Roll

I used to belly dance. Nothing serious, but I got pretty good in a pleasing-myself, can-do-bellyrolls, sort of way. First classes got me through my last year of nursing school with my back in better shape rather than in misery. Performed a couple of times, once to the TMBG version of Istanbul (Not Constantinople), fast and flirty, got a laugh and applause, satisfied my residual urge to ever be on stage again. I don't like choreography for this kind of dance, it always feels stilted, the energy sucked out of the exuberant joy that is the heart of this improvisational, skilled, folk dance.

And that is what more advanced belly dance classes are about, turning us into performers, a troupe, with set choreographed steps. Which bores and annoys me. If enough people could simply gather to dance once or twice a month, dress up, shake it good, I would so be there. Let the kids run around, let drummers come and play, no competition, just dancing the sweat up. A few open dances at the end of a series of performances, well, it's something, and I was very grateful.

I need to be in better shape, but I still outdanced most of the students at the end. Not showy, just uninhibited and in time to the beat.

The best troupe there seemed to have the same idea, with a lead dancer starting a pattern, and the rest following along - more or less, synchronizing creatively. The gorgeously decorated, but modest costumes, highlighted their movements, with unusual, energetic music underlining. Engaging, funny, the kind of dancing that completely silences my inner critic.

The two drunk boyfriends, who wound up at our table, of a couple of the dancers (who left them to sit with the other dancers) were wads. Early twenty-somethings who seemed to think their interest in me, asking probing questions, offering me their every passing thought, was a generous gift. Gah. Even pointedly ignoring them did no good, and eventually D and I, and N who later drummed - and who invited us - and who apparently has frat-guy-attractant karma, moved all the way to the other side of the restaurant to get away from the entitled little dicks. On my own, I'd have quashed them much sooner, but with a group of three, it is more cumbersome. Still, I console myself that they had crappy girlfriends who brought them, then abandoned them. And that the restaurant made some money off their drinking, as did the dancers. They were throwing out $5s like they were beads at Mardi Gras. They tried to grab N's drum, with an offer to "jam", which did not go down well. N's not a small guy, and perfectly capable of defending himself. He did, with definite gentleness.

Speaking of whom, it's always great to see a friend distinguish himself. He announced the drumming, encouraging dancers to get up, in a clear, audible, amusing and commanding manner. He took center stage with an aplomb that seemed for a moment out of place from the person I know day to day, but then I realized how appropriate, yes, of course. He is an amazing person, and any woman who can't see that certainly doesn't deserve him. Hopefully, soon, a great woman, with an open heart and clear eyes spots him. He's hoping for a belly dancer.

Whole

Whole lotta cat.



"Again with the camera."

And here he is with the penguin, although I know George has been captured in passing other times.

Y

Yvonne made yards of yellow sails for yawls in York. She learned yoga in Yemen, and yearned to yodel like her Yankee niece from Ypsilanti. In her youth she learned Yiddish and wore a yarmulke on Yom Kippur, an affectation. She once won a Yule yo-yo championship, the prize a model yacht.

Her family were yeomen from Yugoslavia. Her husband grew yucca near Yuma. She may have been devoured by Yuggoth, more likely she devoured spoiled yoghurt.

Yawning yawping yaps
yeast for yanking yang, silence.
yield to your young yin.

Fluff

"Huh. Well. Lookit that."

Sweater

It's not quite cold enough for any kind of sweater. Yet. But I live in hope, and found my new favorite sweater at a catalogue outlet store in town that has some amazing sales prices on quality stuff. Soft, cozy, I dream of cold and rain. Today, 90(32) and going up, in particular.

Update, it's nearly 5PM, the temp is 97˚(30C), humidity 7%.


We were pondering today how people who have had such a hot, dry, searing summer, could cry over cooler weather and rain. Why the hostile judgement against rain? Crazy talk.

I want to wear my sweater and raincoat. Can't come soon enough for me.

Why

Gotta always keep in mind the why.

This has come up repeatedly this week. People so fixated on how a task must be accomplished, they seem to lose sight of why it has to be done. The process takes over the utility.

