Thoughts Worth Noting

A Spectrum of Thought

2007-10-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

Some concepts are just too damn big for me to wrap my arms around. Levels of green, levels of red, levels of the entire spectrum of color that I try to avoid. I simply cannot embrace them. Me, who tries not to judge. Me, who feels discomfort at returning an apathetic 'I love you'. How strange to think about these concepts as properties of light, but I do. Maybe I'm strange, lots of people would probably agree, but thinking too much is at its heart - this strangeness - and I've always felt that thinking too much will drive an intelligent soul crazy; just as staring at the sun will cause blindness. This truth, my truth, is always a white light, as all truths inevitably are.

The Politics of Sex

2007-04-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

Everyone's hair smelled the same
It was all downhill when they saw the dame
she took off the dress and
he put on her dress only to
stand behid her, with his hands
on her soft shoulders, in the mirror
He noticed her smile, she knew what was next
but she didn't let him know she was on
to him.
But she was mad, and slept
with his father
But then they decided, why bother?
because George W says must be resolute.
And Stalwart.
I'm not sure I know what stalwart means
but a man named Stewart made me
cream my coffee
oooh - sticky
what a mess, eh?
so I never did him again

Pace

2007-04-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

A bus rolled down
and I said with a frown
get your silly butt to town
or you will look like a clown
with a perpetual frown
I sat in the corner crying
Oh my baby, I will keep trying
because your smile is the reward
but your eyes, blood shot
and blurry, you need a drink to recover
red wine, sweet grapes, crushed
and squashed to make my Happy wine. So I
drank and drank until my eyes shine
Honestly, throw me a bone!
or at least cut me a break. You know
my luck
with your luck, you'll need the help
of Osama
Nacho Mama
Wow, how hard was this to say
As difficult as conformity
must be to adjust to-
finish another one, is what I like to do

Ramble

2007-04-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

The length of jeans
should be in direct proportion to the amount of beans
that are eaten and amount used for growing
I'l smoke what the white rabbit is growing
by the pound
that's how they sell it!
until you can tell it...
or just say what the fuck!
and Dive Deep.
Where harsh sounds become muted with the fish
smell. I'm now confused but happy
But then he'll cry, 'cause he's sappy!
and he popped her in the rump and was happy
as she turned back and smiled. More I heard
and more I listened
To the peepers, down at the pond
ever so fondly, I wonder about John
Whew, a fresh start, what would you like?
A new lease on life, maybe a ew head
Good thing my name isn't Fred.
It's Kurt. And so it goes.

Too Casual Boom

2007-04-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

A brightly colored box of cereal
filled with dog pooh
Oh my, what am I to do with it?
place it gently in my secret place
and enjoy the sensational feel of
the salty ocean spray on her face
this was a familiar taste. All the sudden
my man said to me
I love your socks.
Let's go crazy and jump off the docks.
only to freeze your ass
you think it may be, not entirely sure
Ah, ha! She's ever so pure!
at least that iw what she tells the
pastor, for sure
she knew she wasn't pure.
But everyone else knew otherwise.
and so Cheeney reloaded and
shot again. Boom - Boom. How much fun we had, so
I tied him up again. When he came over at noon
and then filled up the Volvo with gas
It was almost profound, but too hidden to tell
What she wanted from her partner!

I Won't Be Lead There

2006-07-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

goodness is
perceptable.
the flick is
never
shown in its entirity.
Decide with the information
you're given.
(I avoid the abyss.)
Consistently pausing
with anxiety, tremors, perspiration, as the
black and white borders
become muted with grays.
My footprints -
I left them behind
morphed from a light step;
a dance,
no longer an eight-and-half,
these prints
but a ten, eleven maybe.
Dragged. Kicking? Screaming?
Light another one.
Sweet exhale. My favorite part.

My Mother's Elm is Now My Own

2006-04-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

I tried to relax for my afternoon nap but I couldn’t get my head to shut down. Every time I would get close to oblivion I would catch myself from falling out of a tree.

Not just any tree. The tree. A huge elm tree. It’s been here longer than my mother or grandmother could remember. This time of year the back porch has to be swept each day because of the multitude of red winter buds that the wet springtime breezes dislodge from its towering branches. I have to be cautious of where these buds are swept, never deposited in the flower gardens that surround my nineteenth century home. These particular elm buds seem to contain seeds that quickly sprout, take root, and overshadow the delicate lilies, peonies, vinca, and poppies.

I finally give up and heave myself off the couch when I hear my youngest running down the sidewalk. She never walks from the bus stop to home. It’s the same sound every day: tiny lavender sneakers slamming against the cement, accompanied by breathless shouts.
“I’ll meet you on the trampoline in five minutes!”

In the door she races, smiling to expose each of her newly formed and crowded teeth.

