Outtakes - Or things that didn't fit - Two poems: Getting Ready for the Arts Fest and Missing without a Trace

Cynthia Marcolina paid me a great compliment: You're our Muse, she wrote me. Cyn had been a prolific poet. I was doing the Compass and wrote her, Send me some new poems.

She said she hadn't written any. I was shocked. She was working as a counselor on the night shift.

Then suddenly six weeks ago, she goes on a writing jag. Keeps sending me new and terrific poems.

 ***

When I finished blogging about the Arts Fest I went to bed and collapsed with fatigue.

My right arm was killing me. Hannah, the pharmacist, gave me a flu shot. Scott noticed it was covered over with a band-aid that read "Giant."

At first we were gonna do my left arm. Hannah noticed several black n blue marks on there. Why, she wanted to know.

Oh, I said, that's one of the places where I shoot up.

Are you allowed to do dat, she asked.

Allowed? Told her I do it in a fleshy place where it doesn't hurt.

When she first proposed I get my shot I thought, How can I do it on the same day as the Arts Fest? Seemed incongruous.

***

For the show, I was gonna do a monologue about the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse. This is when the moon covers the sun and casts a shadow on the earth. I typed it up and brought it but there wasn't time to do it.

I'll print it here plus two other poems I didn't have time for. You always bring more than you can do rather than less.

***

Did I tell you this upstairs computer is on its last legs? My friend Freda originally gave it to me.

***

EIGHT DAYS until the day of the eclipse.

Millions of Americans will witness the moon moving in between the Earth and the sun to create a total solar eclipse. This spectacular phenomenon occurs when the sun, the moon, and the Earth line up in a row, causing the moon to cast a shadow over the planet.

Although total solar eclipses occur every 18 months on average, this event marks the first total solar eclipse to occur in the continental U.S. since 1979.



1979.  What happened in 1979. I did a search and came up w moderately interesting things like:

January 26 – The Dukes of Hazzard debuts on CBS.

February 26

    A total solar eclipse, the last visible from the continental United States until 2017, arcs over northern coterminous USA and southeastern Canada ending in Greenland.

March 4 – The U.S. Voyager 1 spaceprobe photos reveal Jupiter's rings.
March 5 – Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter at 172,000 miles.


June – McDonald's introduces the Happy Meal.


September 16 – Two families flee from East Germany by balloon.


The observing path will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun's disk.

GETTING READY FOR OUR ARTS FEST

Vacuum the living room,
Do back exercises, go outside
to say hello to the black-eyed
susans, listen to audio book
Selected Works of Roald Dahl
read by the author

Red Garland's on the radio
bee bop? Can I remove my
clogs and sail round
the room?

I can. And did.
Leslie Caron I'm not
dancing with Daddy
Long Legs, Fred Astaire.

Clipboard at the ready.
A regular Bob Fosse
Or back at Bristol-
Bensalem calling up
my clients into my office.

Did I tell you the place
is gone? Memories, tho.
Those iris in my backyard
from Wankel's Nursery.

I found the word "surrender"
on the side of my fridge.
Ed gave it to me. I fondled
it with the back of my
finger.

I surrender. Whoever will be
there today will be there.

 ***



WITHOUT A TRACE

My new favorite series I watch
until I'm goggle-eyed played
itself out this morning as
I returned my library materials

Left notes on the audio book
SHILOH: Two last discs have
so many scratches you can
hardly hear it!

WITHOUT A TRACE: Last three
discs are inaudible.

Then, leaving my car
by the door - the library
opens at one - I walked
around the block.

Tottering in my
brown clogs with
turquoise splats
from painting
the hubcaps in my front yard

I walked down Center Ave.
Nice houses with front
porches and chimes that
jangled in the breeze.

"You must remember
where you are," I said
to myself. "You've got
an occasion later today."

Wide-faced Anthony LaPaglia was
assigned to my case. Sarcastic
and vindictive, he joked to
a colleague about all the
Dairy Queen spoons on the
kitchen window sill.

What worries me, though,
is I am still missing.
Hurry, FBI agents, I have
an occasion this afternoon,
12:30 sharp.