Not much to say today. Yesterday was wasted resting, catching up with the lack of sleep. Yet another nightmare including my father, whose ghostly presence was in the bedroom when I woke sweating in fear.

So, here's a bit of fun:

every cow needs a maiden, devoted,
industrious, clever with her hands
gifted for gentle massage
how this relates to the holidays is a tale
told in the soft yellow hay of lonely stables

men of fortune also appreciate such talents
imperceptible behind ruddy cheeked girls
longing to become ladies of standing
kept in riches found under Christmas trees

many winter couplings hide laughter
among other natural sounds of the barn
intoxicating lust conceives new summer babes
destined for big city houses brightly lit with
sparkling reminders of success



eight milk maids
[2009.8.12…a]

Of course I know the song goes "eight maids A-Milking." The "a plus -ing" of the song's last seven days bothers me. I prefer simple forms for these acrostics. So the purists among you will have to understand that my poetic license is doing away with tradition.

Didn't sleep until 4a.m. even though I turned out the lights at 11:30. Stupid nightmares about my father even kept the sleeping pill from working its supposed magic.

My father had a third child. Probably unrecognized. Because she appeared no where in his will.

My parents divorced when I was six and a half. By the summer of my seven years, my maternal grandmother had bought a huge house for my mother and her two children and we had moved in. Somewhere around my eighth birthday, my father remarried for eighteen months.

Jerry gave birth to a baby girl, Rhonda. Today, for the first time, I ask myself why a young woman dating a divorced man would try and trap him by getting herself pregnant. My father had already abandoned one family. Are women so naive that they think that they'll have more attraction with their new family than the first woman did? That he'd remain with them? Which is why I am convinced that this child was his. NOT at all his style to marry a woman bearing the child of another man. AND, we may add to the calculation that Rhonda bore my family name until she married a few years ago; Jerry finally remarried about the same time, keeping proudly the Booth family name as hers.

All of this comes about today because I had a horrible nightmare last night. The first time in my life that I see my father in a dream. The scene is "the presentation of the new baby." I had completely forgotten Jerry's apartment. My mind perfectly reconstituted it in the dream. I was older, a young adult, and had my own rights in the apartment, which means I had my own rights in his life. The child was presented as the new piano prodigy in the family and I was immediately ousted. The message, although transformed, is clear. I was no longer a desired member of his family, now that there was a new baby girl. In the dream I threw probably what was my first temper tantrum, crashing glasses and dishes to the floor; as this got no result from him, I tipped over the table. His reaction was to go to the china cabinet and start counting the items present there in order to determine how much money I would owe him for the things I broke.

What I do not understand is why this dream arrives almost two years after his death. To learn when I had my first tantrum adds nothing to my understanding of my personal history. I have known since 1997 that my grandmother paid all of my music lessons. NO. Neither of my parents shelled out a single cent for them. Neither believed in their own child enough to make that small sacrifice. My father almost never heard me perform while I remained in Saint Louis.

I have never doubted that my father preferred girl children. The grown daughter of his last wife was immediately considered as good as my sister and I; I am convinced that people who knew only my father and his last wife thought that he had only two children, my sister and this other woman's child. Rhonda was completely discarded after his divorce with Jerry. I once met her at a restaurant where she worked as a hostess. I had left my name and phone number after making a reservation and she appeared at my table that night with the story of her life. It wasn't pretty.

So why this nightmare last night? A nightmare that kept me wide awake for the major part of the night afterwards.

In a rush.
Have decided to begin the X-mas shopping this morning at the local, and quite huge, open air X-mas market. There will be a crowd even at the opening. I must prepare my agoaphobia for the inevitable stress of the crowd. It will be less than this afternoon, less than next week-end and less than the following. So this is something that needs to be done today.

Wish me well. I hate crowds. Strange, though that I live in a major world metropolis. Yes, I yearn for the country side.

And he had another brilliant idea. 12 Days of Christmas Snark Acrostics!
You will certainly appreciate my delicate attentions for not having posted the first two of the series. Actually they have not yet been written.
Enjoy.
Our loveable Scarlett is happy that I [seem to] have joined the Humbug Clan. This suits me. The place I hold in my heart for a romantic family Christmas celebration is a faraway part of my past. Although I love Pierre dearly, I do not experience this communion with his family.



there was a lonely man
housed within a garden of silence
rows of vegetables
exquisite blooming roses
endearing colors and aromas

forests of concrete and brick
roared around his haven
each balcony a suburban roost for
numberless caged birds
calling out incessantly
hankering to find a mate

how on earth can one
expect to live a peaceful life, constantly
numbed by the inelegant gaggling of
strangely odd-numbered barn animals?


three french hens
[2009.3.12…b]



fatuously, she contained herself
outside of
utopia's grasp
red stalks a sulking horizon

trite golden illumination casts
uncommon shadows on grey hues
rustling high on maple bookcases
tresses of feathers
litter nonchalantly her boudoir
eiderdown for a princess

Dovey was his endearment for her
only she was not enamored of him
verily. my sweet lady, I have
every richness ---
save my love, she cooed


four turtle doves
(2009.4.12...a)


OK, OK. I just re-read the lyrics and my memory, Oh Alzheimer, Oh Alzheimer, is not what it used to be. TWO Turtle Doves and FOUR calling birds. So I'll write the second poem as TWO Calling Birds. What the heck! And I'll save the Golden Rings for Twelve. Although who has twelve fingers to wear them all?

