Hello Helene - good publishing news - Poem: Crepe Myrtle, My Son

Here's Helene when she lived in her house in Maple Glen, PA. When I invited myself over, she hemmed n hawed as usual - I said Yes for her - and then she told me she'd made up her mind to always say Yes when someone invited themselves over.

I was fearsome tired around noon this afternoon - forgive me for using language from the Huck Finn audio tape I listen to in my raft, I mean car - and after I set off for Rydal Park

I remembered a dream I had while napping. I was listening to a short story in the New Yorker read by the author, an English woman named Tessa Hadley. She's an acclaimed author none of us, my 12 delicious readers, have ever heard of.

Soon I was snoring away on my red couch. When I awoke with a start, I had no idea what time it was. Nor did I remember the dream until driving to see Helene.

In the dream I'm driving my car in the neighboring town of Hatboro, PA

This is Janis Joplin's 1965 Porsche.

But, me, I'm driving on the sidewalk! I made a right turn on York Road and ended up on the sidewalk. I couldn't believe it.

Then I started backing up to get OFF the sidewalk, but I could barely see a thing.

Darn! I said. I've either gotta stop driving or take lessons.

Of course I just had cataract surgery so my eyes were on my mind.

Today, in my car, I had two important letters to mail. I cruised around my neighborhood but couldn't find Mailman Ken.

Yesterday I made two trips to find the mailman. The first one was easy. Here's what I said to Ken the second time.... "Finding you was a challenge of a lifetime!"

He shook his head as if I was the biggest bother in the world. 

This man will not get a penny from me when he retires. I took up a collection for Mailman Bob when he retired.



After Helene kicked me out - it takes her an hour and a half to get ready for dinner - I walked over to Whole Foods, carrying my own bag, a green one from the Grange Fair, courtesy of Calkins newspapers, where I used to work.

I wanted to eat something different and I got the notion to buy vegetarian hot dogs, which I will eat for dinner, along with some Moroccan lentil soup.

Just had a taste of the soup. I don't like their food and was pleasantly surprised that it was fairly good.

Whenever I go to Rydal Park, I buy a cup of their Egbert's Decaf. Well, sir, the guy was washing the floor and had his yellow caution signs up. They ain't getting sued when some ole lady slides across the floor and breaks her hip cuz she's gotta have her caffeine fix.

I tested the floor. It wasn't too bad. But they saw me and wouldn't let me cross.

Well, I said, why don't YOU get the coffee for me. I was speaking to one of the black aides. She checked with the floor washer who said it was okay.

The coffee was a dollar. "I'm leaving you $2," says I. "The extra dollar is a tip."

"We're not allowed to take tips," she says.

"I'm leaving it there anyway," says I.

I LOVE making trouble at Rydal Park!

So I got my delicious decaf

and went upstairs to find Helene. On the wrong floor. They had a wall phone, so's I called up and said I was lost. An aide was accompanying a white-haired pigtailed resident and told me I wanted the sixth floor and I was on the fifth.

Delicious veggie hot dogs from the Whole Foods in Jenkintown. At last I've discovered another meal I can make. I'll serve it with a garden tomato.

Throughout the day I've been receiving E's from BellaDonna Mused, an online publication. Cynthia Parker and her staff have been reading manuscripts, rejecting and accepting various ones of mine.

FINALLY, I got two very important pieces published.

My Favorite Felon is a true story about when the kids and I lived in Village Green Apartments and had a nice jailbird and his family living across the hall until they were evicted for nonpayment of rent.

I wrote it last year and it's been rejected by 8 lit journals. Bella Online, for the most part, likes my work.

I try not to submit to them, but try other journals first.

The Bedroom is a fictional story of a little girl - I think Sue Ann is 12 - who comes to grips with Gramps' death. I think it's a wonderful story, but the 8 lit journals I applied to did not agree.

I can't remember how I got the idea.

They also rejected one of my poems but accepted Lines about lines on your face when you get older.

Am working on a short story now, based on a true story by a member of my support group. This woman lives right next door to a married couple and their two children. The man shot and killed his wife and then turned the gun on himself.

My story is very good so far, but I can't think of an ending!

Perhaps I'll be inspired when I watch the next installment of



Don't wanna deprive you of a poem, so I'll re-publish the one about my crepe myrtle, whose magenta-colored blossoms are blooming in my front yard.

CREPE MYRTLE, MY SON

They say I never recovered from

Johnny’s death in Vietnam

oh, I do go about life,

sip my coffee, read the morning paper,

nap in the afternoon,

but his bedroom remains the same:

his smiling photos

the prom he and MeSook attended in

a huge limousine

the letters he wrote with the Schaeffer

pen I gave him one Christmas.

He died on August Third and instead of

crying and tearing out my hair

instead of falling on the cold kitchen floor

and beating it with all the strength I had00

left in my forty-year-old body

I bought You: a Red Rocket Crepe Myrtle.

The man came out and planted it,

I stood by, arms crossed, speaking barely

a word.

It’s all I have of you, Johnny, even as I watch

the cars drive by and the walkers with their dogs,

still hoping one of them will be you,

you, Johnny, all grown up now, with

children of your own.