Reblogged from Books from Folded Word:

Artist, Jenny Baker: Jenny Baker studied for a Photography Diploma at Falmouth College of Art and went onto complete a BA Hons in Graphic Design Photography at Plymouth University in England, but now lives in New Zealand. She works primarily in the photographic medium, most frequently in color, preferring film to digital technology. Her photographs mainly depict landscape, architecture, and the natural world, with landscape a first love. Baker ha … Read More

via Blue Fifth Review

open: kaffe in katmandu

i’ve always wanted to go there – katmandu! now i’ve been appointed maitre d’ at the new kaffe in katmandu. those who successfully submitted digital photos to the 1000 penguins project automatically get an invite but anybody on VOICES can submit content to this cool hangout high above the clouds. tumblr makes it really easy to post and repost material – photos, links, videos, etc. come and kaffe up! it’s all good because it’s for the wingless birds!

Penguins have a voice too – “like songbirds, the penguins’ vocalization sound unique and rich in tone, frequency and beat, but to human ears the penguin “voice” may sound thin.” (Read more) — But can you imagine one thousand of them stranded after the ship they’d boarded to get to a better, richer, fairer land, collided with a supertanker? The noise! The commotion! The need for entertainment!

This is where the One Thousand Shipwrecked Penguins project comes in that I founded selflessly at the end of 2010: produce one flash (at least) weekly thrown at the penguins like a half-digested hering, providing much-needed poetic protein. The catch? Each flash comes with a picture (for visuals, penguins are very receptive to visuals, much like people) and the picture shouldn’t come from me, it should come from you.

Check out the site where all this happens. Submit a photo, by all means. Be part of one of the most exciting projects on Earth. One of the longest, too: scheduled to run until 1000 flash pieces are complete. Spread the news: http://1000penguins.tk – and save a wingless angel-like bird from boredom!

Sincerely,
Marcus Speh
Curator, 1000 penguins

But isn’t that just the
fear that’s attracted to
anything that’s true? I
know that whatever God

is it’s not a wishing
well. I still want this to
be said that’s all and said
by me. I ask mercy

and forgiveness for you,
that your life have meanings
full of both grace and joy
even without my life.

Your wish is my command:

I will grip
my two-tailed tawse
within an inch of my gloved appendage

& your exposed up-turned posterior

& I will
control
/
suspend
\
switch
/
strap
\
slap
/
you into submission
& you will obey

my iron clad mind
will thrash you within
your wildest dreams whetting
only my appetite for your pleasure

& pain

those looks will not go unpunished
you want me to break down your defences?
I will break down your defences

you will not look me in the eyes
you will not touch any part of me
you will not soil in my presence

you will obey my every command

& you will cry like a baby
& beg for my forgiveness when you fail

© Copyright 2010 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Rockville, MD

Eddie had moved into a downtown condo sublet right out of an eleven month stay at an institute for patients with dual-diagnosed psychiatric problems, because he was making some bucks and the state decided they needed the bed so they could get another commitment for another twelve month dole out from the feds. They accused him of making the place a free hotel for the last two months, forgetting that the treatment plan was for three to four months working in the outside world before being unleashed on them. He tried to get into a cheaper garden apartment style place, but that required references and a credit check. Eddie could get over the first, a few close friends stuck by him through his fuck-ups, but the credit couldn’t be covered by any such like financial institutions.

So Eddie took this sublet from a very enticing Cubana woman, reminding him of calmer days in the tropics years ago, who was about to marry Eddie’s mirror image, if Eddie had walked the straight and narrow and listened to his elders rather than his elder’s teachers, such as James Joyce, Bernard Malmud, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. They also didn’t want to start off their marriage hovering nine stories atop, unknown to Eddie, of the coming two-year relentless pounding of pile-drivers and jackhammers that would accompany the re-building and expansion of the decaying downtown into one of those Disney versions of the ideal mix of old-time charm and modern convenience, all facade and no heart and soul.

As it developed, that didn’t bother Eddie much, a little city noise was welcome after an almost year sojourn amidst deer and birds and fellow travelers of self-induced inactivity. It even provided a bit of serendipitous joy as the city used the empty pit below him for their after Hootie & the Blowfish Memorial Day concert fireworks. The bombs burst in thin air but fifty yards flat across his glass enclosed half hexagon shaped balcony room one story higher and rained on him sights and sounds not seen nor heard since the days of Jimi and a tab.

It being Memorial Day, with a good meal and the intoxicating display over, Eddie decided to make his first visit to F. Scott and Zelda’s grave a few blocks away a midnight one. The grave was in an old, small churchyard, now closed to new dearly or not so dearly departed, for lack of space. It was situated in a vee formed by the angled crossing of the two major six-lane roads in the town that Eddie likened to Stern’s Oakland. It once had been part of one of the generations held gracious estates that since the sixties were slashed up and sold to developers for the mind-numbing sameness of modern utility. The institute Eddie was just released from also rested on one of these plots, the state wisely keeping the fair citizens and the guests of the state safely buffered from each other by woods and a little used city golf course.

No one else was there at such a day and hour, the beers safely in their bellies to compete for elimination the next morning with the hot sausages and burnt steaks. Eddie wanted the gratification of the company of another boat against the current, dead or alive. The graves seemed to be in disrepair, decaying a bit with time, the ships quote that was inscribed still being borne back ceaselessly into the past. The missing sounds of rude traffic and the whooshing of the few tall century old trees’ leaves in a stiff spring breeze further bore Eddie back to when time mattered here.

Upon his return, his neighbor’s head emerged from the next door as he said night to some well-dressed guests. He saw Eddie walking the hall in deep thought, and invited Eddie in for a nightcap. Not really in the mood, he figured he has to live next to the guy and isn’t this what his re-entry into the world of nowhere was all about?

The neighbor was jovial, and recapped his day with gusto. When it was Eddie’s turn he figured he would tell it backward, and wanted to tell someone, anyone, of his last hour of introspection.

The neighbor looked up with surprise when he heard the location. He asked Eddie if it was St. Mary’s.

“Yes it is, just down the street.”

“Oh! I am a priest there, part time for the last two years, in the new church right next to the old one.. F. Scott Fitzgerald is really buried there?”

Eddie later found out that there had been a large flap over the interment of Zelda in the family plot, and after reburials and threatened lawsuits, she was quietly allowed to be laid to rest next to F. Scott, left to disappear with the faded letters of their names on the cold stones, boats slowly disappearing into the void of the horizon.

In a Brooklyn bar, in late August of 1971, Sid had troubles. He was soaking up the suds with two friends. “Guys, I pulled 117 in the draft lottery, they’re gonna call me up in a few days, I’m dead.”

