About the Town

I have a new vignette titled "Sanatorium" to share with you all.  Only, it's not here.  Nope, you'll have to click on over to this new, super-terrific site, started by our good friend, Aniket Thakkar.  He has a cool idea for a community blog, in which all of us can take inspiration from a photo prompt, and work some magic via poetry or flash fiction.  Sounds like a good time, right?  Aniket is better than anyone I know at sharing his spark with others and embracing a true community of friends and writers.  I'm honored to take part.  So check it out. 

I'm not the first to take the plunge at Aniket's.  Joaquin Carvel already posted a poem over there.  I know that most of you are familiar with Joaquin's poetry.  But if, by chance, you aren't, then you're going to want to remedy that.  Like fast.  You can check out his blog, but I'd also highly recommend buying a copy of his poetry collection, Blood & Irony, either in book form or for the Kindle ($0.99? Really??).  Treat yourself.  Spring deserves some beautiful poetry.     

On the fiction front, Stephen Parrish's debut novel, The Tavernier Stones, can be pre-ordered before its May 1st publication date.  And now I'm going to let the reviewer from Library Journal take it away, because if I say anything nice about Steve, he'll just become more insufferable than he already is. 

L.J.: A reader wouldn't expect to find an Amish protagonist in an artifact adventure/thriller, but Parrish gives us exactly that in his debut novel. Cartographer John Graf, shunned by his Amish community for pursuing higher education, becomes embroiled in a mystery when the remains of 17th-century mapmaker Cellarius, the subject of centuries-old conjecture, emerge from a German bog. The discovery of his corpse and a ruby clutched in his death grip gives credence to the existence of the fabled Tavernier Stones, a cache of the world's most prized missing jewels. Graf joins forces with a gemologist-turned-grifter to solve a puzzle Cellarius encoded into his final and most famous map. As Graf approaches the solution, his life seems to unravel. Of course, Team Graf is not alone in its pursuit, and each treasure hunter has a story. VERDICT Parrish offers enough detail concerning cartography, cryptography, gemology, and Amish culture to satisfy the most rapacious fact junkie, and the puzzle is clever and the action plausible. If his subsequent novels are researched to the same degree, he could claim a legitimate position among the notables of this genre.

Kidding aside, Steve is a great writer and a natural storyteller.  It's tough to be both, but he's got it.  I can't wait to read this book.  And the next dozen or so, too.     

Okay.  Stay with me.  My long-time blogging buddy, Jaye Wells, is enjoying release week for the second book in her Sabina Kane vampire series.  This one's titled The Mage in Black and, from what I hear, is even awesomer than Red-Headed Stepchild, a novel that earned her many accolades, award nominations and slavish devotees. She's so big, she doesn't even really need me pushing her book.  But I like bringing up Jaye, so I can sigh sort of wistfully and say, "Yeah, I knew her back when . . ."

And finally, my husband, Paul, has gotten a head start on the e-book revolution presently shaking up the industry.  His three novels--Inexplicably, Love: Three Stories of Love in Real Time (my favorite), Haven, and In the Satchel, On the Train, Selling Dreams to Nancy--and his poetry collection, Such Deliberate Loveliness, are all available on the Kindle.  And for those of you lucky enough to have it, on the iPad, too.  You can also look for Such Deliberate Loveliness and In The Satchel, On The Train, Selling Dreams to Nancy in paperback.  For us old-fashioned types.   

And I know.  He's my husband.  So you can't believe a word I say about any of them.  But check them out, anyway.  

That's it!  Actually . . . that was a lot.  :)  But I think that the most rewarding parts of blogging are the friendships we make, and the support we can offer one another.  I belong to a vibrant and talented community that inspires me daily.  Thanks for being here.

Silence

Pulled for submission

Jewel

Our daughter turns 7 tomorrow.  This is a picture she drew a few months ago.  She likes cats.  A lot.  But I'm allergic to them.  To the point that my eyes have swelled shut on a couple occasions.  This is a sore reality for our daughter.  At one time, she weighed the pros and cons of trading me in for a kitten.  I won by a whisker.  

Every day, at the end of school, our daughter's class does something called "Roses and Thorns."  Basically, it's an opportunity to tell what they enjoyed most about their day.  As well as what they didn't like.  And every afternoon, since the first day of first grade, our daughter has rolled open her palms, as if she were presenting a gift, and told her classmates, "My day unfolded like a jewel." 

