Laurie's Junk Drawer

[Alexandrite]

I know you've been following our Hoosier Fiasco on FB--- so you know full well this strikes a very
solid cord in me--- This is tightly cast, strong in language which imparts definitive strength to the meaning.
No dissembling here!!

And as a side-note-- don't these freakin' politicians employ publicists anymore.
One would think they'd tire of fillet of shoe leather!

Strong poem, Laurie! Enjoyed!!

[PClem]

Neil, W.G., Scrow, Sorella, Matt, Rachel, Cookie, Angela, Margit and Gaye - Thank you all for the very warm welcome. Wish I could say I put a lot of work into this poem, but the truth is it was half written between yelling at the idiot in question on TV and, later, in a comment on a friend's FB post. Had I paid better attention throughout the year and made notes, I could probably snark my way NaPo. May have to scroll back through a year's worth of Facebook.

[PClem]

Interpretation of Recurring Dreams


The one where my father is not
only alive but wears pierced earrings,
three to a side,
listens to indie rock
and leaves me
on the side of the road
with a desperate need
to pee because he's late to a concert
and the only toilet is a hole in the ground
and it's clogged. There's the house


and the rooms
I've forgotten,
filled with cages
of animals I didn't know
I had, starved
and matted with filth, crammed
amongst packing crates. Lizards,
parakeets, gerbils, hamsters, chickens.
I will try to save them,
knowing I can't. I climb


over the backseat
as the car careens
down a highway stained
orange by the rising sun
and spilled oil,
grab the steering wheel,
jerk left
just before we smash
into the concrete underpass,
plunge off the bridge,
nose into the river,
roar off the cliff.


Please don't say this is an allegory for my life.
I couldn't stand it.

[Featherless Biped]

Vividly nightmarish. The hoarded animals are scariest--to imagine that one is responsible for doing that to animals. I could be projecting, but it sounds like a guilt dream to me. And the indie rock dad, tying into the general theme of abandonment. My two unpoetic sense on the question in the last line: I think nightmares are distorted symbols of fear, which does not always match reality.

[Arlene]

from someone who knows her birds, a powerful reproach, bravo -- (this was for the 1st poem)

[BruisedOrange]

aww, man! These are both so good! With 'Metaphor', I hadn't known the back story at all, but was able to follow along quite well, and imagined N standing there telling the idiot politician off. (eat some crow!) 'Interpretation of Recurring Dreams' was also much enjoyed, perhaps for the familiarity I felt while reading it!

Happy NaPo!

Jen

[kristalynn]

I can relate to some of these dream elements (i.e. the desperate need to pee, the rooms in the house I've forgotten). Nicely done.

[Emilio]

PC, Metaphor carries its energies well. I love how easily you incorporate social disturbance into your work!

[PClem]

Thanks, Rachel, Arlene, Jen, Kristalyn and Emilio!

When the St. Paul NewsPress Ran the Lorena Bobbitt Story


The editors of the NewsPress ran
Meat Packers Go on Strike
beside Wife Severs Husband's Penis. Mom asked


as she slid eggs and sausage sizzling from the pan
to Dad's plate would he like
to see the lead stories the NewsPress ran.


She looked fine in her orange pansies
on blue background shirtwaist, unlike
a wife who'd cut off her man's penis. Mom sang


Stand By Your Man, as she grabbed
a frozen chicken and butcher knife.
Imagine since that story's ran,


she looked at Dad and laughed
no man feels safe in his kitchen or bed with his wife.
No surprise meat packers went on strike
when that man lost his penis to his woman's wrath.

[cookala]

heya Laurie! Interpretation of Recurring Dreams - the images are great in this, and appropriately nightmarish. the short lines work well to speed this along, much the way a bad dream escalates. good work!

[PClem]

Thanks, Cookie!

How Much Can You Carry?


You ask me to judge the fair line
between just enough and too much, when
what you means is weave
a tapestry between what you can carry
and what my daughter should hold on to.


Instead, I say, after Mom died,
Dad asked me to clean out her closets.


I still have one travel pack
of her Kleenex. You understand,
she died one month before 9/11.


Her pantyhose, in three sizes,
filled half a chest of drawers
her shoes were stored by five decades.


They say when silk grows
old it shatters, elastic surrenders.


Mom said Dad made things disappear:
her Victorian washbowl, childhood
toys, squirrels, but never
National Geographic.


Dad's focus was on the last garbage bag
and as a brown bear will fixate
on honeycomb, he plunged his clawed hand
into hive central, emerged
triumphant with a bottle of Milk
of Magnesia, expiration date 1970.


Why? He said it’s chemically inert.

[Arlene]

Hope the kid in the backseat of this nightmare car is talking to someone who's listening too. Death, having to pee, not being able to save what's loved (animals, birds), waking up before the death crash, though the N doesn't say it, the plunge back into wakefulness... very scary realistic images.

[Arlene]

This is the coolest poem ever written. (the news poem) Sorry, will return with more...loved it, though

[cookala]

heya Laurie! LOVE the metaphor in the title - nice bones here. and a fresh, very creative use of language - shoes stored by 5 decades, the shattered silk and that last strophe. If you are to work this post napo, and I hope you do, S2&3 need the most help, and I am not getting the gist of the closing line. (about being inert) keep it going - you're going strong!

[PClem]

Thanks, Arlene and Cookie for your return visits. Your encouragement is much appreciated.

My Daughter's Fridge is a Science Experiment
or Don't Try This in Your Home


Day 1: Three-quarters of chicken pot pie in a Pyrex dish
enter the fridge


Day 37: White spots grow on the surface


Day 50: The spots, now primarily blue, have taken over the chicken


Day 92: The orange substance in the dish teeters between the edge
of animal and vegetable, possesses a consistency of tofu, smells
strongly of Parmesan


Day 175: Pushed to the back and forgotten, the substance
no longer fits a category and is philosophical, contemplates planes
of higher existence


Day 278: The dish is removed empty, proof,
according to my daughter, that ignored
long enough, some things really do disappear.


Yes, I murmur, along with snow, polar ice caps, boyfriends.