Fred, who always lucked out, had drawn 364, next to last, safe. “Man, too bad buddy.”

Mitch, exempt as a Conscientious Objector, commiserated. “Yeah, sucks.”

The three sat there, not knowing what else to say, Sid couldn’t do the Canada thing, too many reasons to stay.

“Effin system” Sid moaned.

“Yeh, effin’ system” from Fred.

Then the light bulb. “Work within the system – use bureaucracy!” from Mitch. “Move!” “Legit!” “To our bud Eddie out in California!”

They worked out that Sid flies out there immediately, walks into the draftboard and tells them that he has moved.

“Then, when Eddie gets your notice, you mosey into the draftboard here and tell them ‘No work in California, I moved back’.” Mitch always had ideas.

“Yeah, then each time they gotta ship your records back and forth. By the time they get back, Bingo, its ’72, they’re saying the cut will be around 80 next year, and you’re safe!”

Maybe the combined twelve years of college and student deferrments weren’t wasted, it sounded fool-proof on paper, but this was beer-soaked bar napkin paper, so things couldn’t be all that easy.

*

“Scccrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeecccccccccccccch!

The ’69 Chevy Impala, grey-black smoke pouring out of its tailpipe, came to a crunching stop on the top of a hill fifty miles to go on the road to Portland, the smoke mixing with the fog and remnant’s of brush fires that, with the burnt rubber, gave the air the smell of Secaucus if it had farms. Sooz looked over her shoulder from the driver’s seat to the two shadows she passed about 200 feet back.

“What’cha think Gertie? Should we go back for them?”

“Ehh, Sooz, think they’re like freaks, wasn’t sure if they even were guys at first. Thought we were goin’ into the city for some big studs, not skinny freaky gawd knows what. ”

“Ever do one, Gertie?”

“Do one what?”

“A hippie. I did one once, everyday for a week.”

“No way – eccch, was he dirty and smelly, they don’t wear Brut, or any after-shave, or even deodorant, I heard. And where’dja meet him? Down by the roadhouse, you didn’t go down there, didja?”

“Naw, you know my brother knows a few, for the pot, I mean Richie’s not a freak, but he likes to get stoned. Anyway, this guy, he actually was good, I mean it wasn’t just slam, bam; he went down on me.”

“Sheesh! Sooz, that only happened once for me, ‘member Chuck? His first time, I tole him he hadda, he never did it again.”

“Well, this guy liked to do it, didn’t wanna stop. But he hadda go back to Arizona, or someplace. Never saw him again.”

Gertie stopped to think. “Alright, let’s take ‘em, as a backup. If we can’t find any real guys before we dump these off, I’ll give it a go, if they’re not too freaky.”

Sooz gunned the Impala into reverse and screeched back to Sid and Eddie, who had just about given up hope for a ride and were about to snooze down in the ditch at the side of the road.

“Hop in fellas”, Sooz and Gertie’s voices mixed with “you would cry too if this happened to you” coming out of the AM oldies station.

Sid and Eddie got in the back, Sooz popping into forward just as Sid got his foot in the door, shutting it as they tore off.

“Where ya goin’ guys?” Gertie asked as blasé as she could be while picturing swirling tongues.

“Uh, Sid here is headed back east, and I’m going back down south of San Fran, but thought we’d take in Vancouver and the Canadian Rockies on the out of the way.”

“We’re goin’ ta Portland for the night, lookin’ for some fellas to hook up with, so wese can take ya that far” Sooz took command, snapping her gum. “You guys ok with oldies, I could change it to FM if you want, look like you’re FM guys.”

“Anything is fine with us” Sid replied, trying to see Sooz over Gertie’s puffed up, teased hair.

Eddie and Sid looked at each other, saw the dice from the mirror, hula girl on the dash, capri pants and shiny dacron tops on the bodies, bee-hives, smelled the gum. Sid leaned over to Rich and whispered “What are we, in a 10 year time-warp?”

Sooz switched the channel anyway. After a commercial to the Pepsi Generation, “I remember holding you while you sleep . . . bring it home baby make it soon.” That was a little better, although it was pop-rock, not the blues or underground stuff Sid and Eddie were into. Harrison and Ham traded some good slide work though, and maybe it was telling them something.

Now, Sid and Eddie were not averse to doing some time-sex traveling, after all it was four years earlier that they popped their cherries in Chattanooga, along with Fred, on the same night, with the same woman. She had a bouffant and leopard-skin patterned bra and panties, but it wasn’t so far removed in time then, and she was older, from that time. She also charged, this could be a freebie. Had to be – Sid and Eddie were as poor as their torn jeans.

As the asphalt ribbon became the main strip leading into Portland, bars and clubs started to appear at the side of the road. At each one, Sooz would turn into the parking lot, drive around and she and Gertie would size up the guys hanging outside.

“Ehh. Bikers, they’re just hippies with only half their teeth and beer guts. Sheeeet, real hippies, we got two in the back.” Gertie wasn’t reticent to assess the attributes loud enough for Sid and Eddie to hear. “Look, some nervous kids, we could break ‘em in Gertie, but they might go cryin’ home to mama.”

After about a half-dozen of these, with no success, they reached downtown.

“Alright guys, we’re going to a club we know. Got any money?” Sooz kinda made it sound like the only way they were gonna hang was if the guys would pay the way, their last shot.

“Naw, that’s why we’re hitchin’. But, hey – there’s the City Forest we heard about. Allowed to sleep overnight, where we’re gonna stay.” Sid leaned over and put his hand on Sooz’s shoulder. “You gals wanna join us, why bother fishin’ all night when we got the goods right here ?” Sid couldn’t believe what he just said, it must’ve been the hairspray fumes.

“OUT!! GETTA OUTTA HERE RIGHT NOW YOU CHEAPASS FREAKIN’ HIPPIES, SCREW IN THE WOODS? WITH YOUSE? THINK WE EVEN WANNA TOUCH YOUSE?” Gertie was apoplectic at the thought of bugs nesting in her beehive, swirling tongues nothwithstanding.

Both Sooz and Gertie started pushing the guys out as best they could with one arm, whacking them with the other, giggling all the time. Sid and Eddie tumbled out of each door, but as Sooz burnt rubber, Sid’s leg got caught up in the door and he got pulled along the ground for about twenty feet, wrenching his knee socket in every direction.

Sid spent the night in the hospital, Eddie ordered take-out for them from a Sambo’s nearby then fell asleep in the chair next to the bed. The next day they had to drain the knee and pull out a few tiny cartilage fragments.

*

The bureaucratic ruse didn’t work. Sid had to report for his physical on December 20th, they missed by 12 days.

