last poems

ADD Man – 30,000 Feet Above Wyoming

I spotted him in the security line - jittery, drinking a coffee, talking on a cell phone,
Loudly.
I knew he was trouble.

Immediately, I prayed a silent prayer for myself – that this man was not on my flight.

Apparently, it was ironic day in heaven.
Because ADD man sat right next to me.
Before the flight departed
He fielded four calls – made three.
He drank a coffee.
He read half a book (He was a speed reader, duh).
He chewed gym.
He ignored the safety speech.
He had chronic halitosis.

His energy was too much for him. It flowed in excess from his shaking legs.
Hey, Shaky McShakypants, can I help you take your Ritalin with a heaping helping of
Scope?

Even his urine was energized. It had to leave his body – often.
Up/down/up/down – I was in Catholic Church for spazzes.

He was Speedy Gonzales.
He was a gerbil on crack.

Oh, ADD man, What’s your hurry?
Take a load off.
Relax.

Sit somewhere else.

Lucky

They are in love with the majesty of violet mountains.
Enamored with the juts and crags.

Give me the open spaces of the plains.

I want a man with dirt in his teeth.
And tumbleweed on his grill.
Weathered laugh lines around his eyes
Hands rough from the wind.

Let’s drive for miles on a straight road
Moving forward – not up
Returning back – not down

There’s something to be said about consistency
To lives without peaks and valleys

They say there’s nothing here to love – nothing to see
So they move away from green pastures to purple mountains.

Let them go.

new poems

Here are the latest 550 poems. I will admit that I felt very uninspired this week. My poems are subpar. Sorry.


The Forgetting

It was on that September day, shortly after her 70th,
That they realized.

It was when they passed - on their way up her sidewalk - the unfamiliar face of the salesman
- on his way down her sidewalk.

She sat, with hands folded, in the kitchen of her small house.
She had purchased life insurance from the traveling salesman and had already forgotten that she'd written the check.
She had forgotten that she already had life insurance.

What's the correct phrasing here?

She had lost her mind?
Her mind had lost itself?

They chose the latter because then nothing - not time, not them, not her - bore the blame.
And what did it matter - in the end, there would be a collective loss.

They were all losing her.

Soon, they would be left with her,
but without her.

And, even though they weren't suprised that the "life insurance salesman" cashed the check,
They all knew that there is no such thing as life insurance.


Junk Mail (2 days)

I need to respond to all of my dear good friends who have been sending me junk mail.
Because It’s a great time to say hi and my X life is suffering.

Tom Forrest, for example, is anxiously awaiting to
Change my life and, wow, look, he’s got a 12 inch!

Good thing I received a notice regarding my camera
So that I can start taking better quality pictures with a 10.1 megapixel.
I’ll need that if I meet Tom. The Guinness Book will want visual confirmation.

I have a choice to make , though, because even though Tom sounds fabulous,
Don Cervantes contacted me, and he has a bigger pen1s for better s3x!

Choices, Choices.

Luckily, Roco the Star recommends 3 free bottles of man XL
Sam Newsome assures me that he wouldn’t be lying. No problem with man XL.

Basically, I need to stop making excuses and act now
Always remembering, as my dear good friend Ann Johnson reminds me,
that I am any man’s dream come true.

All writers must experience sparagmos

This is what I'm beginning to believe. In two poems I've looked at recently, both poets speak of sparagmos. And, Tennessee Williams alludes to experiencing something akin to sparagmos while he wrote. To some degree, then, in order to produce literature, I'm beginning to think that the author must experience a psychogical rending. Then, if the work is an extension of him or herself, the ensuing editing process would also be sparagmos.

Here are the poem excerpts.

"Kneeling Down to Peer into a Culvert" Robert Bly
"I am alone, with no duties, living as I live. / Then one morning a head like mine pokes from the water. / I fight - it's time, it's right - and am torn to pieces fighting."

"Homily" Jim Harrison
"He is rended, he rends himself, he dances, / he whirls so hard everything he is flies off. / He crumples as paper but rises daily from the dead."

The second example is so reminiscent of the archetype of sparagmos that it's a little unnerving. It resonates with the tearing of flesh, the carnival associated with the Dionysian ritual, and the resurrection often associated with sparagmos.

Jim Harrison

I could be way off here. If I am, Jimmy will set me straight.

The title “The Theory and Practice of Rivers” struck a chord with me. As a teacher, I find that the terms theory and practice are often mutually exclusive – those who theorize don’t practice and those who teach (practice) don’t have time to do in-depth theorizing. They just have to teach. Rarely do the two meet. But, Jim Harrison seems to have achieved a praxis. He is able to theorize about rivers, birds, the moon, and dancing while living life on rivers, dancing, and watching birds. Then, he seems to incorporate both the living and the theory into his poetry, making a nice full and continuous circle.

Along with the familiar images of rivers, birds, the moon, and dancing, Harrison also uses the familiar ideas of love and death. But, one of the most interesting images that I saw recurring was the question mark, particularly in association with youth and children. In “Porpoise” he writes, “You see a school making love off Boca Grande/ the baby with his question mark staring / at us a few feet from the boat.” And in “Small Poem” is found “dead children fly off in the shape/ of question marks.” This was interesting. First, the shape of the question mark is very suggestive and, in a way, ethereal, like the flame of a candle or a wisp of smoke. It’s not unusual that he would pair the question mark with children as that is what they are often found doing. In the first example, I am left questioning what he means. But, in the second example, he is the one who is questioning why children have to die. I noticed that he dedicated his collection to Gloria Ellen Harrison 1964-1979 and naturally wondered if that was his daughter. So, like the joining of theory and practice, he seems to be achieving another kind of praxis here – the children are question marks, I am questioning, he is questioning. The image is the child, who questions. His questions leave me questioning.

I’m not sure if “The Times Atlas” is one of my favorite poems, but I really appreciated some of the lines. “Camus said / it rained so hard even the sea was wet.” Does that mean that it didn’t rain hard at all? The sea is already pretty wet. I also appreciated the simplicity of the line “Meanwhile the weather is no longer amusing” because he appears to be speaking of more than the weather. Something is no longer a joke; no one is laughing.

My favorite poem was “Homily” with its combination of commonsensical, humorous, and poignant advice. “Dance with yourself with all your heart / and soul, and occasionally others, but don’t / eat all the berries birds eat or you’ll die.” And, instead of giving “how to” advice about love, he tells us how not to fall in love. The don’t advice I found most notable was not to be “a cow floundering / in quicksand while the other cows watch / without particular interest, backwards / off a crumbling cornice.” This was intriguing for several reasons. First, I found it odd that he chose a cow because the natural images he usually chooses aren’t domesticated – they’re wild and free - like birds and porpoises. At the same time, however, the cows not in the quicksand are meeting a similarly disastrous fate. While one cow is drowning in love, the others, fearfully backing away from it yet, I think, feigning indifference, are also going to die, just a little less hideously.

poetry

Answers

“If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?” Mary Oliver

The little girl taps my knee, pointing up,
“Look, Mel, it’s God.”
I bend my neck back, my face upward to geese winging in chevron formation
against the broken clouds and the sun’s rays, pale yellow.

I am stopped short
She sees God.
Can I?

I am no match for her 5-year-old hope.

And, I am certainly no match for this image
Of the geese, the girl,
and God in the rays of the sun.

I turn again to the sky,
Full of the questions that come to me mostly on spring days.


If Sylvia Plath Were a Valley Girl

Dad – I totally don’t get it.
I mean, when you kicked the bucket
I was way bummed.
I was thinking, “As if! Like, oh my God!”

