Boy With A Dandelion

has dark skin and watchful eyes. An immigrant boy. A migrant. We are all of us the one and conflicted over the other. He picks dandelions and twines them into a braid. His father digs carrots and picks lettuce. His arms are brown and muscled and ready for work. The morning is misty and overcast, and the fields are muddy and wet, but the boy is barefoot and learning our ways.

The Devil's Been Busy In Your Backyard

The news traveled fast from farmhouse to farmhouse. Mothers gathered in their children and latched the doors. Farmers loaded their shotguns and walked their fencerows.

The six Smith children were out gathering wildflowers—from the fifteen-year-old girl who laughed at him to the five-year-old with a handful of daisies—when the blue-ribbon marksman cocked his double-barrel and took aim, from youngest to oldest, reloading thrice.

He won the turkey shoot at age twelve, took that blue ribbon in marksmanship at thirteen, and whetted out justice at fourteen. She shouldn’t have laughed it him.

Novel Writing, Websites, and Sugar Dragon Angst

Prompted by Poets and Storytellers United to shape words around the phrase "It's Been A Long Time Coming", I immediately thought of the writing process. I'm in the proofreading stage on the editorial calendar for the novel I've worked on since 2012. In between gaps in that calendar, I'm working on a website (another Long-Time-Coming) and trying to turn a couple of short stories into novels. That endeavor began during NaNoWriMo as I attempted to combine two into one but didn't get very far. I've never been an outliner but now I see why some writers prefer that approach. 

On another "Long Time Coming" subject, I've been trying to rid my figure of all those Christmas cookies, cakes, festive punches and bourbon slushes we indulged in. To be honest, this is a lifelong seesaw occurrence for me. This time I'm forcing my family into the Whole 30 plan with me. Wow. I never realized how much sugar "they" sneak into our foods under different names like sucralose and dextrose, even stevia, all the same to our brain. Not just ketchup (which was suspected) but lunch meats, chicken and beef broth, even some mustards have added sweeteners.  We've gotten so used to them, whole foods without added sweeteners seem bland and boring. On the average, Americans consume over 57 pounds a year. No wonder we are notoriously subject to obesity, diabetes, and many other ailments. 

The sugar dragon is a tenacious creature, but we have him in a pen and are about to lead him down the chute to slaughter. Long time coming!

Yet, I think about food all the time. Especially when in the throes of website building and navigating Word's track changes with an editor.  While my experience seemed endless with the dragon of self-doubt always breathing down my neck, I know novelists who've spent twenty plus years on a project. How does one soldier on while slaying the beast in the closet? As Sylvia Plath said, "The worst enemy to creativity is self doubt." 

The Remaindered Novelist

                                                                        

                                The wastebasket is the writer’s best friend.                                                                                                                                            - Isaac Singer

                                                   Remaindered, v: (to dispose of a book left unsold at a reduced price)

The Remaindered Novelist

 

Once had a debut named Cannon

spectacularly reviewed

bound in calfskin and vellum.

 

But a blogger was unkind

And a brushfire engulfed him.

Now he’s remaindered—

a sale table has-been.

 

Seagulls caw and scavenge

outside his writer’s retreat

on a windswept dune

to which he absconded.

 

With spring’s coy blush

tourists trek over his dune

with painted toes and smart phones

on a hunt for the juice.

 

But his jump shot was perfected

with crumpled up vellum

and no trace remains of

Cannon’s war-weary fellow.

Written for Shay's Word Garden - "The Legacy of Ladysmith"  Her word list challenge this week for an original poem was taken from the forgotten novel, The Legacy of Ladysmith by John Kenny Crane. 

I had never heard of this novel (the Boer Wars?) but it sounds intriguing and I can think of many more worthy novels to be relegated to the sale table. 

What writer doesn't fear the dreaded remaindering?

A Woman With Face

She used to wear jeans
on the streets
and left her hair loose.
Then the religious schools
took the boys away
and sent back men who threw stones.
They cut off the clitoris in Africa
and heads in Afghanistan
in amphitheaters filled with cheering men
who used to fly kites
and were not afraid of a women
with a face wearing jeans.

The strength of a democracy is gauged by the way it treats women— equal rights under the law and reproductive freedom.

Christmas Shopping at the Liquor Store

We met between the cabs and the sirahs —

My old lover and I.

A hank of chardonnay-colored hair

Fell between the Prosecco and Aperol

As he peered at a label with a falconer’s

Eye and I tripped over the Budweiser

Horses into his arms.

If wine is poetry,

Old friends are run-on sentences.

Let them come and take us away.

Playing with words for Shay's Word Garden.  Her word list this week is taken from A Coney Island of the Mind by the late beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a favorite of mine, and also the owner of the famous City Lights Book Store. Visit her post this week to read his Junkman’s Obligato. 

