it means
to be in it for the money?
Sometimes they fly in alone to a girlfriend or a parent
and I wonder how they managed it.
There’s room for honest emotion
without the media attention and the old vets
who only want them to have what they didn’t have.
A mother and father wait outside the security checkpoint
with eyes fixed on the horizon of the terminal
for a glimpse of their boy.
They shyly hold two small flags,
like the ones sold on the 4th of July
that you’re supposed to—I guess—stick in the flowerbed
like an ornamental praying mantis
to show your support.
Thrust upon them like the recruiter’s handshake,
they aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do with them.
Their boy walks down the exit lane to meet them.
“Put those away,” he says. "I need a cigarette.”
balloons and poster boards.
They come home to old soldiers
in receiving lines with flags raised—
Hip Hip Hooray
old soldiers who form a gauntlet civilians hesitate to walk.
Like the mounds of dirt we skirt in a cemetery
(even after the soil settles),
we are not worthy to walk their gauntlet.
Don’t shake my hand; I only work here.
This receiving line is not for me.
And I wonder . . .
Are these new soldiers in it for the money?
Don’t hate me, I merely ask.
Serving merely for pay, says Webster,
is the definition of mercenary.
With the flag sewn backwards on their sleeves,
do they know what it means
to be in it for the money?
Sometimes they fly in alone to a girlfriend or a parent
and I wonder how they managed it.
There’s room for honest emotion
without the media attention and the old vets
who only want them to have what they didn’t have.
A mother and father wait outside the security checkpoint
with eyes fixed on the horizon of the terminal
for a glimpse of their boy.
They shyly hold two small flags,
like the ones sold on the 4th of July
that you’re supposed to—I guess—stick in the flowerbed
like an ornamental praying mantis
to show your support.
Thrust upon them like the recruiter’s handshake,
they aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do with them.
Their boy walks down the exit lane to meet them.
“Put those away,” he says. "I need a cigarette.”
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
PUBLISHED! Notes From Underground Anthology
Last year The Literary Lab ran a contest for which the prize was ten page in an anthology. This morning they have unveiled their cover for the NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND ANTHOLOGY.
Isn't it stunning? This beautiful paperback is now available on Amazon in print copy for $10 or for the E-book at $4.99, click here. You can also purchase a copy at the CreateSpace Store where a greater percentage of the proceeds will go to the American Society of Journalists and Authors Writers Emergency Assistance Fund. All profits from the sale of this literary collection will go to that charitable foundation. Check out the LitLab's post for details on how to get a discount code too.
I was one of twenty-five winners, and my short story, MAYBE, is included. Thank you, Literary Lab. I'm happy and humbled to be a part of this publication.
If you haven't already checked them out, you should. There are a lot of talented folks who hang out in the lab and you might find you don't want to leave.
Peace out. It's March!
I was one of twenty-five winners, and my short story, MAYBE, is included. Thank you, Literary Lab. I'm happy and humbled to be a part of this publication.
If you haven't already checked them out, you should. There are a lot of talented folks who hang out in the lab and you might find you don't want to leave.
Peace out. It's March!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Nothing Boiling On The Stove
Now I know what snow fog is. At first I thought my windows were steamed up, you know, like a kettle of water was boiling on the stove. Then I realized it was simply….very….foggy. The sky to the east was faintly colored through the gauze of white, a blushing bride, and the road was only indicated by the steep snow banks that line the side, indecipherable bumps in the morning light. Snow fog is unusual and disconcerting, like thunder in a snowstorm, or hail in a heatwave. But it’s deathly quiet, unlike either of the other two natural phenomena.
I understand why so many mysteries take place in a foggy bottom. Something sinister could be happening across the road, or in the road, or even in my own backyard, and I’d never know. In the fog, no one can hear you scream.
This all seems to connect with the chapter I'm currently editing, which begins:
Up where there was more water than land, Boyd crossed through the southern section of the Algonquin Provincial Park. The trees got taller as the road narrowed, and the sun dimmed behind the thickening cloud cover until its exact location was impossible to pinpoint in the gunmetal sky. He pulled off the road and studied the map, comparing it with the computer directions and Lucy’s scribbled notes. He had to be getting close to the camp, much further east and he would be in Quebec. He rubbed his stomach. He’d eaten the last of his beef jerky, and breakfast at the diner across the street from the Starlight Motel was long gone. He had stopped again for gas and bought a liter of water, and that was gone too. Thinking about it made him want to pee, and he climbed out and aimed an arc at the center of the road, melting a circle of snow the size of a balloon.
