I was eight.
On the third story
Of the half-built house,
I opened Dad’s umbrella
Jumped, floated down.
Childish
naughtiness
And
Wonder
Vindicated.
Tag: Poetry
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Understand, she told him “no.”
He was a patient man and so,
He gently explained why she should,
(You see he tried.) She shook her head
And said something else instead
Of “yes.” He had to shout
And warn her, so there’d be no doubt
That he was serious, yet she
Refused to comprehend. So he
Really, sadly, had no choice,
When he heard, in a women’s voice.
Such gross, unkind audacity.
She started it.
She told him “no.”
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No ripple
Circled the scaled,
Unblinking wedge
Surfacing in dark water.
She tasted the hissing air
Towards her sunlit dock
Where I sat,
Before sinking again
Into the brown,
Silken sweetness
Of the summer bayou.
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On top are etched
Old thoughts,
Emphasized through paper.
Over years and decades
Many hands
Pressed their point a bit too hard
And marked the wood.
Now a mist
Of unreadable cursive
Rises through brown pine.
I can hear the deep,
Burbling echoes
Of serious people in suits
Writing what they never said,
Or said later and more calmly
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Lie down
To slide into shadow
And learn
Water lapping
Sounds midnight blue
And smells of stones.
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Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
My first name was invented by the 16th century poet, Sir Philip Sidney for his long pastoral poem Arcadia. Presumably, it means “filled with honey.”
It got picked up again in the 18th century by Samuel Richardson, as the name of a virtuous teenage servant girl who spends much of the novel being sexually assaulted, kidnapped, and imprisoned by her upper-class, “importunate” employer. I took a stab at reading it when I was fifteen. A quarter of the way through, exasperated, I flipped to the end, learned the “happy” ending is that she marries the man and reforms him with her piety, and gave it all up as a bad idea. I wish I could say I was indignant as an incipient feminist whose keen insight cut brutally through the romantic conventions of the time, but I wasn’t. I just didn’t believe a word.
At the time I was born, the name my mother chose for me was at the height of its popularity, though I don’t think she knew that. It was her third choice. Her first was flatly and reasonably rejected by my father because, coupled with my surname, it would have doomed me to a lifetime of bad jokes. Her second would have made my full name sound like someone walking through slush. So she chose another name she liked, it worked, and now it’s mine.
It’s not exactly exotic. There was always at least one other girl with my first name at school. When I moved to San Francisco in my twenties, there was another woman here with both my name and surname. We never met, but we did keep stumbling across each other when we applied for library and video rental cards.
The advent of the internet revealed just how common is my full name. At one point, in my forties, I got a cluster of emails congratulating me on graduating high school and asking when I would come visit relatives in Israel. I wrote back, explained my location and age, and then, rather tentatively, asked how anyone with my Irish surname ended up in Israel.
The response I got was polite, amused and kind. Theirs was a shortened version of the name of a shtetl in eastern Europe, that, in turn was named after the French city from which its population had been driven after a pogrom — the same city that had given my family its name. So, the email writer observed, if our ancestors had not been relatives, they had been neighbors.
I believe I sent back thanks and an apology for my forebears. -
I don’t usually write poetry, and when I do it tends to be doggerel (hopefully comic) like this. I wrote this years ago, but I recently saw an exchange online that reminded me of it. Hope you are amused. If you’re not, sorry. I calls ’em as I see ’em. Herewith, “Song of a Thread.”:
Peace reigns upon the online sea
And all is copacetic,
For on the forum all agree,
Each poster thoughtfully says “B”
When they respond to the OP,
Some gaily and some solemnly
Some off-hand, some emphatic.Yes, “B” says One
And “B” says Two
And “B” says Three and Four,
And “B” says Five
And “B” says Six,
Who knows how many more
Would’ve anted up their B
If Seven hadn’t wrecked the thread,
Gone on a wicked trolling spree
By coolly and deliberately
Posting a “C” instead.Most are stunned by Seven’s gall
Some lurkers turn and flee
The errant “C” has cast a pall
That baffles posters, big and small,
Till Five, the bravest of them all
Steps in, and standing firm and tall
Replies, “No, Seven. B.”Yes, “B” says One
And “B” says Two
And “B” says Three and Four,
And “B” says Five
And “B” says Six,
Nobody has before
In cold blood dared to disagree
And worse, then offered the reply
To Five’s polite correction mild,
An answer, brutal, mad and wild:
“No, I say C. Here’s why…”Is Seven crazed, or just plain mean?
Some caution, “Wait and see.
As of yet, we just don’t know
If Seven’s deaf, or maybe slow
Let’s band together. That will show
Her that the answer’s ‘B.’”So, “B” cries One
And “B” cries Two
And “B” cries Three and Four,
And “B” cries Five
And “B” cries Six,
In a united roar,
They all affirm the blessed B.
Surely that will penetrate
The skulls of any fools who prate
Of other letters, and they wait,
Only to hear. “No. C.”Eyes narrow. Something’s going on.
Why does Seven insist
On answering? The lines are drawn,
So why does Seven not desist,
When other posters all persist,
With comments she could not have missed,
All saying that she’s wrong?“It’s B” shouts One
“It’s B” shouts Two
“It’s B” shouts Three and Four,
“It’s B” shouts Five
“It’s B” shouts Six,
Who adds “and furthermore,
I think I’ve stumbled on the key.
On careful reading,” Six opines,
“The awful, hidden meaning shines
From out between your written lines,
You’re really saying…G!”At last the truth is running free,
Now that it’s been revealed.
That Seven has, with wicked glee,
Tried to wreck the board’s esprit
de Corps not just denying “B”
But trying sneakily to shield
A “G” behind a “C.”“Not G!” cries One
“Not G!” cries Two
“Not G!” cries Three and Floor,
“Not G!” cries Five
“Not G!” cries Six,
All join in to deplore
Extremism, foully, wickedly
Ignoring every patient plea.
Seven’s exposed for all to see
And plainly must be shown the door —
A G’ist saying “G!”Peace reigns upon the online sea
And all is copacetic,
For on the forum all agree,
Each poster thoughtfully says “B”
When they respond to the OP,
Some gaily and some solemnly
Some off-hand, some emphatic.
Pam Troy 