Life is a Circus

Life is Circus

In the circus of my sanity, no applause
ripples the canvas, no cheers
harmonize with the band.  My mind
wobbles across the tight rope, sagging,
slipping, tumbling into the darkness
where no nets wait to catch me.
The lion's maw, full of rotted teeth,
yawns open and I tumbled toward it.
My last sequins sparkle faintly
in the fading light as all goes black.

Mary Taitt, 11.24.09

This is for Laura Tattoo

Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown

Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown

It wasn't fire or an earthquake that brought me outside
in my nightgown; I went only to fill the backyard bird feeder
so that the early risers could fill their tummies
but glanced up at a quiet whine from Nelson
as Frank yelled, "He doesn't bark at you,
anymore; he's decided he likes you," and they
came across the street toward me, Frank
in his wrinkled Madras shorts and unbuckled black galoshes,
though it wasn't raining and there were no puddles
or even sprinklers running.  His chartreuse shirt
with the giant Mickey Mouse clashed with the ragged
pink and orange shorts.  I was embarrassed
to have no bra, worried my breasts would giggle,
held my arms carefully over them until I bent
to pet Nelson and saw the hairy grizzly-bear heads
peering up through Frank's open black galoshes.
Eliana from next door was beside me then,
arms folded across her chest, bra-less, too,
wearing her son's high-top basketball shoes
and in a too short nightie with a man's shirt clutched
about her until she, too, bent to pet Nelson.
She giggled, I giggled, and suddenly we all laughed,
laughed and laughed until tears ran down our faces.
Nelson yapped at us and all the neighborhood dogs
set into howling and the mailman, coming around
the corner with his arms full, handed us our mail
with only the slightest flicker of a smile, said
"Top O'the Morning to you," and tipped his cap. 
He bowed, danced a little jig, clicked his heels together,
and continued down the street, while Frank, Eliana
and I retreated quickly back into our separate homes,
wiping away tears and snorting softly to ourselves.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
090514-1639-1b(2), 090514-1225-1st

Vertigo Fear Shadows

Vertigo Fear Shadows

At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,
sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair
and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless
and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching
my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing
shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.
Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows
of baby acorns nestled among the leaves.  Shadows
of robins passing each other with worms and insects,
shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.
Such a chorus of pleading.  Wingbeats, then stillness.
A touch of cold startles me.  I look down to see darkness
on my hands, isolated and with no visible source
from the tree.  The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,
but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.
Compelled to drink from that well of night, I bend toward
my hands.  A black wave engulfs me.  The earth tilts, the sky
spins and the tree lurches.  I smell bruised grass, damp soil.
Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek.  Taste salt and iron.
Sweating and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly
in the garden.  Jump and twist spasmodically.  On my knees,
my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close
my eyes to still the jumping.  The darkness
behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly.  I breathe
slowly.  Feel a passing chill, another shadow.
I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow
passing over me again and again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090512-1319-1b, 090512-1229-1st

NOTE:  This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.

This would not format correctly below. See it correctly formatted here.

Friends


OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I detest work
but I need a milkshake. Ready? Here goes:

I saunter in the kitchen door.

“I love you, little Sweetness and Light,” my mother says.

“Whatever,” I answer, and keep on walking.

Hear the grump in my voice? She deserves it.
First, I’m not little. I’m a teenager, and I tower
over her. OK, only by an inch or two,
but she’s no dwarf.

Anyway, I’m not little, I’m not sweet,
and I generate no light, except
perhaps toward any witches who see auras.
Mom might; she’s that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back
and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?” She asks.

“Friendship,” I say.

She guesses right, of course.
I hug her mostly only when I want something.
The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background
or disappears off my radar entirely.
She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.
I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.
I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games
and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.
I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.
I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room
clean the bird cage and bury the compost.
Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. “Friend,” I say.
“Milkshake,” I say. “Real friends
make their friends milkshakes.
You’re my friend, right Mom?”

“Oh,” she says, “you want to make me a milkshake,
how sweet. You charm me with your generosity.”

“Awwwwww . . .” I release a big sigh
and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,
but already, she hauls out the milk
ice-cream and sugar.

“Chocolate,” I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don’t tell Mom, but I often create a perfect milkshake.
I just hate to wash the blender.
Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon
or George killed any monsters yet.
And she can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-1157-2e, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1st of this version (earlier draft/version was a short prose poem)

earlier draft below:

Friends

OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I need a milkshake

but detest work. I saunter in the kitchen door.

"I love you, little Sweetness and Light," my mother says.

"Whatever," I answer, and keep on walking.

I hear the grump in my voice, but she deserves it.

First, I'm not little. I'm a teenager, and I tower

over her. OK, only by an inch or two,

but she's no dwarf.

Anyway, I'm not little, I'm not sweet,

and I generate no light, except

perhaps toward any witches who see auras.

Mom might; she's that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back

and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?" She asks.

"Friendship," I say. She guesses right, of course.

I hug her mostly only when I want something.

The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background

or disappears off my radar entirely.

She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.

I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.

I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games

and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.

I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.

I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room

clean the bird cage and bury the compost.

Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. "Friend," I say.

"Milkshake," I say. "Real friends

make their friends milkshakes.

You're my friend, right Mom?"

"Oh," she says, "you want to make me a milkshake,

how sweet. You charm me with your generosity."

"Awwwwww . . ." I release a big sigh

and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,

but already, she hauls out the milk

ice-cream and sugar.

"Chocolate," I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don't tell Mom, but I create a perfect milkshake.

I just hate to wash the blender.

Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon

or George killed any monsters yet.

And Mom can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-0340-2c, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1^st of this version (earlier draft/version was a shorter prose poem)

NaPoWriMo #19

I spent a lot of time trying to get this to format correctly on the blog, but it would not. So Sorry. Wahn! Waste of time, too!

