A Tidings of Magpies

Sunday in CinCity

2012-01-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

Wild Geese

by Charles Goodrich

I'm picking beans when the geese fly over, Blue Lake pole

beans I figure to blanch and freeze. Maybe pick some dilly beans.

And there will be more beans to give to the neighbors, forcibly if

necessary.

The geese come over so low I can hear their wings creak, can

see their tail feathers making fine adjustments. They slip-stream along

so gracefully, riding on each other's wind, surfing the sky. Maybe

after the harvest I'll head south. Somebody told me Puerto Vallarta is

nice. I'd be happy with a cheap room. Rice and beans at every meal.

Swim a little, lay on the beach.

Who are you kidding, Charles? You don't like to leave home

in the winter. Spring, fall, or summer either. True. But I do love to

watch those wild geese fly over, feel these impertinent desires glide

through me. Then get back to work.

Saturday in CinCity

2012-01-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

Ice

by Gail Mazur

In the warming house, children lace their skates,

bending, choked over their thick jackets.

A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy

it's hard to imagine why anyone would leave,

clumping across the frozen beach to the river.

December's always the same at Ware's Cove,

the first sheer ice, black, then white

and deep until the city sends trucks of men

with wooden barriers to put up the boys'

hockey rink. An hour of skating after school,

of trying wobbly figure-8's, an hour

of distances moved backwards without falling,

then—twilight, the warming house steamy

with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs

aching. Outside, the hockey players keep

playing, slamming the round black puck

until it's dark, until supper. At night,

a shy girl comes to the cove with her father.

Although there isn't music, they glide

arm in arm onto the blurred surface together,

braced like dancers. She thinks she'll never

be so happy, for who else will find her graceful,

find her perfect, skate with her

in circles outside the emptied rink forever.

Sunday in CinCity. The Or Mid-January Edition.

2012-01-15T05:53:00.000-08:00

The Bloody Mary

by Susan Donnelly

Sunday in late December

calls for one, with a celery stalk

and faint taste of Worcestershire,

to be sipped while eating

poached egg and corned beef hash,

in a hotel dining room

with someone you love. Touch

the hairs at his wrist

as the warmth endorses

all bed-lingering, non-churchgoing.

It's the solstice, remember,

when your frugal father

would hand around dollar bills

so the day would last longer.

Stir ice into the rich red

and consider such Celtic rituals,

as you watch, beyond the tall windows,

pilgrims traveling the paths

past snow-fringed trees in the park.

please note: photography by Marc Piasecki

Saturday in CinCity. The Day After Two 12Hrs in Neurodramaville Edition.

2012-01-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

I was very much hoping to go to the above cafe tonight and listen to a little music and eat a little cafe food. Hubby, however, is still recovering from a horrible gastrointestinal virus that he picked up in his ER which I'm crossing my fingers and hoping is only passed on in his ER. Don't want it. And would like to be away from sick people for a night. Ahhh, well, next weekend is another two days.

It's cold here. Maybe feels colder because we've had such a mild time of it so far, but that wind is piercing. Good time to computer shop for a down parka on sale especially since we're saving money by not going out. I do love a win-win :>)

Fishing in the Keep of Silence

by Linda Gregg

There is a hush now while the hills rise up

and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship

of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully

as He lies dreaming in the lap of the world.

He knows the owls will guard the sweetness

of the soul in their massive keep of silence,

looking out with eyes open or closed over

the length of Tomales Bay that the herons

conform to, whitely broad in flight, white

and slim in standing. God, who thinks about

poetry all the time, breathes happily as He

repeats to Himself: There are fish in the net,

lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

photography by: Byongsun Ahn

2012-01-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Undone

by Naomi Shihab Nye

The workmen closed our street and sidewalk with striped yellow sawhorses. They noisily drilled up all four corner curbs. Their faces focused, intent on the task. They poured wet cement—raking, smoothing to damp slopes. Cement mixer rumbled and churned—six men, two days of work. Everyone detoured around them.

I could easily have gone out with a nail at sunset to engrave a moon and star in one corner of the blank gray slab, and even if no one else noticed the fresh cement had been inscribed, I would have known, every time I rode my bike down the smooth slope to the old gray street you once crossed on two feet.

It makes me glad I never had to push a wheelchair with you in it down that slope.

Could have written your name, made a heart nearly too tiny to see—metal nail file, ice pick, needle-nose pliers, stick. Those were the days I paused, so stunned, in the middle of everything, as the shock swept over me.

How could you leave your desk?

Telephone numbers in your black notebook, battered briefcase, cup of unsharpened pencils, your pens that never wrote very well, your little Post-it pads? Marc, the nice librarian, his number inked on top of the pad. The last number you ever wrote. Mom cancelled your cell phone two days after you died. I could not believe this. What if you had called us?

FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE

2012-01-11T05:44:00.000-08:00

Shoulders

by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,

stepping gently, looking two times north and south,

because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.

No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo

but he's not marked.

Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,

HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.

He hears the hum of a boy's dream

deep inside him.

We're not going to be able

to live in this world

if we're not willing to do what he's doing

with one another.

The road will only be wide.

The rain will never stop falling.

please note: photography by Arnold Genthe, 1869-1942, Chinatown, San Francisco

The Second Life of Christmas Trees

2012-01-04T07:24:00.000-08:00

by Mark Perlberg

In frozen January, my friends and I

would drag discarded Christmas trees

from the sidewalks of our shivering town

to an empty lot. One match and fire

raced down a dry sprig like a spurt of life.

A puff of wind and the pile ignited,

flamed above our heads. Silk waves.

Spice of pitch and balsam in our nostrils.

We stood in a ring around the body of the fire—

drawn close as each boy dared,

our faces stinging from the heat and cold,

lash of that wild star burst on a winter night.

Courage

2012-01-03T03:58:00.000-08:00

We went to a wedding on New Year's Eve...the eldest son of my best friend from high school. My friend who recently died. The wedding was held in the same church as her funeral four months ago. Seems like yesterday. The wedding was beautiful, and joyful, perhaps more so because of the sorrow that each one of us felt at our loss of her. It's no secret that not all marriages end happily ever after and the priest talked about the courage that this couple had in making a commitment of marriage and in having hope for their future. He is correct. It does take courage and, of course, his words were meant to do more than seal the deal for this young couple. The priest was aware of all the broken hearts in that church on this cold winter evening and of the power of love to heal them. To believe that is a path of the brave.

A Wedding Poem

by Thomas R. Smith

Bright faces surround the woman in white,

the man in black, the sweetness of their attention

to each other a shine rising toward the high ceiling.

The men watch the groom, and the women

the bride, as they speak their candle-lit vows,

as if there were something in it for us personally.

Worn by the distances we the already-married

have traveled down the road on which these two

are setting out, we leave the dust of the journey

outside the door of this house where tonight no word

is casual, no posture undignified, and each

becomes again handsome in them, beautiful in them.

Have I Said it Before? Welcome 2012!

2012-01-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Coming of Light

by Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light.

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine

and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

please note: photo by Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

Saturday in CinCity. The Last One in 2011, Thank Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus.

2011-12-31T08:33:00.000-08:00

with many thanks to Debra Heller Bures from whence I reallocated these bits of wisdom!!

and I'll add one more of my own...

Love. All ways.

Saturday in CinCity. The Waiting and Hoping and Wishing and Praying Edition.

2011-12-24T04:54:00.000-08:00

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

TGIF. The Two Days Before Christmas Edition.

2011-12-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

Dewey's pizza and a movie with hubby and the girls. 'Cause nothing says Christmas like watching a hot mess ruin a perfectly lovely family occasion, or as we say in my family, "Merry Damn Christmas!!" (apologies to those of you who did not grow up with alcoholics)

Because Once There Was Patsy Cline

2011-12-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

A woman in the Playhouse audience last night asked the sound check man if the lead, Carter Calvert, had an understudy and he said no, ma'am I don't believe she does. I'd been thinking I didn't know how she could given the actress's voice and her seamless fit into the role, but as I Googled for a video or a photo I found different productions and actresses. Amazing that there are so many talented people in the world and bless them all. If I could just sing on-key for the length of a song I'd be happy. If this show ever comes to your town or close by it's worth the dressing up and stepping out. Beware though, Patsy makes today's radio pop music sound a bit tarnished and thin.

A Wife Explains Why She Likes Country

by Barbara Ras

Because those cows in the bottomland are black and white, colors

anyone can understand, even against the green

of the grass, where they glide like yes and no, nothing in between,

because in country, heartache has nowhere to hide,

it's the Church of Abundant Life, the Alamo,

the hubbub of the hoi polloi, the parallel lines of rail fences,

because I like rodeos more than golf,

because there's something about the sound of mealworms and

leeches and the dream of a double-wide

that reminds me this is America, because of the simple pleasure

of a last chance, because sometimes whiskey

tastes better than wine, because hauling hogs on the road

is as good as it gets when the big bodies are layered like pigs in a cake,

not one layer but two,

because only country has a gun with a full choke and a slide guitar

that melts playing it cool into sweaty surrender in one note,

because in country you can smoke forever and it'll never kill you,

because roadbeds, flatbeds, your bed or mine,

because the package store is right across from the chicken plant

and it sells boiled peanuts, because I'm fixin' to wear boots to the dance

and make my hair bigger, because no smarty-pants, just easy rhymes,

perfect love, because I'm lost deep within myself and the sad songs call me out,

because even you with your superior aesthetic cried

when Tammy Wynette died,

because my people

come from dirt.

