Category Archives: fantasies

Mag #242

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Magpie Tales is a blog “dedicated to the enjoyment of poets and writers, for the purpose of honing their craft, sharing it with like-minded bloggers, and keeping their muses alive and well.” Each week, it offers an image as a writing prompt.

Go here to read what other writers have written in response to this prompt.

mother

If we become the mother
we wanted, our children
grow the roots and wings
of our lost early yearnings,

Our daughters become
the women we wish we were,
our sons the men we dreamed.

But too often we succumb
to the echo of her voice,
trapped in the tangle
of a cord never cut.

There is no burying our mothers,
though we lay them deep.
They live in us one way or other,
whether we heed or not.

what a difference a Sharpie makes

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Version 1

Version 1

Sharpie verion

Sharpie version

This is a piece of fabric I bought, thinking it would be fun to build a piece of wearable art around it. But then I noticed and hated the typical male-fantasy portrayal of warrior women — all boobs and butts and much too much skin. So I got out my Sharpies and made some editorial adjustments to their costumes.

Note the change in the message of the images, just by adding a little ink. It’s such an easy adjustment for comic illustrators to make, and it shifts the message from “sex” to “power.” The pose of the warrior on the bottom is still a problem, but at least, covered, she’s not inviting and easy entrance.

Unfortunately, most comic illustrators are male, and they keep doing what they’ve always been doing — objectifying female heroes and warriors, making them sex objects first and foremost. There are plenty of rants being written decrying that “tradition” and asking for a new paradigm, a new standard, for how female warriors are portrayed. With the new Wonder Woman movie in production, the issue of how to portray and costume a female hero is front and center.

Here’s just another example from the illustration in the piece of fabric I bought. I took these photos after I cut out the squares I want to use, but you can tell where I made the Sharpie changes. In case you can’t, check out the “before.” (I didn’t have a piece of the “before” of the other image.)

After and Before

After and Before

It just burns my (well-covered) 74 year-old butt that we are still fighting this battle to portray women, even fantasy women, with an emphasis on their abilities and power rather than their sexuality.

Who is Jake Trussell and why…..

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Why do I have him listed with Kerouac and Kafka in a poem that I wrote when I was twenty years old?

jake TrussellEven the information about him in the last available copy of his chapbook that I just bought for $10 doesn’t tell me anything about how I might have come to know anything about him more than a half-century ago.

Apparently, he wrote back in the late 30s and 40s, and this chapbook is his only collection. The inside cover says

Only a limited edition of 1000 is being printed, and none of them will ever be available except as a personal gift from the writer.

The copy I bought is inscribed to “Doc Chandler: who appreciates cheesecake and football predictions — all the good things in life. Jack Trussell, 10-15-57.”

I was a freshman in college in 1957. Might I have heard him read his poetry on campus? Did one of my fellow pseudo-beatniks tell me about him? Did I share a beer with him one night in the tiny bar on Central Avenue in Albany where we gathered around a table in front of a bizarre mural of Buddha, Shiva, and various other inspirational myths? I don’t know why his name would appear in my poem.I don’t remember. Have no idea. “Doc Chandler” certainly doesn’t ring a bell.

About the poems in this collectin Jake says “To me, poetry was always a personal thing, written for the pure joy of writing and for no other consideration whatsoever. These poems were written at very odd moments ….and on the strangest assortments of materials (napkins, the backs of old football programs, and scraps of typing paper crammed into a beat up portable late at night on a kitchen table).”

I guess that sounds pretty much like what we were all doing back then.

Most of his poems have end line rhymes, which I rarely like. I might never know why his name found its way into one of my very early efforts. Maybe I had read this one of his; I know I would have liked this one, which he wrote in 1938:

trussell exit

Mag #213

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Magpie Tales is a blog “dedicated to the enjoyment of poets and writers, for the purpose of honing their craft, sharing it with like-minded bloggers, and keeping their muses alive and well.” Each week, it offers an image as a writing prompt.

Mag #213

windpeople
Pieces from a whole,
painted with fantasy,
hide an older history
of blood and scars —
the puzzle of memory.

No mythic glyphs or ruby slippers
no magic of moth or spirit of sage
can ever return
the Kansas Wind People.

when I was 20

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I am looking through my pages of poetry, some written when I was in grade school, but I’ll spare you those. I wrote this when I had just turned twenty and was home from college during a part of the summer. It’s not great poetry, but it’s a great thought, I think.

on the boatbwhen I am old
I will not care for
rock ‘n roll
slopping
and jazz
bongos drums
beat poetry and
Kafka
Kerouac
Jake Trussell and
lifeguards with
sea-burnished hair
and convertibles.
but now I am young
and I know that all of these
will one day be
the cushions
on the couch of memories
on which I will repose
when I am old.

The Slop was a dance from the fifties. I had to google Jake Trussell and I still don’t remember why he was important to me back then. But I still like rock ‘n roll. And convertibles. And I’m still known to ogle lifeguards.