So, I went to the mall
And met a bitchin’ version of you.
His name was Ted. He was totally awesome;
he was tubular.
And, so, like when he asked me to marry him, I said, “Fer Sure.”
But, I was sooo bummed
Because, dad, he turned out to
grody to the max, a classic barfbag.
Like you.

I thought about doing myself in
But, seriously, dad
I couldn’t kill myself without, like
Totally messing up my hair
Or my nails
Or my face
I mean, gag me with a spoon.

So, whatever, dude.
I’m totally over it. I’m through.

more sparagmos

I've been thinking about how to organize my paper on sparagmos and about where to go from where I am...which is here. :)

The primary question I think I need to address is what is being displaced when sparagmos gets displaced? And, is this true when sparagmos also involves omophagia?

It seems to me (and to some of the articles I've been reading) that sparagmos has different purposes.
1. Taking apart to eventually reassemble
2. Taking apart to have it become a part of you (usually involving omophagia)
3. Taking apart as a form of communication - a statement
Then, I think I need to think about these ideas.
4. Some authors seem to think that we're moving from the sparagmos of gods to the sparagmos of scapegoats? Why?
5. What if the sparagmos is self-inflicted?

I'm planning on looking at several works, including Suddenly, Last Summer; King Lear; The Bible; Silence of the Lambs.

I also think I need to look at the difference between sparagmos in comedy and tragedy, taking another look at Frye.

Last, but not least, what is the connection between carnival and sparagmos?

That's it.

help me, please

I am reading an article entitled "The Sparagmos of Myth Is the Naked Lunch of Mode: Modern Literature As the Age of Frye and Borges." How does Northrop Frye's definition and explanation of modes fit with this title? Insight, anyone?

contemporary poetry

Hmmm…what is contemporary poetry? Trying to define contemporary poetry is problematic for me on several levels. First, the word “contemporary” is tricky. How old can the poetry be to not be contemporary or, in other words, how new should it be? I’ve always thought that poetry written in the 60s is contemporary, but considering that it is now 2007, some of that poetry would be about 50. In other words, if that poetry were a human, it would be a little over middle-aged; if it were a dog, it’d be dead.
Also, contemporary poetry is different depending on the poet. This, I think, is one of the keys to being contemporary, in a tricky kind of way. In order to be contemporary, the style of the poetry probably does not conform to a strict rhyme or rhythm. Or, if it does, it probably does in a cagey and/or satirical sort of way.
Another possible hallmark of contemporary poetry, not that this is exclusive to contemporary poetry, seems to be that contemporary poetry makes the reader work a little harder to extract meaning. Even in poetry that we think is accessible, like that of Billy Collins, upon second or third or fourth readings, there are levels of meaning and connection that are revealed.
Then, there are the poems of Michael Earl Craig and Sandra Alcosser, difficult for other reasons: Craig, because he seems “normal” but then decidedly is not; and, Alcosser, because I feel the need to scrub her humid, suffocating imagery out of my brain after it has been soaked in her sexually twisted bayou.
I liked all of the poets this week (Oliver, Stafford, Plath, Snyder). I probably haven’t read enough of their work to say this, but I found myself playing the Sesame Street Game: “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things just isn’t the same.” And, unfortunately for her, it seems that Plath is the odd man out. Komunyakaa may also join Sylvia in being kicked off Poetry Survivor, but for different reasons. Oliver, Stafford and Snyder all seem to find a restorative awe in nature. This is evident in “Song of the Builders” by Mary Oliver and also in a round-a-bout sort of way in “Singapore.” “Singapore,” along with “Ask Me” by William Stafford, just happen to be two of my favorite poems ever, by the way. Gary Snyder’s “Hay for Horses” and “For All” seem to express a similar sentiment about nature.
I just don’t see this happening with Sylvia Plath. In fact, if we were to take “For All” by Gary Snyder and put a Plath simplistic and probably grossly unfair spin on it, I think it may go a little something like this.

For All
Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

For Daddy
Ah to be almost dead
On any foggy day
Cutting my thumb
Barefoot, toe big as a Frisco Seal
Holding pills, gas oven on
No sunshine, hot ice in my brain
Overcast England
….
I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to my daddy
Of the bastard with the Mein Kampf look
And to the love of the rack and the screw
One pretty red heart
Bitten in two
Under my gauze Ku Klux Klan babushka
With my red hair, dirty girl, thumb stump, I rise and eat men like air.

Above all, the other three poets seem hopeful, and this hopefulness seems connected to the inspiring and awesome scope of nature. Sylvia – light on the hopeful, heavy on the hopeless. Sylvia, the tribe has spoken.

Carnival

According to Hillman, revelry (music, carnival, circus, clown) represents "riotous rebellion (revel/rebel), discord" (175). He also contends that these types of dreams are more common than you may think. Even if there is no carnival or circus scene in the dream, if your dream is literally or figuratively "upside-down," then an element of carnival is present.

A couple of interesting ideas.

1. Carnival comes from the words meaning "putting away the meat, or flesh." In addition to the flesh reference, carnival and sparagmos are further related. Hillman says that when "Dionysos entered Thebes, there was also this kind of terror and excitment. Identities became uncertain. Young women left their family attachments and personal relationships to take to the streets and the hills"(177).

2. "Where else but the circus will we ever see the underworld in daylight?" (178).

3. Aren't your dreams like circuses or carnivals? A bunch of freaky people come in the middle of the night and set up camp in the middle of town.

4. Clowns - Hillman has an interesting take on clowns. He says that the "comic spirit masquerades in all things we do and say; we are each a joke and do not need to put on a white face"(180). by this, he means that we don't have to become clowns, we just need to learn what the clown has to teach us - like "making an art of our senseless repetitions, putting on the face of death that llows the dream world in and watching it turn ordinary objects into amazing images" (180).

5. Listen carefully to ALL music in your dreams - not just literal music in the dreams, but the music of the dream itself - its phrasing, rhythm, themes, etc.

Prose poetry

Here are some rough copies of some prose poetry. At this point, these are definitely not my final copies, but I thought I'd post them anyway.

Divine Punishment

After her son died, she wouldn’t take communion, though she sat in the back of the church every Sunday. She refused to approach the altar. She refused to kneel. She refused to let touch her lips the body and blood of an indifferent god. In her mind, well-intentioned, well-worn clichés. Well-intentioned, well-worn, useless. “Everything happens for a reason.” She intentionally held words like these in her mouth, leaving no room for the bread. Or the wine. She pursed her lips and gagged. Every Christmas since then, her house held no evergreen tree. Instead, she chose a colorless day. A brutal, cold, and windy prairie winter day. Alone, far up in the north country, she bent against the wind. She knelt beside the barbed wire fence to retrieve a large tumbleweed. This tumbleweed would stay in the middle of the living room well after the new year. Her protest.


Therapy

“If you are your problem,” the therapist intoned, “then, stop thinking about yourself.”
One – mountains. Think about the mountain. (no, not about how your mother wouldn’t let you go to summer camp) How the mountain holds the forest on its back. The mountain is worn by time. It ages gracefully.
Two – trees. Think about trees. (no, not about what kind you would be) Think about how a flock of birds emerge from the spring branches. You didn’t even know the birds were there. You didn’t recognize them as birds while they were in the tree. But, now aflight, they are not an extension of the branch, they are birds, and there are hundreds of them.
Three – clouds. Think about clouds. (no, not about the dark one hanging over your head) Think about the motion of clouds. The clouds change and move on effortlessly.
Mountains. Trees. Clouds. It’s really very simple. Put yourself in the back of your mind. Keep yourself there.

Olena Kalytiak Davis

Of the poets we last read, Olena Kalytiak Davis really appealed to me. In “A Small Number” and “Six Apologies, Lord,” I appreciated her deft manipulation of repetition. Often, her spacing and line breaks caught me off-guard. And, even though I don’t pretend to understand everything that she’s writing, I have the feeling that with studied attention, some sort of understanding would be within my reach. She doesn’t have sewing machines flying out of aliens’ ears or elephants tap dancing on toilet seats….and I appreciate that.

