Swamp Rising, Etc.

Normally, a neighbor's yard down the block, now a fast-rising swamp, gators included!

I found a Toad hiding in my baby Hibiscus plants. See her?

My Tomatoes are thriving, even the ones in small pots.

Moonflowers slowly climbing my rusty wrought iron posts & Jasmine blooming!

Books! 

The Clock By Marion

The Clock

By Marion

...is very important when in chronic pain

because, of course,

the clock, the clock, the fucking CLOCK

is Master, Ruler, Tyrant, God.

God tells me, whispers (tic-toc) into my aching 

bones, marrow, muscles & tissue

that it's time to swallow

more

poison to ease the torment for a few (very few)

blissful hours. Tic-toc, unlock those neurons

that bind to the ravenous receptors

in my brain that carry

this vicious/exquisite venom

to my constantly tired, 

cotton-wrapped/warped brain.

Tic-toc SCREAMS the clock, the clock

which no amount of sound will block---

an hour's gone (one, NOT two) but it's too soon

(too late) &

the pain refrain is endlessly

ringing, tolling in my ears: 

more, more, (no more!), MORE, M-O-R-E...

Never enough, time's too short, too long.

Too much pain, too many/few pills

never enough relief---

thief, stealing my life

killing me slowly & for what?

One hour of relief, seldom two,

four times a day.

Forget sleep or counting sheep

they're bleeding, bleating & hurting

too. 

Death will be the

only escape

from this throbbing, robbing hell.

Only death can

stop the damned

screeching tyranny of the ticking,

sickening clock.

Tic-toc it mocks, it mocks, it mocks

tic...

...toc.

6/12/15

The Towns We Know & Leave Behind, The Rivers We Carry With Us By Richard Hugo

My mighty Red River almost over the banks, still rising. How I love this muddy, red water!!!!

A battered, tattered, curious old river dragonfly who visited me in 2011.

I first posted this poem 3 years(!) ago and it came back to me today as the Red River slowly & steadily rises on this hot June day. It's a poem to memorize and chew on. Blessings, ~Marion

The Towns We Know and Leave Behind,
The Rivers We Carry with Us - By Richard Hugo
— for James Wright

I forget the names of towns without rivers.
A town needs a river to forgive the town.
Whatever river, whatever town –
it is much the same.
The cruel things I did I took to the river.
I begged the current: make me better.

Your town, your river, or mine –
it is much the same.
A murdering man lives on the land
in a shack the river birds hate.
He rubs the red shriek of night from his eyes.
He prays to water: don’t let me do that again.

Let’s name your river: Ohio.
Let’s name all rivers one in the blood,
red stream and debris in the blood.
Say George Doty had a wrong head.
Say the Ohio forgives what George did
and the river birds loved his shack.
Let’s name the birds: heron and sweat.
Let’s get away from the mud.

The river is there to forgive the town
and without a river a town abuses the sky.
The river is there to forgive what I did.
Let’s name my river: Duwamish.
And let’s admit
the river birds don’t hate my home.
That’s a recent development, really
like mercury in the cod.

Without a river a town abuses the air.
The river is there to forgive what I did.
The river birds hate what I did
until I name them.
Your river or mine –
It is much the same.
A murdering man lived on the bank.

Here’s the trick;
We had to stay drunk
to welcome the river
to live in a shack
to die on the bank
beneath the bigoted sky
under the river birds
day after day
to murder away
all water that might die.

A murdering man is dead on the bank
of your new river, The East,
on mine, The Clark Fork.
It is much the same.
Your river has gulls and tugs.
Mine has eagles and sky.
I rub last night from my eyes.
I ask bright water what’s happened.

The river, I am not sure which one,
Says water has no special power.
What should I do?
Or you?

Now water has no need to forgive
what shall become of murder?
How shall we live
when we killed, when we died by the word?

Whatever the name of the river,
we both had two women to love,
one to love us enough we left behind
a town that abuses the day.
The other to love the river we brought with us,
the shack we lived and still live in,
the birds, the towns that return to us for names
and we give them names knowing the river
murders them away.

Altar #3 from 'Broken Chord Sequence' By Marilyn Chin

                Dried pink Roses, an offering scented with pure Rose oil by my weary hands

             Resting Buddha with two friends

“Altar (#3)” from “Broken Chord Sequence”

By Marilyn Chin

Why cry over dried flowers?

They’re meant to be straw.

Why cry over miniature roses?

They’re meant to be small.

 

Why cry over Buddha’s hand citron?

Why cry over the hidden flower?

Why cry over Mother’s burnt forehead?

Her votive deathglow, her finest hour.

“Altar (#3)” from “Broken Chord Sequence,” from Rhapsody in Plain Yellow by Marilyn Chin.

Hesitations Outside the Door - Margaret Atwood

           Art Nouveau door in Paris

--------------------------------------------

HESITATIONS OUTSIDE THE DOOR 

By Margaret Atwood

I'm telling the wrong lies,

they are not even useful.

