It was an unexpected day. I want to write about it but I'm falling over. I got stuck in Atlanta. We had to evacuate as there was an electrical grid outage. Long walk out through dark corridors all the way to baggage claim, must've been a mile walking through dark terminals filled with electrical smoke. Surreal. People having panic attacks. One person had a seizure. 

But then, amidst the chaos, in this one corridor, there was this beautiful art from Zimbabwe, stone sculptures, and I had stop and look. I couldn't not. I thought, if this hadn't happened I would have never seen this art, nor would it have meant as much.

Finally got out of airport and into a hotel shuttle. We all got to talking in the van and I mentioned that I was going to miss my grandmother's funeral and there were warm sounds of sympathy all around. Then a grandmother said that she was going to miss her granddaughter's birth and that felt like poetic symmetry. Soon afterward this same woman had a kind of belated panic attack, laughing and crying uncontrollably and taking off her clothes. We rolled down the windows and she calmed down. After a long silence one of the men asked her if she was OK. She said she was fine now and he told her a story about how he was in the elevator with his grandmother when he was young and the elevator got stuck and she panicked and began to take off her clothes. So he said he'd been there before and he was cool with it. She said that was good to know.

Later in hotel I watched a very intense and surprising documentary about peyote on Viceland, then flipped to an old Perry Como Christmas special, with special guest stars The Carpenters. The special was my grandma's choice. Anyway, I kept feeling like my grandma was there watching it with me. Peggy Fleming came out spinning on the ice in a diaphanous white dress, a winter fantasia, and she was -resplendent- I could see why Charles Schultz always talked about her in Peanuts. Good choice, Grandma.

Afterward I walked down to the only restaurant around, Ruby Tuesdays, and they were so overwhelmed with unexpected customers that it took a couple hours to get seated and served. 

Meanwhile I danced on the scary path next to the restaurant. See pictures before and after below. 

Still waiting, I made a sculpture out of the lawn art at Ruby Tuesday's. Again again. The security guard came out and frantically told me to stop. I said, sorry I wasn't thinking. Ha ha ha ha. 

The salad bar was great and they kept bringing around free margarita shots so it was all good. Plus there was the live version of "a Christmas story" on TV. It was laughably bad, though Maya Rudolph almost saves it. 

I was seated in the singles section and we all ended up sharing stories about the night. Lots of cathartic laughter all around.

It's Funny, I Write

It's Funny, I Write

 

For the love of words 

For the first reader

Like for instance

"Like Kith to Karen is Mrs. Maisel the Marvelous" 

I just texted Karen M

like a text inside a textbook example of a textbook about texts might look 

and that all rolled well enough didn't it 

no matter the context 

Oh no, here we go again 

Go slow

You have nothing to say

It's okay

Take the typewriter and go into the basement

Find the crack in the cement 

Go in. Say hi to Larry the roach

Larry said to give the Berrigan brothers his regards

Go into the sewer pipes. Take a wild ride to where? 

Endless cycles of water and earth and sky and shit- 

Water cleans itself out eventually. But it also goes away.

More is coming. That's a good thing, right?

We're just going to have to build a bigger boat.

Drop the mic 

No, pick it up.

First you have to pick it up 

Up the mic pick  

Smile, say goodnight 

then you drop the mic 

This writing

Found poems

Silk

Smooth as silk this sentence sails, 

its sides awash in ether, 

while somewhere in Neverland 

rough leather hands arise from holsters 

and pick up guitars to serenade dancers at dawn, 

reveling in their caramel-colored epaulets 

like apostles who, under the sordid surface,

have torn insults asunder in sultry passages, 

sashaying in waves as the soft apparitions 

sway and fall under. 

little ditty about jack and coke

I don't know why I keep rhythm on this thing

is a line I've used before

before long i'll have to 

jettison it

to Hawaii

the land of sky blue water

or was that Wisconsin?

clever writing's dead

unless it lives forever

in the aesthetic rectory

the sept of revery

where I've been thinking

nothing gets its due

except sorcery and drool

narrative is only as alive

as it is new, and only new

as you haven't yet seen it 

go that way 

Go that way

and you go back 

and forth, 

Like a jedi with a lithp.

Odd anger at O'hara's killer

on Fire Island where he visits 

and consoles himself 

through me

I've got to write it up.

I've got to write it up, the screenplay

sent it to Thurston Moore

have to send it to Ron Padgett. 

-- 

Josephine Wang

Josephine Wang

I knew something about you through a gleam in your eye,

A literal gleam in your eye, the kind which says so much with so little,

the same gleam that you had -the only hint on your otherwise inscrutable face-

when you bonked my daugher, your 3 year old great grand daughter, Sofia,

in the head with a big bouncy red ball, 

knocking her off the camera screen,

a scene we've watched over 100 times, 

a hilarious gesture with a hint of the severe, 

but cute somehow, not mean,

something a mother/ or teacher might 

do, one who was sure of her charges,

in control, an iron fist with a soft touch, 

even a caress here and there, 

a lion's roar with well being

the goal, love's dragon

on the wing.  

How else could I know you, who

had been through so much? One way

has been through Wild Swans, a memoir

about 3 generations of Chinese women,

and my shock in finding a culture so different 

from this one, like night from day, so full of hardships 

and horrors, how that must've formed you, and how much

reforming you must've had to do come all the way here.

All told I'd say you escaped to a better place, 

faced a kinder fate. 

Dear Josephine,

You escaped the even worse hardships and horrors of Mao!

  

And in the process you gained a fantastic son from across the world who shared your name!

But still, not easy, the place from which you came is so far from the ancestors

you worshipped. Hard to imagine what this would be like, 

to think of this family being shut off from you and KungKung 

while you were so young? And before the days of FaceTime too!

You were forced to leave most of the past behind 

for the less certain shores of the future. You learned to "adjust your sails"

as your daughter is fond of saying, (to make "a long story short.")

You once told me something I could never forget;

the reason you only had two children is because 

you only had two hands, and if you had to suddenly flee China, 

you wouldn't have to leave a third child behind. 

That's love, in all it's practical efficiency, 

sacrificing the desire for more children 

so that you could properly take care of the ones you have. 

And it also speaks to the conditions in which you were raised too.

I never heard the story of how you escaped from Maoist China, 

but suffice to say both your children are safe, one in each hand. 

and prosper too, in their own different ways.

You are remembered by the fruits of your love. 

By the fruits of your love you will be remembered. 

This is the other kind of gleam in your eye, the figurative one,

your children, both living beautiful lives of their own, thanks in no small part

to your guidance and care, one hand for each.

And there is also the gleam I see reflected in Genevieve's eyes, 

one I see every day, reflecting, yours, PoPo, like a flame,

and reflecting in your great grandaughters eyes too, like a flame,

fortunate inheritors of your ferocious spirit and self determination. 

And this is how I will remember you, 

the little teacher with the big hand, 

the giant heart, the looming spirit. 

I can see you in the past playing some sport, 

was it hockey? something I would've never imagined, 

circa 1968, the year I was born, and what are you thinking about 

as you play, I wonder, serious as can be, perhaps of your daughter, Ada,

on the brink of leaving for Spain, where little could she have known 

in that uncertain time, she would meet her fortune, 

Joseph of the many colored coat, 

and begin the foundation for her many splendored family

(a future in which I am so happy to have found a supporting role.)

She couldn't have known, she could only keep skating, 

only keep working toward the next goal.  

But from here we can see the victory,

just how grand all those goals would add up to be. 

Good to know you, PoPo.