The induction letter arrived on Christmas Eve. It stated that due to the temporary injury to Sid’s knee, he was to wait two months for it to heal, and report his status to the draft board at that time.

In 1972

Free and clear. Turned out Sid did score with Sooz afterall.

“Wondered if I could get your thoughts on a matter of some delicacy?”
“By all means, dear boy. Fire away”
“About ladies’… *ahem*… bags.”
“Bags, eh? More port, Godfrey?”
“Don’t mind if I do. Most kind.”
“Bags, you say?”
“Yes. Marjory’s bag in particular.“
“Not sure I’m much of an authority on bags, dear boy.”
“Nor me. Part of the problem really.”
“What seems to be the trouble?”
“Marjory’s bag. Not what it was.”
“What it was?”
“When we met. She had a very nice little bag back then. New one.”
“Something special?”
“Special? No, no. Quite the contrary. Rather plain, neat, very charming. Discrete, you might say.”
“This really is an excellent cigar.”
“Thank you.”
“Terrible about Fortescue, by the way.”
“Awful.”
“And the cricket.”
“Oh, let’s not.”
“No.”
“Between you and me, I’m quite fascinated by bags. Out of admiration of course, nothing sordid.”
“Of course not, who would suggest such a thing?”
“Really quite astonished at what the Missis has managed to produce out of such a tiny bag over the years. Capacity wise. All things considered it’s lasted rather well.”
“Goodness yes, sometimes Audrey produces entire picnics from hers.”
“Picnics? I…That’s to say, when I say bag, what I mean to say is…”
“Oh I see! Oh good gracious, how silly I am. Terribly sorry.”
“My fault entirely.”
“So, of course, Marjory’s bag…”
“Become a little worn. Rather thin and bashed about. Which I understand is not unusual for ladies d’un certain age. So I suggested she got a new one.”
“I say.”
“Yes. Know a chap. you see: Staughton. He’s in the business, as it were, very respectable. Gave his wife a new one last month. By all accounts they’re both quite delighted.”
“Well then, that sounds like just the ticket. Perhaps I should speak to Audrey about it too.”
“Marjory was most put out.”
“Oh?”
“She says that new bags are terribly nouveau. Said that her bag is perfectly serviceable. An extravagance, she called it. Spent the rest of the afternoon lopping the heads off flowers.”
“Good gracious. Nouveau, did she say?”
“Terribly nouveau.”
“My word, old boy, it’s a minefield.”

“First had the suspicion the penis was shrinking the morning after Jeremy’s wedding.”

“How was it, old boy? Good do?”

“Yes, yes, very smart. Excellent service.”

“Good-oh. So, the penis, you say?”

“Yes. Bit of a shrinkage situation.”

“Had a chap out to look at it?”

“No. Doctors are terribly busy these days, doesn’t seem appropriate to bother them with penis deflation. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, yes, when it’s put like that…”

“After all, one expects some attrition with age.”

“We’re not the young men we were.”

“Way of the world.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Surprised, though, how noticeable the difference was. It was rather…”

“Rather?”

“Abrupt.”

“Goodness, that does sound a tad alarming, if I might say so.”

“Thought at first it was perspective; a little wide around the midriff these days.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, in percentage terms, what sort of a, um, reduction have you experienced?”

“Percentage? Oh my dear boy, there’s hardly any of it left.”

“Nothing?”

“The bare minimum.”

“Perhaps a doctor would be in order nevertheless?”

“That’s the funny thing, Not sure I want patching up.  Never been happier.”

“My word.”

“Taken a weight off the old shoulders.”

“Excellent, excellent.”

“Yes. More whisky, old chap?”

“Wouldn’t say no. Much obliged.”

Truly, I am tragic.  I am hated and necessary to them at the same time.  I’m the one they have warned you about.  I’m a creature of joy.  Like a girl kicking up her gorgeous black fishnet stocking legs in a open roof Sapphire Cabaret car, squealing with gleeful invitation.  Desired and despised.  Then I dance into death and my feet are on fire.  Some of the stories they told of me were pure lies.

Little Snow White was the one to whom everything came just because she happened to be beautiful, just because she happened to be young.  She didn’t have to lift a finger for anything.  Whereas I’m the one they warn about, she’s the one they always warn.  Don’t trust anyone, not even another woman, perhaps especially not another woman.  She lives in total fear.  She is practically dead—deadly in fact, still, stilted, but beautiful.

And me?  What choice did I have?  It’s all fairytales anyway, and no one is ever telling these tales fairly.

You probably don’t want to hear this, but evil as such doesn’t exist.  It all depends on whether you look from the view point of the lion or of the gazelle.  I didn’t mean anyone any harm.

As to that precious little Snow White?  I didn’t mind her that much, really.  I wasn’t particularly interested in her.  She was just a little doll left over from the last queen.

Regrets?  I can’t say that I have any.

I don’t have hatred either.  What I have is cold, numbed rage.  Why should I go through the trouble of hating, high blood pressure and all that?  I merely see an obstacle and determine that the best line of defense is to get rid of it before it gets me first.  Eat or be eaten; something like that.  I didn’t really want to kill her.  I just wanted her gone.  Out of my life.

I didn’t exactly think the hunter would kill her.  What do you expect from us fairytale creatures anyway?  A consistent affirmation of your own puny morals?  I made it into a sort of roulette, with the universe free to make its own luck.  Sure, I wanted her out of the way.  I also wanted her so scared that she would never trouble me again with her open-mouthed enthusiasm and that radiant peach-blossom beginning-of-life beauty.  Fancy me having to look practically jaded at the tender age of seventeen next to this little fizz of enthusiasm.  It made me itch like flea bites just to be near her, that little goo-goo-eyed bundle of eagerness.

And he didn’t kill her in the end, did he?  So the roulette worked out in her favor.  It was the old Nazi dilemma, really.  Whose responsibility was the execution of a command?  That of the commander?  Or that of the executioner?  I merely gave the order and left it up to fate to determine how it was completed.

I’m cold.  I’ve never had the luxury of warm and fuzzy dreams.

Anyway, later she will quibble over the details no doubt, once she has had a chance to think it over, the little beauty.  She will say that she wasn’t the one to condemn me to dance to my death on heated iron slippers at her wedding feast.  Rather I “was condemned.”  Same sort of scenario, but if you don’t do it yourself, you’re not implicated.  You’re just audience, shocked at best.  Unlike with me and the hunter, in Snow White’s case we hold the audience innocent.  Especially since she is so very young and luscious.  Iron slippers had already been heated over the fire anonymously and were now brought to me with tongs.  Nobody in particular did the condemning, or the heating, or the forcing.  All that “was done,” passively.  But I did dance for them.