Conversing with a leaf

for Class tonight:

Conversing with a Leaf

Like a fledgling, it quivers. Though dead and brown,
cracked and dried, it shakes its thin wings. In scratches
and wiggles, it talks with the wind, then speaks to me
with unconcealed enthusiasm. I look around to be sure
you're not watching. If you were watching, you might think
I've lost my wits. Perhaps you'd be right.
I converse with a leaf, though I utter not a word, but instead,
shake my arms with quick spasms and flutters like a baby bird
begging for food. I open wide my mouth—a foolish sight,
you'd surely think, for one so large, without beak or feathers,
so decidedly un-bird-like. When I smile at the leaf, would you
think me an idiot? I ask the leaf for nothing, but thank it
and the wind for reminding me to look. Yes, spring comes.
Pausing in my tasks, delighted by its long-awaited warmth,
I raise my arms to the sun, rejoice in the purple glory of hyacinths
and blousy yellow jonquils that burst from under last year's
narrow, snow-blanched leaves. In grape-bark, grass
and mud nests, eggs hatch. Cardinals and robins
will soon fledge. You're not watching, are you?
Because the morning light and warmth seems ample
reason to dance around the talking leaf. I fling my arms,
twirl toward the promise of lilacs and the sweet breath
of hyacinths and flap and jiggle wildly for all the season's
fetal but upcoming baby birds.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
^this line, and everything below the line, is not part of the
poem—note to self, some drafts of this were not printed!
090427-1231-4a, 090426-1137-3a, 090425-2148-2e, 090424-2043-1g, 090424-0930-1st
Sun could paint my face with light and I might enjoy jonquils, hyacinths
and choruses of spring birdsong if I stayed outdoors. But instead, I go inside
and struggle with recalcitrant and unforgiving words. Woe closes
like darkness, cloys like stale air, on the poet who cannot or will not
relax and savor clusters of many-stamened speckled Hellebores
but carries experience away from its source
and ponders the language around it endlessly in the dimness
of her study. I am torn between the need to record and arrange these words
and the desire to stroke satin petals, while outside, sun shines
on newly opened scarlet and yellow tulips.

Started from the following journal excerpt: Conversing with a Leaf,
from my journal 090424: Through heaps of fallen lanceolate leaves,
bleached almost white by snow and sun, the neighbors' hyacinths press,
purple glories making their way without the aid of gardeners. And
next door, pink ones, like small fluffs of cotton candy on green
sticks, carefully tended. I incline my caring toward the wilder ones.
The air is cold but the sun is warm. On the sidewalk, a dead brown
oak leaf trembles in the wind, leaping about gently without blowing
away, reminding me of a baby bird, begging for food. If you had been
watching, you would have seen me speaking to the leaf, though uttering
not a word.

A Trick of Light (NaPoWriMo #18 Word Salad)

A Trick of Light

When her compass of shadows points only to darkness,
a rumble slashes behind her, a torn crack of sound.
Imagine the girl, hair brushing her waist, gown hitched up
and clinging damply to her skin as she wades through
the tall wildflowers that brush her bare legs with dew.
She turns in the meadow, resplendent with reds from the low sun,
curious and afraid. She holds the purple asters and goldenrods
close to her chest, flowers that evermore will signify the end
of summer, half the end, in a way, of everything,
but she doesn't know that yet. Not quite yet. She sees the horses
first, black, green-eyed, drooling spittle, dancing in their harnesses.
They paw at the air and rock; sparks fly from their hooves.
She sees the driver next, dark, handsome, old. Then young,
a sort of trick of the light. He is already in front of her
before she thinks to bolt. He seizes her, scoops her with an arm
around her waist, just as she begins to scream. Her head falls back,
flung on her thin neck by the upward rush as the chariot spins
and turns downward again. Dangling like this, she sees
one last glimpse of the darkening meadow, the flowers
a sea of colors, the stars whirl, the moon sets precipitously
at the edge of the chasm. The Underland seethes with the dead.
Their eyes and skin glow greenish, like foxfire or fireflies,
giving the vast caverns an eerie light. Creepy. In the throne room,
Hades makes diamonds for her by crushing coal in his bare hands,
a nifty trick, but Persephone will not stop crying. When he touches her,
the flowers blacken in her hands. She calls and calls for her mother.
He offers rubies, emeralds, pork chops, polenta, chocolate. Of course,
the pomegranate stops the tears. Her mother had fed them to her
as a child, one seed at a time, but when Hades feeds her his seed,
all trace of sweetness disappears from her tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090420-1141-2a; 090419-2016 1st completed 1st draft

the fractal flame was made using Apophysis.

for napowrimo #18: word salad

confined

Confined

Fawn lilies, pale in the shadows of trees, open their throats

and call the bees. Bees, drunk with sleep and winter,

stagger from the hive. The hive hums with its own morning.

Spring caresses the forest lightly. If you hurry, you will see nothing

but the dark still-sleeping trunks of trees. But stop. Place your ear

to the trunk and listen. Sap thrums in its veins, singing

to the buds who hum softly as they gather their new leaves

to unfurl. And in a spot of branch-filtered sun, the first

mourning cloak butterfly fans slow wings among the fallen leaves.

You might mistake it for one of them if you didn't pause and look.

But I cannot look. Confined indoors, I miss the birthday

of the forest: the doe, licking her newborn, pressing

with her nose to balance it as it wobbles toward

its first breakfast. Picture me longing, aching; see me imagining

instead of watching, as, stepping among the white lilies

that bear its name, in a moment never to be repeated,

the newborn fawn takes its fleeting first steps.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for BB

090419-1153-1c; 090418-1916-1st completed draft

for the prompt, "missing something or someone or something missing" for NaPoWri Mo #17 National Poetry Month at ReadWritePoem.

The fawn in the composit is by Berrybird. The word layout is by Wordle (from my poem). I took the trees and the fawn lily and made the composit.

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #16 Word trails, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

Writing as I walk, I follow word trails through a forest of thought,
each word linked mutably to a host of images and memories.
An Icabod Crane tree hangs over the path: twisted. The word twisted
links to broken, broken to shattered, shattered to glass
and to my heart, that old saw, that cliché that still feels so rich and real
to me, so true, in spite of centuries of overuse. It's difficult
to be a poet when you love clichés. My glass heart shatters from anger,
from a hand or fist or knife, smashed against a face, face links to fly,
fly escape bird wing fast fancy fallow Farrow Darcy.
I liked that name, Darcy. But I could not name
a daughter Darcy because of Darcy Farrow, though any name
must link to some tragedy or other. A good name ruined.
Alicia was another. I'd chosen it as a possibility until Robert Garrow
raped and killed Alicia Houk and abandoned her body along the trail,
the trail I walked to school each day. A beautiful girl left all winter
under the snow, no a trail of words, but a trail of horror. Strange
what we remember and what we forget. A trail of memories.
Reading old letters, I discover that I wrote my parents daily, twice
daily, often, after I left home. Such an outpouring of confusion,
a plethora of words, forbidden words, like fire hunger beg drugs,
like robbed, beaten, kicked, evicted, like plethora, a word my teacher
says not to use in poetry. Much of what I wrote my parents
I forgot, but occasionally, a favorite story surfaces, suddenly revisited,
shiny in the moment of it's recording, fresh with excitement
and pain or matter-of-factly written as commonplace,
two of us cramming into the turnstile together because we only
had one subway token between us. The half-rotted fruit
we pulled from the dumpster behind the grocers, devoured, grateful
for any sustenance. Sitting on the fire escape to get even the slightest
hint of breeze. "Don't send money," I wrote repeatedly
to my parents, "if I can't make it on my own, I'll come home."
Unlike Darcy Farrow, unlike Alicia Houk, I made it home eventually.
Boyfriend lover husband anger fist hit bleed abuse. Finally, escape.
Twisted, broken, shattered, home. I made it home,
if that breathing but mangled girl ringing my parents' doorbell
was still me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090417-2124-1c; 090417-1641-1st (complete) draft

word image created on Wordle.

