Two poems

I used to read poetry, and write it, too.

When students ask how to learn how to write better, I tell them Read poetry. Write it, too. They look at me, faces pulled back and skeptical. Your poems may be no good, I say, you may not want to show them to anyone. At this, they nod.

But you will pay attention, I say. You will learn to pay attention to the words.

I keep forgetting this, the paying of attention. Words come so easily for me, I take them in chunks and waterfalls, gorge on and scatter them, thoughtlessly.

Pay attention. I used to whisper this to myself, as a reminder. Then I stopped paying attention.

Friday at TNC’s open thread seems unofficially designated as poetry day. People post their own or, more commonly, poems which move them.

I’ve been rushing past. Words words words—what’s the point?

Slow down. Pay attention.

So, two poems, in honor of my long-ago friend C., and in memory of her younger brother, J.

Fourteen years ago this month—this Saturday—J. shot himself to death. He was thirteen.

What could we bring C.? I brought music; we brought ourselves. And I gave her two poems:

The body of my brother Osiris is in the mustard seed

Seed from an early Egyptian tomb,
after water damage to the case
in the Historisches Museum,
sprouted in 1955.

That was the year my brother’s foot
slipped on spray-wet log.
He was gone
into the whitewater out of sight.

Just downstream
the back of his head
came up
in a narrow chute.

Between terrible rocks
the back of my brother’s head
looked wet and small and dark.
I watched it through the roar.

Through tears, afraid
to pray, I told God
he was swimming. Wait.
He would lift his face.

—Brooks Haxton

Moira

A day comes when nothing matters
And nothing will suffice.
The heart says: I cannot,
The soul says: I am not.

The window whose frame
Once held dawn
Gleams all night in desolation,
And the one tree

Untouched by blight
Offers a fruit you do not refuse,
An anguish impossible to conceive

Until this lucky day.
Weigh it in your hands, so heavy,
So light: is there more to wish for?

—Phyllis Levin

Little pink houses for you and me

Shocking.

Pfizer to Leave City That Won Supreme Court Land-Use Case

From the NYTimes story by Patrick McGeehan:

“Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”

That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company,announced it would lead the city just eight years after its arrival led to a debate about urban redevelopment that rumbled through the Unites States Supreme Court, and reset the boundaries for governments to seize private land for commercial use.

Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

Robert  Pero, a city council member who’s about to become mayor, noted that the city lost over a thousand jobs with the move, but retain the building.

Then again, he added, “I don’t know who’s going to be looking for a building like that in this economy.”

He also noted that he was unhappy that Pfizer didn’t contact the city before deciding to leave.

“I’m sure that there are people that are waiting out there to say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Mr. Pero said. “I don’t know that even today you can say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

Hmmm. And yet many of those screwed over by their own city retain the ability to say precisely that.

Large swaths of barren land where neighborhoods once stood, driven out not for the public good (always a tough call, but if not always justified, at least justifiable) but because regular citizens living their lives don’t produce enough profit benefit to the city.

Not that that would even happen in New York. I mean, the Atlantic Yards project—it’s all good.

Right?

No comment, no. 2

Quote of the day: bishop says no to homo tourism at Vatican

ETN asked the Bishop [Janusz Kaleta of Holy See, the Apostolic Administrator of Atyrau] if the Vatican’s stand was clearly against [gay] tourism, and the Bishop answered: “The church teachings are from the Bible. If we change this teaching, we will not be the Catholic Church. Don’t expect the Catholic church to change these issues, because it is our identity.” When asked if the Vatican is open to dialogue about welcoming such homosexual groups of tourists in the future, Bishop Kaleta responded that “such demonstrations are just not ethical.”

Publisher Steinmetz clarified that what was meant by gay travel was traveling for the purpose of a visit, not as a demonstration. To this the Bishop replied, ”I consider if someone is homosexual, it is a provocation and an abuse of this place. Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim. It is abuse of our buildings and our religion because the church interprets our religion that it is not ethical. We expect respect of our church as we expect to respect that a person does not have to belong to the Catholic Church. If you have different ideas, go to a different location.”

(h/t Pandagon [w/its emphases], cribbing from eTurboNews)

No comment

Gay Funeral Rights Bill Vetoed By Rhode Island Governor

AP – Gov. Don Carcieri vetoed legislation Tuesday that would give same-sex couples in Rhode Island the same right to plan the funerals of their late partners as married couples.