I feel like I could be there with him, lost in the middle of nowhere in the Algonquin Provincial Park.
I understand why so many mysteries take place in a foggy bottom. Something sinister could be happening across the road, or in the road, or even in my own backyard, and I’d never know. In the fog, no one can hear you scream.
This all seems to connect with the chapter I'm currently editing, which begins:
Up where there was more water than land, Boyd crossed through the southern section of the Algonquin Provincial Park. The trees got taller as the road narrowed, and the sun dimmed behind the thickening cloud cover until its exact location was impossible to pinpoint in the gunmetal sky. He pulled off the road and studied the map, comparing it with the computer directions and Lucy’s scribbled notes. He had to be getting close to the camp, much further east and he would be in Quebec. He rubbed his stomach. He’d eaten the last of his beef jerky, and breakfast at the diner across the street from the Starlight Motel was long gone. He had stopped again for gas and bought a liter of water, and that was gone too. Thinking about it made him want to pee, and he climbed out and aimed an arc at the center of the road, melting a circle of snow the size of a balloon.
I feel like I could be there with him, lost in the middle of nowhere in the Algonquin Provincial Park.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A Writer's Prayer
Good morning sky, amethyst and blue, good morning.
I stumbled out of bed with another chance to succeed where I have failed.
Winter left, you see, but has returned.
Returned. The birds were joyous for a day,
or two.
But they will return.
With coffee in my grandma's cup
and a sky of purple behind the white-doomed silo,
the writer in me has returned.
Why not a good day?
A quiet day.
A writer's day.
Lord, give me a writer's day.
Amen.
I stumbled out of bed with another chance to succeed where I have failed.
Winter left, you see, but has returned.
Returned. The birds were joyous for a day,
or two.
But they will return.
With coffee in my grandma's cup
and a sky of purple behind the white-doomed silo,
the writer in me has returned.
Why not a good day?
A quiet day.
A writer's day.
Lord, give me a writer's day.
Amen.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Good Sex In Fiction Award
Each Year Britian's Literary Review comes out with their annual Bad Sex in Fiction award. I think that's a little snobbish, poking fun at those of us who try to spice up our novels and fail. Now Salon Magazine has come up with a counter award and announced their Good Sex Awards.
Says Salon, "Writing well about sex -- one of life's most delightful and important activities -- is difficult, so instead of sneering and sniggering at the authors who get it wrong, why not celebrate the ones who succeed?"
They whittled their list of nominations down to eight. Click the link above to see them and read the excerpt from the winner, NEXT.
And then you might have to get up and walk around, or something. I love well-written sex.
I had planned to post this for Valentine's Day but had connection issues, and some of you may already have seen this in Salon, but I thought I'd go ahead anyway, because writing about sex is the hardest thing to do, yet if done well, is the most rewarding and, more importantly, readers like it.
I have my own nomination.
The sex scene at the end of THE VOYAGE by Philip Caputo is my winner. Do you have one?
Says Salon, "Writing well about sex -- one of life's most delightful and important activities -- is difficult, so instead of sneering and sniggering at the authors who get it wrong, why not celebrate the ones who succeed?"
They whittled their list of nominations down to eight. Click the link above to see them and read the excerpt from the winner, NEXT.
And then you might have to get up and walk around, or something. I love well-written sex.
I had planned to post this for Valentine's Day but had connection issues, and some of you may already have seen this in Salon, but I thought I'd go ahead anyway, because writing about sex is the hardest thing to do, yet if done well, is the most rewarding and, more importantly, readers like it.
I have my own nomination.
The sex scene at the end of THE VOYAGE by Philip Caputo is my winner. Do you have one?
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Blogger Question
I recently got wireless. Really. Can you believe it? But all is not well in Bloggerville. I can no longer upload photos and many profile pictures are little boxes with red X's in them instead of interesting images, and I keep getting these irritating security warnings about whether or not I only want secure web content to be delivered. Have any of you had this happen? I should not have to keep right-clicking to display pictures/page with full quality. Know what I mean?
