• CLASSMATE NUMBER 12May 1, 2012 (5:28 pm)

    She pounces into the small classroom, half-baked, half-sunburned, half-overtime. Sonorous and spirited, carelessly giggling, she holds hard covers by Dickens, Chaucer, and Faust. Her wiry violin string hairpiece hides none of the thumbprints spotting her dark frame spectacles. “Hey ya’ll,” she says with an air of freedom, as if she had once been tightly bound.

     
  • DON’T LET THAT HORSEApril 3, 2012 (10:43 am)
     Don’t let that horse
                                  eat that violin
         cried Chagall’s mother
                                  But he   
                          kept right on
                                         painting
    And became famous
    And kept on painting
                                  The Horse With Violin In Mouth
    And when he finally finished it
    he jumped up upon the horse
                                            and rode away   
              waving the violin
    And then with a low bow gave it
    to the first naked nude he ran across
    And there were no strings   
                                         attached
     
    From  A Coney Island of the Mind, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
    New Directions, 1968
     
  • WHEN, BUT HOW?March 12, 2012 (2:59 pm)

    “Randy called and said he and Jane can’t go,” she yelled into the ex-study where her husband was repainting the baby room. “Guess they’re doing something else.”
    “Hopefully counseling.” He laughed.
    “Be nice.”
    “They’re both chronic liars anyway.”
    She sighed, wondering if now was the best time to tell him the baby inside her womb was dead.

     
  • COME MY CANTILLATIONSFebruary 20, 2012 (1:00 am)

    Come my cantillations
    Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,
    Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,
    Let me be free of pavements,
    Let me be free of the printers.
    Let come beautiful people
    Wearing raw silk of good colour,
    Let come the graceful speakers,
    Let come the ready of wit,
    Let come the gay of manner,the insolent and the exulting.
    We speak of burnished lakes,
    And of dry air, as clear as metal.

    -Ezra Pound

     
  • DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIMEFebruary 13, 2012 (10:12 am)

    Every morning, Bertha Standish attends to her methodical routine. First, she clears any and all gunk from her eyes. Second, she wiggles her toes inside a fuzzy pair of cream-colored bedroom slippers. Third, she salutes the bird themed clock ticking above the refrigerator. Fourth, she sticks one eye to the hole in the front door, waiting and watching for PeePee Bobbie to wheel down the poorly lit hallway at 9:30am sharp. Fifth, she yells, “You stink, PeePee Bobbie, go take a bath,” and then slams the door. Sixth, she drops two Alka Seltzer tablets into her husband’s warm glass of milk fizzing on the night stand. Seventh, she spins Elvis’s porcelain head on top of the cookie jar. Eighth, she watches Nurse Carla stick the tip of a syringe into her right arm. Ninth, she feels relaxed and light. Tenth, her thoughts turn black and her fingers bend upward toward the sky as she lays face up on her side of the bed dreaming of tomorrow morning.