The Death of November

 

November has died, of a fever, in bed

under gray blankets made of wind and dusk.

I had called out to it before, full of a strange joy,

saying, 

                   see how the maples and pear trees

                   send their red-haired daughters down

                   like roses from the pale hands of virgins

to lie at the feet of autumn's wounded matador.

November has died, and must be sewn into

 a snow-shroud to be carried by somber hearse

past the last of the violets by the garden wall,

still living

                        like children up past their bedtimes,

                        wearing brocade vests, leather shoes

                       and shirts with sleeves of brilliant green

waiting for the west to swallow their parents, and their pasts.

November has died, and the shade has been drawn.

A new lodger arrives, talking too loudly, eyes as bright

as polished coins, holding a glazed sweet in one hand

raised up

                         as if it were a goblet full of honey, taking no

                         notice of the widows with their black mantillas

                         wrapping the last cornbread cake in a cloth,

for the sad mongrel who lies down on November's chilly grave.

______________-

Word Garden Word List--The Prodigy

 Hello my little adding machines, and welcome to this week's Word Garden Word List poetry prompt! 

This time, our source is Amy Wallace's fascinating biography of William James Sidis, entitled The Prodigy. I read it way back in 1988 (I have kept a book log since late1987)and have never forgotten it. 

Amy Wallace

Never heard of Willam James Sidis? Well, back in 1910, his name was synonymous with the phrase "child prodigy." His IQ was estimated to be 50-100 points higher than Einstein's. His father was a pioneer in the field of abnormal psychology; he and his wife believed that they could create a genius in the cradle. They hung ABC blocks above his crib and within six months little Billy was speaking. At three, he was typing and had taught himself Latin! At five, he wrote a treatise on anatomy, and at six he spoke at least seven languages fluently. 

The youngster enrolled at Harvard at age eleven, stunned the nation with a lecture on four-dimensional bodies, and articles about him ran on the front pages of the nation's leading newspapers. Graduating at sixteen, he was desperate for privacy.

William had had enough, and staged a dramatic rebellion against his parents, academia, and the world's expectations. It began with jail and a scandalous trial. He then drifted from one menial job to another, concealing his genius but writing a number of books on various subjects using pseudonyms. One of these dealt with his favorite hobby--the collecting of streetcar transfers. 

Today, his name means one thing to a handful of educators--a burned out failure who died, ironically, of a cerebral hemorrhage.  But now, in an era of parents frantically trying to push their children into achievement at ever-earlier ages, William James Sidis's story is more relevant than ever. In his own way, Sidis's life was a success of living on his own terms, rather than everyone else's.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of one's own. Then simply link up, visit others, and do the math, dahling. This prompt remains active through Saturday.

And now, your List:

books

cotton

cram

dishes

enormous

famous

fat

girls

hellish

instantly

legend

love letters

midnight

numbered

problems

rained

riot

sewing

Sunday

trance 

Ode to a Chrome Cradle

 

The Ford Rotunda burning down, 1962.

It was decided

by women who had lost their sons

that there should be no more Sundays

in Detroit.

It was decided

by girls with broken dishes for bones

that all sewing should be done with dope needles

and veinous thread.

It was traditional

for the underground tunnel to Canada

to be filled with shredded tires and bent hubcaps

from fatalities.

In Detroit, the mediums

predict things that have already happened,

going into trance states instantly upon hearing

old Motown. 

It was decided

that love letters be made mandatory

for bums and debutantes whose heads rot softly

like pumpkins.

It was considered good form

for fat golfers to dole out mulligan freeways

through Black Bottom but never the fresh greensward

of Oakland county.

It was decided

in the end, that all elms be destroyed by fungi

and burned every Christmas at Ford Rotunda, disappearing

in tandem, brightly.

_________

The Detroit riots 1967

For Word Garden Word List--The Prodigy

Music: The Shangri-La's Leader of the Pack

Process notes: I grew up in well-off Oakland county, just a bop down Woodward Avenue from Detroit. I still remember being taken to the Ford Rotunda at Christmas when I was a small child. There were live reindeer, and my brother always got a toy version of a concept car. It burned down in 1962. I was seven years old.

