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 |   Poetry in April -- in celebration |
 This is my Second Book of poems. I may not have eaten the plums from the icebox, but I am guilty of writing poetry without thinking too much, without laboring over words and lines. This Is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold by William Carlos Williams You, too, forgive me for I only love the writing process; the result is secondary...And please never mind that I am also aping William Carlos Williams's false apology.    From where does the title Beetlebung and Kettlehorn come from? The name Beetlebung and Kettlehorn has to do with ancient whaling practices and Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. During the nineteenth century, because of its dense white wood, the tupelo tree was used in whale oil casks made of copper. Beetle was the mallet made from the Tupelo tree and bung was the stopper in the cask hole. In Martha’s vineyard, the Tupelo tree is still known as the Beetlebung tree, and at Chilmark there, is a Beetlebung Corner, with shops at Chilmark Center, from where roads lead to other interesting points. Kettlehorn, as well as being an ancient surname, refers to a piece of equipment resembling to but much bigger than a shoe-horn, used to stir the hot blubber and separate the fine oil from the denser particles. Whale oil was a popular commodity and, as a fuel, was used for lighting the dark, burning to provide heat and as an aid in cooking. After the whale was hunted, men in a boat cut strips of blubber from the whale's back, tied them together and rowed ashore. There the fat was cut into smaller pieces to be boiled into oil in large copper kettles. In addition there exists kettle corn in Cape Cod which are corn chips fried in kettles and sometimes mistakenly called kettlehorns. For some reason, way back when, the words Beetlebung and Kettlehorn were used together and, at one time or another, were given to shops and other things that go together as titles. I adopted the name for my on-the-spot poetry in reference to the idea of blubber. "Poetry the shortest distance between two humans" Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| A random rupture runs ash prints all over a continent leaving stranded passengers in foreign ports; raging earth on the move, its hot breath maniacal, making me imagine --while I pour coffee-- the dust of lost cities, the Great Depression, the coming hurricane season. and how I cannot see what will bring on miracles or promising poetry, but then, even love has its tragic side. |
| A black discarded ribbon, the snake on the driveway stared at me, then to the sky, his head, a periscope. He moved not much but put up with human presence for a bit of sunlight, a love so natural and voluntary. The sweep of the garage broom, a calling for flight, and he slithered sideways, flowing in a dignified dance under the bushes. He was so cool, I could have talked to him. Then I saw the small salamander high up on the windowsill welcoming my existence like a goddess. =============================== True story. It happened around midday, today, when I was about to take the car out of the garage for food shopping. Here was this three-foot black snake sunning on the driveway. He was, honestly, very cute, but he wouldn't budge. If I'd taken the car out, I'd run him over. So I started sweeping the opposite part of the driveway. The sound of the broom made him flee. Then I saw the salamander on the windowsill of the laundry room. |
| Waiting for the world to end, the river turns, a long ribbon anchoring the land to its sides and I perch on an empty bench, watching the tall egrets stab into slate water for tadpoles with the rhythm of native dancers, each divinely manifest. For one extended moment, my vagrant mind stops wandering and I sit here belonging while the dilemmas of the day vanish. Crystalline magic, these angelic wings of white flapping at the shoreline… Their image urges, inside me, millions of molecules to a new vision of hope: The world will not end. ---------------------------------------- “waiting for the world to end” Last line from Stanley Kunitz’s Halley’s Comet Prompt: Take the last line from another poet’s work, and with that line, start a new poem that is totally different than the original poem. |
| Alice, my apologies… Hiding a mutiny within, I, a time-altered woman, want the chase, too. Dislocated, I sit with little kids in the sandbox, and out of habit, let my eyes search for a rabbit hole, to make my story spill, rise, or fall with a modicum of control and find a better world than this. Twisted though I am, this dizzying speed will let me become the cat who disappeared leaving her smile behind. “ Write a poem about a character from a favorite story in childhood.” |
| Late coffee and bagel, my chair at the desk, and the approach of catastrophe, -memorized word by word- the letter in the drawer I don’t know how to respond. There is no metaphor here, no poetry, for she says she lied to find comfort and to make it heroic, holy, approved. She says she can’t take it back since she has woven this sham with silken threads. She says, to the sound of her heart drumming, her father did not die in Iraq but killed himself there, and now, she’s a slave, crying out to me, clinging to dignity, despite her wounds. Her pain rises to echo inside my ruins, and her secret surrounds me. |
| Sunday morning… his image parachutes against crosswinds, through the contrails of his bogus claims like jets in an air show flying blind inside close-formation acrobatics. A strange spectacle this go-around, and then, one huge forced landing. In zero visibility, this charade of cruising at high altitudes was the last myth I believed. Yet, I’d rather zoom, circle, and tailspin through turbulence on feigned skyways than drift, ditch, and dive to the ground. Now, who can spell me out? |
| Intricate, miniature leaves cupping water drops... The basil on the windowsill sprouted overnight. I soar on surprise. Who'd have thought seeds, bought only a week ago, would be so eager to live in such a narrow place! this moment is all there is, a scent of life, a flash of light, to brand in memory, and I clasp my oneness with these tiny leaves, even before I drink my tea, this Saturday morning. |
| She pricks into my vein with a flimsy excuse: ”Let’s see if your blood has thinned enough.” Why explain? Did she think the strain would be too much? She couldn’t unhinge me if she tried since this blood in me has been tested, to a sickening extent, for its clogging potential and snapped out of course to flag its zigzag flow, spilling it all over the tracks I’ve ever tottered. As to its short-sighted daring, no vial can hold enough of it. |