I know.  Cute, huh?  At least the first five times or so.  But it's her thing now.  She's proud of it.  And I hope that every day, there's some truth behind the line.  Her smile usually tells me that's the case, as I watch her hurrying down the hall to me.  And my heart clenches up a little every time at this ritual that's repeated millions of times across the world, with other schoolkids and parents.  Every time.  We're all bound by this intense vulnerability of parenting.  We all need to cup it in our palms.   

I wasn't prepared for the pain of childbirth, and I wasn't prepared for the greater pain of mothering.  I was naive about what it demanded.  But that's okay.  I used to give myself a lot of grief for my shortcomings.  Lately, instead, I've been trying to squeeze down on my moments with them.  To recognize that 7 will, in the blink of her long-lashed eye, double into 14.  That those smiles at seeing her mom at the end of the school day will become a little less brilliant.  That someday, it won't be there at all.  

It's a gift to see your child grow, to develop character and personality.  I loved her at 1, but it was a less personal kind of love, if that makes any sense.  I loved her because she needed me to.  Now I know who she is.  For instance, I know that she loves space, but doesn't want to be an astronaut because she might have to wear a diaper at lift-off.  I know that she hums while eating dinner.  I know that she needs me to squeeze out her bad dreams, before she can fall asleep at night.  I love her more for all of her -isms.   

And like any parent, I love the chance to get all sentimental about my kid.  So thanks for humoring me.  :)  And no, I'm not going to pull out my wallet (er, iPod actually) and make you look at pictures!

Happy Birthday, sweetie.  May your day unfold into the jewel you already are. 

(She was almost a St. Paddy's baby.  So this song seems
apt tonight.  It's from the wonderful film, "Once.")

Surrender

She kisses him.

She kisses the tips
of his fingers,
where words
hang
like a fruit
to work
in her mouth

She kisses the sail
of his chest,
and a surge
from below
tugs at the line
with a
skip of the
beat

She kisses the notch
of his neck,
where a violence
of breath
and blood
pushes against
the bud
of her
tongue

She kisses the flesh
of his ear,
sucks on his name—
it's her favorite
song,
she plays it
again

She kisses the lid
of his eye,
so that her heat
might sink—
like a stone
kissing water,
before its
dark plunge—
deep into
dreams

She kisses his

She


He kisses her lips—
she gives them
up—
so ripe
and wet
and heavy
with love

Dr. Strange-love or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Fake Quantum Mechanics*

(These characters are from my work-in-progress. As background, here's a condensed description of the book: Anna and Colin, soulmates who have never met face-to-face, must decide whether to endure the heartbreak of remaining apart.  For the sake of others, but also to protect the transcendental relationship they've forged in the ether between them.)


I am a wave.

You are a particle.

I am a song.

You are a musician.

I am what-could-be.

You are right-now.

I am a dream?

You are illusion, and a hard reality.  You are pleasure, and pain. 

I am in love with you.

You think you know me.

I am in love with you.

You’re committed to another man.

My wavelength is long.  It stretches an ocean.

So that at any one moment, neither of us can know where you truly dwell.

Colin.

What?

You feel me now?

. . .

Colin?

Anna.

You feel me now.

I feel you now.

Where do you feel me?

All over.  I feel you all over.  

What do I feel like?

A song.

. . .

You feel like a song.

I am a wave.

Yes.  But I am also a particle.  Many millions of light years away.

We will never meet?

. . .

We will never meet.

Are you familiar with Schrödinger's cat?

Yes.

If we were to meet, the wave would collapse upon itself.  Everyone who observed it would see something defined and ugly.  Including us.  The cat would be dead inside its box. 

It might be alive.

Anything's possible.  From here.

We are cowards.

We are smart.   

Colin?

Yes.

I want to touch you.  I want to know what that's like.  

Then touch me, Anna.

My mind is an ocean locked inside its skull. And yet--

Darling.    

Our slightest momentum stirs the most magnificent waves.


-------


* Seriously. I don't know what I'm talking about. But if you're interested in wave-particle duality, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, or that slippery puddy-cat, check out these handy Wikipedia links. And for all you smarty-pants out there, feel free to humiliate me in the comments section. In my defense, I was a bio major. Hey, we were cuter than the physicists. Very possibly, probably. 

