In the Mining Shaft

The ladder down is rickety
and swoons, each rung a bent bow
under heel. The air thickens;
its black dream seethes. Mansion
of many dooms, chained doors
quicken, haunted, rupture breath
as the lamp-heart flickers, a yellow bird
swaying in sync. I don’t know
what I’m looking for, only know
it is more precious
than coal or gold. Some days
I think I won’t clock out,
won’t heed the weakening canaries,
resurrect or compose myself
in that cold, dim light. I’m lost
if I am anything. Deaf
to whistles, the land-lark cry, click
of my empty lunch pail,
its skull licked clean.

(1)  Harley Davidson isn’t just a bike.  Harley Davidson is a way of life.

(2) “If you’re reading this I lost the bitch” shirts are considered cliche/lame by the biker people.

(3)  The average biker man wouldn’t wear the item referenced in #2 because he knows his biker lady would fuck his shit up in a major way.

(4)  If you tell a biker chick that you like her panties she’ll probably drop her chaps to give you a better view for a picture.  (Photographic evidence up and to the left.)

(5)  Biker men have a talent for getting women to flash their boobs as they’re shooting the hooch.  No beads required!

(6) The biker people are a nice people.  I can’t tell you how many times a biker bumped into me and I thought I was going to have to break my bottle for a bar fight but instead heard the words, “I’m sorry” or “Excuse me.”

(7) Cute gay bikers exist!  (I hope he calls. Tennessee isn’t that far.)  

Dolly started the concert singing “Walking on Sunshine,” which isn’t my favorite cover that she’s performed but the song did set a great mood for the concert.  Dolly’s new album is full of optimism, hence the album name.

Straight Chris likes to tease me because I have special place in my heart for songs that Dolly has covered.  Honestly, it is like that special place is a whole new chamber that was created just for songs that Dolly has covered.  Allegedly, I might have squealed like a gaggle of school girls when she performed my favorite covers: “Help,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and “Shine.”  (Remember, Chris, Dolly won a Grammy for her cover of “Shine.”)  Dolly also covered “Son a Preacher Man,” which I don’t think she’s ever recorded on an album; however, after hearing her work that song over she left me hoping that she’ll cover it on a future album– Please, Dolly!  Please!!!

Of course Dolly sang the songs that stand out in her career because they were hits– “9 to 5,” “Jolene,” “Islands in the Stream,”  “I Will Always Love You,” “Here You Come Again,” “Coat of Many Colors,” and “White Limozeen.”  She also sang the touching “Smokey Mountain Memories,” which almost makes me cry bitch baby tears.  The song is a tribute to her father and gets me every time.  Baby Jesus in a Manger must have been listening because Dolly performed an acoustic version of her heartbreaking “Little Sparrow.”  Holy Mother… she blew Verizon up hitting all those notes.  I thought Jewels and I would need the tissues she packed.  Jewels did need the tissues when Dolly talked about and sang “Coat of Many Colors,” which Dolly openly states is her favorite of all her songs.  I digress– it amazes me how a woman married for 45 years can write about heartbreak and heartache like she’s experienced repeatedly throughout her life.  It only goes to proves that Dolly is a song writing genius.

When it came time to sing songs from her new album, Better Day, Dolly sang all of my favorites:  “Together You & I,” “Holding Everything,” “The Sacrifice,” and “In the Meantime.”  I was one happy ‘mo.

And, when it was time to end…. why does a Dolly concert have to end…. Dolly came back for an encore.  She closed out with her standard encore song, “I Will Always Love You,” and added “Light of A Clear Blue Morning.”

Bottom Line: This concert was a treat; Better Day being a fitting name.  I left having a better day…. really… it made me have a better week.  Thanks, Dolly!

Why Write?

I used to play this game when I was a kid.   I’d imagine I was an alien.  I had to report back to the mother ship, tell my people, This is how it is done on planet earth.  They make up rules.  They tell you . . .

This is how you dress, love, think, believe, eat, drink, hold a fork.  (Not like a pitchfork, my father would correct me.)

I had to write it all out. I had to explain it all to someone.  My ideal readers have always been my alien friends.

Why Poetry?

As a girl, I liked lined paper, unlined paper, notebook paper, tracing paper, construction paper, drawing paper, spiral notebooks, dividers, school notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, markers, crayons, calligraphy pens, paintbrushes . . .

              (But I always hated blue books. The size is all wrong, and I don’t like wide-ruled paper.  How can anyone write a proper essay in a blue book?)

I liked the physical act of writing words, phrases, sentences, pressing my fat pencil deeply into the page or skimming my fountain pen delicately across a page in loopy script.

              (Remember that thick paper you were given in grade school?  It looked like banana peels were ground into it.  You could sink your fat pencil into it and make an engraving.)

I liked defining words, redefining words, making up meanings, thinking about what meaning means.

              (Do you ever wonder what meaning means? Meaning whatever that means, but isn’t it always more convincing in printed letters?  Print is so much more black and white and evokes fewer fantasies. Script is better for personal letters and thoughts and suggests other realities.)

I liked thinking of that distance between what can’t be said and what is said, between what is said and what is meant.

              (Sometimes I get so lost in that distance.  So many words really have no meaning if you think too hard about them.  Like reason or faith or god.)

I wondered about how much of life is invented by words. No matter how “real” the word-world seems, it never is the world.

              (I sometimes think I prefer our inventions.  Like our pretensions.  They might be all we have.)

As the painter Rene Magritte said of his painting of a pipe, Ceci n’est pas une pipe: “Of course it is not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.”

              (Dear Magritte, I dreamt you came to dinner last night. But it was only an idea of dinner.  I woke up hungry for ice cream.)

But what if you could fool people, and I mean really fool people?  What if you could bring them into your imaginary world? Let them smoke your pipe, feel and taste the smoke entering their lungs, exhaling it back out and into the air?

              (I’m so easily fooled. Yes, it’s true.  I prefer to be fooled. Don’t you? )

What is it we’ve been smoking? people might ask after the fact, making up all kinds of answers about the exotic taste and ingredients.

              (I love critics.  But I think analysis is just another fiction. Another kind of smoke, another layer of distance.  It’s like reading about reading.  And then reading about reading about reading.  And then reading about reading about reading about reading about . . . about.  We all live inside so many Russian dolls.)

Isn’t that what a great poem does? Isn’t it like a really good smoke or trip?   Something we inhale deeply, letting it take us to another place?

              (No, I don’t smoke.  But if I started, I know I’d never stop.)

Sunday was my day of rest.  I worked really hard at taking it easy, which meant getting out of bed after 11am.  I enjoyed some laughs with a friend when we watched THE BIG GAY MUSICAL.  I felt very touched by one of the songs in the movie and want to share it.