Spring 2018

Bubbling

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by Mireya Perez Bustillo

Like a beetle under a frog’s skin
the paint bubbled larger with the heat
almost ready to burst like when she
held “number one” under her belly was hard like
……………………………………………..a balloon.

Sarita liked to look at the bubble
When Miss Jones started with the questions:
……….What happened to the old woman
……….who lived in a shoe?
……….Why did the cow jump
……….over the moon?
……….What did Jack eat as he
……….sat in his corner?

In the bubble puff Sarita could see
“Rin Rin Renacuajo” “Mirringa Mirronga” and “Pastorcita”*
………And Miss Jones doesn’t even
………know why “Rin Rin” left all
………dressed up and so early, or
………why  “Pastorcita” lost all her sheep
………“Rin Rin” is the best and papi
………taught me it and I know
………it all and say it for the guests.

“Sarita, Sarita, there you go again… “
………And I bet Miss Jones doesn’t
………know you say at the end
………“Colorin, Colorado, este cuento
………se ha acabado” ** And
………She doesn’t even know about the bubbling.

*Characters in nursery stories by Colombian writer, Rafael Pombo
** Traditional way of ending fairy tales and nursery rhymes in Spanish

Still Life : September 15, 2001

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by Carmen Mason

Is that what it is
this life?
Painting on water
the center not holding
no still life anywhere?

I am glad that the
children are still
on their swings
lovers still
holding hands
tighter than yesterday

fishermen on the bridge
watch the smoke
from the towers
forgetting the line’s pull
the silver dervish
at the end of the line

Driving by the small park
I notice it’s filled with
birch trees, triumphant
warriors of blight

a bride and groom
walk to the edge
of the pier and kiss
as the merciless smoke
leaves the frame of the camera

I am aware of all
I have not seen for years
All things precious

I see everything now
and wait for the next
glimpse of subject
the registering
the arm lifting
the brush taking
its oily ink to write
to paint on water.

I have been writing prose and poetry all my life.
They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love
or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console
and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.

American Beauty

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One does not become enlightened by imagining the figures of light
but by making the darkness conscious.  ~ Carl Jung

by Carmen Mason

Oh yes
the melon roses
shot with coral edging bending
down, their scalloped shadows
(strong scented, sweet) upon my favorite
page of writing (who today? Colette
Munro, Morrison, Millay?)
The West, its burnt sienna mountains
against feathered shirt-white tufts
periwinkle skies.
Oh yes, the sea, everywhere the sea.

And home
my grandchild’s face so full of trust
perfect kissing-lips turned up awaiting me.
Two neighbors, bowed and plodding
hands entwined, their fine
white hair whisping in the reminiscent air;
the garden’s figs, hard purple not yet cracked
by the squirrels’ teeth; obscene peppers, eggplants
melons hot and squirming in their lusty skins
eggplants, peppers like women bent and yearning
lettuces, frilled and gentle green
baby slugs benignly curled in their
tight wombs. America the Beautiful.

But no:
museums filled with blushing forms
of porcelain flesh and corn silk hair.
Madonnas and baby Jesuses putty pink
anemic white ’neath radiant halos –
arcs of sacred personages;
our Founders’ high-bosomed matrons
smiling coldly or away, pinched tight
but certainly please, not Beautiful.

(When my little girl, dark and olive-eyed
first went horse-back riding
the keeper booted and bravado, moved to
the little girl behind her on the line and said
here my angel, my blond-blue-eyed beauty                                                  

jump on his back and let him
ride you to glory, little princess
then pulled the
dappled pony round my own
sweet girl
to that golden smiling one

Later, driving home she asked
what it had been all about :
Why didn’t the man take me
first on the line? Avoiding
what she meant to say
her dark face looking out, away
my brave girl perhaps fearing my reply.
It’s the ignorant people
in the unfair world my .
darling colt, my gorgeous girl.
She laughed and turned to kiss
my neck, my fury galloping away
through her thick dark hair.
What could I say to a girl of six?)

There is a black girl in that astounding book
The Bluest Eye, called out of name:
a child who dreamed of gouging
out her shadowed eyes (her mother
looking down at her, assuring
she was Ugly, Homely, UnBeautiful.)
Pecola Breedlove begged to have the bluest eyes
so she might prevail and overcome.
She goes mad instead.