The right lies would at least

be keys, they would open the door.

The door is closed; the chairs,

the tables, the steel bowl, myself

shaping bread in the kitchen, wait

outside it.

-----------------

Rain, rain and more rain...and a little less pain... It's been raining for months, it seems. My prayers go out to the people in Texas who've experienced such loss from recent flooding. I can deal with the giant mosquitoes, the fleas, the high grass, the lushness. It's all a door---an exit or an entry to what's coming next. Bring it on. xo

The Truth...

Boycott Author Toni Morrison

I despise racism in any form. That's why I've burned every novel I owned by Toni Morrison. I will never recommend them to my family or friends again.  The answer to racism is not hatred!

To wish a person dead merely on the basis of their race is the most vile, inhuman, horrific thing a person can say.  Toni Morrison is a racist. Had a person of any other race said the following words, they would have been shamed and vilified.  SHAME ON YOU, TONI MORRISON.  I am seriously sad and disappointed in you as a human being I used to look up to!

"Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison took a harsh view on the issue of racial disparities in the justice system during a recent interview.

“People keep saying, ‘We need to have a conversation about race,” Morrison, 84, told The (U.K.) Telegraph.

“This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back,” Morrison said. “And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, ‘Is it over?’, I will say yes.”  ~The Guardian, April 20, 2015

The Language of The Brag By Sharon Olds

This poem has been floating around in my head all day today and I haven't posted it in a couple of years so it's due a rerun.  It's had over 4,000 views, so others must love it, too.  Enjoy! ~Marion


THE LANGUAGE OF THE BRAG
By Sharon Olds

I have wanted excellence in the knife-throw,
I have wanted to use my exceptionally strong and accurate arms
and my straight posture and quick electric muscles
to achieve something at the centre of a crowd,
the blade piercing the bark deep,
the haft slowly and heavily vibrating like the cock.

I have wanted some epic use for my excellent body,
some heroism, some American achievement
beyond the ordinary for my extraordinary self,
magnetic and tensile, I have stood by the sandlot
and watched the boys play.

I have wanted courage, I have thought about fire
and the crossing of waterfalls, I have dragged around

my belly big with cowardice and safely,
my stool black with iron pills,
my huge breasts oozing mucus,
my legs swelling, my hands swelling,
my face swelling and darkening, my hair
falling out, my inner sex
stabbed again and again with terrible pain like a knife.
I have lain down.
I have lain down and sweated and shaken
and passed blood and feces and water and
slowly alone in the centre of a circle I have
passed the new person out
and they have lifted the new person free of the act
and wiped the new person free of that
language of blood like praise all over the body.

I have done what you wanted to do, Walt Whitman,
Allen Ginsberg, I have done this thing,

I and the other women this exceptional
act with the exceptional heroic body,
this giving birth, this glistening verb,
and I am putting my proud American boast
right here with the others.

"The Language of the Brag" is from SATAN SAYS by Sharon Olds.
Copyright © 1980

My Mama Moved Among the Days by Lucille Clifton

My Mama Moved Among the Days
By Lucille Clifton

My Mama moved among the days
like a dreamwalker in a field;
seemed like what she touched was here
seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,
she got us almost through the high grass
then seemed like she turned around and ran
right back in
right back on in 

-----------------------

Spring
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Nick Cave, My Muse, Has New Book Out

#AmReading #Poetry

"The Sick Bag Song" by Nick Cave. Unique, shimmering, simmering poetry/prose as light as a moonless night & dark as the sun at noon.  Soul food for the poetheart & relief for the pain of living.

Excerpt from the chapter, "Nashville":

“A young boy climbs a riverbank. He steps onto a railway bridge. He is twelve years old.

He kneels down, under a harsh sun, and puts his ear to the track. The track does not vibrate. There is no train approaching around the bend on the other side of the river.

The boy starts to run along the tracks. He arrives in the middle of the bridge. He stands on the edge and looks down at the muddy river below.

On the left side is a concrete pylon that supports the bridge. On the right, a half-felled tree lies across the river, its branches sticking out into the dark water. In between there is a small space about four feet wide.

He has been told that it is possible to jump in at this point, but he cannot be sure, as he has never seen anybody do it.

The stones beneath his feet begin to tremble. He crouches down and again he puts his ear to the track.

The track begins to vibrate. The train is coming.

He stares down at the dark, muddy water, his heart pounding.”

“The boy does not realise that he is not a boy at all, but rather the memory of a boy.

He is the memory of a boy running through the mind of a man in a suite at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, who is being injected in the thigh with a steroid shot that will transform the jet-lagged, flu-ridden singer into a deity.

In three hours he will burst from the hotel room. He will move through the empty city, crossing vast rivers, driving through empty prairies, along tremendous, multi-laned highways, under darkening skies, like a small god, to be with you, tonight.”

Excerpt From: Nick Cave's excellent new book, "The Sick Bag Song". Canongate Books Ltd. iBooks.