Saturday, July 20, 2013

Coffeeshop Writers Group - Welcome Emma Calore and Allan Heller via Beatriz and the Hatboro Writers Group / Poems: Driving Toward Oblivion - Screened-in Back Porch

Always great to get two new members who contribute to the group, both with their own work and in critiquing others.
Newcomer Emma made a big splash with her well-wrin short story Homecoming, a fictional foray into coming home from a mental hospital.

Emma, who switched from University of Pittsburgh b/c she didn't like it, will attend McDaniel College in Virginia in the beginning of September. None of us had heard of it. Her high school guidance counselor suggested it.

She'll probly major in English Literature and Political Science, with an eye toward finding a job when she graduates.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Allan Heller, who corrected manuscripts with a red pen, like a teacher.

He's co-author of



Author of....





All are available for purchase on Amazon.

Allan and his wife Tatyana live at Moreland Towers in Hatboro, a true main street town, where you can walk to the PO, the Wawa, and Daddypops, among other places.

Sadly, Allan's dad died a week ago Wednesday at age 80 from lung problems. But his mom is nice and healthy at 73.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, Allan, author and former reporter, is working on a new book about West Laurel Hill Cemetery, whose distinguished lifers include Mr Strawbridge and Mr Clothier plus some poor souls, including dead miners who were exhumed and brought here, and lay under a huge Celtic cross.

Click here for the b'ful cross. They have it rigged so that I can't copy it and use it for my own gravestone.
Immaculata College, an active partner in the Duffy’s Cut project, is collaborating with West Laurel Hill Cemetery to provide the final resting place for the remains of the 57 Irish immigrants who came to the United States in 1832 to work on the railroad.  The Memorial and Burial will be held on Friday, March 9, 2012. at 2:00 p.m. 
Hey, let's take a break n have something to eat.

My version of potato salad, made instead with green beans and asparagus, since potatoes spike my blood sugar. I also add a handful of sunflower seeds for the nice cr-runch they give you.

As many of you know, I got insulin-dependent diabetes from my kidney antirejection meds.

You get used to everything in this life of ours, n'est-pas Allan?

Even loss of hair, for the both of us.

In the Jewish tradition, Allan is wearing a black ribbon of mourning for his late father.

About one of his ailments that comes with age - he's had Parkinson's for nearly 4 years - Allan quoted John Milton in Paradise Lost
“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
Wouldn't it be fun to have a Book Club and read ye olde classics like Paradise Lost?

The intense Linda Barrett also attends the Hatboro Writers Group. She presented the second chapter of her sci-fi novel, taking place centuries from today, in a ruined Philadelphia. Everyone loved the concept and the names she chose, a main character is Borax, and Scarab is a hovercraft.

Beatriz the Biologist read another one of her amazing nature essays, this one about Preying Mantises. A non-native species, introduced from China but promoted for its benign bug-killing properties, is misrepresented by advertising.

Don't look now but this 4.5 inch Chinese mantis is - gulp! - eating a hummingbird


The mantis lay in wait in the bushes and then --- BAM! How delicious, feathers and all.
Carly, showing off her self-painted nails, and charm bracelet I failed to pay attention to, b/c someone came into the Coffeeshop who I didn't wanna talk to.... no, no, it was not my boyfriend Scott, but a woman with a speech impairment. I can't understand a single word she says and it's terribly embarrassing for me.

Carly read a smart essay that detailed all the choices people make every day. The heart of it was her feelings of 'alienation' in a new social group she attended.  She was really accepted and treated the same as the veteran members, including the rather insulting jokes they made toward her, just as they did to the other women in the group. 

After a while, she realized she wants to be a part of this group.

How dyou feel when you're part of a new group? Emma? Allan?

This emanates from our childhoods, the way our parents made us feel.
Donna, always of the spectacular nails, and the person who got me into getting my nails done, didn't bring anything to read, but as always gave good critiques of others' work.

Leave it to Martha to write WONDERING, a superlative poem about a Giant employee she has seen whose face tells a hard-living story. She wonders if he has a history of drugs, jail time, or even is part of Meagan's Law.

Ultimately, she said, his fate is in the hands of God.

Her second poem was also very good. If I weren't so narcissistic I could remember it.

A third poem, really terrific, was about some of her health conditions.

Here's my screened-in back porch. I take some of my meals out here so I can pay attention to the delicious taste of food while watching nature.

 In fact, when I went downstairs just now to take these pix, a female cardinal was fluttering about. I'm certain there's at least two cardinal families in the backyards with nests.

That they chose me! I'm so honored!
Furniture is from my friend Judy Diaz before she moved away... yes another loss... to Niwot, CO, home of healthy people who jog, mountain climb, bike, and are totally into creating a clean ecosystem.

Judy sits. And contemplates. Watches C-Span. Knows everything about politics.


SCREENED IN BACK PORCH

At dusk I stumble barefoot
onto the back porch to
see the what the world has to offer

The shadows of trees
rise like mountains
against the darkening sky
when suddenly I hear it
something I’ve been waiting
for though never
realized it
an unstoppable fanning
sound
a giant air conditioner
swooping down to offer
consolation from the
enduring heat wave

You know what it is
and so do I
the sound of the cicada
set free from his underground prison
barely nourished and offered
no exercise like volleyball
or lifting weights
or tattoos scratched
across his beefy arms

We know what prisoners want
the moment they’re set free
we’d want it too
as their love call penetrates
the porch screens
sinking onto the
wicker furniture
and making the ceiling fan twirl
I stand in obedient
meditation
hands clasped in prayer.   


DRIVING TO OBLIVION     
 
Something about Terwood Road.
The roller-coaster hills.
The views that take you by surprise
Look! The horses graze head-down
on the hill
Their soft black lips envelope
the tender grass
as they slowly
turn their heads to see
what the others are doing.

I unbuckle my seat belt
and watch them off to the left
no cars behind me
I pause in the middle of the road
and remember

People I know
are moving on
my mother wants to move
to a “boom”
my word for the cruel
“facility”
what will become of her in
nine years when she turns
an even hundred

I drive on toward the
Bryn Athyn post office
the Pennypack shivers below
as I cross the bridge
then head back home
with a new idea
since death’s as near
as a whisper
the game:
I must drive
onward
stopping only for gas or food
if I linger
I am dead.

Nothing of value is at home
I could give it all up
the children have grown
no one needs me anymore
a feeling of freedom
light as the white fluffy clouds
and blue sky

I will head for Vermont
a person in a small
unobtrusive car save for the
green Mental Health Awareness magnet
on the bumper
I’ve read all the books
mouthed all the songs
Dylan and the Four Tops

Is this Plainfield Vermont
already?
students in backpacks
walk along the street
a woman smiles at me
I wave
is she me when I was young?

I get out of the car
lean over the bridge to
see if the trout are running
we fished there once
Frankie and I

As I lean over the railing
a little sweaty from the road
hearing the sound of the
cicadas in the faraway trees
I am swept by silent arms
into the Winooski


my white shorts billow around me
it is cool down here
a silent world among
the fish and minnows
and spermlike tadpoles
glancing against my cheeks
silent, without compassion
as I sink to the bottom
knees collapsing
bleeding, I think,
on the rough pebbled
bottom where all
thought vanishes as
I climb toward home.  

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the write-up, Ruth! I am obliged to you. However, I am tentatively writing a book on graveyards of Montgomery County; West Laurel Hill is just one of many entries.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We shall look f/w indeed to that book, AMH! As well as seeing you again at the coffeeshop.

    ReplyDelete