A Final Fortune Cookie

    This is the 181st day if my poetry181 blog, so this is the final daily entry I'll be posting.  I don't want to stop completely, though, so each Monday I'll be posting whatever I've written that week - at least one piece, I promise.  Please check it out and spread the word about this blog if you've liked it. 
   Maintaining this blog has been a true educational experience.  I've learned that necessity is truly the mother of invention (that's one reason I want to retain a weekly requirement for myself); I've also learned that invention is exhausting.  I'm not sure I've become a better poet - yet - but I think I'll eventually learn from this experience.
   It would be great to hear from you if you've been reading this blog and enjoying (or not enjoying) it.  All I get from blogspot is stats about number of pageviews.  I can't tell if people are viewing the pages and leaving quickly in disgust or staying and savoring every syllable, so your comments would be much appreciated. (You can post anonymous comments if you like.)  I'm especially curious about the pagviews from places like Russia and Iran, places where English is not widely spoken.
   I'm afraid I'm going to end this phase of the blog with a whimper rather than a bang, a short two liner rather than some eloquent epic.  ("The Poet's Farwell to His Tropes"?) 


     A Final Fortune Cookie

The longest journey ends
with but a single stop. 

Medusa

This one comes from an in-class writing assignment in a poetry class I'm currently taking in Chautauqua, NY.  (I highly recommend the Writers' Center here for its fabulous workshops.)  The assignment was to adopt the persona of someone from mythology and explore how things might look from his/her perspective.

               Medusa

It was no better when I was a beauty.
Even then each man who saw me
either froze or blindly fled.
And as for the gods, great Poseidon
simply seized what he wanted
then left me to Athena’s care.
She, my patron goddess, was more concerned
with her temple’s purity than my body’s rape,
and I, her priestess, became her pariah –
my punishment: these serpentine curls,
this stony stare, and statues for friends.

Now I’m worse than the sightless,
the blind who have no gaze at all.
Mine kills what it longs to look at,
making lively scenes tableaux mordant.
That’s why I’ve let Perseus steal upon me,
to safely see my reflection in his shield,
where I can also savor his brave surprise
as he finds my features both fierce
and fair. It is too late for us to stop
his sword, but I feel strangely fulfilled.
To see and be seen seems worth being killed.

Further Snapple Real Facts

Here is some more bottle cap wisdom, as interpreted by me.  Hope there's one here you like.

                               
      Further Snapple Real Facts


                   #868
Thomas Jefferson invented the coat hanger
and declared independence from his coat,
which now could be kept in a closet
and not on a public hook or tree.
Little did he know to what other uses
his original product would be put:
harmonica holder, car door un-locker,
unsafe backstreet baby killer.
Is this the price of liberty?

             #44
A bullfrog is the only animal
that never sleeps,
but even a bullfrog
must eventually croak.

           #36
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo:
Nature is too embarrassed
to repeat that sound.

           #50
Mosquitoes have 47 teeth
but seldom have cavities.
Blood may be better than fluoride,
but braces are better than DDT.

                         #25
The only food that does not spoil is honey,
but sweet nothings are the first words to decay.

                      #673
The average turtle can’t reproduce
until it’s 25 years old.
No wonder they’re known as slow.
They’ve got a job before they can go steady.
If only humans were also ready
to say stop even though they can go.

Snapple Real Fact #855

Here's another bottle cap poem.

        Snapple Real Fact #855
                    Vultures can fly for six hours
                     without flapping their wings

This lazy angel of death hangs over our head
Forever, motionless above until we are motionless
Below. He makes sure our sleep is permanent before
He dives to feast on our mortality to give him strength
To soar again, but as soon as he makes his final landing,
His brothers gather at his last supper to do the same for him.

Snapple Real Fact #911

I was drinking some Snapple peach diet ice tea when I looked under the bottle cap and discovered this truth on the underside.  (Don't worry, I have not been paid by Snapple to mention their product in ths highly influential blog, although product placement in poetry is an interesting idea.)

