If I Could Have,

I would have liked to have been in one of the villages Jesus visited. Not to witness miracles or anything, I haven't cared about those since I was a child, but to have seen for myself how he looked, seen the light in his eyes, heard the timbre of his voice as he spoke to people, gathered his followers. Heard for myself what he talked about when he talked about love, to paraphrase Raymond Carver.  I like to think I would have trusted him, maybe followed him to his next stop, maybe everywhere he went. I would have liked being there, with the man in sandals, before all the hoopla started.

Did you hear that Joshua Bell story? He's a genius violinist-American, young, ordinary-looking. They (Washington Post reporters) got him to play Bach cantatas in a D.C. subway station for 45 minutes, and only a few people stopped to listen to him. There were children who were interested in what he was up to and had to be dragged away by busy parents, but not many adults took a music break. Mr. Bell earned $32 playing in the subway that day. Not bad for a busker. Why didn't more people stop, I wonder? Have you heard him play his three million dollar and change violin? Listen to him on Spotify.

I would have liked to have been there, in that subway, and been someone who stayed to listen. Be one of the ones who dropped my plans for the moment and listened for as long as he played-had myself a Joshua Bell plays Johann Sebastian Bach break. Just like I hope I would have listened to Jesus-gotten him a drink of well-water, offered him a place to stay, if he needed one, and I had a place to offer.

I like to think about what I might have done given this, given that. Even if I usually decide that I'd have made good choices, I really don't know, of course. I don't even know if I'd notice when something important came up. But I'm trying to pay attention.

Just the Three of Us

The night before my brother Robert flew in from Philadelphia, I said to Drago, the brother I live with, "It will be the first time it has been just the three of us." Drago said, "Well, it is just the three of us." I don't know if I gulped, or if my jaw dropped, or even if my expression changed, but I was taken aback.  I'd been mulling over things differently-that Robert's wife wasn't coming this time, because she's been helping their daughter with her new baby girl, that there had been all combinations of people in our family together for visits, but that, going back as far as I could remember, Drago, Robert and I had never been just us.  Mom, Dad, and our youngest brother Ric, have all died-Mom in 2006, Ric in 2008, and Dad in 2010. Hellava decade, from our small, immediate family perspective.  So, there it was again, while chatting with my brother over chicken, salad, and baked potatoes. Loss. We taste loss so many times, don't we? And, it comes to us flavored differently each time, doesn't it?

Nonnie, Drago and Robert

But, enough of that! Our visit rocked. Dining out, cooking in, walking the pier, a bit of shopping, watching the Borgias, yoga, reading our various books in various recliners, fine talks about the good, the bad, the stupid, and kittens! A stray cat had 5 kittens in our back yard. Drago, who got to discover them (wish it had been me) is happy about it but trying to stay detached,  and I'm a fool in love; a complete idiot. We did promise Robert, the most concerned bird lover of our threesome, that we'd get them adopted so that they'd be house cats-Robert's gone back to Philly, but we'll keep our promise. They are tiny, and we don't have to do anything responsible yet, so I'm helping the mother cat mother them. I go out there to pet them every so often so that they will be used to human touch and will be easily adopted. Good thinking, there, right? Drago fixed up a shelter for them, and I know they used it during a fierce thunderstorm yesterday (I checked) and I put food out because it seems I can't help myself. I could go on and on, but I won't. Kittens are all over the damn place on the internet, aren't they? People are probably sick of hearing about them or seeing pictures of them or watching video clips of them being almost unbearably cute. But these five are in our back yard! Kittens and brothers. I'm full-up.  

I Don't Know Anything About Relationships

EXCUSE ME?

Did you hear what I said?

You look…unruffled,

like you might even smile.

Maybe I spoke too softly.

(I do that, I know.)

Let me repeat myself more forcefully.

"Our careful lies are killing us."

So, there it is. I'm finished.

Did you hear what I said? Did you?

Put the cat down and listen to me.

PATHOLOGY

How awful it is to dissect a marriage!

It lays naked on the therapist’s steely table.

He makes his first incision

into the bloated stomach

of our malnourished union.

He polishes his glasses and peers,

cuts the thin taut skin of our collusion.

We're paying him to do this!

Dr. Stahler hums, probes, frowns 

as he examines the damage done

by our withholding of nutrients.

“But we took our marriage to England! to Ireland! To the Alps!

It was fine and plump!

We have neglected feedings of late,

but we were busy, pushed and pulled hither and yon!

What will you do, Doctor?

Will you prescribe an elixir, painkillers,

a weekend out of town?”

"My dear fools,  there is no heartbeat!

Here, lying on my table, is an emaciated 

corpse. Take the remains away and cope 

with them quickly before rot sets in and settles 

irrevocably into your poor, careless souls."

Bereft Light

I'm sure I loved him. Almost sure.

His wide smile, straight teeth.

I liked his back. Liked spotting him

in a crowd. Especially at airports.

Unlike me, he could carry a tune, 

remembered lyrics, knew the band.

He was a good driver. Kept his cool.

Even on the Beltway. 

And jokes! He had a million.

Got them right. No start overs.

He invented puns. And they were good!

I liked that he was proud of them.

His clever puns.

He was a great Scrabble partner!

Everything I know about Scrabble

came from him. Seven letter words?

No problema. Even stoned.

So, yeah. I miss stuff.

But the illusions?

Playing the fool? 

Nosireebob! Not me.

Not those. Who would?