"It Was Twenty Years Ago Today..."

2011-12-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

then

and now...

Tuesday in CinCity. The Five Days Before Christmas Edition.

2011-12-20T02:51:00.000-08:00

Lilac Sunday

by Diana Der-Hovanessian

Let us agree to meet

here some winter

when the park

gates are locked,

and the arches thinned

of their vaulting green

to climb the wall,

thaw the icicles

and watch the rain

like flowering

cherry and lilacs

that kissed your hair;

some winter

when the fog is heavy,—

to return to this light.

Neither I nor CinCity have fallen off the edge of the world, though I can't say with certainty what I've been doing. I'm sure that driving aimlessly around the town was involved.

Biggest news is that CollegeGrrrl had her nursing pinning and graduated this past Saturday and Sunday.

Lovely day and lots of proud parents and families
filling the auditorium. Some of the graduating nurses were pinned by their children and/or their grandparents
--always a tearjerker. Not that I needed any prompting.

I remembered the night before we left for CollegeTown that we had a dog to care for, and no plans made. He stayed with the new graduate and her roomie and he's still there. They wanted to keep him till our grrrl comes home on Wednesday. Did not bat an eye when we left
and has started his own Occupy Movement there.

I've been trying to get all the shopping done and figure out food for the week. Turns out CollegeGrrrrl--who will need to be renamed...Blondie for now??--has foresworn all meat and dairy, so I'm flipping through recipes I have stuffed in nooks and crannies around the kitchen. I found a Lobster Risotto which sounds very yummy,
and also have a favorite which we call, Pepperoni Rigatoni, but it's really vegetarian. I just threw in some meat to satisfy my husband's flesh-eating requests. And seriously, what is pepperoni made of?

Let the count-down continue...

where's Santa?

TGIF. The And How We Love It...Edition

2011-12-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

Those visits home, the way the young

by Marianne Boruch

Those visits home, the way the young

come back and still follow you around

or find you on the bed reading

or writing, to lie down at an angle or

sit cross-legged. No secret between you,

not even trouble quite though

it isn't ordinary, the way the world unravels

through them: what he said, what she

never, who traveled where, that things—

how exactly—splinter and break

and cut. It trails off then. Both of you,

which one to speak but thinking

better of it. And the book is just a prop,

what you were writing perfectly weightless

in this silence. Child, oh fully no longer,

out there tangling, untangling.

Used Book

2011-12-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

by Julie Kane

What luck—an open bookstore up ahead

as rain lashed awnings over Royal Street,

and then to find the books were secondhand,

with one whole wall assigned to poetry;

and then, as if that wasn't luck enough,

to find, between Jarrell and Weldon Kees,

the blue-on-cream, familiar backbone of

my chapbook, out of print since '83—

its cover very slightly coffee-stained,

but aging (all in all) no worse than flesh

though all those cycles of the seasons since

its publication by a London press.

Then, out of luck, I read the name inside:

The man I thought would love me till I died.

Wednesday in CinCity. The Fairy Tales Can Come True Edition.

2011-11-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone else out there has ~~become obsessed with~~ been watching the new ABC show, Once Upon a Time, but I ~~cannot wait for it to come on every week~~ have found it interesting and entertaining. Full disclosure, still a fan of LOST. And, huge fan of fairy tales. Although, it does make me wonder a bit about Jungian archetypes and Joseph Campbell's work on The Myth of the Hero and how in our rather disjointed, but more globally connected world do we unearth ancient sources of meaning and guidance? Mostly though, I like a good fairy tale, especially the old-fashioned Grimm ones that didn't pull any punches or bedazzle-up their messages. I like my trolls to look like trolls.

The sun is shining here and it's not raining; big change from the last couple of days. I've got the hospital's biannual ACLS to study for so that means I'll find some more things around the house that must be dealt with today--old magazines? Must be skimmed through and tossed. Pile of clothes on the bedroom chair? Hang 'em high. Dog sleeping soundly on the floor beside me? Must be smooched on. Hope your day is as equally diverting...

Snow Has Been Seen.

2011-11-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

The White

by Patricia Hampl

These are the moments

before snow, whole weeks before.

The rehearsals of milky November,

cloud constructions

when a warm day

lowers a drift of light

through the leafless angles

of the trees lining the streets.

Green is gone,

gold is gone.

The blue sky is

the clairvoyance of snow.

There is night

and a moon

but these facts

force the hand of the season:

from that black sky

the real and cold white

will begin to emerge.

please note: photo by Drew Sanborn

TGIM. My Day of Rest Edition.

2011-11-28T08:01:00.000-08:00

Counting Sheep

by Linda Pastan

Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to

do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline ... are engrossing

enough to concentrate on.

—The New York Times

When I reach

a thousand

I start to notice

how the eyes

of one ewe are wide,

as if with worry

about her lamb

or how cold

the flock will be

after the shearing.

At a thousand fifty

I notice a ram

pushing up against

a soft and curly female,

and for a moment

I'm distracted by errant

images of sex.

It is difficult

to keep so many sheep

in line for counting—

they are not a parade

but more like a roiling

sea of whitecaps,

which makes me think

of the shore—

of all those boring

grains of sand

to keep track of

as they slip

through the fingers,

of all the dangers

of sunstroke,

riptide, jellyfish.

The scientists fall

asleep lulled

by equations,

by dreams

of experiments,

and I fall asleep

at last by

counting them:

biologists and

physicists,

astronomers,

geneticists,

and all the many experts

on the subject

of sleep.

Gobble. Gobble.

2011-11-24T19:08:00.000-08:00

Must have been a slow news day in CinCity today, verrrrry slow since they actually came to interview us this afternoon. If you happen to watch the video I'm in the background--the woman in red. Red scrubs before I got peed on and changed. Hey, just one of those days :>)

Working on Thanksgiving? Who's complaining?

"...That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory called Camelot."

2011-11-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

Sundown

by Jorie Graham

(St. Laurent Sur Mer, June 5, 2009)

Sometimes the day

light winces

behind you and it is

a great treasure in this case today a man on

a horse in calm full

gallop on Omaha over my

left shoulder coming on

fast but

calm not audible to me at all until I turned back my

head for no

reason as if what lies behind

one had whispered

what can I do for you today and I had just

turned to

answer and the answer to my

answer flooded from the front with the late sun he/they

were driving into—gleaming—

wet chest and upraised knees and

light-struck hooves and thrust-out even breathing of the great

beast—from just behind me,

passing me—the rider looking straight

ahead and yet

smiling without looking at me as I smiled as we

both smiled for the young

animal, my feet in the

breaking wave-edge, his hooves returning, as they begin to pass

by,

to the edge of the furling

break, each tossed-up flake of

ocean offered into the reddish

luminosity—sparks—as they made their way,

boring through to clear out

life, a place where no one

again is suddenly

killed—regardless of the "cause"—no one—just this

galloping forward with

force through the low waves, seagulls

scattering all round, their

screeching and mewing rising like more bits of red foam, the

horse's hooves now suddenly

louder as it goes

by and its prints on

wet sand deep and immediately filled by thousands of

sandfleas thrilled to the

declivities in succession in the newly

released beach—just

at the right

moment for some

microscopic life to rise up through these

cups in the hard upslant

retreating ocean is

revealing, sandfleas finding them just as light does,

carving them out with

shadow, and glow on each

ridge, and

water oozing up through the innermost cut of the

hoofsteps,

and when I shut my eyes now I am not like a blind person

walking towards the lowering sun,

the water loud at my right,

but like a seeing person

with her eyes shut

putting her feet down

one at a time

on the earth.

please note: photo by Mark Shaw from the Monroe Gallerie

Turkeys

2011-11-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

by Mary Mackey

One November

a week before Thanksgiving

the Ohio river froze

and my great uncles

put on their coats

and drove the turkeys

across the ice

to Rosiclare

where they sold them

for enough to buy

my grandmother

a Christmas doll

with blue china eyes

I like to think

of the sound of

two hundred turkey feet

running across to Illinois

on their way

to the platter

the scrape of their nails

and my great uncles

in their homespun leggings

calling out gee and haw and git

to them as if they

were mules

I like to think of the Ohio

at that moment

the clear cold sky

the green river sleeping

under the ice

before the land got stripped

and the farm got sold

and the water turned the color

of whiskey

and all the uncles

lay down

and never got up again

I like to think of the world

before some genius invented

turkeys with pop-up plastic

thermometers

in their breasts

idiot birds

with no wildness left in them

turkeys that couldn't run the river

to save their souls

Sunday in CinCity. The Deja Vu Edition.

2011-11-20T11:45:00.000-08:00

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Amendment One of the Constitution of the United States of America

Excerpt from January 28, 2011, Remarks by President Obama on the Situation in Egypt:

"The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere."

1894

1932

1965

1969

with a thanks to Debra & From Skilled Hands for President Obama's quote

Voices on Jukebox Wax

2011-11-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

by Walt McDonald

Pulling our Stetsons low, we whispered songs

to sweethearts who clung so close we danced

in slow motion, heartache of steel guitars,

vows we swore with our bones. Their hair was the air

for an hour. We breathed and held them close,

ignoring the war for the night, voices

on jukebox wax winding around like a rope.

One week we kissed them hard and rode off,

swearing we'd bring back silk and souvenirs.

