Writers' Group Meets at 4 pm with the Fab Four!!! - Two new poems: The Birthday - I'm Sick of it All

Floyd made a heroic effort to get here at 4 pm. We had read his short story online about his days when he was a supervisor at a huge plant and was responsible to discipline misbehaving employees.

He kept a diary when he worked there - for 28 years.

He's turning these stories into a memoir. But only of his work life, not his personal life.

They is good!

The stories just flow, he said. Once he begins, they take on a life of their own.

Not easy, he said, writing interesting prose about a civil engineer - his job. Remember, he told us, a civil engineer designs things for a better civilization: bridges, roads, sewers, water systems, you name it.

 This shiny blurry object is a coffee brewer, made by Brasilia. Read shocking news about it here.  

I ordered a glass of ice water from Tiara, a new gal, whose tiara was a black Giant cap.

While we were chatting, Beatriz read the first graf of Carly's story and pronounced it wonderful, as did Marf. Carly and Marf bumped into each other at the Giant - Ladies and Gentlemen! Meet your friends, your neighbors, your enemies at the Willow Grove Giant.

Marf, too, was impressed, she wrote in an email.

  Allan Heller called to say he missed us and would be there at our next meeting.

Am I his official photographer?

 
Carly's fictitious story was about family relationships. She wrote it 'blind,' meaning she had no idea what was going to happen to the characters.

This is both exciting and scary as hell.

It makes use of Carly's life in the San Jacinta Valley near Palm Springs CA. The main character, Judge Jackie G, travels out there to see her mom, whom we learn is in a "nut house."

I was gonna say "insane asylum" but Floyd said it was a "nut house," a much better word. "Psychiatric hospital" is too refined.

We talked about



In fact, I was on the phone with Mom and told her about the rising moon. She was in bed and couldn't see it so I described it for her, just like I'll describe the moon RIGHT NOW for you.

Yes, I'm a watcher of the Moon.

"Light me up in moonbeams," I say as I go out on my front porch to greet it.

My sister Donna is also a big fan of the moon.

Hard to make out.... a creamy white color... makes you feel like it's a baseball and you'll catch it in your mitt.

Always good to see Beatriz!

I'm wearing the very same pink sundress as Jenna Fitzpatrick, MD, main character is my story The Doctor in the Bikini.

Thanks to Marcy and Scott for giving it good reviews. I finished it and am ready to submit it, god knows where.

Oh, maybe a medical journal. She's a shrink with a sex addiction.

When I walked Scott to the train station tonite he said he liked it bc he wanted to see what would happen. It was unpredictable.

Like Carly's story, I wrote it 'blind' but the words just came to me. I had to pace myself bc I had some difficult scenes and had to get in the mood to write them.

Father McGarry - where'd that name come from - visits the young Jenna's home to confront her parents. The dad, originally from County Cork, beats the shit out of his kids. 

McGarry comes up with an amazing thing to tell Sterling Fitzpatrick.

While at table, I took my sugar.

56.

Beatriz gave me some candies and I reached into pocketbook for my protein bar.

When we left, I bought some General Tso Chicken from the Chinese booth

Delicious! I said to the woman who served me.

Natch, when I got home I couldn't stop eating it, so I walked Scott to the train station to work off my 176 sugar points.


When I walked home by myself I saw a house being refurbished. Gotta remember the address, I said, estimating it to be 528. Am walking along saying 528 528 how'm I gonna remember this and remember that my sister Ellen was born on 5-28.

Here's the houses... apartments.

Forget it.... Blogspot is making trouble.

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Breasts grow bigger with age

we agree, one of many things

we talk about at the kitchen

table with the faux chicken liver

nearly gone. No one can guess

that cashews and green beans

account for the taste. Mom,

nearing ninety-five, is it? has

forced her shutting-down

body to make it. The woman

has everything – family, friends,

Ron and Hildegunde, servants

like Ellen who do her bidding –

everything but her legs which

used to command a tennis racket.

We don’t cry over the past. Miles

eyes framed in black glasses and

Veronica in a purple sundress will

travel to her country of Columbia

during Christmas. Her family hails

from a modern city, too civilized,

she says, for El Chapo to hide there.

He’s running his drug emorium from

the hills.

Ah mescaline! Mom’s antibiotics

made her see patterns. Hands went

up around the table over who used

it. There wasn’t time to describe the

trip I had in the rolling hills of Goddard

College, the three of us walked into the

unlocked library, with its red carpet. I

stole a book, then mailed it back later

that year.

Would it be a lie – or my imagination –

if I told you El Chapo Joaquin Guzman

has tunneled his way into my house?

At sixty, we are almost compatriots. He

sleeps on the husband’s side of the bed

in his black Hanes briefs, tapping me

when I begin to snore. We love the

same TV shows – Mad Men and X-Files.

I won’t let him smoke in the house

so he goes on the screened-in back porch

and lights up the night with his

Spanish Galleon cigars. He has a

loving heart and sends me to

the mall to buy gifts for his

mother, a few former lovers,

and tells me: Someday, Amor Mio,

I will buy you a ring.

He is not to know - and don't

betray me - but when I am through

with him, I will turn

him in the everlovin’

Bastardo.  

 

***

I’M SICK OF IT ALL

Finding the plumpest cherries

at the grocery store, the firmest

peaches, the freshest baby

spinach, then being asked if I

have my bonus card, and

carrying my canvas bag to

the car, windows wide open

to catch the summer breeze

I am sick of it all. 

How I long to escape!

They’d miss me

for a few months, and then

I’d be as forgotten as the

red and gold maple leaf

making its early descent.

From the ATM, I’d take a

bundle of twenties, and

ride the train all the way

to Cleveland, my old home

town. Aunt Selma’s house is

empty, since she moved in

with her daughter.

I’d break through the back door

in the middle of the night, holding

my purple flashlight, and find my

way to the living room. There I’d

spend the night on the fuzzy

gray davenport.

Do you need help? I’d ask at

one of the Jewish bakeries

that are still left. I’d move

around, my apron caked with

flour, in an aroma of

coconut cakes, pecan tarts,

and fresh-baked challah. My

hair would again be black

and they would call me

“Rifka” my Hebrew name.

I’d be young again

free

unencumbered

and spend my nights on

the screened-in back porch with

the rickety steps

staring up at the stars.