White Duck on a Green Pond

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #13, a word list, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

White Duck in a Green Pool

The Clinton River makes an acute turn, chews
up the banks and topples trees whose roots hang fibrous
and ungrounded into the green water. Mallards, quacking
and grunting, slide along the current like pucks
in an air hockey game, smooth on the wrinkled green surface,
interrupting the reflection of willows and phragmites
with their shiny blue and green heads. When the river cuts
back far enough, it will rejoin itself, abandoning
this U-shaped oxbow to stagnate like an old appendix.
Already, the trail caves into the river and disappears,
almost impassable between the plunge to water
and the thicket of brambles. Already,
old oxbows ring islands of trashy willows and weeds
where Canada geese nest, the males hissing,
trailing intruders, attacking with wing blows,
with the heavy thump of breastbone against neck and shoulder.
No one in this dismal place is jubilant, but the white ducks,
resting on the sandbar opposite the bend of the river preen
their spotless feathers with bright orange smiles.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090416-1025-2a, 090413-1730-1b

Okay, something a little more cheerful.

Flash in the Pan

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #8, for the "Old Flames prompt," for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Flash in the Pan

Barbara screamed, pointed at me, and everyone turned to look.

She screamed and screamed, pointed and flailed. Her face turned

scarlet. The thirty children who had gathered around me gaped at her,

all of us standing as still as if we were staring at Medusa, until my boss

found someone else to teach them and secreted me away with Barbara.

I shrank. Disappeared into a knot of thorns that tightened around me.

In the news, only that morning, a crazed wife had killed her husband

and his lover. But in private, Barbara's maniacal frenzy abated;

she spoke quietly. Fingers released their threatened hold on my neck

and I took a breath and another.

I still wanted her to disappear and take Gordon with her. Forever.

Before our first kiss, I'd asked him: "Are you married,

are you engaged, are you in a relationship?"

"No, no, no," he said, and he lied. I believed him. He wore no ring.

I tend to trust. I'd welcomed him

into my home, my heart and then my bed. But they were engaged,

and then they married. After he lied,

after he cheated, they married. He probably blamed it on me.

If I were her, I'd have been as angry, but never

would have married Gordon. She told me, in tears:

he'd cheated before. Said he saw other woman

when he was with me, too, Cheated us both.

Cheat once, cheat again. I so would not have married

Gordon that he was the first step toward a vow of celibacy

One year, then another and then a third. And on to ten. Barbara married

a cheat. I married silence, peace and a spacious

empty bed.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090415-2212-3b; 090414-1115-2b; 090413-2252-1d; 090313-1602-1st

This poem has long lines which don't translate well into blog format.

NaPoWriMo prompt from ReadWritePoem #15: “Instead of”

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, for prompt #15, "Instead of," for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Instead of

writing this poem, I stare at the ceiling remembering how I used to watch movies on a blank wall, sometimes with a projector, and sometimes just staring at nothing but white. White sang and rippled into color, color meshed into patterns, creating people who often danced and sang. No one else could see those private movies. Now when I stare at the ceiling, because the wall here is blood red instead of white, I see a tea-with-oranges yellow from the lamp and speckled-horse blue from the cloudy sky seeping in the window to meet the yellow. The colors kiss near the shadows of books piled nearly to collapse above the lamp. Instead of writing this poem, I lie back in my swivel chair, stare at the ceiling and remember how as a child in bed at night, I loved to watch the pattern of car headlights sweep across the wall and ceiling, the rectangular window shapes gifted with flight.

Instead of doing my exercises and getting on with my day, I am pretending to write a poem. A prose poem, with spruces, oaks and elms full of water droplets and mourning doves. Raindrops stipple puddles full of sky almost as white as the ceiling. Full of the reflections of wings. Sparrows fall slanting across the window from the cedars to the feeder looking like sudden heavy snow, looking for food on the empty feeder. Instead of filling the feeder, I watch my fingers poke at the chiclet keys with their little letters, bing bing bing bing. Instead of getting dressed and making breakfast, I sit in my nightgown with my bare feet on the chair legs, shivering and shrinking from the cold of this rainy April morning and watch as one by one, the little black squiggles of letters fill up the white page.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090415 (tax-day)-0844-1st
NaPoWriMo prompt from ReadWritePoem #15 for 4-15-09: "Instead of"

This is a first draft. If I revise it, I will post the revision above this version. so the newest version will always be on top.

The photo of the Chickadee is from Kensington Metropark on Good Friday. We rarely have chickadees at our feeder.

I've done several others poems from NaPoWriMo prompts but haven't had time to post them.

I Come From Trouble

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, for the "Where do you come from" prompt, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

I Come From Trouble

White deer wandered through husks of burnt-out buildings,
browsing the new growth that sprang up after the fires and riots.
They'd fled into the river during the flames, somehow survived.
The gang from Royal Oak rounded up the deer for food,
but I hid a pair in the old zoo where I'd been living since
the trouble times. I hated to keep them captive; the place
resembled an ancient prison: small dark cells with no windows,
stalactites and stalagmites forming around the leaks in the roof,
but better that than eaten by the gangs. They showed up too well
in the woods and outer compounds, even at night. I blacked up
with char from the burned-over tree stumps. I gathered food
for the deer at night, let them loose in the inner chambers
where the hunger fiends couldn't spot them. The twenty-foot
chain-link fences with three strands of barbed wire
discouraged raids on what must have seemed to the gangs
like a hopeless jungle of weeds. I'd planted nettles and thorny
brambles on both sides of the fence and the moat of stinking swamp
was helpful too. They didn't realize that the dandelions,
burdocks, nettles and other weeds provided all the food
we needed, the deer and I. Though I couldn't see into the city,
I heard the gunfire and explosions, guessed at the gang war.
Heard the invasions, the Feds purging. Waited for silence,
And then waited some more. And here I am, with my companions
Snow, Ice and their baby, White Dove. We come from trouble
times. We came through flame and lived. I am a new woman;
call me Phoenix.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090413-1333-2b, 090413-1322-2a (first completed draft), 090412-1st
draft, unfinished

Note on the poem: this is for the NaPoWriMo challenge, "Where did you come from." I've written a number of "Where-did-I-come-from" poems, so I was looking for a different but related idea and yesterday, BB and I explored the old Zoo at Belle Isle where the white deer were kept captive after they were rounded up. The horrible, prison-like price and the fate of the deer (sold for food!) upset me and resonated, so I wrote this—it's "imaginary" but a metaphor of sorts—I
come from trouble—flame and fire. The fire, gangs riots and Feds are part of the history of Detroit. And Easter Sunday seemed like a good time for a rebirth image.

