Advice from a Fortune Cookie (Writer)

Don’t have too complicated a mind,” he said. “Think in ten-word sentences."

Hardscrabble Scrabble

Spruik (sprook) To give an elaborate speech, especially to attract customers.

Our daughter Raleigh implored us to buy a Scrabble game at a yard sale, so of course we plunked down 50 cents. This purchase has unwittingly led to a war at our house. My husband Harvey has refused to play me for the first 19 years of our marriage, and our son Daniel(who hates to spell) had never shown the slightest interest in Scrabble. Raleigh and Harvey sat down to play, and it was funny how well she was doing. I sat down to help her about halfway through the game, and we clobbered him. My son, who was watching, said, "I think I can play this." So he and I squared off (sorry about the pun), me thinking, "How can I win gracefully?"

You all know what happened--he SLAUGHTERED me. It turns out he can spell when triple-letter scores are involved, and he has a huge vocabulary. The next match, I brought my A game, got all the good letters and some crucial blanks--and he still won by a narrow margin. (Remember, this is his first night of Scrabble).

All this spiel is preface to the above--I am on the prowl for new words and maybe with "spruik" he'll go down.

And isn't that a great word?

The Sultry Typewriter

Pamela Johnson Parker's Aliases

Your movie star name: Almonds John

Your fashion designer name is Pamela Paris

Your socialite name is Honey Kingston

Your fly girl / guy name is P Par

Your detective name is Cat Mayfield

Your barfly name is Almonds White Russian

Your soap opera name is Johnson Foster

Your rock star name is Milky Way Jaguar

Your star wars name is Pamsha Parhar

Your punk rock band name is The Sultry Typewriter

The'>http://www.blogthings.com/meganames/">The Amazing Meganame Generator

Wild Thing, I Think I Love You

It's Maurice Sendak's birthday today. He's as cute as ever. (Check him out on NPR).

How can you not love a man who admits his favorite hobby is "scaring children" but obviously does no such thing?

Ah, Crusoe in England--I Knew I Wrote That!

You are Elizabeth Bishop and, God help us, you know
it! You suffer no fools and you cannot even
suffer yourself. No wonder you drink yourself
into a stupor often. You cannot stand the fact
you aren't perfect.


Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Whitman and Dunn--Imago Imago Imago (Sorry, Nabokov)

Today, I've been perplexed about Walt Whitman's paper Psyche, that painted lady perched on the hand of the Good Gray Poet. It's cardboard--it's Easter ephemera, and he wired it into a ring (like his own wedding band) and posed with it in his favorite photograph of himself. All these years, and I was conned into believing it was a real butterfly he'd charmed...

Here's the prop: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwhtml/butterfly.html

Looking up images of this butterfly, I found this fabulous poem. It speaks for itself.

Stephen Dunn - Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry

Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime. Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as melodrama,
and can offer you violence
if it is violence you like. Look,
there's a man on a sidewalk;
the way his leg is quivering
he'll never be the same again.
This is your poem
and I know you're busy at the office
or the kids are into your last nerve.
Maybe it's sex you've always wanted.
Well, they lie together
like the party's unbuttoned coats,
slumped on the bed
waiting for drunken arms to move them.
I don't think you want me to go on;
everyone has his expectations, but this
is a poem for the entire family.
Right now, Budweiser
is dripping from a waterfall,
deodorants are hissing into armpits
of people you resemble,
and the two lovers are dressing now,
saying farewell.
I don't know what music this poem
can come up with, but clearly
it's needed. For it's apparent
they will never see each other again
and we need music for this
because there was never music when he or she
left you standing on the corner.
You see, I want this poem to be nicer
than life. I want you to look at it
when anxiety zigzags your stomach
and the last tranquilizer is gone
and you need someone to tell you
I'll be here when you want me
like the sound inside a shell.
The poem is saying that to you now.
But don't give anything for this poem.
It doesn't expect much. It will never say more
than listening can explain.
Just keep it in your attache case
or in your house. And if you're not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
the poem wants you to laugh. Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.
Come on:
Good. Now here's what poetry can do.

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.

You'd Think at Nearly 48, This Wouldn't Ring a Bell

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/296/2612/1024/seeme.jpg

I will never be "forgiven" for chosing a family over a career. And see how well this image goes with the Whitman post, above. I think there's a collage happening.