OK, folks. No more "a beautiful day" acrostics. NovaCatherine seems in the mood for a bit of snark. Not sure how to turn snark into poetry, I'll snarl a bit instead.



tis not the season
over hills and dales

snow will not fall yet
nasty stuff making pristine white
activate our silly sentimental
raison d'être
kowtowing on brown mushy sidewalks

alas, Scrooge toils for Humbug

hath thee no faith, were thee to
err the earth as a blind man
artlessly bumping into priests and nuns
reared to believe?
trust me, the North Pole melted last year


to snark a heart
[2009.3.12...a]


Note: Wiki will help with the translation:
Raison d'être is a phrase borrowed from French where it means "reason for being"; in English use, it also comes to suggest a degree of rationalization, as "The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone".

Sorry, Zack, I know you're jealous. Ask Ms Santa real nicely for a very particular present.

My new iPhone is a delight. I was unable to spend too much time yesterday fiddling with it, but did manage to wake a colleague this morning (who, as it turns out overslept and would have been late) when I thought I was calling my answering machine. Don't have to call the answering machine because the voice messsges arrive directly on the phone. Fortunately it's a colleague I know very well.

Had a run-in with my boss a few weeks ago. The upshot is that because a mother didn't take to me personally, she succeeded in pulling her two children from my class. He allowed this because he didn't want a letter going to the city hall (who signs our paychecks) about the situation, where someone might wonder why he couldn't deal with the problem internally.

Believe me, the problem was stupid, and I hate parents who, because of one misguided discussion, place their own children as hostages and demand to change teachers. I got along very well with both of them, and the reverse was true also. Change a teacher for pedagogical reasons, maybe. For personal ones, never.

Anyway the upshot is that I don't start teaching this morning until 11:20. Before I was at the conservatory at 10. More sleep.

AND...
Time to putter around in Blogsville.
Writing earth-shattering entries about nothing!

Here's my "a beautiful life" for the day.
Don't worry.
There's only one more I'll share tomorrow.


altruism, at the moment

becomes you, offering
exquisite sentiments when I fear
anything resembling commitment
ultimate bestial peace is my quest
tangled time and again in refusal, I am
incapable of love
fast-forwarding through my life
unfulfilled, lost in my own
lackluster desires

lest I be misunderstood
inside my heart a void reigns, dare to
free its embrace, if such be your desire
enter at your own peril…


[2007.6.5…d]
© alfred booth

I'm not counting on it tonight, but last night I had a good night's sleep. The pill worked. Artificial sleep.

On another matter entirely.
I fully understand the reasons people are continually changing mobile phone numbers. In order to take advantage of the phone company's ridiculously sublime offers. IF I had wanted a new number, I could have the latest iPhone for ONE EURO, plus a new line and a two-year engagement. (Of course, in my particular case, since my contract renewal is in April, I would have had to pay the telephone company the next five months rental to close out what I would normally owe them, i.e. 5*53=265€, which means I personally wouldn't be saving all that much money.) The normal NewCustomerPrice is 99€, like the $99 launching in the States. Last night in the métro I saw a woman with TWO of these gadgets in her possession.

I will have my new iPhone today. It's current list price is around 595€ IF you pay for it without installing a new phone line to get it cheap. With my fidelity points, I'm paying 144€, which I think is acceptable for my budget. And since I'm changing phones and not lines, all I need to do is upgrade my subscription, and I don't lose any money. I like my cell phone number (06 67 60 51 30) - it's easy to remember, for me and for people, although now that in France we've gone to 10-digit numbers, who remembers them any more? We just punch in a name and our phones do the rest!

What irks me the most is the artificial inflating of the phone's price. If Apple can afford to sell so many of them at such a drastically cut price, why not lower the initial price and offer them at 250 to everybody? You'll never see a computer being placed on sale for five-sixths of it's price, even on Black Friday, so why do it with telephones? Why do all companies have to align themselves with such a huge profit margin from the outset? My bet is these telephones don't cost any more than $100 dollars to make. So why not sell them at only the double of that price?

Ah, but they do. And the telephone companies, having purchased them at $200 per item, must ALSO make a 100% profit margin off of them, thus the sale prices starts around $400.

Here's the second "a beautiful life" poem. Actually, the "Ten Variations"   by alfred booth, wanbli ska had already been created years ago. Yesterday I should have featured something from my computer that isn't already posted here. Four of the ten poems are one-word-per-line acrostics, the hardest to make work well. In my opinion, they don't! Here's one that does. I was in a very romantic mood the day I wrote these.


always

behind love
enters the promise
as rainbow sunset glimmers
under the swaying palm tree
time in your arms stands still
Interior peace beckons, glowing in your eyes
fulfilling all of my dreams, like magic
ushering emotion into my fragile heart
lingering in your warm smile

lately I almost believe
In fairy tale endings
fantasy kisses, and photos of
eternity


[2007.6.5…I]

Blogsville has been quiet. I guess that's NaNoWriMo's fault. I seem to remember when I wrote SOTG last year that I maintained contact with the virtual world here.

I'm still stuck with editing my second chapter, but the chapbook has been taking all of my editing time.

Creativity? Nah!

I still see him burning
his angelic voice at twenty-three
snuffed out as illness struck its match
for six months he couldn't resist...
for his last wish I took him home
where wild horses neighed an hour
on the plains out west
as he passed into sunset's fire
he is home now, his last song
forever in my heart
seared into a place
I seldom touch


his last song
[2009.22.11...a]