In any event, back at the castle while we were still expected to peacefully coexist, she simply was too much trouble for nothing.  On top of it all, she was too beautiful.  It would have been too easy for her to slip into my place.  And for the first time ever I happened to like my place in life.

I don’t know if her daddy-o, my precious husband, would have been capable of diddling his own daughter.  He did rather fancy me when I was still very young and he was still married to his former queen.  Going through a scenario like that yourself, you can’t help but wonder.

Other than that wonderment, my heart is just a lump of ice here, really.  I don’t judge anyone.  I may make people jump at my command, but I don’t judge them.  I never judged the king.  I’m as cool as a snake in the shade, thank you very much.  Life taught me to be self-possessed.  It was necessary to survive, and I did that very well, didn’t I?  Until the end anyway.  And that makes me just like you and everybody else, doesn’t it?  We live until we die.

No, I was never meant to be a mother or a sentimental lover.  What I was meant to do was to drink the sweetest possible drop that I could suck out of the bitter rind of this world.  The most succulent bits, or the last hint of honey from a comb.  Whatever I could get.  That’s right.  That, too, makes me just like you and everybody else.

The king thinks I worship him.  Well, that’s my job, and I do it well.  He is my meal ticket, and who wouldn’t value one’s meal ticket?  My great heroine is Sheherazade.  Not that my king is anything as cruel as hers was.  But she did tell stories for her life, a song and dance for her dinner, if you will.  Isn’t that what we all do in the end?

Why should I care what happens to others?  I don’t even have the privilege of caring properly for myself, never mind “loving” myself.  That part was somehow left out of me, or maybe drilled out of me.  Where others have feelings, which I quite envy them, I have this stark gaping hole that doesn’t even scream to be filled.  It just sits there, gaping, saying, “Here I am.  Deal with it.”

I am not like others.  I never have been.  I am high drama over emptiness.

I see others being emotional, happy, laughing, distressed.

I am merely a cool and beautiful entity with a poker face.

It angers me, their easy vibrancy, like Snow White’s expectant, radiant face.  Of course I envy it.

No, I don’t see myself as evil at all.  I merely am.  Successful, among other things.  And beautiful.

When a king or a general looks in the mirror, do you think he sees the dead bodies he has lately commandeered?  No.  At best he sees marble opulence behind his self-satisfied face.  He has no time to worry about the feelings of soldiers with sand in their noses and death dangling in front of their eyes.  Then why should I worry about the feelings of a little chit like Snow White, dancing around like a carefree butterfly in sunlight?

Which brings me back to my own dancing feet.  Few fairytales have such a cruel ending—often they stop with happy, don’t they?  Not this one.  It stops with me being condemned, at their wedding feast no less, to dance to my death on red-hot iron slippers that are brought to me with tongs.

I wonder how that charming little Snow White enjoyed her honeymoon, after seeing me suffer and hearing my shrieks of pain and torment.  Or, even if I went in dignified and silent agony, the horror of seeing me bear these things with composure.  You see, what is the point here?  My cruelty?  Or hers?  She’s your typical man’s woman, isn’t she?  ‘Okay, so step-mama is tortured to death.  But that won’t happen to me.  My prince will protect me from that sort of thing once I’m his queen.  My man will look out for me.  And that’s that.’

But that was my point, too.  That’s exactly what I tried to prevent from happening to me when I tried to get rid of her.

Note the different methods, though.  I always did things to her that could be undone.  I didn’t watch her death as a public spectacle.  In fact, she didn’t die at all, little missy, did she?

I will die, however.  Well, like I said before, in the end, so will she, so will we all.  But she’s the one who watches me die in torment, without lifting a finger to help.

It’s just a matter of living and being calmly able to bear what that entails, to pay whatever price must be paid.  My price was pain in the end.

Let me play devil’s advocate here—what if I only wanted to prevent her eventual calm cruelty toward me?  I would have saved her soul with that, don’t you think?  In this instance, it is she who reminds me of my heroine Sheherazade, knowing that the nice king with whom she copulates every night after telling him one of her fascinating cliff-hanger stories, has before her time dispensed with a virgin a night, fucked her, then had her throat cut.  Sheherazade could deal with that.  Hands down.

Just so can Ms. Snow White deal with the image of me dancing to my death at her wedding, my feet scorched, the smell of burning flesh among the fragrant roses.  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how that gorgeous, radiant, open-mouthed girl doesn’t step in to ask for mercy on my behalf.  Lovely bride that.

Not that I ever expected, or received, mercy in my life.  That’s not how it went at all.  No, Sirree.  I just did what I had to do to get by.  I wasn’t given elaborate maps or writings on walls that spelled out what I had to do.

All I had was that darn mirror that told me how beautiful I was.  Magic mirror, indeed.  Every mirror in the world is like that, if you know how to look.  And every mirror can instill the fear of judgment in every woman who looks.

I’m quite philosophical about my death.  What choice do I have?  Well, not as philosophical as Socrates, I’m sure.  He was probably quite pleased to be proving his eternal philosophical point with his death.  But I will, forgive the pun, take it all in good stride.  Bring on those red hot slippers.  Then when you watch me faint into oblivion, try not to forget that my death is not in aid of anything at all.  What good does it do her that I die at her wedding?  In fact, what good does it do anyone?  Oh, I suppose she can be reasonably sure now that I, personally, will not make any more attempts on her precious life.  That makes sense.  Especially since her own attempt on my life is successful, finite, and witnessed by all.  And it will be named justice, not cruelty.

How will she live?  How will she feed her children, carrying inside of her the image of me burning, much like a witch of old, except that I get to dance while I burn to my death?  But didn’t they speak of bodies dancing in the wind on gallows beams?  Dancing in the flames?  How cold we are.  Even a fire like that can’t quite cure our coldness.

Come to think of it, I do feel a bit like Socrates, dying here, proving something, and, like Socrates, never quite sure if anybody will even get the message, though I do pay for it with my own life.  You see, this is exactly what I wanted to prevent by getting rid of her.  But I wasn’t successful.  It’s as simple as that.  She, on the other hand, will now be successful.  For a while.  Until someone else comes along and has a compelling reason for her to die, or rather, to push her hour of death forward a little.

I’m not even sure what I am trying to say in the end, except that I am convinced that I did the right thing by living, as long as I could, a life of pleasure and extravagance.  Better that than patiently sitting around by the window sewing and then dying anyway, in gloom and melancholy, making everybody else feel vaguely guilty.  That’s how her lovely mother did things.

I reach to you through borders between life and death, Snow White.  You weren’t particularly dear to me, no indeed.  But now that I am fading, I wish you well.  I can’t think of anybody else to wish well.  You’ve emblazoned yourself onto my life.  You’re my last thought, while the rest of the world already blazes up in torment and confusion.  You and your beautiful face, your huge eyes as you watch me die.

