Sunday, October 12, 2008
That's all folks
So now I'm moving on, continuing to read - as I always do - for fun, for my own edification. I just finished a great book called His Illegal Self by Peter Carey. This was something apart from anything I've read before. It's about revolutionaries of the sixties and seventies. It's about a little boy who experiences life on Park Avenue and on a commune in the Australian outback. I recommend you check it out.
Keep reading!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Dr. H lets us kick back and relax a little
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Digging in their heels
Sunday, September 21, 2008
"Hollywoodizing" Hollywood Debauchery
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Erica Jong and Francesca Lia Block
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Why haven't I read this guy before?
And even though Pynchon - through his mouthpiece Diblette - tried to discourage me from analyzing the novel, by the gods I did my best. Well, I had to write my essay on something. But it was a puzzle to be sorted out anyway. I had to try to extract some kind of meaning from it. Ha! I really don't want to give it - or what I think it is - away. My own convoluted little brain added its own ideas to the mix and came away with the meaning best suited to me. That might be just what Pynchon had in mind.
Friday, August 29, 2008
I'm On the Road!!!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Walk On By
However, when I was reading this time, I caught on to another theme - the impersonality of modern society. And, with the idea of the individual as invisible, this certainly reflects the anonymity one feels when walking down a crowded city street. Okay, my thought process was definitely influenced by something else I read recently - Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, by Morris Berman. He proposes, among other things, that American (and, increasingly, global) society is so focused on individualism as to preclude most authentic relationships between people. Neighbors don't do a lot of hanging out in their yards anymore; we're too busy watching TV - or blogging!
Invisible Man explores the same phenomenon in an earlier form. One reason the narrator is able to remain "invisible" is the limited scope of the connections he does make. Work - a means of getting the cash to buy more things - while scarce in the 1930s, was fast becoming the primary focus of American society, perhaps more so during the Depression because of its scarcety. But, as Berman claims, we've lost the human connections that really make life worthwhile. Personally, I often find myself lonely, though I have classmates, church friends, and family. Maybe if I commit myself more fully to the full-fledged consumerism that defines American, I won't notice the loneliness anymore.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Television is no longer a vast wasteland
I was watching a small Midwestern U.S. town which had been declared insurgent by a U.S. military officer. In my mind's eye, though, I was seeing an Iraqi town, filled with families and friends and merchants and the law and the clergy, all trying to make the best of a bad situation, trying to protect their own and have some semblance of a normal life. I saw them enduring want - of food and water and light, of safety and privacy. I also saw that army officer, stuck in Iraq in an untenable situation, trying to do what's right, for his country but also for humanity, of which every Iraqi and every American is a member.
I really don't know how far to go with this. I'm probably talking to the ether anyway. But, it tears me up. It twists my heart to see what human beings can do to other human beings.
Enough. Good night.
No poems today.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
One final post for class.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
McCain Flap Follow-up
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Are we really connected?
Connected not
connected
Broadcasting
Signal interrupted.
How many terminals?
How many channels?
How many decrypters?
How many keys?
How many codes?
Exponentially exponential..
Line upon line
filtered and
refiltered.
Code degradation.
Internal software error.
Static on the line.
Nothing on the line.
Dead air.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
McCain Flap
". . . during the South Carolina Republican primary the George W. Bush-Karl Rove smear machine unleashed a torrent of racist attacks against McCain, including the now infamous push-poll phone calls to white suburban voters asking: "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had an illegitimate half-black baby?" Rove's racist calls referred to McCain's adopted child."
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Where was I going?
How many times have I believed
I've come to the journey's end -
when I arrived at a certain age,
made a momentous decision,
reached a significant milestone?
This, I think, defines me.
This makes me into someone new.
Now I am . . .
a teen
a driver
an adult
a mother
a career woman
a wife
a "displaced worker."
Is life a succession of endings then?
Or a weaving trail of new beginnings?
Perhaps, instead, an assortment of intertwining paths
which sometimes curve back upon themselves,
or veer off into unknown territory -
the deep, dark forest
which holds both the frightening
and the fascinating,
or parallel the roads of others,
sharing views but not perspectives.
All paths without end or with ends unknown ~~
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Where do the unwritten poems go?
A slip of an idea
barely formed
so fragile
so delicate
able to be whispered away,
scattered with a breath.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Why was I crying in church this morning?
Most women dread those few days each month when their bodies and their emotions go crazy. I, however, have begun to feel a distinct feeling of gratitude for that time. When else is a woman allowed to show her feelings? When else is it "okay" to cry, to criticize, and even to yell a little? People may turn to me with a look of incomprehension when I sit weepy-eyed, discussing racism in a class. What place do tears have in a scholarly discussion? When I sit sniffling with my children in front of the television, watching the "Feed the Children" infomercial, I can take comfort in the fact that I am allowed to feel sympathy and regret at these images. After all, my hormones won’t let me get by with being just a casual observer. That emotional control which society so values and encourages can be thrown aside for a few uninhibited days. I can show how I feel, and if anybody asks, I can say, "Oh, it’s just PMS."
