Bold Poppies, Glorious Poppies

A Modest Proposal to Change the Name of the Renaissance Fair

Let’s begin at the source: the OED:

Renaissance – the revival of European art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14^th to 16^th Centuries.

First Impressions – Barbarians, Maid Marions, Rastafarians, Popes and puppets, tea and crumpets, trumpets, dunces, morris dancers, bird fanciers, fancy pantsers, necromancers, bust enhancers, oriental spices, exorbitant prices, mead, lager, sac, and ales, Princes of Wales, braided horse tails, horsemen, chessmen, talismen, henchmen, Monty Python Frenchmen, (I fart in your general direction!). wenches in bunches, whole trenches of stenches, particularly from the elephant rides – yes, elephant rides. And not only elephants but camels and llamas. Jousting, axe throwing, hammer throwing, poison dart blowing, witch dunkin’, bumpkin dunkin’, and shoot the punkin.

Is this the Renaissance?  Nonsense.

It was my impression that the Renaissance was a revival of Greek, like Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Socrates, but the only Greek I heard was feta cheese and gyros, with a teeny bit of tahini. If you don’t like that, there’s sushi and sashimi, burgers and weanies, chili beanies, bologna, spumoni, Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat (It could happen.), and everybody’s favorite, American turkey legs at 8 bucks a pop. What you won’t see is good old 15^th century food like gruel, bulgur, millet, sheep’s head, boiled brains, pig’s feet , peas porridge cold or peas porridge hot.

Is this the Renaissance?   NOT.

How about art?  You bet your arse there’s art. There are drip candles, belts and sandals, scrimshawed axe handles, walking sticks, canes, capes, dunce caps, leather cups, leather thongs, hand-blown bongs and pipes, hand-thrown pots, hand sewn tights, home grown plants, head bands, lamp stands, and flaminco fans.

Titian, da Vinci,and Donatello?  Hello???!!!  No!!!

Then, there are the costumes, which are mostly barbarians: Huns, Vikings, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, just plain Goths, Tartars, Gauls, Picts and Scots, in kilts and no shorts (don’t ask me how I know that.), Franks, Angles, mostly obtuse, Saxons, and Vandals.  They’re all wearing Birkenstock sandals and wielding horrendous weapons like axes and maces, which might pose a danger except for the fact that they have one hand on their cell phones and the other on a tankard of ale (Bud Lite or Milwaukee’s Best, at 8 bucks a pop).

Next, there are the fantasizers: wizards, dragon slayers, soothe sayers, mayors of Munchkin City (it could happen), nymphs, gnomes, trolls, hobbits, knights in chain mails with holy grails.

Let’s not forget the royalty, some in jeans with only a crown, some in gowns and full regalia. All the kings are Henry the eighth, boisterous and corpulent,  and all the queens are his wives, all six of them, and they all have their heads. There are princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, earls and earlesses, knights and knightesses, etc. etc. If you’re looking for nobles oblige, don’t try to cut in front of them in the line for ye ol ale stand or it might get your tongue cut out or a week in the stocks.

There’s that victim of the Black Death.  Yes, there’s only one, and, believe me, nobody touches him.

And, of course, there’s the clergy: Bishops in mitres, epistle writers, Nuns and priests, nun’s priests a la Chaucer, abbots and abbesses, monks and prioresses, mendicants, penitents, flagellants, acolytes, transvestites (There’s something about men wanting to wear nun’s habits that’s really disturbing). The only thing that seems historically correct is that there’s more than one pope.  Lastly there are catechists, heretics, and Grand Inquisitors like Torquemada.

Is this the Renaissance?   Nada que ver!   It’s the Renaissance Fair.

Let’s review our definition:  Renaissance – the revival of European art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14^th to 16^th Centuries.

The only thing from that definition I could find at the Renaissance Fair was “under the influence”.

"Houses in a Railroad Village"

                          Acrylic on paper        16x12              c  2015  Brett Busang

It's not you

Please listen to this

It's a little difficult to say,

But I just wanted you to know:

It's not you.

It's me.

I need to take some time

To straighten out my own mind;

To sort things out.

It's not you.

It's me.

It's not the way you dress --

At one time so artistic, so eccentric.

Nor is it the jokes you tell,

And tell again.

And again, and again...

It's not you, it's me.

It's not the noises you make at night.

It's not that, at all.

I'm sorry.

