Posts for 2024 (page 61)

We chose to have the parents meet over dinner at my house with one he concocted with his newly acquired culinary skills from the CIA.First, he created a stunning charcuterie tray of grapes, a bird carved from an apple, fresh pineapple chunks, assorted cheeses such as brie, Manchego,gouda. Dad prepared their favorite old fashioneds with bourbon garnished with a slice of orange and a maraschino cherry in lowball glasses from his portable bar in the dining room. He toasted, “To Linda and Jim, may they continue to love and care for one another as they approach marriage.”The entrée was baked halibut sitka topped with a creamy sauce dotted with fresh green onions and fresh dill garnished with a lemon slice. Parslied buttered new potatoes and steamed asparagus as sides.  I watched and acted as his sous chef. He explained how important the presentation of the food is to all the senses. That’s why I chose Grannie’s Noritake China to use.  Only brought out for special dinners like this one. He bought a bottle of white pinot grigio to serve. He had learned about fine wines at culinary and was teaching me. All I knew was Boone’s Farm from college days or dark red communion wine from church. For dessert, he prepared individual chocolate souffles topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a fresh raspberry with a mint leaf for presentation, youknow. Stellar! I was in love! I was so proud of him and this gourmet meal but the kitchen was a disaster. Creativity can be messy. On a glow, we drove his parents back to their house across town when his mom burst my bubble. “Do your parents always drink like that?” she asked.  

One, two breaths of fresh air.

Grandma returned
as a newspaper publisher
like Ethel Barrymore
in Deadline USA
She’d seen it all
elegant and battle-hardened
each deadline a Tiffany scar

I was her editor
her Humphrey Bogart
We sat in the newsroom
talking coverage
for the next edition
though I can’t recall
what made page one 

Then I woke up
our partnership dissolved
the newsroom darkened
the presses relics
a-holes with X accounts
fancying themselves
“independent journalists”

The real Grandma
didn’t write and would
never pick a printed fight
She probably watched
Studio Wrestling
more than she read
The Daily News

It was just a dream
thin like smoke
from a candle snuffed
a board game
with missing pieces
But in a wisp of time
I had a boss I loved

And who by fire, who by water –Leonard Cohen (from the Machzor Rosh Hashanah)
 No one gets out of there alive –Jim Morrison    

Stop worrying about
Inconveniencing the living who
Don’t want to be bothered by someone
Screaming, crying out, moaning, leaving messes  

Stop worrying about dying quietly, without fuss so
The living won’t be discomfited
Scream, rail, weep, gnash your teeth
Rattle, hum, wander, sleep  

Go gentle into that good night
Or rage, rage, rage, leave it with a fight
It’s your life, your dying, your death
Don’t worry about how You breathe your last breath  

The last exhale comes to one and all    

Walk into a forest, one

that hasn’t seen you before,

in a land you’ve never visited,

or, better yet, not heard of.

Where nobody will look for you.

There will be places, thinned,

where you can see the sun,

the trees beyond the trees,

a path worn across the floor.

Like the endless false apologies.

Don’t let these fool you, or

birth some hope of escape

that will nag at the parts of you

she left without atlases of scars.

Not that such parts survived.

Keep walking, then penetrate

so deep you can see nothing

past the crazy prism of colors,

the palette of the varied pains.

She was an experienced artist.

Stay. Let your self dissolve.

Be a fungus born of old leaves.

Then wake. The scars will stay,

until you’re reminded how to love.

Which is not the same as forgetting.

(after the 1901 painting, “Forest of Fir Trees,” by Gustav Klimt)

He drove off to college

She brings it to the woods where it does not belong
it does not smell like limestone
does not hear the ripple of flowing water
does not walk along the creek like cedar boughs,
it will never have the sex appeal of soaring hawk

She keeps it in her head and will not bring it out
it exists like quantum mechanics
and has a Roman numeral hiding in every black hole
it remains mute behind the face of her Latin,
stays motionless on the path of meaning like India ink

She wants to tie it up with the lace of her boot
but it’s birth canal is in the invisible snap of synapse
and grounded like lightning through the roots of trees,
it lives off the limes of delicious dilemma
and comes close to fiddling like old man Nero

She grows tired of it and leaves it where it does not belong,
it will become honeysuckle and root like wild boar
spread like moldy fungi through fiddlehead fern
turn the romance of the world against its own moon.
This is why there are jumbo jets and ermine clouds

Dishes delicious, tables laden with
nothing I want to eat, not even the
star treat, hot dog buns palming
“what purports to be sausage,” wink, wink.
(Supposedly, only the artsy who live in
lofts of New York City really
get it.)  

Forget it –
I’ve come for plum brandy.  

Everyone’s nice, I take a seat.
I let decanters of wine pass me by.
Come on, wouldn’t you like to try?
I shake my head.
I’m saving room for plum brandy. 

Then I feel the meal escaping,
my consciousness blinking.
I reach for the bottle, rude, seeing
I’m spent, useless as a bruised banana.  

I don’t even take a drink, I sink
back into dirt that birthed me, knowing
I never needed no
m_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ plum brandy.          

today it will rain
tomorrow, rain again. this
is irish summer