Full house at our Writers' Group - "The Hellion" gets a head start on his novel - Two new poems Trending Now on Facebook - Rushing Waters

Carly, who just returned from a two-week vaca in Chicago - "The Second City" - and is the night manager at Gloria Dei Farms brought along the delightful Ginny Kulafar (Serbian name of her late husband), who loves her place at Gloria Dei.

Ginny, born in 1924, so she's 91, had an almost eidetic memory of her life and little-known facts. As I said during the group when I used the word "peripatetic" to describe a Ferris Wheel that makes a circuit around the world, the only way I get to use these big words is at our Writers' Group.

I am not a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, as is the great T Correghessan Boyle!

Let's focus on Ginny a bit. She and her family lived on a farm in Wisconsin, where the temps got to below zero. She was the only girl and loved milking some of the 26 moo-cows in the barn.

She'd bury her head in the soft warm flanks as she squirted the milk in the pail. If the cat came by, she'd squirt some his way.

What a feeling of contentment, she said.

She's always loved trees. In the Gloria Bee, the newsletter of the facility, she's had numerous poems published about trees.

When she was quite young, her teacher read the class Joyce Kilmer's poem,

Trees

By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

<>

From that time forward she wrote her own poetry about Trees. Allan Heller said he liked her rhyming stanzas.

Ginny recited a lovely tree poem she wrote at age 13.

She explained why she loves trees so much... They have different ways of bending, swaying, and what they're saying to one another. She feels like squeezing them. At home, she has favorite trees she watches.

I'll tell you.. I should drive her to Hatboro and show her some of the beautiful trees there, as well as huge ones in the parking lot at Pennypack Trust.



I'm not talking about the trees at Village Green Apartments, where I used to live. You must read this Inquirer story about it. Guess who's quoted and is still, by the grace of God, still alive!

HAPPY TREES was the title of Ginny's poem.

Ginny married a Navy man and they traveled all over the country, every single state.

Come again, we urged her.

Am listening now to Jerry Blavit's Golden Oldies on XPN.

Sha-bom-sha-bom is on now by the Flamingos from the Second City (the first Chicago burned down so the second city was rebuilt on the rubble).

Martha came equipped with hand-painted pink nails and a diamond-studded cell phone.
Her poem "The Viking Butts In" recounted a new character - the sexy well-muscled Viking - who appeared as a character in her head.

Her other people, like Lily and Bear, were not at all eager to share time with him, as they were conversing among themselves. Marf let The Viking go on for an entire hour.

Just watched these videos on the NY Times, profiling many fashion designers. Martha is hardly alone.

 I have too many ideas.

 I have too much going on in my mind.

Images like going fast, sometimes I go in bed and I cannot sleep.

 And then, it stops.

It settled on one image.

Allan, who we always remember spells his name with two A's, like Edgar Allan Poe, read us five short chapters from his first novel The Village of Blood and Stone.

He got a head-start on November is Novel-Writing Month from NaNo.  

This fantasy novel was influenced by playing Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. My kids used to play when we lived in the apartments. Allan invented the most marvelous names for his characters, all recognizable as either male or female.

He said he learns about each character each time he writes. 

Very entertaining, as our absent Floyd would say.

 
David Gilmour is touring. He's the dude on the bottom.

Okay, Barrett, you're up next. She also gets feedback at the Thursday nite Hatboro Writers' Group.

THE BRIDE OF TRAHYLEE takes place in the year 1200. Main character is Maeve. Maeve Binchy? I've never read Maeve Binchy have you? After I die and am relaxing in heaven, I'll read her oevre.

As usual, Barrett's story is highly detailed and imaginative.

I still have no idea what this guy looks like.

May I quote from Rem Murphy's poem AGENDA FOR THE NEXT MEETING ?

We'll meet next week
Near Zeta Reticuli
Fifth planet from the sun ...

They'll give you aspirin for your jet lag
A bar of soap and a tooth brush
A souvenir key chain.

OH! We loved that poem.

Aliens from space. From Zeta Reticuli.  

Rem took a cross-country trip and visited the outskirts of Roswell, N M, where he took these pix. 

Roswell, home of the Manhattan Project, which developed the US's first atom bomb, is also believed by many to be the site of a UFO crash.

Read what a skeptic has to say about it.

The late flight surgeon Jesse Marcel, Jr., said he handled debris from an otherworldly object that crash-landed near Roswell. Read all about it ladies and gentlemen. 

