Coffeeshop Writers Group - Welcome Bob - my two poems: Silver Nail Polish and Elegy for my Contact Lenses

Most mornings I have a couple of eggs for b'fast. Dig the striped one on the right. Simply beautiful. Only God could create an egg.

When I peel garlic and throw the outer skin in the trash, I say, "This is God's paper."

Beatriz was well enuf to join us. She did two big things in one day... met a friend for lunch. They ate at Marco Polo in Elkins Park.  I pretended I had heard of it. Have you? Okay to pretend.

BLOWFLIES ARE POLLINATORS TOO  


Not to be confused with rock band Hootie and the Blowfish. 

"They deposit their eggs in carcasses or carrion in open sores and wounds."

Imagine all the battlefields they've visited and propagated in. While the men are dying, the blowflies are making babies. 

*

Linda brought a new story which the group enjoyed.

She sewed me a pillow from the Pennypack Trust Creek Cleanup Shirt. I make rags out of mine.

*

Bob, who didn't want his picture taken, wrote an untitled piece about a talented 23-yo woman Zina, who died at 23. In the piece, Bob said that, like the iconic Zina, he also suffers from Creative Compulsion Condition.

So do all the writers in our group. And all over the world.

To write, says Marf, is to breathe.

*

"Me, Too!" is a poem Martha wrote last night.

It just came to her. She was leafing thru her photo albums and saw her friend Ruthie, her absy best friend who died a few years ago, after a two-year bout with Parkinson's diz.

Whenever something bad happened to Marf, she'd call Ruthie who would comfort her by saying, "Me, too."

*

I'll print my two difficult-to-write poems at the end. Wonder if I can make em any better.

*


Ran into Maurizio Giammarco, filmmaker, director and discussion leader at our library movie afternoon. He'll write an article for the next issue of the Compass.

Am trying to get up my nerve to ask Bill Wunder to write something. I just saw him and Lynn Levin at a poetry reading.

Oh, that's right! I wanna have a special poetry section. I wrote all this out on a STORYBOARD.

*

ELEGY FOR MY CONTACT LENSES

Worn from 1962 until 2014

Life’s a blur
blue catseye glasses
fixed that
then as a teenager, on
to newly invented contacts
whose intimate loving
embrace with the iris
made the world anew

These little slabs of
plastic, see-through
like the white slip of
Maggie the Cat
bore me up to the
golden hills of Vermont
where Wendy and I
sunbathed in the nude
until the farmer in overalls
asked us to leave his cow pasture
those damn Goddard brats

And so it went. Every night
the ritual: soak the lenses
in a warm bath of water
insert in the morning
-two thousand three hundred
seventeen times –
until little puffs back of the eye
put a halt to the
sacred process.

I lay on a gurney
in the hands of Dr Clark
as he slid “lens inserts”
in the back of my eyes
“Focus on the colors”
he said as the royal blue
exhibited itself like a
million dollar
Mondrian print
and I flashed back to
Cleveland when I
played hockey in a
gym suit that color
Ground sticks! Ground sticks!
Go!

What shall I do now with
the paraphernalia of my
lens-wearing days?
With the white plastic eye case
with two deep holes
the soaking lotion, wetting
and cleansing solution
all the once-unfamiliar names
becoming over time best buddies
best friends

Shall I dig a hole in the
back yard and bury them
the way I did my turtles
back in Ohio?

Or, with a plunk, shall I
deposit them in the
Recyclables, then hide
my eyes, when the
trash men come ‘round
next Thursday?


SILVER NAIL POLISH

My silver nails and the
Marine Corps decal serve
as mirrors if you lack one
The recruiting station is
five doors down from the
nail salon
Robert, the owner, with a
beauty mark on his neck
his wife must kiss, left China
yearning for freedom.

He can’t explain the meaning
of freedom as almond-eyed
Angel chides me: Keep my
hands still when I dry the
polish before the tiny fan
on the table top
made in China, I suppose.

Go to school? I ask.
Too late, she says. Married.
Kids. Walking with Batman
back packs to school in
The Northeast.

Life, the same everywhere.

The swimsuit beauties in
Sports Illustrated – how they
make us swoon and jealous –
present themselves in poses
unimaginable for the stuck-at-
home matrons

But I, like the Sports Illustrated beauties, pose
my silver fingers in every position I can think of,
like Danny when he first discovered his hands
were attached to his body and smiled at
his discovery.

Opening my eyes in the morning
silver fingers the first thing I see
I am home
I am free
I am silver.