Thinking fondly of my old dialup...
Thinking fondly of my old dialup...
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Hazel and The Mousehole
This morning there was ice on top of the 5-gallon pails of water in the hoophouse-my backup to running hose across the yard to the frost-free hydrant. But lugging 5-gallon buckets across the snow drifts isn't much of a backup. I need a hydrant in my greenhouse or a better back. Greens don't need as much water in winter, but a little helps them in their struggle with these temperatures. Even though we have double layer frost covers on the spinach, mizuna, arugula, and komatsuna (an Asian mustard green with a sweet/tangy flavor), when it's zero outside, it'll get below freezing in the hoop house. We swept a foot of snow off the top of the roof yesterday. The weight of snow cannot be underestimated.
There was ice on the water in the chicken coop too. We have a base heater that the water container sits on, so it doesn't freeze completely and the hens are able to drink out of the trough. They sip and tilt their heads and peck at the snow on my boots. The rooster lords over them all, such a guy.
My sister had a calamity this morning with her chickens. She has a feeder attached to the wall and when she was dumping grain into it, somehow it broke loose and fell, and a wire impaled a feeding hen through the beak. Sissy got ahold of her and with a wire cutters tried to pry the wire out, but the chicken jerked away and tore the top of her beak off. My sister called us in a panic feeling woozy. It would be like losing a thumb. How will it eat?
One of our hens has recently taken to hiding in the corner behind a nesting box.
Sometimes just her head is burrowed in safety. We've come to understand that she is at the bottom of the pecking order and she hides to escape the abuse inflicted on her by the rest of the flock. They won't let her eat so my husband piles a little grain in behind the nest box where she likes to hide. Yesterday she was sitting on the top of the roost where the others don't seem to bother her. She's enduring, and she still has her feathers. She deserves a name. I think I'll call her Hazel. The runt, the tortured and abused. Hazel.
Sometimes I feel like Hazel, hiding in a corner to avoid critical attention, afraid to venture out of my comfortable niche, afraid to put myself and my writing out there. I dash off a few queries and then retreat back in my hole to write. But who wants to live in a hole? Like the mousehole in Notes From Underground, no writer can long stay in the hole under the floor. Oh, the writing is best done in the mousehole, but then we have to venture out, like the groundhog who did NOT see his shadow this past week. He's out and about, waiting for the brighter day he knows is near, and Hazel is perched above the rest, roosting out of reach, and the writer in me pushes the page across the space between us and says, "Will you read this?"
There was ice on the water in the chicken coop too. We have a base heater that the water container sits on, so it doesn't freeze completely and the hens are able to drink out of the trough. They sip and tilt their heads and peck at the snow on my boots. The rooster lords over them all, such a guy.
My sister had a calamity this morning with her chickens. She has a feeder attached to the wall and when she was dumping grain into it, somehow it broke loose and fell, and a wire impaled a feeding hen through the beak. Sissy got ahold of her and with a wire cutters tried to pry the wire out, but the chicken jerked away and tore the top of her beak off. My sister called us in a panic feeling woozy. It would be like losing a thumb. How will it eat?
One of our hens has recently taken to hiding in the corner behind a nesting box.
Sometimes I feel like Hazel, hiding in a corner to avoid critical attention, afraid to venture out of my comfortable niche, afraid to put myself and my writing out there. I dash off a few queries and then retreat back in my hole to write. But who wants to live in a hole? Like the mousehole in Notes From Underground, no writer can long stay in the hole under the floor. Oh, the writing is best done in the mousehole, but then we have to venture out, like the groundhog who did NOT see his shadow this past week. He's out and about, waiting for the brighter day he knows is near, and Hazel is perched above the rest, roosting out of reach, and the writer in me pushes the page across the space between us and says, "Will you read this?"
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
What Would You Do?
