Friday, October 14, 2016

It's a Book! Part 2: The Book of Knots and their Untying is here--and ready for you

At last. After nine years of writing and who can say how many years of living, my first book length collection has been published by Karen Kelsay of Aldrich Press. You can get it through Amazon (click the link) or I can mail you a signed and dedicated copy. You can pay through PayPal at pieplate8@yahoo.com. btw, thanks to Lynn Maya for wearing the shoes that provided me with the cover photo.

If you wish, click on the link at the upper left, just for the hell of it, and read the truly kind and generous things that Richard Garcia, Charlotte Davidson, and, David Ebenbach have written about my poems.


Below, the title poem:

Knots and Their Untying 

See how easy others write of knots.
Books show pliant ropes
lying over and under. Loaded knots
cannot be undone by crushing.
Always the challenge, pulling against holding.  

For mathematicians there are no knots, only
the counting of loops and crossings.
All knots are Gordian, made to slice.
Knot knuckle netting knitting: 
not one related to another.
Sounds entwined
yet nothing ties the words together. 

I learned knots that would not hold
in the enduring mystery
of tying my shoes.
Others found it easy, quick.
My unclever fingers worked
to manage the weaving.
Hold pinched what you cannot see.
Pull tight, not too soon, not too slow.

Untying a knot, easy
as talking to people who do not listen.
Persuade the fold to release both parts,
though the center promises to hold forever
against tugging and anger, hunger and haste.
Each knot works to be one though it is two,
two moving back to back,
mirrored without looking,
craning to catch the other pretending to oneness.

Tie a knot for memory, to outwit
the gap between you and your desire
when it eludes you, reminds you
             it is not you     it is not yours   
You are not the string around your finger,
holding close what wants to flee.
Step out of your shoes, unbind your feet.
Time to walk away.

I am very very pleased also to note that this poem received a Special Merit award in the (prestigious) Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial poetry contest sponsored by Comstock Poetry Review. I made it to the top 10! out of more than 1000 entries!!

Monday, October 10, 2016

After the second debate. Warning: heavy irony ahead




Five reasons why I don't mind if Trumpkin gets elected:

1. His posture reminds me of a bear. That's good, right?

2. I grew up with people telling me lies that I was supposed to believe. Just like home!

3. I grew up with people threatening me with violence if I did the right thing. Ah, nostalgia...

4. Similarly, ad hominem arguments are reassuringly familiar.

5. I have always enjoyed Canada.

6. He reminds me viscerally of an abusive ex. It's *good* for me to deal with my PTSD on this.



Essentially, my husband and I are keeping as still as possible until Election Day. To change the taste in our minds after this debate, we watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari auf Deutsch. Nothing like a German Expressionist silent movie about a psychopathic director of an old-school insane asylum to lighten the mood.

Above, a friendly French poubelle on a Sunday morning after a solid night's entertaining in the quartier. Note how the bottles are helpfully stood up, rather than flung around to show how some people are too special to follow rules.