090208 J Sunday, February 8, 2009, 2:43 PM We are headed out to Dodge park. It's sunny and just above freezing and we're intending to walk but I am worrying that the trails will be all icy and bad for walking. I'd like to be outside in the sun. But where?
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Not a Dream
A woman flies above the mountains, stares down at the wrinkled and folded topography, the little lakes and tiny trees like something from a model railroad. She knows she's not dreaming because she hasn't has a flying dream in years. And besides, this is too real. The colors are saturated, like a maladjusted television. Brilliant and multidimensional. More real than real. And she's a awake. Not sleeping, the way she does in dreams and in life, where everything seems dull as if layers of gauze covered her eyes. Maybe she's dead. She twitches her shoulders, feeling for wings. What's keeping her from falling, she wonders. Nothing. She plummets toward the rocks, and since she's not dreaming, she can't wake herself up.
1st draft Sunday, February 8, 2009, 2:55 PM on the way to Dodge park.
* * *
* * *
Not a Dream
A woman flies above the mountains, stares down at the wrinkled and folded topography, the little lakes and tiny trees like props from a model railroad. She knows she's not dreaming because she hasn't had a flying dream in years. And no dream-flying euphoria. Besides, this is too real. The colors are ultra saturated, like a maladjusted television. Brilliant greens and browns and multidimensional. More real than real. And she's a awake. Not sleeping, the way she does in dreams and in life, where everything seems dull as if layers of gauze covered her eyes. Maybe she's dead. She twitches her shoulders, feeling for wings. What's keeping her from falling, she wonders. Nothing. She plummets toward the rocks, and since she's not dreaming, she can't wake herself up in time to survive.
090208- 1b; 1st draft Sunday, February 8, 2009, 2:55 PM on the way to Dodge park.
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I'm tired after several very bad nights, bad insomnia. And I am cranky and grouchy and grumpy and horrid. I don't like being inside my own skin when I feel like this.
"There once was a girl
"who had a little curl
"right in the middle of her forehead
"and when she was good
"she was very very good
"and when she was bad
"she was horrid."
My mother used to say that to me.
* * *
Not a Dream
A woman flies above the mountains, stares down at the wrinkled and folded topography, the little lakes and tiny trees like props from a model railroad. She knows she's not dreaming because she hasn't had a flying dream in years. And no dream-flying euphoria. Besides, this is too real. The colors are ultra-saturated, like a maladjusted television. Brilliant greens and browns and multidimensional. More real than real. And she's startlingly awake. Not sleeping, the way she does in dreams and in life, where everything seems pale and dull as if layers of gauze covered her eyes. Maybe she's dead. She twitches her shoulders, feeling for wings. What's keeping her from falling, she wonders. Nothing. She plummets toward the rocks, and since she's not dreaming, she can't wake herself up in time to survive.
090208-1507-1c; 1st draft Sunday, February 8, 2009, 2:55 PM on the way to Dodge park.
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4:48 PM well, it's sunny and warmer than it mostly has been, but of course, there are puddles and slush and deep wet snow and ice. Within less than five minutes, I'd sunk my foot into in ice and slush filled puddle way deeper than my jungle mocs.
All the quote poetry unquote that I've been writing lately is pretty depessing and has unhappy endings. Well, life has unhappy endings--we all die and there's nothing happy about that.
I was thinking I'd try for another but am running out of ideas.
purple orange snokele fish stingray car song gulp seven eleven music truck spray splash bump crash we're riding on a narrow 4 lane street and the lane we're in is full of puddles and holes. UGH!
A man reaches into a puddle and pulls out a rusty model T Ford. He oils it up, turns the crank and hops in. As he drives, the car begins to morph, growing newer and newer until soon, it has become a 2009 Ram Charger with a camper cap that extends over the hood of the truck. At sunset, he climbs into the camper and into the bed cubical over the truck cab. The sheets are freshly laundered and smell of chlorine bleach and old-fashioned sunshine. They are stiff with starch. But in the morning, he's on the ground again, and the nearest puddle contains only a horse. He gives the horse some apples and gallops off down the highway, but gets pulled over and ticketed by the state police when the horse leaves horse puckies on the highway.
Mary stebbins Taitt, on the way home from Dodge park. February 8, 2009.
5:23 PM, We stopped at the Rolandale house and shoveled the walk and poked around the yard a little. Someone had been here since the last time we checked,pulled all the way up inot the driveway, walked on the porch and in the yard (maybe more than one someone). And I discovered dog kennels out back which we had not seen before. And wondered if someone had kept a dog in there--recently. Somepossible evidence, but hadn't seen any earlier evidence--but then, we also hadn't seen the dog kennels.