I love knowing why, and it's the only way I can remember the swathes of information I need to do my job well. I do not do much the same way I was originally taught. Working in so many different places, sticking to a particular how would have hobbled me, leaving me looking like an idiot.

And, well, it's not harder as I get older. I just have more in my repertoire. IF I know why.

Example. Started making OR tables, blue sheets, all the same size, so the second sheet was folded in half lengthwise and laid across the table, then folded up with the edge near the edge where the gurney would meet it. So when the patient moved over, it would be held in place by their movement, not flipped off onto the floor. Which is what would happen if the folded up side was on the far edge. Trying to get a nurse to fold it this way could sometimes be very difficult, even with the explanation. I was taught the other way, then this way, and it worked better, so I always did it, since it generally saved me a step, and kept the sheet off the floor. Keeping the length because of the way we tucked arms with foam pads, a functional local phenomenon, and the easiest and safest way involved a slightly diagonal technique learned from an anesthesiologist, that protected the ulnar nerve very efficiently.

Such draw sheets also need to be between the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle, since those are the two twisty bits framing the center of body mass. Move those two as a unit, and everything else just rides along, safely. Many nurses put the draw sheet down too low, more or less waist to knees, and it just doesn't work as well.

In Boston Hospital, the sheets were different, no issue of the draw sheet being too long to go width-wise, so I never bothered folding it up at all. Without the same kind of foam pad, tucking was rare, done differently, usually armboards were used instead. I got good with armboards, never made any comments about tucking.

When I got back to Old Hospital, I mostly worked Ortho, which doesn't need to tuck arms, the sheets had changed, and I learned a new way again. All white sheets do look wrong, but that's esthetics, and I can be dogmatic there, if also resigned.

New Ortho Hospital does draw sheets differently, different seatbelts, different foam pads, never tucks arms, a new set of positioning equipment, and I say "How do you use this, here?" Real draw sheets, but they fold them in half width-wise. Gives extra strength, and more than sufficient width for movement, good for a lot of larger patients. And keeps the fabric from getting in the way of handboards, leg holders, or suspension arms. Functional, I like it. I learn again, keeping in the front of my mind how to keep an anesthetized patient safe, ask why this works well.

I still see, often, that nurses don't know why they do as they are taught. I challenge gently, insisting on rationale as I adjust to local preference, and find new ways.

Sometimes, when it doesn't matter, it's a matter of what people expect. Habits that we rely on when everything is chaotic. And that is as good a why as any, once in a while.

Habitual

I have always known better than to get out of control drunk around people I didn't trust. My oldest brother always wanted to see me really drunk, and I never let him, in no small part because it was so damn important to him. There were other acquaintances over the years who I never had so much as a single beer around. Specifically because I didn't trust being around them if I were not in full control of myself. And, well, even on a bit of alcohol, I'm pretty much solid.

A guy in the E club at Ft. Sam misread me badly, once. Thought I was sloshed, thought he could talk me into an out of the way place, to do as he wanted, despite assurances of just kissing. I let him do his spiel. Only when it was time for me to break off to my own barracks did I let him see how sober, to the core sober, I really was. I really do like to make a small amount of inebriant solution to go a long way. Cheap drunk. I had let myself loosen with a few drinks, and I had, then, a very high tolerance for alcohol, due to inexpensive military outlets. I didn't ever really get so drunk, couldn't without explosive vomiting, that I couldn't pull myself up and defend myself. Not that I ever push it so far these days. So, poor guy, got oh so politely and firmly brushed off with a no doubt condescending smile and a clear, strong voice in perfect control.

So, today when a new GP tried to give me the same anti-binge-drinking lecture she no doubt gives to her college student patients, I had to smile. First, way too late, second, by this point, I know my limits and how to be responsible and I never did get myself in trouble even when I didn't. And nothing she could say would change my behaviour at forty-six for fucksake. GPs really would prefer we all live in safe little boxes with treadmills attached to testing units. I prefer life.