In 1967, the city exploded in a riot after the police raided an after-hours "blind pig" nightclub. After decades of being hassled by Detroit police, the people there had finally had enough and fought back. I stood on the corner of Woodward Avenue up in my safe white suburb and watched the smoke rise over Detroit. I'll never forget it, and things would never be the same again.

Gobble Day

"Sunday Visitors" by George Hughes

 Everybody's back for the holiday;

Daddy's got his football on and he's 

instructing them in the way they should go.

No! No! Up the middle every time!

Flag? What for, refs? Open your eyes!

Today's game brought to you by Target,

Chevy trucks, Placebonol, and Applebee's.

Big brother is blundering around,

chasing the dog with his squeaky.

He steps on little sis's foot--she says, Sorry!

Older sis is opining to cousin Lisa

about her and Kyle's new house and she's

fixing it up just the way it should be.

So these workers doing the tile,

they're hopeless! Mexican or something,

I might as well do it all myself!

Uncle's eyes are more glazed

than last year's ham. Bottoms up!

Mommy's in the kitchen stuffing the kids

and dressing the turkey. She's got spices

on the counter and gin in the cupboard.

No dear, thanks, I don't need any help

unless...could you set the table on the dishes?

Use the good salt and pooper shakers.

Daddy's really angry now, his blood pressure

high and his blood sugar low. Idiots! Dumbbells!

Lisa looks lobotomized. Older sis is still talking. 

Everybody's back for the holiday.

The dog drops his toy in the gravy boat;

Rough seas, Cap'n! shouts older bro

as the two of them high-tail it upstairs.

Mommy has basted the kids and taped

the potatoes to the fridge. 

I think that looks nice, don't you dear?

We always used to.... do something or...

Daddy shouts, Where's that bird?

Mommy collapses in a kitchen chair, crying.

Big bro and the dog come thundering downstairs.

Lisa has left, Uncle is face-down in the cranberries.

Oh, Kyle, it is chaos here, just chaos.

Are those workers doing the sun room today?

Well why not? Oh, right, I suppose.

Daddy shouts, What's wrong, Lillian? 

Mommy falls out of her kitchen chair laughing.

Granny screams, Merry Christmas!  

It's Gobble Day, Gramma. Mwah!

------------------

For What's Going On? "Feast"

Poets' Bento Box

 I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell--

a bento box where our lines were laid.

I dug our grave with a silver spade

but then in a dream, a kiss delayed

like a sweetly sorrowful gift from Hell-- 

I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell.

_______________

a triolet for Word Garden Word List--The Return of Ellie Black

TLDR:

Dave Van Ronk, in the song Motherless Children, sings these lines:

Dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade

make damn sure that the digger gets paid

He also does a song Old Blue about a beloved dog who dies. He sings:

I dug his grave with a silver spade

lowered him down with a golden chain

I kind of combined the two in my triolet, which is not about motherlessness or dogs, but is about an old relationship. The bento box denotes the compartmentalization of it. 

In the 19th century, there was a great fear of premature burial. A solution was offered in the form of "safety" coffins, which had a bell above ground attached to a string underground and placed in the corpse's hand. In the event of premature burial, the person could ring the bell to summon help.

Finally--and my process notes are now quite a bit longer than my triolet!--I had a dream recently that a person I had put out of my mind came to me and kissed me tenderly on the cheek, bringing back old feelings, if only in that moment. A paper bell, if you will. 

Music: Elton John Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding

Word Garden Word List--The Return of Ellie Black

 Hello my little jive turkeys! Let's do the Jumpin' Jive and jump right in with this week's Word List poetry prompt!

Every year at this time, Poetryville is filled to its eye teeth with prompts centered on gratitude. Speaking as a card-carrying jive turkey, I have no appetite for yet another one, and so this week's prompt has zero to do with gratitude unless you are a churlish crank like me and are grateful this isn't a gratitude prompt!

I have just recently finished a humdinger of a thriller by Emiko Jean entitled The Return of Ellie Black. I absolutely could not put it down. It concerns a teenage girl who is abducted when she wanders away from a party alone. Two years later, she reappears, discovered by two hikers, alive. 

Emiko Jean

Where has she been? Who took her? How did she escape? She's not saying much, which is a mystery in itself. If you enjoy this kind of novel, read this one!