It would makeit easier to have a dog. I didn't want to have to have a dog. Maybe someoneelse could keep a dog there. BUT then if THEY were bad, they'd know I didn't have one of my own.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 3:19 PM We are driving west on Moross about to hop onlto I94 and up to I 696 to get to Woodward camera to have my little new Camera, Elphie, repaired. It's raining, lighter, harder, lighter, harder. We may walk at Cranbrook if it isn't raining to hard.
I am trying to think of a new topic for an ode. Part of what makes is harder is I would like every poem I writeto be a Geraldine poem and not just any Geraldine poem, but one that fits into the manuascript and forwards it.
In Paise of Geraldine
I was thinking of an ode in praise of Geraldine but all the things I thought of seemed like cliches. I was imagining Gerald speaking to Ethel early on, or before we know she's damaged from the measels. We need to hear from Gerald. Who is he.
Part of my problem is that I'm exhuasted from insomnia andpart of it is that I don't know who Gerald is. I keep wanting to make him into a clone of my own father. That and me. My father as seen through my eyes, adapted to the Geraldine setting and situation.
Who is Gerald? What does he do? What does he look like? How does he smell? What are his hobbies? Does he fish? Hunt? paint? Sing? Tell stories? What would he praise? Does he love Ehel? ea? Geraldine? Is he mute? Is he smart of stupid? Is he a redneck?
Geraldine's real father was not very evident. (I saw him less often than the mother, who I didn't see all that often, either). And they were reltively poor, or like my own parents, chose to live very simply.
So, lets make up a Gerald. We know this about him already, he's older than Ethel, and at least at one, point, loved her, that he apparently fathered two children, Bea and Geraldine. I think he was somewhat short and stocky, but not fat. Dark hair. Maybe a little swarthy-complected. He goes away to work early every morning. A tradesman? In a trade that doesn't pay terribly well? An accountant? The real father did not, as I recall, drive a tradesman truck, that is, nothing that said plumber or carpenter etc. Let's say that he ran the heating plant for the local school and had a somewhat reasonable income, but was not at all well-to do, just enough to support his family with little extra. He was reasonbly intelligent, above average and knew a lot about his job. He also supervised the janitorial staff. He could praise cleanliness. He's interested in astronomy (thus the aurora poem), likes to fish and camp, occasionally hunt.
Geraldine shrieks at the first grip of toes
and prick of tiny talons, setting the pigeons
to flight. Shhh, whispera Aldy, inclining his head
toward Gerald in the wheelchair, shhh. Your Dad
wants to feed them. Geraldine arranges the torn bread
and seeds on her hand again, steels herself for the whirr
and beat of wings, the sudden clutch of pink toes
with their sharp nails. The same one returns, the white one
with tan wings and a shiny pink head, gripping her fingers,
pecking at the seeds in her hand. She giggles, softly,
and the pigeon looks up, cocking its head to the side
and peering at her through a single eye.
Oops, I got interrupted and lost my train of thought. I was thinking of making a tryptyx with The Gerald pigeon poem, the Aldy piegeon poem, and a Geraldine one, but suddenly I can't think of anything else to say about pigeons that hasn't already been said in the two previous poems. And it's not really an ode, its more like a story. A narrative.
AK!
I'm so tired and there is so little avaialble time. I have painting class tomorrow and then piano theory and then it's already Friday. Ineed to wrte something so there is tiem for revisions.
Besides pigeons, what might Gerald praise? I was thinking about him praising cleanliness to a new young employee.
Let's make these potties shine, Gerald says,
spraying the toilets with 409 and wiping them
clean with his rag. He polishes and polishes, until every surface
gleams. In the next stall, Aaron gives a few half-hearted swimps.
The toilet doesn't even look dirty to him' it's cleaner than his
at home has probably every been. No, no, Gerald says,
take pride in your work. Aaron winces. What, you think you
can't take pride in cleaning potties? Take pride
in whatever you do, always do your best. Cleanliness,
they say, is next to Godliness. It's a kind of perfection.
Of course, youcan only strive toward it, you can never achieve it,
but look at the beauty and purity of it.
Oh, fuck this shit. How can I write an ode to something I don't really care about withouting a bunch of banal shit?
Hopeless. How can I write an ODE, a POEM of praise, when I'm so exhausted that not much seems very praseworthy.
Maybe I should write a poem in priase of sleep or one in praise of insomnia Or both. But everything I think of seems full of cliches. Oh sweet sleep, I beg you to visit me.
