Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Best photo of Oscar Levant EVER
Taken by Richard Avedon, shortly before Levant's death at 65. It's all there in the face. The craggy survivor: stepped-on, grimly resolute, sweet-eyed as a child, and yet with the tinge of desperation. People didn't give up on him. I don't know personally if I could have stood being around him, but then you never know: depends on whether there was a piano in the room.
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm
Little sexpot (or: the smooch and snuggle)
It’s not that she wasn’t
grateful. When you don’t get to go anywhere on a Saturday night because
everyone thinks you’re a loser and full of shit, you should be grateful for any
kind of social contact at all.
Or so her siblings
thought. Her sister Noreen was thirteen years older than she was, and obviously
Mum and Dad were going to trust her with her little sister's wellbeing. Besides, it was good
for her to “get out”, much better than hiding in her room crying like she always
did.
Her older brother Don had lots of friends too, and their wives came along, but
that didn’t stop the “goings-on” that were considered to be all part of the
fun. She noticed the minute she stepped into the babble and funk of these
parties that she was the mascot, younger than anyone else by ten years or more. Was she game? A target? Who knew, but what she did know was that she was supposed to be grateful.
There was an obnoxious creep called Shivas, but after a while she figured out that it wasn’t his real
name, that it came from his habit of making a certain drink called a Shivas
Special. Chivas Regal and one ice cube. Another was Tang crystals dissolved in
vodka.
They were all quite
interested in seeing how the mascot would react to having her glass filled and
refilled. After all, she was allowed wine at home. Lots of it. Her parents
didn’t frown on her drinking and even seemed to think it was “good for her”.
Her brother and sister waved the banner of booze at every opportunity,
insisting it was an unalloyed good, even when they woke the next day vomiting
and ashen.
The party deteriorated
over time, got louder, with people bumping together and the smell of pot
wafting under door-cracks. Once she felt a hand, someone’s hand, didn’t know
whose. Then her brother’s best friend started smiling at her. She looked the
other way. Like the Ugly Duckling, she just didn’t believe it at first.
But then he sort of
beckoned with his eyes. Come upstairs with me. Upstairs?? His wife was
over in the corner flirting with her brother like they always did. Did she
dare to do this, could she sneak up with him and –
This is how it always
happened.
It happened because her
brother’s friend was a really good kisser. He knew the spots to touch. Her body
responded like flame, though she felt overpowering shame at her reaction. She
knew she wasn’t supposed to feel this way, to feel anything at all. But she also knew she had caused this, somehow. He managed to convey without words that he had always found her attractive and
not mousy or fat.
All she knew about sex
she had learned from books, the books stashed in her father’s bureau drawer
under his underwear and pajamas. When her parents were away at choir practice,
she took them out. They were very clinical and
did not deal with passion or pleasure, as if those sensations did not
belong in the field of sex.
But she knew about
erections, because he was pressing his against her body with force. Her heart
beginning to race, she wondered if she would be raped. She wondered if she
should fight back, break away. But the truth is, she loved the attention.
“Hey, you two!” a voice
came up the stairs. “Get down here, will you? Quit messing around.” It was a
woman’s voice, and at first she wondered if it was the man’s wife. When she came downstairs, stumbling a little,
she saw it was her brother’s girl friend, her makeup badly askew. The woman
grabbed her around the waist and squeezed: “Little Lolita,” she crooned. “Little
sexpot.”
The booze continued to
flow. Her sister held court in an astonishing display of vanity and narcissism,
“looking after” her little sister by ignoring her and handing her over to the
good graces of Shivas and his endless noxious drinks. People made less and less
sense. She felt more hands on her and didn’t know who they were.
She remembered trying to
tell her sister about what was happening to her at these parties, what was
being done to her. Done to her by married men with their wives in the next room
(or even the same room). Her older sister rolled her eyes a bit and
said, “I don’t know why you’re so upset! You don’t seem to have any friends
your own age. This way you can have a social outlet with the grownups.”
When she told her a
little bit about the seductions, she shook her head.
