Eary Problem
This problem has led to marital problems because of my persistence. I just don’t want to quit despite its reputations for causing health problems. I’ve had to have something extracted from my ear canal because of my compulsion, but q-tips feel so good in my ears. Am I the only one with outer ear itching?
Head Scratcher
This should be a private vice, but it is so ingrained sometimes I do it in public. Eczema or dermatitis makes my eyebrows, beard and hair itch. Nothing I’ve tried has eliminated the dry, itchy rashes. Quitting drinking would be easier.
Child (dibble and a half)
My father read the Oz books to my sister and I at bedtime. To refresh my memory I bought a set of Oz books. I used to listen to Cinnamon Bear stories in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. I bought the cds so I could listen again. A few years ago I restarted playing softball. As a child I did childish things. That still works now that I’m eighty, so I’m keeping at it.
Negotiation
You will have the sun and the stars. I’ll take care of you in sickness and health. You’ll have a lovely home and no worries. All I ask is that you love me too.
Will you lower my taxes?
I can’t do that.
Then I’m voting for the other guy.
Maroon
I like my aloha shirts. I feel that a colorless person - me – should have colorful shirts. Solids are OK if they are out there – orange or maroon. My maroon shirt fits well, feels good, and looks good. It’s OK that it’s a dead man’s shirt. He can’t use it.
Joints
Our joints allow us a variety of movements until they don’t. Learn from this arthritic old man. Years of jumping from heights, lifting excessive weights with bad form and repetitive strain left me with bad knees, one bad shoulder and one questionable one. Treat them right and they will last.
Game Over
Last inning, behind by two runs. I got a walk, and there were three on base. The next batter could tie or win the game. The manager replaced two of us with pinch runners, which caused our second and third outs for batting out of order. We lost, I quit.
Time
A few months ago, I tried to get in touch with a woman that I went to grade school with to organize another get together. Cheryl had been an insurance adjuster and had kept track of our grade school graduating class. She had died in memory care three months ago.
Rejection?
The response to my submission was “Nicht include”. Sounded like a rejection. Was my sub too political? Should villains have gotten away with plotting the destruction of much of the world? The next day I got an email explaining that the rejection was a typo. Story will appear tomorrow. Woo-hoo!
Pitch
He had been following her for over an hour. Just his luck, she walked into an alley. When he followed her, she reached into her bag. When he became conscious she was picking up a baseball by his head. “Don’t stalk the star pitcher on my baseball team you creep.”
Spill Rules
One second for spilled tequila, whisky, or gin drinks to be sucked out of the carpet. Chocolate, peanut butter, or wheat thins three second pick up, most other food the usual five seconds. Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, or most cooked vegetables, next time carpet is vacuumed, and into the garbage.
Scatterbrain
Odd remembrances haunt my lazy, bored brain. Almost drowning when very young. The now great grandmother and widow that I made out with sixty years ago. A small clothing store that I walked past in Portland fifty plus years ago. The traumatized beauty that abruptly rejected me while in college.
Northeast Portland Years Ago
As a teenager, I was walking through Northeast Portland to get to a friend’s house. An older male pulled up and asked something like “Do I know you?” I didn’t and told him so. He wanted to know if I wanted a ride. I was a bit nervous and passed.
Oval
Joe asked the man next to him “Do you believe this flying saucer nonsense?”
“No it’s absurd. The ships are Oval.”
”Huh?”
“Aliens aren’t little green men. We come in many colors.”
“Where do you get these ideas?”
“I’m an Oval pilot - check my pants. I’ve got four legs
How Old Do I Look?
About forty on the average.
What do you mean on the average?
Your face is an 80 and your body is a 30.
Wait a minute, that averages 55.
Well, the guy part is about 10.
So, to look younger I should stop wearing pants?
Memories
I worried that I had age-related memory loss. Editor would tell me it’s a hike day, minutes later I wouldn’t know. Then I repeatedly saw two men in black suits walking away from me. Because I had seen the movie, I knew it wasn’t age, it was Men In Black.
