Day 6: Lemon Sorbet in Princeton

Comes to mind as another small

upheaval

amongst the rubble.

His eye matches exactly the bubble

in my spirit-level.

I set aside hammer and chisel

and take him on the trowel.



The entire population of Ireland

springs from a pair left to stand

overnight in a pond

in the gardens of Trinity College,

two bottle of wine left there to chill

after the Act of Union.



There is, surely, in this story

a moral. A moral for our times.

What if I put him to my head

and squeezed it out of him,

like the juice of freshly squeezed limes,

or a lemon sorbet?

...The Frog by Paul Muldoon, born in County Armagh, residing in County Mercer at the big university.

Although Paul Muldoon is a great poet, please do not squeeze any frogs after having read this poem, okay? (Look.   I'm not sure that I really understand this poem.  Help me out if you have any ideas.  sometimes poems are just for words and fun.  Is that it?)

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Day 5: Plums from Rutherford

munching a plum on

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her hand

Comforted

a solace of ripe plums

seeming to fill the air

They taste good to her


...To a Poor Old Woman,  William Carlos Williams, Rutherford
 
 
I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

...This is Just to Say by Doc Williams, Rutherford

Before Stephanie Plum of Chambersburg, Trenton, there was William Carlos Williams of Rutherford, a doctor reminding us of what we all know about the curative powers of deliciousness.  Sometimes, you just need to have something wonderful for yourself.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Day 4: A Dream of Life...

Can't see nothin' in front of me


Can't see nothin' coming up behind



I make my way through this darkness

I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Lost track of how far I've gone

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed

On my back's a sixty pound stone

On my shoulder a half mile line


Come on up for the rising

Com on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight


Left the house this morning

Bells ringing filled the air

Wearin' the cross of my calling

On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here


Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight


Spirits above and behind me

Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright

May their precious blood forever bind me


Lord as I stand before your fiery light


I see you Mary in the garden

In the garden of a thousand sighs

There's holy pictures of our children

Dancin' in a sky filled with light

May I feel your arms around me

May I feel your blood mix with mine

A dream of life comes to me


Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line


Sky of blackness and sorrow ( a dream of life)

Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)

Sky of glory and sadness ( a dream of life)

Sky of mercy, sky of fear ( a dream of life)

Sky of memory and shadow ( a dream of life)

Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight

Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)

Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life ( a dream of life)


Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

...The Rising by Bruce Springsteen, Freehold
Happy Easter.  C'mon rise up.  Our saddest days lead to our resurrections.  Think of how Jesus may have felt this morning.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Day 3: Born Again

With his head

On my shoulder, my newborn son

Has fallen asleep. In the dark,

I hold him there, resting

My cheek on his forehead - a violinist

Who has put down his bow

And stands quietly overwhelmed

By his own music.

...In the Dark by Joe Salerno


Poetry is the art of not succeeding;


the art of making a little ritual

out of your own bad luck, lighting a little fire

made of leaves, reciting a prayer

in the ordinary dark.

... Joe Salerno

Some short poems with some deep thoughts.  Just what we need before we resurrect ourselves tomorrow.  Have your food blessed today.  Buy your last package of Peeps for the year.  Hold a baby if you can, just so that you can feel how beautiful birth and rebirth are.  Happy Holy Saturday.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Day 2 with Uncle Walt ...

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;


When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

....."When I Heard the Learn'd Astromomer" by Walt Whitman, Camden

Sometimes even the smartest people just don't get it.  We often lose the beauty of something by picking it apart until it becomes unrecognizable and its essence is lost.  On this Good Friday, let's not lose the message of suffering and sacrifice.  Like Whitman did, "rise and glide out" if you need to.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

National/New Jersey Poetry Month ...

In the skull kept on the desk.

In the spider-pod in the dust.


Or nowhere. In milkmaids, in loaves,

Or nowhere. And if Socrates leaves



His house in the morning,


When he returns in the evening



He will find Socrates waiting


On the doorstep. Buddha the stick


You use to clear the path,

And Buddha the dog-doo you flick


Away with it, nowhere or in each

Several thing you touch:


The dollar bill, the button

That works the television.


Even in the joke, the three

Words American men say


After making love. Where’s

The remote? In the tears


In things, proximate, intimate.

In the wired stem with root


And leaf nowhere of this lamp:

Brass base, aura of illumination,


Enlightenment, shade of grief.

Odor of the lamp, brazen.


The mind waiting in the mind

As in the first thing to hand.


...First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky, Long Branch
 
Here is the first of the "New Jersey Poems of the Day" for National Poetry Month.  I think it's about all things existing at the same time, with equal importance and equal lack of importance.  Perhaps it's about not being tempted to give anything too much significance.  A Tikkun review refers to "the smallest possible ciricumference around oneself."  All things that are close to us are "stem, leaf, and root," depending on our use of them.

Where are you reading this blog now?  What is "proximate, intimate" to your immediate circumference?  What do those objects mean to you?  Do they become something else when you touch them?  Are you changed by them or are they changed by you?
April Fool!  There's no real answer to those questions.  Just more questions...
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Jersey thoughts at the Sistine Chapel, Rome....

I would like to get Michelangelo to paint my house.

I would enjoy seeing him in those baggy white painter’s pants,

white cap with the elongated brim,

work boots with their laces untied,

oversized tongue flapping as he walked.

I think he’d enjoy it.

Sort of comic relief from laying on his back

painting for the Pope.

At least he would get to spend the day standing.

I wonder what he will think of rollers

rather than his fine paintbrushes and rags.

I can see him now, painting little Red Devils

with pitchforks and long pointed tails

each with Pope Julius’ face,

at places you would not expect to find them.

How will I protect against the hordes who would travel

just to find “Waldo” where he sketched them

in the niches of my home.

I could print tour directories

numbering the locations:

under the rain spout drainpipe

inside the garage between the two overhead doors

in back of the TV where the cable meets the wall

above my cat’s litter box

near the hole in the baseboard that the mouse uses,

next to a painted miniature Swiss Guard,

to scare the cat away,

in back of the headboard where I sleep, but not near my wife,

by the bookstand where my family bible is located

finally flat-square-dead-center of my son’s bedroom door.

I can see it now,

pick up the toilet lid.

There staring at you from under the top an angelic cherub.

Daring you to unzip.

I’d come home from work at the office at noon each day

sit with him under the oak tree on the front lawn.

He would have one of those black metallic lunch pails.

Inside, a piece of fine provolone, a hunk of Italian bread

and a bottle of red wine from Umbria.

Yes, I’d have a lot of fun,

if I could get Michelangelo to paint my house.

                                  ...Michelangelo Paint My House by Ray Brown, Frenchtown


Ray also wrote How to Eat a Cannoli and A Leprechaun by the Roadside and other poems of Irish, Catholic, New Jersey, Italian, and general interest and features them on his website.  (He even apologizes for doubting Al Gore.)  Ray's poetry is wry and imaginative and is clearly drawn from the roots many of us here have creeping underground and winding together.  He is of Frenchtown and Keyport, perhaps two of the most disparate small towns in New Jersey with totally different zeitgests and demographics, yet he finds the links.
Eat a cannoli (ganole?) with Ray today.  Maybe you can watch Michelangelo paint the cast of Jersey Shore and the "broadcasting" team of NJ 101.5 flambe'.
Thanks to poet and New Jersey social and tranist commentator Anthony Buccino for this link.

Keep writing,

Maureen