In The Graveyard

In the graveyard,
I found lots to do.
I did it, and did it fine, several times and
without you.

In the graveyard,
I made a totem, out of oak leaves and sticks.
I woke Kathryn, wife and mother,
and together, we hit the bricks.

"Kath, babe," I said, as we sprung the grounds crew's traps,
"Wear my jacket. Feel the leather. It's your size."
Then we danced on the roof of the grounds crew's shack,
and that was a lively enterprise.

Later, by the chain link fence,
I held Kath's head on my lap.
I leaned down and kissed her, Mister Kath, Son of Kath.
Now, what d'you think about that?

That evening, by the mausoleum,
she confided that she rarely sees 'em.
Fair enough, quoth Kath, while kicking her feet;
it's been years and years since they saw me.

Boo. It's us. The graveyard girls from plot forty-five.
Dirty as bird's nests, slipping out the gate,
devil-may-care, revived, alive,
with wive's tales to perpetuate.
_________

 

Sunday On The Moon

When Easter came,
we were still on lunar mission.
The men laughed, but we women
wanted new dresses so badly we could taste it.

How to know the winter and its heavy silent snows have gone?
The mild air on our legs.
The light material on our skin.

Ashes to ashes,
as last month the Wednesday came and went.
Dust to dust,
and that we have plenty of,
but here, there is no resurrection,
just craters
and our restlessness made worse by proximity to The White Lady.

Jen began to speak more and more often of apple trees.
Our spartan quarters, the view out the window,
were all white, like blossoms in April.
When she began to laugh for no reason,
and to see snakes in the electrical,
we knew she had crossed, retrograde, into some uncharted sector.

We had only two males on the mission,
now just one.
Jen planted a root-blade in the other,
dreaming of a man-orchard instead of wasteland.
She has undone her own purpose,
and gives her scented wrists indefinitely to the soft restraints
so reminiscent of passing clouds.

Jen-bird, we call her,
Sylvia and I.
Stephens just calls her "that fucking bitch".
It is Easter Sunday on the moon,
and we haven't got even the trappings of religion--
no statue of the Blessed Virgin,
no candles,
no censer.
It is a little shocking how important those trappings become
when they are absolutely, irretrievably absent.

This mission is like hearing an endless, hollow busy signal from hell;
There is hopeless, and then there is hopeless from here.
Sylvia and I made apple blossoms from anything white we could find,
and created a coil tree to lean in a corner of the med lab.
Jen-bird, we said.
Call the snakes, call down temptation--
God knows we could use a little more of it.

Stephens hates us for comforting the murderess,
and for not letting him fuck us.
"The nuns" he calls us, sneering, frustrated.
Jen-bird is the one who would have,
but he is afraid of her now.
Our one joy is offering to turn her loose,
just to hear him call us mad.
We are, oh we are,
and we were, long before we ever saw his face.
________

for Kenia's Sunday challenge at Real Toads!

Book Review: "Life After Life"

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Life After Life" is about Ursula Todd, who keeps being born into the same life again and again, but her choices alter it a little--or a lot--each time. Born in 1910, it becomes clear that her destiny is to try to assassinate Hitler in 1930, before he has a chance to rise to ultimate power.

However, most of the book is taken up with much smaller concerns, and I found it fascinating to watch Ursula grow up, several times, and make different choices in her adult life. Who hasn't wondered what would have been, if one had turned right instead of left, married this person rather than the other one, taken that trip abroad versus not? Ursula, at least, gets to find out, and so do we, along with her.

The most vivid sections of the book, for me, were the descriptions of her childhood home, Fox Corner, and also the wildly contrasting accounts of the London blitz. Atkinson makes it terrifyingly immediate and unforgettable.

I thought that the author did a fine job of making the Todd family and their world real. This writer can write, and I never found a single page of this story dull or predictable. That's some trick when writing the same characters and time frames again and again! Sounds like it might be awful, but it was fascinating.