“Hey Mom. You put the screen on the door.”
“I thought it was time.”

It’s always wonderful to replace the glass storm door with screen. Every aspect of it changes the dynamics of the house. As it slams behind her we both notice the different sound it makes compared to the heavy glass we use during the winter. We collectively decide that we missed the forgotten sound, the sound of spring vacation. It seems like a lifetime since we’ve heard it, and are as hungry for it as we are for potato salad at the Mother’s Day BBQ, or associating the color green with the smell of first-cut grass.

“Go open the door, and let it slam again.”

Most of the time she loves my little quirky games, and I can feel that this is one of those fortunate times. It’s obvious that she is smiling even though I can only see her back as she quickly heads to the door.

Her compact and excited expression changes to boredom after three slams and she asks what we have to eat. I go through a list, the same list as every other weekday. This day she asks for toast with jelly.

“I’ll be waiting in the living room.”
“Do you want milk?”
“Yes, please.”

Always so polite. Demanding, yes. But consistently polite. She gobbles down her snack while watching a few minutes of SpongeBob. The door slams again, the melodious novelty already wearing thin. I hear her moments later exuberantly dictating the rules of a seemingly complicated game to the neighboring kids.

I grab my broom on my way outside to the porch and sweep the elm buds away. I notice tiny elm trees among the fragile tea roses and bend down to pull them out. I meticulously pile them up into a neat stack as I weed. When I have gathered a substantial amount I get the can of gasoline from the shed, dowse the pile of saplings, and throw a match. The violence of the flame is short-lived and melodramatic. I feel stealthy satisfaction.

I put the gas can away, grab the lopping shears in one calloused hand and the rickety ladder in the other. Every year there is one area of the elm that needs trimming. If I don’t get at it soon enough, I’ll end up trimming the branches while dangling off of the edge of the roof. I’ve had to perform this dangerous feat in previous years after I noticed midsummer that the kitchen was not getting any light at all. I couldn’t look out of the window at my bee balm, or the family of fox training their fuzzy pups, or the hummingbirds, or the deer, or the wild turkeys, or a ballgame.
While I’m washing my hands at the kitchen sink my older daughter impatiently beckons from the bathroom.

“Mom, come see if there are any curls in the back of my hair.”
“Coming” I sing back at her. Her music drowns out my reply. She doesn’t need to hear my voice, she knows I heard her request and will come.

As I dry my hands I can see a branch of the elm that I neglected to trim. I put it on my mental list of tasks to complete soon and head toward the bathroom. The counter is cluttered with hair products, make-up I no longer use, and her straightening iron. I keep to myself the fact that I prefer the curls God gave her. She’s fifteen. She wants her hair to be straight and Godless. I see the harsh reflection of my dirty fingernails and ragged cuticles in the mirror as I pluck a few of her stray eyebrows. She angles the mirror for a better glimpse, until I notice that the monstrous elm has become the backdrop, framing her expectant face.

It will shade the trampoline soon.

Where Were You on Sixty-eight?

2006-04-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

We spent our winter weekends hunting rabbits and squirrels in the back forty. Mom never had to go, I understand now that she enjoyed her time alone in the house. How she excitedly dressed the younger ones in layers of heavy wool and boots lined with Wonder bread bags! Sometimes she would take our picture as proof of our departure in the snowy backyard before Dad led the seven of us into the woods. Lately I find myself studying the expressions on the faces in those pictures.

Rabbits didn't have a chance up against us. We were stealthily quiet and trained as well as any dog. We had a strategy: hunger. We shared this strategy with the other predators, and the woods quietly allowed us entrance as it would any other animal, seemingly secure in the knowledge that we would not be wasteful. After all - we were not sportsmen seeking trophies, we were survivors.

It was a long hike, downhill until we circled around toward home, our collective packs filled with gutted rodents. By then we were always exhausted. Without realizing it we counted each time we had to lift our thickly clothed legs. Sixty-eight. Sixty-nine. Seventy. Seventy-one.

Ripe for Peace

2006-04-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

And he thought:

I don't like anyone to watch me when I write home. I don't know why I think this - but I imagine I must be making faces that could easily be interepreted as weak. I'm not an actor...Am I weak? Who here isn't? I don't see much difference in any of us, covering up the same thing, this consuming fear of death. Heros? What makes a hero? Maybe a Hollywood contract. It's an act, we're all actors, but no one will pay to see the show. Will I ever go home? They exchanged my home [like a hat] at the door for a small piece of paper with a number representation.