Meanwhile, what we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of your own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then be discovered at some distant later date carrying a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes and asking, " Could you pass the cranberry salad, please?"

And now, your List:

bento box

baby

bandana

bento box

chatter

dizzy

eyes

flipped

gestures

gift

hand

loop

maroon

nervous

ocean

paper

perpetual

seven

vulnerable

wheel

world

Black Calla Lilies On My Grave

 

When my home was made in the wind

in owl-silence, as patient as the planets,

black calla lilies grew upon my grave

where Hera's spilled drops transformed.

I had a million sisters, the scattered stars,

a sibling mobile telling night-stories

as I slept on the silver surface of a stream.

My mother was the moon; my father flame.

Black calla lilies grow upon my grave,

where I was born into flesh, a sentient stone.

I wandered off, unattended or so it seemed,

and made my home in sand and sorrow.

Like a branch in the rain, my body grows

heavy, a stiff cocoon my winding sheet.

Below me, the black calla lilies watch

as if I were now the sister-star singing.

Where is the wind where I made my home?

Where the owl-silence and the patient planets?

By day my father whittles, by night my mother shines,

whispering, " 'Calla' means 'beauty' dear child--

Come home to the lilies, to the wind, and to us."

________

for What's Going On? --"say it with flowers"

Music: Ane Brun All My Tears

Still Life w/ Cryptids

 

The fox with a layer in its mouth explained:

it is merely a totem,

a representation

or avatar,

but the hen's red throat 

called bullshit

as it died.

The women with stones in their pockets

were made lonely by the waters of the river.

They sang, their heavy diver's helmets ringing

with rare harmonics

hailed by critics

panned by pop fans

and made more difficult to understand

the further from the surface they sank.

Everyone said it would be the moon,

but it was the sun who went mad,

incinerating gardens in an afternoon.

Cosplay Aztecs

held up hearts

in their palms.

Please join us for the afterglow

with refreshments and a swag bag.

Everyone thought that the baby's first word

would be "Mama", but it was "Dada." 

Tristan Tzara's disciple Marcel Duchamp

 presented the child as a readymade

with orange tail

and silver helmet,

an artless objet d'art he named L.H.O.O.Q.

with enigmatic smile + mustache. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go. 

Music: DJ Dero The Horn (El Tren) Batucada'n Bass Mix

Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go

 

Hello my little Sunday drivers, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! Our source this week is Rand Richard Cooper's collection of interconnected short stories entitled The Last To Go: A Family Chronicle. It came out in 1988. I read it then and have never forgotten it. 

I feel that Rand Richards Cooper is a supremely skilled and marvelously observant writer, but somehow it seems that he did not receive the attention he should have IMO. I am to blame myself, as I never pursued any of his other books, most of which are now out of print. I did find one of them at Thriftbooks.com while preparing this List, though, and ordered it.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and then sit back for a nice family dinner. Or not. (You can always substitute in the family pets instead and stay home with them!)

And now, your List:

always

angles

bump

colored

expected

expression

flashlight

gardens

hiding

inkwell

jealous

layer

lighted

limped

older

pockets

sang

totem

winter

wrong 

 

Mistral

 

In Spring the madding winds arrive

and leave the winter to its dreams

of fools such as my love and I.

In your eyes Provence does lie--

false Spring is never what it seems

when Mistral sings the lullaby. 

The ring is left to rust and die

by drowning pool or icy stream

while scudding clouds above it fly.

Your wind has temper come alive

to kill the bud or turn the cream

and howl unchecked to Italy.

So comes the Mistral, mad with spring

My love, destroying everything.

_______

for Dverse Meeting the Bar "Wild Wind."

The mistral is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. It produces sustained winds averaging 31 miles an hour.

It is said that madness occurs particularly often in the Spring. I believe it.

Clover Flowers

 

I have a memory of a clover field--

white flowers in the warm June green

like spilled sugar on a farm wife's sleeve.

I have a memory of a spring lamb--

carried to the shed as the ewe screams

under a summer sky blank as muslin.

In the farm house, an old couch.

a television, and a sturdy oak table.

There is a savory aroma and mint jelly

set out with the white china plates.

My memories mix like a bowl of vegetables,

gravy on the tablecloth, blood on the ax.