Be beautiful then.  And dance as long as you can.

About the hunter?  I should have known.  Men are wusses, all of them.  They’re good for nothing.  They promise you the earth.  Then they simply keep it for themselves after all.  They’ll tell you they owe you everything—and then they’re quite willing to keep on owing.

How I would love to wring that hunter’s neck in retrospect.  For a while there I thought he was my ally.  I really did.  Why, I had fantasies about him being my brave and devoted sidekick for a long and profitable time to come.  But men, no matter what they say, are devoted to one thing only.  Their own hide.  And how best to justify saving it.  So now he’s gone.  Good riddance.  If he were around for their wedding, he’d probably be celebrated as a post facto hero.  Meanwhile I’m wandering around with boar’s liver molecules upsetting my system.  No wonder it was so chewy—no wonder it was so hard to digest.  No wonder I nearly threw up.

I can’t wait

to get you
where I want
you to be:
on your back
with your hands
tied & your
legs spread
eagle,
blindfolded
so I can look
at you with
reckless
abandon
& you can’t
do a damn thing
about it

I will take
what is mine

& have my way
& fuck you
till I am
spent
& you are
left wondering
what day
of the week it is
& whether or not
the wet patch
is on your side
of the bed
or mine

© Copyright 2010 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Creativity creeps
under my skin
in an almost
random fashion
except for those
side steps
opening up doors
into nooks & crannies
filled with
Magenta &
Pthalo Blue

Gesso plastered
canvas tarps
fill in my gaps
so nothing that
isn’t meant to
be there
can infiltrate
or seep
or overflow
its boundaries

I determine
every brush
& stroke
& all deliberate acts
twist into
congealed
afterthoughts

It’s like watching
words escape
from silent mouths
in silent Black
& White movies:
each shade
of imaginary sound
is transformed
into translucent
Reds & Yellows

A diadem of jewels
to gush over
& revel in
its magnificence
with every
new idea

© Copyright 2010 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Anticipation builds
an iron lung

the sweet desire
for oral pleasure
still lingers
on my
lips

/

one last
taste
lick
fix

she slips
into something
warm & inviting

& I watch him
slowly undress
before raising his shaft

can I have one?
her voice
pleading desperado

she assumes the position
&  I am sucked right in

he gestures
she folds, rolls
& sets her fire to smoulder

her submission
concluded
his mission
accomplished

together we watch
the world burn

© Copyright 2010 Jodine Derena Butler.  All Rights Reserved

Why is there such opposition in the world to women who really live? Only in the glass casket do we seem to be entirely acceptable. Once the first excitement, the first sigh of relief of being alive—actually alive and in front of the prince!—has been sighed, everything becomes a matter of great anxiety. What should you do with this precious life? And often the anxiety gets compounded with questions like, are you good enough? Pleasing enough? Pretty enough? Sometimes it seems easier to just stay frozen under glass.

But of course I’m not in heaven. I didn’t properly die. I’m merely a matter of arrested development, or arrested enjoyment of life, if you will. Sometimes this makes me cynical, and sometimes not.

Which does make me a kind of, “I’m every woman,” doesn’t it? Except, of course, that I’m mostly still girl.

There’s one thing you can practically count on, though: there is always an apple somewhere. If there’s an apple involved, it’s always a given that something of significance is going on. If you don’t want to take my word for it, ask Eve, ask Helen of Troy.

How did I ever end up in this glass coffin?

How do I hope to get out of here?

Well, let me tell you.

They told me one wintry day my real mother was in one of her most dreamy states, sewing by herself in her room. She stepped to the window with her sewing in her hand, drawn by the beauty of the snowy world outside, dazzled by the gently falling sparkles. The window frame was ebony wood, rich black. She stood in the frame of the black wood in front of the snowflakes drifting down like a glittering curtain of peace. It was so heartrendingly beautiful that, for a moment, she stopped paying attention to what she was doing, and she inadvertently pricked her finger with her sewing needle. Three drops of her blood fell into the pristine snow on the window sill with its biting scent of winter. Three drops of blood falling on snow is usually another sign, much like the ubiquitous apple, that something significant is going on.

They tell me she wished for a daughter then, a girl with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as the ebony wood. In other words, she wished for me.

I’ve often wondered, though, if she was all by herself, how did anybody know all this to tell me about it later?

Anyway, I like to imagine that she was already pregnant with me. Maybe she was feeling sad that day. Why sad? Well, I figure she must have been. I never met her, obviously, but from the stories I’ve been told, she had a fairly melancholy nature, and sad was probably how she felt most of the time. Those who aren’t always sad are more likely to go to a party or a ball than sewing by themselves in their room. After all, she was the queen and sewing for her was pretty much optional. She could easily have asked one of her servants to do the sewing for her.

What I suspect happened was that my father was already carrying on with my stepmother. Maybe I was even my own mother’s last ditch effort at something, though I don’t know what exactly she might have been hoping for. At any rate, by the time I was born, her trust in the benefits of living must have faded and so she opted for the face-saving way out. She died in childbirth.

Nobody ever questioned that my father remarried, and so quickly at that. It was how things were done in the world.

If I ever get out of here and get married, I sure hope my marriage will be different. Don’t we all, though? One thing’s for sure:  Daddy’s remarriage had nothing to do with getting a new mommy for me.

In the first place, my stepmother was almost still a child herself when Daddy married her, and then counting back even more so, of course, when he carried on with her before my real mother even died. All in all, my stepmother probably already disliked me before I was ever conceived and born.

I can just see her begging Daddy to marry her, pouting, and maybe kneeling in front of him, kissing his hand. Actually, that last scenario, hand-kissing and all, is a picture I find a bit hard to image. Could have happened, though. In any event, Daddy would have told her, no, he couldn’t possibly divorce my mother. Not even for her. It just wasn’t done. Besides, my mother was pregnant with me. Protecting unborn children was always of the highest priority. There was even a chance I could have come out as the boy child Daddy coveted, though in the end it turned out otherwise.

So for Q’An I was a dreadful inconvenience, growing into a baby in my gentle and long-suffering mother’s body and providing my mother with marriage insurance and maternal respectability while she, Q’An, was obviously providing my dad with far more entertaining companionship than puking from morning sickness and sitting in her room and sewing by herself.

Meanwhile of course my mother had already given up her spirit long before she gave up her ghost, if you know what I mean. Eventually, however, she did give up her ghost, too, and now the coast was clear for a new queen.

