Category Archives: myrln

Myrln Monday: Wind Walking

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.

Wind Walking
When you walk in the wind,
sometimes it’s helpfully behind,
other times right up in your face.

Which makes wind a lot like people.


waf oct99

Myrln Monday: notes from “Nepperhan Days”

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
This is one: Notes from “Nepperhan Days” his self-tale:

Immigration experience of body and soul/heart as human condition. We are all immigrants. A family story of three Italian generations: those who left Europe, then the first-born in America and thus the first to be assimilated, then the second –born generation which rejects the experience of the 1st two before coming to realize we are all immigrants of a kind and thus come to anew place in the heart: immigrants to acceptance, love and pride in ancestry.

In many ways we are all immigrants.

Myrln Monday: SONG FOUND IN A DORY…..

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
This is one.

SONG FOUND IN A DORY BOBBIN IN THE BAY IN KANKANEMONIOUS GULCH
Enter an old man who moves to a bench and sits. He wears a heavy topcoat, a suit, vest, old shoes.
Very deliberately, he begins going through his pockets and removing the contents.
Coat: one glove, a crumpled handkerchief, a cigar butt.
He removes the coat.
Jacket: one key, a stub of paper, a broken pencil, an empty matchbook, a red balloon.
He removes the jacket.
Vest: one paper clip, a creased snapshot.
He removes the vest.
Trousers: a second crumpled handkerchief, a penny, a hole in the pocket, a stone.
He sits, moving his hand from object to object without touching any of them.
(Sound in.)
Small girl: (singing)
Bring back the old man’s wishes.
Bring back the old man’s hat.
Bring back the old man’s wishes.
(Slow fade to black)

Myrln Monday: a daughter grieves

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
On this Myrln Monday, however, she adds her own grieving voice:

Myrln Mondays: There have been a few in a row now, I think, that I have missed. Forgotten. And then when I remember that I’ve forgotten I feel terrible. And ironic. Because while I have forgotten I have not nearly FORGOTTEN. Not even close. It creeps up on me unexpectedly. Often at night as I’m trying to fall asleep. And suddenly it’s upon me. The too soon-ness. Too quick-ness. Unfairness. Eeriness. Incomprehensible
-ness. Surreal-ness. And I am overcome. All the clichés exist within me at once: it’s a bad dream and I’m going to wake up and he’ll still be here.

Just one more day — one more day to be sure we said everything. Wish him back – on a star, on the moon (“I had a talk with the moon last night,” he’d say to me, “and it’s all going to be fine”) — on my worry beads. Self-admonitions, I should have gotten out there more. I should have heard something was really wrong when we talked. I should have gotten out there more. The truth of the phrase “sickening feeling” because every time it comes my stomach hollows out and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Then it’s gone. The same way each time: full of feeling foolish, selfish, sorry-for-myself. Like I’m the only one who has ever lost someone. Only one who has ever lost her father. Who has ever lost him too quickly, unfairly, unexpectedly. The only one who has had to continue on after…

I may forget the Myrln Mondays amidst painting new rooms, preparing for homeschooling, living my life (as my father would be demanding I do anyway as he pointed out in number 8 of his life lessons poem: “Remember the dead in your heart, but honor life and the living with your time and attention because afterward it’s too late”. but I have not FORGOTTEN. Not even close. And as everyone has told me, as painful, unbearable, agonizing, maddening, sad, lonely and empty remembering is, forgetting is far, far worse that all those together. So I am remembering. And missing. And hurting. And crying. And remembering. Always.

SAND HOLE
They excavated sand,
this father and daughter,
digging to China.
I knew it’d really be closer
to Afghanistan,
but their game had a tradition
to follow.
Fathers and sons
have growing between them,
which can be another kind of hole,
while
fathers and daughters
share games and imagination.
And dug holes
always come out in China.
I wonder where the holes Chinese dig
Come out?
Waf jul99

Myrln Monday: Poem Written in the City..

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.

POEM WRITTEN IN THE CITY
OF LANDLOCKED PEOPLE WHO
THINK THAT OCEAN IS ONLY
A WORD AND SUN IS A BALL
FOR SUMMER SUMMERTIME FUN
(for mdf)
bobbing seaborne
on flashing flat planes
of sun’s bouncing image,
a single dory —
oars shipped and tucked
inside for keeping —
seems adrift and lost
from coves safety.
but horizon blocked,
navigator waits —
         (dancing dolphins
         side the gurgling surf
         astride the swollen thighs
         of seaweed waves…
…candy apples and taffy twists
and caramel is a candy) —
with sleeping eyes
and fingled breath
and hands for firmly guiding.

