Here's Babs With the NALC Food Drive !

Lambs, I'm so excited! It is time once again for the Letter Carriers' Food Drive! This Saturday, put out cases of 1929 Chateau Rothschild, semi trailers filled with beluga caviar, or whatever other trifles you can spare! It's all for a good cause...to get the hungry to stuff something in their whiney pie holes and leave us in peace to play Mah Jong already!

However, some mail carriers seem to have an attitude. Last year, I left 70 cases of premium ice cream out by the mailbox, and my lazy, overpaid, nasty little mail lady left it there! She mumbled something unpleasant about it being "perishable." Perishable? So's your job, honey. Who sends anything by snail mail anymore? I always just roll up notes and stick them in one of the help's collar, then send them off, with bus fare, to wherever I want the note to go.

Anyway, give give give! Oh, I feel saintly now, like Jesus, except with better bust and thighs.

Air Kisses,

Babs

(Babs St Argent is the gal with it all, from the late Objets D'art blog! This post appeared there one year ago under the title "Pheasant Under Glass For The Hungry". Fireblossom would have posted a beautiful new original poem instead, but she will be lugging &%$#@ canned goods around all day and must conserve her delicate self for this undeserved punishment worthy task.) 

Music Box

I brought a music box in from the snow and raised it.

It called to me in the deep blue nights, and I wrapped my body around it to give it lullabies.

It gave me being needed, and there we were--

flesh and cylinder--

a blizzard of simple melodies in the middle of the night.

_____

55 words for the G Man. 

 

Book Review: Best Kept Secret

Best Kept Secret by Amy Hatvany

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book was recommended to me after I had read Ann Leary's "The Good House" a little while back, and I am so glad that I got the chance to know about this novel and to read it. "Best Kept Secret" is the story of Cadence (what a cool name!), a woman whose marriage to workaholic Martin has ended in divorce, leaving her to raise her young son Charlie alone. Having given up her job at a major newspaper in order to stay home and freelance, Cadence worries whether she can generate enough income to support herself and Charlie. In a lot of ways, Cadence measures herself against her thinner, more popular sister, her driven mother, and the other moms at the play group and sees herself as coming up short.

Lo and behold, a glass of wine seems to take the edge off. What could be the harm? Then she needs two, to get that same feeling of being at home in her own skin, then one bottle, then two. Although she loves her son fiercely, she begins to slip, until the night she leaves him alone in order to run to the store for more wine.

Suddenly, Cadence finds herself in a battle for custody of her son, and for sobriety in the face of a sneaky foe that has snuck up on her and taken over her life.

As a recovering alcoholic myself--27 years sober--I found myself identifying with Cadence at every turn. I liked her; she clearly loves her son fiercely, she shares my love of cooking and good food, and she was just the kind of good-hearted but vulnerable person one can't help but root for.

Being a woman alcoholic comes with its own special troupe of demons, and Cadence meets them all, from the sour, starched ex-mother in law's withering scorn, to the snarky alpha moms at the coffee shop, to the enormous challenge of making peace with having been drunk in front of her son and having put him at risk. One of the surprises Cadence encounters is that her "best kept secret" wasn't very secret at all.

I loved this book. The author has a real knack for creating real characters who are neither all good nor all bad, but simply and heartbreakingly human. I loved Cadence and her son. I recognized all the secondary characters. Only someone who has undergone this journey could have written about it so marvelously. One of the beautiful things about recovery is that you find out you're not alone. This book was like listening to a friend who gets it. That said, this isn't just a novel for people with addiction issues. I think anyone with a heart would enjoy it. Highly recommended.



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Gypsy Love Poem

for STWIASD

My bones take their bend from the curve of the moon--
your silence is as rich as the knife's edge or its ivory handle.

I am the little nightjar on your silver-lit lawn.
You are the surf forming itself into patterns of lace.

I am the Gypsy, keeping your heart in a deep red velvet pouch, loose and open;
held in my fine nightblind fingers to the life-warmth at my breasts,
two hearts, ours,
each with a scarce rare beat.

I speak your name, I open.
You speak my name, it comes back.
The stars themselves turn
on such language as this.

My Love,
I will always be yours.
Your hair is my dark bed to adore and seek out--
I am set off there, a small star,
a celestial navigation of skin and soul.

Together, we are the safe-place despaired of and then born
in this strange fire that dares to build as it burns.
_______

 

A Shy Girl's Apology Comes Too Late

I am shy--
to the last or the nth degree,
depending upon my mood.

I hide from the males--
bigger, bolder--
less inclined to bother with formalities as they get older.

I'm a quiet girl--
padding softly, barely breathing.
I don't like sloppy unplanned meetings.

Soft as a whisper, careful as a lie--
out on a limb
when the sun is high.

I am shy--
a spotty rumor, or a golden-eyed beauty
depending upon my mood.

So, you must forgive me
if my approach seems rude--
I couldn't help noticing that you're made of food.
________

for Hannahballistic's Transforming Friday!

Old Fashioned

I'm old fashioned, so people tell me.
I wear a wide brimmed feathered hat when the weather turns nice,
and I eat ice cream from a silver bowl,
as unhurried as a house cat.

I don't drive--
I stay by the side of the road, wearing my high button boots
and a sash of deep sky blue.
There are cirrus clouds that move faster than I do.
I like to watch them and give them names
like Gwendolyn, Lillian, and Marguerite.

Come calling, one of these days.
The glider on the wrap around porch has seemed poorly balanced to me;
it turns street-side by itself, as if to look for you,
when all I want to do is to listen to the bees in the honeysuckle or the catmint,
and to fan myself as I read my Emily Dickinson.

I'm old fashioned, that's the rumor.
Maybe that's why I hold my tongue and shade my eyes,
only dropping my reserve around Rose, the old calico.
She knows your ways,
because hers are the same.
So, if I'm patient and rub underneath her chin in exactly the right way,
she'll rumble and spill.

Pussy will undo you, like fingers pulling pink ribbons.
That's when I'll spring and make you mine, the old fashioned way--
believe me, little bird,
mark my words!
________

Concocted from a scrap of comment I made at Verse Escape, about something entirely different. Sometimes my imagination takes off without me!

 

Two Ways Of Courting Lorelei

I gave Lorelei the usual sweets--
she cursed the stuff and spat;

I charmed the birds down from the trees--
Lorelei played the cat.

I hid my heart, denied desire,
and waited where I sat

to hypnotize, but Lorelei's
too wise, by half, for that.
_______

Exactly 45 words for Mama Zen's Words Count