 

And for the last dVerse of the year, a Meeting at the Bar, Zen Poetry. This was my Zen moment in the store before we went to the bar!  Happy Hoppy Holidays!!!

The Lake Superior Writer's Retreat

A small one-room cabin sits on top of a dune overlooking Lake Superior. Local legend holds it belonged to a writer. It’s not really a cabin, just a glassed-in lean-to which this writer supposedly built as a retreat. When walking the beach, you can see the top of the glass enclosure. Knowing the rumors of his mysterious death by drowning along with the sad truth that the dead have no privacy, I climbed the dune to see what the inside of a writer’s cabin overlooking a vast body of water looks like.

 

A grill sat beside the door next to a weather-beaten bench. I pressed my face to the glass. The inside was cluttered and desolate. It wasn’t at all cozy, as I had envisioned, only abandoned and sad. A crookneck lamp sat on a table beside the window but nothing else beyond clutter was recognizable. Nothing to indicate a writer ever worked here. No reams of paper, no lost manuscript, no rejections taped to the wall. Who were his heirs to let this writer’s retreat fall into ruin? What did he write? Poetry? Murder mysteries? Ghost stories of the lost at sea? Lake Superior never gives up her dead, but still, I envied him his writer’s retreat on the top of a dune.

Written for Poets and Storytellers Friday Writings, whose only stipulation is that we include the word cozy in whatever way feels right.

This is a true story. 

Salvador's Ashes and Snake, the story of an indentured boy.

This is the new issue of the Slippery Elm Literary Journal. Pretty, right?

I'm happy to have a short story and a poem included.

As we descend through the clouds

fires dot the rising landscape. Smoke spirals up

and an odor fills the cabin . . . 

Yes, I can't resist tooting my horn, though it's what we writers hate more than anything.

The comparison is a stretch, but I loved being in the marching band, the group better than the individual, the precision, synchronization, and reward of belonging to something bigger than the self. That's what it feels like to be included with other writers more accomplished (all those MFAs) than myself.

Should you want to take a peek, this is the link. https://slipperyelm.findlay.edu/buy-a-copy/

Thank you for reading. Now I'm off for more coffee  to offset this cloudy, dismal (no snow) December Michigan morning. 

 

Ode To The Best Medicine

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, Wine is bottled poetry, and John Keats said, "Give me books, French wine, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know."

To the masters, I would defer. It seems alcohol and poetry go hand in hand. As a tribute to the intoxicating power of poetry, dVerse (the poet’s pub) has asked us to write a poem about our favorite drink or one with a drinking connection, whether alcoholic or nonalcoholic, to live up to the pub's name and spread some cheer. "Drink to the goodness of words flowing," says our hostess. So, bottoms up!

Olive Aficionado

I’ve been found out.

I knew I was in trouble

when he started counting

the beers in the refrigerator

and I started hiding the empties.

He roots through the garbage

like a pig after truffles.

He doesn’t know how lucky he is

I don’t drink martinis.

I only wanted the olives.

We once had a row at a family reunion—

the grand dame sipping

her martini all afternoon,

shading her complexion

and saving the olives

plump and replete.

Me, on the fringe of conversation

waiting for the distraction,

the sly sleight of hand.

Anticipation is everything.

Martinis aren't my favorite, but they were my dad's. "Gin," he said, "is the world's best painkiller."

 I will end with a Bukowski quote the Pub served up because it made me laugh, and I think that's the next best thing.

"That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Graveyard Hierarchy

  

My son asked how much a tombstone costs.

Depends if you want an angel

 to watch over you.

We trace ancestry through the graveyard

and calculate dates—how common it was to bury babies.

 

Some lucky souls merit saintly companions

who guard their tombs with outstretched arms.

Or even a wrought iron fence to ward off vagrants.

But look how the monied died just as young.

 

At the rear of the yard are the stones we can’t read,

their shallow etchings mildewed and faded.

Bare of epitaph, they lean against each other.

Even their stones are tired.

 

Then there are the markers that only bear a number,

Like the tattooed at Auschwitz,

like the burial ground at the asylum.

One straggler is off alone and we wonder

if he wanted it so.

The rounded stone juts white from Earth like a tooth.

And what of those who couldn’t even get inside the fence—

separated from the gilded, even here.

 

Inspired by  the poem someone read about a cemetery during, Open Link Live at dVerse  I decided to post this one.  I wasn't prepared to read, or to put my messy self on camera and I was late to join but loved listening and putting faces to names.  This is an inspiring, fun, and diverse group. 

Election Day Eve

The phantoms of disorder

dance across screens

but from whence they were conjured

no one can say.

On election day eve with naysayer cries

they'll don placards like

cheerleaders outside

a car wash brigade.

They walk along byways

like bad actors

on the dole,

whisper and hiss

intrigue and lies.