It's just me, it's not you.

It's not you at all.

It's also not the person I met recently

Who pleases me in ways you cannot even imagine.

Nor is it your lack of imagination.

No, it's me.

I can be so demanding and critical --

That's why I need some space.

Yes, I know you called the other day.

My phone has been disconnected

along with my email, and social media.

I'm moving to another city,

and I don't have a forwarding address, yet.

I'll let you know

I'll call you sometime.

We'll have lunch – sometime.

We'll be friends.

Just remember:

it's not you.

It's me.

Feel better now?

Goodbye

--Ellis Burruss

Brunswick, MD

What if... an essay seed

What if the whole job of the artist was to make the one who perceives the artifact ask a question? What if I said the best art is the art that makes me ask the most interesting questions?

Margaret Ronk says her poetry is always in the interrogative mode, whether there is a question mark at the end of the line or not. I concur, but I think it important that there not be a question mark. As reader I don't want to answer a question she has framed. Bachelard said, "Make the reader's eyes leave the page." For me, that is the moment of the question. I wish I could remember which artist said he wanted a painting of a house to make him wonder what the people were like who lived there. I can compare paintings of two  houses based on the quality and intensity of that question alone. Purely subjective. Yes, but that's the seed of a different essay.

Here's a poem I read today that made my eyes leave the page.

 First the Message Kills           Hans Favery

First the message kills
the receiver, then
it kills the sender.
It does not matter
in what language.

I stand up, throw
the balcony doors open
and take a breath.

The gulls circling
above the snowless street
I will not entice
with gestures of feeding.

I light a cigarette;
return to my post,
and take a breath.

There is nothing to dream.
Everything is possible.
Little matters.

(rwd 5/2015)

I Am...

"I am asking for prayers. I saw my son today. He was so high. He was so high in the back seat and just started crying. I asked him why and he said because hes a piece of shit. I dont kniw if he was crying cuz my marriage is failing and i was crying because i dont have a pot to piss in and didnt know where i was going to go, or what. When he hugged me i got so scared it might be the last time. I dont know what to do. I keep praying but i feel so broken and afraid."

I took the liberty of borrowing this from a woman who posted it on a heroin addict page.

Technical Stuff

Thanks Jerry for posting this year's winner at "Slammin' in the Belfry IV." I added my poem. It would be nice to see the Slam pieces here.
If you copy and paste your text it will print in a white box. To avoid that, you can highlight your whole draft and go to the paintbrush icon in the toolbar for "background color." Make the background the 5th gray sample from the right, RGB 153,153,153. This is the same color as the blog page.
You can add the appropriate labels (original poems, slammin' 2015) or I'll do that for you. The advantage to the labels is that the "index of labels" in the right hand column of the blog can then be used to look at different categories of post.
At the bottom of your finished post, you'll see where to click to comment or edit.

To Wayne

Dear Friend,
I have a favor to ask.
     My basement may flood, and since I’m out of town, I hoped you would check on it for me.
     The sump pump works, but it sometimes needs jiggling, and with the snow melt you’re having, it might overflow.
          Wanda is feeding the cat, so she can let you in.
     The main thing is to protect the drywall, so if water pours through the door, close it quick.
     First clear the drain hose, which could well be frozen. You may have to dig it out from under the woodpile.
          There’s a good flashlight, somewhere in the foyer.
     If the sump pump won’t work, check the fuse, check the outlet, check if the ground fault has been interrupted.
     There’s a bucket in the garage by the sump, and somewhere nearby is a shop-vac that works.
          If all else fails, bail.
     I know this is short notice, but I really appreciate it.
     Thank you so much.
Yours truly,
Jerry.

Spring is a promise of life just ahead out of sight,
The peeps in the canal sing out their certainty,
Of wonders not yet here but sure to be,
From my house I hear them strong and hope they’re right.

Dear Friend,
I have a favor to ask.
     Today I’m supposed to be meeting my wife, and her lawyer, to hash out the terms of divorce.
     No need to tell you the history gone by, but the problem is I can’t make it today.
          I hoped that you would go, and protect my interests.
     The main thing is that I want the house, it’s my solace, my hiding place, my labor of love.
     She knows how I feel so she’ll demand a high price, and I suppose I will pay it, but just do your best.
          Remember, not all of it was my fault.
     I’ll give her the car and give her the dog, and I’ll even promise that I won’t write her parents,
     As long as I never again have to hear that New Age-y stuff about “being present.”
          I’d tell her myself, if I were there.
     I know this is short notice, but I really appreciate it.
     Thank you so much.
Yours truly,
Jerry.