“Are they having sex with
you?” For one second, concern seemed to flicker in her eyes.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. You’re
exaggerating. I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little smooch
and a snuggle. Look, we’re trying to
include you and I really think you should be more grateful.”
Much later, she read
about something called Walpurgis Night, a sort of witch’s Sabbath with hideous
swarms of demonic figures that swept through communities leaving blackened wreckage in
their wake. But this was supposed to be an advantage for her, a social outlet!
How many 14-year-olds wouldn’t
give their right arm to be included in a group of adults with full-blown adult
privileges?
.jpg)
She would go home after midnight , stagger into the bathroom and throw up all the
Chivas Regal. The next morning, pale as a spook, she would throw up again, with
her mother hearing her but saying nothing.
Her mother knew. She knew
everything. Wanted to be rid of this social liability, to hand her over. Keep
her happy. Later that day the family received a bouquet. She knew it was from
her brother’s friend, the one who had pinned and groped her. It couldn’t be anyone
else.
”Had a great time last night," the sloppily-written tag read. "See you next week."
It was not signed.
Incredibly, her parents did not ask who had sent it, but put the pink roses in
a vase on the table.
Twenty years later, the family was absolutely horrified to learn that Little Sister had joined AA. It was a total disgrace to the family, who had never had problems like that and never would. It was obviously an act of hostility on her part. They could never understand why she wasn't more grateful for all they had done for her. When she began to see a therapist, it was even worse, for that implied that the family was crazy. Then they decided that SHE was the one who was crazy, and the matter was closed.
Post-script. Some years later my sister's lover, the one who liked to send me roses and take me to the movies, lost his job and all his money and (finally) his wife, and
shot himself in the head. I suppose these things never end well. For me, they
never end at all.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
"Just a nut case with a gun": the tragedy of Matthew Warren
Something has been rumbling underground - you can't say it's in the air, because it doesn't live there, but down under, in the murky land of social stigma.
Every so often it dives to the surface. When that happens, society is ill-equipped to deal with it or even talk about it at all.
I came across this tidbit of news on Facebook (which I almost never look at):
LAKE FOREST, Calif. - Popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren asked members of his Southern California church for prayers as he and his family coped with the apparent suicide of his 27-year-old son.
The church said on Saturday that Matthew Warren took his own life at his Mission Viejo home.
Matthew Warren struggled with mental illness, deep depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life, Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement, after his body was found Friday night.
"Despite the best health care available, this was an illness that was never fully controlled and the emotional pain resulted in his decision to take his life," the church said.
Allison O'Neal, a supervising deputy coroner for Orange County, declined to release the cause and manner of death pending an autopsy of the young man.
Rick Warren, the author of the multimillion-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," said in an email to church staff that he and his wife had enjoyed a fun Friday evening with their son. But their son then returned home to take his life in "a momentary wave of despair."
Over the years, Matthew Warren had been treated by America's best doctors, had received counselling and medication and been the recipient of numerous prayers from others, his father said.
"I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said 'Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?'" Warren recalled.
Despite that, he said, his son lived for another decade, during which he often reached out to help others.
"You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man," Warren wrote. "He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He'd then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them."
This article brings up so much stuff for me, so many "issues" (as those chunks of living gore are so euphemistically called) that I don't know where to start. What jumps into my head first is the irony: this pastor who wrote a wildfire bestseller on how to live a meaningful life had a son so driven by despair that he simply could not go on with his own life and had to end it.
Another thing is the rather elaborate, detailed explanation of Matthew Warren's exhaustive (and no doubt exhausting) medical treatments over the years, how he had tried everything,and how in the end "even prayer" (the panacea for fundamentalists) didn't work.
Why does this cause that squirmy twinge in the pit of my stomach?
Compounding the shock and horror of this unimagineable tragedy is a sad public pressure to "explain". If he had died of a heart attack or an accident, I don't think there would have been any need for all these elaborate verbal back-flips. He was sick, yes - but he couldn't help it! He tried everything, even prayer! So it could not have been his "fault", it could not have been personal weakness or a spiritual taint.
I see "mental illness" (a term I loathe - I'll explain that later) as an issue that's slowly coming out of the closet, but unfortunately it only seems to show itself when someone commits a horrendous and very public suicide or shoots up a shopping mall or a primary school.
