Maytime

Soon May will come, with all the flowers that bloom,
et cetera. Will I still sit in this room
awaiting inspiration for poetical creation,
but writing only sterile gloom and doom?

Oh, no! I shall go forth to Nature's world,

and walk beneath the trees, and see the squirrels
and the chipmunks on the ground, hear the birds' melodic sound,
and perhaps to spy a hawk with wings unfurled.

I'll enjoy the exercise and health I'm gaining,
kick a few dead soggy leaves from fall remaining;
I will jump and skip and run, and when all of this is done,
improvise a little dance—unless it's raining.

Too long I've hidden from the world of people—
men and women, dogs and children, church and steeple;
I'll no longer play the hermit, but I'll sing and dance like Kermit,
and inhale perfume of flowers, bud and sepal.

Heaven strengthen me to keep this resolution,
and to my sad complaints find the solution;
let me confidently hope I'll no longer sit and mope,
but reform my world without a revolution.

By JRC 04/19/17 

Too Pooped to Pop, or Too Hot to Hoot

Today, Jed and I went to Birmingham to get my car tag, then found that the right place was in Bessemer, so there we went. Afterwards we ate lunch at the Irondale Café. But it was a lot more complicated than it sounds, and we are both worn to a frazzle. And Jed even has to drive back to Atlanta today.

"But fill me with the old familiar juice,

Methinks I might recover by and by. . ."

Last night the poetry group met at the Leeds Arts Council. Jed went with me, and I read my new poem, "This Rough Magic." It was a good meeting.

Some Recent Notes

Last night I watched (again) the saddest movie I have ever seen, and certainly one of the best--"Legends of the Fall," 1994.

Putting Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in the same film conjures up magic. The same thing happens in "Meet Joe Black."

*

Here's a poem I wrote on Jan. 10:

Water Sign

Water-colored, my eyes are
turquoise, blue-green
I crave the rain, clear aquamarine
water-bearer to earth, air and fire

Clouds cheer me, wet, weighty
with jeweled drops airborne
to anoint dry lips that mourn
for moisture in sea, sand, humanity

Drought alters all that lives and thrives
My eyes reflect the face
of earth in sere and sun-burnt poise

When silver rain revives
this parched and withered place  
my eyes turn back from amber to turquoise

Pretty Good Substitute

I've invented a drink that's almost as good as Coke: 2 oz. cranberry juice "cocktail," 6 oz. 7up, a few ice cubes.

I've made a pretty good start on the new novel--two pages, which I reduced to two paragraphs, which I further reduced to two sentences. Instead of laboring so much over the rest of it, I'm going to try to finish the first draft in October.

Tomorrow is the deadline for entering the Alabama State Poetry Society's 2015 fall contests. I think I'll send "Naming the Beasts" and "The Ghost Who Walks." "Leaving Shambhala" has never won a prize, but it has been published, so I won't enter it.

Poem for Sunday

 

Where Has All the Kudzu Gone?

Greener than this pallid privet flower

It was; edible, able to boast:

“No one need starve on my watch.”

Cursed while flourishing for a century,

Acres of it vanished overnight,

And the President has not said a word.

 

by JRC 05/17/15

"Once More Unto the Breach. . ."

Yesterday I rearranged my chapbook, This Rough Magic, and made a hard copy to enter in the ASPS chapbook contest. The judging will probably be in June or July. The prize is $100 and 25 copies of the chapbook.

If it doesn't win this time, I want Jed to help me get it printed, using this free image for the cover. It's 20 poems, 24 pages including the title page. I left out the silly poems, and included a few others that are kind of spooky.

Today I plan to pay bills, and make a chicken pot pie.

*

I made a chicken pot pie and a peach cobbler, and I'm worn to a frazzle.

One day, turning the pages of my mind, I remembered one of the best movies ever, that I hadn't thought of in years. Trouble is, now I can't recall what it was. Moral: When you think of something good, write it down.

*

Too Good for This World

(A Lament for Blue Bell Ice Cream)

The “Great Divide,” the sherbet,

The Cherry Vanilla, too!