Summer has no memory, no future or past,
It is now, just now, it does not hurry, nor wait,
Through my blinds presses its surrounding heat,
Nervous, I look for night that daily comes at last.

Dear Friend,
I have a favor to ask.
     My son’s getting married, and yes we’re all thrilled, though both of them are twenty, and young for their age.
     I haven’t met the bride, but she sounds like a good egg; the trouble is I can’t get the time off to go.
          Would you go for me, and convey my best wishes?
     The main thing is that the happy couple should feel supported as they start on their new life.
     His mother may expect me to be there, so a little bit of awkwardness could arise on that score.
          Nothing you can’t handle; I’m sure you’ll be fine.
     I was thinking a poem would suit the occasion, if you had time to write them something.
     But they’re on Bed, Bath and Beyond’s bridal registry, and you could just pick out a gift for them there.
          That would be nice; use my credit card. 
     I know this is short notice, but I really appreciate it.
     Thank you so much.
Yours truly,
Jerry.

Autumn reflects on what is gone, what remains,
Bright colors go, but leave a crisper beauty,
Careless times give way to earnest duty,
I dig out hats and boots against the autumn rains.

Dear Friend,
I have a favor to ask.
     Due to an unfortunate event, I am supposed to meet Saint Peter shortly at the pearly gates.
     For reasons obscure, and being realistic about my track record, I’m afraid I won’t make the meeting.
          Can you be at the gates, to speak on my behalf?
     The main thing is to tell Saint Peter of the good intentions I have always had.
     If the question of my good works comes up, argue that good works are theologically immaterial.
          That would be easier, than finding some good works.
     My history with women is a bit dicey, and children, community, and career not much better.
     All things considered, it might just be best if you were to stick to intentions.
          The bottom line is, “To err is human…” 
     I know this is short notice, but I really appreciate it.
     Thank you so much.
Yours truly,
Jerry.

Winter passes judgment, lying hard on river and town,
Keep what’s needed, no more, is winter’s good,
It tests my house and collects its toll in firewood,
Weak light surrenders early, as dark comes down.

I find it hard – so, so hard – to stay warm,
I ask what magic shields others from the storm.

Eating Apples

There is a sky, apple crisp -
a mountain, caved and holy -
an orchard, round and woven -
to be seen. You haven't seen everything...
yet. The beaches, the half mornings [drunk on moon
and sun together and at once]. All too much.

 But, you haven't seen it all just yet. There
are untold secrets. Even here,
at the stroke of the key, behind the desk, in the empty fluorescent lighting. Even here there is

unknowable works of art. You haven't seen everything
quite yet. Not yet. And tomorrow, and tomorrow -
and all the joy it will bring. You can't know of it,
yet.

Bring your basket so that we may pluck
as we go. Let the juice drip down your face.
Commit to living.

Leather skinned and toothless

Oh. I know what this is.

This is where the writing leaves us.
The rain. The cars. The quiet reflection.
And, I don't feel
anything.

If you asked me,
with smoke uncurling from your whiskered mouth,
eyes wet with vodka:
"Was it worth it?" [Like some old movie]
I won't know. For once.
What is worth? Some people require no questions.

I want an old woman, leather skinned and toothless,
wiry hair braided up.

I want to tuck her into her hospital bed and hold her hand in mine.

I want to read her old war letters from her husband from when they were 19 and he was still alive. The measure of her life and the summer rain filling the room, fighting against the chill of the air conditioner up too high, lacing my voice.

I want lace and sleep.

I want the taste of coffee, stale and cold- the sound of birds awakening, the metal of silence.

I want a sleep so deep that when I wake I am reborn.

Most of all, I want those first few weeks back.
Those weeks when my heart was learning your name. I want them back. I want to stop living in a haunted house.

I want to live in a world where I could love you freely and without bleeding. Or one where I am loved as I should be. Or, sleep. Maybe just sleep.

Life's Greatest Riddles

 From the very first,

How do we all begin?

Are we pure and good and wholesome

Or hiding dormant sin?