--------------------------------

"April is the cruellest month" T.S.Eliot

The Watch

She's unable to move her own limbs,

so I lift, shift, hold her wasted 

body and ease her onto her back,

watching her face for the crumblings 

that mean pain. Her whispers don’t tell me

where she hurts or what she needs.

So I make my guess and take a deep breath- 

take her ninety pounds in my arms.

Together we journey to and from the commode. 

I empty the pot and yes, it smells- 

yes, but doing this task is instinctive, 

swiftly accomplished, and never repellent. 

I didn’t know how it would be. None of us do.

I sigh each time we manage 

the hoist to her high queen-size bed.

The sheets and pillows, her hair, face

and delicate, cold hands are all shades 

of wintery white, but there is color-

brown spots, pale yellow bruises, 

and purple stains on her skin. 

I try-I always try-to handle her 

with patience and reassurance.

We are Irish enough that the Banshee 

has come to sing from the hallway 

but I growl and chase the bitch away.

Some months ago my life collapsed

and I tumbled here to this bedside.

I'm the one, the only other woman

in this house, allowed to stand guard,

to share these difficult intimacies, 

to keep this watch. I want to do it well.

Departure      

Strawberry blond! That’s the shade the maple is this year.  I tried for just that color once, didn’t I? Don’t think I managed it, Marnie thought as she approached the house from the paddock. She missed their horses, as she did during every morning walk she’d taken since they’d sold them. Oh, damn this being old!  Marnie wiped mud off her boots on the back doormat and went through to the kitchen where her sister-in-law was drinking coffee and talking, talking, talking to Stephen.

“ I will worry, Steve! I fly in three hours and I haven’t convinced you stubborn fools to sell this place and join me in Ocala. You’ll molder up here in this lonely place, missing all the fun, and I suppose I’m just to take that answer as final and be on my worrying way. Really, I could wring your wrinkled old necks.”

Stephen answered, “We have a home we love and don’t play bridge, nor do we want to learn. Accept it as our happy choice, Ellen. We don’t want to sell. We are as deeply rooted here as the white pines around us.”

They drove Ellen to Albany for her flight to Florida. Ellen’s travel outfit made her look twice as plump, bundled up as she was against the “horrid” cold of October in the mountains, with a cotton blouse and slacks under all the woolies for the return to her beloved southern sun. Sandals were tucked into her carry-on.

During the drive home, Marnie relaxed, relieved the yearly siege was over. After all, they’d been settled in the country since closing their pediatric clinic almost eighteen years ago.  Why ever should they “retire” again? And in Florida?

“You’d better drive, dear.” Stephen’s voice woke her. “I’m dangerously sleepy.”

After they changed seats, Stephen fell deeply asleep. Marnie took his hand and gasped at his cold skin. His fingers had a blue tinge. So, she thought, it’s time already.

Just past five, she helped him into bed and gave him another nitro to put under his tongue. He was pale, clammy, and, she sensed, in much more pain than he’d admitted to. She left him briefly to see to a few things she needed to do, but soon came upstairs bearing a tray with a bottle of champagne, two flutes, and their stash of pills.

They toasted each other, their long, mostly happy lives, and their determination to go together. Marnie had left letters for Ellen and their three children for the postman to pick up in the morning-letters written by both of them earlier that month, after she’d learned that her cancer was back. There was one to the police as well. They washed down their sedatives with the vintage champagne, even got a little giggly, then snuggled under the covers. Whatever came next, they would be Marnie and Stephen, together and themselves, ready to meet it. Or, as the case might be, Marnie thought, not themselves at all, but then, what would it matter?

Aunt Sally Defies Color Solution #58

Kellen, on Neighborhood Chromaguard Watch for Orange, or O Section, had long known his Aunt Sally was unruly, so he wasn't unduly surprised when he spotted her wearing a bright blue baseball cap. She sat in the shade of a leafy tree and on her lap sat a tattered black book. Sally ate a sandwich although public eating was frowned upon and wearing blue in O was something one simply could not do.

"Morning, Aunt Sally," he said.

"Morning to you, dear Nephew."

"Do I have to fine you? Or will you take off the cap?"

"What kind of fine could it be? I have nothing left but this cap, my notebook, and this hideous orange dress. Oh, and half a sandwich."

"What are you on about? You get your allotment, don't you? Same as everyone. I'll fine that."

"Ah, you could, if I had it, but you can't, because I don't. I've left the envelope on my porch for my poor former neighbors who'll live on, they avow, in this dustbowl of creative thought known as O. I don't want any more of that crap from your color crazed plutocrats. I'll mooch off my old friends and the occasional kindness of strangers, pardon me, Tennessee."

"What do you mean, former neighbors? What have you done, you crazy old bat, you bane of my life, you dysfunctioning Aunt?"

"I've moved out of my loathsome orange cube. I'm in permanent transit now. I'm going visiting. G section is next. Most of my old crowd are Greens these days I discovered and I won't tell you how I uncovered their color. But now I know so that's where I'll go. They were your sweet dead mother's pals too, you know. Don't you remember Keisha and Irv? Or their daughter Conchita? I've already been to Blue. I found happy folks who gave me this cap."

"No way. You can't do what you've done or what you're going to do."

"Way. I've done it and I'm doing it."

"I don't want to take you in, you dim woman. Won't you at least surrender that damn hat?"

