I think it was the time when all we had to eat was Krusteaz Just Add Water Cookie Mix that we were intoduced to Addy, the American Girl born to slaves in the south. We read of her adventures all day long between cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our adventure was quite different: to survive on cookies until pay day. We did survive. And we read the book in one day. I was going to return it the next, but Addy was now part of our story. And wasn't she always?
Grandma bought you ballet lessons on the hill. Those skinny blonde girls didn't like your kinky red hair and terra cotta skin. They didn't like that you were good and impressed the teacher. (As I recall, the teacher didn't like it either.)But you were good, and you were pretty, and you didn't stop smiling and neither did I. That was about the time we ate cookies until pay day. That was the time of my life.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Day 16: Who Are You After the Guests Have Gone Home?
"Who are you after the guests have gone home?" SARK, from Succulent, Wild Woman
I would like to host an interview party. Serve dinner, read poems, then during dessert play back the interviews taken during appetizers.
I want to know why the priest came here from Poland. I want to know why the man kept playing baseball games no one ever came to see. I want to know why you broke up with your last love. I want someone to ask me how old I was when they started worrying about my head getting too big, and when I first did that dirty word, shut up. How old were you when you shut up? And when you opened again, did you cry? What do you do when the guests have gone home? Clean up? Sit back? Drink? Eat the rest of the cake? Maybe this is the question I will ask you, and we will all sit around and hear the answers together. I will call this project "Interviewing Angels". We would recognize each other and applaud at the end.
I would like to host an interview party. Serve dinner, read poems, then during dessert play back the interviews taken during appetizers.
I want to know why the priest came here from Poland. I want to know why the man kept playing baseball games no one ever came to see. I want to know why you broke up with your last love. I want someone to ask me how old I was when they started worrying about my head getting too big, and when I first did that dirty word, shut up. How old were you when you shut up? And when you opened again, did you cry? What do you do when the guests have gone home? Clean up? Sit back? Drink? Eat the rest of the cake? Maybe this is the question I will ask you, and we will all sit around and hear the answers together. I will call this project "Interviewing Angels". We would recognize each other and applaud at the end.
Day 15: The Little Roll Top Desk
I would stare into the gap between the desk and my bed. Sometimes that was how I got to sleep. Sometimes I woke up there, contorted, fallen in. It was small and brown, and I had my own drawer, which made a chalky sound when I opened it, and the top would screetch like bad brakes. tuff got crammed in there.
I don't remember if there was a chair. There isn't anymore. The chair has died.
The desk had a smell, too, like pennies and broken pencils with no leds.
Maybe they got rid of the chair so I wouldn't bump my head when I fell out of bed.
They loved me. The desk heard the prayers we recited every night. It watched as he kissed us and she sorted laundry.
What did she sit on when she sorted laundry?
Laundry was often found jammed under the rolled top. A sock, my plans, another sock. I had lots of plans, all of them homes. The desk is the last piece of furniture left from the old house.
No chair has made it as far.
It sits in the hall which leads to empty rooms. It is too small for anywhere else. Fifteen yeras ago, I needed a pencil. I opened my drawer, and there was no sound, no smell, no pencil. Just a roll of wallpaper border, ugly stuff. I wonder if they have been looking for it. I never opened that drawer again. I don't think anyone has. Mostly I don't think about that little desk, but I am tonight. I still have plans. They still keep me up at night. I still fall into cracks.
I don't remember if there was a chair. There isn't anymore. The chair has died.
The desk had a smell, too, like pennies and broken pencils with no leds.
Maybe they got rid of the chair so I wouldn't bump my head when I fell out of bed.
They loved me. The desk heard the prayers we recited every night. It watched as he kissed us and she sorted laundry.
What did she sit on when she sorted laundry?
Laundry was often found jammed under the rolled top. A sock, my plans, another sock. I had lots of plans, all of them homes. The desk is the last piece of furniture left from the old house.
No chair has made it as far.
It sits in the hall which leads to empty rooms. It is too small for anywhere else. Fifteen yeras ago, I needed a pencil. I opened my drawer, and there was no sound, no smell, no pencil. Just a roll of wallpaper border, ugly stuff. I wonder if they have been looking for it. I never opened that drawer again. I don't think anyone has. Mostly I don't think about that little desk, but I am tonight. I still have plans. They still keep me up at night. I still fall into cracks.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Day 14: A Poem Unread
Is there anybody out there?
If you can hear me, save me. The wind's howling is drowning my own.
Each letter stamps onto the page, growing into
terrible
familiar silence.
There are no boats out tonight, therefore no vowels to hang on to as the
tongue clicks
at jagged consonants with
embarrassment
and then boredom, and then
shame.
Is there anybody out there?
If so, leave me, but wave, please wave, as you go by.
If you can hear me, save me. The wind's howling is drowning my own.
Each letter stamps onto the page, growing into
terrible
familiar silence.
There are no boats out tonight, therefore no vowels to hang on to as the
tongue clicks
at jagged consonants with
embarrassment
and then boredom, and then
shame.
Is there anybody out there?
If so, leave me, but wave, please wave, as you go by.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Day 13: Emergency Haiku For When I Have Nothing
the well, it is dry
though I appear with my pail
faithfully, each day
though I appear with my pail
faithfully, each day
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Day 11: Untitled
Hope, he said it was a negative thing, that once transcended is only a bit of poison in the mind.
And I believed him, and still do, but I have not been so transformed; I have not so much risen from its need.
I need.
Meanwhile the moon, falling from roundedness, disappears and reappears behind the purple cloud. The sun will do as much today, I'm sure, since rain sang me to sleep all night, and there is a promise of more, and wind races around the rising morning.
Hope, it, too, rises and falls.
I look out at the purple cloud. Beacuse I have seen, I know the moon will come again, and that is knowing.
And I have seen and therefore know God, who stirs the clouds and wind, can hold up the sky while holding me safe. The man locked in an asylum for praying too loud is also safe. Somehow. Meanwhile the moon is still hanging outside the window, shyly winking, round and white, and the purple cloud is moving faster and I think away, leaving tiny holes from where her skin appears and reappears over and over like a tumbling of prayers from a hopeful mouth. Let that mouth always be mine.
And I believed him, and still do, but I have not been so transformed; I have not so much risen from its need.
I need.
Meanwhile the moon, falling from roundedness, disappears and reappears behind the purple cloud. The sun will do as much today, I'm sure, since rain sang me to sleep all night, and there is a promise of more, and wind races around the rising morning.
Hope, it, too, rises and falls.
I look out at the purple cloud. Beacuse I have seen, I know the moon will come again, and that is knowing.
And I have seen and therefore know God, who stirs the clouds and wind, can hold up the sky while holding me safe. The man locked in an asylum for praying too loud is also safe. Somehow. Meanwhile the moon is still hanging outside the window, shyly winking, round and white, and the purple cloud is moving faster and I think away, leaving tiny holes from where her skin appears and reappears over and over like a tumbling of prayers from a hopeful mouth. Let that mouth always be mine.
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