Long after a war no one we cared for

survived without scars, Earl and I are here

with wives as old as country songs and guitars,

our children older than all of us that fall.

Don's a name on the wall in Washington.

I hear his name sometimes in questions

at class reunions. I haven't heard from Carl.

The White

2011-11-16T02:13:00.000-08:00

by Patricia Hampl

These are the moments

before snow, whole weeks before.

The rehearsals of milky November,

cloud constructions

when a warm day

lowers a drift of light

through the leafless angles

of the trees lining the streets.

Green is gone,

gold is gone.

The blue sky is

the clairvoyance of snow.

There is night

and a moon

but these facts

force the hand of the season:

from that black sky

the real and cold white

will begin to emerge.

Chapter 1. Mrs. Whatsit

2011-11-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

It was a dark and stormy night.

In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat at the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook.

excerpt from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

please note: photo by StrawberryFields1967

Third Charm from Masque of Queens

2011-11-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

by Ben Jonson

The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,

And so is the cat-a-mountain,

The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,

And the frog peeps out o' the fountain;

The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play,

The spindle is now a turning;

The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,

But all the sky is a-burning:

The ditch is made, and our nails the spade,

With pictures full, of wax and of wool;

Their livers I stick, with needles quick;

There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood.

Quickly, Dame, then bring your part in,

Spur, spur upon little Martin,

Merrily, merrily, make him fail,

A worm in his mouth, and a thorn in his tail,

Fire above, and fire below,

With a whip in your hand, to make him go.

please note: photo by Gigi De Carlo

Sunday in CinCity

2011-11-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

Many, many years ago when I was a young nurse we had a patient who was admitted frequently after being picked up by the police for sleeping in the park. His name, which we will agree on as James, could begin an avalanche of moaning and itching among the ICU staff as he almost always came in with lice and was definitely always very determined to get his own way. I loved James. I don't know why. But, I did and we got along. He made me laugh. It floored me that he would come in as the poster child for A Hot Damn Mess and we would work hard to clean him and patch him up only for him to leave AMA and refuse to leave until we gave him clothes. We had "stolen"his. The man still had moxie.

I met his brother once, towards the end--a dentist from one of the suburbs where they had both grown up. James "had some kind of break" and left the circle of his family to become one of the faceless and homeless men who wander through our city. It was because of James that I met Buddy Gray who ran the Drop-In Center downtown and what an inspiration he was. Buddy was a man who walked his talk and lived his beliefs out loud.

Buddy was killed by a homeless man he had known for years. James had died a few years before and, as fate sometimes works, I was with him at his bedside. I have never forgotten either man and will always consider myself blessed to have been in their circles.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111112/NEWS01/111130324/Celebrating-Buddy-Gray-s-legacy-15-years-later

Simply Lit

by Malena Morling

Often toward evening,

after another day, after

another year of days,

in the half dark on the way home

I stop at the food store

and waiting in line I begin

to wonder about people—I wonder

if they also wonder about how

strange it is that we

are here on the earth.

And how in order to live

we all must sleep.

And how we have beds for this

(unless we are without)

and entire rooms where we go

at the end of the day to collapse.

And I think how even the most

lively people are desolate

when they are alone

because they too must sleep

and sooner or later die.

We are always looking to acquire

more food for more great meals.

We have to have great meals.

Isn't it enough to be a person buying

a carton of milk? A simple

package of butter and a loaf

of whole wheat bread?

Isn't it enough to stand here

while the sweet middle-aged cashier

rings up the purchases?

I look outside,

but I can't see much out there

because now it is dark except

for a single vermilion neon sign

floating above the gas station

like a miniature temple simply lit

against the night.

TGIF

2011-11-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

When the War is Over

by W. S. Merwin

When the war is over

We will be proud of course the air will be

Good for breathing at last

The water will have been improved the salmon

And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly

The dead will think the living are worth it we will know

Who we are

And we will all enlist again

please note: photo of a team of C-STARS( The Air Force's Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills) and a heartfelt thank you to all our veterans.

November Rain

2011-11-10T17:49:00.000-08:00

by Linda Pastan

How separate we are

under our black umbrellas—dark

planets in our own small orbits,

hiding from this wet assault

of weather as if water

would violate the skin,

as if these raised silk canopies

could protect us

from whatever is coming next—

December with its white

enamel surfaces; the numbing

silences of winter.

From above we must look

like a family of bats—

ribbed wings spread

against the rain,

swooping towards any

makeshift shelter.

Sunday in CinCity. The Am I Just Standing Here Talking to Myself Edition.

2011-11-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Reusing Words

by Hal Sirowitz

Don't think you know everything,

Father said, just because you're good

with words. They aren't everything.

I try to say the smallest amount possible.

Instead of using them indiscriminately

I try to conserve them. I'm the only one

in this household who recycles them. I

say the same thing over & over again,

like "Who forgot to turn out the lights?

Who forgot to clean up after themselves

in the bathroom?" Since you don't listen

I never have to think of other things to say.

Wednesday in CinCity. The Thanks for Sharing the Cold from Hell Edition.

2011-11-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

In Praise of the Great Bull Walrus

by Alden Nowlan

I wouldn't like to be one

of the walrus people

for the rest of my life

but I wish I could spend

one sunny afternoon

lying on the rocks with them.

I suspect it would be similar

to drinking beer in a tavern

that caters to longshoremen

and won't admit women.

We'd exchange no

cosmic secrets. I'd merely say,

"How yuh doin' you big old walrus?"

and the nearest of

the walrus people

would answer,

"Me? I'm doin' great.

How yuh doin' yourself,

you big old human being, you?"

How good it is to share

the earth with such creatures

and how unthinkable it would have been

to have missed all this

by not being born:

a happy thought, that,

for not being born is

the only tragedy

that we can imagine

but need never fear.

Not Your Children's Vampire

2011-10-31T02:09:00.000-07:00

excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back. And with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything. But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!" Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added,"Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter."

Saturday in CinCity. The Ghost Story Edition.

2011-10-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Giselle...

"...cause sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead." Poor Giselle, if only she'd had an IPod to listen to the wisdom of Adele or read some poetry.

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself

by Barbara Crooker

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,

flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek

across the sky made me think about my life, the places

of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief

has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,

the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.

Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold

for a brief while, then lose it all each November.

Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst

weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves

come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,

land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.

You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find

shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.

All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.

They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

A Cat's Life

2011-10-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

by David R. Slavitt

Her repertoire is limited but fulfilling,

with two preoccupations, or three, perhaps,

if you include the taking of many naps:

otherwise she is snuggling or killing.

On the Wards

2011-10-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

by Rafael Campo

I pass you in a hurry, on my way

to where another woman who I know

is dying of a stroke that in the end

is nothing worse than what is killing you.

Same gurney, same bruised arms and mute IV—

you wait for what might be a final test.

It's something in the way you look at me

that makes me realize you have your own

mistakes you think you're paying for, your own

ungrateful kids, your own unspeakable

pain. Yet you look at me, still desperate

for just another human being to

look kindly back at you, to recognize

in you the end is not far off, is not

so unimaginable. Years ago

I watched a patient of mine say goodbye

to life. She was alone like you, alone

like me, she was in agony. She looked

at me, and I, afraid to be the last

thing here on Earth she saw, twisted my head

to look away. I almost do the same

to you, afraid you might imagine me

as later you lay dying, but I don't.

Instead, I look at you remorselessly,

the way I hope that someday I am seen,

the way each one deserves to be imagined,

and wonder at your astonishing beauty.

Almost TGIF

2011-10-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

fare thee well, fireflies...

2011-10-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

A Lover

by Amy Lowell

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly

I could see to write you a letter.

Saturday in CinCity. The Full Moon and the Neuro Unit Edition.

2011-10-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

Letter from a Mental Hospital

by Kim Lozano

From the heart of an old box of letters

I lift a small water-stained envelope.

Inside, a note card as thin and brittle as a frozen leaf

bears a message written fifty years ago

by a woman who shares my name.

She delivers no greeting, no sorry to have been away so long.

She leaves no record of visitors, rationed cigarettes,

group art, or the barren iceberg of treatment.

I imagine her listening to the ping of the radiator

on a snowy morning, seated in her nightgown and socks

by an open window. A bell rings in the hallway

but she doesn't move toward her robe or her slippers or her brush.

I see myself sitting beside her, reaching

toward her dull pencil to place my fingers over hers,

hand on hand, gliding over the words, moving

like two skaters on a lake tracing the solitary line—

Please come get me.

Wednesday in CinCity

2011-10-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

It was a grrrl's weekend at the lake. Pizza, beer, thrift store shopping, farmers' markets and girltalk. A nice break for all of us and a new way to reconfigure ourselves with 2 girls growing up, up, and away. CollegeGrrrl shadowed at BigFatTeaching Hospital, first in the Burns unit, then with me. That was fun to have her there and explain some of the details about nursing that can't be learned till you're in the thick of it and equipment that makes much more sense in person than in a lecture.

HoneyHaired--our new collegegrrrl--made up for lost sleep. You'd think there was a magical sleeping potion in the backseat of the car.

But, they're off and running again. Hubby is off working at winterizing the place before the season passes. I'm here on a day off with the remaining animal boys who could also sleep all day and night and then some. Must pull myself away quickly. I'm convinced they release some pherome that entices all humans around them to nap the day away.