All swept from every grocer's shelf—

And what's a guy to do,

With two cartons in the freezer

Just waiting there for you?

 

*

I wish English had a good equivalent for the French word "frisson." Then I wouldn't have to describe what happens to the back of my neck when I hear words like

 

"I know a song of Africa. Does Africa know a song of me?"

 

A Happy Holiday Weekend

Jed came over Saturday, and that evening he and we Three Weird Sisters, plus lovely India, played "Sheriff of Nottingham" until we almost thoroughly understood the rules. Then on the beautiful Easter Sunday, Ramey had fixed a big feast for her family, but Jed, Susan and I went to Carrabbas and over-ate. At least I ate too much, as usual. It was a great weekend.

This afternoon I have a dental appointment, and the poetry group meets at the Leeds Arts Center tonight.

Jed went home today, and I wrote a poem. It could really be about any one of us three sisters, because Daddy always wanted a boy.

             Philomena

Maureen lives down the Valley road,
Celeste lives up the hill;
They call me Baby Sister,
But Daddy called me Phil.

He thought two girls were quite enough,
And when I made it three,
He gave me a hound puppy
To grow up along with me.

The skills I learned were mumblety-peg
And how to build a fire,
To whistle through my fingers,.
And how to change a tire.

He taught me how to hunt and fish
And hit a target square,
And how to skin a rabbit,
And not to take a dare;

And how to fight a bully,
And how to lose a game
Without dissolving into tears
And acting like a “dame.”

I grew up and raised a family,

Just like my sisters did,

And Dad and I were never as close
As when I was a kid.

My mother said my name means “friend,”
And “loving,” and “good will;”
She named me Philomena,
But Daddy called me Phil.


By Joanne Cage
April 6, 2015

From "Millennial Critic"

". . . When Mom herself was teased among her peers
for speaking nineteen-seventies graffiti,
she said it was irony, and that she knew the difference
between outdated slang and literature.

"With time, she talked less and less, trashed the TV,
and swapped her iMac for a rocking chair;
she says she moons the world (in the new sense),
and reads dead poets in English, a dead language."

By JRC, June 25, 2000

Orionid shower

I counted seven meteors, but it was just after midnight Monday. I guess that was Tuesday.

***

K-12

Children, study small things, the ordinary common things
but elusive, as stars peripherally visible
to eyes focused upon Orion's silver belt

regular but startling, as the receding tide at Portsmouth
and muddy water paddled by orange legs of the swans

plain but exquisite, as a rock wall looped with oolitic limestone
tan and gray, somewhere near Tuscaloosa

small and familiar, as brown spots on old hands or
white cataractic rings around old irises

breath-taking—green-gold of new leaves—
pink toes and fingers of a new-born—

Children, small things are where to look for God.

 

By JRC, 10/22/14 (A poem in progress)

 

This week I started a fall cleaning project, and of course it bogged down before it's well started. But I did sort of run out of steam Monday and didn't feel like going to the poetry reading. And I hope to have the house in better shape by Christmas. Everything takes so much longer to do than planned--I've said that before, but it continues to amaze me.

One night I dreamed, seemed like all night, of hunting my wallet. During the search I found a kitten that I wanted, and then I lost the kitten. I finally found the kitten, but the purse was still missing.

*

The new "Castle" season promises to be rather weak. I remember getting good and fed-up with JAG, because the romance never got anywhere. But by this fifth or sixth or seventh series, "Castle" seems to have degenerated into two old quasi-married people trying to have adventures. Maybe they'll get back to the dead bodies. Or maybe Castle will figure out space- or time-travel.

I think that's probably the best thing about "Firefly." It's just a single gem of a series, standing alone. And you can imagine the future to suit yourself, like Malcolm and Zoe getting together instead of him fooling around with that companion.

*

Saw a cloud that looked like a two-hump camel, but it broke up before I could get a photo.

Dromedary

Oh, the one-hump camel is Arabian,
and the two-hump camel is a Bactrian;
and I would bet my tooth enamel,
there isn't any three-hump camel.