Rarely, if ever, actually, have I ever done anything out of defiance or spite. Getting a bit buzzed tonight, though. More than the regimented TWO! Ok, there was that time I had to run faster than the girls in my squad who treated me like crap, and I aced my PT test in San Antonio. Twice in 46 years is hardly a habitual reaction.


Gods in hell.

X

Xavier was an X-ray tech from Xenia, Ohio. He grew xanthic flowers by xeriscape with great exactitude. He played the xylophone, and, unknown to him, had an extra X chromosome.

His grandfather explored early xerography, and exposed himself as a xenophobe.

Xavier died in a freak Xerox accident, and was buried on Xmas eve.


Last exhalation
Exhaustive exile
Existence ends with an X.

Creepy

I hated eyes, close up examination of eyes, representations of eyes, empty eye sockets of skulls. Creeped me out all through my childhood. Until I studied biology in high school, learned all the structures and what they did, and the creep became fascination. Not a liking, but comprehension erased my irrational fear.

On NPR, one interview of a guy who determined to find three good things about mosquitos. Only the females bite, the males do not. The females only need the blood as a protein meal for their young. And they are, for insects, good parents to their young. I wish I'd thought of it this way as a kid, when I so wanted the whole species exterminated. Add that they are food for birds, and I can live with the irritating bugges.

Discussion at work today about spiders. I detest the stereotype of women who are afraid of bugs. It was the boys in biology class who studiously avoided Mr. Shirkey's tarantula, not the girls. I was wary of bees as a kid, but only the idea of being stung panicked me. I didn't hate them. But these women conformed to prejudice, which bothered me. Like those who are bothered deeply by snakes, because they slither without legs or some such. I don't really understand why some people want them as pets, but they are interesting creatures, taken at a distance. Fire ants are fine, down in Texas far away from me and my hands. They do give a nasty bite that later pusses up itchily, but only if I am in their territory. Even roaches gotta eat. Not beings I want in close proximity, but they were here first.

We all have our areas of discomfort, creatures or images, gruesome triggers for our disgust. Most of them would tumble if we willingly studied them, tried to understand. Not diminish to the point of liking usually, but enough to graciously grant them existence in our universe. As though we were not revolting enough in ourselves.

All a matter of looking differently, trying to see why, or at least how.

Really, just an excuse to repeat the Monty Python song,

All things dull and Ugly
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spikey urchin,
Who made the sharks, He did.
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

W

Walter wrote whimsical words for world weary writers. On weekends, he whittled walruses, with whiskers, of walnut. His warm wife, Wilma, wondered at his fear of water, but withheld her worry when they went to watch whales.

His uncle William was the first to wear wellies in Wilmington. His children would all weather winter in West Wyoming, to wander among wolves. He withered away in Wisconsin on a Wednesday.


Whistling whispers,
Our way now winding and wide
whipping willows wings.

V

Veronica was the Veiled Voice of Vienna, as heard on the Victrola, and vacuous vamp. In private life a voracious reader of Voltaire and Virgil, who received the Victoria Cross for valor. A voodoo woman once told her to always wear violet, though never visibly.

She came from vicars from Vichy, and victorious Vicounts, all VIPs, though vicious and vindictive. Valentino was one of her lovers.

Vexed by vodka, she died during vespers. In the vacuum, her son Vincent became an avowed vegetarian, living by his violin near Versailles.



Vestals invite me.
Venus offers me vervain.
Vagabond, I stay.

Questions

There are such things as stupid questions. We say there aren't, so that we don't frighten the good questions away, and can't stop the dumb ones anyway. But the wrong questions can lead us a merry dance, more even than the wrong answers.


"Oh? Why?"
"That's the wrong kind of question."

When I was a senior in high school, I wanted a good camera, more than an instamatic, something I could play with for different results. I didn't even know what the possibilities were, but I wanted to explore them. My brother asked me what I wanted to take pictures of. It's harder to answer such a wrong question, because it takes addressing the question, discarding it, and finding one's way to a new question that honors the person asking in good faith. I answered that I didn't want a particular subject, but I wanted to take better photos of what I could see.