At the Lake

by Mary Oliver

A fish leaps

like a black pin --

then -- when the starlight

strikes its side --

like a silver pin.

In an instant

the fish's spine

alters the fierce line of rising

and it curls a little --

the head, like scalloped tin,

plunges back,

and it's gone.

This is, I think,

what holiness is:

the natural world,

where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind

there's a hermit's cave

full of light,

full of snow,

full of concentration.

I've knelt there,

and so have you,

hanging on

to what you love,

to what is lovely.

The lake's

shining sheets

don't make a ripple now,

and the stars

are going off to their blue sleep,

but the words are in place --

and the fish leaps, and leaps again

from the black plush of the poem,

that breathless space.

Living Things

2011-10-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

by Anne Porter

Our poems

Are like the wart-hogs

In the zoo

It's hard to say

Why there should be such creatures

But once our life gets into them

As sometimes happens

Our poems

Turn into living things

And there's no arguing

With living things

They are

The way they are

Our poems

May be rough

Or delicate

Little

Or great

But always

They have inside them

A confluence of cries

And secret languages

And always

They are improvident

And free

They keep

A kind of Sabbath

They play

On sooty fire escapes

And window ledges

They wander in and out

Of jails and gardens

They sparkle

In the deep mines

They sing

In breaking waves

And rock like wooden cradles.

Tomorrow, Today, and Yesterday

2011-09-29T02:40:00.000-07:00

by Jane Piirto

the 3-year-old, wanting to know what day

it is asks everyday what day it is

we tell her Tuesday or Saturday etcetera

then she asks what day it will be

tomorrow and we go through the naming

of tomorrows in order

chanting the future like a litany

tomorrow is when she wakes up

in the morning and when we tell her

we'll go shopping tomorrow she

remembers yesterday and informs us

that it is tomorrow that today is

yesterday that therefore the time is

always now to do what we plan to do

tomorrow

please note: photo by Donncha O Caoimh

September Visitors

2011-09-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

by David Budbill

I'm glad to see our friends come:

talk, laughter, food, wine.

I'm glad to see our friends go:

solitude, emptiness, gardens,

autumn wind.

please note: art by Claude Monet

Saturday in CinCity

2011-09-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

Acquainted with the Night

by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle

2011-09-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

by Mary Szybist

Are you sure this blue is the same as the

blue over there? This wall's like the

bottom of a pool, its

color I mean. I need a

darker two-piece this summer, the kind with

elastic at the waist so it actually

fits. I can't

find her hands. Where does this gold

go? It's like the angel's giving

her a little piece of honeycomb to eat.

I don't see why God doesn't

just come down and

kiss her himself. This is the red of that

lipstick we saw at the

mall. This piece of her

neck could fit into the light part

of the sky. I think this is a

piece of water. What kind of

queen? You mean

right here? And are we supposed to believe

she can suddenly

talk angel? Who thought this stuff

up? I wish I had a

velvet bikini. That flower's the color of the

veins in my grandmother's hands. I

wish we could

walk into that garden and pick an

X-ray to float on.

Yeah. I do too. I'd say a

zillion yeses to anyone for that.

They Accuse Me of Not Talking

2011-09-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

by Hayden Carruth

North people known for silence. Long

dark of winter. Norrland families go

months without talking, Eskimos also,

except bursts of sporadic eerie song.

South people different. Right and wrong

all crystal there and they squabble, no

fears, though they praise north silence. "Ho,"

they say, "look at them deep thinkers, them strong

philosophical types, men of peace."

But take notice please of what happens. Winter on the brain.

You're literate, so words are what you feel.

Then you're struck dumb. To which love can you speak

the words that mean dying and going insane

and the relentless futility of the real?

Wednesday in CinCity

2011-09-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

A lot's gone on this summer and I haven't much felt like reading poetry or posting it. It's one of the many things I just can't seem to wrap my head around. Much like my To-Do list which I normally love as I can check things off and use different colored markers. I don't have much attention for reading. Don't want to go out and listen to music. Don't feel like pilates. I cook. I work. I could walk and walk and walk and walk and walk some more. Thinking about starting back to a dance class. Could happen. I separate piles of clothes and books to go into various baskets and out of the house.

I realize this will pass. There is a season for grief. It doesn't last forever. I would like a stop date to mark on the calendar, but I know it will come. Until then, I am grateful for small pleasures. Bridesmaids came out on DVD yesterday. Modern Family starts again tonight.

Funny helps.

“But then fall comes,...

2011-09-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”

― Stephen King, Salem's Lot

To a Daughter Leaving Home

2011-09-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

by Linda Pastan

When I taught you

at eight to ride

a bicycle, loping along

beside you

as you wobbled away

on two round wheels,

my own mouth rounding

in surprise when you pulled

ahead down the curved

path of the park,

I kept waiting

for the thud

of your crash as I

sprinted to catch up,

while you grew

smaller, more breakable

with distance,

pumping, pumping

for your life, screaming

with laughter,

the hair flapping

behind you like a

handkerchief waving

goodbye.

Police Notes

2011-09-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

by Alice N. Persons

Female reported running up Main Street yelling "No, no,

no!"

She was described as wearing dark clothing and loud

shoes.

Subject was reported standing in the roadway with a sign

saying

"lawyers suck and police are outlaws."

Woman called to report a man lurking on her patio.

Officers investigated and found a runaway goat.

Clerk in convenience store reported male customer was

looking up someone's skirt. Subject was tracked to the

university.

911 report — woman says her wallet was stolen from her

kitchen.

Before officers could investigate, she called back and said

that it was her son, 45.

Elderly woman called to report a moose, people carrying

torches, and strange music on her property. Officers

searched and found nothing.

911 dispatcher got a call saying there was a "huge party"

in the woods off County Road 3. Officers find empty

bottles and discarded clothes. Residents of Elm Street

report seeing four naked people.

Paris Road resident reports peeping Tom. Later told

police it was "one of my boyfriends."

please note: photo by Dave Walsh. Perhaps near a patio.

The Word

2011-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list

of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"

and "broccoli," you find

that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word

is beautiful. It touches you

as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present

he had sent from someplace distant

as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,

among your duties, pleasure

is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.

Do you remember?

that time and light are kinds

of love, and love

is no less practical

than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?

Tomorrow you may be utterly

without a clue,

but today you get a telegram

from the heart in exile,

proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,

the king and queen alive,

still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them

who can find the time

to sit out in the sun and listen.

please note: art by Cindy Kinney

Sunday in CinCity

2011-09-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed;

the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does

not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born,

and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses

they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other,

and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other,

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

--James Baldwin

please note: art by Ana Juan, Reflections as New Yorker cover

Saturday in CinCity

2011-09-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit lost after the death of my friend. The topography of my life has been altered. C.S.Lewis called it the Shadowlands; I view it as the MiddleLands. Robin's deep, abiding love for her family is in one direction and the action to leave her children that was undeniably made is in the other. We are traveling through the middle land where the geography is unmapped, and where I have to believe God and His Spirit walks with us. One has to just keep walking in the stillness.

But, the earth keeps moving at a thousand miles/hour and dinners require cooking, cars need repairing, and daughters are preparing to go off to college. HoneyHaired moves into the dorm on Thursday and today we are going to the opening of the ballet season. New Works, where the choreography loosens up a little and some non-classical performances can take place. Gotta keep stepping.

home from the lake

2011-09-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

Lotsa rain, compliments of Lee. Work tomorrow. Plans for more canning this weekend. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Since All the Laboring I Intend to Do Today Involves Eating

2011-09-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

Short-order Cook

by Jim Daniels

An average joe comes in

and orders thirty cheeseburgers and thirty fries.

I wait for him to pay before I start cooking.

He pays.

He ain't no average joe.

The grill is just big enough for ten rows of three.

I slap the burgers down

throw two buckets of fries in the deep frier

and they pop pop spit spit...

psss...

The counter girls laugh.

I concentrate.

It is the crucial point—

they are ready for the cheese:

my fingers shake as I tear off slices

toss them on the burgers/fries done/dump/

refill buckets/burgers ready/flip into buns/

beat that melting cheese/wrap burgers in plastic/

into paper bags/fries done/dump/fill thirty bags/

bring them to the counter/wipe sweat on sleeve

and smile at the counter girls.

I puff my chest out and bellow:

"Thirty cheeseburgers, thirty fries!"

They look at me funny.

I grab a handful of ice, toss it in my mouth

do a little dance and walk back to the grill.

Pressure, responsibility, success,

thirty cheeseburgers, thirty fries.

Hello, September

2011-09-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

IX.

by Wendell Berry

I go by a field where once

I cultivated a few poor crops.

It is now covered with young trees,

for the forest that belongs here

has come back and reclaimed its own.

And I think of all the effort

I have wasted and all the time,

and of how much joy I took

in that failed work and how much

it taught me. For in so failing

I learned something of my place,

something of myself, and now

I welcome back the trees.

please note: photo, Young Trees by Ryan Houston

Summer in CinCity

2011-08-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

At Summer's End

by John Engels

Early August, and the young butternut

is already dropping its leaves, the nuts

thud and ring on the tin roof,

the squirrels are everywhere.

Such richness! It means something to them

that this tree should seem so eager

to finish its business.

The voice softens, and word becomes air

the moment it is spoken. You finger the limp leaves.

Precisely to the degree that you have loved something:

a house, a woman, a bird, this tree, anything at all,

you are punished by time.

Like the tree,

I take myself by surprise.