Rejection Is

2006-04-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

Size: enormous, a flood, drowning, suffocating
Shape: sharp and jagged, like that prehistoric weapon swinging on a chain, suspended from a club.
Location: Everywhere, omnipotent - my heart, head, belly, and feet.
Color: wine-red
Smell: perspiration and tears; salty
Sound: choking sounds
Taste: metallic

Judson Mitcham's "Surrender"

2006-04-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

We were ordinary men,
unable to embrace each other fully-
to bury a face in the other man's neck,
to rock like drunks in the doorway, saying
goodbye. It was always a handshake
and maybe that sideways hug,
with an arm around the shoulders.
In the hospital
you couldn't understand, didn't know me,
tried to overturn the rack by the bed, tear
the needles from your arm; searched everywhere,
underneath the sheets and the pillow,
for your clothes, going home; grew frightened

when confused by the purpose of a spoon, angry
when you couldn't even urinate - falling
to hit the plastic bottle, till I held you.
If I leaned down close
when the baffled agitation started up,
and I smoothed back your hair, or I kissed you
on the forehead or the cheek, whispered, "Daddy,"
you'd throw your arms around me.

There's a way a man turns to a woman,
so his lips just barely graze hers, yet in this,
there is everything that follows, each detail
of forgetting where they are.
And today, I am trembling with desire, wild
for the years, when my lips feel yours, cool
as gold. One kiss for the infinite particulars of love, to tell you this:

I will be with you there, in the darkness.

BWN: Reading this makes me feel like someone very special has just shared his most intimate of masculine fears and desires. It moves me.

Another Exquisite Corpse I Like to Call "Girlfriend"

2006-04-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

sharp-edged clear, LSD clear
she and I
together with
our painful smiles

forgiving breezes
the breeze of
"Yeah, man" conversation
remember baubles

hug yourself
say goodbye
it's all pull from here

sometimes when her shores run shallow I
do not want to wade there

my memory may be gone
but my creations are often
better than memory

she sees me
and that's OK
this once

ncpr

2006-04-07T04:01:00.000-07:00

Did anyone hear the broadcast last night? I checked online and cannot seem to get anything more recent than 2005.

Sticker Art

2006-04-07T03:46:00.000-07:00

Wednesday at the gallery was interesting. The artist Angelo Slugz was very laid back and supportive of any creation we pulled out of our hat. I rode over with Trever, guess what music played on his truck stereo? You guessed it! The Beatles! I was compelled to confess my Italian "Hey, Jude" incident. If you beg I'll risk embarrassment and tell you also.

We were the only smokers on campus, go figure. It reminded me of Dennis Hopper's gang in the movie "Water World." I know it received bad reviews, but I found the flick hysterical because:
a) I'm a Dennis Hopper fan
b) I'm a smoker

All-in-all, it was a great afternoon. Sorry you missed it.

A Free-Write With That Beater Car Picture in Mind

2006-04-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

Can't you just hear the music? Rock-n-roll, of course. The kind of song that everyone knows the words, ha ha, sometimes there's one individual in the crowd that thinks the words are something completely wrong, he's been singing the wrong words for eons, something totally ridiculous and you have to stop with the sun's warm kiss and scented breeze on your back and ask, "Did you just say 'bringing in the yeast?' You did! HAHAHAHA. Did you think this was a song about an infection? You're killing me!"

Then, everyone smiling so hard it hurts, so fucking into the intense beauty of the moment and being alive and how cool it can be, there is a brief silence. We're together with these painful smiles.

One chick in the back seat, that chick whose hair is always so perfectly messy and sexy at the same time, you know her, she begins to talk about the drugs and trips she used to have. Nothing is more clear, more sharp-edged clear, as when you're on acid. Remember?

Another is taking off shoes and sticking their feet out of the window. I'm Free! It just doesn't get any better than this. Anybody else hungry? Oh, that cat with the huge backpack brought sandwiches, "Pull over man, let's eat."

One in the group trots to the top of the rocky hill, the rest laugh and try to follow. It becomes a race, it becomes King Of The Hill. The King has mayonaise on his triumphant chin but no one tells him... It's too nice a day. Rock on.

