Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.

A Lesson for This Sunday

- Derek Walcott

The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
And rituals no more upsetting than a
Black maid shaking linen as she sings
The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna—
Since I lie idling from the thought in things—

Or so they should, until I hear the cries
Of two small children hunting yellow wings,
Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.
Brother and sister, with a common pin,
Frowning like serious lepidopterists.
The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.
Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays
She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.
The lesson is the same. The maid removes
Both prodigies from their interest in science.
The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream
As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.
She is herself a thing of summery light,
Frail as a flower in this blue August air,
Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.

The mind swings inward on itself in fear
Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.
Heredity of cruelty everywhere,
And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,
The long look back to see where choice is born,
As summer grass sways to the scythe’s design.


from: Collected Poems: 1948-1984. Copyright 1986.

It's A Garden Party - So Far, So Good . . .

This feature, originally known as Saturday Farmer's Market, was created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and then hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

Consider me
As one who loved poetry
And persimmons.

- Masaoaka Shiki

This week in the garden:

Red Chrysanthemums are hugging the Copertina Ninebark.

The birthday Rose goes from yellow to peach.

 Crazy Shasta Daisies grown from seed in the 'conservatory' have taken off.

 "The Little Viola That Could'"

Plums are ripening!

 Agave against a Lavender backdrop

Lantana

X

3

Another Rose

Did I say Lavender?

Volunteer!

 This showed up next to the California Poppies. 

It has flowers like Squash or Cucumbers but I have no idea what it is.

Nellie Clark

 - Edgar Lee Masters

 

I was only eight years old;

And before I grew up and knew what it meant

I had no words for it, except

That I was frightened and told my

Mother; And that my Father got a pistol

And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,

Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.

Nevertheless the story clung to me.

But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,

Was a newcomer and never heard it

Till two years after we were married.

Then he considered himself cheated,

And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.

Well, he deserted me, and I died

The following winter.

from: Spoon River Anthology.  Coptright 1915.

The Mummy

 - Jessica Hagedorn

 

Montana,

you beat your fists

against museum doors

your bronze dress

shimmering

in the starless night.

The doors are locked,

Montana

dreaming

of snow-white mice

cluttering the shelves

in your kitchen,

snow-white mice

inside the oven,

snow-white mice

clogging

your shiny aluminum sink,

their corpses curled up

like piles

of fluffy cotton.

Mosques are desecrated

and altars overturned

outside the museum's

cool stone walls.

Border skirmishes

seen and heard

in the distance,

delicate bursts

of poppy-red flames.

The wars go on and on,

invading

your dreams.

The mirror reflects

a young man's body

dangling

from a rope

and you gasp:

"O, my brother—"

The doctor

finally lets you in,

unlocking the door.

Forbidden to touch you,

he stares straight ahead,

avoiding your curious glance.

"You're partly Egyptian, aren't you?"

The doctor inquires.

You stalk

the dark museum halls

calling out the name

of your dead lover,

the name of a man

unspoken

since the siege of Troy.

"How did you guess?" You growl,

"Do you have to open graves

to find girls

to fall in love with?"

The doctor smiles,

averting his gaze

from your ravaged face.

He longs to trace

your fish scale dress

with his slender fingers.

Montana

scarlet

shameless

Montana,

you stalk

the dark museum halls

in a rage.

Ripping

your satin gloves

to shreds

you pry open

coffins;

reading

between the lines

you decipher

hieroglyphics

on tombs.

"Any message would do,

you say,

tiny jeweled tears

permanently etched

in the corners

of your eyes.

The doctor sighs,

his impotence

ancient

as the curse

that immortalizes him,

the terrible secret

that pursues you.

Montana

on the night

of a full moon

you are a perfumed woman

in a bronze dress

who shatters glass

with a vengeance,

searching in vain

for signs and clues

among the rubies

and emeralds

that litter

museum floors.

THE MUSEUM WORKS FOR SCIENCE

NOT FOR LOOT,

the doctor tells you.

You laugh at his bandaged face,

the sad, smoldering eyes—

the only things visible

beneath the gauze.