Olena Kalytiak Davis
Six Apologies, Lord
I Have Loved My Horrible Self, Lord.
I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord, And I
Dropt. Your Requirements, Lord. 'Spite Your Requirements, Lord.
I Have Loved the Low Voltage Of The Moon, Lord,
Until There Was No Moon Intensity Left, Lord, No Moon
Intensity Left
For You, Lord. I Have Loved The Frivolous, The Fleeting, The
Frightful
Clouds, Lord. I Have Loved Clouds! Do Not Forgive Me, Do Not
Forgive Me Lordandlover, Harborandmaster, Guardianandbread,
Do Not.
Hold Me, Lord, O, Hold Me

Accountable, Lord. I Am
Accountable. Lord,

Lord It Over Me,
Lord It Over Me, Lord. Feed Me

Hope, Lord. Feed Me
Hope, Lord, Or Break My Teeth.

Break My Teeth, Sir.
In This My Mouth.

The poem “Six Apologies, Lord” immediately gripped me. I want to know what six things she could have done that could require apology. Why would she apologize for loving clouds? And why is every word capitalized? Although she is apologizing to “Lord,” I’m not sure if this Lord is actually God or a metaphorical, representational God – her husband, her father – herself? My thinking is led down the husband/male figure path due to the fact that the lines “I Rose, Lord, And I Rose, Lord, And I /Dropt. Your Requirements, Lord” is reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, of whom I am a fan. “She rose to his requirement, dropped / the playthings of her life / to take the honorable work / of woman and of wife. / I aught she missed in her new day / Of amplitude, or awe, / Or first prospective, or the gold / in using wore away, / it lay unmentioned, as the sea / Develops pearl and weed, / but only to himself is known/ the Fathoms they abide.” Also, the words that have been combined “lordandlover” hold some meaning, as does the abrupt switch to "Sir. " The poem itself, again, has a hypnotizing, mesmerizing effect on me. I just love it.

A Small Number
So far, have managed, Not
Much. So far, a few fractures, a few factions, a Few
Friends. So far, a husband, a husbandry, Nothing
Too complex, so far, followed the Simple
Instructions. Read them twice. So far, memorized three Moments,
Buried a couple deaths, those turning faces. So far, two or Three
Sonnets. So far, some berrigan and Some
Keats. So far, a scanty list. So far, a dark wood. So far, Anti-
Thesis and then, maybe, a little thesis. So far, a small Number
Of emily’s letters. So far, tim not dead. So far, Matt
Not dead. So far, jim. So far, Love
And love, not so far. Not so love. So far, no-Hope.
So far, all face. So far, scrapped and scraped, but Not
With grace. So far, not Very.

I also enjoyed “A Small Number.” When I read this poem, I had just finished reading Sandra Alcosser’s poem “My Number,” which also intrigued me. But, I prefer Kalytiak Davis’s style to that of Alcosser. Again, I think I spot an Emily Dickinson reference in the line about “A small number of emily’s letters.” Like in “Six Apologies. Lord,” she so defly manipulates words that her repetition is mesmerizing. Her up-front linguistic style, I think, is largely responsible for catching me off guard. I am lulled into a kind of false sense of simplicity due to the word choices and repetition. Content-wise, it seems that she may be trying to put a value on her life by making a list – and finding her list and her life lacking. By the end of the poem, where she is listing off people who are “not dead,” I am totally sucked in. Totally. Just the wording connotes that she expects tim, Matt, and jim to not be among the living for as long as she – her expectation seems to be that they will soon join another list, becoming another small number.

The Sparagmos Game

Let's play "The Sparagmos Game." It's fun for the whole family - especially if you're an ancient Greek family. Here's how you play. I'll post pictures. You decide if the pictures contain or are examples of sparagmos (ritual tearing of flesh). Ready? Remember, displacement and/or omophagia (eating the flesh) may be involved.

1.

This is Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield's ear, and Evander Holyfield's ear in the aftermath. Sparagmos?

I think so.

2.

These are grandmothers holding their grandchildren. Sparagmos?

Well, unfortunately, these innocent-looking grandmas probably just said something like, "You're so cute, I could just eat you up, sweetheart." So, sparagmos? Yep. Displaced? I think so.

3.

This is a WWII map. Sparagmos?

Did you guess no? Well, you were probably wrong. Sure, it's not literal sparagmos, but neither was the grandma example. This, I think, could be classified as an example of geographic sparagmos. Countries were conquered (swallowed up) and then rent asunder by those who were victorious.

You're doing well, though. Two left. Keep up the good work.

4.

Cheese. Not sparagmos.

5.

This is Osiris. (Hint: He was chopped into 14 pieces and scattered.) Sparagmos?

Did you guess yes? We'll you're most decidedly correct.

Good job today! Maybe we can play again next week! (The accuracy of my responses has yet to be determined.)

windmills of my mind

I guess Chaundera ( the quixotic windmills), Arianna ( the labyrinth-talk), Ed (inspiring speech on circles), Charity ( blog on reality), and Wayne (for just being Wayne) all, in some way, made me think of the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crowne Affair. Doesn't it all relate to class? (I deleted some repetitious portions.)

Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever-spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that I said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of this song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever-spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Surreal poetry

If Mondays were Sundays

It all started simply enough
A small and cozy white house, A man, A woman
A child named Sammy.
Or a child named Betsy.
Or a child named (write your name here).

But, then something went terribly wrong
You were just trying to wash your face.
With the click-clack typewriter
The slippery soap squirted from your hand.

With the whales spouting nonsense
Margaret aimlessly whistled Dixie
On a shore long forgotten

The Light switch

If there were no pizza for breakfast
I would make you soup
Tomato soup
While we laughed instead of cried at our poverty

Cats’ tails twist on the veranda
The slaves will sweat for supper
Cotton mouths like Uncle Tom
Thanksgiving for the turkeys this year.

And Stan won’t come back
If the light is off
But the power failed
And tomorrow has come

Today’s News

The world is mother-of-pearl
With the fallen snow
When she steps outsideto gather the news of the day.

Sitting at the table and feeling vaguely content.
The news is white and black
Outside the falling water
Swirling through the galaxy
Where wingless birds fly on featherless wings

Africa is traced by yellow on the map.
And blossoms of cherries bloom in the mirror
She is cracked and old
But, the luck will be good.

I wonder what became of me?

sparagmos, sparagmos

Sparagmos, Sparagmos, you're tearing me apart. You're ripping out my heart. I feel like I've been torn to shreds.

Sparagmos is apparently everyhwere.

Dr. Keeler read us "Kneeling Down to Peer into a Culvert" by Robert Bly in 550 today. The end of it reads, " I am alone, with no duties, living as I live. / Then one morning a head like mine pokes from the water. /I fight—it’s time, it’s right—and am torn to pieces fighting."

Tennesse Williams includes the concept in Suddenly Last Summer where "Each male protagonist is pursued, ripped apart, and consumed by the members of a community he sexually infiltrated. The truth about each sparagmos (rending) and omophagia (raw-eating) is uncovered in similar scenes between “psychotherapist” and amnesia victim. But while the truth brings destruction to each murdered man’s mother, only in Suddenly Last Summer is anyone saved by the awful revelation (Janice Siegel, “Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer and Euripides’ Bacchae,” IJCT 11 (2004-2005), pp. 538-570).

We figuratively incorporate sparagmos, I think, in many cultural ways, including, but not limited to wills (particularly contested ones) and how we treat celebrities and political figures. Of course, it's present in the eucharist and in the myth of Dionysus.