I don't like to remember,

even in summer, on a bright afternoon.

_______

for What's Going On? "Memory"

Music: Cat Stevens Into White

My Despair

—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man  --e.e. cummings

I spoke to my despair

in a voice that October

wears around its injured throat

on a chain of dripping water.

Because the nights are too long,

I sew their darkness into a jacket

and on the sleeves are

embroidered golden snakes.

I sit at a table made of the world

with legs of heirloom iron and wind.

Young men run past, shouting

and dragging morning to her grave.

In evening, I speak to the cardinal

who comes to my window like a Gypsy.

I say, the dawn is still in love with you

but a snake strikes the cardinal

from my sleeves

and my despair.

______________

for Dverse Poetics "Reflections" The image by Andrew Ridley and the quote by e.e. cummings are required. 

Don't forget that Word Garden Word List remains active through Saturday. 

Word Garden Word List--Joy School

 

Elizabeth Berg

Hello everyone and welcome to the Word List on its new day, Sunday. Originally, I did not choose Sunday because I didn't want to compete with Carrie's Sunday Muse, but that's not an issue now, so here we go. 

This week our source is Elizabeth Berg's 1997 novel Joy School. I have read seven of her novels and liked them all, but this one is my special favorite. Some novelists are all over the map, one stunning read, one awful one, and one in between, rinse, repeat. (Anne Tyler, I'm looking at you.) Elizabeth Berg, though, is money. She always delivers a wise, entertaining, heart-tugging story. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then go skating or something! This List remains active through Saturday. 

And now, your List:

automatic

book

brains

cookbook

dismal

evaporated

exact

fix

iceberg

luxury

museum

narrow

newspaper

punch

skate

spray

unfolding

vase

whole

witch

Pomegranate & Oleander

 

I traveled through an arid land

where pomegranate trees bent like new widows

to find myself in a room with white stucco walls,

an almond in batter, with oleanders in a vase. 

Scarlet oleanders, delicate and bright, fragile

pages of dawn in a book of finite days.

The windows are narrow and look out on the bay

blue with white edges, sewn for a tide that never stays.

White boats like a spray of Nerium oleander

on a blue-edged plate set in a shifting hutch,

or whites of eyes from evaporated dreams

of a lover on an iceberg, things slowly lost and such.

I traveled through an arid land

a museum of what not to become,

born from a pomegranate seed,

fed on oleander, a gull duty-married to a setting sun.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Joy School.

The Dark Bird

 

Behold the dark bird,

new as a fresh injury

old as antiquity

spreading its wings 

bespangled with collected eyes.

Millions cheer the dark bird.

empty sockets over their grins

like twin red suns

over a planted scythe.

Behold the dark bird

in all its majesty and power,

its feathers tipped with blades

and blades are most of what it is,

wounding all, even itself.

All hail the dark bird

whose spread tail obscures

the east, its head devouring the rest.

Kneel to the dark bird

and behold in its bones

your own grave.

_______________

Music: Cream Deserted Cities of the Heart by Jack Bruce and poet Peter Brown

Poet

 The futility of being a poet in a country that loves hate. 

Slough O' Despond

 

Welcome to the Slough O' Despond Shopper!

Oh, the warmhearted clerk you liked won't be back--

we chained her to a stove and dumped the stove down the 

roiling 

          oilspill

                     of our ravenous bellies.

Don't be bitter, we still offer a wide selection

of watery logic and dubious ingredients.

Our highly satisfactory laundry products get everything

whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes

when we ride him into our slaughterdreams

which are

                 members-only

                                           and fully automatic. 

Check out today's special! BOGO on genders

of which there are two but only one matters.

Recite with us our shopper's guarantee! We

pledge allegiance to our public, but only

those who happened to be born in our parking lot. 

Come on,

                 crawl in, 

                                leap in, but don't look 

at the price tags cleverly hidden in plain sight and doubled every day.

_________________

for Word Garden Word List and WGO? open link. 

"Slough O' Despond Shopper" taken from a line in Grover Lewis's poem You Know Where. 

I am in a state of utter despair today about my country and the apparently innumerable people in it who just voted in a doddering Christo-fascist dictator.

Music: Celine Dion Think Twice. It's a break-up song. It reminds me of my country.