Writer's Group - We Learned a lot today - Dinner at Dan n Nicole - My revised poem: 3211 and my Husband Poem

Both Floyd and Carly are hard of hearing. They're very familiar with procedures that can restore part of their hearing.

Carly's piece No Devices talked about surgery she will have at Temple University to restore part of her hearing. She showed us her hearing aid. I never knew she wore one. She usually does not. It squeaks and gives terrible feedback. We discussed the tremendous expense of hearing aids, which, shockingly, are not covered by insurance!

If Floyd wishes, his hearing can be restored by an implant in his brain. He'd rather wear hearing aids than get his skull trepanned.



Floyd emailed us a short story about the first date of a man and woman. The man was quite obnoxious and the reader was waiting for his date to realize it.

Finally she excused herself and said she had to powder her nose in the restroom.

She never returned. Floyd reassured us the man was not him, but was someone he knew. We wrote back that's the beauty of being a narrator. You can be any ole jerk you want.

Martha, a seamstress, wore one of her own creations, a blouse showing the map of the world as it stretched from shoulder to shoulder, neck to waist.

Her excellent poem This Old House was written when a new tenant moved into the bottom floor of the three-story house where she and husband David live.

We loved lines like "wounded walls" and "I hear the echoes of loved ones long gone from these rooms."

This is just a sensational poem.

I appreciate Carly reviewing all 20 pages of my new version of "Keeper of the Keys," a creative nonfiction work about my bipolar d/o.

It begins with a true story about wanting to kill myself. Larry Schwartz took me off lithium w/o weaning me off, producing intense urges to die.

My story tells what I did to survive these horrific urges to do away with myself. Am gonna try and get it published here.

Deadline is Feb. 6 and word count is 4,500.

I'm about 800 words over. 

Carly and Floyd gave me suggestions of where to cut my story.

My bro/law Dave Deming from TX is spending a week with his northern relatives. He's working on a second master's - the first is in history - this one is for vocational rehab for disabled individuals, specifically autistic young adults.

Here's Dave when we ate at Dan n Nicole's last nite. He got on well with the little darlings

Dan said Max was terrified at first by the bath toy which lights up.

He's made peace with it now.

Nicole made her incredible Baked Ziti. I had three helpings and I wonder why I can't lose weight.

When David and I went to the front door to let ourselves out, a happy surprise greeted us. Little Max walked into the living room/foyer to bid us good night.

When we talked about what I might omit in my Keeper of the Keys story, I told Carly and Floyd there's a term for removing things you absolutely love in your piece:  Killing your darlings. 

Did David Simpson teach me that? Oh no! He's been diagnosed with ALS.

I'll have to write him a letter. I studied with David for a while. Over the phone. He was the Montgomery County Poet Laureate of 2007. 

David sitting atop the arm of the bench. I think that's his twin bro Dan.

I read the Writer's Group my 'husband' poem. It's quite sad.

WE REMEMBER OUR HUSBANDS WHEN THEY DIE

When you were my husband, Millard,
I tried to love you
but failed
there wasn’t much to love
other than your chinese eyes the color of
far-off rivers I never got to see
or your soft long-fingered hands
you balled up in fists to pound the table
when your billfold went missing

I thought the art class might cure you
from some of your misery
we hung up the charcoal nudes over my typewriter
but you refused to believe they were any good
maybe they looked too much like me

when you died last week
I went upstairs and took out the suit jacket
you left here last year
examined it for traces of the man you grew into

without me

the pockets were empty
the label read Bobzien’s of
Oklahoma City
my fingers searched
hungrily for any trace of you
so I could love you:
the mark of a pen
a business card in your pocket

I must content myself with a
few white hairs fallen on your back
I love you not enough to
bury my cheek in your sleeve
as I remember our wedding day
August 13
your suit, smaller then
lightweight
surrounding a flamingo pink shirt
hiding your smooth hairless chest.

*

This evening we had our farewell dinner for Uncle Dave, who is 59 years old. He'll leave for Houston in the morning.

As I wrote about him on FB, he is smart, funny, unpretentious, shares the same values as I do, and is a good caring person. He took c/o his mom for many years as she slipped into Alzheimer's.

He said the drugs Aricept and Nemenda combined slowed the advance of the disease. A guy in New Directions, deceased now, took Nemenda for OCD.

At dinner, I mentioned the "3211" blouse and mom remembered it. I fixed my poem in accordance with her memories.

My dad worked at Majestic Specialties, Inc. in Cleveland. He was the manager.

THIRTY-TWO-ELEVEN

Driving along the backstreets

a mailbox cries out “411”

I know that number, I think,

turning the ancient engines of

my mind

It is not really the “411”

but another numeral from

the days of my frolicsome

girlhood, when tragedy was

found only in the novels

I read: Quo Vadis or The Bridge of San

Luis Rey. When the bridge gives way

they tumble into the sea,

flailing like silver coins

about to go under.

Worked at Dad’s women’s

clothing warehouse

on Superior Avenue in Cleveland

never knowing I’d age and father,

my father, would die – what happened to

the others? Numerous as the

leaves on my backyard maple –

to them I send my fond regards

as I sip on black coffee from Haiti.

It was “3211” that made our company

famous, the simple button-down blouse

with collar, and roll-up sleeves,

secured with a another white button

that appeared in department stores from Maine to

California. Available only in white,

mine was special-ordered,

monogrammed with RZG in orange –

do they even manufacture these anymore?

Will God forgive me for loving this

blouse with all my heart?

Revering a simple white cotton blouse

with white buttons

and a monogram

that proclaimed to the world -

in a bright orange color

like the tabby cat who

runs through my back yard

fifty years later stalking mice –

proclaimed to the world

I exist.