"Cap. It's not a hat, it's a cap. Take me in? I think not, you brat. You'll have to use your weapon, which you won't do, because you're my nephew, or drag me somehow, but I'd make a scene. I'd scream, and O section rules forbid any fuss. You might get fined yourself."

"You are a pain in the ass, Aunt Sally!"

"You may well yell Kellen, but I will no longer agree to comply   with this silly regime of color control. It doesn't work and never will. We, most if not all, remain human. We've personalities, souls, memories, goals, loves, appetites, tendencies, and qualities. Lumping us into Chromazones, based on random lotteries, is a pathetic attempt to control us all and will unravel. I'm sure it will but I've no patience to wait. Besides, orange has never been my color. So, unless you are going to manhandle me, Kellen, I'm going to finish this bananafish sandwich given to me, willingly, by one of the few friends I still have in this monochrome place and move on to see how things are going in Green. I've heard they hold poetry readings which is quite hard to believe but I hope is true. Did you know they show movies in Blue?"

"How are you getting out of O? Transport doesn't go between zones."

"Oh, Kellen. Really. I'm going to walk, my dumb dear. Green is only three orange blocks away from here. Have you young people forgotten all the things we can do?  Well. So be it. Fine. I'll live to Re-mind, starting small with a cap and I'll see after that. I'll wear the colors I choose, yellow, purple and blue, and walk where I want. It's easy, believe me. Now get out of my way. Write a report to the O Section boss. Orange doesn't suit you either, you know. Must be a family thing-our sallow skin. Pity you think you're stuck with it. I love you. Good luck."

Fleeting Laziness in Birds and Catching Myself Being Selfish

My brother built a planter for roses

in the garden on the side of our house.

A dove couple came and thought things over.

There in the corner they whispered.

Could they dutifully take their turns,

(as doves do) she from three to ten,

he from ten to three, 

until they hatched the usual two?  

They wondered if my brother had done all

this work just for them and their young?

They were tempted, I knew.

But, no. He raised objections.

She made several good points.

Building in this easy, shady,

new-wood-smelling spot would not

be a sound dove decision.

Neighborhood cats were known to jump

right off the roof into the garden.

There's Blossom, the dog, who can get

overexcited and occasionally loud.

Sam, the cat, is meant to stay

inside his screened-in porch,

but could they really count on that

always being the case?

Their cool gray heads prevailed.

The house-hunting birds flew off and after they'd left,

I found a mound of red mulch, dove-sized, dented and soft.

They were right to take flight. I know that, of course.

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
 Mark Twain 


3/13/12-Brainstorming Session among like-minded private citizens (okay, writer friends) responding to national tough nut to crack. 



Reason #1 for outreach plan:


Public Policy Poll (Democratic polling)
52% of Republicans in Mississippi think President Obama is a Muslim
45%  "  "                   "    Alabama     "        "                  "   "          " 

Okay, ideas?

•  ASAP mobilization of friendly Peace-Corps type trip to rural and small-town America to lure folks to reconsider some. (you can end a thought on the word "some" in the South
• Aren't we being too cynical, Nonnie?  

• Hold events on Sundays after church services-don't want preachers spotting us and talking about us from their pulpits

• A completely unofficial, pleasant gathering of folks.  Most at least middle-aged, children ok, not too many 18 to 35s, bunch of over 65s. Nice clothes, not too fancy, not too sloppy. No faking accents. Avoid urban... or hippy-dippy. Discreet cell phones okay. Leave laptops in motel.

• Don't quote Mark Twain. Don't quote anybody.

• Everyone wearing plain crosses? (research needed)
• Little Obama buttons-real little-tiny-maybe just lower case "d" pins

• Everyone Welcome to (name of town, or county, maybe) Barbeque! (Big sign, hand-lettered, magic marker on white posterboard)

• Find people to man grills. None of us wants to.

• Barbeque set up across the street from all those little churches out in the middle of nowhere, and in vicinity of mega churches where people pouring out of church parking lot will see us

• Flea market/garage sale type tables with people hanging out in lawn chairs behind tables. Useful/pretty stuff-good prices.
• See if we can find any books that might sell and yet woo? (further discussion needed on this.)
• Sweet tea, cokes, coffee, pulled pork, coleslaw, potato salad, deviled eggs, rolls, cakes, pies (what kind?) ice cream

• Gospel & Country singers
• Bluegrass
• child soloists

• lawn chairs set up in circles

• tell personal stories about coming to believe our President is a good guy, and Christian

• free tobacco products (research first)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Comment section via private office of a password protected writer's site on the World Wide Web. These people are not googleable.


From lankywoman:


What kind of pies? Chess pie, naturally, and raspberry. Gotta have peach pie cuz everyone from TN to GA to Ala and Miss just as easy pass it up than take it onaccounta they ate way to manyof them growing up...


Lowercase "d" buttons - I LIKE that!


Gotta have all kinds of cokes, like pepsi, moutain dew, orange, you know, all kinds of cokes. My favorite kinda coke, and the only one I'll drink - Verner's Ginger Ale. 


Gotta decide whether you want North Carolina cole slaw or TN coleslaw, and southern BBQ or St. Louis BBQ, and then, when you decide, stick with your choices. To the death.




From lakehugger:


I'd not call it cynical. Rather, pointed.


From justsayin':


I don't know if this would be cynical or realistic, but I suspect the appropriate ending would be to have the red necks beat you all up, then eat the goodies and say they were doing God's work.