"That is a very graphic analogy with aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

Being poor of income, a film camera, a reasonable SLR, proved to be too expensive to experiment with much. The delay between click and result meant I never really learned what all the knobs and buttons meant. It served me well enough, though. I did make some lovely images. My brother's question stuck in my head, his question still wrong, but so, in a way, was my answer.

"Aha! The right type of question!"
"I bet you don't know the answer, though."
"You are correct. But you must admit it's an interesting question not to know the answer to."

What the digital camera has done for me is what I imagined for myself then, though I could not form the idea coherently. Like the small cassette tape recorder that taught me how I sounded, a camera taught me how I see. Or a different way of seeing. Or a different way of understanding. Or that putting it in words makes it all wrong, somehow.

Like asking an author what the book is about. Or where an artist gets their ideas from. It confuses, never elicits the right kind of answer, and makes it harder to ask good questions, because bad questions tend to stick, annoyingly.

Quotations from Making Money, Terry Pratchett.

Work

I was given a heartfelt and lovely tribute today, for which I am very grateful. But one aspect was not at all deserved. For it included D, and our relationship.

you really make your
relationship work, and I know you both have to work at it,

Actually, being with D is easy as breathing. Which is to say, most of the time an unthought essential, quiet and effortless. Only when interrupted or labored is it painful, frightening, a dreadful wake up. Not the being with him, but the thought of being without.

We are grateful and kind and attentive, which took some practice to get right. But practice that is more like play, like the way children throw themselves into learning the alphabet backwards, or the names of the constellations. We strive to be fair to each other, eager to be generous - just to be on the safe side.

It's true we have had to adjust to each other's oddities, but we, which is to say I, learned not to separate those weaknesses out as distinct from who we are. (D started with this assumption.) Anxiety and sensitivity are two sides of the same trait. As well as my tendency to anger and my passion for not being stupid. D's memory and intelligence are facilitated by his ability to not hear or notice anything when he is engaged. He wouldn't complain of my slack cleaning, because he wouldn't notice. He appreciates anything I cook, because he rates it compared to how difficult it would be for him to do.

Admittedly, it took some trial and error to get the mix right, to understand the mechanisms and discard assumptions. Seeing no malice, I had to reframe every apparent neglect as, well, D not being a controller, nor a user. The hard part, keeping true to myself, while minimizing the toxic reactions - like rage. For D, it seemed to be taking his distractibility seriously, eventually getting into a study, then treatment. And as we work on ourselves for each other, we become more thoroughly our best selves.

Slow to anger, easy to please, this isn't work, it's the easy way. Not work at all, but a willingness to turn it over and over until we understand, aha. To chose to struggle for comprehension, instead of react with irritation. Eyes open, hearts open, tenderly admiring each other's strength and courage. Laughing instead of shouting. Holding each other instead of shutting each other out. Strenuous play.

Eggs

A few years ago, I dropped a partly filled carton of eggs. All the eggs were neatly at one end. Well, neatly until I dropped them. And this was not the first time to have unbalanced moments of near-egg-destruction. The obvious finally appeared, don't leave all my eggs at one end of the carton. Balance the damn contraption. So easy, stagger them through, or put them all in the center, it's not like squeezing one end of the toothpaste. But it had never occurred to me before.

Many years ago, I would go to the folkdance at Wayne State U, a large, friendly group. One song stuck in my head, Israeli if I remember right. The chorus, when we would start dancing in alternating circles, very fast, had the line "She forgot to bring the eggs.... oooooohhhhHH! Pshaw! Pshaw!"


I keep trying to see what is right in front of my face, the easy way often isn't.



As for where the cat is. Well, I brewed myself up a lovely little migraine this morning. Thanks to meds, I'm more or less fine, if a little reactive to light and uninterested in food. Moby figured his own way around closed blinds.

U

Ursula used umbrellas to understand the Universe, and urged others to read the Upanishads, or Ulysses. She played Ultimate Ukulele, learned in the Ukraine for ulterior motives. She invented a ubiquitous utensil for urban usage of umlauts.