Mag #211

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Magpie Tales is a blog “dedicated to the enjoyment of poets and writers, for the purpose of honing their craft, sharing it with like-minded bloggers, and keeping their muses alive and well.” Each week, it offers an image as a writing prompt.

Mag #211

Feast in the House of Simon, 1610, El Greco

Feast in the House of Simon, 1610, El Greco

It was the custom of Simon the Zealot to invite his friends to feast at his home after the sacrificial piety of every Sabbath. Of course, that meant “men only,” for we women were not allowed to participate in those raucous discussions of politics and providence. As a female in his household, my task was to keep the wine flowing as freely as did the details of their dialogues. Just by being present in that room, I learned much about the workings of men and government – the subtleties of reasoning and ruling, ideas that never insert themselves into the conversations of women. The men rarely noticed my presence; my purpose was to serve and be silent, and I used my role to my advantage.

And so it went, until the day that Simon invited to the table the man who caused a welcome disturbance at his wedding by magically changing barrels of water into barrels of wine. While I was attending to other wedding guests when this supposed miracle took place, I cannot assert that this actually happened. However, I did taste the “miraculous” wine and have to say that I found it quite fragrant.

Now, the day that Jesus joined Simon the Zealot’s table, everything changed. While the debates still agonized over the world’s politics and providence, they became less heated and more thoughtful, as the graceful gestures and soft responses of the man, Jesus, orchestrated a calmer tone. I marveled at the way he could hold the attention of every man there without even raising his voice. And there was something about his eyes, radiating a warmth and acceptance that penetrated to even the most doubtful heart.

It was not long after that Simon the Zealot left his wife and family to follow the man, Jesus – followed him out into the world of politics and provenance, joined others who did the same, all aroused by the man’s gentle promise of a world suffused with peace and harmony, fairness and compassion.

They say that there were some women who followed him, as well, for he welcomed all who welcomed him. I never left the house of Simon the Zealot, although sometimes I would dream of solemn eyes that brushed my soul and hands that graced the rest with a merciful yearning.

Sorting Socks

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I have over three dozen pairs of socks. And that’s not counting the ones without mates.

I can’t imagine how I ever accumulated such a stash, but it’s typical of my reluctance to get rid of stuff. Psychological stuff as well as physical stuff. Sometimes it works to my advantage, for example, when my grandson is rooting around for some odd and end for a project he is constructing. I usually have whatever it is he needs. That reminds me of the earlier version of this book that I bought for him when he was a toddler.

But, like my stash of socks, there is stuff I don’t need to carry around with me. The writing workshop I took yesterday brought that fact home with great clarity.

Sorting socks is not the complete answer. But it’s a start.

Now, if I can only get an Amtrak writer’s residency, that might really give me a fresh start.

Starting fresh at age 74. Hmm. I can be Amtrak’s Grandma Moses. Ya think?

[Oh bollocks! I just realized I put the wrong Facebook url in my application. That might knock me out of the running right there. Too soon old; too late smart.]

one hundred minutes of solitude

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She got up early this morning, appearing , already dressed, at the side of my bed, saying that she would just stand there and I should go back to sleep. Right.

So, I got up made her a cup of coffee, which she drank and then went back to sleep.

Ah. Found time. My rare chance to revel in the healing hush of the now-lush landscape.

I took a cup of Earl Gray tea and a Portuguese sweet roll embedded with Muenster cheese and went out to the rocking chair on the screened-in breezeway. Calli, my cat, glad to follow me into the dappled morning, scooted out the door to hassle the chattering jays who have learned to keep their distance from the chittering cat.

I sit and sip in the peace of some needed minutes without demands. Hummingbirds come and go at the red and white plastic flower. An indigo bunting perches on a tree branch, uncertain about approaching its favorite feeder. Calli has her eye on it. A pair of mourning doves bill and coo on a fallen tree trunk. Somewhere behind the thick screen of leaves, the lake glistens at the clear blue sky. I wish I had a hammock.

We took her to a geriatric specialist last week, hoping that the doctor might have some advice on how to deal with where mom is at — which is a moderate to severe dementia. My sibling, who has been in denial about the severity of her condition, finally, I think, got it: it’s only going to get worse. His handling of her situation, and his attitude toward me, makes my work here much harder than it has to be. If I leave, it will be because of him, not her.

She is 91, but she still dances with me almost every night before she goes to bed. We are both still good dancers. It’s about the only thing we’ve ever had in common. Dancing calms her down.

Calm. It’s what we all need here.

And lot more than only 100 minutes of solitude.

Lililth in the Darkness East of Eden

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lilith in the darkness.jpg

If you’re familiar with Kalilily Time, then you know who Lilith is. The image above is from here, a treasure trove of Lilith images. Lililth was said to be banished by god into the darkness east of Eden.

If you read the previous post, it should be obvious why that image resonates with me tonight.

I think of the days when this one would have been the Lilith image that spoke to me. And I think of the time when, again, the crone in me will fire up and fly away.