By JRC, 2002

Roosevelts, Kipling, War and Peace

I read Quartered Safe Out Here, by George MacDonald Fraser, a few days ago. And tonight PBS will show the final (I think) episode in the Roosevelt series. The style of the Fraser book is very reminiscent of Kipling; it's about the battles in Burma at the end of the second world war, in which Fraser was a 19-year-old private. Mainly, what fascinated me about it was the cast of characters with their various British accents and colloquialisms.

The Roosevelt series is fascinating, too. Makes me admire Eleanor even more than I already did.

This morning I wrote a poem for one of the ASPS contests, took it to the P.O. and mailed it:

The Wiz: Back in Kansas

A long and weary flight in the makeshift
balloon, through storm and doldrums, rain and snow,
brought me at last wrecked in a stubbly field,
wishing I'd never left the Emerald City.
The post of Wizard was ideal for me,
and much more fun than selling patent brews
or prestidigitating in side-shows.
I most regret leaving the child behind--
precocious angel that she proved to be,
she with her delightful little dog--
Toto, she called him, and he knew his name.
And their refrain of, “There's no place like home,”
sings in my heart each time I think of Oz.
I miss the soldier with the green mustache,
the different-colored horses, and the road
of yellow brick, that ended in a wood
some leagues past Munchkin-land. And, truth to tell,
sometimes I even miss the wicked witches--
although a lady here might be their triplet!
I'd been in Oz so long, it felt like home,
and now I roam this flat and windy land,
wondering if child and canine made it back.
At every farm I pass, I stop and ask
after a little girl who owns a dog
named Toto. In the meantime, I've a plan
to build a different kind of flying craft,
filled with the noble gas named helium;
and if I find her, I'll ask if she'd like
to take a ride back to the land of Oz.

No Jam Today

In an email message from Joan, she suggests that we write a song for the next poetry reading. I probably won't write a new one, but I could take (and sing) "This Old Fox" or "No Jam Today."

No Jam Today: A Holiday With Moose the Cat
[Examples of jam: 1. Traffic jam. 2. Writer's block. 3. Extreme difficulty. 4. Impossible people.]
[Melody: "Genevieve, Sweet Genevieve"]

O Moose, I say!                                                  

Oh, frabjous day!
Come out and play–
No jam today!
Tomorrow jam,
And yesterday,
But now I say,
No jam today!

Oh, listen, Moose,

To what I say:
We’re on the loose–
No jam today!
No gum, no glue,
No sticky goo,
No ham, no spam–
No jam today!

Once in a way,

Some jam’s okay,
But when we have
It every day,
We get so tired
Of jam, we say,
“No way, Jose!
No jam today!”

Though they may pass

The pot our way,
We’ll shake our heads,
We’ll smile and say,
“No, thanks–we had
Some yesterday–
No jam today!
No jam today!”

CHORUS: No jam today! No jam today!

                  No jam today! No jam today!
                  Tomorrow jam, And yesterday,
                  But now I say, No jam today!

*

I think I'll make some veggie skewers for lunch. And maybe warm up the leftover steak and gravy I made yesterday.

 

*

Today was Flora Cage's birthday. She would have been about a hundred and ten.

The Ghost Who Walks

My arms and legs are like bamboo,

like the poles my father and I fished with
when he let me stand on the ledge of a rock
and catch my first and only fish.

In the mirror my head looks like a nest
of daddy-longlegs, or a half-blown
dandelion. My hands are transparent,
the flesh is coral, the bones are blue.

Who knew old age would transform one
from plain nonentity to an undeniably
visible phenomenon? I've never looked
so interesting before in my life.


By JRC 6/7/14

New Chapbook

I'm working on a new book, a chapbook of 20 to 24 poems, to enter in the John and Miriam Morris chapbook contest sponsored by the ASPS. It has to be postmarked by May 30, so it's a biting-the-fingernails deadline. The picture sort of suggests the theme.

I'm not writing 24 new poems, just mainly retitling some of the old ones to fit the book's theme and title, "This Rough Magic."

I don't know if the winner of the contest can choose an image for the cover, but this would be ideal, since it's in the public domain.