Snapple Real Fact #911
                  A cubic mile of fog is made up
                 of less than one gallon of water.

Is it really surprising that so little substance
can cause so much confusion when a misplaced
comma can send soldiers to their deaths or
politicians can base a whole campaign on
a bumper sticker and a few little mis-dividing cells
among millions can bring the whole body down?
So many of us are so healthy except for the one
thing that kills us, like a cathedral collapsing
despite all the faith in the world because one buttress
is a few degrees off and the center cannot hold.

Health and Well Being

Another poem inspired by having a physical.

               Health and Well Being

Yesterday I went to my ontologist for my annual metaphysical.
After weighing my thoughts to see if they were as heavy
as they were dense, he asked me to open wide and say “Om”
while urging me to breathe in through my ears and out through
my id. Then he measured how far I could stretch my
imagination by asking me to picture a caterpillar sunset and
decaffeinated love. I nearly strained my credulity but knew
I was almost done. A quick check of my moral backbone
and after I refused a bribe, he handed me my hat.
“Is that God over there?” he suddenly exclaimed. “Who?”
I asked but turned around anyway. “At least I made you
look,” the ontologist smiled when I turned back – and so did I;
my reflexes were still sound though I wonder whether God has my back.

Anxiety Dream

I just had a physical.  The next few poems will use that as a starting point.  (A version of this poem got briefly posted earlier by mistake.)

Anxiety Dream

I had forgotten to study for my blood test,
so I tried to cram the night before.
First I ate all the healthy food I could:
oatmeal to lower my cholesterol
mixed with bananas for my potassium
and liver for the iron.
Then I exercised like a fiend,
removing the clothes that hung
from my exercise equipment and doing
fifty jumping jacks on my treadmill.
Finally, I acted with discretion
and did not share so much as a knitting
needle while my sex was so safe
it was as if it never happened.
I was still worried, though.
Who knew what trick questions
the lab would ask about white
blood cells
or HDLs?
Then I woke up in a cold sweat,
relieved that there was no blood test
until I remembered it was
a colonoscopy instead.

I'm Going to Sit Right Down

This one may be too obscure factually.  Let me know if you can understand what's going on without the notes I've added.

                    I’m Going to Sit Right Down

First, there’s the moment of pleasure:
a bit of personal mail midst the junk!
Then there’s the sense of the familiar:
I’ve seen this handwriting somewhere before.
And finally, the realization –
this is my handwriting, and I’ve lost
another contest or am due at the dentist’s,
equally painful prospects which both require
me to address myself – like the condemned
man being asked to tie his own noose.

Or perhaps they’re merely trying to save postage
so they can add it to my prize or deduct it from my bill.
But, no….God, just once I’d like to send myself
some better news and make believe it came from you.


Notes:  The title is a reference to an old song, "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter (and Make Believe It Came from You)."
The occasion of the poem is receiving a self-addressed stamped envelope informing me who won a poetry contest I had entered.  (It wasn't me.)  The poem describes the stages of discovery I went through after bringing in the mail.
My dentist is wonderful (and reads this blog), but he does make me address my own appointment reminders and as wonderful as he is, these reminders are still not my favorite pieces of mail.

The Fourth of July: Chautauqua, NY

This is based on a 4th of July tradition at Chautauqua, audience participation in the holiday concert.  The first time I attended, though, I didn't know what was going on.  I hope the poem makes it clear.

     The Fourth of July: Chautauqua, NY

We are given paper bags as we enter the amphitheater –
as if we had forgotten to pack our lunches or are in danger
of hyperventilating during the concert. When we get to
“The 1812 Overture”, though, we are instructed to blow them
up and then pop them on cue, so the hall will resound with handmade
thunder – the gunshot sounds we made in the school cafeteria,
a harmless prank in those pre-Columbine days when trench coats were worn
by grizzled, hardboiled detectives, not pink-cheeked snipers
Now we await our chance to be the cannons’ roar and wish that’s all
there was to war and all that was left of rocket bombs was the faint
fireworks that glimmer over the lake like temporary stars.

