Writers' Group follows ND special event - Yoga - Poem: Crane Fly

      Lisa of New Directions guided us in yoga. We met in the huge classroom upstairs. Feels great to  s t r e t c h.

At the end of the hour-long session, Lisa asked us how we were feeling at the moment. I thought that was pretty cool.

Then it was downstairs into the cafe for our Writers' Group. Great turnout. Linda Barrett had to work. She's working on a clever story called The New Toy.

Tiny Lemuel Gulliver, who shrank, is some kids' new toy.

Carly went first. Like me, she works on her new story up till the moment we leave for the Giant.

 The Blue Notebook was what you might call a 'memoir excerpt.' She found the notebook, which she's holding up, when she and Chaz moved into Gloria Dei Apartments, where they both work as night managers.

She also dug up the below photo of sister Joan - 8 years her senior - who's holding little Carlana.

Floyd said Eight years between sibs is kind of strange. Good call Floyd. Both Carly and Joan have the same mum but different dads.

In her piece, Carly mentioned she envied her sister for traveling around the country and also for riding in a ragtop Mercedes.

Ragtop? I asked.

Just as it sounds, said the group. A convertible.

Carly also said the name "Joan" can be pronounced "Joann."

No way, we shouted. No way. I personally was so offended I took off my shoe, which happened to be a clog, and banged it on the table a la


The late Nikita's son, Sergei, lives and teaches in the USA.

Martha wrote a soulful poem called The Child in Church. She's grateful that her granddaughter attends church with her.

But, as a teenager, it's hard for her to sit throughout the entire service, "rising insouciantly for worship"

The poet wonders what her g'tr is thinking: well, boys, of course; and the mall and catching up on her homework.

And a "mucousy old man" is talking.

Somewhere in the poem a certain kind of napkin - daisy hanky - is being fashioned during the church service by Martha's late mother.

Implication being: while we're listening, we're also keeping our hands busy. And hopefully not our mouths, but, yes, that also happens.

Carly told a story that back in her home state of California, a man wanted to marry her. She said I'll consider it if you can go to church and stay awake during the entire sermon.

He sat in a different part of the church than Carly yet his snoring could be heard all over.
I myself closed my eyes toward the end of the seemingly endless, violent, bloody, fascinating 2015 film directed by Clint Eastwood.

Open your eyes and watch, I told myself, or you won't know what happens. Well, most folks do know what happens, but you wanna see how it plays out.

Martha and husband Dave will BBQ outside tonite. They do it every single day in the summer season. I mentioned this to Scott during naptime.

Too much trouble, he said, taking all the equipment outside. The boy's got a point.

Floyd wore his George Washington wig to the group.

He just has a great head of hair. And Kym, next to him, is growing hers out since her cancer treatments.

He honored me by asking me to read aloud FISH STORY.

I done did a good job. Why?

Bc in the kitchen my audio book is The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich and in the car a Catherine Coulter crime-thriller.

So I've got my role models.

THE FISH was a terrific story about five old friends: Jack, Barney, Bruce, Ray and Ed. They play golf and are hot and sweaty, then hop into a 1973 white Cadillac

    with old-fashioned seats where you gotta crawl over each other - dat right? - and the one dude needs to take a leak so he stops at a McDonald's and comes out with

   sure smells up the car and it makes one of the good ole boys barf.

Although Beatriz didn't dazzle us with any pollinator stories, she always gives good comments. Probably the severe heat and effects of her chemo made her too tired to write, but we were shore glad to see her.

On Facebook, I sent her a photo of this crumpled up insect and she identified it

Dead. Looks like an airplane and why not? They were the first to learn to fly. Perhaps I should christen him Orville.

Anyway, I knew this was the subject for a poem.

I debated over and over whether to write my version of the story of a psychiatrist who was on the Board of New Directions who was convicted on groping and fondling his young patients and sentenced to 7 to 17 in a state prison.

In my version, Dr. William Connolly is a beloved family physician and is locked up in
Looks like the Michener Museum, which used to be a prison.

Floyd took a quick look at it - folks will critique it in the privacy of their own homes - and then get back to me.

YOU MEAN YOU WROTE IT IN THE FIRST PERSON!!!! he said.

Well, yeah, I said.

You got into the guy's head?

Sure, I said. Anyone with imagination can do dat.

They disagreed. Marf said b/c I'm a psychotherapist I have more of an ability to do so.

I suppose they're right.

Wrote it this morning after I had my two eggs with jalapeno green sauce sprinkled on.

The story just rolled with ease. I could not believe it. I had been terrified to work on it. Words came pouring out. So far, it's five pages. Wanted to include a description of the doctor getting beat up "out in the yard."  Thanks to one of my readers - JJ - who pointed out that's what it's called. I'd used the term court yard.

In the crime-thriller I listen to in the car, there's a lot of physical fighting, including a split lip.

I told the Writers I had lost the ability to write poetry. Worked on a poem called In My Upstairs Office and got absolutely no where.

Marf reassured me that I was consumed with other things - my Inmate story - which helped. And Beatriz said, after we read and critiqued it, that it's one of my best;  philosophical, she said.

ONE QUICK THING. My last blog post drew 174 readers. I have no idea where all these people came from. Let's see how many readers I get here. Average is between 25 and 50.

THE CRANE FLY

On my white windowsill

among dainty tea cups,

a ceramic bird house, a

blue and white vase from France,

lies something dead.

As he flew past, for it is an insect,

was he dazzled by these objets

d’art as he sought to free himself

from the confines of the house

They do fly into windows, you know,

my home is their prison, and they

long for freedom.

The crane fly is a beauty

has he procreated already?

He lies folded up like a

marionette, diaphanous

wings at rest. His body

so slender you wonder how

all the parts fit inside.

What purpose have I

here on this earth? To

eat mulberries as they

fall from the tree?
The crane fly eats too:

algae, smaller insects,

and lays its eggs upon

the water.

The burial is formal.

I carry him outside on

a white paper napkin

hold it up in the air

on this clear day in June

and let the wind take him

where it will. 

In a moment

he is gone, sunk on the

green grass where he

becomes one with

the earth, his

duty done.