The "germ" of a poem

Beyond the Rainbow

What if old Noah opens his eyes
on a rainy day in Paradise,
and finds that the bow he was given
was just the tail-end of the spectrum?

JRC 5/4/14

I have seen double rainbows, but there's always a space between them. What if there's more? This may grow into a poem someday.

New Neighbors

An old pine with a knot-hole halfway up
may break and hit the house someday; but that's
for me to contemplate. This pair of hawks,
new to the neighborhood, shun the old nest
in the flawed pine, and choose to build a new
apartment in a taller, stouter tree.

They call out to each other as they work,
and warn me to look out for falling timber;
but all that drifts down from their carpentry
is one bright feather, like a calling card.

by jrc 4/11/14

Wrote Myself a Book

It's here!

What do I do now?

*

It's listed on Amazon.com, but I haven't yet got it in an ebook.

A Very Old Poem By Me

Song For Thom, Too Hard To Sing

The first note and the final autumn leaf

fade, both battered by the lonely wind.
A snowflake whirls away a rain-gray tear
that covered up the mind.
Because there is no first note small enough,
no scale so real this singer can embrace it,
and since there are no fresh tears cool enough
to shed for Thom, or shed for winter winds
(however beautiful the shapes they blow
to nowhere out of hope),
the mind forgets the sea-washed symphony
of sunburnt melody, and only the snow remembers.

Because there is no grief

too large for late-born singers
of haunted broken harmonies of fear;
and as I, long since lost, forgot the way
to that high staircase where old melodies
and memories reunite; I relinquish then the face
that haunts the nows. And here’s
a wish for him who sends to nowhere out of hope
his face: this thought is as an orchestra
gone flat, a discord of Decembers.

The days keep drawing in,

the night is cold and dark without a star.
Because there is no grief too large
for too-late singers, and no handkerchiefs
for tears remembering too soon for sleep,
I’ll think of Thom, who could sing anything

and, thinking of him, I will not fear

to dance all night through glissandi of dreams.
And then, although the sun comes up,
I find the daylight is not brave enough
for my faint chords to imitate,
nor lyric so complete for mystery
to bind it to my real.
And so I sing no words;
I hum no lullaby without the words,
but wink away a rain-gray snowflake
that used to be a tear.
If Thom were here, he’d know how to sing it.

By Joanne Ramey, 1955
*
This a the final revision of a poem I wrote in 1955. So it's one of my oldest poems. I was at the University with no money, high school clothes gone raggedy and too big since I lost baby fat, but in spite of it all a big old loud-mouth boyfriend that I couldn't stand to listen to. But he was handsome and had cigarettes. I finally gave him to Adrienne.
*
Across the hall from me at Tutwiler dorm lived Eileen W. whose daddy was rich as old Jay Gould and owned about half of Florida. She lent me fabulous clothes for dates and other dress-up occasions. I will always love that girl.

New poem

Einstein's Brain

Miss Youds came over from the BBC
to record an interview with Dr. E.
for broadcasting upon the radio.
I acted as her secretary, sent
on many an errand; where she went, I went,
or on occasion merely wished to go.

The date was April, nineteen fifty-five
(some Alabama folk are still alive
who saw the spring of that portentous year)
when I, a southern coed, held Einstein
upon a pedestal, almost divine,
and nothing to his disrepute would hear.

Around the campus broadcast studio,
whence Youds upon her pilgrimage would go,
excitement reigned, not least in my young breast;
for in her train at Princeton I might land,
perhaps to see Einstein and shake his hand—
at least to tread the halls his steps had blessed.

Right close upon the day we meant to leave
came news from Princeton: All the world would grieve
to hear the man had died and was no more.
Miss Youds went into epileptic fits,
cursed Einstein, the United States and its
whole population, smoked and stamped and swore,

and then went back to London in a huff;
of this benighted land she'd had enough.
She asked me to go with her. I declined
in fear of her great temper, stayed behind,
and forty years ahead, in a glass jar
saw Einstein's brain, like pickled cauliflower.

By JRC 2/25/14

*

 

I'm still working on that last rhyme.