The Children's Museum

This is an older poem, but it's one that means a lot to me.

           The Children’s Museum

My first Sunday as ex-husband-to-be
and every-other-weekend father,
I took my son and daughter
to the Children’s Museum.

We had fragile fun there: trying on
policemen’s hats and firemen’s jackets
too big for children, too small for me;
making giant bubbles that burst
sooner than we hoped; working levers
to lift weights larger than ourselves
while an inaudible clock ticked away.

Then came the strobe room where man-made lightning
pinned momentary shadows to phosphorescent walls,
My son kicking like a kung-fu star.
My daughter doing her best pirouette.
All three of us in mid-air holding hands.

Flash. Freeze. Fade. Flash. Freeze. Fade.
Until it was time for us to go.

Now my son the astronomer, following other stars,
is a something of a stranger
even in his mother’s house.
My daughter the ballerina has finally given up
her dancing dreams to face a future
without choreography. And for me,
the sun has become a manic strobe,
blinking by the days, the weeks, the years.

Flash. Freeze. Fade. Flash. Freeze. Fade.
Until it is time for us to go.

If the Ontogeny Recapitulates the Phylogeny

In plain English, the title refers to the theory that the development of the individual in the womb recreates the development of the species, so that human embryos supposedly have gills at one point and a tail at another, as if they are recapitulating the evolution of the human race.  I wrote this poem based on a memory of high school biology before discovering that this theory has been discredited and has little to do with Darwin's theory of non-linear/multi-branched evolution.  I hope, though, the poem can diverge from science and still get at an experiential truth.

     If Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

then gestation is evolution writ small
as the embryo compresses eons
into nine months, moving from mere
amoeba to gilled fish to fingered fowl
to tailed then tail-less monkey – each stage right
on cue in this Darwin-devised drama.

But who wrote the second act in which
this process is painfully reversed?
First our faces become as wrinkled as
an orangutan’s perched top a chicken’s
neck; then our breathing’s as labored as a
beached fish, and our consciousness shrinks till we
are confined again to a single cell.

Beckett took over where Darwin left off.

Crew Rest Area

Just flew from London to D.C. on Tuesday.

     Crew Rest Area

Mid-way across the Atlantic
the flight attendants put up a
mysterious tent over a
section of seats and disappear
for a much needed rest- except
the curtain frequently flutters,
as if they are doing more than
sleeping: serving each other
roasted peanuts or otherwise
satisfying their own needs for
once while the passengers are left
to fend for themselves, and the pilots
doze and dream of landing on clouds.

Meet George Jetson

Public restrooms are becoming so automated that I was reminded of the old cartoonshow set in the future.

     Meet George Jetson
                 In the airport restroom

The toilet flushes when he’s finished
and the faucet flows as soon as his fingers
are in place. Same for the foaming soap
dispenser and the high powered hand dryer
that hurricanes upon wordless command,
mushing and morphing his flesh, trying to
transform him into some new creature who
doesn’t have to use the bathroom at all.

Danish Modern

Stereotypes are both true and false.

     Danish Modern

Their words contain letters
they don’t pronounce.
Their language contains words
they seldom say.
Their furniture does just what
it needs to do:
simple, sleek, stylish
and slightly cold.

All this makes perfect sense
until I see everyone relaxed
and smiling
in the King’s Garden
this sunny Copenhagen day.

A Taste of My Own Medicine

This poem explains its own context.