"Suffering from mental illness" - that's the tag. So it really isn't ALL his fault - well, maybe not - or maybe he went off his medication (a very bad decision on his part). In spite of all this faux compassion, the taint of judgement hangs around like a faint but noxious odor.
Never are we presented with an example of someone "living with", not "suffering from". Our society is big on suffering, but it was only recently we changed our vocabulary from "cancer victim" (almost universal 20 years ago) to "cancer survivor". And it took a lot of effort on the part of activists to wake people up.
Public attitudes towards mental illness are much more distorted and resistant to change. People's perceptions are tainted by a combination of pity and fear. Or terror. Only recently, Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford, declared that before anyone was sold a gun in the U. S., they should have a thorough background check (so far, so good). Two groups should be eliminated immediately without question: convicted criminals and "the mentally ill".
I love that "the" part, a little three-letter wedge driven between those with this illness and the rest of humanity. But what scares the shit out of me is - no, several things do, actually. To automatically lump in the "mentally ill" with criminals makes me want to chew tinfoil because it hurts me less. They're all corralled in the same pen, it seems: wild-eyed, inherently violent, unable to control themselves, and deserving of a sort of wary contempt.
When something sticks out like a sore thumb, like a rusty nail, that's all we see. If I were bipolar and had not had an episode of any kind for 20 years, I could not (theoretically) buy a rifle for duck-hunting because I am "mentally ill" and therefore a bad risk for handling firearms, presumably for the rest of my life.
OK, I hate firearms on principle and would never think of buying one for any reasons, but is it fair that a person with a treatable medical condition should have the same kind of "background check" as a convicted criminal? How exactly do they DO this background check? What sort of private medical records would need to be invaded? Does anyone even think of the sense of personal violation this could create?
Oh, but if it saves even ONE child it's worth it, people say, using the kind of cockeyed logic that seems to rule this twisted culture.
Why not apply that rule to all the Charlton Heston-esque yahoos who keep a gun in every room of the house? Why not take THEIR guns away, in case somebody gets totally hammered one night and "loses control" (maybe deciding his ex-wife or her boy friend have inhabited the earth for long enough)? Isn't it worth it to confiscate all these potentially-deadly weapons, even if it only saves ONE child?
We might do background checks on criminals and perceived nut cases, but what about assholes, sons-of-bitches and nasty little men with a grudge? If we took even one step in that direction, they'd be waving signs claiming someone was violating their civil rights.
I once talked to a psychiatrist at a cocktail party who shocked me by saying, "The vast majority of my patients lead stable, productive lives if they are willing to participate in their own treatment."
The vast majority.
This is a silent, buried majority, obviously. I guess they're too busy going about their lives to jump up and down and scream about these things. When the sons of bestselling preachers who seem to have all the answers to life's dilemmas shoot themselves in the head, we notice. When a congresswoman is mowed down and permanently disabled, we mutter, "Mental illness".
Better maybe than cracked or whacked or all the other lovely synonyms we've come up with. But what does it mean to be "mentally ill"?
How can one be "ill" and "well" at the same time?
You can't. You're stuck in "ill". You're sick for life. You "suffer from", you don't "live with".
In other words, you're a victim.
As for the "mentally" part: I don't need to tell you that in a culture that worships the idea that we have total control over our lives (see Pastor Warren), being "mentally" out of the groove in any way at all is a sign of weakness, of passivity, of giving up. "Mentally" means "of the mind", and if it's "of the mind", it is voluntary, under our control, like bad habits or unwise decisions.
When the stigma is so buried in the nomenclature that no one even notices it, we have a problem. I see it as something more like diabetes. It can vary in severity, perhaps waxing and waning throughout life, but the one constant is that it needs to be monitored. But if it IS monitored, the person no longer "suffers from diabetes", but has learned to live with it, can live a long life, a productive life, with diabetes existing in the person's peripheral vision, not constantly staring them in the face.
