Apricot

A summer Taos sunset in your hand.

The weight of a small child's fist,

a girl, resisting sleep

as she sleeps.

The shape of a chicken angel's egg

Eros's lovely clefted backside

in velvet. Fleshy

as a horse's lazy, lower lip.

A faraway fragrance:

juniper in gin, that slow gin

kiss.

What God saw on the eighth day, and ate, and said of it--

way good.

The woody stone we worry-gnaw when death's near,

when we're toothless again as babies,

trying to keep a great thought

small.

-Deborah Slicer

Underwater Mind

-Alex Kirkbride


For the human mind, the crossing from air down into water has powerful effects. Unable to smell, losing accustomed gravity and losing our air hearing, it is surprisingly difficult to carry memory across the the border... Underwater, writes Cousteau, "one forgets the sun. One forgets a lot." All the pretty, dry concerns are left to the squabbling gulls. The air world is hard to recall on the instant of merging in the saltwater world we knew before. It is enigmatic that memory can meet amnesia here, how completely and instantly we forget the world of air, our corrugated corner of earth and our dry lives, but seem to remember, opaquely, as if memory coursed through our salty veins, that this ocean was once our home.

-Wild An Elemental Journey

It's also easy to forget to be living presently wherever one is, completely and fully in the moment and yet simultaneoulsy clean the bathroom, wash the dishes, and take the garbage out... ho-hum.

My mind feels submerged... the rain subsided, but flash floods are to be welcoming us once again tomorrow.

What the Hell is Summer Going to Bring?

The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification. The job of the writer is to make it harder to believe the mental despoilers. The job of the writer is to make us see the world as it is, full of many different claims and parts and experiences.

It is the job of the writer to depict the realities: the foul realities, the realities of rapture. It is the essence of the wisdom furnished by literature (the plurality of literary achievement) to help us understand that, whatever is happening, something else is always going on.

-Susan Sontag - At the Same Time

_________

"Something else" for me is definitely "going on". Right now its septic-pumps working overtime from the massive downpour that Mother Nature has unleashed.

Remember that brown grass I was griping about awhile back? Well the grass is not brown anymore!

The nasturtiums are blooming and everything is lively and lush. The robins have been utterly in heaven with worm feeding-frenzies out of this world, and it's simultaneously an overload of H2O but at the same time so seeping with Life and deep earthiness that I find myself taking in such deep, long inhales that are quite sensational to my senses.

Summer is officially ended the school year for Kiddies and I'm also left scrambling with ideas of generating extra green of another sort and working on some tidbits of my former art pieces that have suffered neglect (I am thankful our basement has not flooded... but that damn pump is beginning to annoy me!) I'm attempting to be both practical but not have myself getting in over my head, which is what seems to usually happen, then too much-- too much.

So a balancing of getting more things in the ground, some deck construction if dear brother would be so kind to actually complete this season! and some travels to further Clear the Mind and regroup. I've been ruminating on the novel of Chapatis and ..... ?? to get seeded in some shape and form for some time, and I guess this summer should be enough of a kick in the behind to at least commit to some solid writing at least every day so the characters stop screaming to me in my dreams.

c'est ca

Ranting is another thing...

"... the impulse to kill him becomes so strong sometimes, when I think of the way he's stolen my life and trampled all over it and then thinks it's sufficient if he reads a few highbrow books, that I don't know how to get over it. I clench my fists together to keep from rushing at his greasy yellow head, or throwing something into that noisy mouth, forever boasting and screaming. If I could kill him and that child... I'd gladly do time for it. But what would the kids do? Go to an asylum? No one could stand it."

-Christina Stead The Man Who Loved Children

Daily Grind

Well I'm endlessly procrastinating and getting my arse in gear to write more than I have been-- well as you can see it's not going too well.

Gardening lately has been keeping me gone-- you might remember, the grass. Well I've been reseeding and applying composted as well as manure and other goodies to begin counteracting the damaging winter (apparently it's "snow mold"-- but that is coming from the evil TruGreen-- so I would not put too much weight upon that dx).

The apple and cherry trees are doing well and quite beautiful with their dotted blossoms, but still no raised garden bed as of yet. I'm not doing too well in getting it all together, but a little here and a little there. Pulling and replanting some prairie grasses, added more composted soil to some of the border flower beds, etc.

Picked up A Guide to Writing Fiction because I need the extra nudge, and living in a city that neither appreciates (though constantly touting all the usual cliches to the contrary) good writing, reading, or Art for that matter. Heading back to finish my Masters work right now is impossible at the moment-- I'm looking for other means of being creative and keeping my brain engaged.

The order of business is to keep writing-- anything. And try to get back to painting and some new work accomplished.

So the blog is an annoying litany of basically nothing in particular at the moment, and will probably go in and out of many topics, genres, and ideas. Mostly I may start just daily journaling about the most mundane and day-to-day "stuff".

Will see what shape that begins to take, if any...


The desire at the start is not to say
anything, not to make meanings, but
to create for the unwary reader a
sudden experience of reality.
-VALERIE MARTIN-

Before the Fall

It is impossible not to wonder what Hughes was really planning and wishing with regard to his marriage at the time Plath killed herself. The statements to be found among his papers are wildly contradictory: that she was a wonderful woman but impossible for him to live with- that "it was either her or me"; and, to the contray, that he and Plath were on the verge of a reconciliation, that they had even shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of hostilities.

... Both of them were still the walking wounded, in January 1963, and the wounds were raw.

Suppose, then, that Plath had survived, and she and Hughes had divorced. What would have been the consequences for Plath's status as a writer? Anne Sexton had a response to that question: she identified Plath's suicide as an enviable career move.

suicides have a special language

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.

They never ask why build

pg 216-17 Her Husband

Grass Is Not Green

So my mind continuously is wrapped up on the grass-- that damn brown grass. No matter how much seed, wonderful rich organic composted soil, and wishful wishing I do; and even when the rainfall from last night and today soaked the bumpy land-- zip.



I just see brownish-white, ugly patches that look as though I've been neglectful and absent and I have not.



My eyes take scrutiny to the neighbors on either side of our home and my frustration grows even deeper, unlike the grass seed. Their lawns seemed to have survived the long, snow plunged winter, and lawn-care vans crazily scribble on their adverts that our lawn is plighted by "snow mold" and other such furthering irritating diagnosis's that only add to my immediate sense of urgency.



Patches of deep rich brownish-black soil exposed from hungry squirrels who frolic up and down the trees playing with each other and chipmunk holes... why does our lawn seem overly magnified and a banquet for the spring frenzy? While I too rejoice in the renewal of the season and keep my solo bird feeder stocked to entice aviary beings, even wolves and foxes have found an ease to scavenging in the backyard in the urban demographic.



I have no qualms with our extended living entities-- I welcome them. But the grass just burns something so obsessive into me. And once you get started you have to keep going with the maintenance and upkeep.



Upon purchasing this home I could have cared less about the grass and have begun the slow process of planting prairie grass and naturalizing with other more native plants. Seems more money will be required to make the landscape more sustainable and less time consuming, allowing the natural cycles to take-- even getting a vegetable bed in is going to take more work since the veil of green carpet has now turned. The builder was so cunning and The grass was already freshly rolled out, bright green, lush and healthy. We were none the wiser and so very in love with the place that the grass was furthest from our minds