Other Mothers’ Children

gfhxfg

Photograph of Mother and Child in Palestine courtesy of Le Massacre Courageux des Enfants de Gaza Decembre 2008/Janvier 2009

“I could have been someone else
I could have been somewhere else”

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian Poet

In Near Eastern places once held sacred

The sky is bright with rocket glare and

Other mothers’ children stare unseeing

From shattered hovels, no sweet, wet

Baby kisses from blistered lips with songs unsung

No family portraits to dust and treasure, just bodies

Some other mothers’ children rotting in the dust

Frozen moments of horror framed in blood

Limbs cracked and broken, bellies torn

Faces purpled, hearts stopped

Collateral damage, primary pain

Yesterday It Rained

Photograph courtesy of publicdomainphotographs.net.

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”

April Rain Song by Langston Hughes in Collected Poems

Yesterday it rained and rained

a drenching pewter rain

pouring down mercy

running in rushing rivulets

along the ground.

The dusty earth sighed.

In my small world

happiness popped and danced

like new daisies out sunning

on a breezy summer day.

It pleased my rosy heart

to think I live, I love, I laugh

on such a day as this.

Providence or Folly

Photograph courtesy of publicdomainphotographs.net.

I see a similarity between me

and potatoes.

I have felt the rot from within

in the autumn rain.”

Autobiography (reply to Ferlinghetti) (1963), Sonjia Åkesson, A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, Aliki Barnstone & Willis Barnstone

With gullible hazel eyes fringed in black lace

she looked out at the world.

With ears tuned to pulpit and street

she mistook . . .

. . . love for wisdom

. . . suffering for sanctity

. . . sex for intimacy

. . . saccharine for sincerity.

Because she endured,

she thought she was strong.

She took the tarnished confines

of her dark, singular world

for the broad vision of her God.

Living by accident,

she died on purpose.

Labyrinth Video

Video posted to YouTube by firstRainbowRose.

Left, Right, Straight ahead
You’re in the labyrinth
Left, Right, Straight ahead
Left, Right, Straight ahead
No-one can tell you
Which doors are the right ones?
My Lost Child”

Labyrinth by Oomph!

Clever! Clever! Clever!  This young woman pieced a video of the movie, Labyrinth, staring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, with the song Labyrinth by the German band, Oomph!. Sometimes even looks like the characters are mouthing the words to the song.

How To Tell When Your Feet Stink

Photographer unknown, but much appreciated.

Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.”

MacavityThe Mystery Cat by T.S. Elliot in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

Well, we always did know the fur balls served some greater purpose.

The Crude Rude Red Rooster

Photograph from publicdomainpictures.net


“the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare

with stupid eyes

while from their beaks there rise

the uncontrolled, traditional cries.

Deep from protruding chests

In green-gold medals dress,

Planned to command and terrorize the rest,

The may wives

Who lead hens’ lives

Of being courted and despised . . . “

Rooster by Elizabeth Bishop from The Complete Poems, 1927 – 1979

The family patriarch was a big man

A big crude rude red rooster of a man

With cock’s comb of jet that wilted

In the golden glow of an honest sun

He wrapped anger around himself in the way

Of a frail, old woman with her shawl

His boom and blather made the girl shiver

Like the surface of a  pond brushed by a cold, dark wind

In a closet  big enough to live in

He greedily gathered  his props and indulgences

Things like  wine, whisky, Cherry Herring

Nine wallets, six gold watches, and a money safe

Seven packages each of tee shirts and underwear

He grew fat and aggressive on rich, flesh foods and alcohol

He rode a big car smelly as a camel’s belch

And parking, made sure to intrude on his neighbor’s good grace

He thought himself a “man’s man” and

Kept the women in their places, as defined by him

He whipped the elder son into nervous abandon

Trying to craft him into a clone and a validation

To keep the upper hand, he pitted his boys against each other

He drove the iron wedge of his insecurities between his sons and their wives

When he laughed, girls were sure to cry

In his service business, women were “broads”

And there were codes for the others

Seven was for “Spic”

Six was for “Nigger”

Five was for “Sand-Nigger,”  like the girl

He didn’t even know some derive, not from the desert, but

From seaside and from mountains crowned with snow and cedar

Time passes, life changes, the rooster lost his peck

The wife, grown hard, rules the roost and the rooster

And a “broad” ran credibly to be her party’s presidential nominee

A “seven” is an astronaut

A “six” is a U.S. President

A “five” is a governor

The girl never thought she’d see the day . . .

As for the crude rude red rooster

He just did what most of us mostly do

He gave what he got

What his father gave him

What his father gave him

What his father gave him

Going back generation on generation

It’s human nurture, not human nature

For Sale Here: Chapbook

Newstand illustration by J.C. Leyendecker circa 1899.

“Chapbook is a generic term to cover a particular genre of pocket-sized booklet, popular from the sixteenth through to the later part of the nineteenth century. No exact definition can be applied.Chapbook can mean anything that would have formed part of the stock of chapmen, a variety of peddler. The word chapman probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for barter, buy and sell. ” Wikipedia

One woman with a cat, a muse

In fine Whitmanesque publishing tradition

Putting out newfangled electronic edition

A word symphonic record to leave behind

Carefully tweaked, tempered and timed

Baring witness to love, history, and crime

The poet posts, the friends roast

All good-natured, well-reasoned, and rhymed

Favorite Free E-cards Sites in Time for Valentine’s Day

Photograph courtesy of writer, photographer, and crafter, Karen Fayeth. Visit Karen’s craft shop Nichos and Dichos.

Who, being loved, is poor.” Oscar Wilde

I enjoy giving and getting e-cards. I appreciate that sending them is more spontaneous and immediate than the paper equivalent. I love that often the cards are not only exquisitely beautiful, but they come with music. Sometimes the cards are simple and sometimes funny. Trees are not killed. Fuel isn’t used to deliver them.

Here are my favorite free e-card sites in time for Valentine’s Day.

Consorting With Dreams

Video posted to YouTube by galakticus.

Dachshund: A half-a-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long.” Henry Lewis Mencken

Sometimes you know it’s just not the right time in life to adopt a pet. Such are these days for me. So for the moment I vicariously enjoy cats and dogs and companion animals of every ilk by mining blogs, websites, and YouTube. I have perhaps a half-zillion stuffed animals taking up at least a third of my apartment and charged with the responsibility of being “place holders” . . . until the day. Of course, every furry creature I see, I want to adopt. My latest fixation is dachshunds, having recently watched Once Upon a Crime and Secret Agent, both of which feature doxies. [I admit it. My character is weak. I succumb easily to suggestion.] Who knows when fantasy will become reality? Meanwhile all things are possible. I am, after all, just consorting with dreams.

One Summer Night, A Love Story

Painting of Coney Island Beach, Brooklyn, NY c. 1914 by Edward Henry Potthast (1857 – 1927).

When I close my eyes I see your face,
and calmness takes over my body.
What I feel inside scares me to death.

Karen J. Cino, Brooklyn Poet and Writer

One summer night you stood on the beach

Where the sky touched the sand and spoke in midnight blue

While a thousand eyes watched and winked

You were a handsome boy, as straight and serious as a sigh

The other girls giggled, thinking you too stodgy, too old

But I stepped back, looked at your heart and lost my breath

Your winter gave birth to my spring, your darkness my light

And I have never been the same