Missives from Wonderland

Picked up a book of daily poetry prompts for myself back in January. Finally used it. Good to flex the writing muscles.



Here is the poem, for those who can't read what a friend once called my "crazy grandmother" handwriting.

1 - New Year's Resolution
Write daily. Lock down the slamming
heart, anxious breath. Calm
the frenzied mind and
focus. Ignore twinges of muscle ache,
nudges from tasks undone. The gaze
that wonders to mounds of dry
grass, yellowed by harsh days. Weathered
roofs, scarcely able to contain
another storm, wind blast, torrent. How
to tune all the heartache out? How
to turn it from lurid to lyrical?
Or is that even the point? Perhaps,
yet, to open gates and let in
the words you'd least like
to accept. To witness, to set
into permanency all that you see?

This is my entry for Week 7 of LJ Idol. The topic this week is hikikomori.

How to Be an (Undercover) Hermit

Make a cave inside
your mind: moss-lush, or candle-sparse. Lined
with books or fluffy cashmere. Stocked
with chamomile, or slushy with gin.
Steamy baths or cold gel masks.
Filled with ballads and chants,
or aggressive guitar riffs, or water
plunking rhythmically.

When overwhelmed with clamor, inhale
deeply; blow open the flap
and escape within.



A photo I took a few years ago inside Penn's Cave showing silhouetted formations against multicolored lights.

This is my entry for Week 3 of LJ Idol. The topic this week is "Without You."

Graffiti Pier (Motherhood in a Nutshell)

Today, in a gray
hat suitable for the Outback,
you head for Graffiti Pier
with art camp. To contribute your
beautiful chaos. In photos, flashing
consummate V's betwixt
layered color. Carnivorous
plant, axolotl, deep words,
sunglasses and trench coat,
your group's additions. Each
taking over a space, spraying
onto primed cement. The pier

