posted January 29, 2001 02:08 PM         

when...umbrella...glen...breakfast... fifty...bird...anything to do with the word gut

My father didn't give me his blue eyes
he gave me his stutter
He said he was cured when he went to camp at age 10
when he was sent somewhere in Wisconsin
where all camps like these are, in the seclusion of forests and dirt, nothing that talks back
or pretends to listen.

They had good meat loaf there and made him talk real slow with a lot of breath, but he never explained, really,how he was cured.

I imagined each boy and girl walking across tree logs uttering words like bluebird?with those hard, consonants
and daffodil? double f' hiding, trembling under the lower lip.
Words would drip down their chins like syrup and feed the animals with their sound.

When I was ten I asked my father if I could go to that camp but he said
it wasn't there anymore.
In the Mediterranean, then? Surely they can cure this in the Mediterranean, I said.
Anyone who can say that word surely can't stutter.

In the sixth grade I gave the longest two-minute report on John F. Kennedy ever, stumbling over every consonant
dragging them like fingers across a radiator.
And at 16 I boiled some hot water in my mother's kettle and dipped my tongue in like a tea bag.
I took a breath, opened my mouth and watched the silent bird escape
into the repeating night.

Words I hate:
can...believe...letter...bottle...
Lisa...confidence...blink

posted January 29, 2001 02:12 PM         

When I was a young
naive lovebird
fattened with dusty
phone calls
I chose to follow you
everywhere - to a country
not on the map
to moons.
We spoke in a language the salmons
taught us in slippery tongues.

The wasps tell me
you will never come again.
I've heard them hovering by
the broken screen.
They've been let in,
two or three at a time.

This year has been different,
I noticed one day.
The water flowed the
other way
The fish came in schools
and landed on the shore
where I lined up all
my shoes and velvet dresses.
I ran from the moon on leather.

I hurried into the house where the shutters
banged their choleric heads.
Beneath the roll of Mozart:
the hum outside the window,
wings tickling the glass.

And now we are two lizards
emerging from the sand, linked with
purple, airless umbilical cords.

We think we are renewed.

Come out, you say,
And I sit, poised,
waiting

counting the number of breaths
between thoughts.

The number is small.

Take the cord and bind your
feet together
Wear my shoes.
Never mind the mess
never mind the peripheral

for wasps gather in the wings.
I am told things aren't so sharp there.

posted January 29, 2001 02:14 PM         

I wanted to be a bird as a child. My arms spread out pressed against the wound up, chilly, chain-link fence watching those bodies fly to places I couldn't, places I've never been. I looked at their brown and red bellies and wondered if they ever grew tired and what that felt like, if it was a tight fist of feathers in the pit of their chest, a sort of

panting that comes before the waiting, waiting to breathe calmly again, waiting to hear the sound of the beginning and I wondered what that sounded like. I used to escape the other children years ago and hide beneath the arms of the oak, nestle in my arms of quiet solitary breathing but I can't remember that rhythm - it gets disrupted so easily now.

I sit behind two stories of window and watch a bird bang into it, feeling the glass splinters on my cheeks. I face the backs of houses, of people I don't know, faces I avoid. I turn from one wreckage to face another. The ensemble of birds fly back and forth from the tree nearest to me to one further down the street. Back and forth from tree to tree from me to me it seems to be

a chase but who is chasing who and who is being chased and are they afraid and what does that feel like? Their wings flap frantically propelling them to this spot to that, from that spot to this and I close my eyes and place my fingers on the sides of my head, on this side and that side. I don't want to be chased just fly straight ahead not

looking back not having the need to look back at the thousands of wings flapping every which way not having the need to meet the eyes of anything. The wind would breathe me along with no words, no expectations, just graspable flight, no matter if I were to ever reach it or not. Sky. Wind. Breath. Noiseless company.

posted January 29, 2001 10:34 PM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted January 30, 2001 08:29 PM         

I wrote this peom for a girl I knew and admired.. Her name was Katie and she died in a automobile accident on 11/11/00.. It was a very sad moment in my life because I admired her from afar and I never even met her.. The accident was also a result of drunken driving.. Please, think before you drink.. My poem is entitled November Rain

November Rain....