Q’An glittered and glided right into place with her exotic beauty. There was nothing, but nothing, maternal about her. Ever since I’ve known her, her name was Q’An, which, she insisted, had to be spelled exactly that way, “Q‑‘‑A‑n,” but it had to be pronounced “queen.” Whatever, right? She sparkled like a ballroom dance professional. There were always tons of rhinestones sculpted all over her dresses in the most fascinating patterns. Her favorite colors were greens and blues. On her fingers and at her throat she wore her real diamonds. And she usually had rhinestones or diamonds, or both, somewhere in her hair. When I was little, I loved to play with lost rhinestones that lay scattered on the castle ballroom floor. I don’t recall her ever losing a diamond.

All of which goes to show that my real mother was simply a retiring, shy lady, because there definitely was a ballroom in the castle, and there was lots of entertainment to be had, including a huge collection of music from Vivaldi to Julio Iglesias. Truly.

Well, Q’An was clearly not retiring. Not she. We had ball after ball, and afterwards I was allowed to play with the lost rhinestones I would find on the ballroom floor. There was no need for Q’An, or her servants, to find them and glue them back on, for naturally she never wore the same ball gown twice. Just as there had never really been any need for my mother to sit around in the corner or by the window and do her own sewing.

My own favorite rhinestone colors were ruby, translucent, and jet black.

Meanwhile Q’An had a fabulous mirror, flattering like a gay ballroom teacher just before he is about to sell you an expensive program. She would admire herself in front of her mirror and chant to it:

“Mirror, mirror on the wall,

who’s the most beautiful of all?”

The mirror always said, “You are, Q’An.” I only got to see her do this a few times, because she really didn’t like to have me hang around her all that much, although I loved to watch her. She was so graceful. The few times I did watch her with her mirror, she’d have this gorgeous smile on her face. I loved that smile. It was the warmest and fuzziest smile you can imagine, warmer and gentler than any smile I ever saw her give another human being. Pure bliss.

I didn’t know any of this then, of course, but you can well imagine that, with all her beauty and her status as the new queen, she had a lot to lose. Having been diddled by my Daddy while my real mother was still alive, she now experienced two things at the same time. Triumph. And fear, which is probably the hallmark of all competition. Unlike a ballroom dancer, she couldn’t rely on practice and expertise or talent to further her cause. No, she had only her beauty, which was neither earned, nor deserved, and she couldn’t actively use it to compete at all. All she could do was eliminate any and all potential competition.

In the oldest tales they claim that she was just plain vain. Well, from what I learned by lying around here in my glass confinement is that no woman is really just plain vain. We all typically end up preening for our dinner one way or another. Unless of course we’re particularly good at sewing or doing hair, in which case we can possibly earn our keep by helping someone else preen for her dinner. I can’t really see much advantage in that either.

Well, for Q’An a fate of sewing or doing other people’s hair would definitely not have been appealing. She would probably have said, “No way,” which happened to be one of her favorite expressions. But it’s never that clear cut either, because she could well have changed her mind. It’s amazing how quickly you can change your tune when you fall on hard times. Believe me, I know. I would never have dreamt I would one day be doing dishes for dwarfs.

For a good while things were okay at the castle. I grew up playing with lost rhinestones and pieces of scrap velvet, and I ardently admired Q’An. I do want to mention that playing with rhinestones was not exactly my life’s ambition, but there wasn’t much else to do, and I had to play with something. As most children are, I was bored to tears by having nothing to do except devise sparkling ways of entertaining myself.

Naturally I also learned a lot by watching Q’An. How to lift up my ribcage to good effect, how to let my head float on my neck just so. I never cared to imitate her manners, though. For one thing, she complained too much, and she accused too much. Everything was always someone else’s fault. Everybody was always ruining her stuff, from handkerchiefs to vegetables served and tea water not caught at the precisely correct moment to make her tea palatable. But I did learn to imitate her way of physically carrying herself through the world, head held high, the distance between ears and shoulders as wide as possible, shoulders back, and moving through any space as though she owned it. I’ve never worn a crown in my hair, not yet anyway, unless you count wearing little circlets of daisies, buttercups, and cornflowers. But one day I will no doubt wear a real crown. If I ever get out of this coffin, that is.

There are no guarantees, especially if you’re not quite sure if this experience is in fact life. Or is it death instead? Or is it simply being on hold, stalled in some potentially magnificent development?

When I was seven years old, the tragedy happened. Q’An stepped in front of her mirror and her mirror told her faithfully,

“You’re very beautiful, that’s true,

but Snow White is now more beautiful than you.”

I ask you, how could I not be? I never had any worries, never anything to complain about. Unless I was dreadfully bored, I was enthusiastic about almost everything in life. I welcomed whatever came my way, rhinestones, hamsters, butterflies—I loved them all. I was happy in a way she had long forgotten how to be, if she had ever known such sunny happiness in the first place.

The mirror’s judgment was unacceptable to her, of course. Not that she suspected Daddy of any leanings toward incest. After all, she was then still practically a child herself and could take care of all his needs, whatever they might turn out to be. But in a life-long practice of competing, sometimes the goal of the competition gets lost in the process, and then suddenly competition itself becomes the goal. It’s like politicians vying for power until at some point nobody even thinks to ask anymore: So then, when you have all that coveted power, what will you do with it? That’s how it was with Q’An and beauty. She needed to be the most beautiful. She needed to be the best. She needed to be every superlative possible, without ever asking why and what for. And so my own developing beauty was definitely a threat to her pie. She couldn’t possibly eat the whole pie all by herself, but she would be damned before she was going to share a piece of it. After all, she might have use for dried-out pie crumbs in some nebulous future.

She decided to get rid of me, so that I would not ever threaten her peace of mind—and her piece of the pie—again.

At first she couldn’t conceive of doing away with me herself. Like a nature lover faced with the hygienic necessity of killing a mouse in a small baby’s bedroom, it just didn’t appeal to her.

Let me jump ahead to a later time here. Time floats for me in this strange oneness of being on hold in my glass coffin.

I can understand her, you see. After all, among other things, Daddy definitely required her to be his pretty trophy, his arm candy that earned him the admiration of his fellow men for having snagged her. Which isn’t too far afield from this prince of mine. He, too, fell in love with me while I was preserved in glass, where nothing ever changes and I remain an adorable and possibly adoring child. The ultimate question is, will my prince be content once I revive and become real? Or will he regret then that I haven’t remained frozen in convenient and unforgettable immobility? Will he be able to live with the reality of me being something besides a cherished trophy?

I hope he stumbles. Or if not he, then one of his servants, please God.

I’ve been known to sing, “One day my prince will come,” but I think perhaps the truer lyrics would be, “One day my prince will stumble.” That is my wish.

I hope the glass breaks, the poisoned apple falls out of my mouth, and I will have a chance to live again.

