Saturday, April 21, 2018

Paschal moon: black heart, yellow eye


The bane of my suburban backyard existence is grackles. I don’t recall ever having these greedy, rapacious bullies visit my feeders in the past, but having discovered them this time around, they’ve put out the word to all their grackle friends and family, and they come by here in droves.

It’s not just them gobbling all the seed; it’s that what they don’t scarf down, they shovel out onto the ground. They’re not satisfied until the feeder is empty, one way or another.

So today’s entry for National; Poetry Month is Ogden Nash’s take on these nasty things.

“The Grackle”

The grackle's voice is less than mellow,
His heart is black, his eye is yellow,
He bullies more attractive birds
With hoodlum deeds and vulgar words,
And should a human interfere,
Attacks that human in the rear.
I cannot help but deem the grackle
An ornithological debacle.





Friday, April 20, 2018

Paschal moon: purgatorial shadows


One hundred years ago, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen won his last victory—his 80th—in the sky above Northern France. The erstwhile cavalry officer had become the most famous fighter pilot of the war since transferring to the air service in 1915, admired by combatants and non-combatants on both sides. Even today, kids who barely know there was a war fought in 1914-1918, would probably have a vague notion of the man known as The Red Baron, and his Flying Circus.

Because Snoopy. And Monty Python.

Richthofen and his ilk must have seemed like true knights-of-the-air to the men who fought semi-underground in the trenches of the Western Front. Airmen lived in fairly posh camps behind the lines, so were not generally in danger of artillery fire. As officers, they were catered to and waited on as befitted their class; outside of actual sorties, it was almost as though they were at a country house shooting party, with hot baths and cold Champagne.

In the air, make no mistake, it was not all cakes and ale; their aircraft were not exactly precision machines, they had no radio communications, they were on their own, with little training or support, just the adrenaline surge and the joy stick. Richthofen was extraordinarily skilled and lucky to survive as long as he did—a tribute to his gifts as a pilot.

But the luck ran out on 21 April 1918, and he was shot down over Vaux-sur-Somme.

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month isn’t about Richthofen specifically, or even about World War I aces. I don’t know of any studies on PTSD for the knights-of- the-air, so I don’t know how they fared post-war in comparison to the trench-soldiers. Was the term lack of moral fiber applied to them? Dunno. Their war was fought in short, intense spurts, not the long, filthy war shared with rats, lice, mud and decomposing corpses. And their war often ended with the LMF diagnosis, and looks of disgust followed them the rest of their lives.

No, today’s entry is from my old comrade Wilfred Owen, whose war was in those trenches, and who experienced the mental breakdown he writes of here. He pulls no punches..

(As we continue engaging in warfare with all the technology at our disposal—because wars are always technological drivers—we continue to learn more about the aftereffects. Seems that much of what has been called over the century LMF, battle fatigue, PTSD is undiagnosed traumatic brain injury. And now that it’s not something that chickenhawks can dismiss as non-physiological, we may get around to finding treatments that will reduce the appalling post-combat suicide rate for our military members.)

“Mental Cases”

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jays that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain,- but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

-These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable, and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.
-Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
-Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.



Thursday, April 19, 2018

Paschal moon: a lionlimb against me


I do love Gerard Manley Hopkins. For writing at the height of Victoria, he was an absolutely intrepid explorer of poetic forms. He used assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration as well as rhyme. He had no fears about pushing the limits of form to make his point. His “Pied Beauty” is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, and I dare you to read it without your face wanting to smile and your heart wanting to lift. It is joy captured like a butterfly resting momentarily in your cupped hands.

Today, I’m feeling a bit darker, so I’m offering something that appeals to my current mood.

“Carrion Comfort”

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.




Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Paschal moon: fifty percent terrible


Today’s entry for National Poetry Month comes from a woman who was trying to find words to explain the dangers of the world to her young children, and to give them hope, as well.

In the summer of 2016, a writer named Maggie Smith sat down at a coffee shop in Ohio and wrote “Good Bones” on a yellow legal pad. Three days after the mass murders at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, it was published in the literary journal Waxwing, and went viral (not something that often happens to things published in literary journals), because it expressed the pain and bewilderment of the world—in 2016 and since.

I think we should hold this one close, during these times.

“Good Bones”

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.






Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Paschal moon: haiku to Percocet


Well, here’s a thing. My surgery appears to have gone well, but the attempt at a regional block was unsuccessful. So I had to have the dreaded general anesthesia. Also, the post-op pain is higher than I’d hoped (whole lotta nerves in the hand).