For What Binds Us

2011-08-27T01:58:00.000-07:00

by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:

strong forces, weak forces.

Look around, you can see them:

the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,

nails rusting into the places they join,

joints dovetailed on their own weight.

The way things stay so solidly

wherever they've been set down --

and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back

across a wound, with a great vehemence,

more strong

than the simple, untested surface before.

There's a name for it on horses,

when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh

is proud of its wounds, wears them

as honors given out after battle,

small triumphs pinned to the chest --

And when two people have loved each other

see how it is like a

scar between their bodies,

stronger, darker, and proud;

how the black cord makes of them a single fabric

that nothing can tear or mend.

TGIF

2011-08-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

VIII

by Robert Hass

Chester found a dozen copies of his first novel in a used book-

store and took them to the counter. The owner said, "You can't

have them all," so Chester kept five. The owner said, "That'll be

a hundred and twelve dollars." Chester said, "What?" and the

guy said, "They're first editions, mac, twenty bucks apiece." And

so Chester said, "Why are you charging me a hundred and

twelve dollars?" The guy said, "Three of them are autographed."

Chester said, "Look, I wrote this book." The guy said, "All Right,

a hundred. I won't charge you for the autographs."

old friends sit on the park bench like bookends

2011-08-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

One of my dearest and bestest friends has died suddenly. We were locker partners in high school. She sat in front of me in homeroom. We were co-captains of the cheerleaders for the wrestling team. And we stayed friends through many years and many changes. None of them obviously our looks.

"...Time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence, a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph

Preserve your memories; They're all that's left you"
(Bookends,Paul Simon)

Dear One of Those Days...

2011-08-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

...Therefore

be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery

and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

--Max Ehrmann

please note: photo by my CollegeGrrrl from Eastern StandardTime Hospital

Sunday in CinCity

2011-08-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Summer Kitchen

by Donald Hall

In June's high light she stood at the sink

With a glass of wine,

And listened for the bobolink,

And crushed garlic in late sunshine.

I watched her cooking, from my chair.

She pressed her lips

Together, reached for kitchenware,

And tasted sauce from her fingertips.

"It's ready now. Come on," she said.

"You light the candle."

We ate, and talked, and went to bed,

And slept. It was a miracle.

please note: art by Neil Wyrick

Saturday in CinCity. The Pickled Edition.

2011-08-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

We spent the first three days of this week driving up and back to the lake. Drank beer with our neighbors, bought a wasp catcher, rode bikes around Kelly's Island, got sunburnt, ate fish, worked jigsaw puzzles, and HoneyHaired and I watched That Touch of Mink. Hubby fell asleep probably at the first scene. The muffler did not fall off my car, though I worry that will happen any day now before we can get it to the dealer, so while you can hear us coming up the street, you don't actually feel it in your bones. Yet.

Passed many a church and bank along the way up I-75 and in front of one of them was a sign reading, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.--Helen Keller." I imagine there were many inspiring messages we passed, but this one resonated with me and kept me centered my last two days at work. Thank you all for your warm thoughts and comments in my last posting. I called this morning around 5am and my patient's heart was still beating after we withdrew the ventilator yesterday evening. I pray for his peaceful release and rest for his exhausted and drained family.

Life, however, most doggedly and persistantly and miraculously, goes on.

I am going to run up to the hardware store right after this and pick up some canning supplies for my adventure into pickling and jamming. There are so many farmer's markets up north it's hard not to get the "putting by" bug and I found an older cookbook, Gardeners' Community Cookbook, which has tons of recipes I'm in the right spot to try.

A friend at work told me yesterday that her attempt at pickling was "disgusting", but I'm in a mood for disgusting so that works out just fine. A little NPR on the radio so I can get caught up on the week's news and I'm a happy girl.

We're a one car family now which will take some adjustment and I guess some forethought and planning. Painful. CollegeGrrrrl came to the conclusion that a car payment on top of rent and school was a little too much, so she sold her car and has taken our hand-me-down car that was supposed to be HoneyHaired's before her wreck scared her away from driving and was actually my MIL's. I reckon we'll get greener and save the earth one way or the other. I still however refuse to walk to work at 5:30 in the morning per Hubby's suggestion. Crazy old man.

The Ordinary Weather of Summer

by Linda Pastan

In the ordinary weather of summer

with storms rumbling from west to east

like so many freight trains hauling

their cargo of heat and rain,

the dogs sprawl on the back steps, panting,

insects assemble at every window,

and we quarrel again, bombarding

each other with small grievances,

our tempers flashing on and off

in bursts of heat lightning.

In the cooler air of morning,

we drink our coffee amicably enough

and walk down to the sea

which seems to tremble with meaning

and into which we plunge again and again.

The days continue hot.

At dusk the shadows are as blue

as the lips of the children stained

with berries or with the chill

of too much swimming.

So we move another summer closer

to our last summer together—

a time as real and implacable as the sea

out of which we come walking

on wobbly legs as if for the first time,

drying ourselves with rough towels,

shaking the water out of our blinded eyes.

please note: photos by HoneyHaired and me. And, my husband is not really a giant, though we tell him he is.

you can close your eyes, it's alright

2011-08-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

Found myself softly singing this to my patient this evening. Young man with a failed suicide attempt who nonetheless may still succeed. I relieved his mother at his bedside, holding his hand, so she could take a much needed break. I don't have any poetry for this kind of heartache.

Welcoming Party

2011-08-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

by Joshua Trotter

Is this what I've been traveling toward

dodging rocks and reefs at funereal speed?

I see no dish of milk, no welcoming lips

just this beach—palms outstretched—and the abyss

of all I've missed, winking from every bead

on every rain-whetted, wind-brandished blade.

Custer

2011-08-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

by David Shumate

He is a hard one to write a poem about. Like Napolean.

Hannibal. Genghis Khan. Already so large in history. To do it

right, I have to sit down with him. At a place of his own

choosing. Probably a steakhouse. We take a table in a corner.

But people still recognize him, come up and slap him on the

back, say how much they enjoyed studying about him in school

and ask for his autograph. After he eats, he leans back and

lights up a cigar and asks me what I want to know. Notebook in

hand, I suggest that we start with the Little Big Horn and work

our way back. But I realize I have offended him. That he

would rather take it the other way around. So he rants on

about the Civil War, the way west, the loyalty of good soldiers

and now and then twists his long yellow hair with his fingers.

But when he gets to the part about Sitting Bull, about Crazy

Horse, he develops a twitch above his right eye, raises his

finger for the waiter, excuses himself and goes to the restroom

while I sit there along the bluffs with the entire Sioux nation,

awaiting his return.

Sunday in CinCity

2011-08-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

Long Island Sound

by Emma Lazarus

I see it as it looked one afternoon

In August,—by a fresh soft breeze o'erblown.

The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,

A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.

The shining waters with pale currents strewn,

The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,

The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.

The luminous grasses, and the merry sun

In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,

Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp

Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,

Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep

Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.

All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.

Saturday in CinCity

2011-08-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

I am not watching this glorious meteor shower, though perhaps we can give it a go Sunday night after work. I'm not even sleeping as I should be before a long 12 hours in the land of NeuroDrama. I am wide awake after either the noise of trains, sirens, dog, or a combination of all three woke me from a dream involving extra jigsaw puzzle pieces. Waking was a relief.

Here's hoping that someone out there has seen some lovely sights from the heavens and will share them. Happy Weekend!

please note: photo by Babak Tafreshi

Beautiful Day Riding Bikes at Miami Whitewater Forest

2011-08-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

Learning the Bicycle

by Wyatt Prunty

for Heather

The older children pedal past

Stable as little gyros, spinning hard

To supper, bath, and bed, until at last

We also quit, silent and tired

Beside the darkening yard where trees

Now shadow up instead of down.

Their predictable lengths can only tease

Her as, head lowered, she walks her bike alone

Somewhere between her wanting to ride

And her certainty she will always fall.

Tomorrow, though I will run behind,

Arms out to catch her, she'll tilt then balance wide

Of my reach, till distance makes her small,

Smaller, beyond the place I stop and know

That to teach her I had to follow

And when she learned I had to let her go.

This Morning

2011-08-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

by David Budbill

Oh, this life,

the now,

this morning,

which I

can turn

into forever

by simply

loving

what is here,

is gone

by noon.

Fed babies for 12 hrs in the Neonatal ICU

2011-08-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Baby Girl Found

by Francette Cerulli

He found her wrapped in a brown towel

Beside the highway department dumpster.

She was so cold she was blue, so new

her umbilical stump still drooped softly

from her belly like the limp stem

of some fantastic fruit.

He picked her up in his huge gloved

highway department hands and

carried her to his truck. Inside the cab

he turned on the light, peeled the damp towel

from her body and held her

under the blast of the truck heater.

Giant midwife bent over her in the frozen morning,

He watched for the smallest sign.

It was her second birth.

Drugstore

2011-08-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

by Carl Dennis

Don't be ashamed that your parents

Didn't happen to meet at an art exhibit

Or at a protest against a foreign policy

Based on fear of negotiation,

But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,

Near the antihistamine section,

Seeking relief from the common cold.

You ought to be proud that even there,

Amid coughs and sneezes,

They were able to peer beneath

The veil of pointless happenstance.

Here is someone, each thought,

Able to laugh at the indignities

That flesh is heir to. Here

Is a person one might care about.