The End
Monthly Archives: March 2024
Poetry from J.D. Nelson
light snowfall tonight but no accumulation oatmeal for dinner — cups of coffee at eleven-thirty at night can’t find my ear drops — bus leaves without me guess I’ll stay home & try out those detergent sheets — bio/graf J. D. Nelson’s poems have appeared in many publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of eleven print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *purgatorio* (wlovolw, 2024). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Poetry from Patrick Sweeney
La Boheme class signifiers at intermission she sucks the juice of grapefruit over the kitchen sink dozing off in tassel rue the emptiness of sin scent of crushed sage through the loophole in the cinder block wall the evaporating puddle I'm in by now he's entering the diamond-mansion heart of Saint Teresa the liquid mercury nail heads on the gray planks at sunset the fallen arches of the Donegal mussel catcher sheltering in place on a hairpin of jade oatmeal cookies for the unsung genius in plumbing supply the skinflint's only Latin phrase six realms and I'm dragging my ass in this one imprisoned by his attention to the insignificant in physics, he would entertain no more questions about hula dancers in outer space why do I have to hear about how miserable you would've been the accuracy of the mad
Essay from Jacques Fleury (one of several)
Exploring Love, Spirituality and the Black Experience in “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, a Book Review
[Excerpt from Fleury’s book: Chain Letter To America: The One Thing You Can Do To End Racism, A Collection of Essays, Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Multiculturalism]
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all the things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
So begins Zora Neal Hurston’s epic story about an emotional and spiritual journey of self-discovery. Through my incessant study of literature and the craft of writing, I have learned that what grabs a reader right from the onset of a story is by having a fully formed voice and vision that prepares us to go along for the ride; that we will be transported elsewhere to another reality.
In honor of Black History Month, the historical inauguration of America’s first Black President and Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to offer a dichotomous exploration of variant thematic ideologies of love and Black literary contributions to American culture and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” allows me to do just that.
“A graduate of Barnard…, Zora Neal Hurston published seven books—four novels, two books of folklore, and an autobiography—more than fifty shorter works between the middle of the Harlem Renaissance and the end of the Korean War, when she was the dominant Black woman writer in the United States. The dark obscurity in which her career then lapsed reflects her staunchly independent political stances rather than any deficiency of craft and vision,” writes Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in the afterward to Their Eyes.
Hurston, whose life spanned between the years 1891 and 1960, was a novelist, folklorist and anthropologist. Her fictional and factual writings of Black Heritage remain unparalleled. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is Hurston’s most highly praised novel and is considered a classic among the best of Black literature.
Their Eyes recounts the story of Janie Crawford’s burgeoning selfhood through three marriages with loving empathy and stinging urgency. Janie, who is described as “fair- skinned, long haired and dreamy as a child” advances in years to anticipate better treatment than she actually receives; that is until she has an unexpected encounter with an amusing, smooth and fast talking younger roustabout named Tea Cake, who entices her into an emotional and spiritual journey that will change her life forever. He proffers to her an opportunity to see herself and life through his eyes without being regrettably adorned with the formerly disparaging labels of being “one man’s mule” or another man’s wallflower through her previous two marriages.
Over the course of the story, the character of Janie unfolds, as she will learn that she does not have to succumb to living a life ripe with rife, acrimony or maladroit romantic dreams. Towards the end of the story, the reader will learn in Janie’s words: “two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh themselves. They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh themselves,” since her character struggles with the incessant panoptic surveillance and potentially spirit crushing criticism of her neighbors.
Every good writer or story-teller has to have motif and Hurston’s Their Eyes is swimming in a crystal clear blue- eyed sea of symbolism. In Their Eyes she uses an overworked, underfed and tormented mule to illustrate the dire living conditions of her main character Janie, what she endures on her way to spiritual, emotional, and physical freedom and awakening. Her depiction of Janie’s life of strife serves not only to demonstrate essentially the mistreatment of Janie as “one man’s mule and another man’s adornment”, it also attests to the meager living conditions of women, that is to say in terms of oppression and maltreatment, during her time period. Since she died right at the cusp of both the Civil Rights and the Women’s Equal Rights Movements, Hurton’s Their Eyes would go on to achieve greater respect and acknowledgement as an indispensable part of Black literature.
Also in Hurston’s novel, I was particularly enthralled by her use of Black vernacular speech (i.e. go tuh God…livin’ fuh theyselves…) to chronicle her Black female characters’ coming to the best of their being or emerging consciousness. In his afterward, Henry Louis Gates offers a keen observation of some of the most indispensible key elements regarding the deceptively simple trajectory of Hurston’s story. He writes that “The Charting of Janie Crawford’s fulfillment as an autonomous imagination, Their Eyes is a lyrical novel that correlates the needs of her first two husbands for ownership of progressively larger physical space (and the gaudy accoutrements of upward mobility) with the suppression of self awareness in their wife. Only with her third and last lover, a roustabout called Tea Cake whose unstructured frolics center around and about the Florida swamps, does Janie at last blooms…”
In other words, towards the end of the story, Janie did not find love and happiness as presumably defined by her first two husbands by the often superficial veneers of status and ownership of fancy property, ironically she found the bond of love, God and community living by a swamp with a mere unrefined and uneducated vagrant whose only means of sustaining Janie was through a daily dosage of love, laughter and whatever he could muster with his bare hands to put food on the table.