Did you exchange your walk-on part in a war for a leading role in a cage? - Pink Floyd
I was cleaning out my filing cabinet shuffling through old poems and rejection letters when I came across an old letter from a friend in college. A friend I lost track of as we went our separate ways to pursue the careers we had supposedly went to college for. College was ideas and lofty discussions, poster art and handmade dorm curtains, group pictures of suitemates in their underwear with their hair in curlers, because we didn't care what we looked like. College was running to class and staying up late to cram for a final, but it was also walks along the river, winter camping trips and writing letters.
Then came the careers, succumbing to the machine, art reproductions on the walls and expensive treatments on the windows, running late to the job and too tired by the end of the day to walk to the mailbox. The letters stopped.
We were idealistic. We protested. We wore MIA bracelets and sent letters to boys in Vietnam, because they didn't have a choice.
(Photo Credit - Tim Page)
We made our own kahlua and yogurt. We changed vacation plans because of the gas shortage and looked at MPG stickers on cars. When Carter lowered the speed limit to 55, we complied. We were conscious of our footprint. The letter I told you about? It was from my lost friend suggesting that we should cancel our planned camping trip because of the gas shortage, and we did.
Maybe it's not good to read old letters. To realize how far we've retreated from what we were.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Strawberry Fields Forever
I know y'all get tired of me carrying on about organics and genetically engineered crops and Monsanto's herbicides, but a new development is so upsetting I simply have to vent and share it with you. Whole Foods, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farms have all surrendered to Monsanto.
As reported in the Organic Consumer Association's newsletter, "These companies have betrayed their customers and publically stated that they no longer oppose Monsanto's efforts to contaminate our farmland with their genetically engineered alfalfa. Monsanto's GE alfalfa is a perennial crop, guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers . . ."
If you are concerned about our nation's food supply and the decline of the honeybee, which has been directly contributed to the use of GMO's, please read the article and take action. We deserve truth in labeling and I think we all have the right to clean food on the table, if so desired. When asked if they want herbicides and genetically-modified organisms in their dairy products, meat and vegetables, most people say no, but then they don't do anything about it. We need to voice an opinion while there is still time. The only thing that will make a difference is if enough people voice opinion and follow through in the grocery store.
Thank you for reading this through to the end. The only thing more important than what we eat is the air we breathe. Every year we have to put up with Roundup spraying in the field across the road. Every year they come in with their big expensive tractors and tanks of poison and race up and down the field as the toxic brew billows out behind them. The fuckers don't even care which way the wind is blowing. We can be out there picking strawberries and there they are, getting it done.
Thanks for hearing me out. If you care, please pass the word.
As reported in the Organic Consumer Association's newsletter, "These companies have betrayed their customers and publically stated that they no longer oppose Monsanto's efforts to contaminate our farmland with their genetically engineered alfalfa. Monsanto's GE alfalfa is a perennial crop, guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers . . ."
If you are concerned about our nation's food supply and the decline of the honeybee, which has been directly contributed to the use of GMO's, please read the article and take action. We deserve truth in labeling and I think we all have the right to clean food on the table, if so desired. When asked if they want herbicides and genetically-modified organisms in their dairy products, meat and vegetables, most people say no, but then they don't do anything about it. We need to voice an opinion while there is still time. The only thing that will make a difference is if enough people voice opinion and follow through in the grocery store.
Thank you for reading this through to the end. The only thing more important than what we eat is the air we breathe. Every year we have to put up with Roundup spraying in the field across the road. Every year they come in with their big expensive tractors and tanks of poison and race up and down the field as the toxic brew billows out behind them. The fuckers don't even care which way the wind is blowing. We can be out there picking strawberries and there they are, getting it done.
Thanks for hearing me out. If you care, please pass the word.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Solution for Overpopulation to Rival Swift’s
Roundup in the corn flakes
Roundup in the bread
Roundup in the pasta
Roundup in our heads.
Endocrine disruptors-
we don’t know who we are,
but we strive to feed the world
at Monsanto’s tireless side.
And in environmental testing,
male frogs like male frogs-
we’re feminizing boys
and they won’t know who they are.
If you can tell a story in 55 words, it's time to participate in the Friday Flash 55 event hosted by the G-Man. Post it then click it to meet the man and some other talented folks as well.
Actually, I cheated. This isn't fiction. I wish it were.
Roundup in the bread
Roundup in the pasta
Roundup in our heads.