From almostoutahere:


Never try to teach a pig to sing...you waste your time and annoy the pig.


via email:


From wilsnote:

as to southern pies

moonpies definitely

Neopolitan ice cream pies 

cut with a small biscuit cutter 

on Famous Chocolate Wafers in an iced cooler

and chicken pot pies kept warm on the grill

       
I was in a battle once. Nine year-old to nine year-old combat. Big stick to big stick. Martha, from the bottom of the hill, and me. I'm pretty sure she started it. Her bunch was trying to keep my frinds and me from the path that led down to our best play spot-a pond and its swampy environs. Martha was being even bossier than usual and then this wierd fight started between the two of us. The whole mob split into sides, everybody was shouting, but Martha and I were deadly quiet as we did stick to stick (oh, yeah, we really had big sticks) Robin Hood and Friar Tuck type combat. I can still conjure those feelings: furious, scared, out of control, and above all shocked that I had gotten into such a mess. One of my big brothers, Drago or Bobby, got between us and Mark, Martha's brother, got her mother, who came out and yelled, mostly at me, and the war ended. It had probably only lasted twenty minutes, and no one got hurt, but the whole thing shook me up in all kinds of ways. I ran home and straight to my mother's lap, like a little kid. Cried off and on the rest of the day. Mom didn't even scold me. No need.

When I was in my teens, protesting against the war we had going then, I thought the "make love not war message" would take hold, it seemed so sensible, but, no, it hasn't. There's still violence all over the damn place. Bomb talk, you know? Amazing. Bigfuckingstick bombs.  Where are the big brothers? Where are the moms?
----------------------------------------------------------------

On another note:

In an Effort to Forestall Self-Pity, I've Been Pondering

bowls of spaghetti with fresh marinara
family tossed stories of our living and dead
coffee, jokes, confessions with cake,

cobbled streets, shady footpaths, corners to turn,
hotels with verandas and gardens, no pools,
bookstores with feelings, small time cafés,

musicians to fall for, a loudmouth to hate
newborns to visit, fences to fix,
payments, thank yous, grand plans to make.

Until I feel better,
my desk will work fine.
Rain today, sun tomorrow
play your cards, take your time.

Two Bits

Brother and Sister Hash it Out

“It’s better to have one,” said Simon.
“It is?” asked Maddy.
Simon got off the stool they used to reach the sink. “Yeah.”
“But why? I can pee good."
“I can pee standing up. You have to sit down. And I have something to hold,
and you don’t have anything.”
“But you have to sit down sometimes.”
“Sure, but we’re talking about peeing. And mine feels good. Do you want to feel it?”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, Mom doesn’t have one. I’m like Mom.”
“Right. That's what they said before. You and Mom have vaginas but Dad and I have peanuts. Okay. I gotta put my trucks away."

“Maddy, did you brush your teeth yet? It’s past bedtime.” said  Dory.
“Not yet, Mommy.” Maddy’s elbows rested on her knees, her head in her hands.
“Honey, are you sad about something? Was Simon mean to you?”
“He said it was better to be a boy.”
“And why did he say that?”
“Because boys had peanuts and girls just have a hole and it doesn’t show.”
“It’s not better to be a boy. It’s just as good to be a girl as to be a boy, and I want you to believe me about that because it’s very important.”
Maddy stood up and flushed. She stepped on the stool and reached for her toothbrush.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Good. ‘Cause it wouldn’t be fair.”

_______________________________________________

Me, Jane

My sex life started in the back of a bus
on the way home from a middle school football game.
Dickie Young and I smashed our lips together
until one of us had to breathe.

Tongues got busy in high school-
necking was serious business.
I first did it on my 18th birthday.
It was time, and anyway, I was drunk.

Two months later, on a roof-top in Manhattan,
I finally got the kiss that plunged
from lips to spine, groin to knees.
And I'm telling you, I'd had no idea!
Take me to the jungle, Tarzan.
I'm ready to swing.

Nonnie's Poetry Trip: Part 3

So…the poetry festival over, signed editions packed, laundry bag bulging, I left Delray Beach to start my trip home to Panama City Beach. The feathers in the pillow that is me had been plumped and I felt fat and happy. (Er, let me be clear. I'd actually lost a little weight-lots of walking, fore-going restaurants except for lunches, and yogurt.) If I'd any tendency toward bluishness, it was insignificant, because I wasn't just trudging home. I was on my way to spend a night with Yvette, who I've known online for six years give or take, but only met in person last year, and from there on to Cormac and Nancy's. I've known Cormac my whole life.

Before heading out, I asked at the desk of my hotel, and no, there was no way to get to Titusville from Delray without using I-95. The young man made his point, with lovely patience, when he said, "you'll have a horrible drive and besides it will be ugly." But, you know? Once I drove through the south Florida crush, the interstate wasn't bad. And I got to Yvette's in the early afternoon. This was a good thing, because we needed to talk non-stop for seven hours. Only Downton Abby's new episode interrupted the conversation.

We talked about: books, writing, men, dogs, cats, parrots, horses, childhood, children, photography, journaling, home décor, books, poetry, The Linnet's Wings's, (the magazine we both help edit,) World War 2, Holland, names, death, books, cooking, (Yvette's good at this-I'm getting better) the many parts of the country we've in common, drinking, not drinking, Zoetrope Virtual Studio, money, money for writing, other people's writing, men, friends, being a twin (Yvette is) ancestry, pets, divorce, politics (we are both liberal, fairly sensible, and women) health, treasures, dance, music, road trips, films, films from books, and family. We talked a lot about family. Then, after all the superb conversation, chicken curry, and Downton Abby, we collapsed. Yvette had to get to work the next morning, and because she had to be there so early, (normally she gets to work at 6am, but she was going in a little later) I'd called Cormac and told him I'd probably show up at his place by 7am and he'd said that was fine. In fact I didn't wake up the next morning until 7:30. I called Cormac, Yvette and I had a final coffee together, she went off to her re-arranged day at her lab, and I set off to find my old friend and meet his wife.