Why isn't the culture even aware that an alternate vision of this disequilibrium (as I like to call it) exists? Because we like drama. We don't like shootings, but when there IS a shooting, we must quickly point a finger of blame at a subject that will make us all say, "Ohhhhhhhhhh." (One of "those".) There is even a degree of comfort in telling each other, "He suffered from mental illness." "Ohhhhhhhhhh." That explains it, doesn't it? Isn't that the way "those people" are? The solution, the thing that will "fix" it: let's get that legislation in place as quickly as possible so that NOBODY with "mental illness" can ever buy a gun.
If it violates their privacy and their civil rights, if it marginalizes them and makes them feel like gum on the bottom of somebody's shoe, hey, isn't it worth it if it saves just ONE child?
POST-POST: Since writing this piece, I've had a ton of other thoughts, but it's a mistake to try to fit them all into one piece.The church said on Saturday that Matthew Warren took his own life at his Mission Viejo home.
Matthew Warren struggled with mental illness, deep depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life, Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement, after his body was found Friday night.
"Despite the best health care available, this was an illness that was never fully controlled and the emotional pain resulted in his decision to take his life," the church said.
Allison O'Neal, a supervising deputy coroner for Orange County, declined to release the cause and manner of death pending an autopsy of the young man.
Rick Warren, the author of the multimillion-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," said in an email to church staff that he and his wife had enjoyed a fun Friday evening with their son. But their son then returned home to take his life in "a momentary wave of despair."
Over the years, Matthew Warren had been treated by America's best doctors, had received counselling and medication and been the recipient of numerous prayers from others, his father said.
"I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said 'Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?'" Warren recalled.
Despite that, he said, his son lived for another decade, during which he often reached out to help others.
"You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man," Warren wrote. "He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He'd then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them."
This article brings up so much stuff for me, so many "issues" (as those chunks of living gore are so euphemistically called) that I don't know where to start. What jumps into my head first is the irony: this pastor who wrote a wildfire bestseller on how to live a meaningful life had a son so driven by despair that he simply could not go on with his own life and had to end it.
Another thing is the rather elaborate, detailed explanation of Matthew Warren's exhaustive (and no doubt exhausting) medical treatments over the years, how he had tried everything,and how in the end "even prayer" (the panacea for fundamentalists) didn't work.
Why does this cause that squirmy twinge in the pit of my stomach?
Compounding the shock and horror of this unimagineable tragedy is a sad public pressure to "explain". If he had died of a heart attack or an accident, I don't think there would have been any need for all these elaborate verbal back-flips. He was sick, yes - but he couldn't help it! He tried everything, even prayer! So it could not have been his "fault", it could not have been personal weakness or a spiritual taint.
I see "mental illness" (a term I loathe - I'll explain that later) as an issue that's slowly coming out of the closet, but unfortunately it only seems to show itself when someone commits a horrendous and very public suicide or shoots up a shopping mall or a primary school.
"Suffering from mental illness" - that's the tag. So it really isn't ALL his fault - well, maybe not - or maybe he went off his medication (a very bad decision on his part). In spite of all this faux compassion, the taint of judgement hangs around like a faint but noxious odor.
Never are we presented with an example of someone "living with", not "suffering from". Our society is big on suffering, but it was only recently we changed our vocabulary from "cancer victim" (almost universal 20 years ago) to "cancer survivor". And it took a lot of effort on the part of activists to wake people up.
Public attitudes towards mental illness are much more distorted and resistant to change. People's perceptions are tainted by a combination of pity and fear. Or terror. Only recently, Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford, declared that before anyone was sold a gun in the U. S., they should have a thorough background check (so far, so good). Two groups should be eliminated immediately without question: convicted criminals and "the mentally ill".
I love that "the" part, a little three-letter wedge driven between those with this illness and the rest of humanity. But what scares the shit out of me is - no, several things do, actually. To automatically lump in the "mentally ill" with criminals makes me want to chew tinfoil because it hurts me less. They're all corralled in the same pen, it seems: wild-eyed, inherently violent, unable to control themselves, and deserving of a sort of wary contempt.
When something sticks out like a sore thumb, like a rusty nail, that's all we see. If I were bipolar and had not had an episode of any kind for 20 years, I could not (theoretically) buy a rifle for duck-hunting because I am "mentally ill" and therefore a bad risk for handling firearms, presumably for the rest of my life.