Standing here in November rain..
All I feel is the pain..
Lost among the barren trees..
Winding down this hilly lane..

Now you're gone from this earth..
One less person with great worth...
Why gentle Lord must you hurt..
Loyal ones who till your work...

Now I walk to the lake...
To watch the raindrops dissipate...
Into a void of space and time...
Untouched by our mortal minds...

Let me change the past I beg
So she can live another day
Please Lord show me the way...
So I can escort her away...

This all comes from my heart...
A silent admirer from afar...
Who could not foresee the day...
When the Lord decided to take her away...

If I could, I would do...
Anything I could to save you...
Let me go back in time...
To prevent this untimely crime...

The reflection I saw in the lake...
Gave me an answer I could not take...
You can't change another's mistake
Unfortunately, its all part of fate...

Now I stand in the rain...
A small part within the game...
Please don't ever think...
That you can drive and drink...

posted January 30, 2001 09:11 PM         

Fortunately, the dead have no ill feelings about the cause of their death (except for suicide). Even murder causes no negative feelings for them. All they want is to remain near family and friends in Spirit and continue to share the joy of major family events. Death is birth into the afterlife, and they view it as an open door.

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted January 31, 2001 11:31 AM         

Thanks for the complement... :-) I always write well when I am inspired to.. That was a very trumatic incident for me.. I wrote that poem the day she died... Thank you again for enlightening me.. I never knew that spirits were like that.. See, I am learning new things everyday.. Thanks again

posted January 31, 2001 12:01 PM         

So sorry about your loss.

FV

posted January 31, 2001 10:15 PM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted February 01, 2001 08:17 AM         

That is a great show!!! I think there is a tremendous about of validity to what he says. I really wish I could be on the show. Maybe I could talk with Katie. Thanks for complementing me on my writing.. Just a thanks if i didn't say it already...

posted February 02, 2001 12:04 AM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted February 02, 2001 01:58 AM         

First you have to poke a hole in the cup...in effect you 'killed' it. Then the spirit can drink from it.
Pour the tea (or whatever) into the cup (better if poured over the sink as it can be messy here on this side).

I am sure it would for other things as well...break the cookie, etc..

Then sit and chat with them. Easy!

I did this with my brother after he passed..of course it was coffee not tea...not the usual gourmet kind he liked, but he was too polite to say.

It was nice sitting down with him until he left to do some mysterious 'stuff' on the other side. He must have come back or something as I haven't seen or heard from him in years...

At first it will seem like you are hearing the spirit in your head, but after you get used to it it will be just like a normal visit..

posted February 02, 2001 09:42 AM         

I never thought of that.. I always try to have conversations with her. The day she died I went into my backyard and started talking outloud to her. I have seen some suddle occurances where I have felt a presence. I dunno. She could still be around because her death was a very tramatic. Ill keep talking to her... I need to pay attention more to what happens around me...

posted February 02, 2001 11:42 AM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted February 02, 2001 11:35 PM         

I can hardly believe it!

posted February 03, 2001 12:17 PM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted February 03, 2001 12:19 PM         

------------------
Consider the circle, measure it please,
All its three hundred and sixty degrees.
Wasn't that fun, and haven't you found
You can do it again, the other way 'round?

Now that we know how many degrees,
Must be accounted for nice as you please
Here come astrologers, what do they say?
Divide the degrees in precisely this way.
Take thirty degrees for each of the signs
It makes a nice wheel divided by lines.

posted February 03, 2001 01:03 PM         

See I need to think 12 dimensionally.. lol.. I am sure I knew her before. I had a rough night last night and I talked to her in my head. She answered me too.. It was weird.. I was talking and she was talking back.. I could not make up conversation like that.. lol.. Thanks again for you insight.. I keep learning new things everyday

:-0

John