They didn't mind that I got there three hours later than we'd planned the night before. Cell phones are great for situations when you are running a little behind, don't you think? Ah, well. Beautiful, sleek, airy house. Nancy, who I immediately liked, plied me with coffee and offered eggs, but I settled for an English muffin. Jeez louise I had fun at Cormac and Nancy's! He'd been Tarzan to my Jane when we were little. (I'd always wanted to be Cheetah, but hardly ever got to.) My brother Drago performed the ceremony when, as Princess Sunny Feathers, I married Cormac, who was The Chief. We had the best neighborhood to play in! Woods, a pond with a swampy part, front, side and back yards that connected to each other, streets that were ours to play in until the dads got home from their NYC jobs, a mob of kids, and in winter, ice-skating, a huge, by our standards, sledding hill, snow forts, all of that. Everyone knew everyone and the grown-ups got together on Saturday nights for a party at one house or other. Cormac's mom was my mom's best friend. I hadn't seen Cormac since the 70's, so this was quite a catching-up session. Funny, sad, astonishing lives.

Nancy made me maps for my trip home on the cross-state road that Cormac suggested. Rte. 40 was an uncomplicated drive through Ocala horse country and beyond. The easy drive was a good thing, because, man, did I have stuff to think about! My head and my heart were full-up. I made it all the way to Perry late Monday afternoon, where I stayed in a spiffy new Holiday Inn (the first chain motel I'd been in on this ten-day jaunt.) Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:30 (!) and hit the road soon after. I was that anxious to get home to Drago and our cat and dog. There was fog for awhile, but the kind I could deal with, and then the lovely Big Bend of Florida's Gulf Coast. I was unpacked by the time Drago got home from teaching yoga.  Since getting home, I've seen two of my three doctors, started the damn breathing machine, and settled back in to my quiet life. I know my loved ones are relieved that I made it home safe and sound, and I am too, and I can't say I'm anxious for another road trip just yet. Not just yet.


 

Nonnie's Poetry Trip: Part 2

Who would think, if they met me today, in bed with dog, cat and computer, that I am a woman of such passions? There has never been a time in my life when I haven't been deeply in love with something or someone. As a child my fervors were directed toward ballet and Catholic saints. I would read biographies of famous ballerinas, when I could find them, and the lives of cannonized women  with equal intensity. Could I somehow become the first ballerina-saint, I wondered?

With "boys" went my plans for sainthood, but my love of dance surged. And, indeed, I became a dancer of the daily class or classes; sweaty hours in studios; bloody ugly feet; living to perform and choreograph; GROW; variety. But I turned thirty and became a mess. Serious physical injury, a year or so of full-time drinking, and then, thanks to family love bucking me up and the help of a 12 step program (you know which one) sober living.
I believed, briefly, I could now become a less driven woman. I even pretended to be a secretary but was caught out.

After floundering about I became a teacher of children who were challenged by differences in mental, emotional, or physical states of being. The first priority for these lost souls was to help them "experience their environment with pleasure." Ah, yes.  Passion, for these kids, was back in my life. Then my heart got sick and I had to stop.

This blog was to be about my poetry trip, and indeed it will be. Poetry was and is a passion right there beside me, behind me and in front of me, leading me. From the first memories of my Nonnie teaching me nursery rhymes, I've been a fan. "My poets" have known, challenged, comforted, mirrored, and lord knows, amused me. One of the firsts dances I choreographed was inspired by a line from T.S.Eliot. My last group of special education students were able to recite, with sensitivity, and in front of the class (!) Robert Frost's, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Atlantic Ave, early morning

Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach, Florida

Poet David Kirby

Me, blurred by passion

A few weeks ago I went to my second Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which is not the least concerned, by the way, with taking place in Delray Beach, Florida. (I don't know. Is that whole beachy yet utterly urban sprawl Palm Beach?) I had a full schedule of workshops (with scholar, poet, rock and roll historian, prince of a man, David Kirby), craft talks and readings by top-shelf writers who gave and gave and gave, an invaluable manuscript conference with Ginger Murchison (oh, yeah, I want to publish a book) and many, many walks between my hotel, The Colony Hotel and Cabana Club (I love that name) and Old School Square, the festival venue. Walks along Atlantic Avenue were exciting imput-events for me. Cafés, fancy restaurants, boutiques, antiques, great dogs, and old, young, rich, homeless, Jewish, Cuban, European, black, bohemian, Americans. I had an excellent time in Delray. Weather was great and all and…poetry astounds me. During the readings I discovered new voices speaking to me and of course, those who have always been around will not go away. This passion will carry on,  I think, forever.

There have been men along the way. Sex and great love and all that. I'll write about them in another blog or two, I think. No, scratch that idea. Poems, definitely poems, for all that.

