Coffeeshop Writer's Group - welcome Arlene Walsh - Two poems: The Sewing Box and Sheared-Off Fronts

You mean, today is almost over? How many days left in this Book of Numbers?

Good turnout at the coffeeshop. The three women opposite me had been bitten, smitten by a bug that kept them down for more than a week.



I didn't pull out my camera until we were almost finished. Simply forgot about it.

Didn't get a picture of newcomer Arlene Walsh who I plucked like a ripe red rose from a terrible writing class we took at Abington Adult Evening School. The teacher gave us awful writing assignments and talked continuously about herself.

Arlene wrote a really fine short story that she absolutely must publish. It's about low lifes. Great dialog and very funny. Remind me to send her some publishing links.

Here's Arlene Dahl, the only famous Arlene I can think of, though the dance commentator of the New Yorker was named Arlene something.

This Dahl is still alive, born in 1925.


Arlene Croce, born in 1934. We should read a few lines from this terrific writer. 


Here we are when last we met. Marf couldn't make it today. Bugged out! As was Kym. Hmmm, wonder if she read about the Home Invasion in Bensalem, which is where she lives. A man was targeted and three masked men broke into his house. I won't tell you the ending except that funeral arrangements are being made.

Curiously, me, the one with the lowered immune system from my kidney antirejection meds hasn't a single sniffle.

Linda wrote a wonderful poem called A Former Co-Worker. It was hilarious and moving. I want it for the Compass, which we're working on now.

Beatriz wrote an essay about birds who stay here for the winter. An amazing passage talked about a gall on goldenrod made by a mother fly to keep her darling little would-be maggots safe from harm. The gall gets as thick as wood, she said.

The birds gobble up the delicious interior when food is scarce.

This morning I saw a flaming red cardinal from the kitchen window. Wasn't sure if it was bird b/c it stayed so very long on the forsythia bush. What else could it be, I thought? A bloody rag?

Reminds me of part of a movie I watched on Cozi TV today while I biked to lower my blood sugar.

Agnes of God, starring Anne Bancroft as mother superior (I thought it was Rosaline Russell with the deep voice), Jane Fonda as a psychiatrist and Meg Tilly (who dat?) as the sheltered young nun who didn't know how babies were made.



Fonda always had a cigarette in her hand. Are nuns allowed to smoke? Scuse me, I'll just be a minute. Am gonna ask God.

"Carly, are you laffing again?" I said when I saw her getting her tea.

She looked great, as always, and shared the first draft of a short short story written mostly in dialog. How come I think dialog is spelled like dialogue. Beatriz can figger this out with her iPod.

Carly wants to write a poem about her hearing aid. Carly, I said, you can write a poem about anything.

Witness my two at blog's end.

Something new happened at the Coffeeshop. Music and commercials were being piped in like gas at Auschwitz. In a huff, I waltzed over to the Customer Service Dept and talked to an young man named PJ. Upshot was that it's Corporate doing it.

At the end of our group, Carly, Donna and I went upstairs and scheduled with Kevin for private rooms on the second floor. We got most of what we wanted.

Now, for your reading edification, I will post two absolutely marvelous poems that should win me the poet laureate prize of the entire western world.

But, in a daring move, I will continue writing after that, so stick with me, kids!

 
THE SEWING BOX

When I open the heart-shaped box with beckoning flowers
I am frightened
I cannot sew.

My jeans have ripped
and must be fixed
with trembling hands I pick up
a pin cushion stuck like a porcupine
with needles
some still dangling with threads from
long ago

Lifting up one with the largest eye I can find
I see a burn mark at the end
meaning only one thing:
Sarah or Dan had a splinter
and I removed it with this very needle.

Where? Their tiny pink feet?
Their delicate fingers?

And that made me remember the tics
we picked from our bodies and heads
when we walked the Pennypack.

Such panic back then
back when we were young
and knew nothing of the insults
the world would bring.

Now I sit cross-legged on the bed
watching a film noir
and trying to mend my favorite pair of jeans
if only the thread goes in.



THE FRONTS SHEARED OFF

Hurricane Sandy taught us the relativity of safety,
of living in houses that, to her, were made of toilet paper
As I lay falling asleep at night,
bedroom facing the street,
I picture the yellow walls of my house
ripped away
not by violence
but with imagination
melting away like the snow

So here I am revealed to all
in my pajamas, curled up on my side,
under the tiger blanket used by father
when he lay dying
a feather comforter on top of that.

The observer sees me on the second floor
in the master bedroom where there has
only been one master since the day I moved in.

The house is quiet at night.
I listen for sounds.
Why that car zooming down the street
in the wee hours?

I sit up.
Have I taken my immunosuppressants?
I see them on the kitchen table
closed up for the night in their turquoise case.

So tired. My kidney can wait.

After the group, I pulled into the Upper Moreland library. There is nothing worse than not being immersed in a good book.

Since I couldn't remember a single good author, I checked the new books. Checked out the autobiography of Greg Allman. Look how cute he is with his little scruffy chin beard. Also got one of my beloved religious books - this one about Mary, after her son is crucified.

And since the library sells books, I decided to make a huge donation by purchasing the bottom book The Revisionist by Helen Shulman.

It cost a dime.

Roll the photos, Ruthie!

I find American flags irresistible. This one was right outside the library.

At first I forgot my camera was in my pocket and then I remembered. Joy!

Upper Moreland Township Municipal Building.

The reason I was walking was cuz I was trying to lower my blood sugar. At the Giant, Carly bought a six-pack of caramel pretzels from Asher candies. Scrumptious. I dipped them into my decaf which I doctored up with powdered cocoa, nutmeg and cinnamon. On Ada's Outing we visited the candy factory in Sellersville, PA.

Front of the Upper Moreland Municipal Building. I love the majestic columns, don't you?

To get to the library you've gotta drive thru the police department parking lot. Daringly, I unbuckled my seat belt before I got out of my car. I can't stand wearing my seat belt and usually unbuckle it when I'm within five minutes of my destination.

But officer! I was just scratching myself.

This is how I looked earlier today when I was two hours younger. My sister Donna gave me a great haircut.

Scott, make it a good photo, I said.

What? I always take fantastic photos, he said.

Wanted to get cross-legged on the bed as I did in the sewing poem.

They looked something like this.