awash with voices. All those seasons of
painters -- like you now -- at once
alone on this concrete island. Together,
a cacophony. A chorus. And then
you, with blued hands, inked sleeve, spinning
away into your own orbit.

~~~

Thanks for Dr. Finn's "Plop and a Plunk" art camp for the inspiration.

Here's an image of KFP at Graffiti Pier with his creation, the logo for Wrenchcoat Labs, a fictional organization he invented: Wrenchcoat Labs

Here's more about Graffiti Pier

This is my entry for Week 13 of the Three Strikes season of LJ Idol. This week's topic is "Kintsugi." For those unfamiliar with the term, "Kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum; the method is similar to the maki-e technique."

Kintsugi Heart

Run your finger over the ridges, golden
seams fusing together the cracks. This one,
time-darkened, marks the moment
your good friend Heather
turned on you, snatching
your hat as you descended
from the bus, tossing it
viciously to her new friend. They
cackled as you jumped, frantic to reclaim
your hat, or dignity, before you rushed
up the hill on rubbery legs, face aflame.

Or this, with a patina from years
of rubbing the uneven surface, healing
the fracture caused by your low-rent
Spike* cheating on you with an earthy
brunette. The moment described to you
by her roommate, in annihilating detail,
like peeking through a portrait hole. Now,
softened by years, that burnished
bond has rounded edges, made
meaningless. Him? That wretched
pilferer of hearts? As if.

A series of fissures, latticework
from childhood to middle age. Each
disjunction lovingly patched
to hold the whole: the one who
wouldn't say I love you and dumped you
at a business meeting; the crush
who mocked you in school as you hid; a fractious
first husband, bent on wind and chaos.
All these, softened and soothed
with smooth, shining filaments.

Even the cleft that threatened to rupture
all, seven years ago, as your mother
danced from earth
in morning's wee hours. Even that gulf,
leafed and sottered. Tempered
by the worrying finger. The way
her bright, improbable colors
peer down at you in the pastel works
she left you. Her calm voice
in dreams, reminding you. She
first taught you how to heal. This
endless work.

Created by the AI art project at craiyon.com, by inputting the term "kintsugi heart"

* I call him Spike here because of his passing resemblance to the character from Buffy. He, however, had no redemption arc.

This is my entry for LJ Idol. The topic this week is "craic," an Irish term which means "an enjoyable social activity, a good time; great company and lively conversation."

KFP on a bumper car, looking aglow with joy

Turning 12, on Bumper Cars

Spinning blissfully, the five boys
each turn inward. As if with one mind,
they stare at one another in silent
communion. Their elongated legs
crooked to reach the pedals, they gaze
at one another. Paused,
for just this moment --

then someone releases a primal
yawp. They whirl furiously onward,
bumping collegially, almost
apologetically, as they
expand ever outward.

---

In honor of KFP, who turned 12 this week, having a rip-roaring good time with friends at an indoor fun center.

This is my entry for Week 7 of ()LJ Idol. This week's topic was “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Stronger

When you want to punch
life in the throat, pick up
weights and do ten bicep curls.
Pump until your fibers burn.

When the nightmare closes in --
being a self-aware adult, that is -- drop
to your knees and do
twenty pushups. Throw in
some bonus tricep pushups.

With war swirling, with dystopia
closing in, bend your knees
and do thirty squat jumps
until your thighs smolder. Nothing
can survive that flame. Perish
thoughts with six minutes
of bicycle twists and weighted
crunches. Return your mind
inside your scorching self. Push
until you feel you might incinerate.

Then breathe.

Me before my workout today, making a muscle

This is my entry for Week 5 of LJ Idol, Three Strikes (http://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org). The topic this week is "Kuchisabishii," a Japanese term which refers to eating when you're not hungry, and is directly translated as "lonely mouth."

Me at poolside before class

Lonely Mouth

After class, she finds me
in the hot tub. Calls out cheerily, then launches
her litany of woes. This week, she'll see
a general practitioner
a G.I. specialist
a neurologist
a chiropractor
a podiatrist
a nutritionist
for diagnosis and treatment.

At 90-plus, her pains multiply. So many
chronic conditions, seeping into bones
and sinew, clogging up arteries,
impeding the natural flow of fluids
and air. Yet, she keeps going, keeps
moving in my aqua fitness class,
never complaining about
the challenges as we move
and groove to the beat. She's
given me these updates ever since
I first greeted her with a friendly
"How are you feeling today?"

Each day, her ailments change,
a perpetual tide, rising and falling.
The reality she battles, building
pressure inside her mouth. Bursting
out to seep into a welcoming ear.

This is my entry for week four of LJ Idol Minor+, with the topic "Happy." You can read the rest of the entries here: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1107400.html

The Pony

One-handed, she leads you
across the twilit loam,
matching your loose gait.
You are gray as doves with
a mane of dried grass. She
is milk and treebark. Later
she will brush burrs
and pollen from your
flax; feed you grained
goodness and, sometimes
sing a lullaby. Though
you would call it a sweet
neighing, melodic
whinny calling you
to sleep's fields.

This is my entry for therealljidol. This week is an open topic, so I chose to write about something I've been thinking about a lot, ever since publishing a piece by actor Raymond J. Barry in Wild Violet where he mentioned his mother was also gay.

Wait a minute. Did she just say
my son looked gay? In his Navy blue
pea coat, his red and black tassled hat.
His chosen winter get-up at age 5.

An elderly acquaintance observed, If I'd
put that on my sons, they would have told me,
'That looks gay, Mom.' Stunned, I wonder:
Should I mention that my Mom
was gay? I just answered, They shouldn't
talk like that. Marked her down
in my book of who not to trust.

My mom, the artist, the gardener, was deliberately
nondescript. Blending into small-town
life, with the female "friend," who just happened
to live with her. Living like
a fugitive, hiding in plain sight.

In the 1960s, she'd wanted a family, impossible
for a single woman, let alone
a lesbian. She chose the simplest answer:
to pair up with her cheerful fellow clarinetist
that she did love, for a time, if her own
hand-written diary entries can be believed.
My dad: optimistic, gentle and supportive.
She didn't lie to him. He just thought
he could change her.

As a kid, I demanded traditional holidays.
Carols and hot chocolate at Christmas.
Santa, cookies and milk. Trying
to fill a gap I couldn't articulate. Hoping
if we behaved like a storybook, the pieces
would fall into place.

When I was in high school and my parents
separated, I felt strange relief. Tension
evaporated, my parents becoming
friends, as perhaps predestined.

I remembered Mom telling me about Uncle Harry.
He'd been gay but married her mother's sister anyway.
She'd always taken glee in this story. Always
seemed sneaky to me. Fine for Harry,
but what about his wife?

My siblings and I took note of a new friend
who acted furtive around us. Took off
suddenly when I came downstairs for water
and an aspirin, to find them sitting in the dark.

One bright autumn day, Mom and I
zipped down country roads in her hatchback.
I have something to tell you, she said,
eyes welling with tears. Her face flushed red.
I'm gay, she near whispered.

It's all right, Mom. I've known for years. And your daughter
wears Army boots, I said, propping my feet on the dashboard,
clad in Vietnam issue swamp boots. This scene
became one of her favorite stories.

Raised in a world where shame and scandal
followed truth, my Mom did what she could
to secure the life she wanted. We kids,
her enduring loves. Not exactly her fault
her rescuer kept hoping the maiden would
finally fall for him.

Happily ever after can be
complicated. No black-and-white endings
in a full-color world.

My mother, Vivian Starr, holds my son soon after his birth.

This is my entry for LJ Idol - Survivor, with the topic "Keel-hauling."

Keel-Hauling

Tethered by my umbilical
I scrambled topside,
mouth opening to suck in
amniotic deluge, viscid
meconium, as forceps
pulled my bulbous head.
I burst to the surface,
too weak to cry. A bulb syringe
drained my brackish lungs,
and I gasped, mewling
for comfort. Was lifted into the arms

of an incubator, white noise
suffocating sound. An ocean
away, my mother grieved
the normalcy they said I'd never
see. My future
stifled by my striving for sun,
my early days plunged
into uncertainty. Every crawl
forward, word uttered, step
taken, my mother celebrated
her miraculous daughter, reborn from salt.