Chalet Suzzanne, Lake Wales, Florida

Nonnie's Poetry Trip: Part 1

Last night was my first with a home oxygen delivery system. I have an apparatus, that looks like a gas mask, which straps around my head and covers my face, a CPAP machine that takes up most of my night table, and a big blue square thing that supplies additional oxygen and makes soft factory noises. Blue does not go with the color scheme of my bedroom. Neither dog nor cat stayed in the room, let alone got on the bed, once I started my machines, and my brother wouldn't even look at me while I was wearing it. Maybe he has to get his courage up a little more. Maybe it's hard seeing someone you love needing help to breathe through the night?

Before starting this life-prolonging indignity, though, I went on a road trip. Two days driving and staying at historic hotels, six days and nights at a poetry festival, then a night with Yvette Managan,  a kindred spirit and fellow editor (The Linnet's Wings), and a morning with Cormac Tully, who I first met when I was three and he was four (and a half!) Ten days away from Drago, my brother and housemate, Blossom, our dog  and Sam, our cat. I missed them and they missed me, but jeez louise, what a time I had!

On the way to the Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach, I drove along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Panama City to Panacea (I know, right?) with sparkling blue water (well, it was sparkling and it was blue) on my right, tooling gently through small towns or no towns with minimal traffic and Paul Simon, The Band, and Amadeus Mozart to keep me company. I lost the shore for awhile after the Big Bend, but recovered it, on three sides (!), when I arrived in Cedar Key. I spent the night in the Richard Boone room at The Isand Hotel. The building dates from 1859, has survived 150 hurricanes and is said to be haunted by several of the dead, including a prostitute from the days when the place was a Speakeasy.  I took a long walk around the docks then had fresh clams and pasta for dinner. Outside my room was a second-story veranda with a view of the tiny town and the Gulf. There was no TV or phone in my room and I had an Alan Furst novel to start.  Just right.

Cedar Key, Florida

The only time I got lost on this trip was exactly where I thought I might lose my way. Now that I don't have a husband I can stay off Interstates and my route from Cedar Key to Lake Wales looked a little complicated when I studied my many maps. I love maps. Things went fine, however, until a road lost it's mind and instead of going south and east switched to south and west. I ended up in Tampa sprawl land. Not for so very long in real time it turned out, but, you know, when you're in the middle of being lost your perspective gets muddled.

Chalet Suzanne

Then, suddenly, farms, cows, orchards and, tired but once again peaceful, I found Chalet Suzanne in Lake Wales. Before booking the room I'd argued with myself, briefly, about staying there. Expensive. But, I discovered, why not? Unlike much of what we get for our money, this was worth every penny. To me, mind you. Who is, after all, the one who counts. (Was that a pun? I can never do those and rarely even get them without some puzzling.) I had a huge, elegant, yet cosy and old-fashioned room! Maple-glazed duck (sorry Doctor Stokes) for dinner at a table with a lake view in a restaurant that was a magic palace of 1930's Mexican-influenced Turner Classic Movies Hollywood decor. The tables were laid with antique glass and china that didn't match in the classiest way possible. I had the best bath I've ever had! Whirlpool, of course! I could have, but didn't, go sky-diving from the little airplane parked on the tiny airstrip behind the hotel which was built for movie stars, astronauts and such! Susan Hayward stayed there!

I lingered at Chalet Suzanne in the morning. Oh, yes. But it wasn't all that hard to get back in my excellent 2005 Buick, because I only had a few hours to drive before I could check into The Colony Hotel and Cabana Club for a week of top-shelf poetry. That will be Part Two, though. At least.

Grant's Tomb?

Oh, look at this. They're planning to put Grant's Tomb on a Manhattan ghost tour.  It's worth a visit, I suppose-lovely location. It's up in Riverside Park, overlooking the Hudson, in Morningside Heights. But there's nary a ghost. Across the street, now, in the original (1905) Juilliard building, and for that matter, further downtown in the "new" school, the one that opened in Lincoln Center in 1970, spirits abound.     

Sweet Sylvia, dead since 1935, plays her cello in a practice room on the third floor of the old building. In life, she'd been blessed with white blond hair, a tiny waist, strong shoulders and long fingers, but not with the talent to go through to her sophomore year. One night, when the bell sounded at midnight for the music students to leave, Sylvia quietly let old Mr. Metz, the janitor, lock her in. She took her mother's sleeping pills and played Chopin until the barbiturates killed her. Charles, a senior-year violinist, (who did go on to a distinguished career, by the way,) found her sprawled on her back, her heavy cello still between her legs. She and the other ghosts who don't want to leave the place sing, play piano, blow into their woodwinds, and beat their drums late at night or early in the morning, just when the young musicians (it's still a music conservatory) feel most alone in their practice rooms.

The Lincoln Center building has a different brand of spirits-livelier, if you will. As you must realize, in Manhattan, when new buildings go up, existing buildings must come down. The buildings to be demolished become unimportant to almost everyone. These, in the upper west sixties, were hardly given a swan song. They were tenements built in the 19th century for European immigrants. The dingy walk-ups got electricity and hot water in the 20th, but the neighborhood continued to be rough, very rough. Eventually Puerto Ricans joined the ethnic mix, and Leonard Bernstein used the ferociously difficult lives of those who lived there to create "West Side Story" in 1957. They actually filmed the movie on the same streets the city planners tore up only a few years later. So, the ghosts of kids like Tony, Maria, Bernardo, and Riff hang out in the new Juilliard building. They like being around the students, especially the dancers and actors. At the grand opening of the new school, the floors of the dance studios were found scuffed with black heel marks, the mirrors were smeared, as if by lounging backs and shoulders, and the smell of cigarettes hung in the air. The horrified building manager swore he'd found everything in perfect condition when he'd made his final check and locked the doors the night before. Oh, he was telling the truth. The neighborhood ghosts didn't come calling until the construction crews, the finishers, the plumbers and electricians had left, their work completed, and all was ready for the big day. 