Sue tells me sparagmos is in the myth of Isis and Osiris. Dr. Sexson referred me to Ovid's Metamorphosis. Let me know if you have any hot leads for me.

deja vu

Today, I illuminated Kacie, Jamie, Arianna, Jimmy and Ed about my deju vu epiphany. I was thinking that if archetypes repeat themselves continuously and ubiquitously- in literature, in dreams, in life - then deja vu could be nothing more than our recognition/recollection of and fitting into an archetype. And...since, according to Hillman, people in dreams are just spirits who take on the appearance of those we know, deja vu is just the repetition of an archetype which is now personalized and tailored to us.

So...deja vu is not us remembering something that happened to us; deja vu is us tapping into an unconscious archetype. I don't know if that makes sense to any of you, but it makes great sense to me and my very strong, weight-lifting brain.

Jamie tried to give me some "logical" and "realistic" scientific explanation about how deja vu is just our brains misfiring and sending our short-term memories into our long-term memories or some scientific mumbo-jumbo like that. But, I'm not buying it. My explanation is far more credible. :)

Frye - popular culture chart

This is a site that Dr. Sexson recommended to me and that all of you may find useful.

http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sfclass/Fryechar.htm

It brings Frye's categories into popular culture.

The Surreal Michael Earl Craig

Part of the Wikipedia definition of surrealism goes like this. Surrealism is a movement “asserting that liberation of the human mind …can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the ‘unconscious mind’ to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately ‘truer’ than, everyday reality.”
I have to say, I didn’t feel particularly liberated after reading Craig’s collection of poems – confused, sometimes – disturbed, sometimes – but never liberated. Let me open the door to my mind and walk you through what might be my typical reaction to one of his poems.

“I’m Glad I Found The Horse Doc”
(Oh…a poem about a vet)

Another day, not
even drinking coffee on
the toilet makes me smile.
(ha ha ha – that’s a funny example, but probably a pleasant-enough
experience to make one smile.)

Today so apparent: someone
Should have kicked Kinski’s
Nosferatu in the nuts
HARD.
(ha, ha – that’s funny, too. I should know who Nosferatu is.
I better google it)
Or duct-taped him
to a pool table & raped him with a carrot.
(WHAT? Weren’t we just trying to think pleasant thoughts about
coffee and toilets?)

As a unit of nourishment
my cheeseburger comes at me
through the drive-up window.
(How'd we get to the drive-thru, and who calls a burger a unit?
How does it come at him?)

& later the local horse doc with
a fleck of placenta on his cheek
I put a hand on his shoulder
(He’s got placenta on his cheek?
How does Craig know it’s placenta?
I’m confused.)
I tell him “draw a face on
the side of your hand you’ll have a friend all day.”
Who says this to a grown man? I’ll
bet that the vet responded, “My
friend feels like punching you, jerk.”)

He tell me “one man’s journey
the inverse of another’s”
(Huh?)

So, this is pretty typical of my experience. Despite my foreknowledge that the poetry was surreal, I tricked myself into believing that the next poem would be a nice, realistic piece. This is probably attributable to several factors. First, according to English 510, my expectation of realism comes from the society around me, where everything must be “real.” I buy into that. Also, the poems contributed to all the trickiness by starting out somewhat normally. Then, out of nowhere, children would be licking bookshelves, brain-eating parasites would be headed for cake, and unfortunate people would be plagued with a particularly nasty asshole type of halitosis. What? Yep, you’ve lost me. Contrary to my mind being liberated, it’s just somewhat confounded. This is not to say that I hate the poems; I liked more than several of them, including “In the Januaried Mountains” and “I Rattled Off to Work Today.” I even liked “The Accomplished Hand” – that is, until the crowd turned into an angry amoeba about to beat the hairless woman.
Yep. All in all, I’m left wondering, Am I supposed to understand these and don’t? Is there some logic here? Ultimately, I don’t feel quite as bad as Craig does, like “a turd washed up on the shore of a quiet lake at a child’s birthday party,” “like one of the world’s largest assholes,” or “like a seahorse with his throat slit.” But, I don’t feel real great, either.

Dream persons - Hillman p.59-64

Here are notes from Hillman's section on dream persons. Please enjoy.

THE PERSONS I ENGAGE WITH IN DREAMS ARE NEITHER REPRESENTATIONS OF THEIR LIVING SELVES NOR PARTS OF MYSELF. THEY ARE SHADOW IMAGES THAT FILL ARCHETYPAL ROLES; THEY ARE MASKS, IN THE HOLLOW OF WHICH IS A NUMEN (SPIRIT)

3 approaches to dream persons
1. Freudian “Other people are essential for understanding dream persons” (takes you back to the actuality of the day)
Freud’s method of interpretation projects people in dreams back over the bridge into the dream day
2. Jungian “My personality is essential for understanding dream persons” (takes you back to subject as an expression of a person’s complexes)
Jung’s method takes the dream people into the subject of the dreamer – they become an expression of my psychic traits
In neither method do we ever truly leave the personal aspect of the dream persons- we remain engaged in the upperworld
3. Archetypal – “Only the persons of the dreams are essential for understanding the persons in the dream” (takes you back to the underworld of psychic images. They become mythic beings – not mainly by amplifying their mythic parallels but by seeing through to the imaginative persons within the personal masks)

Shadow figure or shades are not the people themselves or even the people’s essence
(older brother example – neither the actual brother nor the older, responsible traits)
Because the older brother is now a shade in the underworld, he is a purely psychic form
Teacher example in a dream is not only some intellectual potential of my psychic wholeness. More deeply, this figure is the archetypal mentor who, for now, in this dream, wears the robes of this schoolteacher or that professor.

Like in Homeric hymns, the god appears to the dreamer in the guise of a living friend.
(Egyptian) At the psychic level of existence, the essential image of our personal self, who is our shadow soul, is at the same time an image of a God.
In dreams, we are visited by nymphs, heroes and gods shapes like our friends of last evening.

The essence of the person is in the name.
One of the ways of restoring the “embracing vision of the myth” to the persons of last evening who have entered the dream is to look at their names. In their names are their souls.

Names are things in themselves – they do not represent something else where embodied by the name, but they are presentations of the mind to itself of its own presence. The name is the divine logos clothed in the person of the dream. We must find names for the figures or look more deeply into the names that are given. P.63

Embracing vision of the myth
No longer: Ego casting Shadow after it; instead, a shade literalizing an ego in front of it and behind which it can remain hidden.
Shadow figures in dreams – we should regard them LESS through their relations with the world and more as a reflection of the shades

550 poems

I preferred Jimmy’s poem “Prophet Township” to mine, so I used it for my starting point.

“Nostalgia”

In those days, people weren’t granted the luxury of prolonged grieving,
Even if their present was lived in life’s valleys.
There was no time for deeper questions
Or deeper pain
With work to be done.

A pause by you will not pause life.

While you sit in your chair with your head in your hands,
The snow will still be falling.
The fire left unstoked and unfed will be burning down to ashes.
Questions won’t keep you warm.

Divinity?
Yes, there’s a loved one in the attic until spring,
But thinking about it won’t get you “through till spring.”
Folded hands won’t break the ice on the horse trough.

Right now the ground is too hard to probe for the meaning of life
Or death
Especially when you have to actually live one in order to stay a step ahead of the other.

Those questions are better left for spring.


I had a really hard time finding a poem I hated, let alone one I disliked intensely. I settled on one that confounded me, “Some Last Questions” by W.S. Merwin. I'm sure that if I give it enough thoughtful contemplation, I will like it. In fact, after rereading it a couple times, this is becoming the case. But, I still don't completely understand it, and I find his imagery disturbing. I’m fairly certain that he’s talking about the dead body. But, I also think he’s using multiple definitions of some words, like feet (stumps, like the one’s attached to auction paddles) and hands (farm-hands or deck-hands). Nonetheless, I still don’t entirely understand it.