Myrln Monday: chipper munky

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For a while before his death in April 08, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and non-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.


CHIPPER MUNKY
The chipmunk who was unhappy with his life
Friend Crow
“great shiny suit” Chipmunk admires
“neat racing stripe” Crow notes of Chipmunk
Little top hat, tux, cane – Chipmunk becomes a socialite renowned for dancing prowess.
Learns emptiness of superficial life.

Myrln Monday: ex memoriam

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For a while before his death in April 08, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and non-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.


ex memoriam
somehow it seems appropriate
my art lives in transcience
(theatre)
while friends, students, lovers
reach for permanence in written words
(poetry).
(theatre) leaves behind no marks:
Is there a moment and is gone.
struck, as we say.
(impermanence).
Appropriate because some say
there should be no memorials
(me)
mucking up the lives behind us
with our droppings
(bullshit)
all right, so why a paean to (impermanence)
In this (permanent) form?
well, sometimes letting contemporaries know
where you stand is necessary
(bluntness).
Or so cap’n billy if’n say.

major ear worm

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It’s been there all week. I can’t get rid of it, no matter what other music I play.

Famous Blue Raincoat.
It’s haunting me.
As I’m immersed in music, I get this poem from and by Jim Culleny.
The Pumpkin Harvesters
Jim Culleny
In town the café’s coffee buzz
seeps into the street from under the door
as a tender singer moans her song
not as in the old days
(as in rockabilly and rhythm and blues before)
but with power chords
and a fresh monotony
My dad preferred country tunes
and hearing Little Richard first time
stopped where my big-holed 45 spun
and in his best blue-collar voice said,
“You call this shit music?” and I did
as we twirled off each other about then
and went our separate ways awhile
until a fresh dew froze on the pumpkin
in a new late game and the harvesters
off across the field sang both
Coldplay and Hank Williams
as they came.
As we sorted through his CDs, we rediscovered just what an eclectic taste in music in once-husband had. From Willie Nelson to Anrdea Bocelli, with Moody Blues somewhere in the middle.
As for me, Hank Williams and Kitty Wells were my high school idols, which, I know is strange for an urban kid, but I hung around with guys who had a country band.
Gotta get rid of that earworm.

Myrln Monday Memoriam

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For a while before his death in April, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter has been sending me some of his writings to post posthumously, but we were all away all weekend at the party Bill said in his will that he wanted.
So, today, I post my second letter to the dead.
Dear Bill:
Were you whirling in your ashes as so many of those people whose lives you touched so meaningfully told stories about their relationships with you? Even a few with whom you were no longer on the best of terms stood up and remembered the good times.
I know how much you wanted to let those people with whom you felt close at various points in your life know how much they meant to you. Well, obviously they already knew.
I didn’t count how many of the little theater’s seats were filled, but there had to be between 50 and 60 people who came in for the story telling. And there were others who came and left before that time as well.
You would have loved to hear the stories — some funny, some poignant — all remembering you at your best. There is no doubt that you will be remembered by your colleagues and students not only as an amazingly talented writer and director, but also a uniquely nurturing mentor and teacher.
You would have been so proud of our two kids. Well, I should say proudER, since you always have been proud of them.
You also would have loved to see your almost 6-year-old grandson and the (equally young) granddaughter of our friends Pat and Bill. They hit it off amazingly. Word has it that she said that she really liked his hair and was going to marry him. The pairing of our respective offspring didn’t happen last generation. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if it happened with this one.
I wish I could talk to you about that novel Enchantment that you gave me a while ago and I found in my pile of books-to-read last week. I couldn’t help see you and me in the princess and the scholar. I wonder if that’s what you thought as well. I’m only half way through, so I don’t know how it ends. I hope that it ends better than we did as a couple.
On the way back to where I live now (I can’t call it “home”), I played the Famous Blue Raincoat CD that you gave me.

There Ain’t no Cure for Love.

the lone crow

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For the first time ever, I see a lone crow wandering around the area of the bird feeders. At first I wonder if it’s a grackle, but a quick look in the Audobon bird book confirms that, indeed, it is a crow.
I leave tomorrow to join family and friends for my late once-husband’s remembrance party. A lone crow, and thoughts of death.
My mother is now losing her hair. Her digestive system is screwed up. She is always afraid, never satisfied or happy, constantly restless.
I watch the crow march back and forth across the small area where squirrels and doves are pecking at what the finches and cardinals have accidentally tossed their way. He doesn’t seem to be eating. He looks like he’s checking things out.
Is he wondering “Is this the place?”