The republic is under siege

with three days to go

by jackals that feast

on the leavings of fear

while the acolytes of the lie

with their camo and guns—

        as fungus grows best

        out of the sun—

repeat what has spewed

from the maw of the king.

For Shay's Word Garden List Poem.  The challenge to compose a poem using words she has taken from the lyrics of Jim Morrison and his poetry collection "The Lord & The New Creatures". I'm a huge fan of The Doors and everything Morrison so this one I could not pass up. If you are likewise a fan of the Lizard King check her link. Also, linking up the Poets and Storytellers and the power of three. And won't we all be glad when this election season is behind us and we can relax with a cold one, or hot, as the case may be. Cheers!

If Beets Were Blue

Having suffered a tangle of weeds

as the grass shrivels and dies

their shoulders emerge

pink, golden and red.

Breeching the glacier-laid loam

they broaden and grow

sweeter for frost

and the equinox sun.

Come see my beets

like rosy-cheeked girls

in red skirts and pink scarves

reclusive and shy

as the red-breasted finch

that flees from the jay.

But I'm glad beets aren't blue.

Aren't you?

A little fun for the turning of the sun. And for open link night at dVerse  the Poet's Pub 

Ghost Of The Dinner Bell

October corn the hue of the tumbleweeds

that choked my sister's desert fence,

rustles and bows to the toll of the bell.

But the one who pulled the rope

and filled the plates fills only dreams

and the bell lies on the cellar grate.

I wrote this poem (a Quadrille) for dVerse, the poets pub. Quadrille are poems in 44 words. This week's prompt, which is to take the meaning of one word and transform it into 44, is BELL.

Here in Michigan, we saw snow yesterday, and with the corn still standing outside my window and my dad's dinner bell (and his dad's before) still erect and majestic in my mind's eye, I composed my bell poem. Thanks for reading. Visit dVerse for more poems about bells. There are more meanings than I had realized, jarring forgotten memory.

The Story Of Little One Leg

With drenching skies overhead and gusty wind rattling the windows, it's a good day for a story, and a good day for soup. 

After soaking in a saltwater brine overnight, little One Leg is in the pot. He lost a leg while just a chick, but he was a survivor, a gutsy little fighter.

Earlier this summer, we had a racoon problem. The crafty creatures with their long fingers (five, mind you) could reach between the small openings in the wired sides of the pen to grab vulnerable baby chicks by the legs or wings. We had several dismembered in one night before we could reinforce the sides of the pens with a second reel of wire.

Most of those small birds died, bleeding out, but little One Leg somehow healed and thrived. Our daughter grew fond of his plucky endurance and catered to him, making sure he had food and water and named him (first mistake) One Leg. Even so, he never got over three pounds after his traumatic start in life. She doesn't know he's in the pot.

Growing up on a farm, you become accustomed to what humans see as nature's cruelty. But mother nature is smarter than we. It's all in sync and, perhaps, beyond our understanding, but my daughter grew up in a town before moving to a city, and then to a bigger city, so the transition back to the farm for what was supposed to be a relaxing summer sabbatical has been a trying one. But........

she loves homemade chicken noodle soup. 

A Dark Shining

Headlights pierced the gathering fog

and swept the side ditch and the

barbed wire fence.

 

Hypnotized by the sameness of nothing—

the fallow fields of winter—

I reached for the radio dial when out of the gloom

a lurching figure appeared.

 

All legs—a wendigo?—chase curtailed?

The headlights pierced the jellyfish eyes

of the crazed creature, its back legs snared

on the barbed wire of the fence.

 

Hung with weight, the doe lunged for freedom

over and over like the pendulum of a clock.

Her companions having long since

cleared the fence.

It's open link weekend at Earthweal  and the forum stays open until midnight. Lots of time!

Happy Sunday Funday from the sweltering Thumb of a changing world. 

Patty's Spaghetti

It's the heart of tomato season with a hint of autumn on the air, and once again I find myself making Patty's Spaghetti. I first posted this recipe during hunting season in 2008, and I figured most of you didn't know me when.

After walking down our gravel road with gunshots going off in the woods all around me and a bowl of spaghetti under my coat to deliver to the folks, I decided to write about the experience and share my mother's old recipe.

At the time, I clearly remember wondering, if you are hit by a bullet, do you feel it? Does it hurt? What if one hit my bowl of spaghetti, sauce down my coat and in my hair. What would they eat for dinner? 

PATTY'S SPAGHETTI SAUCE

1 handful of sliced fresh mushrooms

2-3 cloves of garlic (as much as you like)

2 large onions, several stalks of celery

diced and simmered in a stick of butter

until translucent.

Add 2 quarts of canned tomatoes

tomato paste

1 bay leaf, 1 t. oregano

2 t salt and 2 t pepper

Homemade meatballs.

Or you can chunk it up

with winter squash if you don't have

a good local source for pastured beef. 