“Some Last Questions”

What is the head
A. Ash
What are the eyes
A. The wells have fallen in and have
Inhabitants
What are the feet
A. Thumbs left after the auction
No what are the feet
A. Under them the impossible road is moving
Down which the broken necked mice push
Balls of blood with their noses
What is the tongue
A. The black coat that fell off the wall
With sleeves trying to say something
What are the hands
A. Paid
No what are the hands
A. Climbing back down the museum wall
To their ancestors the extinct shrews that will
Have left a message
What is the silence
A. As though it had a right to more
Who are the compatriots
A. They make the stars of bone

I don’t feel right satirizing this poem because there is undoubtedly a beautiful and deeper meaning that I, in my superficiality and ignorance, am missing. So, I’ve decided to take his approach, but address the body as it is living, instead of as it is dead.

What is the head
A. Means to insight
What are the eyes
A. Full of and for sight – therefore insightful, too
What are the feet
A. Marching in a poetic unit
No what are the feet
A. Under them many roads are moving
They are a solid base
What is the tongue
A. A flash of fire that licks up the wall
No what is the tongue
A. Tasting
What are the hands
A. Holding on and letting go
What is the silence
A. As if noise were better
Who are the compatriots
A. They make the silence more precious

paper ideas

I'm intrigued with the idea of sparagmos - particularly in the myth of Dionysus and how that myth is related to the Christian eucharist. How Jesus and Dionysus suffer - Dionysus by being pruned every year in the form of the grape vine - how he is reborn with each new growing season - how men feel like they are taking "in" Dionysus himself when they consume wine. Perhaps there are other characters like this in other religious and cultural traditions. There's probably a paper topic idea here. Hmmm...Ideas, anyone?

And, Wayne got me thinking about dream-catchers with all of his animal talk. I'm not sure if dream-catchers can be made into a paper topic or not. Maybe something along the lines that what the spider has made is more important than the spider itself...animals are representative of something else, and the web represents the spider, which represents something else... I did a little bit of reading on dream-catchers, and one site said that the dream-catchers aren't meant to last, reflecting the temporary state of youth. There comes a time when a child can't be protected from experience and, in fact, needs experience and knowledge to function in an adult world.

The dream-catcher has similarities to this picture my friend took of the Brooklyn Bridge when we were in New York in January.

sin-eaters

Sue and I were having a great conversation about Anna Nicole Smith the other day, when the topic of sin-eaters came up. I am fascinated with the idea of a person who is designated to eat the sins of his fellow villagers in order that the deceased can have a clear passage to the afterlife. A couple of years ago, I read or heard a story about how in one community, a sin-eater was nearing death, but no one in the community would step up to be the next sin-eater. So...the sin-eater was approaching death with ALL of the sins of the community members burdening his soul.
I think, if I were to write a paper about this, that the sin-eater could be connected to the character of the scapegoat. Ideas, anyone?

Analysis - "Humble House"

“Humble House” by David Baker seems to be telling the story of a house where a family, and perhaps generations of that family, have lived – not resided, but actually lived. The house, which is well-used and functional, mirrors the traits of the people who have lived there. The most underutilized house in the room is the sitting room, where ironically, no one sits; this room, stuffed with figurines, old plates and photos, and plastic-covered chairs is an artifice, in a way, and doesn’t reflect the real character of its inhabitants. It is avoided in favor of the other rooms, like the kitchen or the side porch, where people actually “live” – swing, smoke, sew, talk, drink coffee. The artificial room is not only not used, it is avoided. Toward the end of the poem, those in the house head “to our places…where the creek cuts through the graves,” where their family members are awaiting them.
I think that David Baker, through the imagery of the house and the cemetery, is suggesting that the spirit will live on infinitely. I’m led to believe this because of the journey to the graveyard at the poem’s end, but find hints throughout the poem.
First, the figurines in the room where nobody goes are tarnished, old, unpolished. The room itself is said to be for “the passing of the spirit world through the spirit of the house.” This leads me to believe, in tandem with the previous line, “Perhaps company will come soon, unannounced – “that there has been a recent death in the family. Maybe in some way the house is representative of the human body, which is a temporary stop for the spirit of a person, and the sitting room is representative of our avoidance of death – we would rather go on living than to be reminded of our own mortality.
The language describing the room as the place for “the passing of the spirit world” is mirrored in the description of the cemetery, where the whole family is waiting, “Passing toward home.” Earlier, the poet says, “Soon enough we will go to our places, down the road, where the creek cuts through the graves. “ This leads me to believe that their burial spots were, again, another temporary home and that Baker was extending the house/spirit imagery. Suggesting to me, like the house and the body are temporary stops, so is the cemetery, because, the body is not going to stay in the grave any more than a spirit will stay in the house. When the people make the journey to the cemetery, they will meet the “whole family” waiting for them, “passing toward home.” With the assistance of “worm and mole, creeper and clod,” they are becoming “humus, loam.”
I don’t know if I’m reaching here, but it seem to me that the poem then comes full-circle, like a life. The poem begins with references to the lawn, cramped with “hydrangeas, white heirloom lilies, wild creeper roses.” The repetition of “creeper” in the last line makes me believe that, kind of like Whitman, Baker is suggesting that nothing dies, everything goes onward, and to die is different than anyone supposes. By dying, the people are fertilizing the ground in which the plants will grow, giving a piece of themselves to the land in perpetuity, becoming a part of everything that grows and living eternally through that cycle.

Valpo Poetry Review

Here is the poem I chose from the Valparaiso Poetry Review ("I Confess, I Wanted To Be June" almost won, though).
Attempted analysis to follow.

Humble House

Even the lawn is cramped with hydrangeas,
white heirloom lilies, wild creeper roses
running the length of the porch, all of it
sloped on a grade from the yard to the road

The perspective is childhood or old age,
poor, but not poor enough to discern it.
Nor is the house large enough to waste room.
Perhaps company will come soon, unannounced -

but no one will sit in the sitting room.
That's for Hummel figurines, for small frames
unpolished for months, tarnished as flatware,
for old plates, photos, plastic-covered chairs.

That's for the passing of the spirit world
through the spirit of the house. Everyone
would rather stand in the kitchen where fruit
pies crisp on the sill, swing on the side porch,

or sit smoking or sewing or talking,
or take coffee in a cane chair upstairs.
There's functional humility in
everything but that room, where nobody stays.

Soon enough we will go to our places
down the road, where the creek cuts through the graves.
The whole family waits there, passing toward home,
worm and mole, creeper and clod, humus, loam.

David Baker

Dreams - Saturday night- February 3

As is typical for me, this dream starts in one location and ends in another. Both are fairly "realistic." The first one begins with me talking to an ex-boyfriend on the wireless telephone, only I'm able to hang up on him by wrinkling up one of his old shirts. I'm talking to him from a canyon with very steep and high rock faces, and not really talking, just yelling, basically. But every time I try to hang up on him and then uncrinkle the shirt, he's still on the line.
In the next part, all of the first-year TAs are at my parents' house in Chinook. We are all tired and take naps before going to several social events that night. When the alarm rings, Jamie gets up too fast and passes out. While she is regaining consciousness, she tells me that she has a book from college that she wants me to read, although she doesn't think she really got anything out of it. I tell everyone that the doctor told me that if you feel like you're going to pass out, to sit down on the floor, not in a chair, because then the blood may not ever go back up to your head. Another ex-boyfriend of mine questions if that is true. Ariana wants to know if that's true for "surprise" pass-outs, too, like if you are surprised by an on-line predator.

