Laurie's Junk Drawer

[Sorella]

Laurie,
I really liked your daughter's science project! She has a point despite her mother's snide mumblings

Happy Easter and Fifth Day of Napo already. Luckily 25 whole days of fun and games remain -- eek!

Sorella

[UnkleBob]

I really like Interpretation of Dreams. Great images - the ending feels a little punchy. I was trying to decide if you need the lines or not. When the St. Paul ...was a fun read.

[Emilio]

Omg, PC, your daughter's science experiment had me rolling!! lol

teeters between the edge
of animal and vegetable, possesses a consistency of tofu, smells
strongly of Parmesan

That's fun!

[Donner]

Hi, Laurie,

Your thread is an enlightening and entertaining as usual.

I was wondering what would happen with Interpretation of Dreams if you used the first half of the closing lines - Please don't say this is an allegory for my life - as the beginning of the poem, as a kind of harbinger, then present the dream and end with the last half - I couldn't stand it. Sort of as a conversation opener - "Please don't say it's so...." Would it up the tension and make the dream even more horrible? Don't know, just playing with the puzzle pieces.

I think I need to go clean my fridge now.

Donner

[Speug]

Hello Laurie,

The last line of this last one made me laugh. 'Interpretation of Dreams' is really good - I love the vague dread building followed by the straight punch of the last S.

Cheers,
Paul.

[PClem]

Sorella - mother's get to be snide. And thanks for coming by, again.
UnkleBob - Glad you found something to enjoy.
Emilio - I'm happy if you're happy.
Donner - That's an excellent suggestion. My husband is cleaning our fridge right now. I have chlorine burns from cleaning my daughter's. Never again.

I know I'm posting ahead and will continue to try to do so. Rough month and tomorrow, even though it is probably true you can't fight City Hall, sometimes, you gotta try, anyway. Tomorrow will be a long day and research to do before then.

No One Speaks of Steve
for Steve Heyman


In the orange-rose gluing night
to dawn the fallen tree resembles
a young man spread nude, sinews taut,
skin pale and luminescent.


It's like that boy tied
to that fence in Wyoming,
a perfect image
of surrender.


Then the heat of day desiccates
light and a thing of beauty
becomes a body
in decay. Lordotic curve, pocks
of brown on beige, the tree collapses
and it's one more thing beneath
notice.


And it's like Steve whose crime,
so similar to Matthew's, so unpretty
in the way he died, a smear of blood
along I-25, a few teeth, shredded
skin clinging to broken bone,
not enough implication
of sacrifice, too much
fear and so, no one
speaks of Steve.


He taught us
how a Jew sits Shiva,
the importance of silence
in the presence of the dead.


There is an absence
of trees in the high plains
of Laramie and of silence.
There is something in the constant
blowing of the wind
that pushes grief into the skin,
that holds it tenacious
and relentless as the wild
rose splayed across the fences of Wyoming.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Recurring Dreams rich and vivid -- the last two lines made this for me. Those desperate-need-to-pee dreams are worth waking up from mind!

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.

This is such a good opening, I almost felt like I didn't need to read any further. But then the sausage and those eggs! Inspired visual knob gag. Then the frozen chicken and the butcher's knife! This one really made me smile -- and feel a little nervous

How much can you carry? Lots to like here, though I wasn't completely clear who N was addressing in S1. Someone who wants to get rid of some of her daughter's stuff. A partner who is not her daughter's father maybe? Or maybe the daughter reference is to do with inheritance and it's N's stuff that may being gotten rid of or left behind. I think Dad is a hoarder (saving the milk of magnesia).

My Daughter's Fridge is a Science Experiment the penultimate entry is my favourite: "the substance / no longer fits a category and is philosophical, contemplates planes / of higher existence" but the last is a close second. Isn't it frustrating when your child is right?

Great thread. I've enjoyed coming back. Good luck with remaining 5/6 of NaPo. Why, we're almost on the home straight ...

-Matt

[Scavella]

Holy, Laurie, these are some poems. I kept reading because I was trying to pick favourites. Can't. I do know that if they were worked and collected in a book I'd buy it.

