Category Archives: Personal

VICTORY IS MINE

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NOTE: I originally posted this poem about a year ago. It reads as something overly dramatic to me now. When I posted it,  many readers took it to be a sort of horror poem. It was, but not in the sense it was taken. I had literally aspirated stomach acid into my lungs. Since I already live – that being the operative word – with a serious interstitial lung disease, this was not just excruciating. It was frightening. Aspirating any food into the lungs is an “insult” (as the docs put it) to the lungs. I assumed acid would have to be an even more dangerous event resulting in more scar tissue than I already have. We can’t breath through scar tissue. There’s no exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

There was someone in the next room that evening, but I was unable to call for help. I just sat in bed writing this rebellion in my head. That was then …

Currently health issues are a bit taxing. Like everything else in life, all bad things come to end. No worries, but that is the reason my visits to you have not been what they used to be. It is why my posts have been irregular. Thank you for hanging in with me and for understanding and for Facebook messages and emails expressing concern. I expect to be back on a regular blogging schedule come the end of December, including frequent blog visits to you. I value you … Live hugely! I do believe the ability and will to love makes us all victors in the end … ;-) In metta, Jamie

Photograph courtesy of Anna Cervova, Public Domain Pictures.net.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

I sink my teeth into you, you slave of fear

And dost with poyson, waree, and sickness dwell …

Death Be Not Proud, Divine Sonnet 10, John Donne, English poet and preacher, 1572 – 1631

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You, Vampire, thriving on the energy of fear,

I slow you, slay you, sink my nails into you

as I sink my nails into the moon

You knock, knock, knock at my door

But I have barred it and locked it

I have hung a magic amulet from the rafters

My screams rise silent as a roar, black as a sun

They rise from the heart and pierce the dusty sky above

My laughter is a sharp cackle scratching your green eyes

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Your claws seek to separate me from my loves,

the very joys that are the foundations of my soul

My spirit grows weary then springs back again

like a wilting plant newly watered by a green hand

Yet again I won an ugly  battle as puce and putrid acid rose

and filled my tender lungs – I breathed, I breathed, I poemed

as if there would ever and always be another sun

Know you, I am here to race and tear, to rail and gag

and still I’m laughing, poeming, loving, loving

Yes! Yes! – you Blackguard, in the end you will win the battle,

but I stand strong, strongest as the real winner, true victor

For unlike you, I have loved …

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So take your ax and your cloak and bury yourself

in the dark, the rusty, the bleakest bog

Your soul is prose and mine is poem and

I am straight and vigorous, the winner of all

For unlike you, I have loved.

Victory is mine.

Photograph “Keep Out” courtesy of Kim Newberg, Public Domain Photographs.net.

O death, where is they sting? O grave, where is they victory?” St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:55

WORSHIPING THE MOON

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BLOGGER AT WORK
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Thank you to all of you who read here, comment, and share. On October 14, I posted The City of Ultimate Bliss. I rarely post short stories. They’re a lot for people to stop and read when busy with day jobs, writing, and making blog visits. For some reason I decided to post that short story.
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Within a few hours – thanks to all your shares – there were almost 600 visits. That’s just a spark in the greater blogosphere, but it was touching and meaningful for me. Those few who commented said they wanted to know more. What happens next? I don’t know. That exploration is my project for this year’s National Novel Writing Month. The working title is Worshiping the Moon. :-) Thank you! :-)
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If you are NaNo-ing and want to buddy with me, I’m on that site under Jamie Dedes.

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WENDY ALGER (b. 1972), Chicago, IL, U.S.A.

Fine Art Photographer

The picture at the top of this post is one Wendy snapped of me with her phone. It’s not typically Wendy. My brave and talented friend continues to pursue her art although she is going blind. She has retinitis pigmentosa. You can sample some of Wendy’s work HERE. I’ll be hosting a small gallery selection of her photographs on this blog on November 11.

Poet and friend Ann Emerson says that Wendy’s art is visual poetry.

The photograph, Wendy with Balloon, was taken by Wendy’s friend, Jack.

ANN EMERSON  (b. 1956), Richmond, CA

Poet and Essayist

i wish to speak very quietly and thoughtfully here of the necessity of ordeal by fire. yesterday i learned a dear friend’s cancer has seriously metastasized, changing the blueprint of her life. it is not easy to find higher wisdom in this development. she is reminded that her body is delicate. i try to be philosophical about dying as metamorphosis.MORE [Ann Emerson]

You can visit Ann at Into the Bardo.

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© Blogger at Work and Wendy with Balloon, 2011 Wendy Rose Alger, All rights reserved

© Ann Emerson, 2010, 2011 Ann Emerson, All rights reserved

WINTER

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Video uploaded by .