    A Taste of My Own Medicine

I’m taking my morning pills when I start
to cough, and the water threatens to climb
my throat and come out my nose – as if
it were a laughing teenager’s Coke –
but I manage to hold it back and taste
instead that acrid snort you get when
you gasp for air before you’ve surfaced,
and, for a moment, I’m back in the pool
at the Wilmington Y, where I learned to
swim, naked as a babe (who they say will
act like fish instinctively if you have the
heart to dump them in the water.) Back then
swimsuits were forbidden us Young Christians,
as if we were all innocent Adams that summer
before the fall. I was a Tadpole, aspiring
to be a Minnow – mostly older boys with hints
of hair under their arms and between their
legs. One of them offered me some candy
in the locker room and laughed when I discovered
it was a Dog Yummy. And now, as I gag
on a half-dissolved lozenge, I wonder
if that jokester was the snake in my Eden
or just one of the me’s I did not come to be.

Slippers

Our host in St. Petersburg asked us to wear slippers inside his apartment.  I hadn't worn slippers in years and began to think about them. 

  Slippers

Soft-soled stepping stones
between barefoot and leatherbound.
Loungewear lovechild
of sock and of shoe.
Backless, strapless, breathless
silken hushed bedroom sound.
The something more comfortable
we can all slip into.
Foot friendly shuffle board;
full boot’s first sketch.
The lightweight toewarmer
even Fido can fetch.
Fuzzy pink or classic cordovan,
bunny-eared or elegantly spare –
they’re one thing that toddler,
scholar, dancer, daughter, grandfather,
and even Hugh Hefner can all proudly wear.


Note:  Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine and is known for lounging around his mansion in robe and slippers. 

Rewinding the Russian Museum

After working our way through the Russian Museum of art in St. Petersburg, we had to hurry back past everything we had seen to get to the exit.

    Rewinding the Russian Museum

The 20th century comes to a dead end
just beyond Soviet realism
after we have spent the morning
walking through the previous eight.
Some rooms are closed for refurbishing,
so we have to go back the way we came.

As we quickly reverse chronology
and hurry to lunch, patterns emerge
in what we speed past. Portraits mostly climb
the social ladder – beggar to artist
to merchant to nobles – then also scale
the walls salon style, piles of plump princesses
and dashing dukes. The heroes also change:
Communist infantry give way to charging
cavalry then medieval knights midst
landscapes that gain and lose detail, becoming
more then less then more then less like photographs.

The saints march in and out as well, disguised
as workers and soldiers under Stalin,
cloaked in irony with the avant-garde
then bathed in glorious light until we get
to the 12th century again and golden-haired
angel Gabriel gazing wide-eyed with wonder
and sadness toward all the ages yet to come.

Painting Poems

After going to several art museums, I began thinking of the connections between painting and writing poems.

    Painting Poems

Sometimes I work with watercolors.
A few fresh strokes and a line is done;
any more would only muddy the meter
and lose whatever had once been won.

Other times I work in oils:
Layer upon layer, word upon word,
writing and rewriting each line or verse
tying to better what had once been worse.

I’ll let you decide which type this is,
whether these wandering rhymes are art or chance –
the random stumblings of a blind man
or the choreography of a dance.

Playing at the Palace

I wrote this after visiting Peterhof and seeing the trick fountains.

      Playing at the Palace

Peter the Great was a practical
joker. First he had his people
build his city on a swamp.
Next he had trick fountains
soak his guests at Peterhof.
Then he promised his son a
pardon if he returned to Russia
where he tortured him to death.
Only a monarch makes such jests,
mocking all until his final breath.

Watching Russian TV

This one is a sequel of sorts to the end of the last poem.

                           Watching Russian TV

I tune in on the middle of an American
movie, which would be confusing enough
since I haven’t seen it before
and since John Cusack and Morgan Freeman
both seem to be bad guys this time,
but what is worse is each time they speak
there is a Slavonic echo –
not quite dubbing,
more like spoken subtitles
so that, since I don’t speak Russian
and the English is half-obliterated,
I can’t sort out the double and triple
crossing plot – plus with the Russian added
it now makes it sound like the KGB
is somehow involved.