Therefore in honor of Black History Month, you will find that in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” concurrent themes of Hope, love, and an affirmation of Black Heritage are enough to make you want to put Their Eyes on your reading list this February.
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…
He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him here.
Poetry from Borna Kekic
Neven Dužević Southwest of the center Southwest of the center is my neighborhood I went to school there and had a start There was also a cinema there After the second shift I had time there He imagined her and me in the last row All the movie scenes themselves But those are old days More or less, only on the same route Only the Tram knocks He only hides his name What was and is no longer They still walk there My dream mates Boys lost in the years They are looking for Peter Pan They talk about drinking Ribicija and black maca Southwest from the city center It's Trešnjevka...
Poetry from Mesfakus Salahin
The Unlucky Sun Forest bandits weave dreams in the eyes of the river The noise of civilization robs the fish of sleep The hearts of the far-near roads are wounded The tree stump is now an ammo Shadow walks on a bullet-ridden leg A changing climate attacks the world of clouds The fetus of poison vapor is in the womb of the sky Discrepancy of seasonal cycles is on the horizon The language of blood in the chest of green grass The Mathematics of Dissatisfaction is on Butterfly Wings Democracies of defeat in seven days of the rainbow Inventions in fresh account books kill themselves Nerve cells in the brain melt in the reproductive system Vascular blood vessels in clotted lesions The calendar is defective in the clutter of days Intellectuals are bought and sold Sometimes the sun itself seems unlucky .
Editor Cristina Deptula reviews S. Rupsha Mitra’s poetry collection Smoked Frames
Speakers in S. Rupsha Mitra’s Smoked Frames submerge themselves into intense experiences, questing to understand their true selves beneath waves of devotion. The collection begins with journeys into the physical and emotional self, where we “dream the fetish, to be wholesome, to grasp things together, piecemeal, not smitten by delirium or defences” (Self-Portrait As Navigating Consciousness). Others among the first few pieces explore the heady energy of youth (Springs) and the awkwardness we often feel within our physical bodies (Alien Skin). Mitra finds a sense of peace within her body with time, though, comparing the experience to taking comfort from a religious practice. She becomes able to accept and integrate her body into her whole being. Later, Mitra depicts mermaids as mythologized in various global cultures. Usually half woman and half sea creature, a mermaid straddles (or swims across) the two worlds, and so to be at home in and proud of one’s mermaid existence means being content as a hybrid who defies easy categorization. And Mitra’s mermaids are strong, lively, and confident: Suvanamachha, the Asian Mermaid enjoys pure love with the god Hanuman and blesses the entire world, while Melusine, the European Medieval Mermaid has “free pinions of pride” and “breathes of emancipation.” The poems following delve within the intricacies of the body and its nervous system, the physical underpinnings of our experience of the world. In "Knowledge of the Body", the speaker reflects that she has wronged her physical self through being overly critical and now wishes to “to strip the skin off the ribs and peer at its striking beginnings” and “flourish in this writhing extravagance.” She later applies this deep curiosity to psychology as well in "The Gestalt of Memory" and in "Defence Mechanisms", where she speculates on the workings of the ego she has sought to transcend. Within the book’s final section, Mitra’s speakers journey to sites of historical and religious significance in India and engage in more traditional religious practices. We reflect on the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati, during a puja ceremony, and enter the golden temple of Amritsar, shoes off out of respect. Yet this section also includes the speakers’ personal and family memories and heritage. In Lost in Murshidabad, she listens again to her parents’ recounting of their love story: “an unconditional love that embalms us in the midst of history.” In A Return at Saraswati Pujo, she recollects an argument that became very vulgar before apologies and resolution, but her anger dissipates as she observes sunlight and is “forced to admit that the world is very beautiful.” The titular piece, “Smoked Frames” resides near the end of the collection, among these remembrances of cultural and personal history. It deals with framed photographs, so many and so old that they have been put away in drawers and the exact moment of each scene forgotten. Mitra transcends the personal here and moves to a broader meditation on where and how we will find truth: “would it come as a mystic in orange robes…or as the mad whirlwind of samsara? … or as emancipation from wild enjambments?” She speculates on the divine being “distant yet so close, quite near, within me, (yet unseen within)” in an echo that calls back to the prior pieces on probing the interior of our bodies and the depths of our feelings and psychology. Once again, she is seeking out her truest fundamental self by embracing and accepting the mystery of everything she sees and experiences. S.Rupsha Mitra’s Smoked Frames collection offers us heady thoughts and reflections through the elevated languages of science, courtly romance, and spirituality. The poems become meditations on the search for how to love ourselves and each other through seeking out and understanding ourselves. S. Rupsha Mitra's Smoked Frames can be ordered here.