Loose Leaf Notes

1. Poolside: Waiting for the sun to come out from the clouds so I can swim is like waiting for a good song at the Roadhouse so I can dance after two songs in a row didn’t inspire me to.

2. The clouds move in slow motion like the hands of the clock that I watched in school while waiting for the end of the day bell to ring.

3. The sun finally comes out and I have the pool to myself. Still and empty, I watch a small round bug floating on a strip of plastic, a lone insect wing missing a body, and two winged ants treading water, all reflecting life’s fragility.

4. The unintelligible pool din turns words into sound that hums like cicadas or like a stadium full of chanting fans. But some words break through like a loud speaker announcement. Three little girls bobbing in the water are shouting ‘Mama!’ and then mewing like cats. “Good lord,” Joe says as the wakes from his nap.

5. I ran into an old friend recently and asked how she was doing. I loved her answer: “I’m not going to complain. It’s your lucky day.”

6. Which reminded me of THIS poem by Star LaBranche at the Little River Poetry Festival.

7. And THIS one, which I call my antidote poem, the one that I read when I see sad faces in the audience after reading some of my heavier poems and I want to lighten up the mood.

8. In answer to ‘who do you write for?’ Natalie Goldberg said: “I was writing for everyone and everyone was me. Rest in the structure that holds you up, and keep one foot in each world. Stay close to your own reality and stand also on the bridge that takes you out into something larger – our understanding that we’re all finally in this together.”

9. When Lucy and Desi slept in twin beds / and you hid under a desk during nuclear drills / You played with matches / and picked your favorite Beatle / while your heroes were assassinated / and your brother was drafted / You slathered on baby oil / for the promise of a tan / before napalm babies in Vietnam burned / and 50,000 vets killed themselves / Now strangers hang their clothes / in your mother’s closet / and children hide under desks / so they won’t be shot… Read The Inventory in its entirety HERE.

10. I do an IN THE NEWS run down on Facebook, posting a collection of news and commentary excerpts, quotes and tweets. Here is one from a recent news clip: “The One Witness at the January 6 Hearing Who Matters Most- It’s you… Fatalism can function as an excuse. If nothing can be done, then no one can be blamed for not doing it. If nothing can be done, then we’re all off the hook… Vice President Mike Pence did a lot of wrong things before he did the right thing on January 6, 2021. But if there is one lesson to take from the Trump years, it’s not the cynical Twitter joke “LOL nothing matters.” The lesson is that everything mattered: every act of conscience, every act of honest reporting, every denial of the Big Lie, every ballot…” David Frum, The Atlantic

11. Amiss or A mess?

12. I have a computer file called “Random Poems,” which recently reminded me that Random House co-founder Bennet Cerf is quoted as saying, “We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random.”

13. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit a shirt  by Garrison Keillor: “THEM: How are you? ME: Fine. Can’t complain. Contentment is a conversation killer in New York. Complaint is an art form here. If you aren’t in a serious struggle with the world, you don’t have a life. Maybe it’s an evil neighbor in your co-op who refuses to admit that smoke from his fireplace is giving your wife asthma or the upstairs neighbors who’ve taken up clog-dancing or surely you’ve seen a miserable movie or read a nitwit novel or heard about a prestigious prize given to a piece of pigeon poop. And even if your road in life is smooth, you can still bitch about the unindicted crook who did outrageous things in broad daylight and still attracts crowds of yahoos in states with the lowest average SAT scores. But not me. I am content…” Garrison Keillor

________Thirteen Thursday