Simmer all day on the stove,

stirring frequently (don't burn it like I just did)

Your sauce will thicken as it simmers

addendum:

Best with real garlic bread made with minced garlic drenched in melted butter and toasted in the oven. Don't buy Texas Toast. Ewww look at the ingredients!

No Bullshit. Just Books. And Farming......

 Because it seems the only writing I have time for in the summer is my farm newsletter, I feel compelled to share part of one here. My blog needs entries and followers and more attention then I can properly give it.  But first, an important caveat, meet my publisher.  UNSOLICITED PRESS.   "No bullshit. Just books." For all you poets out there, they publish a good deal of poetry. And, of course, cutting edge fiction.

Now, for the dirt.

                                                               Sister

                                            Earlier Tomatoes

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. The rain in the Thumb falls mainly elsewhere. Sister swears there was a sprinkle in the night, a mist, a dewdrop, a splattering of wind, a phantom in the night on a whoosh of vapor.

 

I woke to a full moon, the light shining on the plastic of the high tunnel stretched taut across the braces. The air is still and the crickets chirp. I step outside to test the air, the dampness on the wide walk, a trace of rain in the night. The moon rides high in the sky, a beacon over the Earth, and a car passes swiftly on the road. The eastern sky is bright with the new day, yet still the moon outshines it, high above the highest tree that banks the creek bed. The rain gauge measure three-tenths of an inch. We've been extremely dry so count the tenths as a blessing.

 

Thus begins the day—coffee time, writing time—till the rooster crows, the cat jumps on the windowsill demanding breakfast, and the corgi thumps up the stairs, all thirty pounds of him, wanting outside. He likes to chase the chickens, but with the new poultry fence installed none are getting out, and his fun has been stymied.

This week our CSA contains our second planting of cabbage. We planted more lettuce and hid it from the rabbits. The summer has wearied us with his weirdness. In checking last year’s garden log, I pulled all the winter squash between Sept. 1^st and the 8^th. Here we are, as I write this, on September 12, 2022 and none appear ready. I thump the watermelons with my knuckles waiting for the hollow drum sound, I turn the acorns in search of the telltale ground spots. I wonder what imp stole my eggplant for surely there had to have been more. We pull onions to dry and wonder why they are small. We pray the peppers will turn red before frost. Our major successes have been our beets, chard, tomatoes, and garlic. What garlic is left must be saved for replanting, and we need speak no further on the tomato bounty.

For those of you who don't know (or care?) the tomato harvest has been phenomenal. Heirlooms can be finicky, but this summer's heat has agreed with them. Even the Costoluto, the Italian heirloom that craves Mediterranean heat, has been happy here in the Great Lakes Basin. 

Now, back to writing before I have to pick up the hoe.

Over and out and hoping for comments. I insist, some day I'm going to be famous. 😃📖📖

A Good Day For A Burning

Grass won’t grow where the barrels were stored.
Three seasons gone; it wasn’t easy.
But then it wasn’t hard.
He cleansed the ditches with burning
And crossed the Rubicon.

Three seasons gone—sprayers, masks, drums that bled.

He took back the cultivator for weeds that don’t

glow in the dark—stooped into his father to embrace

the old ways. With each sluice of the plow

clean dirt is turned. But nothing will grow

on the north side of the shed.

 

Trees denuded by a weakened sun

are stripped bare as the arms of a refugee.

Unplucked apples, like rosy knuckles,

drop to ground and cling

to the bank of a dry creek bed.

 

We warm our hands at the burn barrel.

The jovial days of fall—

the kicking up of leaves—

passed in the night some nights ago.

It was a good day for a burning.

 

But nothing will grow where the barrels were stored

Posted with thanks to Poets and Writers for the writing community they embrace and Earthweal for their open link weekend prompting us to post a favorite poem.  I wrote this while my father was still alive. He liked it. 

What Summer Makes Us Do

Beets simmer in the pot

as the sun burns a path

through the archetypal mist of dawn.

Ferns hang limpid in the dew

and cattle low from the hilltop.

Mary hangs sheets from the line in her underwear

shaking out love from the folds.

Penning a poem of just 44 words to make up a Quadrille for dVerse, the pub where poets hang out. 

For Quadrille #157 the only other requirement is the inclusion of some form of the word type. I may  have stretched that a bit. Check out the pub!!

Submitting to Literary Journals

I just received an acceptance notice for a short story in Ohio's very own Slippery Elm Literary Journal. Founded in 2013, the Slippery Elm is distributed nationwide and internationally. It's name is taken from ulmus rubra, the unassuming yet versatile hardwood that flourishes in Northern Ohio. The name feels fitting, don't you think? Writers need the same  traits, in addition to having the endurance of a hardwood.

If you are ready to submit your poetry, short stories, or multimedia, consider the Slippery Elm Literary Journal.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads.