Thursday, December 24, 2020





SWEETEST

Best plate of anything

ever

was a plate of Christmas cookies

on our cozy kitchen table tight up against a window

of outdoor weather.

My mother insecurely was not a baker.

Her sister down the street could make ‘em though and

so could the aunt who lived with us and

so could the also-cozy bakery on Main Street

whose unique color combinations of sugar and frosting

we’re eye-catching

as was the orange hair on the Fitzpatrick family 

who ran the place.

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

 


I JUST BOUGHT THIS BUNCH OF MAGAZINES for the twin grandchildren here. I sent a similar stack to the Wyoming grandchildren. You wish kids who don’t read well could get to pick out mags they were attracted to. That’s why you learn to read so you can read about stuff that grabs you. Sports or music or whatever.

Friday, December 18, 2020

 


POET NIKKI GIOVANNI in a review of her new book of poems in today’s Times:

‘There is no / way not to like Black Americans,” she writes in “Lemonade Grows From Soil, Too.” “We try to practice love. / We use the chicken feet to make a stew; we take the scraps of / cloth to make the quilt. We find the song in the darkest days / to say ‘put on your red dress, baby, ‘cause we’re going out / tonight,’ understanding we may be lynched on the way home / but knowing between that cotton field and that house party / something wonderful has been shared.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/books/nikki-giovanni-make-me-rain.html?referringSource=articleShare


Wednesday, December 16, 2020



CURTAINS

He Trump has always been 

pathetic 

more so now—

the stage no longer wants him.


Tuesday, December 15, 2020


‘I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use---silence, exile and cunning.’ 
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man


Friday, December 11, 2020



ONE MORE

We would wonder

my friend and I

bottles or pints in front of us 

who were the people

who went right home

on Friday.


Thursday, December 10, 2020


Sometimes the algorithms bring you something you find you’re grateful for. Those on youtube brought me this poet from Cork City, Ireland reading her poem:

https://youtu.be/7kN59KAVsvk