Poems Going into Estivation

The poems I have formerly posted were all unpublished, and some of them are going to be coming out of estivation soon-- so to avoid any problems, I've moved them all to draft. I don't know if this is considered self-publishing, but I am not going to take the risk. I have had a grand total of 104 visits to my site--total--so I don't see how this could be self-publishing, when probably 98 of them have been from my husband. (At least I have one fan!)

I wish this wasn't such a grey issue. I really did not ever intend this to be self-promotion or self-publishing. I really considered this blog to be like a bulletin board, or a refrigerator door...And I wish I could bring my drafts of my poems out of the dark and look at them. I put them here because I liked seeing them stare back at me.

Major Junking

That's what we call thrift shop prowling, driveby yardsaling, and flea market meandering.

Lately, I have not posted on our forays into the world of second-hand, but although tapped out by porch paint, we have found the following:

1. Dragon Tea Set (perfect condition, perfect gilt, and no guilt about the $2 price!)
2. USA pottery magnolia-colored vase, shaped just like a hot air balloon and ideal for peonies.
3. Walking stick with carved woodpecker handle--beautiful carving and perfect flagging-down wife across a crowded flea market tool--that redheaded woodpecker just burns.
4. Broom with snake carved around the handle (these last two are awesome folk art)--I feel like Eve when I use it. The snake actually fits me like a handgrip!
5. The best shoe last I've ever seen, complete with tin sole and 10-pound weight advertising on the wood. The color is something between rust and cinnamon--awesome, awesome, on its original oiled leather cord. This is one for hanging over the fireplace, next to the bellows hand-carved with a galleon...but that's another trip...Best spent dollar of the week!
6. Yellow bulldog planter. We now have quadruplets--others are Vintage Blue, Jade, and Cream.
7. New kitten that strayed onto Harvey's path and is now living here, and surprisingly getting along with Loco the Mad. The most loved and loudest of all finds is Shadow (after the RLS poem).
8. Evil clown cookie jar in green suit.
9. Many, many books.
10. Carved dragon in honey jade strung on a red silk cord.
11. Bakelite bracelet with "ivory" carved Buddhas--major add to the treasure trove--some day I'm writing that Bakelite poem! (PS Also Bakelite tri-colored tulip pendant--very cool but not as cool as the bracelet).
12. Miscellaneous postcards (me) and Star Wars/McDonald's Disney toys (husband--well, I know that I've described him as perfect, and except for this slight--well--affliction, he is).

I am sure there are also Christmas ornaments and art supplies I have forgotten to mention, but I'll stop at a dozen.

Happy searching to you fellow junkers--and don't forget the thermos, the flashlight, and the essential requirement of plastic bags and paper towels for storing your treasures safely. LOL.

Kenneth Koch and Memorization

Permanently

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing-for example,
"Although it was a dark rainy day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and sweet expression on her face until the day I perish from the green, effective earth."
Or, "Will you please close the window, Andrew?"
Or, for example, "Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window sill has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from the boiler factory which exists nearby."

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, "And! But!"
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat--
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.
___________________________
For a poem so memorable, this poem is darned hard to memorize. I thought I had it--but the second stanza is a killer.

Porch Progress and Poem

Part of my original post didn't come through. The porch ceiling is painted--the pale aqua beadboard ceiling is so beautiful. The mailbox in celadon with white fleur-de-lis is exactly the way we thought it would be. Raleigh got to prime the porch rails and the mailbox. She is so excited to help. Daniel ran off to a Magick card tournament, wisely knowing he would be expected to help. He bought our lunch first, so he's a little bit off the hook. Tom Sawyer would never have snookered Daniel into white-washing that fence.

All of this porch talk reminds me of porches. I remember a couple of line of a poem--don't have a clue who wrote it--"Old men peel like tarpaper/from porches and are gone." All I remember of the poem is loving those lines. Maybe I dreamt it up. I'd surely like to think I did.

I have one porch poem, below:

Who Writes Short-Shorts? Answer: Kafka

Well, I'm trying...but here are two by Franz Kafka that are absolutely mind-boggling.