I submit in evidence, two crappy shots of my right arm. Soft cast goes up to my elbow.



My friends took me by Baskin Robins on the way home; so a milkshake was my first post-op meal.

Today’s entry is the worst one ever:

GWU surgery

Recovery pain;
Soft cast, fentanyl
Loopiness, milkshake

There’s a prescription for Percocet, but I’ve not got round to filling it.



Monday, April 16, 2018

Paschal Moon: pomegranate flower


There’s nothing like facing being cut open (even on an out-patient basis) to make one a little…introspective. So I’m turning to Rumi, the 13th Century Sufi mystic poet.

Last year I gave you “The Guest House” from him, instructing us to be a guest house to all the possibilities. This time the entry is another kind of invitation, one in keeping with Gratitude Monday.

“What Was Told, That”

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that’s happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!






Gratitude Monday: manual dexterity


Today I go in for surgery to treat basal joint arthritis. As my surgeon has explained it to me, he’ll remove the trapezium bone at the base of my thumb, extract part of a tendon in my arm (“which you don’t really need”) and bunch it up in the place of the missing bone.


(I’ve already cycled through all the other treatments—NSAIDs, a splint, cortisone.) I’d been putting this off, but the cortisone has stopped working, so that’s where I am.

I’m not looking forward to having my wrist in a cast—which you can’t get wet—for a month, and then in a splint for another one. But I’ve hit the point where the pain is pretty constant, and is midway along the scale; it’s also becoming increasingly difficult to do regular old things—use scissors, or a stapler; open or tighten jars; pour wine. (Passing platters around the table at Seder a couple of weeks ago was a crap shoot; I was relieved that I didn’t send brisket or soufflés flying onto my neighbors’ laps.)

I spent the weekend prepping the house for going a couple of months one-handed (and off-handed, at that; naturally this is on my dominant hand)—vacuuming, scrubbing the kitchen and bathrooms, laying in groceries that I can prepare without dipping my hand in them. (Dunno how that’s going to work, actually—I can’t make salad dressing without needing to be hosed off afterward.)

So what am I grateful for in all this? That there is treatment for this condition. My surgeon tells me that this is very successful surgery, and since I’ve exhausted all other treatments, it’s good to know that my chances are good with this.

I’m grateful that my surgeon is a very good communicator. After trying out two other orthopedic surgeons (both of whom seemed more interested in racking up insurance payments than in dealing with the condition), this guy is careful, clear and consistent. I believe I’m in good hands.

I’m grateful that I have insurance. It’s not stellar, but even so, it’s better than paying for this thing out of pocket.

I’m grateful that the surgery nurse is on the ball—she’s been competent and clear about what I need to do to prepare for this. She’s also made notes for the anesthesiologist to give me a little some-some to ward off post-op nausea and puking.

I’m grateful that friends will be on call to take me home afterward and get me settled. And I’m grateful that there’s an end in sight for all this pain.


Sunday, April 15, 2018

Paschal Moon: All these liberations


Today’s entries for National Poetry Month come from Audre Lorde. Early on Lorde found poetry her channel for communicating the complexities of being as intersectional as you can get: American-born to black Caribbean parents, lesbian, wife, activist, mother—basically an outsider no matter where she found herself at any given time. This may have been a reason why she continually defined herself in terms only of herself. 


In high school in New York City, Lorde participated in poetry workshops run by the Harlem Writers Guild, which she described as not accepting her because she was “both crazy and queer.”

At age 20, in 1954, she spent a year studying at the National University of Mexico; she returned to New York and graduated from Hunter College. She embarked on an academic career, teaching and writing, drawing on her experience as being “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” She held that binary divisions of male and female are simplistic, and that, while feminists have found it necessary to present a united front, there are many subdivisions of women.

Lorde’s poetry ranges everywhere she did; I’ll give you a couple of examples.

“Hanging Fire”

I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me   
the boy I cannot live without   
still sucks his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before morning
and momma's in the bedroom   
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance   
in time for the next party   
my room is too small for me   
suppose I die before graduation   
they will sing sad melodies   
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do   
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom   
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think   
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team   
my marks were better than his   
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow   
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom   
with the door closed.

“Who Said It Was Simple”

There are so many roots to the tree of anger   
that sometimes the branches shatter   
before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march   
discussing the problematic girls   
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes   
a waiting brother to serve them first   
and the ladies neither notice nor reject   
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.   
But I who am bound by my mirror   
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex

and sit here wondering   
which me will survive   
all these liberations.