OK, I hate firearms on principle and would never think of buying one for any reasons, but is it fair that a person with a treatable medical condition should have the same kind of "background check" as a convicted criminal? How exactly do they DO this background check? What sort of private medical records would need to be invaded? Does anyone even think of the sense of personal violation this could create?
Oh, but if it saves even ONE child it's worth it, people say, using the kind of cockeyed logic that seems to rule this twisted culture.
Why not apply that rule to all the Charlton Heston-esque yahoos who keep a gun in every room of the house? Why not take THEIR guns away, in case somebody gets totally hammered one night and "loses control" (maybe deciding his ex-wife or her boy friend have inhabited the earth for long enough)? Isn't it worth it to confiscate all these potentially-deadly weapons, even if it only saves ONE child?
We might do background checks on criminals and perceived nut cases, but what about assholes, sons-of-bitches and nasty little men with a grudge? If we took even one step in that direction, they'd be waving signs claiming someone was violating their civil rights.
I once talked to a psychiatrist at a cocktail party who shocked me by saying, "The vast majority of my patients lead stable, productive lives if they are willing to participate in their own treatment."
The vast majority.
This is a silent, buried majority, obviously. I guess they're too busy going about their lives to jump up and down and scream about these things. When the sons of bestselling preachers who seem to have all the answers to life's dilemmas shoot themselves in the head, we notice. When a congresswoman is mowed down and permanently disabled, we mutter, "Mental illness".
Better maybe than cracked or whacked or all the other lovely synonyms we've come up with. But what does it mean to be "mentally ill"?
How can one be "ill" and "well" at the same time?
You can't. You're stuck in "ill". You're sick for life. You "suffer from", you don't "live with".
In other words, you're a victim.
As for the "mentally" part: I don't need to tell you that in a culture that worships the idea that we have total control over our lives (see Pastor Warren), being "mentally" out of the groove in any way at all is a sign of weakness, of passivity, of giving up. "Mentally" means "of the mind", and if it's "of the mind", it is voluntary, under our control, like bad habits or unwise decisions.
When the stigma is so buried in the nomenclature that no one even notices it, we have a problem. I see it as something more like diabetes. It can vary in severity, perhaps waxing and waning throughout life, but the one constant is that it needs to be monitored. But if it IS monitored, the person no longer "suffers from diabetes", but has learned to live with it, can live a long life, a productive life, with diabetes existing in the person's peripheral vision, not constantly staring them in the face.
Why isn't the culture even aware that an alternate vision of this disequilibrium (as I like to call it) exists? Because we like drama. We don't like shootings, but when there IS a shooting, we must quickly point a finger of blame at a subject that will make us all say, "Ohhhhhhhhhh." (One of "those".) There is even a degree of comfort in telling each other, "He suffered from mental illness." "Ohhhhhhhhhh." That explains it, doesn't it? Isn't that the way "those people" are? The solution, the thing that will "fix" it: let's get that legislation in place as quickly as possible so that NOBODY with "mental illness" can ever buy a gun.
If it violates their privacy and their civil rights, if it marginalizes them and makes them feel like gum on the bottom of somebody's shoe, hey, isn't it worth it if it saves just ONE child?
What hit me just now - while tacking away at my antique keyboard - is WHY the stigma is so damaging. When you're stigmatized, that is, if you have a stigmatizing condition, you may be driven to pretend you don't have it, or to deny it even to yourself. This leaves you much more vulnerable to your illness (if in fact you're feeling ill: I DO believe in the mentally well, and will insist on believing it for the rest of my life!). If you feel stigmatized, you might not want to take "those pills" that you're invariably supposed to take. The pills remind you of the stigma. That leads to another stigma, of course: "Oh, she went off her medication." The most insidious form of stigma, or denial perhaps, is feeling so well that you are sure the illness has gone away forever. Society LOVES this attitude because it implies "triumphing", "vanquishing" and all those bullshit terms that mean absolutely nothing ("victory" being the worst, with its warlike/Christian fundamentalist taint). Living with something that lasts a lifetime makes a great many people profoundly uncomfortable.