| Howard’s Creek opens its arms wide and shakes out fanged alligators like dice. Past the curve of the land, past the ibis and frogs, past the decaying reeds and grass fern, houses on the right side, in complete boredom, embrace one another as haughty repetitions of themselves. The left side wraps around the woods and brush, partly cleared for a park, which I observe while strolling on the bridge and imagining where the gator got the boy, and since then, how a house on the right side stayed empty, catching the mud from the water on its cheeks. And I ask: How can we bargain with a creek or ever be through with our goodbyes? |
| Red lentils, carrot, yams, apple, onion, ginger, cut with care out of the past, offered to the future, seasoned with paprika, cumin, chili powder, and the resilience of the smallest in hot water. Then I add broth and pour Canola in drops as if sacraments and hope to get the clogs out of my blood, which careens wildly and changes the heart, the mind, and whatever else it rushes into. My wooden spoon paddles in the pot to stop carrots from doing headstands, so I can drown them to repair my cells. The way of the world: destroy something to fix something. Diverting my attention to the task at hand, I pinch the salt, the pepper, and me, sure of how difficult I am. Never a recipe, for I do not stand in the shadow of anyone’s kitchen, and I learned when to fold, how to stir, and still keep my thoughts on the ingredients of the soup. |
| Yesterday, before the kids left for Jacksonville, we went, for lunch, to Dolphin Bar, the place the two met fifteen years ago, each with a different partner then. Now married, they look at our I-Phone photos and into each other’s eyes that twinkle with laughter. House salad cradles us like holly, green leaves and red berries under which lovers kiss, and scallops float in drawn butter, drawn from light pools, and a favorite for sweetness Crème Brulee. After generations created a morbid myth of destiny of in-laws, of nasty children, and ashes of family scattered about in terror and vertigo, what we have is sunrise, a mirror of miracles, the cooing of doves, and maybe I should stick with emoticons for expression, but this is the world I want to live in.  |
| The logo on the plastic “Barnes & Noble Café” a figurehead from student days, and sailing on thin ice inside the cup, the magenta liquid, -sparkling pomegranate- spews from a bottle of IZZE. The hunter in me marks, in stealth, the man across with unseen luggage sipping his coffee and flipping the pages of a book he won’t buy for, in his heart, he is a dancer, waltzing between the present and the past and thinking of things he never did, while I’m projecting… at what cost, who knows? The book I hold, a narrow wraith, a meager myth with no spine. Time for my caper on scraps of paper, so the ballpoint pen can let the dark of the ink dive and leap up, like an abscess. Do words hurt or heal the world, and should I reveal things I haven’t told myself yet? |
| Did you think I could ever be dejected, pissed, and thinking someone has my head on a platter for having lived less than you, you of I-Pads, I-Phones, and Plasma TVs? No, not me, not after Gary Grant, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, thick-carpeted, wall-sconced theaters, and Chris the usher’s flickering lead to our seats during the amateur night, just before the feature film, comedy, drama, horror, not making any difference, for our public refuge, as long as the reels rolled, quite unlike the screens of cineplexes, T.V., or DVR, because I wiped my mother’s tears after Carole Lombard as if she had stood in good relation to her and mine after James Dean whom I had never met. So, for me, a torch of promise exists in old movies, and when the last curtain lifts and lights go off, you can be sure of this: I shall not shiver with cold and fright, I shall not disturb the universe, and I shall enjoy the last movie I’ll see. |
| Mother Combing Child’s Hair by Mary Cassatt Mother holds her by the neck like a cat carrying its kitten, since the little girl must be shaking her head, her hair, silk rippling, lustrous yellow. Mother, a source so complex, dreaming to linger forever, be it in pastel colors. Her hand guides the comb to wipe away the tangles, both images glazed by the unique grace of a clear pond. Yet, rosy cheeks and belonging do not reflect; neither what is so special, so intimate, yet fleeting. Such shame, inside that mirror, the figures have perched backwards, darker, looking away, slipping from love to boredom, and a viewer may think that a mirror has to be a devotee of shadows. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cassatt_Mary_Mother_Combing_Child%27s_Hai... |
Fishing for a poem among flowers, I cast in Renoir’s fashion, as in Dans le Jardin, but not quite. Shadowing the passion of that man for the young girl in a yellow hat, the thorn-tipped bushes tighten along my edges, and I blend into the losing end between herbs and rhododendrons, without absinthe or any other similar bait. Still, following the colors of petals, I spin from mood to mood and wait for darkness to wrap around the tree trunks, so I may face myself with the tribute of a sigh. |
| In Grandma’s eyes, I am the lone one. “You’re the apple of my eye,” she says when out of reach of other ears, the ears of my eight cousins. Down, crashes her words since apples are eaten, their pits spit out. Still, with wild hope, I drift to love, her arms my last refuge in the wild gush of my isolation. |
 This globe looms over men ruling it at whip-driven pace, with I-don’t-care shrugs, the glint of coins feverish, pulsing, turning full face against our uneven lives. How patient we are! When we observe closely -birds, mammals, mountains, trees, rivers, oceans- they look so human. If they are all gone, we cannot look at nothing. |
| Nothing is original, I find; still, the trick is in the twisting, flailing, failing, authentic pain, and bravery. I want the scents to find voice and the touch to taste sweet. Can you create art like that? I don’t know, but I watch for signs like a novice monk for illumination. I look east and west, and I look past our hang-ups, across the emptiness, for new growth. Still I see traps, body bags, the damage we leave, false badges in preening shows, flares in the air pointing to nowhere. Yet, I want, around me, hatchlings roaming free on green grass, floating in dreams, the fragrance of flowers in solitude, and bees bringing us honey, and I want to wrap our world in pink cotton candy. |
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