Cheers

[prooftheory]

"No one speaks" is a powerful reminder of something that should never be forgotten. Thank you.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

You are correct, I would think, that "No One Speaks of Steve". I had never heard of him. It took me a while to find the story ( http://www.westword.com/news/the-long-road-home-5059444 ). And it seems to me that it occurred long enough ago, and in a place and time where the state of mind/culture/politics was such that one did not speak of such things.

I remember having a college professor at the Catholic University that I attended who "died of a mysterious and lingering illness". This was at a time and in a place where one did not seek to identify what the mysterious and lingering illness might be, though everyone already seemed to know, even as they pretended not to. Certain aspects of his personal life were well-known secrets, but no one ever spoke of them officially.

The story of Steve that you relay is tragic, and you handle it well.

I was thrown a little when attempting to parse the opening:

In the orange-rose gluing night
to dawn the fallen tree resembles

I was thinking that a comma after "dawn" might help.

BrianIs AtYou

[Jee Leong]

as the wild
rose splayed across the fences of Wyoming.

Thank you for remembering.

[larryrap]

Hi Laurie,

Recurrent Dreams is full of that slippery dream essence which I love.
Steve is a serious undertaking which you manage with great poise and dignity.

Larry

[Scrow]

Hello,

Oh, these are both moving and funny/clever in turns.

'Dreams' I love for its vivid specificity, and the way I feel the nightmare alongside your N figure. The rooms of animals are particularly awful and resonant.

'St Paul's Newspress' made me laugh - the details here are good, as well as for me being slightly surreal, which gives the piece a different dimension.

Again, it's the details in 'How much can you carry' that moved me - the packet of Kleenex, and the figure of 'Dad'.

I love the things that are 'not' said in 'experiment', and the hinted-at relationship between mother and daughter. The subject is quirky and funny, but also telling.

'No-one speaks of Steve': It wasn't a story I knew, but I used Brian's smiling link and googled it. Although, to be fair, I didn't need to - I'd got the idea from the poem, and it worked anyway without the specificity. However, having read the story, it seems very important that people are still writing about this, and talking about Steve.

A wonderful thread. I've enjoyed reading these very much - all so different, and all interesting in different ways. 'Steve' is probably my favourite so far, though. I'll be thinking about that story and your poem for a bit.

Sarah

[vmh]

Hi Laurie: I have to say the finish of your first poem is excellent reminder of what we get out of Napo!

With a little luck, they'll let you crawl
the last hundred yards intact,
more or less, and reward you
a well-deserved handful of turkey feathers.

I laughed!

Children's backseat memories/fears are always so dark. You captured that perfectly in Interpretation. Nicely handled.

I think so many people have a where I was then memory about the Bobbit drama. How many women actually held a knife up in mock-aggression. I bet tons. eggs and sausage made me laugh. You carry the humour through the dark story nicely, because it is all so absurd.

I love the turn on day 278. And mom's reaction to same.

No One Speaks of Steve was painful to read. Touching and beautiful and ugly all at once. Well done.

Great imagery throughout too.

Vicky

[PClem]

Matt, Scavella, prooftheory, Brian, Jee, Larry, Sarah and Vicky - I am overwhelmed with the compliments. Re: Steve. He was my professor. He was killed two weeks before I returned to Laramie to defend my dissertation. He gave my first born a tiny ski sweater when she was born three semesters into my graduate studies. I still have that damn sweater. I am occasionally invited as a discussant at LGBT events. I always speak of Steve. It has taken me a long time to formulate this poem. The first day of NaPo I saw the tree that gave me the "in."

Mother to Vegetarian Daughter


Virtue exudes from that soy-chik
pattie on her plate. She'll send us pics
of orange Silkie chickens,
mincing feather pillows minus the casing
plus a beak, a guilt trip meant,
though it rings of the Disneyesque.
and doesn't keep
the rest of the family from hot wings,
little nuggets dipped in Ranch,
a whole bird turned on the spit,
crackling fat, dripping juice.
I wait till the fork touches her lips
to ask did she know 10,000 baby
Monarchs were killed
to form a field of uniform green in order
to create just one piece
(yes, perhaps I exaggerate)
of her fake meat?