The socially conservative Republican said the proposed protection represents a “disturbing trend” of the incremental erosion of heterosexual marriage. Rhode Island does not recognize same-sex marriage.

“If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnership, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of Rhode Island decide,” Carcieri said in a letter to lawmakers.

(Filed by Elyse Siegel/at Huffington Post)

So when they ask me later, I won’t tell them how it’s going

So much to do, so little inclination to follow through.

Grading. A kajillion papers. Or 70. Somewhere in there.

The papers aren’t long. If I start grading now, do some tomorrow night, then Tuesday and Wednesday, I’ll be fine.

Or I could just wait until Wednesday—night—and stay up too late and get too little sleep and plow through and end up kicking myself for being such a procrastinating idiot.

Hmmmm, wonder what I’ll do.

Then again, I punted on dealing with the whole credit thing, but  that’s taken finally been taken care of. For now. And If I get a real job, there’ll be no worries at all.

Of course, there are all these worries over getting a real job.

And I’m doing all I can to get a real job—ja, you betcha. Sure.

That’s on the list, eh? And we all know how well that whole list thing is going, right-o? Sure.

If only I were motivated by free-floating anxiety.

 

Screwed

Health care reform passes in the House—yay. . . oh, wait.

The Stupak amendment is included in final House bill. The amendment which not only reiterates the noxious Hyde amendment (which prohibits federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and threats to life of the woman), but extends the prohibition to the woman purchasing coverage for abortion, if said purchase is in any way subsidized (as in, any ‘affordability credits’ meant to make insurance, well, affordable) by the government.

[Side note: Stupak and his supporters state that offering a subsidy to individuals to use as they see fit---which, under the health reform bill, would apply widely---is the same as a direct subsidy to the institutions or practices which the individual uses. By this logic, then, all voucher and student loan money given to individuals which allows them to choose religious schools ought to be banned as unconstitutional support for religion. Don't hold your breath for Stupak et. al. to make this connection.]

That’s right: a woman paying a premium for insurance which includes coverage for abortion is now considered identical to the federal government paying for the abortion itself.

Because, hey, there’s no such thing as a fertile woman who can make and act on decisions on her own behalf, so of course this is not an autonomous act, but an act of the state.

Therefore, the state has to act on behalf of such women, as opposed to removing those obstacles which allow them to act on their own behalf.

How does this work?

Well, because, hey, sometimes women have sex just because they want to, which means they can’t be trusted to control their sexuality;

And because, hey, sometimes these women who have sex just because they want to end up pregnant, which means that they can’t be trusted to control their own fertility;

And sometime these women who have sex just because they want to and end up pregnant choose to end the pregnancy;

And because, hey, one in four women in the US have at some point chosen to end a pregnancy, and you can’t know just by looking at them which one out of every four women has so chosen or how many more might consider so choosing;

And because, hey, [consideration of] such a choice means that women seek to escape the consequences of their actions;

And a woman who seeks to avoid the consequences of her actions is by definition irresponsible;

And  irresponsibility means the woman lacks the ability to choose;

THEREFORE, the only responsible action for the state is to insure that they do nothing to make it easier and in fact make it harder for women to be in the position whereby they could actually choose.

Yeah, that’s some goddamned reform.

Gettin’ oot and aboot

I haven’t been great about my lists lately. You know: that which is designed to keep me in line.

Well, it still works, kinda, if only irregularly, and if only as a reminder to get off my tuchus.

So, today, I took my tuchus and the rest of me over to Brooklyn Heights & Cobble Hill, with a stopover at the ferry landing near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge:

This was  a day which made me wish for an SLR with a couple of decent lenses: Intermittently cloudy, with some beautiful cuts by the sun. Alas, the point and shoot had to do:

You can’t really see the Chrysler Building, in front of the Empire State. Still, the Manhattan Bridge provides a nice ramp into Manhattan.

Again, a camera with more flexible exposure options would have allowed me to capture all the nuances of this multi-dimensional shot down Furman Street. Still, you get the various buildings, as well as the platforms of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.

No, this is not how the Manhattan Bridge actually appeared before me: I cranked up the contrast using the (free) rudimentary photo fixes Windows offers. Still, I like how the colors pop out in an almost painterly manner.

I know: If I spent less time mooning over my life and more time trying to sell my novel and/or get a real job, I’d have the money for both the camera and Photoshop.

But in the meantime, I’ve got my walkin’ shoes and the city. That’ll do.