This is the first completed draft, what I wrote yesterday was only about half this and different. So there's a good chance there'll be more drafts and I will post them in the same post above the other during National Poetry month, anyway. That way, the newest version will always be at the top.

A Jar of Clowns

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, for Disparate things, yoked, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

A Jar of Clowns

Like the snakes at the museum with their yellowing scales
and pale, clouded eyes, my clowns are jammed in the jar
until no space remains for humor. Only a groan or two escapes,
the wheeze of tortured breath. My face presses, with theirs,
against the glass, three-quarters of the way to the bottom.
The pressure blanches my skin white and bloodless; it curves,
following the bend of glass. Bruises blossom at the contact
points. A hint of jelly clings to the jar by my tongue, apricot
maybe. Or peach. Not enough flavor remains to decipher
taste. The absence of laughter causes slow starvation,
a steady shrinking of the adipose of joy.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090413-1059-1st

This is my FIRST draft, it's likely I'll write more, and if so, I will post them ABOVE the 1st one so the newest is always at the top.

Getting Ahead, for NaPoWriMo

Happy Easter!

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, for "Found Poem," for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Getting Ahead, Found Poem with Canyon Bob

When I finally start getting ahead, disaster strikes.
Today it's the sewer line, the trees growing
into it, the basement flooded. My sister
wants to sell my mother's house. But who wants
a flooded basement? I'm still living
in my Mom's house after all these years.
With her gone, it feels like my house.
Maybe I should leave the basement flooded
so it won't sell, been in the family for generations,
but who wants that wretched sewer smell
and I'd probably fall in and drown. Sorry
to bother you. Do I smell bad? It's that stupid sewer,
oh, and alcohol, probably. I'm not an alcoholic,
but that that f-ing Roger next door gets me going.
Look, he drove on my lawn and tore up the grass.
My mother was a wonderful woman, but she slapped
me once for using the f-word and that f-ing Roger
wrote a note about my trees in his sewer, that's why
he was on the lawn, taking down his trees,
ashes they were, fire trees, and he wrote me a note
with the f-word and my sisters saw it; my poor sisters.
He didn't have to do that. I still try to protect them,
though I came seventeen years after my youngest sister.
They took Mom to the hospital, thought she had a tumor.
I was the tumor. Roger's Dad said she was too old
to be pregnant, to have me, but she did anyway.
He asked my Mom, "aren't you ashamed?" she said,
"no, I'm married." I know you gotta go, sorry
to bother you. But I'm not an accident or a mistake.
And I'm not an alcoholic. Smell like it, don't I?
No, I'm no mistake; I'm an unexpected pleasure.
And I'm not an alcoholic; alcoholics go to meetings.
I'm just a drunk.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
A "found poem" (captured "rant" from Canyon Bob)
090412-1128-2a, 090411-2341-1c, 090411-1704-1st

This is a "found poem" of sorts, from a "rant" by "Canyon Bob." I have used his words as I recall them and arranged them into this poem. Should I be concerned about appropriating his material or life? Anyone? Do I have the right to do this? And can I call it "mine?"

If I write any edits or revisions, I will post them ABOVE so the newest version is always at the top.

When I was God

HAPPY EASTER!!!

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, Paradise, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

When I was God

energy sang and eternal light interpenetrated
eternal darkness. Vast joy had a pulsing consciousness: me.
Thoughts gathered to make substance, things coagulated
and then dispersed, but they came and went
with little consequence. Mostly, I was alone in all that singing
emptiness, without thought, self or being,
except when I chose incorporation. Then,
I preferred high places, which I created so I could continue
to see forever. I gathered my body around me and sat
with the God Cat who was another part of me, who stretched
away from my energy-flesh in an attenuated light and snapped
into being. Its blue eyes radiated energy's song, its power
hummed around it. People, too, were a part of me,
shadow clones of the many thoughts
that drifted to the surface of my huge wild mind. I knew
everything then, but began to get lost in the minutiae.
My creations created problems, wanted solutions.
Back then, I could produce solutions with a single thought.
Miracles, they called them. But the attention was tedious
and overwhelming after the relaxing expanse of the void.
I shrank from my terrifying omnipotence
until I was one of them and could see only
what was in front of me. Paradise ejected me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Peter and George Osawa
090412-0916-1b, 090412-0846-1st, Easter Sunday

If I revise this poem during April, I will post the revision above the current one so the latest version is always at the top.

Thrift Shop

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, Thrift Shop, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Thrift Shop

We cruise the neighborhood on trash day, hoping
to furnish the house with tables, bookcases,
desks and dressers. In Idaho’s desert mountains,
we find an illegal dump with couches, chairs,
everything we need for the still empty living room.
When we haul them back in my little truck,
the room looks almost real, like a student version
of Better Homes and Gardens. But we never
use the room. We spend our days and nights at desks,
wearing out pencils, grinding erasers to stubs,
burning the carbon from our eyes in the college library.
When the professor visits with his wife,
we haven’t yet located a trash-day or rubble-heap table,
so they carry their dinners to the rescued couch,
the first to ever sit there. Plumes of desert dust
rise in billows around them. Almost discreetly,
they swish the floating cloud from the roadkill rabbit
we’d proudly served for dinner.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090411-1318-2d, 090410-2349-1st

^newer above v older below

Thrift Shop

We cruise the neighborhood on trash day, hoping
to furnish the house; we look for tables, bookcases,
desks, dressers. One day, in the desert mountains
of Idaho, we found an illegal dump with couches, chairs,
everything we needed for our empty living room
where as students, we never sat. We spent
our time at desks, wearing out pencils, grinding
our erasers to stubs. When the professor and his wife
visited, plumes of mountain dust rose around them
from the rescued couch. We hadn't found a table yet.
They swished the floating cloud almost discreetly
from the roadkill rabbit we'd proudly served for dinner.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090411-0005-2b, 090410-2349-1st

Another brand new poem, prolly not done. If I create more drafts, I will paste them in the same post ABOVE these so the newest is always on TOP.