Endocrine disruptors-
we don’t know who we are,
but we strive to feed the world
at Monsanto’s tireless side.
And in environmental testing,
male frogs like male frogs-
we’re feminizing boys
and they won’t know who they are.
If you can tell a story in 55 words, it's time to participate in the Friday Flash 55 event hosted by the G-Man. Post it then click it to meet the man and some other talented folks as well.
Actually, I cheated. This isn't fiction. I wish it were.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Oratorio
The Christmas tree is back where it belongs and birds rest where ornaments did.
They appear to be fooled by it all
which makes us feel better for it.
The heirloom ornaments,
each with a story,
are tissue-wrapped and boxed up in the back room that has no heat
but it doesn't matter.
The figgy pudding drizzled with brandy failed to light. But it didn't matter.
The cookies were all eaten or given away to family members from afar who are now back in their own quiet homes and private lives, though we pretend
through email and the occasional phone call
to keep up.
Somebody could buy a puppy and I wouldn't know
or find a boyfriend
or a lover
and I wouldn't know.
Better not to let one know
about the lover.
Only the garland remains, strung around
the porch from hooks where ferns hung through October.
The cedar swag is lush in a different way.
And I might be jealous of a lover,
of one mindless for me
and damn the consequences.
To have that.
Not a puppy, though one understands
the need to lower oneself to the level of animals.
and puppy kisses
after the family Christmas
where we all pretend to like each other.
The standing rib roast didn't happen
but we always give ourselves another chance.
The Christmas cards didn't happen . . . where are they?
People don't send cards anymore and the few
we received aren't cards.
They're family photos-
pictures of dressed up children forced into
velvet outfits and smiles
with no note, not even a signature.
Don't send me those.
Or pictures of puppies
though some do the puppies because they don't have children
nor want them or their kisses and expenses.
You can't have children without
considering what they will take from you
over the course of a lifetime,
the arithmetic of it
When the tree is forced through the doorway
in the opposite direction, we sweep up the needles
and rearrange the furniture and think about next year
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Man In The Mirror (flash 55)
Some of the worst mistakes of my life were haircuts. - Jim Morrison
After seeing himself in the video, he ran his hands through his hair.
“My God! I look like General Custer.”
That night he came home smelling of cologne
with a haircut and a new pair of jeans,
a phone number in his wallet, and a new disease.
New stuff to offset the old him.
If it's the end of the week, it's time for flash. If you have a story in 55 words, post it on your blog and then go tell the G-Man.
After seeing himself in the video, he ran his hands through his hair.
“My God! I look like General Custer.”
That night he came home smelling of cologne
with a haircut and a new pair of jeans,
a phone number in his wallet, and a new disease.
New stuff to offset the old him.
If it's the end of the week, it's time for flash. If you have a story in 55 words, post it on your blog and then go tell the G-Man.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Mysterious Disappearance of the Matriarch - Flash 55
She drifted off to sleep, wondering—
would the pictures on the stairs again be rearranged in the night?
The first time it was her great-grandmother’s portrait
moved from top to bottom.
Each night another was moved.
The last morning, the wall was empty.
Her ancestors were piled against the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
Try your hand at a story in 55. Then let the G-Man know.
TGIF
would the pictures on the stairs again be rearranged in the night?
The first time it was her great-grandmother’s portrait
moved from top to bottom.
Each night another was moved.
The last morning, the wall was empty.
Her ancestors were piled against the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
Try your hand at a story in 55. Then let the G-Man know.
TGIF
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Something Nobody Will Want To Read
You have only to look around you and you’ll see
blood being spilled, in the most playful way,
just as if it were champagne.
-Dostoyevsky 1864
We can’t afford to stay warm.
Christmas lights strung around the porch
and across the buffet and above the cupboard
lift the spirit but don’t give off warmth.
The register beside my chair with a wee amount of heat
is all I have
and a feeling like broken glass.
I broke the votive candleholder
into a million pieces
Blood red shards of glass
scatter across the floor
and fly under the piano.
Now they’re embedded in the tongue and grove
of a hand-laid floor
(my father on his knees
when he was young).
A feeling like that.
We’re weighed down in a wasteland of war—
scavenger of commodity.