But the most astounding of all:
Helen Keller, smitten with years and years
of American lore, then old, had her eyes
surgically removed (one had always bulged.
She knew without seeing
it was unsightly.)
What did she replace them with?
Liquid blue glass
globes unseeing –
American Beauties (a marble term.)
Dear old Helen, her new blue eyes flashing,
still deaf and blind to those worn-out Old Men
who served to hobble her along her azure way.

I have been writing prose and poetry all my life. They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.

AMERICA: Flip Book

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by Carmen Mason

I remember Search
for Tomorrow, Ernie Kovacs
Pinhead and Foodini
benevolent, laughing times

years later with my first child
still resting inside me
I watched the President and his
pink pill-boxed lady
spilling and scrambling
through blood   then
Ruby getting Lee Harvey
in the gut    again and
again    a flip book
repeated on every
channel through the
day and night

fifteen years later the
Amazing Wallenda weaving then
plummeting again and
again onto a San Juan taxi cab
his granddaughter    the crowds
and the city buildings staring
all day long    all night

So I could only
sit still and give him
my unimportant tears
Robert Kennedy’s son
who sat alone
forgotten in his motel room
switching stations from daddy
to daddy to daddy waving
triumphantly
waving and waving
then shaking some hands
then falling and falling
again and again
and again   the boy
watching him fall
through the day
through the night

I have been writing prose and poetry all my life. They are sighs of joy, cries for help, testaments of love or loss, refuge and epiphany. They surprise, console and astound me. Just like friends and strangers do.

The 4th Daughter

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by Marjorie Levin

(Gilberto’s 75th Birthday)
She was eleven and radiated a girl confidence.
She spoke in Spanish but the praise for her father was so clear
that individual words weren’t needed to understand.

(Last Wednesday)
She is very fragile and cries in the middle of her happy life.
It’s over the tired but heavy slights that just don’t go away.
The mother that never was and oh that very same father.

(It Happened About 18 Months Ago)
She explained to me her baptism.
Coming from her people- never a god or God in sight.
She found Jesus Christ to be her savior.
And she wears a large key to keep that day firmly in mind
and keep her new families firmly attached.

(Singing)
Theirs are amazing voices full of grace. Really.
If voices could love, these do.
It seems they rise and fall in study and in song.
They pray in song together.
What are they looking for?
What do they hear when it’s found?

She is like the baby- at thirty-three
With the clear chimes of a girl calling out to her life.
But she has that already and it arrives soon.

I’m a lifelong designer.
I’m trying out writing as a different route to designing answers.
I have always designed visual answers to solve specific problems.
I am trying to shred the visuals and glue them back together in words.

Blooming

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by Jim Gould

Flowers spring my longing.
Snowdrops push through frozen crust
Crocus peeks from thatchly brown
Daffodil turns its yellow proud     to sun.
Take heart, my heart –
………dare to show your blooms
………before they wilt

A recovering lawyer, Jim travels the world, devours
NYC culture and writes in many styles. 

As a Result of a Failed Experiment Most of the Midwest Is Sucked into a Black Hole

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by Sylvia Brill

Goodbye to Wrigley Field and the Chicago El.
To thousands of folding chairs,
Ears of corn, roast pork sandwiches,
The debris of countless political meetings.
Into the darkness go the contents of the Wicker Park Post Office,
Unsent, undelivered, unread.
And crepe paper flowers,
The remains of children’s birthday parties.
The entire Chicago Art Museum,
Even the big Seurat.
I was sure it would be spared,
But it was caught up as well.
Those Sunday revelers dissolving into the dots that made them.
There go the dresses of prom queens,
Cerise gauze and silver sequins,
Sparks in the dark ark of the sky.
I watched them until the blackness took them.

 

Sylvia Brill is a retired high school history teacher.   She has worked with the Folk Singers’ League, the New York Rose Society, lived in Morocco and read a lot of poetry.  This is her first published poem.

University – 2 -1697

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by Tom Ashley

The gaps in the day are gone
no time to write in cursive
caught up in the endlessness
dance classes, soccer, car pools
spinning, Groupons
Google, Wiki, more
tweets, call waiting
“Call you back, can’t talk now…”

Please give me back
my busy signal, my dial tone
Nonnie’s party line
and University – 2 – 1697
my glorious mother died this summer
born three years before women could vote –
what am I supposed to do now –
post it on Facebook?

Taking many study groups over the years at the IRP has been a growing and stimulating process.  In college, I dreaded my writing courses.  I LOVE them now.

Irrational Numbers: A Fable

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by Lorne Taichman

One day in the Land of Numbers, Zero and Infinity were having an argument. Each one thought he was more vital to the world of mathematics.  Infinity boasted that he was the largest number in the universe and that none could compare to that.  Zero took a more modest approach.  Zero said that, although he was nothing to speak of, he held a lot of power.  Any number multiplied by zero would be zero and any number divided by zero would be infinity.  The argument went on for what seemed like an eternity till all the other numbers, One, Two, Three, Four and so on had had enough and decided to put an end to this bickering once and for all.  The entire series of numbers met, chose One to be the spokesperson and called Zero and Infinity to a large community meeting.  When everyone had settled down, One spoke: “I may be only a one but I am the basis of all numbers.  I am not the only one who is special.  Two can divide into any even number.  Three makes a beautiful triangle.  Four is a perfect square.  There are five fingers on a hand.  Every snowflake has six sides.  There are seven days in a week …” One continued on and on explaining the importance and beauty of every number until Zero and Infinity grew weary and called a halt to the proceedings.  “Enough!” they cried and stopped their arguing.  Peace reigned in the Land of Numbers ever after.

Moral:   Every number counts

 

The. assignment for this week’s IRP Writing Workshop was to write a fable.  The thought of combative numbers for a fable came to me out of the blue on a numbing subway ride home.  

 

 

 

Two Tales from the Barnyard

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by Charles Troob

Thin Pig

Algernon was the pick of the litter, frisky and lithe, but even as an infant piglet he spent little time at his mother’s teat.   Later, as his siblings gathered around the swill buckets, he went hunting for heirloom grains–teff, quinoa, farro–and leafy greens. When Anastasia the sow fretted, Algy said to her, “Mom, I’m not scrawny, I’m svelte.”  He grew pink and lean.

A Department of Agriculture rep came to inspect the farm.  “Is that really a pig?” he asked.  “He looks like a seal with a snout and four trotters.”  When the farmer told him about Algernon’s finicky eating habits, the rep roared with laughter and sent a text to the White House nutrition initiative.

Algernon was sent on a series of inspirational visits to junior high schools.  A camera team gave him a screen test, and within a week Algy made a video with Miss Piggy, “Kisses sweeter than swine,” which went viral.  Simon Cowell assembled a new group, Portion Control:  Algernon was the lead, backed by a whippet and a ferret.  They were booked for Royal Albert Hall in Summer 2017.

Meanwhile, in between public appearances, Algernon went from farm to farm to tell other pigs that they would live longer if they kept the pounds off.  Anastasia warned him not to be reckless, but he was on a crusade.  One day an angry meatpacker fired an AK-47 at him and it was all over.   His soul ascended to hog heaven.  His carcass was donated to the Harvard School of Public Health.  His hide was tanned and made into a replica of the Deflategate football, and is now in the Smithsonian.

MORAL:  IF YOU MARCH TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER, EXPECT TO GO OUT IN A FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road—Twice

At the age of six months, a plump little pullet, I proudly extruded my first eggs.  Hours later they were gone from my nest.  I asked old Henny Penny what had happened.  She snickered, “Hey, birdbrain, didn’t you know?  We’re industrial producers, not moms.”

I was devastated to learn the facts of chicken life. Still, I wanted to save my gene pool from the frying pan.  For that, there was no time like the present.  I ran to the far corner of the barnyard and squeezed through the fence.

With the farm behind my tail, I was facing a dusty road.  On its other side I saw tall grass and arching purple flowers.  Butterflies danced over the waving stalks.  A bright future beckoned.  I strutted across the ruts and gravel, and slithered into the meadow.  The air was suffused with heavenly scents, not chicken shit.

I was in paradise–until snack time.  It took forever to dig up a worm.  There was nothing to drink.  And soon I would have to build my own nest.  It dawned on me that this escape business needed a bit of planning.  I crossed the road a second time and headed for home.

Before I could say ”E-I-E-I-O” a cock with gorgeous amber feathers was on top of me.  We fluffed around for a while.  “Who are you,” I said, “and why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I just got here,” he replied.  “Farmer Francine brought me in as a change agent.  My name is Pecker.”

I couldn’t get enough of that big guy.  He sure changed me.  Dreams of a different life flew right out of my head.  As for motherhood–I’m having too much fun to sit and brood.

MORAL:  A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES STARTS WITH A SINGLE STEP, AND ENDS AT LUNCHTIME.

 

These were written for the IRP Writing Workshop study group.  One week’s assignment was to write a fable:  “Thin Pig” was the result.  Another week posed the question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”