To this day no student of music, dance, or drama wants to be the last out of the Lincoln Center building or the first to enter. We ghosts don't care for the first floor, with its security desk, bright lights and soulless acres of empty indoor space,  but we love the second and third floor practice rooms, dance and drama studios, and the student cafeteria. Some of us lurk in the dressing rooms (there will always be those types, even well after death.) 

As for me-I've made my home away from life in Alice Tully Hall, the school's main theater. Sometimes I head uptown to the old school for a brief visit to the place where I was so young, passionate, and healthy-I attended Juilliard in both locations, you know. But I died while performing in Alice Tully. It happened in the spring of my senior year. I was doing my best to be brilliant in a new work, choreographed by a young Dutch genius. (I was crazy about him.) The dance ended with me running up a narrow staircase to my partner, who was to lift me even higher over his head. Have you guessed? The idiot dropped me and I broke my neck. Died instantly. I'm glad of that. I could have lived on, but paralyzed or in a coma. No, death is better. I hear the music, attend the plays, help the dancers lift their legs a bit higher, occasionally scare the bejeezus out of a teacher who's gone too far in his or her tirade. Once I got over my own rage at having been, literally, dropped, I've been fairly content and mostly kind. I've learned so much about all kinds of New Yorkers, too-not just the Ivory Tower crowd. 

No, Ulysses and Julia left their tomb right after the crowds dispersed. They were pleased by the turn-out, but had no wish to hang around. Who'd want to haunt their grave? They'd been all over the world, while they were alive, you know. They'd even met Queen Victoria! They've continued traveling and have a weakness for castles, which of course, are on plenty of ghost tours. So, they have fun. Yes, I think the Juilliard buildings would be good, good choices for visitors who like the ghoulish. They might hear music from an empty practice room, see a bright streak cross a dark stage, or smell a dancer's sweat- maybe even mine.

Nonnie and Drago: Two Days After Christmas

That went well. Drago, the brother I live with, loved his iPod, especially after we got it out of the packaging, and I loved my classy black leather gloves and pashmina (now I need cold weather-my other brother and his wife sent me a cashmere scarf from Mongolia (!) in the world's best red. We usually get cold enough weather in the Florida panhandle to dress-for-winter for a week or two, sometimes more. If not, I'll just have to go somewhere, right?) We had breakfast across the street and they have children, who had toys (!), warm smiles, good food. We talked to Robert (he of the scarf) in Philadelphia and heard funny dog and grandson stories. Then Drago and I both napped; Drago because he'd gone to midnight mass (he's a Catholic-Buddhist) and had very little sleep, me because I always nap. My New York cousin Nancy called. She never forgets, even this year
when she has loved ones in hospitals in two states-yes,  on Christmas day. (I know-sickness and death are no respecters of holidays and all. But still.)

After chats and naps I cooked our turkey. Successfully! This is not a big deal for most people. It is, decidedly, for me, because I lack experience in big item preparation. I was single for a long time and while I tried to be a good kitchen helper, I didn't have many dinner parties of my own. Didn't have room or enough silverware anyway. (I'd specialized in low-income careers with panache of one kind or another.) Then I was married for awhile and got into the middle-class, but I never had to cook the big meat/poultry part of the meal. He did those on his super-duper rotisserie. (My mother, during her last year with us, ate a baloney sandwich rather than risk my turkey. The next day, after everyone's survival, she ate the turkey tettrazini I made.) Anyways. Our neighbors, Ralph and Barbara came over for dinner, bringing more for our "splendid table." I love that phrase, although I'm not foodie enough for the NPR show-and we had a fine time. No fancy sauces-plain, healthy food. I'm sure my plakky arteries were grateful since I'd been eating (in moderation, of course) the delicious, buttery cookies Drago's yoga students and the neighborhood children had sent over. Homemade fudge, even.

Boxing Day around here had it's trials. Two of Drago's yoga students got headaches from the scented candle-burner thingy he tried-quite possibly his first-ever complaints from any of them. We couldn't get the iPod connected to the internet; we had Ralph, who can generally fix anything, over helping, but he isn't a kid either, and apparently only kids can do this sort of thing without losing their cool, or in our cases, hard-won serenity. After supper (our friend Romona's wonderful soup) I was locked in to "Little Dorrit" on TCM, the 1988 version, Parts One and Two, so I was up very late. And then even later because there was a major thunderstorm and our dog, Blossom, would not be comforted until it ended at 3amish. She kept Drago awake, too. Maybe because I was watching Dickens in the porch room which has lots of big windows and rain pounds down much louder out there, but I didn't want to move because the tv might have kept my brother up, you see.

