Hello Brandi Carlile - Poems - Driving Home from the Party - Eating at the Hatboro Dish - SPLAT published in Mad Swirl

A couple things.



Just woke up to the sounds of Brandi Carlile doing THE JOKE. She is good! "Robert Drake is my name," said the announcer. So I ran to my computer and found the official video. Here tis.

Dig the faces in the film.

Lyrics:

You're feeling nervous, aren't you, boy?
With your quiet voice and impeccable style
Don't ever let them steal your joy
And your gentle ways, to keep 'em from running wild
They can kick dirt in your face
Dress you down, and tell you that your place
Is in the middle, when they hate the way you shine
I see you tugging on your shirt
Trying to hide inside of it and hide how much it hurts

Let 'em live while they can
Let 'em spin, let 'em scatter in the wind
I have been to the movies, I've seen how it ends
And the joke's on them

You get discouraged, don't you, girl?
It's your brother's world for a while longer
We gotta dance with the devil on a river
To beat the stream
Call it living the dream, call it kicking the ladder
They come to kick dirt in your face
To call…

DRIVING HOME FROM THE PARTY (Nicole Deming's 40th)

Vanessa Collier is hollering on XPN
"Sweat like a pig, sing like an angel,"
my hands hard on the wheel
roads are wobbly in these parts
can't figure out why

The long winter's toll and slabs of
asphalt patching up the road
makes us drive like a scary sleighride

A family of five wishes to cross
the street. Mom's got the two-year-old
slung like a watermelon on her hip
Tall dad's looking back and forth
waiting for an opening the way
a ship waits for the drawbridge
to rise up

Three kids trusting their elders
positions they will someday assume
as I float on by like a swan
on a stream.

***


EATING AT THE HATBORO DISH

Walking in a fog of heat and sweat
I opened the heavy door and stepped
right in. The Dish was mobbed. I
pointed to the tables by the window
and sat myself down.

Jen, with a long braid down her back,
looked like an Ingmar Bergman character,
was very solicitous as she poured
me my black coffee, and plopped an ice water
down. With a straw.

A blue-eyed man with a "Gulf of Tonkin"
T-shirt, called women "sweetheart,"
and sat with some croneys, as I thought,
just what I don't wanna think about,
the ruination of a beautiful country.

Just as ours, too, is being ruined.

Quiet, girl, I thought, and open your book.
Ever heard of Peter Orner? Me neither.
Or is it NITHER?

The guy's good. Read fifteen pages before
and after my breakfast, sipping coffee,
quietly, no cream, of course, and a
breakfast of a cheese omelet, taters
with salt n pepper, and some burnt
rye toast.

Loads of fatties there, my blubber
hidden beneath a voluminous dress,
no panties needed, too hot for dat,
coffee, very filling, as I watched
bellies jiggle like vibrato on
Casal's cello

What, honestly, could have been better
than sitting, alone, reading an author
who moved me to laughter in my window
seat.

***

Here's SPLAT just published by Mad Swirl.  Tyler wrote something very nice about the story. If only I can find it.

Mad Greetings, Ruth

Splat! You do have something here, an entire world. Characters with
back stories that perfectly plot the trajectory of your story. That’s
a rare thing in about 1,000 words. We can’t wait to share this madness
with our readers...

http://madswirl.com/short-stories/2018/07/splat/

...as well as see what other fiction (and poetry!) you send our way.

Tyler@MadSwirl

***

I saw two shooting stars tonight (yesterday). One while coming home from Scott's. It sailed low on the horizon in the shape of the edge of a pear.

The other I just saw when I took my evening view out the baffroom window. Odd shape, up and down, very bright.

Wrote Grace Gaga, 8, to tell her, and also to say I painted a little bed for her she can use for a doll. Did it at Second Home.

***

Back to bed now, ladies and gents. The fan be's whirring onto my bod, clad in a brown nightie w white stripes sister Donna gave me. Smells delicious as it's in a drawer with some sort of soap.




Just for the heck of it, I flashed my baffroom light on and off, on and off.

Maybe they're looking!