Deleted (P)

(photo taken from here)

Pulled for submission.

Under study

(Balcony scene from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet)

Music moves like a ghost
through my mouth,
sweeping the nave,
ruffling a breeze from
the nightingale wings
ribbed beneath their cage

And velvet folds
of encores’ gold
dust my powdered cheek,
as slippered toes
trace all shades of sin
from pas de deux
confessionals

With quickening haste,
the urgency scrapes
from stage boards
bowed with sweat and lace,
up two knees,
weak with plié,
to land en pointe
between my legs

And I’m thrown,
up high,
on the fork of a tongue,
with a wrest of faith,
eyes star-crossed
by grands jetés
tossing their blue,
and red,
and indigo
stays

Ay me!

She speaks.
To de Bergerac shadows
beneath a Russian skirt,
and yet I know whose fingers
suck at this bodice,
unlacing restraint,
smoking my blood
with their iambic
adagio,
I know the hands,
born of a Bard,
Montague-slain,
O Romeo, Romeo

Anon, good nurse!
His love is deep,
Anon . . .

And pressed into
an arabesque penchée,
I lean for my love
with all that I am,
spread for a satisfaction
Will couldn’t pen,
wanting so far that toes
slip their grip,
tipping me tulle
over heels,
and on over a
balcony

So the nightingale
flies,
she drops  
but soft
through an air,
the cobwebs of notes
pretty pirouettes
of tethers unheeled,
past the inconstant moon,
with its cold, wary eye
under a hail
of applause
on this bone-
splintered night

Ay, me

So here I thud,
without any lark
or midwinter night's dream,
in a crumpled split
of pages pressed
upon cheek,
the line of drool
escaping my lips
too weak a poison to
kill the sweet sorrow
that I am not Juliet,
but Rosaline

Of the prosaic fate
to march my steps
up against Mrs. Hayes
and her multiple choice
English exam
to be taken first thing,
on the ground story
of E. Cleveland High,
west wing

You know the room,
second door on the left,
it has a grille over
the window
in lieu of
drapes

Silly Love Songs

("The Knife Thrower," from Matisse's Jazz series)

“Your hands are cold.”

“Your thigh is warm.”

“No thanks to those penguin fingers of yours.”

“Um . . .”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“That's what I thought.”

“It's just that, if you'll notice, my penguin—fingers—was it?”

“Keep it up.”

“Are now folded neatly in my lap.”

“The other penguins, in their other penguin cars, thank you for considering their safety. I'm driving here.”

“Of course . . .”

“Out with it.”

“It's Valentine's Day.”

“Yeah.”

“And you're wearing that dress. With those heels. And . . . stockings.”

“Yeah.”

“And it's Valentine's Day.”

“You said that already.”

“And I've fallen in love with you, Jenny.”

The car swerved across the dashed line.

“I'll say it again if you like. It's always been a dream of mine to die in an old Impala.”

Her lips twitched.

“I love you, Jenny. And not because it's Valentine's Day. And not for the stockings, either.”

Her mouth opened. Then shut.

“Christ, I don't know why. The why's not really the thing, is it? I just do. I'm like a teenager again. This entire month.” He shifted in his seat. “It's disgusting, really.”

She drove. He watched her face, illuminated by headlights, from the corner of his eye. Those lips still dancing.

Finally, she cleared her throat.

“Tony?”

“Yes?”

“My thigh is hot. Not warm.”

“No argument here.”

“No, I mean it's stupidly hot. I think I'm on the verge of spontaneous combustion, or something.”

“Oh. We can't have that.”

“No. We can't.”

His fingers grazed black silk. And climbed the sheer. Until they met with an unexpected ridge. Elastic. One inch, and a mile, across—

From rose petal skin.

“God. I think I lied. Before.”

“I know. You love me for these stockings.”

“A little.”

“It's okay. I wore them for you.”

“You did? I mean, I know.”

“Now you listen.”

“Okay.”

“I'm going to pull off the road up here.”

“Okay.”

“Because this is my kick-ass '78 Impala.”

“They really don't make them like this anymore.”

“With a backseat the size of a bed.”

“I love this fucking car.”

“And that's my glove compartment.”

“Also really great.”

“With my mixed tape for you inside.”

He flipped it open with his free hand.

“That I made for you the day after we met.”

He plucked out a cassette.

“Because I'm a silly, silly girl.”

He smiled at the first title.

