Casualties
At the mid-day meal, for the second day in a row, they celebrated the Armistice. Grandma had attempted, and succeeded, in baking a light and fancy Angel Food Cake. The mood in the house was joyful, even if Viola thought…
Category Scribblings & Writings
Gluttony
Yesterday I pondered: Why is gluttony considered a sin? Or, why would God, if there is such a being, care whether I overeate? In other words, is it not God’s will for me to enjoy the edible abundance and bounty…
Odd Ball
This moon this changing mood am I waxing am I waning am I full? These empty ovaries twin moons white nodules in the sea of me fireless stony and silent. My mood slithers from orbit like a cracked egg sliding…
ENEMY, the movie
My Review of ENEMY: This movie was filmed so that it looks like a bad, yellowy Polaroid from the 60s. Everything, including Jake Gyllenhaal, is brown. It’s shot in Toronto, and our city never looked more depressing – reminded me…
Getting in Shape for Free – Sustaining my 1st Fitness Injury
This walking thing is not child’s play. After downloading a pedometer to my cell phone I proceeded to pound the pavement, the lumpy, ice and snow covered payment. I walked to the library, I walked to work, I walked to…
My Biased and Ignorant Academy Awards 2014 Preview Review
I love the Academy Awards. It’s live TV and anything can happen on live TV. For example, I howled when Melissa Leo dropped her grateful F-bomb. And I still quote Sally Field, “You like me, right now, you like me!” …
Getting in Shape (for free)
Yesterday I came up with a whole new chapter for the book I’m working on (How to Live on Nothing and Have Everything). It’s called, Getting in Shape. CAUTION: This material is untested. I found myself believing the horseshit that…
Fishing
I’m fishing in a fathomless pond reeling in six today no seven piscine quicksilver so easily forgotten dragged from depths below I remember. The water tranquil mere ripples across the deep dark green a verdant vast pool of whispers and…
Nouns
If I were to lose my nouns now as many women do what would become of my poetry? It would blow into nothingness a silent storm waving beyond air-tight windows. But I am blessed. As the hormones rearrange my brain…
Losing You
I did not love you well enough or deep enough. I held back, disdained. And now regret rains on me for there are no further years to fill with opportunities for sunny affection or daisy days. I cared. I took…
Blooms
I am weighted down by the beauty of the full-blown bush. Once upon a time I grew a rose but snipped its buds in their rolled and soft perfection. I prefer the unbloomed rose before it opens and begins to…
Q-Tips
Because the insides of my ears are wet I put down my chore and heed the Q-Tips’ call. I must swab out my canals while the wax is soft, and dry them so the wind no longer tingles through cooling…
Sexopause
Have you ever had a phase in your life when, in spite of being open to a sexual relationship, your romantic universe just doesn’t collide with the universe of Mr. A&A (Attractive and Available)? I call this, Sexopause. It can…
Silence
The long cold silent winter stretches out like a thin blanket on a loveless bed. I trust life is breathing – a barely beating heart in hidden leaves and sunken acorns frigid bulbs. The silence menaces me. No birds no…
Fruit Flies
I watch the winged drown in the cider trap feel a tinge sorry for their floating bodies no longer flitting annoying gnats helicoptering the tomatoes the pears the compost bucket. I rationalize that their last moments were at least debauched…
California Cold
I flee outdoors to the sun. Cold in California where the altitude or latitude or some other damn thing like oceanic air renders caffeine neutral in my blood. Chilled and drunk on words from my host’s stack of books unread…
Air Show
Just wanted to say, on this fine dull morning, how yesterday you sat at a picnic table grinning at me from a face I’d never seen. And you reached out and into me and expelled an obsession taxiing there for…
Right and Left
“Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember…
Memories of a Sister
A Spaniard in the Works I sold it not worth much now on eBay Sorry Would you have kept it? You bought at the United Cigar Store a yellow lion coin bank honeysuckle incense cones and a tiny carved box…
Publishing in Chalk
My children attended a tiny public alternative school in Toronto. Each year all families were encouraged to attend the graduation of the grade 6 class. This whole-school event was an annual tradition. Even though my children were just beginning at…
Chattering
Born with this big bundle bursting and chattering scattering love like dropped petals from wildflowers carelessly and carefully. Look what I picked for you, mommy! From my hot and sweaty hand she takes them, but later I find them withered…
Writing my Grandmother to Life
I’ve written little while immersed in the world of self-publishing. Even my journal has gaping, week-long lapses between short terse entries. As Poems from the Chatterbox reveals, I write to relieve pain, often. My writing, as my editor pointed out…
Undertow
The tide is turning and in the draw the green frothy murk of the undertow. I see the flotsam of his needs scattered, the sad rotting angels swirling, the helpmeet dying, the precious words decaying – what am I saying?!…
The Difference
From the library I took two books one of God poems one of love. And read them side by side each day and could not see the difference. O’ that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!…
An Apology to Poets
True confession. Yes, I have a degree in English literature. Yes, I’ve read the “Faerie Queen” and “Leaves of Grass”. No, I don’t read poetry. Why? Like most readers, I don’t get poetry. It’s difficult to read. It takes effort…
butterflies are free!
I’m going on my first ever trip to Florida. I’ve seen pictures of the blue sky, the ocean, the palm trees and the enormous beach front hotels. It looks like the Florida of my imagination. I’m going there to vacation,…
speaking Michelangeloly
I haven’t written many new poems lately; I’m in between inspirations. But I have been revising. I realized today that revision is my favourite part of writing. In fact, before I send a poem out to a potential publisher, I…
koo koo ka choo
Semolina Pilchard published three poems today one of which is my “Aging”. The three poems share a theme, the turn of seasons, the resurrection; nice choice for this Passover/Easter weekend. I love the line in Joseph Farley’s poem, “A season…