English 550 Collins poems

I gave it my best shot.

On the Road

I’m behind the wheel, again.
Today, I’m making a spontaneous trip to Crazytown.
This shimmering blacktop is apparently a popular and well-traveled by-way.
In fact, I went back just last semester, with Joan of Arc.
She drove.

There’s a folded and creased map on the passenger seat, but I don’t need directions.
Remember, I’ve been there before, more than once.
This map would tell the inexperienced traveler that
Just north of Crazytown one would find Looney Tunes,
Which is just east of Delirious
Which is south of the Tri-Cities.

As usual, I don’t plan on staying long,
I’m just a visitor.
The permanent residents find the living difficult.
The red brick at the lumberyard is consistently sold one shy of full load.
The cheap beer in your swinging plastic sack is two cans short of a six-pack.
The white porcelain shells of the eggs are usually cracked, their bright sun-yellow yolks spilling from the fissures.

So, I won’t be staying long.

But, now, I’ll turn off this busy two-lane mirage.
The bright yellow yolk of a sun is streaming out of its shell, is spilling into my eyes.
I’m looking for the exit to the freeway.
At the rate I’m going, I’ll need an express lane.
And, besides, expediency lessens pain,
And there is more than one way to get to there.

If you just happen to be driving by -
Speeding past on your way to somewhere else –
And you catch a blurred glimpse of me stopped by the side of the road, with, say,
A flat tire or a blown gasket
Just keep on driving.
Leave me there, even if you glance in your rearview mirror and see me waving my arms wildly or thrusting out.my thumb.

I’d better go alone.

Because, you see,
The only thing worse than being in a car on the road to Crazytown is not walking there,
It’s letting someone else drive.


The Art of Procrastination

There was a time when the bills,
Sitting expectantly on the edge of the table,
Would not have gathered dust

That was back when I bought into the idea that procrastination was a vice-
One of the deadlies – wedged
Between gluttony and sloth

Today, as a matter of fact,
I started over toward the bills, but
Was lured by the soon-to-be siren song of the

Teapot and drank deeply
And was entranced by the warmness of the tea
And the spirit of the steam.

But, I fully intended to return to the monetary matters of the day,
If it weren’t for my window
Open to the grass
and the sky
and the light of the sun

Annie Dillard thought
About seeing. How the world was fairly studded with
Pennies, unasked-for surprises.
But, anymore, who looks for pennies, let alone stoops to pick them up?
Who cares about nature’s pennies when there are dollars to account for?

I put my cup of tea
On top of the bills
Setting out expectantly to look for pennies.


Love Smart

I retrieved the package from my mailbox,
A book in a brown mailing envelope.
Love Smart by Dr. Phil had arrived anonymously.
I begin telling you in the dusty new daylight
Odd, I thought to myself as I tucked it under my arm.

The black type advised me to keep the heart, which is prone to flight, tethered to something sturdy, like that tree.
And I gesture to the silhouette outside.
The thick trunk where the robin sits motionless,
Black with the orange rays of the new sun -
Or, to something scientific, say, Newton’s Law
Or to this book.
A heart adrift on the wind may hope for clouds, sky, and stars
It may rise on the next breeze.

So, now, when the half-light reveals your eyes asking with your
outstretched and open palm
And while the ragged shadow of the bird leaving the branch crosses my face,
You need to understand

That before I met you, I was apparently loving stupidly
And, my heart stirred riskily with each updraft,
Courting emergencies, the kinds that ambulances can’t handle.

When my heart was returned to me the last time, it was
Not only broken but unwhole
The man who had mishandled it
Had kept a piece of it and tucked it in his breast pocket to carry
With his pens.

So, now, I need to explain that I can’t give you my whole heart
Partially, because I don’t have it all
And, also, because it wouldn’t be prudent.

But, please keep asking.
Because I think I can feel myself getting dumber already
And there is a soft breeze blowing in from the window.

family cooperation

I have lured my family into a little experiment. Since dreams follow similar patterns amongst strangers, I began wondering if the people in my family dreamed in the same way as I do. I'm curious to find out if my family and I dream in a similar fashion - if there will be more obvious connections within my family members than amongst strangers. So, I enlisted them (my sister, my parents) to record some of their dreams and send them to me. We'll see what happens.

Tales

I just finished reading a chapter from Russ McDonald's The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare, where I found this quote from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. "For this world also which seems to us to sing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of lesser tales and yet these also are the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them."

devolution

Class discussion on Wednesday made me wonder about the devolution, not only of language, but of cultures. Isn't it common for every generation to believe that the next generation is somehow "less" than they are - whether it be work ethic, music choices, moral standards, or language? Why is this perceived as devolution rather than just evolution? It seems true that teenagers don't express themselves with the same word banks as their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, but does that inhibit communication? In their own ways, aren't they creating new and different ways to communicate in a time that almost demands expediency of communication? In terms of evolution, wouldn't a student be left behind if he chose to use an ink well and pen rather than a blog? If this is true in the manner of communication, wouldn't it also be true, to a certain degree to the words used to communicate?

Dreams - Wednesday night, January 31

Dream Wednesday night – January 31st

I am in my childhood church in Chinook, but I am the age that I am now. When it is time to take communion, I walk to and kneel at the altar naked, and I don’t seem to mind at all. In fact, as I turn from communion, I stand and face the audience, looking them all in the face. I even spread my arms out to my side, palms up, and assume a kind of Jesus on the cross pose. The pews, which from my seat looked packed, now reveal that there are not very many people in church. In fact, the entire left side of the church is empty except for my parents, who are sitting in the back.
When the service is over, a woman from the church I attend in Lewistown who is fairly unpleasant and incredibly aggressive, shoves past me at the pew to talk to her husband. I’ve had my clothes back on since I returned from communion.
After church, I go to a little room off the back of the sanctuary, kind of like a crying room for little children. This is a new addition to the church, which is getting remodeled. Dani and Ashley meet me there, where I am sitting with Dani’s boyfriend. Dani plugs in her blow dryer to dry her hair. I tell her she has to do that in the sanctuary.
We decide to go for a walk by the lake. The lake is disgusting, you can clearly see piles and piles of garbage at the bottom of it – spray starch bottles, old washing machines – most of this is located at the bottom of a little waterfall underneath the surface of the lake. It seems to really just be a dump at the bottom of a small lake. Ashley pretends to push her friend Katie in the water, but I tell her that this a really bad idea, given the filth. We now have a little boy with us, and we can’t understand what he’s saying. But, he’s very happy to be with us. We found him at a resort next to the lake.
When we go back in to the resort, (we had apparently already checked in, but were waiting for our room to be made up) there is a business conference going on. There are a lot of good-looking foreign men in suits and ties. We sit in the old 70s-style reception area to wait for our room. While we are waiting, the woman who owns the hotel is loudly talking about all of the spiders they’ve had in their hotel lately. She is killing many of them on the fireplace as we sit there – laughingly saying “Oh my goodness, there’s another one. We’ve had sooo many spiders lately.”
The room becomes a type of classroom, where we sit at tables – each of us has a computer. I’m trying to pay attention to what the professor is saying. She asks a question directly to me; I shake my head “no” – like I don’t know the answer. She praises me for providing the correct answer, which is no. I start surfing the internet, but land on a site with a very loud voiceover. I can’t shut it off. I try to turn over the speakers – shove them under my sweater – hug the computer, which also has speakers – but it won’t shut off. I have to explain to the professor why I’m on the internet while she’s trying to teach me about Shakespeare.
(Alarm rings)

