weekly muse...
volume 1, issue 18 | 2022-11-03
poetry
still life
what if you did not make these red grapes in a smooth white bowl on the wooden table here in my brick house on this blue speck hurling through black space is it not still life we see and eat?
-- from homebound
i spoke
i spoke to the wheel but it did not listen all axle and rim it only needed me to keep them apart i am just a straight line
-- from along the way
war effort
somewhere oil leaks from a ruptured pipe blood spurts from an open vein i cannot stanch the bleeding though i try
-- from everything rhymes
the last temptation of buddha
-- for siddhartha gautama, shakyamuni was it hard knowing you could go back when they filled your wooden bowl with rice from your father’s realm how did you free the beggar from his robes?
-- from lives of the poets
flower garden
mixing colors all summer long she clings to the season every year as if it were her last another day -- from another day
short stories
wedding plans
…continued
Christmas Eve 1962, Family Tradition
The family drove slowly through the suburban streets in their brand new '62 Chevy. The sound of packed snow crunched under hard rubber wheels. The night was cold. They had to keep rubbing their breath off the windows to see the Christmas decorations lit up on the houses outside.
They drove into the wealthier neighborhoods in town. “Where the doctors and lawyers live,” according to his parents. Bob and his sister, Sherry, sat in the back seat. Their parents in the front. The front windows opened a crack to let the smoke from their mother's cigarettes escape into the night air. Vanishing instantly.
“Ooh. Look at that one!” Sherry enthused
A red and white plastic Santa in his bright green sleigh led by eight tan reindeer, all glowing from within, stretched across the slanted face of the roof. Lines of clear white bulbs strung along the ridge and the eaves and down all the edges of the house. The trees in the yard were laced with swirling circles of the same bulbs.
On the snow in front of the house, a spotlight cast rays of glory on a manger scene. Jesus in a cradle. Mary in a light blue robe. Joseph and the shepherds and wise men looking on. In the house beyond, a live green tree showed through the bay window. Draped with shiny silver tinsel reflecting the red, blue, yellow, orange and green lights hung bubbling on its limbs.
They had been making this drive together for the past six years. Embraced by parent and child alike, it was one of the few traditions they had observed in their young family. A kind of modern twist to the ancient form of caroling. From house to house and street to street, their wandering caravan of one stopped in front of each dwelling and took in the holiday spirit from the edge of the road.
A silent sharing of joy with the inhabitants within. Admiring the rich variety of display, all crafted from a finite set of plastic, glass and metal elements bought from the same department stores in town.
At the end of each Christmas Eve drive, they sat around the tree in their own living room. Drinking eggnog and singing carols.
This was the first year they had an artificial aluminum tree. With a plastic color wheel turning slowly on a rotor. Magically changing the tree to red, then green, then gold, then blue. The wrapped presents sitting under the tree, having been thoroughly poked and jostled by curious fingers for several days, also took on a new light with every slow turn of the multihued wheel.
Each year they marveled at the beautiful baritone voice of their quiet father. Joining with their own in song. “Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.” As if they were hearing it now for the very first time. All was safe and whole in their world that night.
-- to be continued...
-- from signs & wonders
lucy (losing the light)
…continued
We drove past the Gurnee Mills mega-mall on our way to Wal-Mart. Strange, how they stood opposite each other, sole survivors of the retail wars that have gutted the downtown shopping areas of our cities and towns.
“I guess you’ll want to do the mall too?” I offered
“Do you have something to get there?” He answered politely.
“No. Only Wal-Mart.”
“That’s okay.” He assured. “I only want to go to the places you need to go. Follow the natives.” He chuckled. “That keeps it genuine.”
“Okay, Bwana.”
“Besides.” He added. “It’s too obvious.”
“The mall?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s a stereotype. Not what I’m after.”
“I see what you mean.” I solemnly nodded. But, I really didn’t. What could be more ‘suburbs’ than the mall?
“Have you been to Lakehurst Mall?”
His question surprised me.
“As a kid. Our family used to go there.” This was the old mall, before it got swallowed up by (or more like abandoned to) low-income neighborhoods. I especially remember going there with my family at Christmastime. The place was crowded with shoppers, going up and down the escalators, troupes of carolers in Victorian costumes, Santa Claus and his elves, with wintry decorations everywhere.
“I mean, after it closed.”
“No.” Why would I go to a mall that was closed? “I didn’t think you could get in.” I said to cover my ignorance.
“I shot there once. A few years ago.” He shuddered. “It’s an eerie feeling.”
“The emptiness?” I thought about what it would look like, a vacant mall.
“The presence.” He almost whispered. “There in the absence.”
I thought of his famous pictures of old railroad stations in cities no longer on active lines. Once great cathedrals of transportation with vast rotunda concourses, like our modern airports, with shops and restaurants and waiting lounges. Once teeming with people, alive with expectation, on the go. Now empty. A modern Pompeii, the people all gone in a single flash, the click of a shutter. You could still almost see them, the trace of their lives, a double exposure haunting the film.
-- to be continued...
-- from summer’s end
microfiction | a history of the world
…continued
convert (burning bush)
The preacher’s flaming eyes scorched me. They burned like a bush that never goes out. His sermon charred my will.
The day was sticky hot. Mama made me wear my Sunday clothes. A starched collar stuck to my neck like sin. I soiled everything I touched.
I felt a shakin’ in my chest, enough to make me stutter.
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve!” A trumpet shattered a wall. A wall made brittle with fire. He stared at me alone.
I got up and came forward. I could not feel my legs. He carried me like a cross. Like a lamb slung on his shoulders. My body, smoke.
I gave myself to the Lord that day. He carries me still.
-- to be continued…
-- from a history of the world