Not love at first sight, but the will

To be ready to endorse the feeling

Should it arise. Had they waited

For settings more promising,

You wouldn't be here,

Wishing things were different.

Why not delight at how young they were

When they made the most of their chances,

How young still, a little later,

When they bought a double plot

At the cemetery. Look at you,

Twice as old now as they were

When they made arrangements,

And still you're thinking of moving on,

Of finding a town with a climate

Friendlier to your many talents.

Don't be ashamed of the homely thought

That whatever you might do elsewhere,

In the time remaining, you might do here

If you can resolve, at last, to pay attention.

Sunday in CinCity. The Food for Thought Version.

2011-08-07T02:39:00.000-07:00

Dinner turned out very well last night. Sharing the recipe in case anyone wants to try it. I used shrimp, and I did heat it up a little just because Miss HoneyHaired likes shrimp better that way. Add some french bread for the carb lovers among us...easy-breezy. Hubby loves the fresh smells when he walks in the door.

Santa Fe Summer Pot with Avocado and Shrimp

(From From The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2008). Copyright © 2008 by American Public Media )

Serves 4

10 minutes prep time; no stove time

This can wait, chilled, for 30 to 40 minutes

•1/4 cup fresh lime juice

•1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped

•1 large garlic clove, minced

•1/2 jalapeño, seeded and minced

•1/2 teaspoon Crossover Spice Blend (recipe follows) or a blend of ground coriander, ground cumin, and freshly ground black pepper

•1-1/2 pounds ripe delicious tomatoes, coarsely chopped (do not peel); or one 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes

•2 sprigs fresh coriander

•1 small cucumber, peeled and diced

•1 ripe avocado, diced

•1 pound cooked, peeled shrimp, or firm tofu or leftover poultry (organic if possible, diced)

•Handful tortilla chips, lightly crushed

•2 limes, each cut into 8 wedges

1. In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, onion, garlic, jalapeño, and spice blend. Let marinate for 10 minutes.

2. Place the tomatoes and coriander sprigs into the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until the mixture is chunky. Add the onion mixture, and pulse five times.

3. Divide the cucumber, avocado, and shrimp among four bowls. Spoon the tomato blend into the bowls. Garnish with the crushed tortilla chips and lime wedges.

Note from Lynne:
- The shrimp could be switched out for tofu, tempeh, chicken, meats or other fish.

Crossover Spice Blend

Makes about 3/4 cup

Keeps for 3 to 4 months in a dark, cool cupboard

•1/4 cup ground cumin

•1/2 cup ground coriander

•1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) freshly ground black pepper

1. Blend the spices together in a jar, and seal. Store away from heat and light.

Saturday in CinCity. The Melting Edition.

2011-08-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Downtown CinCity on a hot summer morning. After weeks of hot summer mornings. I think we've broken the record of 14 or 17 straight days of over 90 degree heat and I feel we should cool things off a bit. IMHO. What you cannot see in this photo is how much heat the bricks soak up and continue to radiate into a home. Cause they're givers.

My strategy for the day is to go in and out of a/c as much as possible while trying to get a grocery list together, buying the food, making the food, cleaning up after the food. Things need to be done here, but the 3 episodes I've missed of In Plain Sight are not going to watch themselves. Tidying today, perhaps. Dusting and vacuuming, not so much.

Dinner at this point is going to be Sante Fe Summer Pot with Avocado and Shrimp. No cooking required.

Dog Days

by Doreen Fitzgerald

The languid heart is on the porch,

slowly swinging back and forth,

trying to beat the heat.

The brain is in a maple tree,

prehensile toes around a branch,

studying its wrinkled feet.

The heart sips ice-cold lemonade,

ignoring summer's grand parade,

but the dogged eye looks out to see

who's passing by on Passion Street,

admiring all the butts and toes,

and that's the way the summer goes.

TGIF

2011-08-05T03:49:00.001-07:00

Better Angels

2011-08-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

Our Lady of...

2011-08-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough summer for a lot of people, myself included. We've got three very damaged patients in our unit; their rooms all in a row; men in their 50's who have fallen from fixing their roof, from cutting limbs off a tree, and from working on his plane. Two of my best friends' husbands have left their marriages with more unsaid than said, and don't get me wrong, these are nice guys. Good husbands and dads and friends. Friends' parents are falling ill and their children getting injured. My neighbor, mother of a 7yr old girl, was diagnosed with cancer.

As I passed through the Mexican section at Krogers a few weeks ago I noticed the display of religious candles, so I brought an Our Lady of Guadelupe to help turn things around. Now I'm up to four Our Ladies for more firepower. Burn it up, girls.

Acrobat's Song

by Liam Rector

Who is it for whom we now perform,

Cavorting on wire:

For whom does the boy

Climbing the ladder

Balance and whirl—

For whom,

Seen or unseen

In a shield of light?

Seen or unseen

In a shield of light,

At the tent top

Where rays stream in

Watching the pin-wheel

Turns of the players

Dancing

In light:

Lady,

We are Thy acrobats;

Jugglers;

Tumblers;

Walking on wire,

Dancing on air,

Swinging on the high trapeze:

We are Thy children,

Flying in the air

Of that smile:

Rejoicing in light.

Lady,

We perform before Thee,

Walking a joyous discipline,

A thin thread of courage,

A slim high wire of dependence

Over abysses.

What do we know

Of the way of our walking?

Only this step,

This movement,

Gone as we name it.

Here

At the thin

Rim of the world

We turn for Our Lady,

Who holds us lightly:

We leave the wire,

Leave the line,

Vanish

Into light.

Toward Paris

2011-08-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

by Peter Makuck

My first time on the night train

I couldn't sleep

With expectation, the lucky

Shapes of houses wrapped in dream—

Trees slowed, then creaked to a stop.

4:00 a.m. under country stars.

Lower the window: new air,

A deserted dirt road and

A peasant pedaling away,

A wand-like loaf in his hand,

Tail-light growing weak

Red in the dark, as if his work

Was to bring fresh light

To woods and fields. He did,

Keeping me there at that

Balanced blue hour even later

In the Sainte Chappelle,

The blur of the Louvre and after.

please note: photo art by M. A. Andrew

Saturday in CinCity

2011-07-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

Phone Therapy

by Ellen Bass

I was relief, once, for a doctor on vacation

and got a call from a man on a window sill.

This was New York, a dozen stories up.

He was going to kill himself, he said.

I said everything I could think of.

And when nothing worked, when the guy

was still determined to slide out that window

and smash his delicate skull

on the indifferent sidewalk, "Do you think,"

I asked, "you could just postpone it

until Monday, when Dr. Lewis gets back?"

The cord that connected us—strung

under the dirty streets, the pizza parlors, taxis,

women in sneakers carrying their high heels,

drunks lying in piss—that thick coiled wire

waited for the waves of sound.

In the silence I could feel the air slip

in and out of his lungs and the moment

when the motion reversed, like a goldfish

making the turn at the glass end of its tank.

I matched my breath to his, slid

into the water and swam with him.

"Okay," he agreed.

please note: photo by Alejandro Cerutti

July

2011-07-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

by Louis Jenkins

Temperature in the upper seventies, a bit of a breeze. Great
cumulus clouds pass slowly through the summer sky like
parade floats. And the slender grasses gather round you,
pressing forward, with exaggerated deference, whispering,
eager to catch a glimpse. It's your party after all. And it couldn't
be more perfect. Yet there's a nagging thought: you don't really
deserve all this attention, and that come October, there will be
a price to pay.

please note: photo by me. Lake Erie sky in July

In the Mountains on a Summer Day

2011-07-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

by Li Po

translated by Arthur Waley

Gently I stir a white feather fan,

With open shirt sitting in a green wood.

I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;

A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

Dear Tiara

2011-07-26T02:20:00.000-07:00

by Sean Thomas Dougherty

I dreamed I was a mannequin in the pawnshop window
of your conjectures.

I dreamed I was a chant in the mouth of a monk, saffron-robed
syllables in the religion of You.

I dreamed I was a lament to hear the deep sorrow places
of your lungs.

I dreamed I was your bad instincts.

I dreamed I was a hummingbird sipping from the tulip of your ear.

I dreamed I was your ex-boyfriend stored in the basement
with your old baggage.

I dreamed I was a jukebox where every song sang your name.

I dreamed I was in an elevator, rising in the air shaft
of your misgivings.

I dreamed I was a library fine, I've checked you out
too long so many times.

I dreamed you were a lake and I was a little fish leaping
through the thin reeds of your throaty humming.

I must've dreamed I was a nail, because I woke beside you still
hammered.

I dreamed I was a tooth to fill the absences of your old age.

I dreamed I was a Christmas cactus, blooming in the desert
of my stupidity.

I dreamed I was a saint's hair-shirt, sewn with the thread
of your saliva.

I dreamed I was an All Night Movie Theater, showing the
flickering black reel of my nights before I met you.

I must've dreamed I was gravity, I've fallen for you so damn hard.

Why I Love Sunday Nights

2011-07-25T02:09:00.000-07:00

Aurelio Zen. Masterpiece Mystery.

Saturday in CinCity

2011-07-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Tempest, Act V, Scene I [Where the bee sucks, there suck I]

by William Shakespeare

Ariel sings

Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

TGIF

2011-07-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Left Tuesday afternoon after a mandatory 2 hour staff meeting-on my day off-for a short visit to the lake. I would tell you the details of the meeting if it weren't Top Secret and I'd been paying a wee bit more attention, but alas, we'll all figure it out at the same time. A day late and dollar short perhaps.