Trapped (Nicknames) for NaPOWriMo

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, nicknames for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Trapped (Nicknames)

Horsehair, Gary called her, spitting the word
like phlegm, burning her cheeks with it. Horsehair,
because she wore her hair in long braids,
instead of short, curled and coiffed
like the other girls. She liked horses, loved to ride,
but the name stung as if each hair were a bee
angry, spiteful. In the classroom, while other kids
screamed, she lifted trapped bees gently in her hands
and carried them outdoors. They never stung,
but Gary did. “Dale calls me Tiger,” she told Gary,
wishing, at his horselaugh, that she'd never spoken.
If Gary called her Tiger, it would be an insult,
but Dale smiled when he said it, his eyes full of soft heat.
He found her feisty, strong. Independent. Fierce, even.
In the glow of Dale's appreciation, she morphed to Tiger.
Stood taller. Growled a little. Stalked the forest
like a predator. Kissed with hunger.
Gary couldn't see a tiger in her. It wasn't there.
When Gary looked at her, the tiger morphed
into a mouse, wanted to be invisible and hide
from Gary and his gang. But they always saw her,
the all too visible target for their venom. In an attempt
to quiet Gary, she chopped off her hair.
Though she tried to blend like a chameleon
with the other girls, she’d already been marked
for the kill.



Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Gary Sommers, Mike Sullivan, David McNalley and Dale Ripberger
090409-2341-1e

v older ones below, more recent above ^

Trapped (Nicknames)

Horsehair, Gary called her, spitting the word
like phlegm, burning her cheeks with it. Horsehair,
because she wore her hair in long braids,
instead of short, curled and coiffed
like the other girls. She liked horses, loved to ride,
but the name stung as if each hair were a bee
angry, spiteful. In the classroom, while other kids
screamed, she lifted trapped bees gently in her hands
and carried them outdoors. They never stung,
but Gary did. “Dale calls me Tiger,” she told Gary,
wishing, when he laughed his horselaugh,
that she'd never spoken. If Gary called her Tiger,
it would be an insult, but Dale smiled
when he said it, his eyes full of soft heat.
He meant feisty, strong. Independent. Fierce, even.
In the glow of Dale's appreciation, she morphed to Tiger.
Stood taller. Growled a little. Stalked the forest
like a predator. Kissed with hunger.
Gary couldn't see a tiger in her. It wasn't there.
When Gary looked at her, the tiger morphed
into a mouse, wanted to be invisible and hide
from Gary and his gang. But they always saw her,
the all too visible target for their venom. In an attempt
to quiet Gary, she chopped off her hair.
Though she tried to blend like a chameleon
with the other girls, she’d already been marked
for the kill.



Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Gary Sommers, Mike Sullivan, David McNalley and Dale Ripberger
090409-11832-1d


Trapped (Nicknames)

Horsehair, he called her, spitting the word
like phlegm, burning her cheeks with it. Horsehair,
because she wore her hair in long braids,
instead of short, curled and coiffed
like the other girls. She liked horses, loved to ride,
but the name stung as if each hair were a bee
angry, spiteful. In the classroom, while other kids screamed,
she lifted trapped bees gently in her hands
and carried them outdoors. They never stung, but Gary
did, Gary who called her Horsehair, and his buddies,
Mike, and Dave and the boys on her street.
"Dale calls me Tiger," she told Gary, wishing,
when he laughed his horselaugh, that she'd never spoken.
If Gary called her Tiger, it would be an insult, but Dale
smiled when he said it, his eyes full of soft heat.
He meant feisty, strong. Independent. Fierce, even.
In the glow of Dale's appreciation, she morphed to Tiger.
Stood taller. Growled a little. Stalked the forest
like a predator. Kissed with hunger.
Gary couldn't see a tiger in her. It wasn't there.
When Gary looked at her, the tiger morphed
into a mouse, wanted to be invisible and hide
from Gary and his gang. But they always saw her,
the all too visible target for their venom. In an attempt
to quiet Gary, she chopped off her hair.
Though she tried to blend like a chameleon with the other girls,
she'd already been marked for the kill.



Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Gary Sommers, Mike Sullivan, David McNalley and Dale Ripberger
090409-1757-1c

This is very brand new for me. If I make any edits or revisions, I will post them in this same window above this version.

Third's a Charm ("Three in a Row") again (revision)

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, three in a row for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Third's a Charm ("Three in a Row")

The first one beat her. She was bad because he beat her.
Bad because a dragon, hatched from an egg of flame incubated
in her heart. Deep in that pocket of inherited midnight,
it struggled to press its scales through her slimy skin.
Her breath burned with dragon fire. The beatings
squeezed the dragon-flames into that dark heart hole, transforming
it to dynamite or maybe a neutron bomb. That bit of antimatter,
heavy with shame and pain, prepared itself to blow acid and fire
in the face of the second when she finally escaped the first.
The second hit once, hard, then shrank
her with words and venom until she was smaller than the point
of a needle and crammed with the impossible mass of the universe.
The third one's a charm. If he can pry her out of her shells
of darkness and protective fat, and get past the land mines
and fire-breathing dragon, he might find a beating heart
held exposed in an open palm, eyes green
with forest light, a swallow, swooping through the trees,
carrying, like his cousin, an olive branch, a promise of roselight
and rainbows, kisses, a soft embrace, a hand to hold in his.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Pius, Nat, Keith and BP
090409-0802-3a, 090408-2124-2b, 090407-1651-1c

I edited this a little and think it's a little better and I am sure it's still not done!

Third's a Charm

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge, three in a row for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Third's a Charm ("Three in a Row")

The first one beat her. She was bad because he beat her.
And because a dragon, hatched from an egg of flame incubated
in her heart, deep in that pocket of inherited midnight,
struggled to press his scales out through her slimy skin.
Her breath was hot with dragon fire. The beatings
squeezed the dragon-flames into a crevice, transforming
it to dynamite or maybe a neutron bomb. A bit of antimatter,
heavy with shame and pain, prepared itself to blow acid and fire
in the face of the second when she finally escaped the first.
The second hit once, hard, then shrank
her with words and venom until she was smaller than the point
of a needle and crammed with the impossible mass of the universe.
The third one's a charm. If he can pry her out of her shells
of darkness and protective fat, and get past the land mines
and fire-breathing dragon, he might find a beating heart
held exposed in an open palm, eyes green
with forest light, a swallow, swooping through the trees,
carrying, like his cousin, an olive branch, a promise of roselight
and rainbows, kisses, a soft embrace, a hand to hold in his.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
for Pius, Nat, Keith and BP
090408-2124-2b, 090407-1651-1c

Of course, I didn't do their three in a row, because I was working on personal poetry, but I still hope to complete some or all of the NaPoWriMo challenges, even if not on the given day.

A Can of Worms

A Can of Worms

"Isn't sex over-rated?" a long ago husband
writes to ask.  "Except, of course," he adds,
"what we shared in the sixties."  Enter
Hieronymus Bosch with his can of worms.
Twisted trees shoot up around me and fill
with monkeys; the ones riding my back chatter
and screech.  A fountain of acid erupts from the earth;
grass sprouts tongues and the edges of flaming
dragon's teeth scorch my inner thighs. 
I remember honey bright kisses,

fists and bruises, languid touches
but mostly terror, long alleyways, hiding
under bushes and inside trashcans full
of maggots.  Always, he found me, dragged me
out by the hair and hit me, painted me
into canvases with leering eternity signs
between waves of fire and mustard.
Always grinning.  He dressed me and stood
me by the highway, thumb out (or in my mouth),
while he hid in the bushes, waiting for a ride.