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Forced Wallowing
It creeps up when least expected
And – BAM! – a sucker-punch to the brain.
Cringing, pulling away.
Unh! Where did this come from?
Unrelated to the now
A sudden fracture in time.
Dragged through the portal to act it out again
There, in that when, as surely as she is here now.
One second a woman,
The next, a teen in a moment of utter humiliation
Or a five-year-old crying in shame
Or a twenty-year-old biting her tongue too late.
Then sucked back into the present, shuddering.
Safe harbor after time-travel.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Things to Do: Be More Socially Relevant
However, recent events - specifically the possibility of having an African American candidate for President in the general election - have me thinking about ethnic conflict in America. I mean, sad as it is, it still exists. Some people still hold on to the notion that different means inferior. Get it through your heads people: each of us is different, but we are all human! The thought that some people cannot grasp this sometimes sends me to the brink of despair. I, however, still have hope that we (humanity) can get beyond this. I doubt that I'll live to see it, but I do believe it will happen. Can't say the same for everyone else, though.
I refuse
I reject
The brick wall of never.
Never
Word of terrible weight
Depressing, strangling
Barrier to possibilities.
Never brings tears to eyes
Hopelessness to hearts
Shrivels belief
Kills promise.
I prefer
I embrace
Not in my lifetime
or
Not in the foreseeable future
or
Not until human hearts can be open.
Never is eternal
Guilt and regret
The sins of the parents
Visited on the sons and daughters
The nation
In perpetuity.
Give me a someday
A brilliant future
Of hope, light, and harmony.
But I will never accept never.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Pain Remains the Same
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Anticipation . . .
While I was reading about fibromyalgia at the Mayo Clinic website, I learned that moodiness, anxiety, and depression, which I have been experiencing with increasing frequency over the years, are also symptoms.
So, this leads to another poem. When I started writing it, it was kind of a joke. I've mentioned before my desire to hide under things when I get stressed out. I'm not kidding. Whether it's a school desk, my desk at home, or the bed, if I'm feeling stressed, I imagine myself climbing underneath and hiding. I haven't done it yet. I guess the day it actually happens will be the day I know I have to get help. I've been trying to write about it for a while. I tried a short story, then a poem. The poem did not have the wry humorous tone I was shooting for. It was the first time I realized there actually might something serious beneath (no pun intended) my strange pre-occupation.
i did it –
finally stopped struggling
gravity got me after all –
pulled me right under
finally stopped struggling
i’d held my ground so many times
pulled me right under
the dragging weight – at last
i’d held my ground so many times
voices clamored from every corner
the dragging weight – at last
comes the call, irresistible
voices clamored from every corner
this time I let go
comes the call, irresistible,
and I find myself sliding, sliding
this time I let go
i did it
i find myself sliding, sliding –
gravity got me after all
Thursday, January 24, 2008
How Did This Turn Into My Poetry Blog?
One person’s cheese (product)
With thanks to Linda McDonald
Someone once said:
“One person’s cheese
is another person’s salvation.”
Well, my sights are set a little lower.
So lay off.
This cheese (product) is mine.
I’ll melt it and drizzle it
all over the page if I want.
You can use the Brie or Camembert
and save the world,
but I’ll stick with the cheese (product).
It may be smooth and bland,
but I find it comforting.
So while you’re out worshipping the Gruyere,
I’ll be curled up on the couch with a margarita,
some chips and salsa,
and my cheese (product).
Thought I'd better lighten up a little. Believe it or not, some of my stuff is mighty depressing. But the thought that what might be cheesy to one person might actually touch someone else helps me to be a bit less contained when I write.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Obsessing Over My Children
Turnaround
Here she comes.
Sticky with popsicle residue – human flypaper
Filthy feet fly, legs pump their scabby knees closer
Fingers coated with dirt and God-knows-what
Pure sensation wrapped in slime, dust, and bacteria
And what is that smell?
Joyful sparkle in the eye
Running toward mother’s love
Wash up before you jump on me!
There she goes.
Painstakingly coiffed tresses
Lean, tanned arm terminating in manicured nails
Healthy, scrubbed cheeks
Tinted lips
Each lovely toe tipped with sapphire
Seen in profile, gliding out the door into the night
A last cool glance, wave of the hand
Wait! If I let you roll in mud, will you sit on my lap?
Does anyone else dread the day when their kids won't hug them anymore?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Am I Crazy?
If my interior monologue leaks out from time to time
If I was embarrassed yesterday for something I did a decade ago
If I occasionally get the urge to run away from home
If I wonder how people will feel when I die
If I feel 20 even though I'm pushing 40
If I still lie to my mother to avoid conflict
If I get the urge to crawl under something when I'm stressed
Am I crazy or brilliantly eccentric?
Obviously this blog could be about a lot of things - the approach of middle age, family relationships, fair-to-middling poetry, or insecurity, to name a few. Actually, in my family, we're pretty proud of our craziness. I've even taught my kids that it's okay. Craziness or brilliant eccentricity, whatever you want to call it, seems like a pretty decent topic to me.