Mimicking Margaret Atwood

2006-03-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

1. What on earth are you wearing?
2. Fashion
3. Begin with a squeeky-clean and moisturized body, (depending on the look you wish to achieve you may want to skip that running-water-thingy altogether. Whatever. You decide.) Open your scented closet and discover each morning's potential with musical eyes and a prevailing storm of fun. Crank the stereo. Dance in front of the mirror. Will it be a magical day? A creative day? A purposeful day? A freaky day? Who are you? Make sure that your cologne is on before you begin to mix and match tops and bottoms, not because it may stain them, silly. Who cares, they're from the Salvation Army, the reason: it's nice when you attempt to wear them again. Shit, this shirt still doesn't work, but what is that heavenly scent? Patchouli? Yum.
4. Fashion is feeling funky today. Fashion purchased a one-way ticket to 1985. Fashion won't wait for warmer weather. Fashion's hair is highly flammable. Fashion does not have the right shoe. Fashion shaved its legs for a skirt, only to discover a run in the hose - what a waste of time. Fashion's hair doesn't compliment - step away from the scissors, you'll regret it. And face it, how many hats do you own?
5. Fashion on a budget. How can I be individual if I shop at American Eagle? Now is whenever, just wear it. Do I smell mothballs, are mothballs a good smell? They can be, call an advertiser. Faded chic. Jill Ireland has hideous feet, that's why she sells socks. What's in your closet? Don't throw it out, fashion is circular. Can I answer the door in this? When will I ever get to wear that shirt, to bed? I'll laugh out loud as I dress. I love Halloween, it's my favorite.
6. Fashion tastes like coffee ice cream. Fashion smells like foreign currency. Fashion smiles with crooked teeth. Fashion reads all the bestsellers. Fashion walks proudly with an ugly dog. Fashion feels like a crowded playground. Fashion hangs like ornaments from a boxed tree. Fashion stares head-on. Fashion rarely works twice. Fashion's critical eye is watching. Fashion is a pack of hungry wolves. Fashion can fool your perceptions, your truths.
7. "If Preparation H removes under-eye bags, then I'm wearing enough to shrink every bloated sphincter in this room." "Doesn't she even own a mirror?" "Who dresses you?" "And that lipstick, Good God, Labor Day was months ago..."
8. Fashion can be used to brighten a mood, ask any psychologist or minister. Feeling blue? Go shopping! It's the American cure to be in debt.
9. "I never wear makeup, it's slutty." It's not slutty, it's professional. "Professional women have more affairs than housewives." Because of a little rouge? Pluck your eyebrows before Oprah labels you. "Why are you wearing barn boots with that bathing suit?" Because I can.
10. When I was ten, I often made my own clothes. My mother let me wear them to school, even though I did not know how to make button holes or attach zippers. They always had to be removed with scissors. Wash-n-wear? Ha! Wear-n-tear! I failed HomeEc.

Parting the Heavy Velvet Curtain,

2006-03-28T04:44:00.000-08:00

she steps away from the stove where the rice is simmering and onto the stage. The highly polished wooden floors echo as she takes each practiced step. Pound pound pound. Snap snap snap. She steps into the center and pauses. The lights are blinding and she cannot see her audience. Up above there are beams and rafters, ropes and electrical cords. Gazing upward, she clears her throat, and cautiously announces, "Tonight's dinner is roast pork, rice, buttered vegetables, and rolls." She holds her hand over her eyes to block some of the light and peers one last time at the audience-she-cannot-see. God, I hope I've prepared enough. She turns on her unpolished heel and pound pound pounds back to the kitchen, cozy with its ruffled gingham curtains.

Fist

2006-03-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

And my fate line
still steers clear
of my life
I've questioned
And traced
And come up blank
yet again
sunny days
make me think
oh, this is it
And I keep my
fist closed
like a gift
under a tree
savoring the hope
And then quickly ripped
a paper wrapping
And did I think
I could alter
my fleshy groove

The Well has Limits

2006-03-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

did you think I controlled the well like a faucet on off and on again when you forced my gaze toward its dry depths I will be thirsty for a bit until I create another illusion of an unending water supply I will drink wine until then enough to make me good and drunk so as not to feel the slice of each spade I relinquish the well to you drink alone

2006-03-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, to work
in a gallery
of garrish display
precisely lit
to exhibit the qualities
shining
I'm fearful of the woman
with the protective hat that
shadows
her head her eyes her soul.

2006-03-13T05:06:00.000-08:00

I'm barefoot so
I'll sidestep
the broken glass for now.

One day
when I've forgotten
I'll muster the broom and
the glue.

I'll be careful to recreate
the twinkle in this
collage's eye
even if I
have to dig
in that hole in the floor.

But I'm barefoot
now, and this job requires
the perfect shoe.

2006-03-13T04:04:00.000-08:00

I'm going
to forget about you
and what you did
with my reflection

I will
place you up high
where I never dust
or sort

And when I
leave this House
with its fragile
precarious foundation

I pray
my inability has
spared your
own single-focused retort

I cannot think of an appropriate title - any suggestions?

Nick Flynn's "You Ask How"

2006-03-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

& I say, suicide, & you ask
how & I say, an overdose, and then
she shot herself,
& your eyes fill with what?
wonder? so I add, in the chest,
so you won't think
her face is gone, & it matters somehow
that you know this...