He forbid my descent into undersea canyons,
beam probing the coelacanths, if my mermaid
laughter wasn't on his schedule of simultaneity,
tantric song and knives balanced on his nipples. 
Malevolent demon bats, keepers of eternal darkness,
fluttered around us, roosted in the shadows
and threatened to engulf us.  We argued
about who had called them.  He insisted I did,
and of course, I did.

Now, when I dive through the skin-nets of their wings,
they dissolve in veils, and I am home in the lychnis,
catchfly and moonflower.  I sit among garter snakes
and mother stones, sun soft on my face.  No
longer do I fall endlessly into darkness, as I did
in his arms.  I walk down a different path.  No
man lives beside me, no sex shatters me.  No
landmines, no torn talons, only a vow of chastity,
cardinal babies and their red-beaked parents
in the sweet syringe, and black raspberries,
with their small thorns, ripening outside my door.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
090404-1219-3a, 990705-2f, 990621-1st, originally called "Underrated"  L
from the Desire 6 Ms

NaPoWriMo: 30 Poems in 30 days

NaPoWriMo: 30 Poems in 30 days

OK, I found it, a little diligent clicking and there it is.  Thirty poems in 30 days for National poetry month at ReadWritePoem.  I'm not really sure I want to do it--I don't do my best writing when I write a new poem every day, I do my best work when I work on the SAME poem until I like it--for say a week at a time, and then start a new one and return to the old one later.  And of course, I'm starting at a disadvantage, because I missed the beginning.  Luckily, I wrote a poem yesterday anyway.  But not an official NaPoWriMo Poem.

I am not committing to commit, but hey, I might work on it.  Hmm.  You folks are inspiring me.  Happy National Poetry Month, by the way!  OK, I'm going to write down the challenges and see what I can do.  I'll try to get back to you--someday.  LOL!

Dream Poem "Backwards"

This poem is from a dream I had last week. I had considered making a poem of it and didn't attempt it because it seemed too difficult, but it continued to worry me, so I attempted it and here it is (danger, upsetting images!):

Backwards

Round, puckered and striated like a nipple, the fossil

hides among rocks on the mountain top. I stroke it,

feeling the bumps and indentations in grey rock.

Limestone, perhaps. Below, sky stretches, endless,

fading toward white. It shimmers like the sea. I call you

to see this ancient stone creature, knowing

how you like breasts, the soft roundness of them,

the responsiveness of nipples. Not rock ones,

of course, but still, "come check it out."

But you frown and step back, refuse to touch it,

and when I look back, I see, not a fossil,

but a dead girl, naked, lying deep in the rocks,

disintegrating. An arm here, a leg there,

features half rotted from her skull, the nipple

just showing in shadow on the twisted torso

deep between the summit's rocks.

Boulders shift and ocean now surrounds us.

We're on a breakwater, but no waves strike

the rocks. The water is still, calm and blue as a summer sky.

We stare at the dead girl. She's become intact and fully clad,

her clothes pressed and clean. Her cheeks blush

with color, brightening. She lies on top of the rocks,

no longer lost between them, and I'd swear I see her

breathing. She's flung across a slanted rock

as if dropped there by great bird, head downward, legs up,

long brown hair draped down the rock toward the water,

facing the endless blue above. We're on an island,

a shrinking island, no land in sight, only the glassy water,

the unmarred sky. I'm surprised when I realize

she looks a lot like me, at maybe nineteen.

Her eyelids flutter, and I awaken, in another century,

in a distant place, alive, and much much older. Tears

dribble down my cheeks.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090403-0930-2a, 090402-1757-1c, 090402, 1st 4:15 PM; from a dream last week

Surrounded by Sky

 

A woman imagines she has cholera and worries she will be eaten by a shark.  She fears she will slip under the fence and be swept over the falls at Niagara.  Whenever she eats, she thinks she will eat so much her belly will explode and kill her and whenever she flies, she thinks she will die in a plane crash.  Every snowy car ride turns into an automobile accident and every Ferris wheel threatens to collapse when she reaches the top.  She collects clippings of people killed by wildfires, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, escaped lions, burst appendixes, rabid rats, ice falling off church roofs, infected toenails. 

 

One day, the once worried woman, who had already died a million imaginary deaths, lies dying.  Dementia consumes her and she fails to recognize death's teeth at her throat.  The reaper pulls off his black hood to show his boney face and she only smiles.  She dreams she is a child, and afraid of nothing.  She climbs the tallest pine in the forest, a cabbage pine with branches like a ladder.  Up and up and up and up, like Jack on the beanstalk she ascends, effortlessly, to the tippy top.  It sways in the breeze.  The sky surrounds her.  The treetop bends, then breaks.  She should fall.  Instead, her body inflates with sunshine and she flies.  She flies so high she can see the individual rays of starlight and each has a voice and a song.  When the woman joins the song, a terrible rasping pours from her throat.  No one at her deathbed recognizes as the angel voices the cacophony flowing like a fountain from her lips.

 

 

Mary Stebbins

090222-2135-1e; 090222-1756-1st

 

The Fall that Follows Triptych

How Gerald Studies the Fledging of Darkness, May 14, 1993

 

I.  The Fall that Follows

 

Pigeons fall past the window, twisting and expanding

like newspapers unwadding in the wind.  Gerald puzzles

over this, lying on his side staring up and out.  He realizes

that they plunge from nests in the eaves and do not open

their wings to fly until below his line of sight. 

Though his visitors all praise the view from his window,

all he sees from the bed is sky and a haze of smog

so thick and brown he can't tell if the sun

shines or not.  The window, too, is smudged with grease

and condensation—his breath and sweat, he guesses—

and droplets trace long winding zebra paths through the fog.

His view of the pigeons is divided in stripes

of clarity and veils.  Appropriate, that view,

he thinks, his hours striped by pain.

 

Today, he learned

that while his past has been growing

steadily longer, his future has shrunk to barely the blink

of an eye.  "Six weeks, maybe," the doctor said,

when he, half joking, inquired, "How long have I got, Doc?"

With no future, no space remains to enjoy the past.

He holds the morphine button in the crook of his elbow

as the pain grows toward a crescendo.  He dissociates

for a moment, watching the flame of pain expand

spread like a wildfire.  It is red and orange and yellow

and smells like gasoline and turpentine

and like the pine pitch in the trees he climbed

as a boy.  Sticky, like that, too, never letting go.

