Writers' Group draws Five Diehards - Two new poems: If I Could - The Peace Garden

Are your windows closed? 100 percent chance of rain this evening. Ah, the rain just started... 1028 pm.
  From Genius.com

 Was good to see Allan Heller. On a single sheet of typewritten paper - front and back - he wrote two short stories, called "flash fiction."

"Where There's One" is about r-ts in the attic.

Religious Jews write God this way:  G-d.

Rat-haters write it this way:  r-t.

A great little story. He didn't see Willard, he said. But, we'll see some of right now.

Hide your eyes, boys n girls.



Watch the whole 90-min film on YouTube.

Thanks, Ruthie, I just may do dat.

Allan's second flash was "Pal's Ticket" about a guy who has an amazing ability to win the lottery. Coincidentally, there are a lot of home invasions near the homes of ticket winners.

Allan's goal - and we all should have goals - what are yours, Dear Reader - is to write 75 flash ficcions (is that correct, Allan?) and then publish them all in a book.

He's up to 47.

He mentioned a huge lottery ticket winner. Linda S. not only won $5,000 but she herself was huge, that awful word 'morbidly obese' plus she smoked. When Allan saw his doctor, he idly asked, "How's Linda doing?"

Dead, said the doc.  Massive heart attack at 42. She had the bad luck of not living long enuf to enjoy her good luck. 

Allan was sorry he missed Donna's housewarming party with its great food. Ruthie! Is that all you think about is food? Yes, and I'm eating my nuts n pretzels as I write.

Donna read a lovely poem about her new life with Denny. Her imagery was new for her.... a grandfather clock, peacocks and a Ferris wheel.

Until 2006, the London "Eye" was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world.

In Donna's metaphor, the Ferris wheel riders who are dropped off at the bottom are at the end of the ride, the end of their l-ves. (The hyphen is for people who hate thinking of mortality.)
Here's Denny Morrow with his fu-manchu mustache, which hides some fallin-off-the-motorcycle scars.

 Donna used a lovely font.

Linda wrote the next poem for Donna.

Title: Two Hearts Beating as One: Fibonacci Poem.

What? She said when we took our Poetry Class with Lynn Levin she bought Lynn's book of prompts which also told of different types of poems. Read a Fib poem. 

Allan, who never fibs, told us he wanted to take Lynn's class but there were too many lines.

We all wished Allan a Happy Fiftieth b'day. Linda, wearing the Giant green, had just gotten off work. We all liked her poem for Donna.

"Thrifty Flowers" was Beatriz's selection. She wasn't sure she could make the group, since her chemo has her weak much of the day. But - yay - she managed to make it.

Nature doesn't like waste. Nature is thrifty. Excerpts from B's fascinating piece:

The less pollen needed, the more energy is left for other functions. Flowers resort to several strategies to economize on pollen. Some use a method called "explosive pollination, others resort of buzz pollination.

"Both methods are well illustrated by official state flowers."

  I'll tell you right now. If I were a bee, I'd stick my proboscis deep into the center.

But wait! Here's what B has to say about this. A new honeybee steps into the flower and gets pounced about, so it learns to come in the side door.

At home I was freezing, working on my poems by the fan, so I put on my warm socks, which I wore to the group.

Got 10 pages done of my Inmate Story. Here's a priceless comment by Linda: "Is this guy a scumbag or what?"

Wrote two poems, which I'll edit right now as I post. 


IF I COULD

I would lie on my red living room couch
my thick black socks warming my feet
and watch Charlie Rose interview Putin
who tells lies from his sweet rosebud lips

The cool breeze from the screen door
would rustle my coconut-white hair
and I’d lift another handful of nuts
from the unbreakable bowl which later
topples to the floor
a Little Dipper miming the
big one in the sky

Voices of children rise like
birds at daybreak sifting
through my screen door like
notes on the piano

Every morning in bed
upstairs in my newly painted
pink bedroom, a symphony of
birds exalts from places unseen
I lie there and listen
feeling every part of my body
wiggling my legs and realizing
I’m in no pain. The surgery,
my resurrection.

Will birds enter the kingdom of
heaven? Will I? A good opportunity
to pray, I think, but the words
won’t come out. I’m done with
such nonsense.

Five books need reading. Their
words await me silently in my
upstairs bed. Imagine them
all spinning upwards in a rage of
letters – the A’s, the C’s, the
Th’s – up they go to the
ceiling fan,filling every
corner, stopping only at the
window screens.


Kent Haruf, dead at
seventy-one of interstitial lung
cancer, has crafted a book about
two elders – good word, that! – each
has lost a spouse. The woman goes
over and asks, Will you come to my
house to sleep with me. I need
someone to talk to.

Are you like that? All habit.
When I read Haruf or J.F. Powers
who writes of Catholic concerns,
the radio is off. The huge old-fashioned
fan makes curls in my hair and flutters
my white nightgown, as I feel the
remains of my body, it needs
loving, too. The belly thick with
eggplant, salad with home-grown
oregano, pretzels with salt but no
sugar and a jar’s equivalent of
nuts.

I knead that big belly, remembering
it once held babies. Where are they
now? the one, a rootless fruit of my
womb, the other, attached to his
family, a swelling peach on a tree.

***
THE PEACE GARDEN

On Marlindale she’d be
out in the garden, a small
straight-spined woman with
tiny feet, digging.

I began to hate her
when the beatings
began, knowing, for
all eternity, I was
good inside.

She was my
grandmother who
in later years would
go loco with dementia.
I’d drive her to the
perfume counter at
Macy’s where her
words wouldn’t
come out, only
utterances like
the sound of
magpies.

When I bought my house
I, too, became a
gardener, would squat down
in the earth – our thighs
were horse-strong – each
had birthed two babes
I tried not to think of her
as, cup of coffee in hand – we both
love strong dark black -
as I inspect the troops.

Red poppies I discovered
while walking around the
block at the mental health
agency where clients cried
as I cried with them, finding
solace in walks at happy
places. A black-haired
Asian woman gave me
tiny black seeds
which took, but my gardener
thought them weeds and
razed them down.

The new ones I’ve bought
salute me, as we both
await their appearance
in pink.

The white poppies from
seed open their bonnet
faces, two of them, and
pray to the sun. How can
I show my love?
By looking.

Scarlet pimpernel arrives
just in time. I was filled with
despair at the rioting crabgrass
but the sweet orange faces of
tiny pimpernel made the crabgrass
less crabby.

Bugs abound among the flowers.
What better way to show their
love. I close my eyes and take
the plunge. Tickly crabgrass
kissable faces of purple pansy
white poppy and tiny pimpernel
the pink spikes on the Italian
Heather pierce my nostrils
and make me sneeze
the flowers flutter with
my breath.

I have changed
their ephemeral lives for
the spell of a breath
and made peace with that
grandmother of mine, dead,
with no brain left, at
ninety-eight. Buried, with
full honors in Cleveland.
I was the only one of six she beat.