Finally contacted poet David Simpson - Bella Online publishes some of my work - Moses: The Making of a Man and a poem

 
 It took forever to get poet David Simpson's email address. He just sent it to me via Facebook.

I wanted to send him a poem I wrote about him.

ODE TO DAVID SIMPSON

Remember those Sunday mornings we would spend together
on the phone?
I’d met you once at the Barnes and Noble and asked you
to be my Homer, blind poet that you are, never to see
the beauty of your long gray ponytail
or the gray in your pebbled King Lear eyes.

I saw you and loved you immediately, immensely,
your court crowded round, you the
Nestor in Achilles’ tent.

You were a student of Sharon Olds and
taught me the phrase, “You’ve got to kill
off your darlings.”

Do you remember, David, the poem I wrote called
“White Eyelet Cover” about a comforter I bought
at a garage sale, and used that very day.
I am not afraid of germs. It smelled like bleach.
In my poem, I casually mention I change my
fitted sheets once every three months –
a line that aroused your interest.

You and I were on the clock, my time, a wind-up kitchen timer I
set on the carpet next to my poetry and cup of coffee,
the white porcelain cup a gift from a manic-depressive named Sue,
your gift, the sound of your voice, murmuring, like
the swell of the ocean waves at Cape May.

One morning when I said it was our last phone date, you asked
"Was it anything I did?"
"No," I said. "I just can't afford you anymore."
And killed you off, my darling.

And now, a fellow poet tells me you’ve found a girl. I’m happy
for you, David, a fifty-year-old man who never had babies.
The world, you told me, is not made for the blind.

Can you imagine the kind of love a blind poet would make? The laying
on of hands. The immense sighs.

A postscript attends this ode.
I have learned, poet Simpson,
you have just married, and have been diagnosed with one of the
dread diseases of our age.

Use your time well.  Sniff touch eat your way
through the scourge, showing
him who's still the boss.

Know that after you’re gone, my darling poet,
your memory will remain firm as my backyard maple
whose leaves lie scattered across the lawn.

Love from
Ruth Z. Deming
Willow Grove, PA
February 3, 2015

*
Dave's response:

Dear Ruth,

Thank you for the lovely poem, which I just read. With pleasure, I do remember our Sunday mornings on the phone, working on poems together. I'm glad to know you are still writing in such an open-hearted, passionate way, still in love with the earth and with life. 

I spend a lot of my time lying bed connected to a breathing machine, but this is the position in which I feel most relaxed and able to give my attention to good books, courses, and music. I'm surrounded by a lot of loving friends and family. I live a bifurcated life, at the same time living in the moment and preparing for the end.

I wish you all the best.

Very warm regards,
Dave 

*

I could not wake up this morning. Finally dragged myself out of bed at 10:30 am when I heard the mailman slushing across the yard.

Today is a day of 'caffeine rest.'

Just went for a walk around the block. Super cold!

When I went on my upstairs computer, I learned that the viewing was available for some of my work at Bella Online Literary Review.

They are one place I can usually count on to publish me.

AND they reminded us that submissions for the next issue are due this Friday!

I quickly revised and sent in "The Woman in a Coma," - basically a true story which I fictionized cuz I needed an ending - which has been rejected half a dozen times.

Bellevue Lit Review rejected it. I swore I would never submit there again. They nearly accepted my novel but did not.

The last person to reject it was by one Jack Smith of Literary Lantern. On FB, someone named Jack Williams asked to be my friend. I thought it was Jack Smith, so I accepted his friendship.

Who is Jack Williams? He never has anything interesting to say. But I do like his name and may save it for a story.

Moses: The Making of a Man uses the kitchen of my friends The Fleishers.

I should have changed the name of Mrs. Joanne Fabian, who was the liaison with my Chinese exchange student Yuan Li.

Now I can't mail it to her for fear she'll get mad.

Find Moses on this link. 

The poem "Fronts Sheered Off" is here. 

And Leaf Pickup is here.

Gonna email Leaf Pickup to the Trash people in Upper Moreland.

See if I don't!!!!!   Braggart that I am.