 

The pigeons flutter upward, back

across the window,

beating their wings wildly

near the top.  He watches

for the fall that follows, after perhaps

they feed their young.  When

he presses the morphine button,

he will fall like that, tumbling

through a morphine darkness

away from himself,

but there will be no wings, no

bread from the feet of the elderly

for his children,

only the long scrabble

back toward the light

before he has to call in desperation       

for the darkness yet again.                                

 

II.  A Fluid Ribbon

 

Wings beat at the window,

feathers graze the glass.  Up

and up they flutter.  Grandpa's eyes rise

to the pigeons, for a moment, unglazed. 

Then the happy cooing, like a cat, purring,

like a lullaby.  A smile quivers

on Grandpa's lips before he fades again.  

When he sleeps, Al crosses the room,

sits on the wide windowsill and watches               

Gerald's chest rise and fall with only

an occasional catch.  The view outside

falls away into the distant valley

and ascends to a series of ridges beyond, fades

to blue and disappears into the lambent sky. 

Al turns his back on the rolling hills

and looks up to where the pigeons gather,

on a ledge above the window.

 

Their droppings streak and coat the upper glass,

the wall beside it, and the ground below.

Above the whitewash, colors!  Iridescence! 

Oranges, pinks, blues and greens glow and shimmer

on the greys, tans, black and white of feathers.

A plethora of variation.  They babble and dance

on the ledge.  Then as though if on signal,

they dive from the ledge and flow through the air

like a ribbon of fluid, twisting and turning

in unison as if choreographed by his own heart.

 

Below, heading in from the drop-off loop, Geraldine

follows their flight with her whole body,

her arms rising and falling slightly,

as if she would join them.  "Bring bread,"

Gerald had said, "and seeds." 

Al did. Enough for all of them.

 

III.  It Hurts a Little

 

At the first grip of toes and prick of tiny talons,

Geraldine shrieks, and in a clatter of wings, the pigeons

fly.  "Shhh," whispers Aldy, inclining his head

toward Gerald in the wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket

and scarf.  "Shhh.  Your Dad wants to feed them." 

Geraldine arranges the torn bread and seeds

on her hand again, steels herself.  The same pigeon

returns, the white one with tan wings and shiny pink        

glow on it's head as if a coat of thin nail polish          

had been painted on every feather.  First the whirr          

and beat of wings, the sudden clutch of pink toes

with their sharp nails.  Then a pecking at the seeds

in her hand.  Though it hurts a little, Geraldine   

sits utterly still on the bench beside her father's wheelchair. 

Then giggles, softly.  The pigeon looks up, cocks its head

to the side and peers at her through a single eye. 

Geraldine stares back at the pigeon with an eye

of her own.  The pigeon turns its head and looks at her

with the other eye and Geraldine does the same.

When the pigeon returns to eating bread and seeds,

Geraldine laughs.  She can't help it.  The pigeon

flutters slightly, but stays.  Peck.  Peck peck.

 

Geraldine looks around.  Aldy has a pigeon, too,

a grey and white one with pink and  green shine on its wings.

Three black pigeons with blue shiny heads like ravens

balance on her father's bony knees, one on the right,

and two sharing seeds from his left hand.  In his eyes,

a faint smile flickers.  Geraldine smiles, too.

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Taitt

for jrlc and mjtc with love and longing

this line ^ and everything below the line are not part of this poem

 

090220-1941-1f; 090220-0203-1^st combined draft

earlier separate pieces:  The Fall that Follows:(090217-1300-2a; 090216-1239-1st

Ode to the Nursing home pigeons: 090217-1520-1b; 090217-1411-1^st

It hurts a little:  090220-1:412-1^st complete draft; 090218 partial draft)

 

Note to Dawn and Classmates:  this started out as an ode to the pigeons in the voice of Aldy, second person, and morphed into something very different (as you can see and hear), but since it did actually start as an ode, I decided to bring it anyway.

Where Only He Could Go (Two new poems)

This is probably an unfinished draft--It's a poem for "fun" but I've been struggling with it all week. It is full of hidden rhymes which I've been trying to refine. I have added an image showing the rhymes. You can click on it to see it larger. It is part of my current manuscript, Counting Fingers, Smelting Light. If you are interested, try this, before you look at the image showing the rhymes, see how many you can find--some are obvious, others less so. There is a small new haiku at the very bottom. I have written about twenty other new poems I haven't had time to post.

Where Only He Could Go
How Uncle Jake tells Stories of Tristan to Geraldine, February 14, 1962[?]

Across the Santiago rooftops, he'd dance and run,
full of monkey antics, shenanigans, and fun.
You would have laughed to see him scamper high
Up in the trees, sun lighting his hair in a halo of cinnamon,
though he certainly was no angel. He chased the birds
to make them fly, to hear the whirr of wings and watch them
screeching from all the branches, lift in unison into the sky,
probably yelling curses. And him so pleased
and grinning. Yah, cinnamon, like your candy hearts.
A cinnamon capuchin was what he was. In spite
of his happy games and frolics, he looked so sad
I named him Tristan, and he was bad. He ran amuck.
He'd duck into an open door and steal a banana, guava
or some Senora's pie (a Senora's a lady, Gerry)
and oh, the hollering and fists upraised, like so!
He was always in a jam. Every day and more
I had to pay for that monkey's spunk and thievery.
He filled my bunk with stolen coins and loot. Bought
me a drink or two, I must admit. Even a drunk. Shhh,
I didn't say that, Gerry, don't tell on me. Good girl.
But he spilled a few as well. He was nimble, free,
and wild. And especially sweet when he wrapped his arms
around my feet and hugged and kissed me
with smacking sounds. He liked to ham things up.
And cute. You'd think he invented cute, the clown.
You would have loved him, child. He'd catch a ball
and sometimes fetch it like a dog maybe once
or twice, but then hide the ball, the wretch
in the top of a tree where only he could go.
No making nice would make him change his mind
and bring it down. He put my hat in the treetops too,
and worse, the passport I needed to come home.
I had to learn to climb again and was never as good
at trees as you.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
In memory of Grim, and for my parents
(note: read other version and compare! The one with the rhymes marked)
090213-2312-4d; 090212-2009-3a; 090211-3201-2d; 090210-2220-1b; 090210 1st

At Winterfest

The hawk ice sculpture,
look! Sun and rain have melted
it into a dove. Mary Stebbins Taitt

Waking Twice, a new poem and art piece

Waking Twice

i. Posing Nude in the Snow

On a plate, eyeballs the size of fish eyes
roll and tumble. Round. They stare in every direction,
with irises olive drab. I tip the plate toward my mouth
and pour them in. They smush on my tongue
like capers, salty, sour and sharp. Some escape
and look inside my mouth and belly. Perhaps
they will see my heart: a burned out cinder. A hunk
of graphite. Stone masons attack at it with hammers
and chisels, trying to recarve stone into a facsimile
of love, but the eyeballs all know better.

ii. Catching Dreams in a Butterfly Net

Thousands of rainbows dance in a field of spray;
I imagine they'll slip through the net like air,
like fog, like the spray itself, but it holds them,
shining fish, softer than carp roe, brighter than trout,
slipperier than eels. I swallow them whole
in a whirl of cherry, strawberry, orange,
lemon, lime, blueberries and concord grapes
They wriggle and slide into the cage of my ribs
and swim there, lighting the cold cinder of heart
with color. The sun when I catch it doesn't burn
the fibers of net. It tastes like fireballs, cinnamon
and cayenne and roosts in the cinder of heart
like a banty taking to the trees at dusk.

