Bee On My Tongue

There is a blush on my cheeks,
the devil in my eye,
and an angel on my shoulder.

I am a red leaf on a white breeze.
I am the woman who can be counted on
not to do what you have told her.

Still, hold me.
Fuck me if you want.
I'll be waiting for the moment when I speak of my desire. 

As a girl, I went to school
and church as I was bidden.
I learned a lot on empty pews in the dark long after choir.

Now--
hold me. Wrap me up and say I'm home.
I'll press my lips so silent-grateful to your ear.

On my tongue, a hidden bee;
queen of sweetness, queen of sting--
feel my fingers in your hair. Hear and shiver. Show no fear.
_____

for Magaly's mini-challenge at Real Toads. Obviously, I wrote about bee #3.

Rosebush

In Rosebush, Tammy left her face on the tavern wall, as per tradition.
It still speaks voiceless poems, but there's been damage to both ears.
In Ishpeming, Lilah screwed the city council one by one, all sexes.
This altered the zoning requirements for her perfect ass. Expiry: five years.

Mount Pleasant hasn't got a hill higher than a cardboard box,
and the gurus all drop their donations at the casino in hopes of a big score.
Behind the development, I showed Kim the streamy trails,
but a cross-breeze talked me into folding and spindling the trees into two-by-fours.

Dad, a Harvard man, had a raccoon coat
and a pennant in a suitcase at the back of the closet at home.
Me, I spend all my time kissing T's face at the tavern
but nobody's yet used to two girls like that and they bet, quite correct,

that I leave
stoned and blown
older, odder,
and alone.
_________

Book Review: "Bang Ditto"

Bang Ditto by Amber Tamblyn

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A friend introduced me to Amber Tamblyn's poetry and I was struck by the little bit that I read and so I bought this book. I wish could say that I liked it as much as I expected to. Tamblyn--daughter of actor Russ Tamblyn and an actress in her own right--truly does have a talent with words. Nothing tired or ordinary ever makes its way into her poetry. Someone who can craft lines like "a vegan blacking out in a glass of milk", "My friends lie to me like a government" and (to a watermelon seed) "I hope you fall in love with a beautiful watering can" has something going on.

However, two things bother me about Bang Ditto. One is, she doesn't seem to have something to say that is worthy of the writing skills she has. The other is that she seems to suffer from the unearned world-weariness common to 20-somethings and especially 20-something writer types. (I know whereof I speak--I was one of them!) Her language and her imagination are plenty enough to grab a reader's attention; she doesn't need the constant mildly vulgar asides and accent on the down side. I'm not suggesting she become some kind of Pollyanna, but we've all had a hangover, Amber. It isn't really very edgy to write about it.

Because she is an actress, there are some interesting pieces having to do with Hollywood, especially the hallucinogenic "The Black Tie Warren." One day, Amber Tamblyn may blow us all away with what she can write, but that time is not yet. She already has the tools, and is worlds better than such celeb "poets" as Richard Thomas, Suzanne Somers and even Jewel, but the substance isn't quite there yet. Watch this space. Until then, don't expect more than she can yet deliver.



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Bukowski

His hero was there
at that party
being an ass.

I was there,
being an ass myself.

"What do you remember?" someone wanted to know,
when the poet
met the poet.

I said I remember him bumping the kitchen table
lumbering to the john.
Somebody mopped up the spilled drinks with an old shirt.

His hero was there.
He wasn't, but he defended his man crush like a defense attorney,
listing the titles and Apocrypha.

How wrong do I have to be
about my own memory
before he mercifully shuts the fuck up?

His hero was there
at that party
being an ass.

I was there,
and now I'm here
biting my tongue so as not to join him.
_______

for Stevens, there at every disaster.
 

Nuns

The nuns kept birds
and, by necessity,
kept it from the diocese. 

The nuns kept chaste,
but kept birds against the loneliness
because symbolic husbands never come home.

I live in the nuns' quarters,
now renovated with appliances and art on the walls,
but still silent at sundown.

I know what a calling is,
and for that I am as quaint as a rare sparrow.
Is there even such a thing?

Mornings, I think about you,
but I keep it to myself; only my body knows the lie
I tell, by my silence, my hymn unsung.