& near the end I
eat all her percodans, to know
how far they can take me, because
they are there. So she
won't. Cut straws
stashed in her glove compartment,
& I split them open
to taste the alkaloid residue. Bitter.
Lingering. A bottle of red wine
moves each night along
as she writes, I feel too much,
again & again. Our phone now

unlisted, our mail
kept in a box at the post office
& my mother tells me to always leave
a light on so it seems
someone's home. She finds a cop
for her next boyfriend, his hair
greasy, pushed back with his fingers.
He lets me play with his service revolver
while they kiss on the couch.
As cars fill the windows, I aim,
making the noise with my mouth,
in case it's them,

& when his back is hunched over her I aim
between his shoulder blades,

in case it's him.

BWN: I could hear the story in this Flynn piece. A boy describes what his life is like after his mother has been abused. He becomes protective of her and suspicious of new men in her life.

Quiet Time is Over

2006-03-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

He crashes through my otherwise quiet
with plastic guns in tow

He pulls out the elastic of his pajamas
to check his admiration

He laughs at all his bodily functions
the louder all the louder

He spits as he sings, "I like big butts"
in the heavily polished pew

He crashes through my otherwise quiet
with wit and humor unmatched

An Impending Sale

2006-03-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

what lurks there
in the hollow of my walls
obvious in warm weather

many I witness
crunch between the bright frigid pane
my warm finger kills

yellowed images beckon
with exterminator's efficiency
at what personal cost

each day there is more
I grow weary
of the soldiers in the red shell

Am I

2006-03-04T06:40:00.000-08:00

He dialed her number with jerking fingers

Am I weak
Am I strong
Either way
I won't stay long

He audibly caught his breath when she answered

Am I weak
Am I strong
Either way
I won't stay long

He blurted a memorized speech

Am I weak
Am I strong
Either way
I won't stay long

He was torn between his ache to end the conversation and the need to hear her voice

Am I weak
Am I strong
Either way
I won't stay long

The Business of Casualty

2006-03-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

In December of 2002, my family loaded into our van and drove to Brunswick, Maine, for my older brother Johnny's Naval retirement ceremony. Johnny - or Senior Chief Whalen - had served twenty four years, was stationed on four aircraft carriers, one helicopter carrier, earned a baccalaureate, and finished his military career as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Instructor. I was very proud.

When we returned home, my sister Michele reported the event to the local newspaper. She listed all the family members - myself included - that were in the military during the last 75 years. The list is staggering, and a few of the names and ranks were followed by expressions such as, "Gassed in France," or, "POW in WWII." I wanted to know more.

While surfing for information I found a website that explained "Gassed in France" well enough to satisfy my macabre curiosity. It boiled down to this gruesome detail: chlorine and mustard gas were used regularly throughout Europe between 1914 and 1917. Chlorine caused temporary [or even permament] blindness and severe damage to the lungs. Mustard caused blistering of the skin and asphyxiation. Men that survived the gas never fully recovered.

As for the POW, well, that was my Great Uncle Adams. Arthur Adams Bushnell, United States Air Force. My grandmother's baby brother.

When Grandma died, a suitcase surfaced. It is filled with neatly bundled and organized letters and postcards. Some are love letters and poems my grandfather eloquently wrote to her, but most are postcards and letters home from her four brothers in European combat zones during WWII. Seemingly, she saved every correspondance she received.

The most troubling of all this memorabilia is a pencil-written note on a scrap of paper from an unknown source:

"To the Postmaster at Langhorne, Pennsylvania. News from shortwave radio of a boy from Langhorne named Bushnell whose plane was shot down over Germany. If you know the family would you please pass this message on to them?"

I reverently held this sixty year-old document as if it were still news, as if it meant life or death, as if it were my own child it referred. I imagined how his mother agonized over the news, how many times she disbelievingly read it, how many times she clutched it during her prayers, how many times she kissed it as though it were his flesh.

I imagined Uncle Adams returning after the war, and his mother showing him the note and saying, "This is how we found out."

My great-grandmother's grief is not listed on any official census. The only evidence is neatly tied with red ribbon in the leather suitcase with the bone handle. Lately, after listening to the morning news, her grief creeps into my soul, and it means business.

Vermeer, My Mother, and Me

2006-02-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

A poem by Eamon Grennan

Roof and sky and chimney stacks,

the blue, the white, the reddish browns

how he might have seen Westfield Road

and the coppergreen spires of Mount Argus

from the window of my childhood bedroom

I can gather from a little corner

of his Little Street, and the almost

unremarkable presence in it

of the woman bent over in her own back yard,

who is leaning for a mop in a wooden bucket

and who just might be my mother

at our kitchen door, her eyes cast down

to the shore that's clogged and stinking again

as she takes in a breath-filled

with the smells of grass and apples,

coal dust, Jeyes Fluid, and the sugary

toffee scent from the factory down the road-

that will, when she raises her head,

come out with my name on it, my own

two syllables making their instant way

back through the kitchen, along the narrow hall,

up the dark-carpeted, big-windowed bedroom

where I'll hear that name and her known voice

shaping it, making it quick, making me

be there, myself in the very moment

when our daily life-defined

by cloud-broken blue sky and the ginger

bricks of gable-ends, radiance of roof-tiles

and wet chimneys-has to happen, there

where she's calling me to come, quick, to help her.