Whoever told you chickens don't fly
never had banties! Even some of the white leghorns
fluttered to the rafters when the fox came in.
(Which still wasn't the point you were making,
of course.)

Meanwhile, the sun flaps its yellow wings,
fluffs its white belly and puffs my cinder of heart
into a great balloon that thrums in my chest glowing
and shimmering with rainbows, throbbing and singing:
an electrical tinnitus that seems to chant: Oh Joy, Oh Love,
oh Glory. Halleluiah. Wait what? Me? Not likely.
Only a dream. The wind must have tossed those flowers petals
that litter my morning quilt.

Mary Taitt
For Kay Ryan, Jim Doran, Rhonda Welsh, Lottie Spadie, Dawn McDuffie,
Bagelboy, Mike Kline, and Janine
090206-1207

This is a "new poem" made by combining two earlier drafts into a
single poem and then revising some. The art piece is also a revision
of an older piece which I have revised and posted multiple times in
different forms.

Because NO Polar Coordinates is my "Master Blog," I am posting this to
both No Polar and to my poetry, The Smell of Sun.

Pancake Day

It's Candlemas, St. Bigid's Day, Imbolc, Groundhog Day. A day to eat
pancakes, see your shadow, light candles, take down your Christmas
tree.

I made crepes:

1/4 c milk, i egg, 1/4 c flour for each crepe, more or less, whisk up.
I used whole wheat flour and some seeds and rice milk for mine--yum.
\

I wrote a poem about it, brand new today, for my class tonight.

Candlemas
How Geraldine becomes a Saint, Feb 2, 1961

One by one, with needles pricking and dropping
with lisping sounds like falling rain through
the drooping branches, Geraldine picks lengths of tinsel
from the browning tree. She turns the dull and shining
strands in the colored lights to see them sparkle,
watches small streams of color wash and wriggle
across the ceiling like eels in Uncle Jake's creel.
She blows at the tinsel, puffs gently on the filaments
draped over her fingers, watches the light ones rise
and flutter while the heavy ones barely move.
New sun filters though the lace curtains, adding
another layer of pattern to the patches of color
and the ghosts of branches on the walls and ceiling.
Mama calls her to come out and see her shadow.
"The woodchucks," she says, "the groundhogs,
are sleeping in the woods, under the snow,
they won't be seeing any shadows, but you
can see yours instead." Geraldine waves
at her shadow and laughs when the shadow
waves back. Laughs and laughs and waves again.
Watches the blue hand move against the pink snow.
"Bye, bye winter," Mama says. "Well, anyway,
it's half gone, and that's worth celebrating."
Geraldine celebrates by leaping up and down
and shouting, laughing again as her shadow leaps
along with her, silent as the watching sparrows.
They give the sparrows yellow millet and golden
corn. "Yellow and gold for the sun," Mama says.
"Yellow for the sun," Geraldine repeats.
"Pancakes for breakfast," Mama says. In the center
of each pancake, she makes the shape of a sun
with a smile and many rays. "For St. Brigid,"
she says, "for the happy, growing sun."
Geraldine eats her suns with maple syrup
and asks for a pancake with her shadow in it.
"Here you are," Mama says, sliding the pancake
onto Geraldine's plate, "St. Geraldine, goddess
of shadows." Geraldine waves goodbye
to the pancake and to her pancake shadow,
as she forks it into her mouth, bite by bite.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Geraldine and the High Priestess

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother, Take 2

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother

I lift them from the floor, two crisp dollar bills
folded in half as they came from the card
twenty years ago. Cadbury Creme Eggs
from my mother because that year, like so many,
I was dieting. I had not yet learned I was allergic
to chocolate. The dollars were meant, like candy,
to be as fleeting as the words, "Hello, I love you!
Delightful to see you. Here's a little Easter treat." Yum
yum, gobble, gobble. But somehow, the paper eggs
never got eaten. I, who pride myself on imagination,
could think of no small treat both safe for a dieting palette
(or mind) and sufficient to honor my mother's boundless
love. She meant only to include me and would laugh or cry
at such agonizing deliberations over twenty years.
This morning, I knocked the precious dollars
from their perch beside my bed—perhaps to remind me
that when I pass on, no one will know the value
of this money. Maybe someone will stick them
in a wallet and spend them with ordinary money
for gas, dry cleaning or a soda for my son.
May that soda explode in rainbow flavors
and free the burden and glory of two
generations of love (hallelujah!) onto
that cherished and unsuspecting tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090130-0942-1e; 090130, 1st
(hated the illo, had to do it over!)

Easter Gift from a Dead Mother (and a bit of silliness)

Easter Gift From a Dead Mother

I lift them from the floor, two crisp dollar bills
folded in half as they came from the card
twenty years ago. Cadbury Creme Eggs
from my mother because that year, like so many,
I was dieting. I had not yet learned I was allergic
to chocolate. The dollars were meant, like candy,
to be as fleeting as the words, "Hello, I love you!
Delightful to see you. Here's a little Easter treat." Yum
yum, gobble, gobble. But somehow, the paper eggs
never got eaten. I, who pride myself on imagination,
could think of no small treat both safe for a dieting palette
(or mind) and sufficient to honor my mother's boundless
love. She meant only to include me and would laugh or cry
at such agonizing deliberations over twenty years.
This morning, I knocked the precious dollars
from their perch beside my bed—perhaps to remind me
that when I pass on, no one will know the value
of this money. Maybe someone will stick them
in a wallet and spend them with ordinary money
for gas, dry cleaning or a soda for my son.
May that soda explode in rainbow flavors
and free the burden and glory of two
generations of love (hallelujah!) onto
that cherished and unsuspecting tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090130-0942-1e; 090130, 1st

With a silly collage illo! :-D Brand new poem this morning! I may
make a new illo for this, as this illo is kind of foolish for the
poem!