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"GROWING UP"
Why do they call it up? Why not growing out?
or older or colder, but certainly not bolder.
If up is the long mouthed faces who drive
their barred cars to work down the choking asphalt
roads, then I'm for down or even back.
You know the grown up guy in the ad who's eating
frosted flakes with Tony the Tiger chuckling
over his shoulder? Well, that's me. Why not?
What's so hot about up? Where's the Lorax
in up? Where's Jiminy Cricket wishing on a star
in the forest where the wild things are?
My world is a tea-party. Not a lip pursing
finger-lifting, tight-assed tea party. A real one.
The maddest of Mad-Hatter tea parties, and everyone's
invited. There's Curious George swinging
from the branches with Dumbo and Eeyore
and Horton, and little Cindy Lou Who cheering
them on. There's Homer Price and Tom Sawyer
and Christopher Robin making donuts like demons
and swapping tall tales with Sam I Am
and Miss Muffet and the Spider sitting down
beside each other and Snow White and Cinderella
and Sleeping Beauty comparing hair - and princes
and Tom and Jerry and Sylvester and Tweetie Bird
and even Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner laughing
so hard at their own cartoons that tears are coming
from their eyes and Hansel and Gretel and Dorothy
and the Scarecrow cheering for the death of wicked
witches and Roo and Kanga and Piglet shouting
hooray for the little engine that could
and Peter making Captain Hook walk the plank
while Tinker Bell shines from up on high and
all the fairy godmothers descend to give
their blessings at the end.
How does that sound? How does that compare with up?
So the next time someone yells at you, "Grow Up,"
just say - no thanks - I'm going for down or in
or back. Anything but up.
- Anthony S. Abbott from A Small Thing Like A Breath
"CARROT COLORED WORDS"
For Kappa and Jay
The dialogue goes something like this:
"I love you," I say, it being the end
of our conversation. "I love you,"
you sign weakly after long silence.
I challenge your desultory reply.
"It's the word," you say. "It's been
overused. We need to find a better."
I accept the task. For nights I search
for carrot colored words, for words
with tails and purple horns and long
red sashed round their middles. I scream
for green words with yellow spotted stomachs.
My doctor friend tells me how patients
miss medical terms. A woman in Georgia
spoke of suffering from "Smiling Mighty
Jesus," meaning spinal meningitis.
Another had "fireballs of the Eucharist,"
in reality fibroids of the uterus. If I
could choose, I'd take Jesus too. And those
fireballs beat fibroids all to hell.
That's the kind of word I want. I fireball
you. I smiling mighty Jesus you. It's cute
and satisfies your need for something new
but it's not exactly what I mean to say.
What I mean to say is - if I was dying
and I could choose one person in the world
to sit and hold my hand and hear whatever
words I had to say - it would be you
and I know no better term for that
than love. If I find one, I'll let you know.
- Anthony S. Abbott from A Small Thing Like A Breath
I will choose the tongue for my songs
I am a young woman
...
joining hands with the moon
a creature of blood and it's
the singing of the blood
that matters. . .
- Wendy Rose from Naming Power
Everything has its own place and function. That applies to people, although many don't seem to realize it,
stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house. When you know and respect your Inner
Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong.
- Benjamin Hoff from The Tao of Pooh
I wished for years and years that I could separate into ten different people: ten versions of myself in order to give each
person I loved a part of myself forever and also have some left over to drift across landscapes and maybe even go into death or
areas which were dangerous, and have enough of me to survive the deaths of one or two or three of me. . . . Now I'm in danger
of losing the only one of me that is around. I'm in danger of losing my life and tell me exactly what gesture can convey or stop
this possibility. What gesture of hands or mind can shut it down in its invisible tracks - nothing, and that saddens me. . . .
Should I count backwards like the Mayans so that I never get older? Will the moon in the sky listen to my whispers as I count away?
- David Wojnarowicz
Happily, your author is not under contract ot any of the muses who supply the reputable writers, and thus he has access
to a considerable variety of sentences to spread and stretch from margin to margin...For example: This sentence is
made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium).
This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of a poet.
This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence was born with a caul. This sentence has a
crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino and doesn't care who knows. Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia
connections. This sentence is a double Cancer with Pisces rising. This sentence lost its mind searching for the perfect
paragraph. This sentence refuses to be diagramed. This sentence ran off with an adverb clause. This sentence is 100 percent
organic: it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe et al., which are loaded
with preservatives. This sentence leaks. This sentence doesn't look Jewish... This sentence has accepted Jesus Christ as its
personal savior. This sentence once spit in a book reviewer's eye. This sentence can do the funky chicken. This sentence has
been too much and forgotten too little. This sentence is called "Speedoo" but its real name is Mr. Earl. This sentence may be
pregnant, it missed its period this sentence suffered a split infinitive - and survived. If this sentence had been a snake
you'd have bitten it. This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And this little
sentence went wee wee wee all the way home. This sentence is proud to be a part of the team here at Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
This sentence is rather confounded by the whole damn thing.
- Tom Robbins from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Haiku Sequence for Kristine
#1
Kristine is writing a poem
Really fast I know
It's good by the look she has
#2
Kristine has her head down in
a poetry prayer
Smoke curls around her hair; she writes
#3
Her pen flies on gold paper
taken from a pack
of cigarettes meant for trash
- by L. Stephens, Mar 28, 9:04pm
More than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.
- John Donne, 1633
A woman seldom writes her mind but in a post script
- Richard Steele, 1711
Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.
- Emerson, 1836
When one realizes we have all gone mad the mysterious disappear and life stands explained.
- Mark Twain, 1841