It's as hot in northern Ohio as it is throughout the rest of the country. There is a big lake there to take your mind away from it, however. And a breeze. And we weren't at home with a list of chores staring balefully at us and wilting in the humid air.

Home now in my sinfully hot kitchen. Hubby's outside grilling up some eggplant and red pepper and boiling a pot of pasta while I chop the tomatoes, basil and garlic we bought at a farmstand on the way home.
Home Sweat Home.

Cherry Tomatoes

by Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,

breathless heat.

I sit on the ground

in the garden of Carmel,

picking ripe cherry tomatoes

and eating them.

They are so ripe that the skin is split,

so warm and sweet

from the attentions of the sun,

the juice bursts in my mouth,

an ecstatic taste,

and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,

sloshing in the saliva of August.

Hummingbirds halo me there,

in the great green silence,

and my own bursting heart

splits me with life.

So Enough Already.

2011-07-20T04:46:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday, CollegeGrrrrl

2011-07-19T02:05:00.000-07:00

i carry your heart with me

by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Our Year

2011-07-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

by Charles Douthat

Still, there is hope this fading year

that next year will be our year

for a winter hike to the island quarry.

After the holidays, I'd propose.

In January, when dormant hardwoods

clatter in the wind and only a stray spruce

or cardinal lives for color. At such times

the quarry sleeps ice-locked

beneath sifting skins of snow. If it's safe

and thick enough, I'll take you out

across the ice to that spot

we swam those summers ago.

We'll walk again on water, solid now

beneath our feet. And I'll scrape clean

a snow-window for staring down

the frozen mirror of the deep.

Maybe only sealed off fissures.

Or rising bubbles captured in blue.

At least we'll see two bundled faces

looking back. And even so close to longest

night, surely some remnant sun will flash

above the trees and find us there—

parchment-lit, in the open—and stir us

in a winter way we've never known.

Then let the sun flash on across our quarry.

Love, let it glitter in the quarry stone.

Sunday in CinCity

2011-07-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

A Love Poem

by Garrison Keillor

A summer night, and you, and paradise,

So lovely and so full of grace,

Above your head, the universe has hung its lights,

And I reach out my hand to touch your face.

I believe in impulse, in all that is green,

Believe in the foolish vision that comes true,

Believe that all that is essential is unseen,

And for this lifetime I believe in you.

All of the lovers and the love they made:

Nothing that was between them was a mistake.

All that is done for love's sake,

Is not wasted and will never fade.

All who have loved will be forever young

and walk in grandeur on a summer night

along the avenue.

They live in every song that is sung

and every painting of pure light

and every Pas De Deux.

O love that shines from every star,

Love reflected in the silver moon;

It is not here, but it's not far.

Not yet, but it will be here soon.

Saturday in CinCity. The CollegeGrrrl Guest Writer Edition.

2011-07-16T04:59:00.000-07:00

Suspend reality and basic common sense as I invite you to Eastern StandardTime Hospital...

Many of you have shown interest in my job as a Mental Health Associate. This is probably due to the serious life-saving work that my fellow co-workers and I accomplish. Hey, coffee doesn't drink itself! However, many of you have only heard half of the story. The truth is, there is a very serious contest conducted every month at ESH. The winner of said contest gets their very own picture taken which is placed in the monthly newsletter along with their answers to 16 hard hitting questions.

I've never been let in on the secret details of how such employees are chosen. I have often questioned the validity of this award due to the fact that I have never been nominated. Ludicrous, I know. I imagine that there must be some sort of electoral college establishment involved in the selection process. This would explain how I could have possibly lost 47 months in a row. Like Al Gore, I'm winning the popular vote, but sadly, my brother is not the governor of Florida.

Thanks bro!

Like being President, winning Spotlight of the Month provides you with the unique opportunity to force your opinions and thoughts down other people's throats. However, the people that have been winning this prestigious honor have just ruined it, and here's how:

#1 How long at the hospital? Okay, this one is a give-me since they keep a file on you.

#2 Something people don't know about you? Here is where 100% of the people who answer this questionnaire begin to go wrong. Everyone picks some irrelevant fact about their life. If no one knows about it, it's probably because it makes you look a) boring or b) like a criminal. However there are options, people! For instance you could answer with the number of people you've slept with! This is completely relevant as everyone at that place under the age of 35 hooks up like we're on the cast of Grey's Anatomy.

#3 Where were you born? Kind of a boring question. Spruce it up by lying!

IDK if you've heard of it...?

#4 Favorite restaurant? Oh you can afford to eat out at restaurants? How fabulous for you.
#5 Favorite beverage? Unacceptable answers include but are not limited to: water, diet anything, soda, and tea. How about you love a good martini straight up on the rocks with a twist and through the garden. I have no idea what those words mean, but it sounds less bourgeois than water.

I love water too, in the form of ice.

#6 Favorite TV Show? People who answer: "I never watch TV" are lying snobs, and people who answer with a television station or multiple shows would fail at the game Simon Says. As a television connoisseur, I sympathize that this may be a tough call, but life is full of hard decisions. Start with the small stuff.

#7 Top 2 movies of all time? 90% of people say their favorite show is something garbage like Dancing With the Stars, yet want to state their favorite movie is a classic like Gone With the Wind. #1 I'm not buying it. #2 That movie is long and the ending sucked. Life is full of disappointments and failures, I don't need to watch a movie to make me feel melancholy. I want to laugh.. or see some people get murdered, ya know, whatever.

Also, my attention span is very challenged.

#8 All time favorite cartoon character - if I see Bugs Bunny one more time I'm going to start taking hostages.

#9 If you weren't doing this you would be? Quit telling us you would be a lawyer or an accountant. How about happy, richer, or a porn star? Something legit.

#10 What was on your grade school lunch box? Ugh, I'm so tired of people saying they didn't have a lunch box. What, did you walk to school barefoot uphill both ways in the snow for 12 miles, too?

#11 All time favorite athlete? The only wrong answer here is "I don't watch sports"... or perhaps "OJ Simpson".

#12 The theme song for your TV show would be? Again, a tough call. Right off the bat I can tell you anything in the genre of country music is going to be the wrong answer; and don't go with the obvious current Top 40 Hits. Think of the best song ever written.. and choose that.

#13 The world would be a better place if...Classic wrong turn here. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE says "If we all just hugged, held hands, and sang kumbaya". You disgust me.

This is how germs are spread.

#14 The last book I read was... Don't say you don't read. We don't care if you've been working on Crime and Punishment for 3 years.

#15 Four people in history you'd most like to have dinner with - this question inspired me to write this piece in the first place. I can't even count how many times I've seen four names out of this list: Jesus, MLK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ghandi, Malcolm X, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Jackie O, Bobby Kennedy, Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah, FDR, and Ronald Reagan.

I mean honestly people. First of all I want you to ask yourself how is that dinner going to go? What are you going to wear? What are you going to ask/say? What restaurant are you going to suggest to THE SON OF GOD? Hmm? No, seriously? Are we going to go to your favorite restaurant which is probably Bone Fish or Qdoba? Who is going to foot that bill? Will Jesus turn your water into wine to save money? If Marilyn, JFK, and Jackie all show up do you think that would be a little awkward? If Oprah Winfrey puts a new life under your seat are you going to jump and down and scream? No, you're going to sit there and text your friends "OMG this is so awkward! Like do I apologize to Jesus? Him and Mother Theresa seem to be good friends but Jackie just keeps givin Marilyn the stink eye, I'm scared. Reagan just showed up and he wasn't technically invited, do I ask the waitress for another chair? This table is so small? AH!!!" Yea, I'm calling a formal bullshit on all of you.

How's the family?

#16 The most influential person in your career has been? This is a trap. They said ONE person. Name someone outside of ESH and save yourself the headache of having to say "No, no! You've been super inspirational to me TOO!!!"

There it is folks. Now, I wrote this in honor of one special person today. Ally Tucker. It is her last day of work at Eastern StandardTime. We wish her good luck. In honor of her departure I've decided to pose to Ally a real Spotlight of the Month to answer on her phenomenal blog TuckersTales.net - check it out. If she chooses to tackle the 16 questions then you will have not one, but two fine reads ahead of you, as I am going to leave you with my own answers.

#1 How long at the hospital? 3.5 years

#2 Something people don't know about you? I'm in the witness protection program.

#3 Where were you born? On an airplane over the Atlantic.

#4 Favorite restaurant? Chez Starvation. They have a mean Ramen Noodle.

#5 Favorite beverage? Vodka and grapefruit. I know, I'm a health nut.

#6 Favorite TV show? Snapped. I like to learn while I watch television.

#7 Top two movies of all time? Silence of the Lambs and Super Troopers.

#8 All time favorite cartoon character? Natasha Fatale

#9 If you weren't doing this you would be... Drunk.

#10 What was on your grade school lunch box? Beauty and the Beast.

#11 Favorite athlete of all time? Kerri Strug. Epic.

#12 The theme song for your TV show would be... Take it Easy by The Eagles

#13 The world would be a better place if... Everyone carpooled - you have friends to complain about your job with on the way to work, and a DD on the way home from work. Oh, and you can save the environment!

Work hard. Play hard.

#14 The last book I read was... The Mysterious Island - just a hint, read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea first, no one told me that until the last 12 pages.