And the journey that we choose in Life,

That may follow the ‘road less traveled’,

Is nothing in the end but Fate—

A mystery unraveled;

So we aspire to be the learned scholar,

Perhaps a hidden foil;

For do we not lack the knowledge

Of the man who choose to toil?

And all the endless constraints,

That limit our boundless minds,

Do they diminish or grow stronger

With the ebbing flow of Time?

And with each new epiphany,

One finds a fresh new lease;

Yet aren’t we forever looking

For that one elusive piece?

So hours we ponder the inevitable—

How will it finally end?

Will we cross the finish line,

Or merely start over again?

Perhaps there is no reason

For all this battering about;

Do we ever truly know

What Life is all about?

Do we learn from our mistakes,

Or forever stumble anew?

Are the answers that we gallantly seek

Shared by the many or the few?

Perhaps there are some things

Of which we know are certain;

Key things we hope to cling to

Waiting for Life’s final curtain;

Empathy for things unknown,

And a purity of heart

Aren’t these but the rarest gifts

Of those who’ll soon depart?

Why yes, these are surely things

Which most of us possess;

But tell me where do the lonely go

In their time of great distress?

And towards the of Life,

We each make one final stand;

Is the mortal a true visionary—

Or the dreamer just a man?

Despair not—Love holds all the answers,

Or so we’ve all been told;

But will that make us completely whole

When we are feeble and quite old?

As so we continue to seek these truths,

Amidst the shifting sands of Time,

With only Life’s greatest riddles

For us to leave behind.

                                                                                             Jay Michael Perkins II

Monday night poetry drop in gismos

Slamming/loving

When I knew that your heart was true,
Your boyish eyes filled with my loving face, my shining hair,
My soft and tender soul was struck with ice
And slamming through the atmosphere,
I grew ten thousand years
as you reached out past me and took her hand,

The other third grade girl!

Noelie Angevine

St. Patrick

Cheers to Irish Men -
Mothers, Sisters, Brothers of
Old; fuck St. Patrick.

Spring flowers

A language for romance;
an anthropic mistrust of
all that breathes.

The snow makes me curse
but it's melting is too sudden.
All this change.

I am not waiting

Tonight when I
think your name as I fall asleep,
it is not to call you to me.

It's just to hear the sound
and taste my need;
the measure of it. How it lessens
with each day. 

Gumbo

She spills red wine with fish,

vulgar at the gills sucking air into her lungs.

The moment at birth a decision to breathe

at the cellular level, the ultimate solitude shattered

and rebuilt in pieces, interlocking pieces of plastic

to form castles and forts. Jewish mothers at temple

when who but Krishna in cut-offs shows up smelling of hashish?

The Sanskrit word for mother is the simultaneous act

of walking away from and towards.

How Kennedy ruined it for all grassy knolls,

relegated back to small round hills or green lumps of earth.

She stirs in sliced peppers and okra,

an incantation of gumdrops and primrose, a Choctow

chance of shifting flour and fat into roux.

An amoeba’s worth of guilt on the end

of a yo-yo discarded the day after Christmas.

We drink midday for clarity; we drink

in the evening to forget the viper

her fangs and so begins the handler’s

hollow tune of lull and scatter.

A throbbing at the front of the skull

where memories are formed. The one

where your grandmother arrived from California

and wouldn’t let go. The one

where your mother laid out your clothes

for Sunday school and you imagined a flat boy

in starched collars who might take your place.

Cowboys sleep outside so they don’t have to deal with the overhead.

As my Uncle Rodney would often tell the police officer

standing outside the driver’s side window, it’s your job

to police and not to debate the merits of taking my nephew

to the hospital after having a few drinks.

Two times charcoal needlessly pumped into my stomach

on the made-up suspicion of poison. One time,

the doctor’s fingers stuttered along my side for a Table of Contents.

Loneliness has a gravity, a contract and pull measured

in the hum of a refrigerator compressor, the start and stop

of the heat pump, and the back-flow gurgle

of drain pipes with high cholesterol and in grave

need of angioplasty.

I imagine the moment when they remove my skull cap

and begin the literal descent into madness

for a fibrous ball of yarn no bigger than my thumb

against your lips seeking moisture.

I imagine that moment, the glisten of neurons

and the gray platypus squeezed into a cantaloupe

so hard my fingers fight to form finger holes and bowl

it across the produce aisle and smack

into the dairy case. Not even a crack,

the doctor admiring his skill at the bone saw.

The top of my head on a stainless steel table beside me.

