The Trash Collector--On the Poetry Bus

This week's Poetry Bus is from The Science Girl at Have Genes Will Travel. She prompts for a poem about things we like that others don't like.

The Souvenirs

In Guadalajara
I picked up trash:
wrappers from cakes,
cigarette packages,
coasters and matchbooks.

Before dawn I went alone
to a cathedral. I watched
a priest, resigned,
bless a penitente off his knees
then walked to our hotel.

We ordered big breakfasts.
Bank security had machine guns.
Once moneyed, we drove to
exclusive shops, refueling
at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

They took naps after lunch
While I looked at bakeries
and scraped curbs near cantinas.
I heard I was much woman
From men with red-veined eyes.

I drew pictures of buildings
Before returning to the hotel.
We drank whiskey, ate salted peanuts
and cut oranges on toothpicks.
Then to dinners I couldn't eat.

and drinks after dining every night.
One afternoon in the market,
I bought a bright blanket
And wore it like a shawl after dark.
The hotel staff laughed at me
When I went out to hear the singers.

I heard La Paloma. I asked for Jalisco,
for La Malaguena. A young man sat
To see if I wanted company.
I held my purse. In poor Spanish
I told him to move along.

I brought back trash
for souvenirs, now pressed like leaves
in a file cabinet. They thought
What a stranger. Who needs

"El Rey, cigarillos, clase A"?
at once familiar but odd
attractive enough to sell once
then common, with no value
crumpled record of lone adventures.

--Ann T. Hathaway

Poetry Bus: Art Appreciation

This week's poetry prompt comes from Kate of the Emerging Writers blog.
One of the prompt choices was  L'esprit d'escalier. This is a French term I've run into before. It means "the spirit of the staircase", but really it's the moment you think of the Crushing Comment that you would have made, except the moment is gone already. (Oh! I should have said that!) but too late.

So, poor Grandma. She's in for another poetic slam today. However, she was also a fun lady much of the time. This is not a revenge poem--it's the Esprit d' Escalier. No going back to fix this one.


you have to have a man for this

Amid a trendy traffic, my cousin Angel admires

Lichtenstein’s Pop: triadic blue, red and yellow.
We live by design: me in fashion, and Angel, graphics.
Grandmother’s pleased we have such passions. She’s
With us too, and fairly doting. We’re all dressed up
And later lunching: just us girls. Grandma was
Past president of this museum’s Guild. Art is not
The thing that drives her, but without what social
Ladies willed, this building would be dust and stone
So she also feels just right at home.

I’m beguiled by Angel’s exposition, but Grandma’s
Worried over Angel’s dating. And just to take this past the top
Angel broke up with grandma’s pool-boy lately, and this
Is none of Grandma’s business. But in front of comic paintings
Begins a maternal inquisition. When will you marry, Angel darling?
There are men all over as you can see. How about that
Handsome fellow? Now there’s a work of living art.

Her voice has always carried well, and
Angel’s always been so shy. She turns bright red.
The man selected turns his head. He’s standing
In a group of gay. So much for this
Artistic day. If Grandma’s voice is loud enough, her whisper
Carries in the crowd: All you have to do is try.
Angel is about to cry. I intervene:
Grandmother. And she says, What? I only want her
To have a life. It’s so much better as someone’s wife. Angel flees
Under the attack. I glare and say I’ll be right back.

That night, I am still seeing red. Right before we go to bed,
My husband says, You should have laughed
Said you and Angel would find some cuffs
So Grandmother could get her stuff.  
Then you and Angel could enjoy the art
And Grandmother some lesser part. 

The Poetry Bus: Good Housekeeping

This week, The Professor gave three choices in a prompt for the New Year: a. a poem about ten minutes and the progress of feeling during that time; b. a poem about constructive change in the New Year; or c. a version of Auld Lang Syne. (She does explain this better in her post, linked above.)

Thanks to Peader at TotalFeckinEejit for administering the bus station--and all those who have delivered poetry prompts since I have been participating. Their blogs are The Weaver of Grass, The Muse Swings, and now Revolutionary Revelry.
And also thanks to the other participants, who have come by to comment and who have also contributed to the Bus! I have enjoyed checking out new lives, new views, new words. The world of poetry is alive and well, at least in the electronic media. Happy New Year to you all, and many fine words!


                No Escape

      I hide from those I should easily meet;

      Often I wonder where my courage went.

      And when bravery returns and sets my feet

      I find my efforts were mostly mis-spent.

      Many I know dismiss change for the good,

      They want just what they please, and nothing more.

      I recoil from petty injustice and brood

      Amidst petty pleasures behind my doors.

      Often I am angered by an unjust world,

      Along with my failure to prevail in it;

      Sometimes those two are so tightly curled,

      That faulting others makes me a hypocrite.

          To stand for another, to attack all that’s worst

          I must straighten my house; be just inside first.

      -- Ann T. Hathaway

The Poetry Bus: That Bad Gift

I nearly passed on this Poetry Bus, hosted by The Muse Swings. Because, you know: ingratitude and all that. But then I got an idea and started laughing. It's also perfectly true.

The Dregs of the Heirlooms

The gift that arrived in the mail
Was a heirloom from grandmother’s stash
And though dear granny had plenty of dough,
She never had very much class.
The necklace was orange with blue plastic discs;
It clashed with my sister’s attire.
O horrid necklace, o necklace so bad
What a tacky piece of crap that you are, you are
What a tacky piece of crap that you are!

The note that came on this Christmas gift
Said: This reminds me of you!
And with the wrapping unwrapped, and truth unveiled
My sister didn’t know what to do.
Stepmom doesn’t know me, or she doesn’t care
And how will I fake Christmas glee?
Oh horrid gift note, oh gift note so bad,
What a snarky little note that you be, you be,
What a snarky little fake pleasantry!

But now sister’s so pleased: she’s sending the thing
To the home of wise-cracking Ann T.
I’ll exchange it for some other horrid re-gift
At a party on Epiphany.
With luck, someone tacky will draw it in lots--
Or else we will laugh while they cringe!
Oh horrid necklace, o necklace so bad,
My sister will get her revenge, her revenge,
My sister will get her revenge.

Stars: The Poetry Bus

Well, The Bug has been doing this forever. And C.L.'s been doing it. And I thought, maybe every once in awhile, I will do it: it's the Poetry Bus, hosted this week by "The Weaver of Grass". The prompt this week is "stars".

Eclipse: December 21, 2010

1.
Above my city
On the night of the solstice
The moon eclipses.

On a flat rooftop
I’ll bring a full thermos
(Coffee regular)

And wrap up warmly
To see the moon’s shadow and
The stars showing cleanly.

In the dark desert
The big sky bulges with stars.
In town, hardly one

Competes with neon.
With luck, I’ll outlast the cold
With wool and coffee.

I'll watch a red moon
Pass into darkness and out,
The stars as witness.


2.
Long ago, my man
And I watched the moon eclipse
In small-town Texas.

He placed a penny
On a train track in the dark
To show off, playing.

The town was empty.
We were courting then. He took
The moon’s photo twice,

And the town’s photo
Once. Stars in skies. Stars in eyes.
The train rattled through.

The picture’s on my wall.
The flattened penny’s safely
Saved. The memory too.

3.

A copper shadow.

Light and dark. It's different

Now. I remember

Those were your last words

In a dream after death. You

Were happy. And me

I forget sometimes

I promised to keep the light.

Stars as my witness

In wool and cold air

I will see and remember

We'll talk it over.

from Keep Your Mind on Your Job . . .

More from Keep Your Mind on Your Job. This is the stepdaughter, Jenny, thirteen years old. She's remembering when she was six, and her father deserted the family after he couldn't make a go of it out west. They ended up in Camp Verde, Arizona, instead of California.

Her uncle Elijah Harris is one of her captors--her birth mother's brother, out with bad companions. Jenny's relationship to her uncle is one of the things keeping them in good health--and maybe the only thing--except Anne Davison's wits.
--

We used to live in Camp Verde in our busted wagon. You could hear what anybody said on the dirt outside. I don’t think Uncle Eli would call it a street.

There were Indians down the hill and soldiers across the way. Cowpunchers and settlers would come through and sometimes dead people got carried in. Most nights the bar would tinkle with fancy music. Noah and I wanted to go. But Mr. Flynn told Noah we’d get the whip hand if we disobeyed our Ma.

One night, some fight crashed out of Mr. Flynn’s saloon. Ma must have been listening for it, because she was still dressed, almost to the hat. They yelled and cursed and grunted when they got hit. I covered my ears and cried; I couldn’t help it. Back then, with my father first gone, I was crying scared almost all the time.

Ma said it was the last straw. She opened the front of our wagon cover and stood behind the seat. She raised the shotgun and fired a double blast. We found that out later.
Noah said that he knew it at the time. But he didn’t know in advance.

“Gentlemen, I have young children.” Ma was so scared, her voice cracked. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but please don’t kill anybody where they can hear it.”

Noah doesn’t think they wanted to kill each other. But he only said that long afterward. At the time, he was scared just like me.

The next day, those men and some others started coming over for coffee. Every last one left a nickel a cup. Each one also advised her to shoot at one of them next time, not at the air. Because she was lucky no one shot back.

And that made no sense to me then, and it doesn’t now either.

But that’s how it started: Ma lost her temper. Then she was ashamed because she put herself forward. And then she went to work, fixing things.

She served bean soup and cornbread and strong coffee off of the back of our wagon. Those men would come by to eat a meal or take away a piece of cornbread. Some days after that, Mr. Hough came to taste the soup. He staked Ma so she could expand business into a tent. And Mr. Flynn had our wagon’s wheels repaired, so we could move behind the business.

Ma thanked him over and over. But I think he did it because men liked to fight in his saloon. And no one gets to fight much with Ma around.

Fiction: Doubt to a Desert Man

This is from a novel I wrote but haven't sent out yet, called Keep Your Mind on Your Job or alternately, The Territory Man. In it, James Davison and his stepson Noah Miller are trying to chase down the men who kidnapped James' wife Anne, his stepdaughter Jenny, and the toddler Sally Anne. 

The reason I chose that title is because James is a Territory Man. He's in a big damn hurry and scared of course, but the way he works is also to maintain his own integrity in the desert. That way, he's able to win just by sticking it out longer, making fewer mistakes. But this is much more of a test.

Going out to the writers out there--(hello, The Bug and C.L.)--the desert man I know who's coming back from vacation (hello, Captain)--Bob and Momma Fargo, who are dealing with environment all the time--to Slamdunk and BobKat for the missing persons work--and to anyone who enjoys it. And I hope you do.

They've stopped for the night--this chapter is told from the stepson's point of view.
---

I hear him drink out of the jar. My stomach growls again, loud and long.
“Careful now. We’ll want that jar.”
I feel for the jar in the dark. The tomatoes taste just fine. I use my knife to get them out.

 “Annie’s good cooking.”
I cough. It’s the last of Ma’s canning, then. I set them down.
“Finish ‘em,” he says. “That’s what we have.” Something hits my leg. “Plus some of that floodwater rabbit.”
It takes me a minute. But he’s waiting, and he’s right. I pick them back up. He starts talking, low as always.

“When a man comes back from a job like this, he generally says he had the most doubt right before the fast time. But that’s only the story he makes afterward, against people congratulating on him, or telling him how he should have done different.” Pa clears his throat. “But if he remembered true, he’d know he lived in doubt for the whole job. Do you live to be a hundred, Noah, doubt only grows in life. But you get used to it. You learn to work with it heavy on you. I’m more used to it than you are.”

He doesn’t know where they are. That’s what he’s saying. But I knew that.

“Noah,” he growls. “Pay attention.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re struggling. Just quit.”
I draw in air. “Doubt grows, and you get used to it.”

“Uh-huh. You’ve already made a good start on growing it and getting used to it. You take care of what’s yours, responsible most of the time. But a responsible man is rarely certain what’s altogether best, or if he can do what’s required. He has to choose, and he might be wrong.”

“Yes, sir.” He’s telling me he decided wrong. We should have gone west—

“So. You’ve been right patient, like I said.” Pa’s boot scrapes against rock. “Seagraves will get the message out, that’ll stave off some kinds of trouble we might have afterwards. Or maybe make the difference if we can’t. But we’re getting close to rapidity.”

Close to rapidity.
The jar starts sliding out of my hands. I grab it. “That scout told you something.”

“He had knowledge of this range. I found a stick with blue thread tied on it, two blue threads, not too far from where we are. It might be Annie’s sign for the second camp.”
“Lord.” I take a huge breath. “That’s good. That’s the best yet.”

“So now tell me how much doubt you lost,” Pa says. “Maybe you think I didn’t miscalculate now, but we’re still behind. Next all your what-ifs will come to roost. When we find out which one it is for sure, you’ll start on the if-onlies. Then you’ll sorry me, or expect I’ll sorry you. And maybe I will at that.” He waits. “Nope, that doubt didn’t go down any.”

Lord. He pegged me exactly.

“We’ll find them,” Pa says, after a long quiet. “The chance for disappointment is the same as it was before, Noah. Maybe you’ll never see them alive again. Maybe they’ll be bandbox fresh. But doubt doesn’t leave you, either way. You just handle it, same as you have been. You’ve kept your mind on getting through. So remember you can, and that you have.”

Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t say these things earlier. But there’s no point in asking that. Pa’s more or less always on desert time.

There are tomatoes left. I eat them, then set the jar to the side. “What’s another way to grow doubt? Other than being responsible.”
“If you were in that band of snakes, you’d have doubts I reckon.”
We’re coming after them. They should have doubts.

“When men have doubts, they fight themselves and each other. We have. They take measures against threat. We’ve done that too.” I hear him pop his knee. “Question is, what fights they had and what measures they took. That refines what you do in fast time.”

Guest Post at Raindog Blue

RainDogBlue is a great blog about police work through the mediums of poetry, photography, and sometimes sound bites. He writes frequently in a verse style which sounds like everyday speech, only more concentrated. That means he can distill very moving life accounts to minimal posts with maximum punch.

He also teaches a little about police work by interspersing lexicon entries of procedural terminology.

In late May, RD asked me if I would contribute a post during his July hiatus. I was very flattered to be asked!

I wrote a poem about a photograph I took. They are both up here. 

Please go take a look, if only to see some of RainDogBlue's usual posts throughout the year. I'm guessing you'll go back again and again.

Braudel: Fate, and a Break, on Jammed Streets

This is from the Prologue to Bounty Hunters: Crowded, unraveling Manhattan, March of 2109. Braudel's homicide squad is slammed; he has two red-ball cases running at once. He's solved one, made the 'vid and the street papers, but can't get caught up on the other. At the new homicide in this series, he gets a tip handed to him from one of the first officers on the scene. He has no idea that his tipster is another investigator doing tactical. Or that he will be on her investigation team later in the year.

Eventually the wagon came for the vic. Fricke and Verdero were waiting for someone to lock up. Braudel walked two blocks to Paddy Brickell’s Irish Pub and ‘Dub Station. This made the sixth knife murder in an all-night grocery store in three weeks, and he was the investigator for all of them. The Boiler Case had taken his full attention for one of those weeks. He needed momentum. So maybe this ‘dub.

The back stairway was plain. He pushed on the door, hand on his Lapis. She sat on the plastene-covered mattress, applying mascara. Great ankles. Two sleeves of gaudy tattoos: this trickster was never leaving the curb.

“I’m recording this conversation, Miss. We’re here for my job and not yours.”

“Right, Spike.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Your jerk is five-seven or so, very light brown, with brown hair. He’s called Barrata, and he’s mean as shit. He lives somewhere around the Crimson Club. Or so Cat Charlie says. That’s on East 23rd.” She held out her ‘dub registration card. “I wasn’t there. I only caught the Cat. You want a wit to that, there isn’t one.”

He checked his Police Pad. Her name was Lily Smile, born Las Vegas, Nevada as Lily Miles. Her ‘dub stats were in order: no priors. He didn’t believe her anyway.

“Where’s this Charlie Cat? I want to talk to him.”

She shrugged. “Cat Charlie’s a street kid. Won’t talk to a cop, Braudel.”

So she knew him from the ‘vids, too. Because he’d never run into her before.

She stood, slinging her bag onto her shoulder. “That’s one big you owe me, if this Barrata checks out.” She plucked her ‘dub card out of his hand. “Good work on the Boiler Case.”

Okay, fine: it was a tip, anyway. “Don’t call me Spike the next time we meet. You know my name.”

She started on his shirt.

“No.” He put his hands around her wrists. She looked up: dark brown eyes like his, only larger, painted. He smelled perfume, a little sweat. He never did ‘dubs. He liked amateurs, the babes who wanted to dance, play, get busy for laughs.

But just this once: make the spot and get some sleep.

She finally spoke. “I’m buttoning, not unbuttoning.”

He looked down. Yeah, he’d dressed in a hurry all right. She disengaged her wrists.

“I like kids, you know. So I mean it, about the Boiler thing. Take care of yourself.”

“Is Cat Charlie a boy or a girl, Miss Smile?”

“Didn’t drift that past you, huh?” She grinned at him. “I’ve never been sure. The Cat’s too young to tell.”

She slid her skinny lacy ass out. Braudel used his PolPad and started looking up Barrata in the cop’Base. It didn’t work. He tried some variations: finally Barry Resata, 616 East 23rd, previous convictions for StreetKing possession, right description.

Braudel got on his TeleSat. A sweet nice face showed on the ‘screen.

“Officer Verdero, you’re detailed to me and my heap until I say otherwise. Call it in and then wait for me.”

He sat down on the rent-a-bed just for a minute. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head on his hands. Two dead girls appeared inside his eyelids: the ones that kept him from sleeping, the ones in the boiler.

Time to get moving. He walked into the bar, still wondering if Lily’s tip was a set-up.

“You know Lily Smile?” He had to shout over the prismatic banshee band.

Brickell’s face lit up. “Fine bartender, sweet girl,” he yelled back. “She treat you right?” He pointed. “You don’t look happy.” He laughed, but Braudel couldn’t hear it.

Braudel lifted two fingers. “Tell me about her.”

Brickell poured two coffees, yelling, “Stops in sometimes. That’s all I know.”

102,955 words

Okay, I know you guys think I have been phoning it in here. Truth to tell, I was wrapped into that editing I wrote about. The police/suspense/science fiction/with romantic interest series. Yeah, something for everybody.

Manuscript 2 (The Red Riders--The Syndicate Wars, October 6-21, 2109) is now less than 103K. I'm kind of hoping they don't completely disprove global warming, since I factored it into the city upheaval in Manhattan.  Scrap the setting on two manuscripts--I could fix that though.

Anyway, I had a blast writing it. Syndicate Wars in a densely-populated city. What that would mean.

The head of the operation, my Detective Mel Kean, is well up on her Sun Tzu, her jakido, and her abiity to bullshit. She's a detective in organized crime bureau, who came out of a foster home in Nevada to become a police officer. The other protagonist is Leonidas J. Braudel, a homicide detective and naturalized citizen from Canada. Braudel fits into MPD chain of command. Kean is either a huge frustration or a huge solution wherever she walks. Either way, supervisors lose hair around her.

Her idea is to start a new syndicate and get access to the other syndicate leaders. The MPD is short-handed and overwhelmed by not just war but a suffering populace and constant riot conditions. So the unthinkable happens: her idea is approved. The brass figures they'll at least get street forecasts out of her.

So, Kean's teamed up with that short jerk Bud Fogarty of FinCrim and the unknown but obviously sour Hawkins. But then Braudel has related homicides. He and Carney of Electronic Investigations get drafted into the operation. This is Braudel's beginning assessment:

----------------------------------------------------

No one had a name for the op yet. Braudel wanted to call it Fairy Tale. The plan was all Mel: a flow chart of action and reaction. Their war had two theatres of operation: the curbside and the ‘scraper high. They fought against two or three enemies: the deVane syndicate, the Gallagher syndicate, and the Fragonard Society if they could squeeze it in.

Fogarty would track money flows and cut syndicate income. Mel would track and reduce syndicate influence. The big bad wolves would be desperate for cash and juice. Little Red Riding Hood would scam them with the deal in her basket. They’d fall for it. Then Red Riding would have the hammer. Axe. Whatever. Manhattan would live happily ever after.

So, lying and faking. Also anti-racketeering. His homicides would have to fit in somewhere. He would have less time for them, even when he put his foot down.

He took Carney to the VendLounge for coffee. They conferred in the one place in Plaza where you would never be disturbed. They needed a lot of supply chain, fast. Fogarty would forget anything routine. Mel would go anywhere and do anything for her op, backed up or not.

“Poor Granny, you’re out of StreetKing,” Carney hooted. “And what big teeth you have. Rock and sword: we’re in the magic forest of crap and shit.”

She popped out of the mop closet and strode down the hall. Braudel followed her silver skimpants and yellow sweatshirt, red plastic flips and crazy blue-green hair back to the op room.

“Fogarty, pay attention,” she said. “I’m naming this op. It’s Red Riders.”

“Hey. Whatever. Just remember it’s my act of genius.”

So now Carney was fully invested in the op. Braudel could turn to items other than supply.

Torch Song in Blue

Out of the blue, bam, it came on. And if it comes on, it might as well come out.
Just a lyric and melody. Just practice for a bigger war.

Being Blue

The world’s a live wire, angel
The trouble’s on the right.
It’s on the left, in front, behind,
Most days and every night—
Being blue, being blue. It’s all about you.

The streets are full, they’re crazy
With screamers on the wild
And you’re the trouble, baby
Full grown but like a child—
Being blue, being blue. It’s all about you.

I see you laughing, angel
You’re never home to stay
You come around and cry again
And then you’re out to play—
Oh, being blue, being blue. I know what to do.
What does it matter to you?

.
.
Don't know how to get the notes on the notepaper into the blog. So, it won't convey length of notes, but what the heck.



B-flat, D, E-flat, F, E-flat, D, B-flat
G, B-flat, G, B-flat, G, G.
B-flat, D, E-flat, F, E-flat, D, C B-flat,
G, B-flat, G, B-flat, G, D (next octave up)
D-F D------. D G B-flat---. G B-flat C [run D-flat/C/B-flat] G B-Flat---- repeat for very last line


Well, the musical notation sucks, but at least it gives an idea. Syncopate at will.
Please note: if you are Madonna or Kiri te Kanawa or somebody, I hope you love it and pay for it.  (!)
E-mail me anytime. Please hurry.

My regular readers, should they find this fun, can noodle all they want with it on the piano or whatever. After all, I read your material and reflected some of it here.

I'm still working on the police rap lyrics. So far they are making me laugh pretty hard. Because they claim to be the authentic voice of the ghetto-working beat cop.

That's why they call it fiction. . . .

Sonnet: The Care-Giver

for care-givers everywhere--
.

What love is this, that surrounds me
That demands and pleads with me to behave
With care to careless love, and wants me
To save them first, and once again to save?
My voice has soothed thee, warned thy fears away
My hands perform thy large and tiny tasks
My spirit has encircled thee, from day to day
And though it dulls from care, care thou still asks.
The cares thou have, thou have not: they are mine.
Still pleadest thou for care, but where is thine?

--Ann T. Hathaway