Libraries languish and roads crumble,
and children go without textbooks
so we can spill blood like champagne
and march in step.
Flags wave grandly from gated communities
and likewise weakly from a doorjamb
in front of the hovel without heat
for heroes in uniforms
with flags sewn on backwards.
A feeling like that.
blood being spilled, in the most playful way,
just as if it were champagne.
-Dostoyevsky 1864
We can’t afford to stay warm.
Christmas lights strung around the porch
and across the buffet and above the cupboard
lift the spirit but don’t give off warmth.
The register beside my chair with a wee amount of heat
is all I have
and a feeling like broken glass.
I broke the votive candleholder
into a million pieces
Blood red shards of glass
scatter across the floor
and fly under the piano.
Now they’re embedded in the tongue and grove
of a hand-laid floor
(my father on his knees
when he was young).
A feeling like that.
We’re weighed down in a wasteland of war—
scavenger of commodity.
Libraries languish and roads crumble,
and children go without textbooks
so we can spill blood like champagne
and march in step.
Flags wave grandly from gated communities
and likewise weakly from a doorjamb
in front of the hovel without heat
for heroes in uniforms
with flags sewn on backwards.
A feeling like that.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday Flash 55 - Father
In the fog, the strobe lights on the bus
alert the children.
In the fog, a figure leaves the forest
and waits at the edge of the clearing
to watch as the child who will never know him
climbs the steps with his Spiderman lunchbox.
In the fog, it’s as if he wasn’t even there.
A thank you to Galen, the kick-ass host at Mr. Knowitall who orchestrates the Friday Flash 55 event. If you have a story you can tell us in 55 words, tell him first. See you on the other side of 2011!
alert the children.
In the fog, a figure leaves the forest
and waits at the edge of the clearing
to watch as the child who will never know him
climbs the steps with his Spiderman lunchbox.
In the fog, it’s as if he wasn’t even there.
A thank you to Galen, the kick-ass host at Mr. Knowitall who orchestrates the Friday Flash 55 event. If you have a story you can tell us in 55 words, tell him first. See you on the other side of 2011!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Advent Ghosts - The Making Of
This story is my entry into Loren Eaton's Shared Storytelling event for Christmas 2010.
The schoolhouse was transformed for the Christmas play. There was a stage in place of a teacher's desk, a velvet curtain instead of a chalkboard, and tinsel draped around the windows. The children were dressed in patent leather shoes and even the boys who had grown out of their desks but couldn’t pass 6th grade were dressed up and behaving.
Mary folded her hands in her lap and admired the drape of her robe and repeated her lines to herself. She was the lead and her mother had spent extra time on her hair.
Joseph beckoned to her from the dark behind the stage by the door that led to the outside, and she adjusted her veil and went to him.
The lights were dimmed, and the audience held their breath for the play to begin.
They waited. The entire schoolhouse held its breath, but Mary and Joseph didn't appear.
The play was aborted and the dogs were brought in, but it was of no use. The two were never found. Only a veil blown into a ditch and covered with twigs and snow was uncovered.
If you think Christmas might be more about Dicken's Marley than Santa's Rudolph, please read the other stories that make up the Advent Ghosts 2010 event organized by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall.
The schoolhouse was transformed for the Christmas play. There was a stage in place of a teacher's desk, a velvet curtain instead of a chalkboard, and tinsel draped around the windows. The children were dressed in patent leather shoes and even the boys who had grown out of their desks but couldn’t pass 6th grade were dressed up and behaving.
Mary folded her hands in her lap and admired the drape of her robe and repeated her lines to herself. She was the lead and her mother had spent extra time on her hair.
Joseph beckoned to her from the dark behind the stage by the door that led to the outside, and she adjusted her veil and went to him.
The lights were dimmed, and the audience held their breath for the play to begin.
They waited. The entire schoolhouse held its breath, but Mary and Joseph didn't appear.
The play was aborted and the dogs were brought in, but it was of no use. The two were never found. Only a veil blown into a ditch and covered with twigs and snow was uncovered.
If you think Christmas might be more about Dicken's Marley than Santa's Rudolph, please read the other stories that make up the Advent Ghosts 2010 event organized by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
What A Smart Boy You Were
When you’re snowed under,
there’s no getting away from you.