#15 Four people in history you'd most like to have dinner with...Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (to see if they would adopt me) & Chelsea Handler and her agent (to see if they would make me famous) So maybe they're not dead but they're making modern day history so suck it, it's my dinner party.

#16 The most influential person in my career has been: Nurse Jackie.

She's got the right idea.

TGIF

2011-07-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

happy weekend!

2011-07-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

How to Clean Practically Anything

by Jennifer O'Grady

Yes, housework can be a chore

A day, a day rinsed free of night

everyone enjoys a clean and orderly home

a table wiped clear of crumbs and spills

the best way to do the maximum amount

of work, without becoming overwhelmed

floor swept, dustpan emptied into plastic

bags which are placed inside sealed metal cans

is to perform it in a systematic fashion

dishwasher emptied, opaque and stainless

blot the stain, wipe away any residue

whites now sorted, his socks, his shirts

old egg-yolk yellow under the arms

try these to ensure results

reward your efforts:

his underwear, the boxers faded and frayed

repeating their pattern of angular hearts

be sure to remove any hooks or weights

their scattered and miniature x's and o's

openings measured for admission or exit

don't overload the machine, and remember

his colors tangling in a tossed-off pile

of mostly darks, mostly black and blues

fabric becomes much heavier when wet

while here and there a spring green

a tremulous yellow

protect from strong sunlight

and abrasive objects

a newborn pink, streak

of surprisingly deep red

warning: damages may not be covered

like fresh blood, a raw and unsutured cut

try a product that claims to hide

surface scratches

to be rinsed and wrung, dried and folded and piled

into the thing we call a long marriage

if the marks have darkened

use a sharp knife

these daily removals, these many attempts

to wipe clean the counter the table the slate

if the burn is deep use filler

smoothing it to match the surface

the windows now free of fingerprints and smears

as if there were no glass no barrier no space

work carefully to avoid

damaging the paint

in which to revisit your own faint reflection

this coating should last for years

please note: art by Jean-Edouard-Vuillard

She and My Granddad

2011-07-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

by David Huddle

My grandfather—who died in 1970—

the year Sexual Politics was published—

called objects—screwdrivers, blow torches, trucks

—and sometimes even abstractions—winter,

pain, time—by the singular feminine

pronoun—she or her. For instance he would say,

I reckon she's coming up on quitting time,

or (of a favorite hammer), I guess

she ain't nowhere to be found. Kate Millett,

asked about the future of the woman's movement,

said, How in the hell do I know? I don't run it,

to which Granddad—at war with Gradmama all

my life but drawn to women, always polite—

would have said, Yes ma'am, can't nobody run her.

please note: photo by John Vachon and found in Farm Security Information, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library Of Congress

This Makes Me Laugh Till I Cry

2011-07-12T02:09:00.000-07:00

Monday, Monday

2011-07-11T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hangover (Or Migraine)

By Billy Collins

If I were crowned emperor this morning,

every child who is playing Marco Polo

in the swimming pool of this motel,

shouting the name Marco Polo back and forth

Marco Polo Marco Polo

would be required to read a biography

of Marco Polo-a long one with fine print-

as well as a history of China and of Venice,

the birthplace of the venerated explorer

Marco Polo Marco Polo

after which each child would be quizzed

by me then executed by drowning

regardless how much they managed

to retain about the glorious life and times of

Marco Polo Marco Polo

Sunday in CinCity. The Keepin' It Real Edition.

2011-07-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

(click on photo to enlarge and read signage)

First off, thanks to all who sympathize and have offered their hard won wisdom. I appreciate it more than I can express and I'm taking notes, trust me.

I think the best I can strive for is to take it all as it comes--hopefully, with some grace and humor, and a recognition that some things just suck. If I have to leave school, it sucks, but also does having a stroke and losing half the functioning of your brain. And it sucks that my mother who has fought and refused to take or do anything that would be helpful in preventing a stroke now has devastating consequences that substantially impact our family. And by family, I really mean Hubby and me.

The truth is she could still have had a stroke and if it wasn't this it would most likely be something else. That's life. At least that's what they say.

The last shift I worked this past Friday evening involved admitting a 47 year old who had a seizure and fell, probably straight forward and down, breaking his neck at C1-C2. That's the one you'd hope for in a hanging back in the day when hangings were the punishment of choice. Quick and brain-dead. His 48th birthday would have been Saturday. Two kids...

I know that our plans for our days are not set in stone.

What I want is to make space in my life, as it presents itself right now, and to have flexibility and the ability to be fully involved in what's going on. School demands a lot of attention to be given to it and deadlines and arbitrary timelines in which real life demands become an annoyance. Couldn't this illness, Dr's appointment, newest complaint, this theater date, this trip to the lake just wait until the end of the quarter, till my paper's finished, till I take this exam? If we're picking up more here on the home front I don't want to be constantly frantic about time and writing papers in my head while I'm grocery shopping with my mother or walking the dog with one or the other of my grrrrlies and I don't want the lion's share of these changes to fall to my husband. It could be done. But, I don't believe the benefits outweigh the known downside. I don't want to be that frustrated, stress-sandwiched gal. I want to be Doris Day in Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Down to her up-do and flat shoes and pedal pushers.

In looking for a summer photo of CinCity I stumbled across this thread on a website, Skyscraper Forum and Aaron, AKA paradox21. If you like Cincy, or if you enjoy urban photojouralism, and you have a little time I would strongly encourage (in nursespeak that means, "Just go on and do it.") you to take a look. There are shots like this

and this

and more. They're larger and the details more striking on the original site. Quite an impressive eye.

And, because you can't allude to him and not show him , and you know this song is now rolling around inside your head, here's the man himself. May I present Mr. Frank Sinatra...

Now I'm off to do a little housework while everyone else is otherwise occupied.

Saturday in CinCity

2011-07-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

Above is the courtyard of BigFatUniversity Rehab Center where my mother is currently being housed after suffering a stroke. I'm off to visit this morning. The care has been good and now discussions and plans are underway for where to go next. She's had a right sided stroke and, while it generally saves the speech center, it takes out the portions of the brain involved with judgement, memory,

problem solving, insight, etc...kind of a "six to one, half dozen the other" situation. As I'm sure you can imagine, safety becomes a big, big problem.

Ma would desperately like return to her home and that may or may not work. We'll have to see with a little further cognitive evaluation and another look/see from the psychologist. There's a thought that she might be "sundowning," and for those unfamiliar with that picturesque phrase, it's when an elderly person is perfectly normal and cooperative all day long goes bat-shit crazy around 4 or 5pm--when the sun goes down. However, some of this may be improved in her own surroundings and putting her own daily routine back into place.

We've been working around her apartment--locking the door to the basement so she can't get to those nausea-inducing steps, turning off the gas to her stove, putting grab bars up around the bathroom, getting a walker and canes, and today I'll go through and look for whatnots--lighters and matches mostly. And I'll do more wash since at the rehab center she tosses her clean clothes, still folded, into the laundry hamper. Six days worth of clothes in two days. Whatever.

Finishing school is not really possible now. The only reason I was going to be able to go fulltime starting this fall was because of the NIOSH (National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health) monies to pay for my full tuition and a stipend that would allow me to go parttime at work. We could pull through that for a year as a family, but not with this. Those monies have been deleted from the Federal Budget as of Fall, 2012, so I can't imagine that being made available again. Although I've emailed, I haven't written the letters to my instructors and the fire study investigator. That's really the point of no return. I know it's selfish, but I just can't go there yet.

In the background. I'll be looking at longterm care facilities for Plan B possibilities. I'll write about them. I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of funny incidents to write about. I'll keep a journal which will be picked up by a publisher and made into a film produced by and starring Sandra Bullock and you will all be at the premiere hobnobbing on the red carpet. This can work.

TGIF

2011-07-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Even the Smallest Paradise

by CJ Evans

The women in pencil

skirts spill from towers

and let down all

their disarming hair.

They hold caramel

glasses of whiskey

with sweet vermouth

as men with undone

cuffs speak something

secretive into the felt-

lined boxes of their

ears. The thunder

of planes is ignored,

and the four o'clock

flowers are fully

open. Their laughter

is a siren, echoing

among the buildings.

And they don't look

as the white parachutes

drift down to them

like dandelion seeds.

Have a ____ Day

2011-07-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

by Lou Lipsitz

Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.

Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.

Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.

Have a confused day thinking about fate.

Have a day of wholes.

Have a day of poorly marked,

unrecognizable wholes you

cannot fathom.

Have a ferocious day, a bleak

unbearable day. Have a

riotously unproductive day;

a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful

law enforcement day.

Have a day of raging, hair-yanking

jealousy and meanness. Have a day

of almost grasping

how whole you are; a finely tuned,

empty day.

Have a nice day of walking and circling;

a day of stalking and hunting,

of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.

Have a day of endearing nonsense,

of hopelessly combing your hair,

a day of yielding, of swallowing

hard, breathing more deeply,

a day of fondness for beetles

and macabre spectacles, or irreverence

about anything you want, of just

sitting and wondering.

Have a day of wondering if it's

going to help, or if it just doesn't matter;

a day of dark winds

and torrents flowing though the valley,

of diving into cool water

and gasping for breath,

a day of sudden hunger for communion.

Have a day where the crusts you each

were given are lost and you stumble

with your fellows

searching endlessly together.

please note: photo of Dogbane Beetle by magickcanoe.blogspot.com