BWN: There are many reasons I was attracted to this Grennan poem; Ireland, motherhood, the reference to the ownership of a name, and hypens! I love the way dual meanings are created with the use of hyphens in this piece. The setting is so interesting: I could envision the Dublin community, a boy gazing from his upper-level bedroom window at the Mount Argus church in the distance, and everything in-between; evidence of rain, industry, the smells, the noises coming from the row houses, the beach, the coal furnaces, the wallpaper. The boy is familiar with Vermeer, is he cultured? He wonder's how Vermeer would see his own view of the world, would he have painted it as "unremarkably" as Little Street? How could it be unremarkable, when it is his alone? And in addition to this breathtaking view, this boy also has a name that becomes incredibly special when uttered from his mother's lips.

http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/catalogue/little_street.htm

Grandpa's Window

2006-02-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

Jason was rummaging through his grandparents’ attic. It smells a bit like grandma up here, but different, because grandma mixes her mustiness with life. This third-story airless room presumably has no life. He has overlooked the only evidence of it; the cobwebs that hang from every rafter, the bat guano in a dark corner by the chimney.

He opens a fragile cardboard box, only to set a new wave of dust tumbling into the stifling air. He feels a sneeze coming on, and without thinking he wipes his stuffy nose on his sleeveless wrist. Grandma calls from the bottom of the attic staircase,
“Jason dear, what are you doing up there?”
“Just looking around, Grandma.”
“You’re going to be here all summer Jason, why not explore the attic on a rainy day?”
Jason didn’t answer. He was preoccupied with a WWII postcard he found in the box. He had seen the same one in his high school history class. “Propaganda,” Miss Brown claimed. Jason noted once again that the young soldier tossing the grenade was not much older than he.
“Jason? It’s a beautiful day, come enjoy the sunshine. You’ll be cooped up indoors soon enough with your freshman classes. I thought maybe you would help me in the garden this morning. I think there might be some strawberries ready to pick, and if we don’t get out there soon the catbirds will eat them. Jason?”

Jason took one last look inside the box before he carefully placed the postcard on
the top of the rest of its contents and put the lid back on. He was reluctant to leave the box, and was absent-mindedly rubbing the dust off the top of it when he replied, “I’m coming, Grandma.”

The catbirds meowed a feeble warning from a tangled elderberry that choked the edge of the garden as Jason picked strawberries. He ate one out of every six that he picked, and Grandma asked him each time the same question, “Aren’t they the best?” And each time he replied with his mouth full of the red juicy fruit, “MmmmHmmm.”
“I’ll get these cleaned up for shortcake. Your Grandpa loves shortcake.”

Jason continued to work in his grandparents’ garden for the duration of the morning. He staked the tomato plants. He thinned the carrots. He pulled the slugs off the young cabbages and drowned them in beer. Grandma had sent him to the new neighbors’ house after she spoke to them on the phone – it seemed like the longest conversation ever – her explaining the excess of rain, the excess of slugs, and the lack of beer needed to drown them. Jason could imagine the sympathetic but impatient faces of these new people in response to their elderly neighbors. He could imagine them trying not to think, “Just come and get the stupid beer, will ya? We don’t care what you want it for.” Neighbors such as Grandma expected didn’t seem to exist anymore.

Jason looked apologetic when he went to their back door, and they made an attempt to appear friendly. Grandma told him their names several times before she finally released him to go over and get the beer, and yet standing there on their stoop he couldn’t think of what she had said, so he accepted the can, mutely saluted, turned around, and marched back across the quiet street.
Jason curiously watched as every slug he dropped into the beer changed into a little gray ball, perfectly round and hard, before sinking to the bottom of the pail. When there were more slugs than beer in the pail, he straightened up, stretched, and headed for the kitchen.

“There’s my hard working and handsome grandson, just in time for lunch.” Grandma was busy making a tray for Grandpa. It was basically the same tray every day; a glass of water with exactly three ice cubes, a napkin folded diagonally, a fork, a knife, and a spoon that Grandpa couldn’t use. The only thing that changed was the actual meal, and even that didn’t vary much from day to day. Today it was a ham salad sandwich made with whole wheat bread, a dill pickle, and a small bowl of strawberry shortcake. Jason wondered why there were all the utensils for a simple sandwich. “Maybe Grandpa wondered too.”