Dreams - Sunday night, January 28

This dream takes me and a whole bunch of people on a hiking and camping trip. As usual, there are people from all different times periods of my life represented on this hike - high school, teaching, graduate school. At one point, about four of us are hiking along a trail in a very scenic area - it is mid-summer. One of the people I'm hiking with is a man with whom I used to coach high school basketball. We spot a bear up toward the trail, which curves along a mountain ahead. He pulls out a rifle to shoot the bear despite my warning that there may be people on the trail that he could hit. He shoots anyway.
As we continue hiking, we get to a long metal bridge, where we see some men from Lewistown coming across. The coach had almost hit them with a gunshot. The bear at which he was shooting comes roaring up from the creek below the bridge, but it's not dangerous. It's the pet of one of the men from Lewistown, who literally gives it a bear-hug.
For the night, we arrive at a village high in the mountains, only there are a ton of people there. Our whole party is going to stay in a dirty, spidery house up a long flight of stairs. One of my good high school friends is with me now, and in the house I spot one of my former students and another one of my good high school friends, who has already taken a shower and is wearing a dress - like all of the other girls.
The men who are with us decide to cook. They use the old, white stove to cook some horrible cous-cous like concoction and are very proud of themselves.
Just as I'm about to dish up the cous-cous, Julie calls my cellphone to say that she has to stay behind with some of the hikers, including the coach with the shotgun, who has developed severe blisters. She said she found a lake where they can camp and that she will dress his wounds.
{Then, my alarm rings and I wake up.}

Billy Collins and dreams

Having just finished reading the first two chapters of Hillman, I had dreams "on the brain." So, when I read Billy Collins' poem "The Night House," it seemed relevant to our coursework. Here it is.

"The Night House"

Every day the body works in the field of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
the grass of civics, the grass of money-
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body - that house of voices-
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.

Dreams - Wednesday night, January 24

I was riding on a schoolbus of adults and teenagers going to a volleyball match. My friend, Gooner, was on the bus too, and I was trying to fill out a scholarship form for her son, Dustin, who is also my godson. I was having trouble because the schoolbus ride was not only rocky, but I was supposed to write in pencil. At one point, Gooner complimented me on my handwriting, but she was referring to something that had been written in blue pen. I said that it wasn’t my handwriting, that it was the secretary’s.
Two former students of mine were also on the bus, along with a whole bunch of teenage boys who I didn’t know. We had all just been to a funeral, and one of my students was reading the program that had been given at the funeral, only it was like a program for a volleyball tournament.
At one point, there was too much light coming from the lamp a couple rows up – the woman sitting there was the aunt of the girl that had died. She was a middle-aged farming wife from Stanford. She turned around nicely and asked if it was too much light. I said yes. But, then she turned the light almost all the way off. One of my ex- students made a smart comment while looking through the program, where there was picture of the woman’s niece in a volleyball uniform. She said something like, “If your niece has just died, how do you know not to turn your light all the way off?”
We were seated almost at the back of the bus with the teenage boys while all of this was going on; they were very interested in my two former students, and one of the couples started dancing in the aisle. They were nice guys, just pretty hyper and a little rowdy. The teenage boy who was dancing looked like a younger and thinner version of Lurch from the Adam’s Family. He was wearing a letterman’s jacket and seemed to be unaffected by the funeral we had just attended. When he returned to his seat by the window at the end of one of the back seats, he seemed literally very far away, like one of those pictures you see on perspective, and a little sad.

Childhood nightmares

(what I imagined the pilot light would eventually become)

I don't remember the pleasant dreams of my youth, but I do remember what most of my nightmares were. Most of them involved the pilot light for the furnace which was located in the hallway closet immediately outside of my bedroom door. Although it was just a pilot light, I imagined it would turn my house into the raging inferno you see above.

This tiny little pilot light affected my life in multiple ways outside of the dreams themselves. First, as a young child, I had formulated an escape plan for my entire family, including pets. Since my room was closest to the pilot light, the responsibility of evacuating the entire family, of course, fell to me...that was what I thought, at least.

Also, the fire fed a compulsion in me to check all burners on the stove nightly - a compulsion of which I am still not completely free.

I certainly ascribe to the belief that our lives affect our dreams. To what extent do our dreams affect our lives? Or, are our dreams and our lives indivisible?