"You can't tell the blood

from the paint

splashed on these walls,"

you say with contempt,

reaching out for his arm

in spite of yourself.

He moves away.

"I dislike being touched,"

he whispers,

"pardon me—it's an

Eastern prejudice."

You never see his anguish;

he won't allow it.

His pride

is what keeps him

going.

Exhausted,

you lie amid the rubble.

The mummy

guards your body

and you dream

of straddling

your sleeping lover's back

like a dolphin

you ride underwater

safe

within the confines

of deserted museum halls.

from: Danger and Beauty. Copyright 1993. 

Ordinary Time

 - Tim Dlugos

 

Which are the magic

moments in ordinary

time? All of them,

for those who can see.

That is what redemption

means, I decide

at the meeting. Then

walk with David wearing

his new Yale T-shirt

and new long hair to 103.

Leonard and Eileen come, too.

Leonard wears a shark’s tooth

on a chain around his neck

and long blond hair.

These days he’s the manager

of Boots and Saddles (“Bras

and Girdles,” my beloved

Bobby used to say) and

costumer for the Gay Cable

Network’s Dating Game.

One week the announcer is

a rhinestone cowboy, sequin

shirt and black fur chaps,

the next a leatherman, etc.

Eileen’s crewcut makes

her face light up.

Underneath our hairstyles,

23 years of sobriety, all told—

the age of a girl who’s “not

so young but not so very old,”

wrote Berryman, who flew

from his recovery with the force

of a poet hitting bottom.

It’s not the way I choose

to go out of this restaurant

or day today, and I

have a choice. Wanda

the comedian comes over

to our table. “Call me

wicked Wanda,” she smirks

when we’re introduced.

Why is New York City

awash in stand-up comics

at the least funny point

in its history? Still,

some things stay the same.

People wonder what the people

in their buildings would think

if the ones who were wondering

became incredibly famous,

as famous as Madonna.

Debby Harry lived in Eileen’s

building in the Village

in the early seventies, and she

was just the shy girl

in the band upstairs.

Poets read the writing

of their friends, and

are happy when they like it

thoroughly, when the work’s

that good and the crippling

sense of competition stays away.

Trips get planned: David

home to California, Eileen

to New Mexico, Chris and I

to France and Spain, on vectors

which will spread out

from a single point, like ribs

of an umbrella. Then

after the comfort of a wedge

of blueberry peach pie and cup

of Decaf, sober friends

thread separate ways home

through the maze of blankets

on the sidewalk covered with

the scraps of someone else’s life.

Mine consists of understanding

that the magic isn’t something

that I make, but something

that shines through the things

I make and do and say

the way a brooch or scrap of fabric

shines from the detritus

to catch Leonard’s eye

and be of use for costumes,

when I am fearless and thorough

enough to give it room,

all the room there is in ordinary

time, which embraces all

the people and events and hopes

that choke the street tonight

and still leaves room for everyone

and everything and every

other place, the undescribed

and indescribable, more various

and cacophonous than voice

can tell or mind conceive,

and for the sky’s vast depths

from which they’re all

a speck of light.

From: A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos. Copyright 2011.

Lucky

 - Dorothea Tanning

 

Ever imagining the dire, the sudden

the menace with no thought of the

gradual, the lingering itch of whatever.

That was my sister.

A stomach ache had to be diagnosed.

“Oh, come on, it’s no big deal.”

“How do you know? You aren’t me.”

 

At the doctor’s office she waited.

He reached for his stethoscope,

held it to her back and put it away

in his pocket. Then, leaning across

his desk, he asked importantly,

“How long have you been eating your hair?”

She couldn’t answer.

 

After surgery they came into the recovery

room where she had just wakened.

“You are a lucky lady. We found nothing.”

She had an incision and several visitors.

Besides, she was so lucky (incisions heal)

and not a little disgusted.

 

“Me, eating my hair.”

from: Coming to That. Copyright 2011.

Kilt Monday!

'Cause let's face it,

Mondays can be so rough, hard, difficult.