It is at this moment that I heard it, a mouse squeak

of a sneeze followed by a hushed evacuation

of the room, leaving one attendant adjusting the gas

so fog a thick of butter, and then awakening in my room.

They said I dreamed it but three courses of antibiotics to differ.

And when I went for my follow up I saw her

coming out of the break room, agitated and flustered

she walked away never looking back, never turning

into a pillar of salt.

I still have trouble with my T’s,

which is fine as I prefer coffee. The absurd

similarity between porno and rhino.

A seven-letter word for magistrate. “Asshole,”

Uncle Rodney ducking his head out of

the bathroom, a dollop of shaving cream and

a crescent wrench of a smile.

Van Gough as a child wiping finger paint onto

a makeshift smock, an old shirt of his father’s.

An uneasy bout of the flu followed by

the slow simmer of mental illness and what

we take as art was simply the literal sandbar

of a man taking on water.

A salamander on salary, a salad of

salami and rye. She took a milk crate

from the wall and set it against the table.

poured herself a glass until all that remained,

a cotton dress puddle on the floor.

At the settlement meeting I was asked

my sign. Uncle Rodney welling up inside me,

carbonated spheres of influence. Stop sign, I said.

Having established rapport with the neighborhood

raccoon, we came to an understanding.

A peanut butter sandwich on a paper plate means

leave the garbage can the fuck alone. As easily

as that, the ceasefire is over and a morning collecting

paper towels, egg shells, the occasional plastic tray

from a microwave dinner that I wonder is recyclable

but don’t bother to turn over to check.

A man on the street stops me, places his hands

on my wrists and stares at me through three layers

of urgency. He tells me they’ve taken the island of

Kuwait, the whole thing, they’ve taken the island of Kuwait

and put it in the Koran. A white rose from

some special occasion: Mother’s Day, wedding, simply

because he loves you but slept with her again.

An entire country, a white rose squeezed between

the pages of a book to be divined before the final

walk-through. What to keep, what to donate, the remainder

taken to a rented dumpster on the front lawn.

Your sign, the man across the table repeats and I realize

I have not answered. He repeats a third time,

annoyed at my lack of response. I stare

down at the swollen violins inside my shoes, the only

sound, the color okra knee-deep and rising.

- MK

Woman's Wrath

You think I'm not a goddess? Try me.*
Diana's bow could not pierce her mark,
More perfectly than my gaze when you displease me.
Vishnu's blade could not cut cleaner than my tongue,
when I speak of your failings.
Apollo's sun could not burn hotter than my rage,
when you turn your back.
You think I'm not a goddess?  Try me.*

JK

*I want to credit the line that gives the whole poem it's power, "You think I'm not a goddess?  Try me." to Margaret Atwood in her poem Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing.

The Sea's Chanty

When the new green wind cowls the waves into caves,
The ancient bones of ships and slaves,
Gleaming like iv’ry and rattling close,
Are sliding and nudging the floor of the sea.

Down to the deep,
Down to the deep,

Swept from our minds to scream and weep.

When the watery curls of bay and sand,
Slip into pools and cover the land,
The mist strides out from the fading dark.
She snatches the dawn and the moon in her hand.

Walks in the sand, 
Walks in the sand

She squeezes the colors away to grey, 
And sips and swallows the light of day. 

Noelie Angevine

Wrote with Lego Man over the weekend-- He sends a couplet:

I like to use my poetry time
To tell the truth and make it rhyme.

                                   Lego Man  age 7

And Then They Clearly Flew Instead of Fell

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry

by Howard Nemerov

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle

That while you watched turned to pieces of snow

Riding a gradient invisible

From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

poem

Depression Poem

They’ve come this far.

The car door’s open

To Charlie Fuqua’s guitar.

The cloth is spread.

“You like it rough,” he says.

“It’s not a question.”

The Ink Spots sing,

I’ll get by,

As long as I have you.

He isn’t getting by;

Nobody is.

He doesn’t have her.

Nobody does.

Back then,

She liked Lucky Strikes

Luck seldom struck.

She thought of

 Switching to Pall Malls.

She liked the way

The dice rolled

out of the cup pell mell.

Chance was clean

As a one-word answer.

“No,” she answers.

“I like it smooth.

I like it clean.”

                                                It isn’t always.

It’s sometimes

Oily and mean.

W.Derge 2/25/15