Her uncle, a uniformed officer on a U-boat, later fought for the Union in Uzbekistan. Her ulcerated uvula undid her in Ulster, she remains under Unakite marked "Undine."


Undermine the useless urge
to usher us up
Umber on our thumbs.

T

Thomas was a theologian with tenure at Tulane. He tried titling Thai translated movies, and thought himself a trifling thinker. His tango earned him the appleation Twinkle Toes. A troubled teen, he twice threw himself from trees, to his twin, Theodore's, tribulation.

Son of a teamster from Toledo, his daughter studied Trotsky. His wife Teresa threw teapots on a wheel, and rode a Triumph, to Tom's terror.

Tangled up in tones
with tourmaline threads
Twisted twine through the twilight.

Mud

I find myself irritated by deep thoughts and profound insights. I have no wish to dredge up the dregs and muddy the waters that are, for the moment, settled. Stagnant? Perhaps, better that than roiling stench. Right here, right now, I'd rather float, leaflike, on the rippling surface. Rather than sink beneath the bright reflections layered over thick muck.

I have no wish to claim my misplaced misery, it can sit in lost & found a while longer. My doubts of my value to others, my importance to friends, that can hide there, too, I suppose, along with my anxieties about money and health, and all the drama and tragedy beyond my grasp.

Let the distracted and blurred have this hot, dry, wearing day. Autumn will bring it's sharp clarity soon enough, if not quite soon enough. My eyes are on the path at my feet, there is nothing on the horizon to look up, look forward, to.

Details

On the way out, we had a great view of a kitschy pseudo Mt. Rushmore, but no time to get out the camera. D did his best on the way back, but it faced the wrong way, and my hat got in the way. But he accidentally snapped a VW with anthropomorphic detailing.

S

Sam swam to Siam, simply to see. He survived sewing shoes in Sudan. His shins covered in scars, due to squirrels, on this he was silent. Son of a sailmaker from Sweden, his son would sweat in Savannah, selling soldering sets.

So. Sweetly singing
on the salient salty
Solitude song. So.

Resonant

I've been called off work on Monday, which worries and depresses me. This is a most annoying and uncomfortable and frustrating phase of our lives. We've had worse, but somehow, it was never so itchy.

We have decided to take the day tomorrow to go to a somewhat distant museum, back by evening, if not sooner. Just to get out, have something else to talk about, since neither of us can stand to talk about the all too obvious problems, insoluble, persistent, irritating.

The alarms went off, but not as long as feared. Moby slunk, tail bushy, all kinds of badness, but not for a prolonged period. Once around 1030, again just before four, tense, terrified. But then he regained composure fairly soon, glad enough when friends came by and adored him as per. He found the box bottom to the cat tree, not much of a favored spot, although intermittently explored. Yesterday, it seemed to do the job. I found him in there again this evening, and petted him in situ. Purring most resonantly, like a cat in a guitar, a very pleasant, soothing sound. As if he were humming to himself.

R

Richard, a roustabout when young, rose to a reliable rigger. Retired to reside in Roanoke, he raised roses and rhubarb on a reserve by the river. With his red hair, and long reach, he relished his ridiculous rhumba, learned in Rio.

Related remotely to his Rebecca, both being Russian, Roman and Rumanian, they reveled in their remarkable rapport. Their recreation was researching riparian rhizomes. Rhinitis didn't kill him, renal disease did. He reposes beneath a rubber tree.

Right reluctantly
the slow rhythm inside ribs
rests it's ritual.

Q

You've been waiting to see if I could manage this. Well, sort of.


Quincy raised quail for their quills, and sewed quatrefoil quilts. He grew up Quaker, but quit quite quietly. He lived in a quonset house, painted in quotations, encrusted in quartzite.

Always quarrelsome, and quixotic, he quipped he was a quadruple quadroon, unknowingly descended from a Quechua queen. He died, quashed, when a quack put him in quarantine for quinsy, then interred him in quicklime.

Quadruplicate me,
quantify my quandary,
then will I be quenched.