My love, you are a birdkeeper.
You've sent me a picture, and your face is the air;
before I can think, my arms open,

knowing more by instinct than any censure can deny.
_______

for Real Toads birds challenge
 

Book Review: "Nickel A Pack"

Nickel a Pack by Jim Worsley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I grew up in the 1960s in a conservative white neighborhood as this author did, and I, too, was bitten by the baseball bug. Part of that was collecting the bubble gum cards, which used to be--as the title says--a nickel a pack, for five cards and a stick of gum. From the title, one would expect this book to be more about the cards than it is, especially the Topps cards that were pretty much the only cards in that era. But the book gives them short shrift, with few images of them, but a lot about the rare "exhibit" cards, and images of those, and Fleers, which weren't common in the 60s.

That said, "Nickel A Pack" is a wonderful memoir about a certain kind of childhood, touched by the magic of baseball in a bygone era. To read this book is to be transported to a time when getting cards you didn't have, or receiving a player's autograph, or seeing them play in person was a magical thing, something beloved at the time and in memory. I still have the autographs I collected around 1970, and so does Jim Worsley.

He talks about spending an afternoon going to the beach with Tony Conigliaro (!), finding a baseball card machine hidden in a dusty corner of an arcade and discovering that it is full of rare cards for a penny a piece, driving his first car to the Big A with Brooks Robinson in the back seat (he had missed the team bus) and meeting a woman whose son had died and who wants Jim to have the son's card collection.

There is more, too. Worsley talks about steroids and sabermetrics, the changes that have taken something away from the game he loves. He talks, also, about traveling to Cooperstown, New York, to see the National Baseball Hall Of Fame. This book is a love story, about childhood, about heroes who seemed larger than life, about a lifelong fascination with a beautiful sport. If you like baseball and grew up in the 60s, this is for you.



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A few survivors from my once-extensive collection. (For the record, I liked Barbies, too!)

Book Review: "You Should Pity Us Instead"

You Should Pity Us Instead by Amy Gustine

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The writing itself is top flight, and every story pulled me in immediately. Three of the stories will stay with me. The first is "Goldene Medene" which takes place at Ellis island. A doctor who is supposed to be inspecting strictly for eye disease and insanity has "vision" and emotional issues of his own, his mind being on a love interest who snubbed him. His mood carries over with perhaps disastrous results for three people trying to get through to a new life in America. The second is "An Uncontaminated Soul", a story about a woman who, after her husband's suicide, becomes a stereotypical crazy cat lady. It's the best in the collection, in my view. The third is "Prisoners Do" (live on bread and water) about a man taking care of his wife and family after the wife's stroke leaves her disabled, at the expense of his own needs. Also good was "AKA Juan" about a black man adopted by a white family.

So, why just two stars? Because of two stories, both in the latter part of the book, and both dealing with characters' cruelty to innocents because of their own issues with someone else. "The River Warta" could have been a good story, about a woman who immigrates to the U.S. from Poland at the turn of the 20th century, but the horror story ending was unexpected and distressing. Suffice to say, she reveals that she decided to leave Poland because of her damaged parents taking out their mutual hatred on each other's cat and dog. This is the sort of stuff I don't need in my head and I felt it was way too far over the top to have any literary justification. This was the 9th of 11 stories and really blindsided me. I decided right then that this book was going in the circular file as soon as I finished, but hey, just 2 stories left, so press on. Mistake.

The story in between--"When We're Innocent"--was kind of strange, and left me feeling like "what was the point of all that?", but wasn't so bad. Then came the final story, "Half-Life" which is about a nanny who targets an unsuspecting family for revenge because she has an ax to grind with the woman's father, a judge. So, naturally, she practices cruelties on the 5 year old and the baby. This one I had to skip some of, I just couldn't justify reading it. I don't think anything about the story made it worth reading such stuff. Yes, life is horrible sometimes, and people do horrifying things, but when you're writing literature, it had better have a reason for being written about that transcends the mud and cruelty.

I gave this two stars for the 9 stories that were pretty good, but in all honesty, I would never recommend this collection to anyone, and because of the two stories near the end, I really give it zero stars. Yes, it's well written, but that doesn't counterbalance the subject matter. Ugh.



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