Out of cigarettes,
you search drawers and cubbyholes,
empty butts out of ashtrays,
and roll your own.
The storm is as focused as the hawk
that flies over the chicken coop.
Thoughts like sentence fragments
march around the house,
the thought of what you’d do
to keep from running out.
If you can’t bear the quiet,
imagine yourself deaf, like an old man steeped in it.
Imagine yourself trapped in a house
with an old man who won’t stop talking—
stopped up by memory with no one to listen.
The wind doesn’t count.
The partially-deaf man can bear the wind,
unlike a room full of people.
The wind is an undertone,
like the hum of a furnace.
It circles the sleeping house, unanswered.
The man becomes a boy in his sleep.
The boy who ran down the road
for the pleasure of it.
The boy who could take up any task
and finish.
That boy wasn’t confined
by his body to memory.
He was making them.
And what about that snowstorm?
Not the ones the old man talks about.
The one here and now,
the one we’ll want to talk about when we’re old.
Ah, but remember . . . nobody will listen.
Write it down so the memory has backbone,
like the sketch found in a drawer
and the note from a teacher of long, long ago.
What a smart boy you were.
I wrote this in a nostalgic mood because Christmas isn't only about merrymaking and then decided to post it for the One Stop Poetry site's One Shot Wednesday. If you've written a poem or even a short story you want to share with the fine folks at One Stop Poetry, follow the link.
there’s no getting away from you.
Out of cigarettes,
you search drawers and cubbyholes,
empty butts out of ashtrays,
and roll your own.
The storm is as focused as the hawk
that flies over the chicken coop.
Thoughts like sentence fragments
march around the house,
the thought of what you’d do
to keep from running out.
If you can’t bear the quiet,
imagine yourself deaf, like an old man steeped in it.
Imagine yourself trapped in a house
with an old man who won’t stop talking—
stopped up by memory with no one to listen.
The wind doesn’t count.
The partially-deaf man can bear the wind,
unlike a room full of people.
The wind is an undertone,
like the hum of a furnace.
It circles the sleeping house, unanswered.
The man becomes a boy in his sleep.
The boy who ran down the road
for the pleasure of it.
The boy who could take up any task
and finish.
That boy wasn’t confined
by his body to memory.
He was making them.
And what about that snowstorm?
Not the ones the old man talks about.
The one here and now,
the one we’ll want to talk about when we’re old.
Ah, but remember . . . nobody will listen.
Write it down so the memory has backbone,
like the sketch found in a drawer
and the note from a teacher of long, long ago.
What a smart boy you were.
I wrote this in a nostalgic mood because Christmas isn't only about merrymaking and then decided to post it for the One Stop Poetry site's One Shot Wednesday. If you've written a poem or even a short story you want to share with the fine folks at One Stop Poetry, follow the link.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
What A Weasel Does
A weasel got in one of our chicken pens and killed 14 birds two nights ago. The havoc wrought by a weasel is that of a teenage vampire movie. They bite off the heads and drink the blood. But this isn’t a movie; this is life on the farm. It looks idyllic from afar. Many think we have it made. They haven’t gone outside on a blustery winter morning (when will this wind abate?) to find a slaughter.
Three more were killed last night in similar beheading fashion. The surviving chickens were very happy to see my husband this morning. Chickens are skittish (wouldn’t you be?) but once they got over the initial startle, they hung around his feet like a child under her mother’s skirt. After the cleanup he needed to go to the pharmacy and refill a blood pressure prescription he’d let lapse. This work will kill you in more ways than one.
He buried the beheaded in the compost piles—manure recently hauled out of the barnyard and spread in heaps along the field beyond the chicken area. It serves a dual purpose. One must get rid of the carcasses lest more vermin be attracted to the area, and digging in this frozen ground would probably put him in it.
It’s a devastating loss, and I’m sure it’s as crushing to my husband as agent rejection of my writing is to me, (though he shouldn't take it personally). Our fear is the weasel will be back, him and his buddies. It’s winter and food is scarce. He’ll be back. We have traps but weasels can weasel out of them, just as they can circumvent chicken wire. A friend suggested we put a radio out there. Play a little AC-DC or Alice In Chains. How about a little Marilyn Manson music for the weasel? I’m afraid he'd like it.