Alarming

The building folks are doing the annual testing of the fire alarms this week. Moby hates this, it obviously hurts him and terrifies him, and we wish there were some way to shield him, or get him out of it, in a way that isn't worse. Boarding would not be better, adding the risk of respiratory infection from other animals. Cats can't just be taken for a walk up the canyon for a few hours. No one here can really take him for a few hours, ok, up to seven hours. Our best plan is to provide him with a well muffled closet, wool blankets, maybe even get some acoustic foam. At least I have the day off, and can maybe just bag him and walk around the block, if they will give me some warning.

P

Penelope pickled peaches picked in Portland by the pound. Pete picked her up on the path to Pennsylvania, promising praise in perpetuity, but they packed it in and parted in Poughkeepsie over pumpkin pie. Her pinkies were pitted, her pimples pathetic, but part of her plaits pleased players of pianos.

Her parentage passed from Portugal to Pittsburgh, pipers and penny-pinchers in preponderance. Pierced by a pineapple spear in Pago-Pago, her palpitations potted her. Placed in plaid, and plunked into the Pacific, she proceeded to paradise, presumably praying politely for Pete.

Play for plum pudding
provide good porridge
pepper your pleasure with peace.


Plum

Colors byPilgrim Heretic.

O

Olive orchestrated oriental oratorios in Ontario. She ornamented oranges using opalescent oats, over Octoberfest. Her obsession with oracles and omens was open to opprobrium. She owned an ostrich named Oscar, ordered from Oregon (as an organized good omen) for the omelets.

Her family were out of Oxford, originally oystermen, obfuscated. She died obtunded, overrun by oxen.


Oxymoronic
Obviously I
Opted for oblivion.

N

Nicholas neatly knotted natural nets in Newfoundland, after nixing the Navy due to nausea. He made nickel narwals for nostalgic tourists. He fashioned a neon Nightengale for his niece's noodle house, and an enormous needlework Neptune for his Nephew's nursery, featuring nasturtiums and nettles. His nose noble, his neck - Napoleonic, he knew he descended from the nobodies of Newgate.

In his nineties, he served noodles to Diana Nyad, his idea of nirvana. He succumbed to a necrotic nail, nine of his next of kin nearby.

Nascent and narrow
under every narration,
nil desperandum.


Very Dark Green.
Colors byPilgrim Heretic.

Newton

Gravity is not my friend today. Found this in Cambridge a few years ago. Have posted it before. But, damn.

New pedometer, got in my goal 10K steps yesterday. Annoyingly. Got home late, mostly because I had so much left to put away with the others whose rooms had finally finished. Many technical difficulties in every room all day, many tired and tried folks. Missing our core support person - who was also ill this week. Bad cases that would have run long anyway, ran longer because of fritzing machinery. Everyone got out alive, so it must be counted as a good enough day. Came home and sat near comatose for a long while. Still not feeling well this week myself.

D asked what I wanted for dinner.

"Chicken marsala over ziti, from the Uptown Cafe. Or a meatball sandwich from there would do." This was not helpful, as D pointed out that they never did deliver, and we would not be anywhere near their delivery area if they did. But as he got hungry, and our own fridge offered no reasonable options, he walked over to the grocery store as I continued to meld with the sofa. And brought back quite reasonable meatballs from the deli, rolls, and heated the combination up with decent parmesan. Hungry as I'd gotten, it tasted nearly as good.

I slept hard but badly, with incoherent dreams full of irritating songs, work, Chinese money that turned into photographs, teeth and car trouble.

So, I didn't write the N post.

So there.

M

Mike made meatballs over manicotti, with mozzarella at the market. His much inked, massive muscles and menacing demeanor masked a mild and magnificent man. He muddled along with his mannerly mastiff, Maggie. Who in turn, mothered a moggie named Max. On Mondays, he rode his motorcycle to a monastery in Maine, where they marveled at his modest magic.

His mother Mary marched every Memorial Day for Mike's missing dad, Morris. At a great age, Mike managed a mundane massive coronary, but among Mennonites. A mermaid daughter mourned him.