Absent-Minded Window-Gazing

What are we to do with these spring days that are now fast coming on? Early this morning the sky was gray, but if you go to the window now, you are surprised and lean your cheek against the latch of the casement.

The sun is already setting, but down below you see it lighting up the face of the little girl who strolls along looking about her, and at the same time you see her eclipsed by the shadow of the man behind overtaking her. And then the man has passed by and the little girl's face is quite bright.

(What an eclipse he's written here--and now get ready for Kafka in a mode I've never considered for him--observation so intense, it's, er...well, I'll let you judge...)
________________________

On the Tram

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

The tram approaches a stopping place and a girl takes up her position near the step, ready to alight. She is as distinct to me as if I had run my hands over her. She is dressed in black, the pleats of her skirt hang almost still, her blouse is tight and has a collar of white fine-meshed lace, her left hand is braced flat against the side of the tram, the umbrella in her right hand rests on the second top step. Her face is brown, her nose, slightly pinched at the sides, has a broad round tip. She has a lot of brown hair and stray little tendrils on the right temple. Her small ear is close-set, but since I am near her I can see the whole ridge of the whorl of her right ear and the shadow at the root of it.

At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark?
_________________________

(That "as if" comparison--whew!)

I just loved these and hope you will, also. They've really made me think about the possibilities of prose poems and point of view in short fiction.

I'm No Fingerprint

You Are 60% Normal (Really Normal)

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You're like most people most of the time But you've got those quirks that make you endearing You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

How Normal Are You?

Painted Ladies: Gingerbread, Gypsum and Lemon Meringue Pie

We live in a 2-story Queen Anne built in 1888. It has irregular angles, pointy gables, the works. It's pale yellow (the shade of Eagle Brand milk), with white gingerbread trim and a brick front porch with more gingerbread. We're biting the bullet and going tri-color:

Gypsum (a white that's not too white--has a little blue tint to it like good milkglass), with celadon and true-lavender accents on the egg and dart porch columns and spindle trim and on the lacy gingerbread over the windows. Celadon and gypsum scallops over the windowtops. Gypsum for the shutters, still (since we just painted them). Bulls eyes on the shutters and windowcasings accented in celadon.

Sky-blue paint on the tongue-in-groove porch ceiling.

Front porch foldable swing in celadon.

Oak (already painted dull white ) antique front door in celadon with gypsum accents on the trim.

Mailbox celadon with white fleur-de-lys.

Porch rail spindles in gypsum (accented with celadon only).

Leave the main house this pale yellow, the shade of the "real lemon pie" that's mentioned in Million Dollar Baby. Power wash the trim (it looks a little dingy). This is the bargain here.

Leave the wicker white.

Add a ceiling fan with a stained glass shade to the ceiling. I saw one with morning glories that would be perfect--but it's way expensive.

I think we are becoming the talk of the local hardware store. They cannot believe I want violet-hued paint for any reason.

Somebody, somewhere, tell me my paint scheme sounds delightful. PULEEZZE.

Harvey, bless him, has scraped and caulked and primed the porch ceiling already. I haven't the heart to tell him that next year we're pouring for a patio out back and will be bricking the steps. I'll tell him on our anniversary, when hopefully we're sipping cappucino in Venice. (Dream vacation alert--the long awaited REAL honeymoon--more on this planning later).

I've found an Apologies and Regrets special edition of a magazine. I'm sending them the central poem from my chapbook, which is a self-apology, and also a story I wrote called Sans Pieta. It's set in Venice, so maybe that's a good omen.

Still no word on Patti Smith story--after the initial editor's kind ink, taking it to the main editor--getting very antsy about this. I am a neophyte to sending out stuff. I WOULD get my nerve up just at the time that magazines are closing their reading periods.

Sent a short-short story called "Kudzu" to Glimmer Train. Protagonist's name is Hollis--how southern is THAT???

I don't write much about my fiction because I'm too busy thinking about it and writing it, but after years of alopecia caused by formal poetry, it is such a change.

Pamela

Fly Papers

(Section 50 of Tennyson's In Memoriam, published 1850)

Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
And weave their petty cells and die.

Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.

___________________________________

Dickinson's #465 , written in 1862

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed -
and then I could not see to see -

__________________________

I always wonder if Emily's #465 is in response to Tennyson's 50.