Three more were killed last night in similar beheading fashion. The surviving chickens were very happy to see my husband this morning. Chickens are skittish (wouldn’t you be?) but once they got over the initial startle, they hung around his feet like a child under her mother’s skirt. After the cleanup he needed to go to the pharmacy and refill a blood pressure prescription he’d let lapse. This work will kill you in more ways than one.
He buried the beheaded in the compost piles—manure recently hauled out of the barnyard and spread in heaps along the field beyond the chicken area. It serves a dual purpose. One must get rid of the carcasses lest more vermin be attracted to the area, and digging in this frozen ground would probably put him in it.
It’s a devastating loss, and I’m sure it’s as crushing to my husband as agent rejection of my writing is to me, (though he shouldn't take it personally). Our fear is the weasel will be back, him and his buddies. It’s winter and food is scarce. He’ll be back. We have traps but weasels can weasel out of them, just as they can circumvent chicken wire. A friend suggested we put a radio out there. Play a little AC-DC or Alice In Chains. How about a little Marilyn Manson music for the weasel? I’m afraid he'd like it.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Fiberglass Angel
On Christmas Day my daughter
(named after an Allman Brothers song, not a saint)
helped out at a soup kitchen.
I’ve never done anything that commendable.
She got the idea from a friend,
not from me.
I think holy are the No Toxic Spraying signs
we store in the milkhouse for winter.
But I remember
my mother’s Christmas angel,
yellowed with age, the only one we ever had.
Fiberglass, Mother warned when we were little.
It’ll cut you if you touch.
So we never did.
We held our breath as she stood on a chair to place it on the top branch.
We broke all her glass ornaments on the hardwood floor,
the guilty one downcast with the evidence at her feet.
We needed no scolding from mother,
we dealt it out in holy measure amongst ourselves.
The nativity scene, ox and ass, baby and mother were another matter—
solid wood and unbreakable Joseph. We rearranged them throughout Advent.
Baby Jesus kept coming up missing.
I placed the shepherd closer to the action than the wise men.
They were wise but late arriving in their fancy robes and strange hats.
I gave a bushel of beets to the food pantry.
Does that count?
Dad wrestled our eight-foot trees into their stand
and trimmed the bottom branches.
(A Linck tree was never tied to the wall.)
Mother handled the lights and the angel while we fidgeted
with the ornaments spread out in front of us.
Their trees got smaller as we all left
(like mother, standing in stocking feet to place the angel)
and now the tree sits on an end table.
What glass ornaments remain stay wrapped
because there is no room on a tabletop tree.
But for an angel, yellowed with age, there always will be.
(named after an Allman Brothers song, not a saint)
helped out at a soup kitchen.
I’ve never done anything that commendable.
She got the idea from a friend,
not from me.
I think holy are the No Toxic Spraying signs
we store in the milkhouse for winter.
But I remember
my mother’s Christmas angel,
yellowed with age, the only one we ever had.
Fiberglass, Mother warned when we were little.
It’ll cut you if you touch.
So we never did.
We held our breath as she stood on a chair to place it on the top branch.
We broke all her glass ornaments on the hardwood floor,
the guilty one downcast with the evidence at her feet.
We needed no scolding from mother,
we dealt it out in holy measure amongst ourselves.
The nativity scene, ox and ass, baby and mother were another matter—
solid wood and unbreakable Joseph. We rearranged them throughout Advent.
Baby Jesus kept coming up missing.
I placed the shepherd closer to the action than the wise men.
They were wise but late arriving in their fancy robes and strange hats.
I gave a bushel of beets to the food pantry.
Does that count?
Dad wrestled our eight-foot trees into their stand
and trimmed the bottom branches.
(A Linck tree was never tied to the wall.)
Mother handled the lights and the angel while we fidgeted
with the ornaments spread out in front of us.
Their trees got smaller as we all left
(like mother, standing in stocking feet to place the angel)
and now the tree sits on an end table.
What glass ornaments remain stay wrapped
because there is no room on a tabletop tree.
But for an angel, yellowed with age, there always will be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)