Under maple trees
deep in the marrow
a merciful medicine.

L

Lance loved to linger over lacy lingerie, in lieu of lining lorries for a living. Lanky and languid, his laughter was lilting. Ill in Loire, he let himself be leeched, which alleviated his liver condition, and made him laugh.

Left alone in infancy in London, with only a lime and lilacs, lying in leather luggage, then raised by a Latin scholar and a librarian, he felt loved and learned all his life. He took to lighting the lamp in a long-lost, inland lighthouse, and died there alone. Not of lunacy nor lycanthropy, that was libel.

Land in the limelight
or lightly lace licorice
learn well all your life.

K

Kenneth had a knack with making kilts of all kinds, including khaki. Wore them knowing he was knock-kneed, supported by his kith and kin. As a kid, he named his off kilter kitty, who hid in a kettle, Kismet.

Descended from Kentish knights and Kurdish kings, he was keen to keep kindhearted. Kidney disease killed him. His remains mixed with kaolin were baked in a kiln, another friend prayed Kaddish for him.

knocking at karma
kissing a kazoo
a knife to cut away knots.

J

John, a Justice of the Peace, enjoyed joinery and jade jewelry. His jealous Jill jeered that his jutting jaw was a joke. She jilted him for Jagermeister and a Jeep, leaving him jocular.

As a juvenile, he took a joy-ride in a jalopy for Jazz at Jim's, who judiciously allowed Jews despite the jeopardy of local jurisdiction. He died jaundiced with lock-jaw, his ashes kept in a jam jar by his son Joe, and dear wife Joyce.

Jangling old jackass
jive ass jingoistic jerks,
Jacob is my judge.

I

Isabel cut ice sculptures in Iceland, immigrated to Ireland to investigate ichthyological irregularities, and itched to incise icons onto iron ingots.

Her inky skin and ivory hair, iridescent eyes and innate irony invited no interrogation, ignoring the ignorant. When her itinerary included Italy, Istanbul, Israel and Iberia, idealistic itinerants recited iambs to her.

She imagined herself an incarnation of Icarus, but knew herself bred of inferior Impressionists. Ill of impetigo, she died of infection, incinerated and interred in Indonesia.

Inwoven inward
Intangible I
Illuminated.

H

Henry happened into a study of Hellenic helmets by happenstance. He raised hens and hogs near his home on the heath. He had no hair on his body. Harassed in high school, he consoled himself he'd not been named Harry.

Studying history at Harvard, he befriended a hermaphrodite from Hibernia, who feared hell and hated heaven.

His heirs hospitably accepted his horrible, hoaxed, heraldry, a hysteric hydra holding a hula hoop (having a sense of humor.) A happy husband to Helen, hopelessly outliving her, he hung himself with hemp.

No holy hero
hummingbird with a horseshoe
heavy hopeless heart.

G

Gretchen grew a glorious golden garden of gladiolas and geraniums, green grass and golden rod. A gracious grandmother, she gave grab bags of gingersnaps to good girls, and goldfish to grandiose grandsons.

Her own grandfather, gladly gaga, glued gods in gingham gowns to gates in Georgia to goad gloating GOP generals.

These stories made her giggle with her gentle Gregory. Her grave glitters with glass, engraved with his ghost.

No gargoyle grieves here
Gethsemane glowers
Gigantically, guiltily.

Dark Grey
Colors byPilgrim Heretic.

F

Frank fried fish for Finns. He'd lost a foot in France, because his boot failed to fit. He thought it fun to set flash fires in an fallow field, and once found a free fridge that still functioned.

His father, a frigid, fanatical forester, frightened him as a boy, but fostered a firm faith in the finer feelings of his fellow fire-jumpers, as Frank followed in his fearless footsteps, infrequently.

At his funeral, in far off Fredonia, on a freezing Friday, falconers flew their feathered fellows for their friend.

Fingerlings falling
floundering in fat
Floury fascination.


Faintly rusty
Colors byPilgrim Heretic.