      It's a shame but the Earth is gonna come to an end some day. Murphy recommended this poem about it by Archibald MacLeish.
 

Okay, Carly, the laughing redhead, let's see what you've brought us today on this damp bone-chillin day. Ah, it's The Birthday Present and we like it.

Takes place in our town of Hatboro, PA at the well-appointed Hatboro Dish restaurant.

  Look! I've eaten there. The date was February 14, 2014.

Turns out it was Carly's b'day and her family was waiting for her. They opened the presents. She got a round-trip plane ticket to Chicago to see her best friend who she hadn't seen in 40 years.

Yippee!

Donna Krause, in a sparkling gray shirt, could not believe that family friend Joe is moving right next door, to the state next door, that is, to my ancestral home of

   Ohio, I will never forget its shape, just don't ask me to draw it.

Hey, let's do a little Rorschach.

What does it look like to you?

I've got my answer. A profile of a little Dutch girl in a cap.

What? You crazy girl?

SO LONG, JOE was a tribute to very nice guy, a bank robber and forger.... oh, sorry, that's another Joe, "we will save your soul and put it in our pocket" - "he lit up the Christmas tree"

Trending Now on FB needs work so I'll publish it later. Yes, I know your great disappointment. Oh, cheer up, for godssakes, it's not the end of the world.

Yet.

RUSHING WATERS

If I get home, I will

never drive in the

blinding rain again,

I told myself, just as

my friend Dave Moyer

told himself he’d never

go on another patrol

in 'Nam.

A straight road would

have been fine, but

this was as up and down

as a heart patient heading

toward flat line.

I flipped my wipers onto

highest speed, hoping they

wouldn’t fly away in the wind.

There was the same smashed

ground hog in the middle of the road,

his family still waiting underground,

as, in tune with the rhythmic

wipers, I saw my car tumbling

over onto Raytharn’s Horse

Farm, my lifeless body lifted

out. Recycle my new kidney, I

would cry if I could. My wallet

would be waterlogged but they’d

notify the next of kin.

Strangers will handle my

body. Perhaps I should get

a tattoo “Handle with Care.”

My belly looks slender in

the lying-down position. Would

I mind a necrophiliac at the

mortuary? Polka-dots line

my arms, belly, and thighs.

Diabetes pokes.

Heat pours through the vents

of my car. I’m sweating, too hot,

but can’t “Braille” my way

to the levers. Without warning, a

silver car passes my turtlesome

pace. Silver, shooting like

a meteor past me. I am

mortified. How dare he!

Meadowbrook

Edgehill

Overlook

Grayhorse

The streets are calm and tranquil

unlike my own grim self,

gripping the wheel

as if it would unscrew itself.

Finally, Cowbell Road. 

After pulling in the drive,

I sit and finish listening

to “The Troubled Man,"

by Henning Mankell.

His cancer has been
arrested by modern medicine
and for certain, though it gets
closer every day, I no longer
listen for the alarm bell.

 

TRENDING NOW ON FACEBOOK

A hurricane named Joaquin is trending

on Facebook as is the latest college shooting

in Oregon with a native American name that

sounds like “oompah.”

The shooter was a lonely young man

who may not have been acting alone.

You remember the famed Chief Joseph

who led the Nez Perce on a trail of

tears? The soul of this honored warrior

with white beads around his neck remains

restless as he lies, tears falling, somewhere

beyond the clouds. The Great Spirit is

a vengeful god, like our Yahweh, and

Joseph’s tears combust into more

killing of innocents – promiscuous

in their nature – shocking the

populace. One thing you and I can do

is to gather the fallen acorns of autumn,

bring them inside, roll them around in your

hands, bring them to the soft place above

your lips and place them on your mantel.

Trending now on Facebook is

the conversation Mom and I

had last night. She can’t remember

if she had a mortgage on her house

or paid cash. “Is that bad I can’t

remember?”  “No,” I say quickly,

“it was a long time ago.”  

Living like a movie star in her

bed half the day, she tells me

the pleasure she got from reading

receipts from this once-new house.

They paid a cool seventy grand

and over six hundred

– she had remembered

only five – for light switches

in all the closets.

My throat always tightens when

I speak to her. Damn if I can

think of things to say. Sometimes

I outright quote my blog. Silence

was my fortress against her

while growing up. She was not

what you call an “empath”

though now she could be the

poster child. Not could be,

is, wailing inside for the

fate of everyone she knows.