GALLERY. Maybe this is yet another form of stigma, or one of those clunky, heavy-handed attempts to "banish" it that only serve to underline it. But when I was compiling images for this post (all of them taken by me in my back yard with my 1923 Brownie box camera), I kept coming across celebrities grinning away. Then I realized: oops, this is the category of "celebrities with mental illness"! This is either supposed to make sufferers feel better (if, in fact, they are suffering), or to make us all less uncomfortable about nut cases, since SOME nut cases seem to become famous! Famous is the ultimate goal in our society, better even than being rich, so if you're famous AND mentally ill, whoo boy, it must be OK to be mentally ill, or at least not horrible!
I liked this shot of Dick Cavett grinning away. He has been open about his bouts of depression and (I think) bipolar, though I think he was only manic once (which is, believe it or not, relatively common). I like it because he's 70-something, still has good cheekbones and that Nebraskan resonant voice, and looks happy.
I couldn't really find a good shot of Carrie Fisher, because she seems to have erased herself with plastic surgery and no longer looks like herself. But she has surely had her innings with bipolar (I refuse to tack "disorder" on it - why do I need to?), and come out the other side more than once. She's a veteran, and besides I like this hair style.
I did a whole post on Stephen Fry ages ago, a poem actually. He is monumental: it's that Easter Island face of his. Like some of his confreres, he has been open about his experiences with depression. The only thing that bothers me about all this is: when a celebrity comes out like this, they are forever "branded". "Oh, didn't he have shock treatments a couple of years ago?" If you don't give a fuck, however, I heartily approve.
Patty Duke had a hard go of it from the start, but has come through it all. I like the warmth in her face and the LACK of self-erasure (rare in Hollywood and making her a target of unkind remarks). I purposely featured only older people here because they have the stuff, obviously. Brittney Spears: come back in 20 years.
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Did you say SKYPE?
From a 1994 video on the future of computers: some sort of early version of the Dick Tracy Two-Way Wrist TV. Looks like she's trapped in an Etch-a-Sketch.
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm
Sex, drugs, violence (in no particular order)
Poems by Margaret Gunning
Gone west
It seems in my life I have always
moved west, New Brunswick , Alberta
the boardwalk behind the Quay;
it’s a left-handed sort of life
driving me heartwards, though never,
no never,
heartwise.
that
day
when I thought I saw you on the
boardwalk
my guts jumped: it
jerked the hook in my colon
(you always knew about bait)
You know how it was: I wanted
to stand on my desk
on the last day of classes
and shout: o captain! My captain!
But you had your own rotation – I saw
it reel from view, and
(helpless to catch you)
watched your spiralling apogee
What is the remotest segment of an orbit?
Booze, blondes. Too much of
a good thing. But I did love
you.
We wandered, Pooh and Piglet in an
Escher maze, searching for heffalumps.
You calmly said, “Watch this,” and set fire
to my mind.
I saw you as the human yoyo, bobbing up and
down,
sleeping, walking the dog, in and out
and ‘round the world.
I knew you’d be back, like hounds,
like a cycle of blood, like black
fruit springing into tree. When
the
string broke, I hid my eyes, and
said, but it’s only a lute,
it will heal itself,
half-hoping I was wrong.
I don’t know why or how God looks
after you, beached like a Wellfleet whale,
stared at by the curious. I
don’t know
how God manages. It was beyond
me.
And so I kept on moving.
Stalked by surprise
Part A:
Is Sprung the past tense of
Spring?
Is the world (then) forever
sprung
ruptured/like a
cosmic hernia?
Will I in fact (in spite of
Shelley Winters in spite of
everything) fall into the
butter
again?
Part B:
If life is a puckered
Promise,
an orgasm
dipped in alum,
The dire fruit of an
(unsuspecting
(apricot,
A half-born bee,
then: what are you doing
in my
coatcloset, HEY!