He carried the tray into the sitting room, the only downstairs room big enough to hold a hospital bed. He found his grandfather as he had every day this summer, gazing out the only window. He always felt like he was interrupting a wonderful story, the way his grandfather never lost interest in the vista.
“What do we have here?” Grandpa startled.
“Ham salad and strawberry shortcake, Grandpa.”
“I’ll never be able to eat all this. You eat the sandwich so your Grandma won’t worry about my appetite, and I’ll eat the shortcake. Ha heh, heh. Did you pick these berries yourself?”
“Grandma and I did this morning.”
“This is my favorite.”
“Grandma said so.”
Jason sat next to his grandfather on the bed and feebly tried one last time to get
him to eat some of the sandwich. It was a mock argument; one that they assumed every day. As the game demanded, he gave up quickly, and started feeding the shortcake to his grandfather. He didn’t realize that his own mouth was open as he pushed the spoon toward the kind old man. In between his grandfather’s bites, he took large mouthfuls of the ham sandwich.

“Grandpa, I found a box in the attic. There’s a postcard in it from World War II, and it made me wonder.”
“About what?”
“Things.”
“Specific things? Generic things? What things, Jason?”

Another accepted spoonful. More noisy chewing.

“Were you drafted?”

Grandpa didn’t reply, so Jason dropped the subject. He put another spoonful of shortcake toward the elderly man, but he waved it away, and then turned back to the window.

“What do you see out there, Grandpa?”

“It was a rainy day. Cold. Dreary. It was the kind of rainy day that sinks into your bones, through all your heavy layers of clothing. That office was so bright in contrast to the bleakness outside. I had to blink several times before my eyes adjusted. A man in uniform – I later learned he was an NCO – put his heavy hand on my shoulder and said, “Step right up, soldier.” He made it sound like we were old buddies, “Step right up, soldier.” It was a long time ago, Jason. A lifetime. But every time I look out this window – every time - I can’t help but remember how cold and inflexible that pen was in my hand.”

Check out this movie

2006-02-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

I stayed up way too late last night and watched "The Upside of Anger." I'm not normally a Kevin Costner fan, but he was fabulous in this movie. I enjoyed the movie sooo much, it had tons of twists and believable - not always pretty - emotion. But I'm curious - did I like it because it is a chick flick? If any gentlemen watch I'd be interested to know their reactions. Please respond!

WWII Bomb Thrower

2006-02-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

Imagine you are rumaging around in your grandma's attic. It's dusty, it smells a little bit like grandma - but different because grandma mixes her mustiness with life. This place presumably has no life, only evidence in the form of cobwebs and bat guano. . . until you find a propoganda postcard from WWII. It's demanding the recipient to, "BUY MORE WAR BONDS!" It features a young man - about your age - all suited up and in the heat of battle. You imagine what this young man is like, what he's thinking, it becomes a kind of obsession:

Did well in school, dreamed of running away with the circus, most likely to succeed, dated the prom queen, football star, responsible, had an after-school job, respectful of elders, active in his church, physically fit, knows right from wrong, trusts his parents, loves his country, believes in freedom, protects women and children, prideful, is aftraid to die, competitive, writes to Mom different letters than those to Dad, loves a good joke, not old enough to vote, a virgin, has optimistic and typical American poster-boy-plans for the future. Back home when Saturday nights stood out from the rest of the week, after spending the day helping his Dad clean the garage, he'd shower and borrow the family car to pick up that prom queen.

He's thinking:
I don't know how I ended up here. Is it a punishment? Why didn't anyone warn me?
I'm scared. Last night, after it was dark enough, I let down my resolve for a mere moment and a tear dropped in my lap. I thought I'd actually been hit, I don't even want to remember what I was thinking at that moment, it scared the shit out of me. Recover, man. I've been writing to Mom, a composition that is taking weeks because there's no way to express what I've been doing, no way that she won't worry if she knew. Chin up, chin up. It won't last forever. Most letters I begin get crumpled, and even though paper is more precious in this dug-out-we-call-home than water, I used the crumpled paper to light a fire. A brief spot of warmth and light. What I wouldn't give for a piece of Mom's chocolate cake. Is she worried about me? Does she sit on my bed, smell my pillow, hug it to her chest and whisper my name? I haven't showered in three weeks, and I traded my last clean pair of socks for a couple of cigarettes. I am not a smoker, so the first one made me dizzier than hell. Did I imagine enjoying that naseau? What do I say in a letter? I don't want Mom to worry. It's getting harder writing letters that she'll recognize. The time I spend trying to figure out the best words, the hopeful words, gives me a short reprieve form laying this close to my survival. As I crouch on the ground I wonder if there's a difference, you know - in it, on it, under it - the ground, you know. Mom's on my bed right now, I feel it. She's trying to fit into that old mattress's center. Dad will come home and find her like that, the pillow wet and wrinkled. She'll cuddle that pillow to her neck tomorrow, and forget that her smell has replaced mine. I no longer exist in that bed.