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Blaga Tordorova’s Seasons’ Challenge

Fourth of Five: Winter favorites

Link to Blaga (BrokenSparkles) to join the challenge and visit other bloggers.

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MY COLLECTION OF WINTER FAVORITES

WORD ~

snow ~ crystals of precipitation that you can toss at one another in fun and use to build snow men and ladies; a moveable feast for the eyes that you can lay down in, swinging your arms to make snow angels; a glistening base upon which you can slide; a hoary garden blanket that colorful crocus push through come spring; fairy dust that brings a magical silence over the earth; a mystery waiting …

QUOTE ~

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1556), Italian author, satirist, poet and playwright.

POEM ~

Inclement

by

Allison Titus (from Sum of Every Lost Ship, her debut collection)

Snow and after, each bidding

and restlessness turns the goat’s heart

fallow: long hours of ice and bluster:

asymmetry of wind.

Say every goat has in its heart

a field, and each field, a goat:

the slumber of muscle and grass

is still a different elegy. Every 

heart writes a different letter

of winter to its cold.

Icicles on sheet

metal, bucket frozen in the well.

Once there was no language

for the weather, just ….. The sky is low and birdless;

or  The sky is a box of wings.

BOOK ~

HUNGER’S BRIDE. This is a novel of the Baroque period in Mexico, its great poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and a contemporary mystery. The book weighs about four pounds and is 1,312 pages, perfect for those living in colder climes where you may sometimes be homebound.

It’s the lyrical work of Paul Anderson, a Canadian writer who spent twelve years writing it. Part of the narrative is set in Mexico in the 17th Century. Part of it is set in modern times. There are two mysteries involved.  A woman is killed and a man finds in her apartment a box addressed to him, Donald Gregory. The woman, Beulah Limosneros, was a student obsessed with Sor Juana. In the box are translations of Sor Juana’s poems, a travel diary, a journal, and notes on Limosneros’ research on the Spanish Inquisition and the Spanish conquest of the Americas. There are possibly compromising journal entries about Gregory with whom Limosneros has had an affair.

The second mystery is that famous confounding one of Sor Juana, who insisted on a life of the mind for women. At one point  this woman of genius became silent and never wrote again. She signed a note of contrition in blood and died about five years later from the plague. No one knows why she stopped writing. Scholars and artists have puzzled over this, including the likes of Diane Ackerman, Octavio Paz, and Robert Graves.  I believe Octavio Paz was largely responsible for reviving her work.

Hunger’s Bride moves on Gregory’s search for himself, Limosneros mystical odyssey, and the incredible life and art of Sor Juana. The book has had mixed reviews and I think some of the criticism is warranted. I cannot bring a scholar’s eye to the translations of Sor Juana’s poems, but I can see where some might find the details of Limosneros’ interior life overdone. Nonetheless, I found much to like, especially the way Anderson builds the tensions as the powers of the day close in on Sor Juana. It’s reminiscent of Anna Akhmatova and Stalin. Recommended.

SONG ~

New York, New York (video above), especially when sung by either Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, New Yorkers both.

MOVIE ~

Video uploaded by .

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, based on Betty Smith’s book. I like the original 1945 version by director Elia Kazan best. Peggy Ann Gardener and James Dunn are featured in this scene. Essentially this is a story of an earnest and bright girl, Francie, growing up in Brooklyn. The year is 1912. Her father is an alcoholic and a romantic. Her mother is strong and practical. Francie dreams of going to high school and becoming a writer one day. The emotions are authentic and the characters are sympathetic and real. Betty Smith based the book on her own life experience. Both the book and the movie are all-time faves of mine.

CITY ~

Brooklyn:  When it comes to winter and the holidays, there’s no place like home and no people like family and old friends.

ANIMAL ~
LIONS
Patience and Fortitude, the lions outside the New York Public Library.
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FLOWERS ~
HOLLY
They do flower, but this is the way I know them in winter when I favor them.
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FOOD ~
Sidto’s Stewed Stringbeans

The recipe serves four

  • 1 pound of string beans, tipped and halved
  • 1 1-pound can of stewed tomatoes
  • 1/8 cup olive oil
  • 1 medium white onion, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, diced
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely minced
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon Aleppo Pepper
  • Sea salt to taste
  • 1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil.  When they begin to brown, slowly add the stewed tomatoes to the pot.  Add the string beans, parsley, oregano, cinnamon, pepper and lemon juice.  Simmer over a low heat for about thirty minutes.  When the string beans, turn off the heat and add the feta.  Stir once or twice gently.  Taste for salt and seasoning and adjust to taste.  Stir.  Serve warm in individual bowls. Top with crumbled feta.

IMAGE ~
ROCKEFLLER CENTER, New York City, New York
The lower level with skating rink and restaurant.
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Please visit Blaga for her Winter post and to link to others participating in this challenge.