I can make out the occasional pazhalsta
or spaseeba, two of my four Russian words,
in the dialogue, but since there is a lot
of shooting going on, not many people
are being polite. Eventually, John saves
Morgan, and Morgan shoots some other
bad guy. Then John Cusack is at a picnic
with what seem to be his family
but formerly appeared to be
his hostages.

They are all looking happy
until something comes on
the radio, John’s brow furrows
with concern and
the movie ends
and I’m left wondering:
Why do all the plot twists
come in languages
I don’t understand?

The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul

This cathedral has an incredibly tall spire.

                                          The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul

                                                                                   Saint Petersburg, Russia
                                   It took two saints to inspire such a tall steeple
                                   to reach nearly half-way to heaven with its own
                                   impressive, ungainly elegance – like the awkward
                                   grace of a giraffe or the absurd dignity of lofty Russian
                                   army hats that make the soldiers on the street look so
                                   large and official – and so much like kids playing at war.

                                  The golden spire has been hit and singed by lightning, but
                                   escaped the German bombs during the nine hundred day
                                   blockade of what was then Leningrad, despite being
                                   at the bull’s eye center of a fortress and a prison.

                                   Now the city is saintly again since Communism has fallen
                                   or has put on a different mask. Saint Petersburg once more,
                                   as its namesake founder had intended – but, then again, not quite
                                   the same: McDonald’s, cafes, and sex shops interspersed among
                                   the palaces, churches and museums. A TV tower now stands
                                   taller than Saints Peter and Paul, making the unseen
                                   even more visible.

Time and the Teacher

This is the first post from my travels in Europe.  I did not have time or consistent Internet access to post things then, but I did write a few that I will post the next several days.

                                                     Time and the Teacher

                                         He mostly measured his days in periods
                                         or question marks and seldom in exclamation
                                         points. 8:10 and classes commenced,
                                         11:40 lunch, 2:20 sports-
                                         all with the regularity of bells
                                         that would make Pavlov proud.

                                         Then his sabbatical came along
                                         with travel through eight time zones.
                                         His watch band broke in London,
                                         so he carries time in his pocket
                                         where he can’t see it and stops
                                         calculating when he should be tired.

                                         For a while, he rises with the sun,
                                         first in England, then Denmark,
                                         but here in Saint Petersburg, the early
                                         summer sun never sets at all. Now he
                                         sleeps without darkness and awakes only
                                         when he wants to write a poem.

Cactus on the Acropolis

When I was in Greece many years ago, I was surprised to see cactus growing on the Acropolis.  It is a plant associated with Westerns and cowboys in America, so I began to mix classical Greeks with American cowboy movies in my mind.

                                                     The Cactus on the Acropolis

                                           makes me imagine tumbleweed as well
                                           blowing across the stone orkestra
                                           of the ancient theatre of Dionysus
                                           where Aeschylus and Aristophanes
                                           circle each other and then square off,
                                           six guns slung from tooled leather belts
                                           wrapped round their gleaming white togas.

                                          You know, Kid, character is fate
                                          Aeschylus sneers,
                                          his hands hovering over
                                          his revolvers’ shiny pearl handles.
                                         Cerberus barks in the distance.
                                         Those saloon girl Muses peek out
                                         from behind the marble pillars.
                                        Thetis drags her young son Achilles
                                        by the heel off the street to safety.

                                      Smile when you say that, Butch,
                                      Aristophanes replies
                                      and spits at his opponent’s feet.
                                      The Muses gasp; Thetis clutches
                                      Achilles close to her chest.

                                      The tragedian just stares
                                      at the dark spot in the dust
                                      and then looks his enemy in the eye.
                                      This town ain’t big enough
                                      for the both of us he snarls.

                                       Neither one of them sees
                                       the sniper on the roof.

Poet-Teacher Conference

While waiting to talk to a poetry teacher about my poems, I suddenly realize I felt like a parent right before a teacher conference about his or her child.