Let’s all give a big round of applause. . .

. . . to Ta-Nahisi Coates for reading Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con blog today.

Because I could not.

This is very good news for you, since it spares you my utterly uninteresting cursing at the fucking idiocy and overall candy-assed-ness of Sir Dreher, who wants to be able to discriminate against queers without being called on it.

Hey, just because I think gay marriage will ruin civilization doesn’t mean I deserve to be called a bigot.

No, I don’t know what he actually wrote, because, honest to betsy, I haven’t been able to stomach his self-serving no-fair-for-calling-me-a-bigot-just-cuz-I’m-acting-like-a-bigot bilge.

Yeah, I’ll read him tomorrow. But today, today I’m content to skip the content and go straight to the comment: You want to treat some people as lesser beings, then FUCKING OWN IT.

But he won’t.

Candy-ass.

 

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces?

Things will be different this winter.

Hard.

Not the weather—sleeping. Without Chelsea.

You see, Chelsea was incredibly fucking annoying to sleep with once the weather turned cold.

She’d jump up on the bed (not annoying), walk over my body or head (slightly annoying), then sit near my shoulder (not annoying).

Waiting.

Waiting for me to lift the covers that she perfectly well could have burrowed under herself—but no, Herself had wait for me to lift the covers.

If I didn’t immediately do so upon her arrival near my shoulder, she’d make a few pigeon noises (low coos), then again, at a slightly higher volume.

Still nothing? She’d paw at the blankets, lightly at first, then with some vigor.

Still nothing? The paw to the nose. And if still no reaction, she’d push out her claws ever so slightly and softly—no scratches, no marks—rake them across my cheek and nose.

At which point I’d lift my arm and create a proper entrance for La Chelsea.

This is not the really fucking annoying part.  No, what was r.f.a. was her pause.

Yes, after all that, she’d take a step, then pause for a few seconds, as if wondering Hm, do I really want to go under the covers after all? before deigning to duck down and under.

Jesus, she had me so well trained.

Then, of course, she’d turn around and around and around before settling into the same damned spot she always did, curled into my belly as I lay on my side, wrapping herself into a warm ball of purr.

That, I admit, was never annoying.

All alone in the moonlight

I take back everything I said.

Well, not everything.

And I don’t really take it back.

Let me, shall we say, add to what I wrote in the last post.

Memory matters to me. I don’t want to get ensnared in it, but I don’t want to forget, either.

I don’t want to live in those memories, don’t want to act as if that’s where my life really is or belongs. I’m not about to head off to my first day of first grade.

But that was once me. I did once wear dresses my mom made, wear ponytails (which I preferred to pigtails, i.e., knots worn high above the ears) and barrettes, and smile into the sun and for the camera.

Today I only occasionally wear my hair in a single ponytail, only occasionally smile into the sun, and rarely for the camera.

This isn’t a paean to lost innocence. I was six then and am some decades past six now. I grew up, and am glad for that.

I lost a lot along the way, as does every person who makes the trek from child- into adulthood, and have gained, as well. Again, nothing unusual about that.

And I guess that’s what I do need to remember, that there is nothing unusual about this—that I do have a past in addition to a present and likely a future. This is what it is to be a modern adult.

But I also have to remember that I have as much and as little control over that past as I do my future. I can’t always call up memories at will, can’t always place them when they do surface, and don’t always know what to do with them. Good, bad, happy, sad, indifferent—doesn’t matter. They’re there and they’re gone and they sometimes come back.

And in coming and going they carry pieces of me with them.

I live here, now, but I don’t yet understand what it is to live here, now, and to move into my future. No, I don’t want, per my last post, to get stuck in a cul-de-sac of my past, but I can’t and don’t want to erase it, either.

Not anymore, at least: I have tried, and failed, to erase it. If you don’t think you belong in life, it’s only a hop to the belief that you need to erase all evidence of your self, if only in yourself.

But now I’m re-constructing my life, re-claiming it. I have no idea what I’m doing, not sure of these pieces which come both bidden and not so, not sure of my. . . hopes? possibilities? for the future.

(And, oh yes, I can carried away by the future, as well; what finer form of escapism than to think But later, after. . . ?)

Neither my past nor my future is under as much control as my present, and even my present is under less control than I would like (tho’ I do admit that that’s not wholly a bad thing).

Still, I am here, now, which means making what sense I can of who I was, then.

Or at least recognizing that I was, then.