I know it’s risky. I don’t even know what life is like for a woman. No one has taught me much. Do I sit in the corner by the window like my mother and sew? Or do I strut around in party dresses like Q’An and say yes and amen to everything that Daddy might require?

Then again, a man, no matter how princely he might be, probably doesn’t know what life with a woman entails either. No one teaches men what to expect any more than they teach women. Let’s hope for the best. Oh, come on, stumble already. Stumble, my love, so that this prison shatters. For life is better than death.

But back to the story now. The hunter was the next to come on the scene.

I was quietly playing in the garden, the way I had been taught. Be seen at most; never be heard. Best not to be in evidence at all.

I was playing with the roses. My favorite game was counting their heads, their blossoms, rather, but in my game the blossoms became heads of people. I played an elaborate elimination game with them. I counted off blossom after blossom and eliminated ones with a certain number, and the very last rose left would be my special friend and protector for that day, or for that hour if I was particularly bored and felt like playing again. At least all those numbers that I had to count and keep track off kept my brain busy.

One of Q’An’s hunters suddenly stood next to me. I never saw or heard him until his shadow fell over the roses.

“Come,” he said. “We’re going on an adventure in the forest.”

I was a little frightened of him. For one thing he was so big; or else I was just very small compared to him. He was meaty, a bit like the older Marlon Brando. For another thing, I’d never been on an adventure in the forest before, especially not with a man. He smelled funny, too, like old butter, and also a little like dog, and I’d always been afraid of dogs anyway, especially their teeth.

I went along, because I always did what I was told to do. Generally I didn’t have much choice in the matter, so I just did it out of habit.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Into the forest.”

“How far?”

“Deeper.”

Than what? But he didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation. So I started signing. La-la-la-la.

It was beautiful in the forest. Some chickadees were singing. Deet-deet. Deet-deet. We walked for a very long time.

I always walked a step or so behind him. That wasn’t because I couldn’t keep up with him, but more because he obviously didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t. With most other adults I would have reached for one of their hands, which oftentimes they seemed to like also, and it usually made me feel good and safe.

But he wasn’t that kind of an adult. He was like the one thing that was completely out of place in this forest, this green magic world with sun-drenched trees and light trembling in the wind like whispers.

Suddenly he turned around.

“Come here,” he said. He held a large spotty knife in his right hand. He rubbed it on his leather apron as though to clean it. I stepped back.

“Don’t hurt me,” I whimpered. He lifted his knife. “Don’t kill me,” I begged, even before I quite realized consciously what he was planning to do.

“I have to,” he said. “It’s what she wants. She’s the boss. I have to obey.”

“Why?” I asked. Then I fell on my knees, preparing to seriously beg. It had worked for me on the few occasions when I had fallen on my knees in front of Q’An. Maybe it would with her henchman as well. He looked uncomfortable; his face was still like a poker player’s, ruddy, fleshy, and sullen. His eyes did not meet mine.

“Please let me live,” I begged. I believed that I had the power to stop him. Nobody would kill a pretty little girl like me, would they? “I’ll go away,” I said. “I promise you, I’ll go far away.”

A boar came crashing through the underbrush toward us, grunting, and the hunter threw his knife at the running, snuffling shape in a skilled arc. The boar squealed, went silent, squealed once more, a long, high sound of complaint. Then the beast gave a few muffled grunts and its massive shape shuddered. Finally it lay still on the ground.

“Run,” the hunter yelled at me.

I stood frozen in panic.

“Run!” he bellowed.

So I ran. And I never looked back.

As I ran and stumbled over roots and scratched my hands on brambles and scraped my knees on knobby wood to catch myself from falling, I imagined him cutting open the boar and taking out its liver and its lungs as proof of my demise. My stepmom had been very specific in that regard.

I imagined him arriving back in the castle, all bloody, handing over the two tokens of my death. I imagined Q’An being a little surprised that he was not greener in the face, and she probably immediately earmarked him for future difficult assignments, as he seemed to be able to move swiftly and untouched by fastidious emotion. But it never came to that, for he left her employ that same day. Nobody ever got to ask him any questions or give him further assignments. Nor could Q’An take revenge on him once she discovered that she had been deceived.

You bet I was frightened! I’m one, or was one, who was frightened to reach for matches in the dark in case a spider had settled on the match box. I was frightened to walk anywhere at night in the castle unless the whole place was lit up. With so many corners and shadows everywhere, a single candle was hardly ever enough for comfort. So suddenly I am here in this forest among all these crawling, cawing, hissing, chirping things—and the wind whipping small branches into my face. I lived because after a while you simply do. Berries, nuts, acorns. I figured if a squirrel could eat it, so could I. Fortunately it was fall.

Speaking of food, Q’An promptly had the lungs and liver boiled and salted—an interestingly plain way of having me prepared, compared with the more elaborate ways in which she was in the habit of having her other meals served. But this time, plain and simple was what she wanted. Then she sat down to eat my lungs and my liver. Or so she thought.

How fascinating she was. Even in her failure. A tragic figure, really.

I was driving to pick up my sister after soccer practice. I had the radio on, tuned to the hits station she liked. I really didn’t like it, but leaving it on that station was easier than fighting about it once she climbed in. I just let it play-the insipid tunes, the mindless chatter from the DJ-giving me background music for the movie of my life. Ever since my life blew up, raining down burning pieces of existence like the climax of a buddy cop film, simpler has been the goal for me.

It was a simple, stupid mistake. Not made out of sloppiness, really, or total self centeredness, just sort of a mixture of both-a mutual loss of control. I could blame him, rant and rave and curse my lot, but I was there, too. I could have insisted. And I didn’t. Blaming is pointless at this juncture, anyway. Someone on the radio was singing about how they think they are in love. Good for you, I think, turning the wheel to make a hard right turn, feeling the seat belt press against me. There’s my reminder, right on time-a routine, instinctive motion, that is suddenly less comfortable. .

Not that my mother fails to remind me of my status. I love my mother-who doesn’t love their mother, right?-but I really don’t need to be reminded. I know it was dumb, poorly timed, a burden on everyone-I understand it. Besides the routine tensions of living in a house with two other women-a notion that gets harder as my sister gets older-there is the insistence, by both of them, that I be constantly reminded that I messed up. I appreciate all that my mother does-really, I do, but still-it was an error, I get it. I felt a twinge-not a pain, just a lurch, sort of-to emphasize the point-somewhere in there.

I eased our van into line with other parents’ vehicles, waiting my turn to pick up my charge. I saw Angie at a distance, recognizing her easily among the ponytailed horde. Being an older sister, I have been picking her out of crowds for a long time. She was standing with two other girls, a taller one I knew and a shorter one I didn’t recognize. I wondered if they were talking about me, then discarded the thought almost as quickly. They have their own little trials to worry about-rumors and fears and scandals and the thousand little slings and arrows of girl life.

