Homework for Marge Piercy

I'm at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, writing a one page or one paragraph seductive dynamic opening for a memoir.  I will receive feedback on this in an hour or two in my class with Marge Piercy and Ira Wood:  

          The dark and dirty circle swirled and deepened like a clay pot on its wheel, fingers raising the edges and deepening the hole--but it is a recurring nightmare and the hole was a pit I fell into.  "Mommy!" I called, and Dad came running to me half dressed, I suspect to get me before  I wet the bed and all the bedding would need to be changed.
          At 62, I still have this dream occasionally though it doesn't panic me anymore.  I know about Alice and wonderland, Orpheus and Erudice, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, and every science fiction/fantasy writer and would-be Lord of the Rings the English-speaking world has to offer.  And I think about the 7-year old I was  discovering imagination and storytelling and faith in ceiling tiles a leg-length away from the top bunk.  This was my private space unless I fell asleep and the nightmare came.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

 

  

The Drones and the Zimmermen

I read Octavia McBride-Ahebee' s blog because she is an accessible local poet with a powerful voice.  She tells the truth through art that tears through the fog and the will to be blind.  In her post today, Octavia asks Obama to put himself in the place of drone victims as well in the place of Trayvon Martin.   In my mind, the drone program is also Racial Profiling.  (See Guilty, Not, my previous post on this blog.)   

Octavia McBride-Ahebee's posting today introduced a poet new to me, Solmaz Sharif.  In his poem "Drone," he personalized an attack and I saw the connection.  Go to her blog--click on the bold title below--read the poem!  Come on back and let's talk.


Octavia McBride-Ahebee: Drone by Solmaz Sharif:     Victims of Drones   I am horrified by the Zimmerman verdict. I am equally confounded not by President Obama’s response to the ve...

Guilty, Not

A hand that could curl around the handle of a gun 
and reach with the trigger finger could surely throw 
a punch up close and effectively.  Maybe not.

Racial Profiling was at play in the beginning 
and end of the action, in the "not guilty" of the verdict, 
when we were so certain of the guilt.  Bewildered.

We had such clarity that we didn't even call for
a Jury of His Peers until too late--because
who would've thunk?  Ugly. Small. Law.

Since the murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, my hands have been cold and my head has been spinning.  Lyrica and Ibuprofen have been ineffective.  Only poetry has helped.  And thoughts of new ways of treating conflict proven by Nelson Mandela in South Africa.  And lots of prayer.

These poems and poets in particular have given me minutes of clarity:

(1) Velveteen Rabbit and her JULY 17, 2013  poem after Tisha b'Av "WATER FROM THE SOURCE" which addresses blessings fasting and growing while in "the fallen temple of justicemothers wailing for their sons --"

(2) Mama Zen at Another Damn Poetry Blog, where her poem "Not Yet" releases both astonishment and anger.

(3) At her blog, LaTonya's "Lobster Boil" releases both hopelessness and anger.  

       (4)  At Blog Over Easy: We stand our Ground

 

And there will be more to expand this list.

Add your links, please.

Posted at Poetry Pantry #159 at Poets United.

Doves and. Machines

Let this blow your mind as it blew mine:

It is from the 1969 film Picasso Summer starring Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux.  Adapted into a screenplay by Ray Bradbury from his short story “In a Season of Calm Weather,” it is set to music by Michel Legrand.  Despite a weak plot, the music and three animated sequences by Wess Herschensohn moved me no end!  Not only did they explore Picasso in a way that helped me to see his work more clearly, the one sequence above also widened my perception of war. After watching the above, I turned off the film to search it on the web, and found this:

and this:

Together, these three videos entered my life as Picasso's Guernica never had before!  In my search, I found that the creative reactions to Picasso's Guernica may rival commentary on any Shakespeare play.  

Here is my own:

Slate grey noon and rain in June

sat me down to pull war and people

from out my 2D cartoon-framed

vision in a sheltered life not Iraq,

Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan,

Israel, Palestine and elsewhere. 

   Horses

are gone but not foot soldiers engaged to

dishearten from land mines and hidden bombs:

providers, mothers, priests, and young ones with

explosives strapped to their childhoods.

      Doves

are there too close to open-eyed blood we

pour in to food, zapping out strength and hope

drowning all openings to the villains’ millions,

         billions—not humans, but dollars—trillions.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Posting for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night ~ Week 103.

Birthday Carol

My chosen birthday cake:
Chocolate Babka with streusal topping

At age 62, I have major-sized messes

so beautiful that it doesn't take a mother’s

instinct to see me ... and this is my Birthday poem:

Today in South Africa Nelson Mandela

lives on, a prism spreading more Light

the longer he lingers on his death bed,

a man whose choices turned theories into practice

that transformed prisoners and masters into human

beings as restorative justice re-placed violence

with recognition—This is not magic, it is discipline.

Today, I woke privileged: expecting to find

coffee supplies and cat where I left them, to get

potable water from the kitchen tap, fill bowl

for cat, make coffee, and drink in peace at my own

computer—this too is not magic—it took

discipline to earn it within a country of

opportunity—and I want it for everyone.

At 62, I am no longer teaching

theatre,  literature and writing, but learning

to apply lessons to my own living.

I’m no Mandela, but neither am I naïve

about causes and effects of poverty here

and there, about the many rewards for letting

go, relaxing, and forgetting now that I have

achieved my quarter acre of heaven on earth, my

ticket to ignore my country’s complicity—

and I need discipline, since I have no magic.

What I have more than ever is time—time

as past experience, as reflections now, as

future words on paper—a regular Christmas

carol of possibility—that wants only

discipline to bloom.  Let me then turn this summer

Birthday into carol, an oral song of folk

festivals year round; let me stay inside the dance.

My 62nd birthday finds me a word spinner, trying to get behind my craft and add to the daily discipline of writing an effort to publish and let it fly out into the world. Within one year, let it be!

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast