Kill The Sidebar

One of the recent changes I made at Judy Garland's Blues (poetry blog) that I really like was to get rid of the sidiebar by changing the template to the "Simple II" that's been around a long time, but seldom turns up on blogs because sidebars are so popular. I decided they were unneeded claptrap in a dedicated poetry blog. Besides, the sidebar items can still be found if you make it to the bottom of the blog. Just a small alteration, but I like it.

Where Is That Painted Lady?

Here's a link to a poem written in my old age about the "first love" of my youth. As I've done previously with other poems that were either long or of very special quality (this one is a little of both), it's located at my poetry blog, "JUDY GARLAND'S BLUES". See this poem about love and loss and art and beauty and remembrance, if you wish, at PAINTED LADY.

I Weep For Poems And People

(For My Aunts Pearl and Louise Who Died The Same Day This Week) I weep for poems that went astray And people who seem long-gone as dust That some ill wind blew away eons ago, But they only now have died. I weep as if for a stranger on a sinking ship or for That fraught overwrought final bearer at the eternal pall— We’re dead-fast running out of time And good simple souls and tissues for our tears. rcs. Current draft: 4/28/2010 Created on 4/26/2010 3:51 PM

It Injures Me

It injures me when you think ill of me, Though I guess in truth I injure myself When I know you are forced to such disgust And disappointment and forgiveness By all my vulgar snarling and despair. rcs. Current draft: 4/25/2010 Created on 4/22/2010 10:39 AM

God Will Get You Either Way

I've decided God is indifferent to some of us and hates the rest. Which group I fall in, I can only guess.

A Thousand Dollars

If you sent me a thousand dollars With which to make the trip from here to you, That would be enough, More than enough, But not enough to overcome my constipated brain And aches and pains—I would have the road maps and the means, But not the spirit or the strength to actually get up and go. You might think I might as well be dead.

Dead Or Alive?

What's the deal, did I die? I don't think so. Okay, then, don't clam up!

Sensations

Our lives are full, too full-- But full of what? TV and dis-ease, Distant neighbors just there across the street Or on the left beyond the fence— All I know of them is the constancy of their yapping dog, And all they know of me is that I haven’t killed that dog. It's all true, it's all false, It's all a great grief and all a great relief. It's nothing we didn't mean And nothing that meant very much, We still are not subject to sense, but only to sensations We submit to alive Though each maintains that all is hubris, And is all we may ever achieve. rcs. Current draft: 4/19/2010 Created on 12/25/2009 7:01 PM

To Suspire

I talk so much of dead things (I talk too much), I slog through lifetimes mired in it, So it seems like suicide would be close or in the air Or else I’d have no explanation for all this crap I opine and emote, always repining for something else— Who the hell knows what?—in ugly notes like this. I’m not in line for the good stuff, Not waiting calmly for the best, Not even self-deceived that it could come to me As a result of work on any given day or in this way. I’m just making clamor to suspire, I’m just drawing fire. rcs. Current draft: 4/18/2010 Created on 4/8/2010 3:52 PM

Hesitant

I hesitate to write to you Since you told me That everything was crazy there Without disclosing any detail, Though I hope it’s nothing or only too much work. I hope it isn’t disease or despair Or divorce or death, but even so Something more desolate or devastating May exist than I have been inclined to imagine. I lift a glass and say a prayer to being wrong about it all. rcs. Current draft: 4/17/2010 Created on 4/10/2010 6:57 PM

What To Do

I'm running out of shit to say. What'll I do about that? Improvise. Get buggy. Don't attract attention to it. Too late.

Turbotax Is A Turd

I used Turbotax last year and didn't recall it being Hell on earth, but apparently I am very forgetful or they made "improvements" since that time that made everything as clear as mud, not to mention inserting as many extra screens and pages as they possibly could. As far as I'm concerned, they made my EZ form headbustingly difficult. I hope they all die in grievous misery, then wake up the next day and realize it was a dream and they have to go through it all over again! ADDENDUM: In fact Turbotax is a double turd. They informed me this morning that my form was rejected because of some wrong data that I could re-enter and correct the mistake. It was only that I'd changed a 6 to a 9 in a long ID # and that was easy enough to correct, but then it took 40 or 60 clicks more to get to the end of the program where they send the form to IRS again! God, I'd like to kick the shit out of somebody wearing a suit and tie down there!!! I only do my taxes by computer because I'm lazy, but they're putting me through more hoops than if I just filled out the paper form, goddamn it!

Judy Garland’s Blues

Why was Judy Garland sad? Did she have everything—but not love? What drove Judy Garland mad, Or do I give her too much credit? Was she just privately unlucky, after all the public luck? Did she have two armfuls of nothing in the worn valises She dragged into another mansion of expenses, pills, and airs Amid lost things never declared, forever beyond her reach? Did she have everything—but not love? Was she too often left behind as a child Or was she poisoned in the vein As by too many drinks or a rattlesnake... Twisted by some familial demon spirit she became That Voodoo spirit, the reel and spin, the deadly living blues, Forever frightened—no matter her age or image or magic— Of what to choose and what to lose, out of control to the end? Did she, like you, like me, have everything— But could not feel the love that others gave Or stay as brave as needed every moment? rcs. Current draft: 4/12/2010 3rd draft: 04/26/05 Created on 5/4/2004 11:21 PM

Writing Poems

A lady came up and asked me, “How do you decide on topics for a poem?” They don’t spring full-grown, I replied. The topics seem to choose themselves in the end. A few words or sentences will occur to me And after that it either grows organically or Is built upon like a skyscraper where the architect Comes in almost every day and changes the plans again. rcs. Current draft: 4/11/2010 Created on 4/11/2010 3:26 PM

All The Lonely People

(Strange Tales #3)

I woke up wondering in those days if Eleanor Rigby Was an avatar of that quiet lady down the street. She seemed so precise and poised, though plain, Something in the way she moved was sweet to see Each morning, but we never spoke or met. I’d meant to attend her service yesterday Because the gossips said there was no one going, But I had to work—it was just another day in my life. My neighbor’s daughter Loretta on the left is seldom home And seems to play her devil music for no one when she is. Sometimes she strums her guitar and gently weeps Out on the veranda and doesn’t think that I can hear her. Other times she plays old Sixties records real loud; She lets them endlessly repeat and looks left and right And sighs as if waiting for someone to perform with... rcs. Current draft: 3/26/2010 Created on 3/26/2010 10:16 AM There are 5 Beatles references in each stanza above; almost no one will have trouble finding them. I just found it entertaining to do, despite the damage to the originality of the poem.

Entertaining Notions

Your newly “created” group of friends sounds worthwhile, Almost indeed sounds daring in a world That just gets by on who it already knows Or can meet online without any germs or fingerprints. I recall the beer and alcohol parties In my youth that, if they didn't go so well for me, Went that way because my expectations or hopes Were too great or off center and didn’t fare well with drink. Of course, they didn’t fare well without it, either. Now that those occasions are so far in the past, I wonder how it'd go to try to dance my way again Through a group of semi-strangers talking rot? Would it be different now that I have fewer expectations? I start to think that’s so sometimes, but soon recall Brief meetings a year or so ago with lovely Lois— Though not in love, harsh loss and heartbreak turned up not Far behind her that ended my exaltations just as soon as ever. I discovered again my capacity for hopeless indignation And continued inclination to show my ass when annoyed. It’s part of my eternal damnation that I never come through, Never entertain in time the notion that I might be Boring or stupid instead of the other damn fool! rcs. Current draft: 4/10/2010 Created on 3/26/2010 2:53 PM

Some Facility

There’s been a turndown in my learning capacity— It’s been more than five years since I could still Learn a new system of maneuvers with some facility, But that seems gone. I feel so simple-minded. All that I attempt is difficult, Whether it’s a new thing I want to learn and can’t Or some Swiss cheese topic I sweat to refresh, But cannot guess my way through or long retain. I veer away from each equally now Because I don’t like to be tested And I don’t like to admit it. You know, Whether TV shows are too complicated or too fast or I’m Just growing deaf, I’m always losing track of the story. I used to have A sharp imagination And a Velcro memory, But sometimes now it’s just mush. rcs. Current draft: 4/9/2010 Created on 3/5/ 2010 1:21 PM

What Can It Matter?

He was a caretaker at the cemetery when he said, “What can it matter, after I’m dead? Things will go on And fester or prosper without much praise, And none will raise a stone or marble monument for me And none will raise a strong objection to who inherits And any damn fool will be sufficient to write my epitaph.” rcs. Current draft: 4/8/2010 Created on 4/3/2010 11:46 AM

My Father Passed Away

“My father passed away,” said a woman's voice, Speaking softly somewhere behind me on the bus. I turned and looked back, but couldn’t tell By anyone’s expression who had spoken. I turned and faced forward again, Thinking of various friends in the past Who’d said the same words to me Or words to that effect And recalled as well the dour scenarios In which I had to tell the same dire news To some who did and some who didn’t know him, The same dull choking news that all must say Someday whether they can speak it well or not, Whether they have religion that can sustain them or not In whatever way may move them, Whether their philosophy envelopes it and cushions it or not, Whether any veil can mask it’s depth of sorrow or not. My father’s been dead these twenty years And I’m not used to it even now, except I know it’s true. Sometimes I can decline to think of it, Almost at times forget—but can’t get over it. It may fade, but it never disappears. Sometimes I’m glad that he’s not here To see me do some things so badly; But I also wish he were here Because I know that he would help me. rcs. Current draft: 4/7/2010 Created on 4/6/2010 4:46 PM

The Audio’s On

Since I had a stroke, old friends have assured me That I sound all right, quite normal, but I doubt. I hear it wrong; maybe it’s just a feeling from inside my brain That can’t get out and that no one else can apprehend or sense. The audio may be normal, but the brainwaves are suspect! Perhaps my mind was always like that—like this—and no one Ever knew what attempts at control were occurring there, Though I certainly thought I did. Maybe there were always connections That I felt were obtuse or loose, askew or awry. It’s sliding away from me, Even when I don’t know what it is. Am I lazy or just tired? It’s hard to tell. I used to be lazy, But it was nothing compared to this. rcs. Current draft: 4/4/2010 Created on 3/28/2010 1:27 PM

College Girls

(Strange Tales #12)

Right now I’m afraid I’ve murdered some college girls Before I went to sleep last night. It seems like that’s what I remember. They were All alone and studying half-nude in their rooms, All sweet and pure, you know the way they are. Surely I would know it If I’d killed them, you say, But that’s how the cops always think. Sometimes that’s why they’re so slow to apprehend. I think I started with a rotund young blonde Who was robust and busty, both! Something delicious to tell your pals, If I had any pals to tell, I mean. She shouldn’t have opened the door like that To just anyone who hollered “Pizza, Miss!” in a bored tone. It worked just as well, though, on the next two dolls Who were brunettes and very slim. I guess They thought they could afford the calories, They just couldn’t afford to meet me! They cracked the door and peeked out and saw me Fumbling with the empty pizza box And a couple of dollar bills and change That I’d swiped from blondie’s desk. I imagine they’re telling somebody in hell right now How they thought the pizza guy looked okay! Don’t any of these girls in the dorms ever know If they did or didn’t order Delivery? Oh, well, murder’s my game And I take it rather seriously. I used to play board games and canasta With the same relentless intention in my youth. rcs. Current draft: 4/4/2010 Created on 4/2/2010 7:18 PM

Anyway

These poems may be nearly over. There's been nearly a dozen of my "strange tales" without much reaction, so I conclude that they were just more crap that I needn't have worked on with such attention. Anyway, I'm getting sleepy.

Nearly Over

(Strange Tales #11)

I thought I overheard the grayed old transvestite At the midnight motor-psycho party say, “I didn’t impress the girls or boys in the playground Very much when I was young and nimble; How could I expect much difference now? If they only see now what I can see In the mirror or out the window— How little of me there is, every day, inside or out— How I’ve grown soft and weepy and ugly. Pathetic! I’ll lengthen my skirts and carry poison pens in my purse, If that’s what it takes, though I worry it won’t be enough. There’s no other way to deal with it, n’est-ce pas? I’m afraid everything I think or wish would be nearly over. It would not take a sharp appraiser’s eye very long, Now would it, to pass such bargains by?” rcs. Current draft: 3/29/2010 Created on 3/3/2010 2:59 PM

Beaten

(Strange Tales #10)

It feels like I’ve worked so hard lately, The grizzled chief gravedigger moaned— Though not compared to what I’m supposed to be able to do— That all of life just seems ludicrous. I am tired all the time And tireder still If I attempt anything of consequence. At home I never essay anything much more debilitating Than washing clothes and hanging them in closets Or picking up fallen twigs and branches in the yard, And yet I feel quite beaten, in almost any sense. I guess one day I’ll just be walking along And fall headlong into a hole. rcs. Current draft: 3/29/2010 Created on 3/24/2010 1:26 PM

Overcome It

(Strange Tales #8)

“I can’t express it exactly,” The Venetian Vampire said one afternoon, “But eating solid food often makes me Feel spiritually choked, regardless of what it is. “I try to think, This will pass. I concentrate on the motion Of the boat and if I’m lucky, I overcome it, But still I seldom eat more than half of anything Except small portions or a glass of blood-colored wine.” “I begin attentively by cutting every portion in two And imagine I’ll eat the rest later. Sometimes that’s possible, Sometimes I can’t stuff it in.” rcs. Current draft: 4/1/2010 Created on 1/17/2010 1:48 PM

Hatchet Woman

(Strange Tales #2)

Sometimes if you kill just one to begin with, The curiosity of cats will bring another And then another, and pretty soon You have a crowd in the burial barrel. I’d been linked by the Law To the Hatchet Woman more than once, But it hadn’t stuck even though I did know her well. The Hatchet Woman could be so kind— I liked to see her naked— But not everyone could know her that way. They continue to arrest her now and then For this and that, but that doesn’t stick, either. Boys accuse her of being a gypsy or witch, yet also of Killing and eating black cats, which makes no sense. There was a stink coming from her house last summer And a lot of suspense, but the police found nothing, And Sheriff Snell admitted he couldn’t stand the smell Long enough to really look things over. I made her meet me down by the creek and get dirt on her Back all that worst month until the odor passed. I must admit I burned at least a hundred incense sticks In the crawl space under her house and spread lime, too. In the end There was no one missing from home, No pets reported missing, either, And the sheriff vowed to forget the whole damn thing. He told the town he was sick of the gossip And was going fishing! I wondered why they never heard from him again, But I expect he decided he didn’t like the fishing here. rcs. Current draft: 3/30/2010 Created on 3/25/2010 5:20 PM

Law Of Averages

(Strange Tales #9)

I guess the law of averages Just wanted me to stay at home Without any sugar-free cookies And with that cold colored corpse that day. In any case, it was not an elective. Whether anything clever can be said About the laws of aversion and gravity Or old Aunt Mae’s embrace of Negro gardeners In her dotage, I don’t know, but I wish I did. Whether legal or lawless, We white men always feel we ought to know Or we’d lose control of it all. rcs. Current draft: 3/31/2010 Created on 2/15/2010 11:48 AM

Just A Hermit

(Strange Tales #6)
“You’re just a hermit,” The ghost of whimsy said, “No matter how you cut it.” Then she disappeared in smoke, “What would you have,” I replied as I sharpened my knife, “When talk about drugs and mayhem is already so cheap, Shall I tell another wretched lie?” rcs. Current draft: 3/30/2010 Created on 3/28/2010 10:53 AM

Get On You

(Strange Tales #7)

Boy, would I like to get on you! I said to the girl that night. Is that too rambunctious and crude? It probably is, But I’m just the one to do it. “Get on with you,” she said dismissively, “I’d rather smell a fart.” I’d like to get on with you better than this, I told her, even if it cost me dearly! “Your wallet won’t get you anywhere,” she replied. rcs. Current draft: 3/23/2010 Created on 3/16/2010 7:30 PM