A Realistic Displaced Fairy Tale and a not-so-realistic one

Fairy tale retell #1 – not as realistic, but entertaining

Possessing the rare combination of cheapness and poorness, Sam had been more concerned with money than with accoutrements when he had scraped together plane fare for he and his daughter to get to New York City. Although they weren’t in Las Vegas, where he had last hoped his luck would turn (and turn he meant – he bet what little money he had on the roulette wheel) , he still felt like a gambler. The man had no luck, and because he had not luck, he had no money. If things didn’t work here in New York, well, he didn’t have a back-up plan, other than to rely on the beauty of his only daughter, who had accompanied him on this trip.
As they deboarded the barely flight-worthy plane, the father (Sam) lamented the fact that although his daughter (Salmonella) was drop-dead gorgeous, she was also drop-dead dumb. Since they were advancing in age together, he hoped that when they arrived in NYC that Salmonella might find a man unlike him, a man who was both lucky and rich, or at least lucky, and then he could also win his riches back.
While the father ruminated about their collective futures, the daughter did not. She did not know what ruminate meant. As luck would have it, however, she unwittingly compensated for her lack of intelligence was by the kind of blithe and naïve oblivion characteristic of the beautiful but dim.
Father and daughter, acting in unison, turned toward the Jet Blue counter to reschedule their flight, but as they did, the father spotted a figure in the terminal; this man was by no means handsome, but he was undoubtedly rich, and he sported a reddish comb-over. He looked very much like, and in fact was, Donald Trump. “Well, this may be my next roulette wheel,” the father mused.
Unabashedly and with the confidence of one who doesn’t know he should have less, Sam approached the man, blurting out a creative embellishment, if not a complete lie, in an attempt to impress this powerful figure. “My daughter has a talent that you might find useful,” he said, gesturing to his daughter, who was holding her father’s place in the Jet Blue line. “She isn’t no brain doctor, but if you used her right, she could turn a quarter into a dollar bill.”
Always tuned into the money channel and no stranger to beautiful women, the Donald replied, “Well, you don’t say. I’m not going to pay her a cent, but if she has the Midas touch, send her to my office tomorrow.” And with a laugh and a casual glance over his shoulder, “ I have been known to take on an apprentice or two.”
The next morning, dressed only in the clothes she had worn (the airline had lost her luggage) Salmonella arrived via city bus at her new job, unaware of why her father had sent her there. She was taken to a cubicle that housed a computer and a telephone. Salmonella was to perform secretarial duties and place stock market orders.
Well, Salmonella was pissed. Pissed, pissed, pissed when she heard about her father’s tall tale. She muttered under her breath as she watched the lights on the phone and the indecipherable stock-market ticker hanging in the corner of the large office room, which for all intents and purposes, could have just as well have been written in Old English or Japanese or hieroglyphics. “If you’re going to tell a lie, dad, at least tell a half-way decent one,” she muttered, “…but, no, you go and tell this whopper about the me being good at business…stupid, stupid dad….crappy new job…I hate this…Oooh, look at my reflection in the computer screen - I sure am pretty.”
As the working day ended, Salmonella was almost positive that she would not be coming back the next day. A woman appeared in the doorway with a large garbage can, cleaning supplies, and a vacuum cleaner. Going about her work, the woman couldn’t help but notice Salmonella’s confusion. They made eye-contact, and Salmonella confided in the woman. The woman encouraged Salmonella not to give up, but Salmonella was sure that she was not meant to be a secretary, let alone, what was it that her dad had said, “that she could turn quarters into dollar bills?” What kind of a stupid promise was that? Hurriedly and somewhat impatiently, the woman quickly showed Salmonella some basic office skills, but, this would not be a something for nothing situation. “I’ll try to help you,” the woman said, “But, I’m supposed to be working, so it better be quick. I can’t risk my job for some stranger.”
Well, as you know, Jet Blue had lost Salmonella’s belongings, so Salmonella said, “I don’t have anything but a bus pass.”
The woman said that she couldn’t use a bus pass, but she sat down in front of the computer with Salmonella anyway. As far as Salmonella could tell, the lady was finding secret messages in the garbage. From time to time, the woman would dig through the trash and consult papers marked “confidential” or “shred.” The lady talked to herself all the while, at various times mentioning to herself something about bears, bulls and insider-trading, but of course, Salmonella had no idea what the woman was talking about. In fact, she found herself a little irritated with the obviousness of the woman’s comment. Of course, they were trading inside – you couldn’t really plug a computer in outside, and what if it rained? She hoped this lady was smarter than she seemed.
Whenever Salmonella needed help in the ensuing days, she waited until the end of the day when the lady would return with her cleaning cart – it was like she was on a schedule or something. Each time the woman would appear, she would remind Salmonella that she shouldn’t be helping her. Then, she would sit down at Salmonella’s computer, sift through her large trash container, and work. And equally as predictable, Salmonella had really nothing of value to offer this kind, but odd, frank, and somewhat shifty-eyed helper. The as-of-yet nameless woman countered, “We’ll just keep this between the two of us, okay sweetie?” What Salmonella agreed to keep between them, she wasn’t quite sure. But, she made a mental note and filed it in her one of the many empty spaces in her brain under F, for “Fishy.” Nonetheless, Salmonella was in no position to disagree, and she tacitly agreed to the terms.
In nine months, Salmonella was still at her entry-level position. Although she had mastered the basics expected of her, and had long since quit needing the assistance of her garbage-can helper, she was still in imminent danger of losing her job. The Donald hadn’t fired her yet, but he had lots of employees and couldn’t be watching them every minute, or really, at any minute. Soon, Salmonella felt, the axe would fall.
The one thing she did care about was a new filing system she had devised for herself. It was, so to speak, her “brain-child” - odd, for a woman with more beauty than brains. Noting the irony herself, Salmonella shortened her project’s nickname to “child.” Sometimes, she even endearingly called in “her baby.” And because this was something that was a product of her own mind, Salmonella guarded it with the fierceness of a mother.
It was at about this time that her benefactor of nine months previous appeared at her cubicle. Salmonella wasn’t really shocked, because she had seen this lady almost every working day for the last nine months. And, since they had pretty darn secure security at her job, she figured the woman was a legitimate employee. Her secret helper, again requested to use Salmonella’s computer. In nine months, Salmonella had become markedly less daft, and had received repeated instructions from her superiors to not let anyone use her computer. The only thing Salmonella had to bargain with was her fabulous filing system. By now, however, Salmonella was connected with her “brain-child” in more than a monetary way. This was a project that was her own, that she had birthed, fed, nurtured. She could not part with her “child.” Feeling the dread rise in her, she knew that the garbage lady would want something if she couldn’t use the computer; she hoped this lady didn’t want her filing system.
Salmonella hemmed and hawed, and finally got the woman to agree to give her a little while to ruminate (she had learned a lot, including some new words in her time in the city). “You know, I don’t know this lady’s name,” Salmonella mused, and almost as an afterthought. “I’d like to talk to her outside the office.”
“No sweat,” she whispered, “I’ll find her on the internet, or I’ll meet her in the hallway, or…” Her usually quiet mind was babbling with ways to figure out this lady’s name. Remembering the very secure security, Salmonella deduced that her “friend” was undoubtedly listed in the employee registry. Without much work, she found her, they had a cup of coffee, and instead of having to turn over her “child,” Salmonella agreed to resume their old arrangement.
Unfortunately for both of them, insider trading is against the law, and really, how long do you think you can insider trade without getting caught? Salmonella, never really the wiser, suffered the same fate as the woman, who Salmonella learned was one of the night janitors. They both did soft time at a minimum-security prison, where they met a fellow inmate and inside-trader named Martha, who taught them how to turn their old credit cards into tiling for their bathroom floors, roast lamb chops with basil, and prepare beautiful flower arrangements from lilies grown in their own gardens.

Fairy tale retell #2 – same tale but more realistic and less entertaining

As men went, he was an odd one. It wasn’t just his unusually small stature that made him odd; it was his his demeanor and his misanthropic nature that made people dislike him or avoid him altogether. He was antagonist at sight; his presence almost intolerable.
He didn’t really care, of course, that he was uncommonly disliked, because he disliked them first, he would tell himself. Over time he had developed a hard shell that protected him from others while simultaneously repelling them.
He was a librarian, not one of those helpful or pleasant librarians, but one who buried himself deep in the stacks, away from the public, immersed in the words around him. He enjoyed the seclusion and reveled in what he believed to be his self-imposed exclusion. In his supreme isolation, he had cultivated a passion for the languages of the books he restacked.
Far in the stacks one day, the librarian overheard a proud man telling his boss about his beautiful daughter’s uncanny ability to translate Japanese into English. He whispered to his disbelieving friend, “My daughter really has a way with languages. Her speciality is Japanese - I bet she translates better than most Ivy League scholars. " Unfortunately, the man called his bluff.
“Well, Henry, that's great. We’re thinking of doing business with a Japanese company, and I need some documents translated, but haven’t been able to find someone who can do the work expeditiously and cheaply.” Then, remembering he was in a library, quietly said, “Have your daughter come by tomorrow. I’ll put her to work.”
Caught in his lie, Henry sent his daughter to the library the next day to meet his supervisor. He had simply told her that she was to go there about a job. When she arrived, she was met with the magnitude of her father’s lie and a stack of Japanese business documents that she could not translate.
Out of love for her father and because of financial instability, the girl didn’t dare to reveal her predicament to anyone. She sat for hours and tried to translate a little with the help of some books and the internet. Still, she wasn’t getting much done, and she wasn’t sure if what she was doing was correct.
Out of love for words, certainly not for people, the misanthropic librarian eventually wrested the documents from her panicked hands, and without introducing himself, translated them. “I’m not doing this for free,” he blurted. Because she was beautiful, the girl was certain that the payment would be in the form of a sexual favor. But, the librarian did not want that, he wanted cash. Relieved, the girl paid him what she could.
Because of his efficiency, however, the girl continued to get increasing loads of translation work in the following days. Each day, the librarian would translate for her and demand monetary payment, which the girl would provide by cashing the check she had just received. The librarian, in love with the words but disgusted with the girl, would softly whisper, “You owe me.”
A couple of months later, the girl was surprised to pass the odious librarian on the street. She had avoided the library like an anathema after the translations had been completed, and with the passage of time, she had almost forgotten of her nebulous debt. As they passed, he said, “You still owe me.”
“Owe you what?” She replied quite genuinely. He knew that she wasn't rich, and she knew that he wasn't interested in sexual recompense. The only thing she really valued was her family.
“Your dad could easily lose his job.”
“You could just as easily lose yours,” she replied, surprised at the strength and anger his words had provoked in her.
“You don’t even know my name, let alone have any proof of any wrongdoing.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Just try me.”
Shaking from the emotion of the unexpected encounter, the girl immediately regretted putting her father’s job in jeopardy. But, she couldn’t do much, only hope that the little troll didn’t rat out her dad. She consoled herself with the fact that he had accepted money from her, which was probably morally ambiguous for the librarian. She wished she had just come clean to everyone; she felt guilty about having someone else do work that she couldn’t verify; she felt dirty about being beholden to this creepy little man.
If she met him again, she would continue to bluff - there was no easy way, really no way, to extricate herself from this situation. Sullying his name would come with very high consequences for her and for her family, and she couldn't risk that.