Einstein,
Get out of there,/Fondle me,
man
Even with your subconscious
and - even though God
doesn’t throw dice
(dead man)
I’ll throw you (out)
Buzzed
Your hive was a hum of
Cortical surprise; a splendor
(golden fuzz)
Of psalms: a salty of Bee
being. Such passion
in the apiary! Such dizzy repro- (se-?)
Duction! Bee
attitudes frighten me. I will pick
the salacious hairs, the
haloed laughter of swarms
From my bee-blurred eyes.
SPRING-LOADED
April’s where I live,
the place my heart opens
rose-burgeoning,
shinyleaf-new
a smell of bursting peonies,
bumble-dizzy bees bumping
butter-and-eggs
swollen buds thrusting
in the lovesick air.
Leaden, laden, leavened,
lavendered, loaded,
one big quivering nose, a
moist surprise
hatched out in the nest of my
body
April Pegasus-leaps
in my pulse,
sun-shot Pan-piped
heady, relentlessly
tender,
recklessly
sweet.
BIRD IN THE HAND
My bird in the
hand,
My bright dollar,
blonde head
Hard as a dime,
there in your
trench coat streaming
with spring, wet
as new robins
or
Downy as stamens,
all
I would suck up/the
merry contempt in
your sleigh-bell
eyes,
Pepper my salt
with the wit of your
wounds,
Dive into the
iced-over pool
of your
voluptuous
disdain.
GINA
sweet shy
dark girl I’ve seen her
here before
she always wore the best
clothes
(silvery things/bangles
feathered skirts
necklace made
from the teeth of a wolf)
now I see Gina in the ward
kitchen. Still beautiful
big-eyed
part Cree her hair tied back
she shows me the tracings of
partly-healed gashes
sewn back together in
a gridwork
hands/
on her arms, wrists.
She must be twenty or so
No one comes to visit
Once she had a boyfriend
but he got sick too
i) Paul
(Biblical
spinning/verbs,
(so many gulled
fever
dreams swarming
in chaotic
blindness) a blueberry
moment ---
Your
(bees
hasty argument
My slant, (arcing/jerked
dilapidated/heart
Your groin of sweated
blood of the lamb
fire/Leo in a glass
snowstorm
ii) Cancun
gusted
the rustle
of a physics class
aroused
by the
clouded haste
of a subconscious
baritone door:If this
were an opera
(a damp weeping
head as if just
crowning a gush of
birth) orgasmic aria
another
/
dizzy
commingle
/
fruitstone
/
the fingerings
of florence
nightingale
iii) Small fish
/discharging
i may not get there in time
The minute darting
/disengaging
(all of a mind/marineswarm
(salty
severalness(sequence
multiplicity of minnows
stirring severance
/drowsy
dousing in dowsing
dis/ dosing
Persal dis
Proportionate dis
/Persian
passion
(possession
saul’s Slick
silksliver
(Slippery purse
:This is the ship that
iv) a launched a
thousand
clitoris pearl
tiny---briny
faces;
this/mollusc/heart
dampalternate
being/trace of shellfish
/flesh
(repairing its
innerdamage)
The princess and the pea
A glistening
eye/(that never
stops seeing
Points
of departure
What did intelligent women
do
then? When their brains
were squeezed together by
whalebone
prisons,
when sexual lust was still
criminal.
Men breathed and heaved then,
full of leviathan waters
what did intelligent women do then?
did they get examined
by dirty doctors
with a velvet speculum?
Did they speculate
on the nature of existence
and give themselves orgasms
under the sheets?
What did intelligent women
do
then?
You-riff (a favorite)
If mint ice cream could be
made flesh,
(moreover
Gershwin’s
(innocent
piano keys (not the (inanimate:
but the
(hot
very (act of playing) teeth,
a fine Mary-
morning
(could be a bald spot:a hunch
of shoulders)
(all
then I guess this Everywhere
where we (call
the universe/this minimouse,
into the Here
would be exhaling
you/expressing you
daily,
in daily bliss, dally, bless
blush doily
in gaily, earthshivering
Maymess triumphant, in Gerard
Manley Hopkins’
hosiery/then, I guess your
Bashful tigersmile’s a paean
to
“Great Chocolate!” eyes (a-bleeding
(monument to
(hooting hyaena’s
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)