                                                               Poet-Teacher Conference

                                                          I must say, it is a delight
                                                          having your poem in class.
                                                          Very bright, very clever, very creative…
                                                          but he is also quite easily distracted
                                                          and sometimes jumps from subject
                                                          to subject without getting his work
                                                          done, pursuing every stray image
                                                          as if it were a rare butterfly
                                                          drifting past the classroom
                                                          window and then leading him
                                                          to airplanes or old friends or
                                                          god knows what.

                                                         Also, I’ve had to warn him
                                                         about casting himself as the
                                                         class clown. Fun is fun,
                                                         but poetry is serious
                                                         business, and a well-wrought
                                                         couplet is worth more than
                                                         a verbal hand fart. Still, your
                                                          poem is quite popular with
                                                          the other verses- if popularity
                                                          counts for anything. I just wish
                                                          he would stop “borrowing”
                                                          things from them. I can’t tell
                                                          you the number of metaphors
                                                          I’ve caught him “borrowing”,
                                                          and then he claims they were
                                                          his own to begin with
                                                          before he returns them
                                                          all bent and mangled.
                                                        
                                                         I think he just wants to fit in,
                                                         which is understandable at his age
                                                        -after all, he is only a first draft-
                                                          but he must realize his own
                                                          full potential and make
                                                          all this facetious imitation
                                                          the road not taken.

Undiscovered Country

Here's one downside to having dog: you outlive them all except, possibly, your last one.

                                                         Undiscovered Country

                                                 One-by-one, my dogs have run ahead
                                                 as scouts to sniff at rank mortality.
                                                 They’ve shown me how to grow
                                                 grey and stiff and deaf - and doze all day.
                                                 As pups, they took pride in giving me
                                                 the sticks they scampered to fetch,
                                                 while I took joy in their giving,
                                                 but once they staggered into a deeper sleep,
                                                 they could bring nothing back to save me
                                                 the twitch and whimper of my own dreams
                                                 or the darkness of that final fetching.

Exit Stage Right

This is based on a friend's anecdote about how she discovered her character on stage.

                                                             Exit Stage Right

                                   The young actress first found herself on stage
                                   standing in front of a fake kitchen sink
                                   as she instinctively chose the best
                                   potato for her imagined husband
                                   in Anne Frank’s secret garret.

                                  Later, the not-so-young housewife found herself
                                  surprised by the small potato in her hand
                                  she had been absentmindedly peeling
                                  for the man who was not the husband
                                  she had imagined -- and realized
                                  it was all an act.

Slug Fest

Srping is here, and so are the slugs.

                                                     Slug Fest

                                        The stale beer attracts the slugs and they drown.
                                                                                thegardenershelper.com
                                
                                  Lured by the promise of free drinks,
                                  this army of traveling stomachs
                                  bellies up to Milwaukee’s Best
                                  and drowns itself --
                                  and whatever sorrows
                                  bare, unaccommodated
                                  snails may have --
                                  in a watery bier,
                                  unwept
                                  and without a head.

Key Change

I have more keys than I know what to do with.

                                                       Key Change

                                       My car, my house, my classroom.
                                       These I recognize, but what about
                                       those other familiar strangers-
                                       jagged profiles stamped with
                                       authoritative names:
                                       Master, Liberty,
                                       Best, True Value?
                                       What was precious
                                       enough
                                       to lock away,
                                       but now remains
                                       unmemorable?
                                       What else
                                       has slipped
                                       my mind,
                                       along with equations
                                       I used to balance,
                                       lines from my
                                       high school
                                       play,
                                       and phone numbers
                                       of places
                                       I used to
                                       call
                                       home.

April Fools

This was written on a cold day in April, unsurprisingly enough.

                                                      April Fools

                             Spring seems like a practical joke today.
                             We sunbathed over the weekend, but now
                             cherry blossoms fall like snow in the cold wind
                             and pale pink petals cover the street,
                             confetti from some parade that has already passed.
                             The weather might warm by Easter,
                             but today winter has risen from its tomb
                             to remind us of the other side of resurrection.