Trust Me

2006-02-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

Today will be a good day
Trust me.

Pink is my favorite color.
It's the color of flamingos.

Blue birds bored by being bashful.
They sang no more,
and flew away with the prize.
Not exactly the first gold statue of my liking,
but close enough.

It was shiny, but also fragile.
It was decrepit and often forgot its purpose.

But last year the birds came back
and with them came spring.
We can trust it will happen again.

Today will be a good day.
Trust me.

Judson Mitcham - Poet

2006-02-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

"Writing", by Judson Mitcham

But prayer was not enough, after all, for my father.
His last two brothers died five weeks apart.
He couldn't get to sleep, had no appetite, sat
staring. Though he prayed,
he could find no peace until he tried
to write about his brothers, tell a story
for each one: Perry's long travail
with the steamfitters' union, which he worked for;
and Harvey- here the handwriting changes,
he bears down- Harvey loved his children.

I discovered those few sheets of paper
as I looked through my father's old Bible
on the morning of his funeral. The others
in the family had seen them long ago;
they had all known the story
and they told me I had not, most probably, because
I am a writer,
and my father was embarrassed by his effort. Yet
who has seen him as I can: risen

in the middle of the night, bending over
the paper, working close
to the heart of all greatness, he is so lost.

BWN: I find the image Mitcham created of Harvey rich and powerful.
When his father writes of him, he bears down, this is evident to the reader (Mitcham), even though he did not witness his father writing it. Being a writer himself, he understands the significance of bearing down, the creation of literary art is more than the syntax and denotation. This hand-written piece has the creative connotation of pressure.

A Free-Write About My Childhood Bed

2006-02-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

I don't remember the color, but I seem to remember it was metal. It was a couple of days ago, you see. (I don't know why I'm facetious - it was EONs ago.) So - it was a metal bedframe with - I'm sure - mismatched sheets and an old and lumpy mattress that forced me to sleep in the fetal position, warm, safe, quiet, hot breath on my balled up fist. I was afraid of what was under the bed, hiding, waiting to grab my ankles. An older sister recently confessed that she hid under my bed once and grabbed my ankles. I don't remember it, I blocked it out - oh, but the fear stayed. Memory stage left, fear front and center. My younger sister was often afraid too, and I let her get in bed with me. It seemed like a large bed, but everything does when you're little. The room seemed plenty large enough for four sisters. Regardless, there was plenty room in my bed for two little girls, with some to spare for hand-me-down teddies. Although we are 18 months apart, we'd sink like twins into the depression in the center.

Check Out Prairie Summer's Blog from Beirut

2006-01-30T16:27:00.000-08:00

My niece, Prairie, is currently in Beirut, Lebanon working for The World Education Corps. Prairie is an amazing young woman who received a degree in Public Communications from American University in Washington, D.C.. After graduation from AU she worked in DC as a journalist for two years and then decided she needed something more stimulating - so off to NYC and Columbia for Prairie, where she finished her Master's in Peace Education (with amazing grades her mother Valerie proudly affirms). While in the Big Apple she interviewed for and received a highly sought-after position beginning in Jordan, where she worked 5 months of her year-long tour of service. Just after Christmas she moved to Beirut. In Beirut she works with high school students on various projects to include media communication and its associated sensationalism, plus environmental issues. She has seen some amazing sights, and captured them in her blog with wonderful pictures and sensitively written stories. check out www.prairiesummer.blogspot.com

2006-01-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

On different days, in different circumstance, with different moods, different styles of music/lyrics compel me to feel different levels of enhancement. Sometimes it's Neil Young, sometimes it is Tom Petty, it might be Ray Charles. My favorite of these feelings quickly starts in my dancing feet, travels up to my swinging hips and finds a home in my belly (bellies are the center for us Virgos!). It is a fullness similar in feeling to getting up from the red-meat-and- cabernet-laden table, having enjoyed a satisfying and rich meal with stimulating friends.

Today I had another of these epiphany-like physiological moments, and it was inspired by EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL's song "Get Me": I never thought I'd grow up so fast so far. To know yourself is to let yourself be loved. And I want to be addicted, I want to be secure, I want to wake up after the night before, but do you get me? Do you ever get Me? I'll press your hand against my face, weaken my resistance. I'll pull the sheets over our heads, let the broken sky break above our heads. And I want to be addicted, I want to be secure, I want to wake up after the night before, but do you get me? Do you ever get me? Shower me with affection and I'll return in kind. I have no hidden motive, I am blind. I'm a stone inside a box, I'm a spring inside a clock, you can wear me on your wrist and I'll tell you things ten thousand times, but do you get me? Do you ever get me?