Anyways. Here we all are-between holidays again. I'm pretty much full of goodwill.  Really. Maybe because I haven't been watching the doings on news shows for a few days and the consequent lack of Trumpage, etc. Maybe because I had a dream where everyone was alive again and my cousin Renee came to visit with a herd of friendly animals. I've been around children lately, too, which can kick-start goodwill for me. The weather is the kind of shiny breezy day you can get after a big storm. Blossom is exhausted but calm. Sam, our cat, is, well, Sam's always calm. I have the new P.D.James on my Kindle. Drago's teaching, and possibly, possibly using his iPod. So, you know, we're keeping-up. Lucky cusses, we are. You know, some 7,000 clicks have hit on this blog. Lots of them are mistakes or trolls, I'm sure, but for those of you who are here on purpose, and I guess even if you aren't, my best wishes for 2012. May it be chockablock with whatever you wish.  xxoononnie

This doesn't have much to do with the holidays, but I like the picture of Sam

                                           

MARILYN'S SOLILOQUY

Idiots of living time signify nothing.

They merely paint my fall of hair,

mold my shapely legs to tempt

fools who’d be my familiars.

Time now to undo my estate

of lechers creeping in petty pace

to grasp, fondle, possess

a thousand recorded images

of my charmed, night-shrieking life.

I then was but a walking shadow,

my champagne flavored by fear.

My senses cooled, my candle out,

forty-nine years since flesh

met numbed and sodden death,

I have forgotten the taste of glamour,

and am alive in bloodless dignity-

safe from clamorous bells,

the fury of fame, needing you. 

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

to the last syllable of recorded time,

players will rouse and stir to shadows

of Marilyn, who briefly strutted upon a stage.

     Macbeth, Act v,scene v

Enough, Trump.


We've had it my dear with your pink ties, your hairs, 
your swagger, towers, your plenty of monies,
your tempers, your honeys. How dared you propose 
that you lead in our name? Are you smart, fair, or fine? 
Do you even have time?


I don't speak for all, not at all, but for many who never 
did like your style or bile, your tenacious temerity,
your specious celebrity. I wonder, I do, who could help
you see through your haze, your self-blinded daze.
Have you read any poets, I wonder?


Some dignity, perhaps? Is it there, under-wraps?
Still...some listen to you. It must be your cash. 
I do hope you know that the time you steal bothers 
me, my brothers, and millions of others. 
Would you just go?

Seasonal Poem                        




I will write your mother's name
and your name on a list,
make a folder for your family,
put it with the other thirty-four.
We can go to fifty.
One morning in December,
your mother and maybe your father
will go to K-Mart and shop for your Christmas.
I'm glad I could do this for you, child.
This writing down names. This easy work.

I used to teach you (children much like you)
to count pennies, sing funny songs, move like an elephant,
line up when you hear the bell, speak one at a time.
Together we had Mother Goose, Beatrix Potter,
the old tales from the old countries,
Maurice Sendak, Ezra Jack Keats, Eric Carle.
Piglet had a high voice and Eeyore had a low one.
I'm no longer the adult on the playground with you-
on guard against trouble, giver of time-outs,
hugs, thumbs-ups, stickers. ( Could I even give hugs, today?)
I was always in awe of you. I was always exhausted.

Now, because I can, and want to, and should have done
something before but didn't because and because and because,
I've become a volunteer in a small office on Thomas Drive.
Everyone who helps out (we hook people up
with donated money) speaks in an inside voice,
tries to follow the rules, washes their hands and coffee mugs.
Seemed simple to me, at first, but it isn't.
Flimsy trailers are hell on electric bills.
I don't make decisions. I keep records, fill in forms,
and I work on the Christmas list.

          

Nonnie Travels, Part 3

Nonnie Travels, Part 3

I never woulda done it on purpose, of course. My plan was to amble south and west from Black Mountain, North Carolina to some point in central Georgia for a night, and then, the next day, on to the Florida panhandle, where I live. I would drive along what I think of as "soft highways." I avoid Interstates to the best of my ability. As soon as I get on one I want off it-so there's little point in trying them. This has taken me many years to learn. I'm a good driver, I think, but I have issues-see Nonnie Travels, Part 2, if you're curious about those-it's right under this post. I did avoid the four-to-six lane, beat up, loud, unforgiving zoomers for the most part. I followed through on that part of my plan, anyway.

Self-navigating with my follow-roads-that-point-south-or-west-or-both rule, I ended up in the southern Appalachians, on two way roads with a hair-pin turn every two seconds. Nobody else around for long chunks of time. The roads had signs with numbers and "south" or "west" posted every now and then, but since I couldn't look at my maps,(I love maps and had lots of them with me) they weren't very helpful. I'd flash by the infrequent shoulders and pull-overs and think, "oh, there was one." Once on this path, I had to go on until I came out somewhere, turning around just didn't seem doable. Hell, I couldn't even think about changing the CD. My hands were too busy. Really, I felt like I was driving with my arms. My entire body. Still, early Tom Waits was rather good company for this drive. He and I had a blast.

Driving up and down and around mountains, in October, on the kind of day that deserves all the best weather words thrilled me and gave my six-year old Buick a happy shock, too. Okay, maybe I wouldn't recommend the sort of morning I had to fellow heart patients, but man, it was fun. I had red, yellow, gold and green trees, dappled sunlight, miles of dense forest and then panoramic views of somewhere (didn't much matter where at that point, did it?) and I was counting only on myself and my trusty car, with Tom for additional spirit. I never woulda done it on purpose, what with my issues, and my promises to be careful, but fate gave me a gift…and a boost. I'd even gone south and west after-all, albeit not very far south or west, mostly up and down. Sort of like swinging. Huh.

This is the Windsor Hotel, dressed up for Christmas, in Americus, Georgia.
I stayed here on my way up to Black Mountain, and again on my way home. Great place. No fooling.