New girl in town: Carol Robinson, (R), who found us on the Internet. Next to her is Beatriz Moisset, originally from Argentina, who read her essay on the importance of bats.
Beatriz also brought in a humorous poem by geneticist and evolutionary biologist J B S Haldane that begins:
"Cancer’s a Funny Thing:
I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma,
This kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked..."
Sorry, Linda, my hand was shaking. Linda read her beautiful Easter poem "He is Risen."
Donna Krause, who's been published in IdeaGems, read a poem about the upcoming birth of her grandchild in October.
Nadia read two wonderful poems: Colorado Reprieve and Paradise Lost. She and I are in Bill Kulik's poetry class at Cheltenham Adult Evening School. Note our first poetry magazine called Icing on the Cake.
Kym Cohen, not shown, read 6 short poems published within the journal. She posts them on FB and I think I'm gonna follow suit. Why don't YOU try it Bill Hess and Coach Iris? All the words that can fit in the small space they give you.
Easter treats at Weinrich's Bakery. It was mobbed today and they added xtra cash registers.
Ruth Deming w/ her flaming red hair thanks to using the wrong bottle. As I was leaving the coffeeshop a man read my T-shirt and asked me, Why dyou have three kidneys?
I told him the story.
Here's two poems I wrote in about 20 minutes this morning meeting my "writer's deadline," the purpose of starting the writing group. Gotta know how to trick yourself.
Everyone elsedoes the same thing.
POST-OP
after the operation
i wasn’t sure it was
still me
they inserted a new kidney
and left raised thumbprints
at the site
i play with them while i
fall asleep
it’s the way the flowers look
the virginia bluebells i forgot i
planted
i now hear them ring
or that easter rain that hits the
roof while i sleep
i go out to meet it
come morning
and the birds have
reclaimed their glad songs.
THE OPENING
what awaited them later that day?
sex with a new lover?
a glass of wine on the patio?
i was not there when they cut me open
just my body with two trying-hard kidneys
that slowed down ever since that night of
my “302” and the taking of lithium carbonate
to stop the demons in my brain
what was i dreaming the moment they
installed sarah’s kidney in my belly -
of my lost husband who was buried
in oklahoma?
or my father who celebrated seders
and beat me with the belt that held up
his pants?
i hear the birds now
i survived
the roomful of surgeons
doing no harm
arrived by appointment only
in the huge operating room
before my eyes closed i gave
a shiver from the cold
they moved like russian dancers
across my body
crochet motions of Zaki’s hands
while staring at the tube
there were no surprises
he’d met sarah’s kidney in three-D
and laid it like a
burial wreath on easter morn
inside the hot everglades of
my body which so loved
the world:
the maple in the backyard with clusters
in patterns as it grew so much slower
than baby grace
and slept noiselessly all winter
with the patience of an oak
dennis, who got the kidney of a 40-year-old
dead of cystic fibrosis, told me they listen to
classical while the sun shines weakly on the
brickface and magnolias of the hospital
surgeons, you can spot them, said alice
whose donor expired from an alcoholic
seizure,
not me, I can’t spot them
to me they’re simply tall men
Zaki with his black hasid-like jacket and glasses
fast-talkin’ Campos with black hair like moss
sit down with me under a tree and
we’ll watch the pennypack flow by,
men, who studied hard, knew their
tables and their chemistry
walked slowly up the ladder to the
top floor,
their appointment with the Demings
crossed off their calendar
as ours continues day by day
have i changed?
i speak softly to my new baby for life
caressing her under the warmth of my
tie-dyed pajamas
then give the trying-hard twins
a feel on my back
and think to myself
When you were a child of 12 and
rode the palomino at camp cardinal in Ohio
a voice whispered in your ear like the
angel gabriel did mary
you will grow up to have moodswings
you will want to kill yourself with pills
your body will be cut open at 65
but you will survive
you will survive.
Very nice your two poems. I need to do more poetry exercises for discipline. I don't much like prompts that I get at my groups though. Reminds me too much of school.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have a really good group.
So not sure what you are suggesting. I do post on FB but prefer for people to follow my links and maybe just maybe they will also subscribe though it doesn't seem to be working.
Bob Vance does videos of him reading his work. Would like to try that sometime too.
Hope I can post this. Having so many technical problems. I think I accidentally put some type of security setting on my computer and now I don't know where it is or how to turn it off.
And survive you did and survive you will! Love this!
ReplyDeleteTesting today to see if my post goes through.
ReplyDelete