I felt a wave of sadness-I knew what troubles she had coming, generally speaking-not the exact source of drama, but the type would be the same-betrayals, breakups, boys-passions without reason causing heartache that feels eternal. I still wanted to protect her, as annoying as she often was, from this sort of hurt-from any sort of hurt. I knew it wasn’t possible.

She had guitar tomorrow, so I was going to see him. He wasn’t like anyone else I knew-he looked, but didn’t stare, he listened, without judging, he heard without my having to repeat. In a different world, with a different me-sure, I could see it happening. He wasn’t devastating, but he was nice enough looking, I supposed, and he was sweet and had really good taste in music. And despite what they thought, and despite what had happened, I was still a girl, and–

Just stop it, I ordered myself. Don’t even go down that road. You know you can’t. So stop. Don’t. You’re not doing that, period. You have too much on your plate. I pulled up to the curb, and, after a pause, Angela broke off from her friends and brought a pair of bags to the car door. I hit the button to unlock it, and she climbed in, shutting it behind her. I could smell the air change-mown grass and exhaust fumes and sweat.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I answered.

“What’s for dinner,” she asked. It was a lot of work to prepare dinner and clean up, but someone had to do it-she was too young and Mom was too tired. I sighed quietly.

“Chicken, I think.” There was some chicken thawing, and I had about 11 minutes to come up with something to do with it. My feet ached with the thought of 60, or more, minutes standing in the kitchen.

“I’m sick of chicken.” She sounded pouty-tired and hormonal. I hated the sound, but I sympathized too.

“I am too,” I said quietly and pulled away from the school.

Hey! Where? Georgie Girl!

The Decade of Myth didn’t start
with the year six-oh
nor did it stop with the one
ending in six-nine
It started in sixty-three
with the death of Young John the Debaucher
and ended in seventy-four,
with Sir Dickie the Trickie’s departure
we all got that straight? – solid, man!

[In The Beginning And In The End]

I met the Fair Maiden Georgie Girl
on an Ivoryton Sixty-Nine summer night
my Boys of Summer campin’ cross the lake
as were your hippie-chicks

[Original Boys of Summer, Fantasy Hippie Chicks]

Welfare and rich, mixin’ & matchin’
in each other’s sleeping bags
thirteen year old Elke Sommer’s kid shackin’
up with the Gypsy Queen’s daughter
so we figured why not us too

[Elke Sommer, one of my kid's Mom, Gypsy Queen, one of yours]

While my tongue was in your nethers
on that misty-meadowed night
and yours on my fair lance
I felt another on my foot
thought “How can she do that?”
I had to give a glance

In the heat of a passion
I look back and see
that a goat of the pastures
decided to make the scene

[Three's a Crowd on My Cloud]

“Man, you know what yew got there, compadre?”
said old Ed the cook – “just one word, man
you’ll understand, she goes to the same
school as Jackie O’s kid!”

[Did Caroline Ever Eat Camp Slop?]

Your name was Georgette, your brother’s Carroll
I should’a got the clue
but we talked not of backgrounds
we just wanted to screw

That mescalined night in the pond
skinny-dippin with three others
in front of the Ivoryton post office
doin’ it in the road
an early train-spotting with cars
none came, we did

                            
[Ivoryton Post Office, No Worry, it was after midnight]

Man – we got two days off – where we gonna’ go?
it’s the weekend of a gig on Yasgur’s Farm -
but we had not enough time for the show

Off instead to my poor man’s heaven
on the other side of the LI Sound
meeting those children of god
all going the other way

Starry, Starry Night
we slept, talked and did the nasty
where I, in innocence once
built a raft of driftwood
to take me twenty miles across
to the shore from which we ferried
escaping my Father’s demise

[Yasgur's Farm and Sound Beach
We were only two at the beach, wonder how many made it to the farm?]

“Wake up! Wake up!”
roust the commie, preppie, philosopher, hippie and jock
I had one of each sort in my troop
Neil the Man’s about to take his midnight walk!
we herded them into the mess tent to see
the moon violated by mankind’s knee

[It Takes All Kinds watching Armstrong]

Back in the City, you One East End Ave
me from across the Gowanus
riding the subway to the stars
wondering what I was doin’

your nanny plopped with a death thud
to the floor above us
in your private-elevator duplex
as we were loving in full window view
of the 59th Street Bridge – that wasn’t groovy

[The Gowanus - Bridge Over Dirty Waters, 59th St Bridge - Feelin' Groovy]

You off to bucolic Pine Manor in Brookline
with your mama’s Standard Oil money
me back to CCNY turmoil
in Harlem on my night cabbie’s pay
visits on weekends, further apart -
we did start to grow away

    
[Protected in Brookline, Protesting in Harlem]

One last stab – I your debutante escort
at your coming out debut
for the Grosvenor Ball in the Plaza
you were both loathe and loving to attend
four months after you first came with a man
or rather this boy from across the facts

Dine with a Kennedy here, a Lindsay there
under a blanket in a horse carraige ride
in Central Park, thereafter
you sneak into my room
for our last bedding

[The Poor Got Richer, if just for a day]

Remember back when we got kicked out
of that snooty Boston Common’s hotel
for me refusing to wear a tie?
you laughed all the way with me
to the cheap shack up the block

Time driftwooded on, we left each other
my only contact with your world
became the green of the bluebloods
as I ferried them around the town

We met again in seventy-four on Mass Ave
just up from the Coop
me with my Nancy girl, you with
a Japanese artist, your Yoko
spurning your parent’s wealth
he hair down to his calves

Maybe we had an effect on each other,
maybe the Sixties mattered
or maybe we were all just
Fools on the Hill

Some weeks later, my sister called. “You gotta come visit, see what I purchased with the help of Uncle Robbie’s money!” She sounded excited, so I drove across the state line the following weekend. I rang the bell and adjusted my new glasses, sure she’d notice them right away. She threw open the door with her characteristic enthusiasm and greeted me with a new set of D’s, maybe even Double-D’s. I hugged her, mindful not to squish her new acquisitions, and followed her in, my mind responding in overdrive: Good Lord, Patricia, what have you done? I am reading Foucault, have a copy of Discpline and Punish right here in my bag. Wanna read it? No, of course you don’t. I wonder if my $300 left over would get me a downpayment on a set of those. I couldn’t afford D’s of course (and they are ridiculous), but C’s might be quite sensible…

“You have new glasses!” Patricia interrupted.

“The better to see you with,” I replied.