What wasn't so wonderful to this American reader, born long after the end of WWII, was the way Atkinson throws around acronyms and initials for British wartime organizations without explaining even once what they stand for. Add to that, the endless Britspeak, and I had no idea what they were talking about, at times. This was true especially of their meals. I was utterly in the dark about most of their food. In this same vein, in a longish chapter that takes place in Germany, there is a LOT of German being spoken. Sometimes Atkinson translates, often she does not. It got irritating.

My final problem with the book was the ending. The book is simply 9 pages too long. She had her ending nailed perfectly, and then added two very short chapters that did nothing but muddy the waters, in my view.

I loved this book, admired the way she pulled off a difficult premise, was drawn in by all the characters, and basically couldn't put it down. If not for the complaints about the unexplained arcana ("He...was instructing at an OTU. He was a squadron leader with a DFC." Whatever that means!) and the confusing last two chapters, I would have given it five stars. Still and all, definitely recommended.



View all my reviews

My Bear

My bear
is bigger than your bullshit.

My bear
might stick his nose where it makes you real nervous;
maybe he bite your thing off, maybe he just sayin' hi.

D'joo bring honey for my bear?
Should've. 
My bear gets bored, you'll wish you'd not forgot.

My bear
got claws as long as all next week.
He lets me paint 'em and he don't care.

He's a bear, weigh um-thousand pounds.
Who's gonna say anything?
You?

You say, mind if I open a window?
I say, yeah, I mind.
You say, wut? 
You say, you were just being polite.
You say, you could just open the damn window if you want.

I say, I could just close it again.
Me and my bear.
We like the place warm and stinky, or the bear gets cranky.

How come nobody loves me for long?
Could be my big mouth or my particular ways or my hair.
Couldn't be my bear. 
_______

 
 

Busy World

In a busy world,
it's easy to lose one's bearings.
Old Bushka enchanted the traffic signals,
and Copper Pipe Charlie ended up way the hell out to mile marker 47
going on about Jesus
while Fire Company 3 cut him out of the cab.

Sometimes people just won't shut their pie holes,
and a person can get thirsty for some solitude.
Old Bushka says
the old ways were the best ways,
but she never liked cabbage,
which marked her out among her own as something of an odd duck.

Copper Pipe Charlie never could explain
how he came to be axle-deep in mud out by Caroline Bird's mailbox,
but she came out and kindly held his hand in hers
as if she were Jesus' own receptionist,
while the clouds parted overhead and a silver jetliner circled above them.

CNN can chase their tails all they like--
Old Bushka is the only one who knows where everybody went,
and she's not talking
except to her big split-eared tom.
High on the roof of a Gypsy wagon, he once saw the moon
from closer up than you.

He saw what he saw.
Why do you think you have to ask so many questions,
when the night is warm
and there are more like Caroline Bird
just waiting to be found if you let go and wash up on her shore?
______

Walk

I wanted to walk with you, but
I can walk alone.
You ever walk alone?
Nah, dint think so.

For a long time, every time I looked at you,
I saw
water for the thirsty,
and I was always parched.

Dint matter
if you got skinny, got fat.
Dint matter
what you said, it made my ears cock like I was back in the pack.

Guess you didn't want a woman who thought you were all that.
Guess you didn't want a woman who wanted you
like that.
Guess you didn't want a woman,
and I'm a woman--
one who would have told you all the redfire in her heart,
and never have taken it back.

I wanted to walk with you, but
I can walk alone.
You ever walk alone?
Didn't think so.
________

for Susie's Taking it To The Streets challenge at Real Toads. I hope this fits the bill.  

Girl

She's not a nice girl.
Her kiss takes your breath,
and while you're weak,
she'll take the rest.

She'll have your child,
but bear it dead--
then raise it up
(but just the head.)

Kiss me

instead.
______

for Words Count at Real Toads. 37 words on the nose.