“Whose knees are shaking.”

He looked at her, looking at him.

She slid deeper into his hand.

“And you're the guy who makes me believe in love songs again.”

Bedside

Tomato soup,
blood smooth,
rounds a spoon
like dewdrops
clung to a
spider's web,
upon the
seventh dawn

And baroque notes
kneel on
the windowsill
like votives
called to pray,
as her arm
stretches distance
at cost of speed,
in a draw against
cold gravity

The red sea
flows swiftly
through parched
and parted mouth,
dark eyes hold
tide with hers,
she nods but once,
his head falls slack,
and she draws
a breath
for two

Peeling the
sour cloth
from his breast,
she dabs it
along his chin,
taking the
savory basil
from his lips,
where kisses
once stood
like flames

And as the music
surrenders its glow
from someplace
lost below,
she hears
a darkness
start to scrape,
like branches
on windowpanes
at the turn of
some wayward
storm

So she speaks to him
of simpler times,
recites his favorite lines,
while spooning
more warmth
between those lips
as a small,
imperfect
act of faith

That fate
might bleed
some other
day
and leave the
night
alone

Ocean Blue, Ocean Deep

 

They say to never begin the story with a dream. It’s been done to death, it's amateur hour. But what, may I ask, in the best of this world doesn’t trip off a dream's tongue?

I’m on the sands of a southern California beach. My parents are a little bit ahead of me. Dad. Mom. Big. Small. The ocean, stretched out like a mirror on its back, is blue and white, like clouds and sky.

And my mother’s eyes.

The beach was a Mom place. There were Dad places, too, like sitting on his lap in that cigar-yellowed den, getting my cuticles pushed back after he cut the nails. And sometimes the two places intersected, like at the dinner table, where each green bean had to find my mouth, or over a family game of Boggle, where I hunted for the words to gobble and impress. But most places were Mom places, and the beach certainly was.

Don’t those waves just sound like a womb?

I know it’s winter. And the sand is cold on my soles. Even California sun is a little bit sedated in the leaner months. I don’t ask why we’re here. It just feels strong and familiar, as I watch my parents' backs against the long, flat water. Even if I haven’t been back to my birth state in many, many years.

The beach was still a Mom place after we moved to Ohio in 1984. Her parents lived in Yorba Linda, California, and we went back by car each summer. My mom, sister, brother, and I. These were long trips of six weeks or more. Educational, in the truest sense. I tried to count the colored cobs in the South Dakota Corn Palace. I couldn’t forget the Alamo, even if I wanted. The Grand Canyon, Zion, and Yosemite are the Sunday schools I most revere.

And all those good books, gobbled in a car's backseat.

But the beach was always the ultimate destination. Even at ten or eleven, I could claim the glow and rub of nostalgia. The squawks of seagulls the cries of old friends welcoming me back into the flock. The velvet saltiness in the air a favorite, dirty perfume.

Dad turns around, shading his eyes against the sun. I hurry to catch up. He always wanted me to run, not walk.

I have no memory of seeing my dad at the beach. Though there are photos of him looking tolerant enough, while my brother and sister buried him in sand. Some twig of patience for it must have snapped by the time I hit my stride, dragging boogie-board and towel and, as it turned out, never enough sunscreen to prevent beach fever from branding itself on my nose and cheeks for the next few weeks.

They’re both wading in the ocean now. Barefoot, the water shin-high. I’m uncertain, sticking to the shoreline, knowing that cold sand means colder waters.

Why did it never occur to me to ask why my father didn’t come with us? Even when we lived in Ohio, he had an unconventional job that would permit him long stretches of time off. But he never came, and I don’t remember ever wondering why. Maybe I was just relieved. Mom was the tender one. While Dad could emotionally tenderize me.

This was a true vacation, then.

And looking back, I recognize how exceedingly lucky I was. Stupid, drunken dartboard luck. The sort of luck that could only be claimed by another swig of innocence.

The water is warm. Against all odds. The water is the golden state.

I smile at the incongruity. Maybe the ocean isn’t merely a mirror, reflecting the sun’s rays, the cold expectations we harbor and nurse. Maybe it’s a reservoir of unplumbed depths, still capable of holding and surprising.

I’m not sure why some people can’t show their love, the way that others do. But I’ve never really doubted that my father loves me, and with all that he is. For me to expect more of him is to deny the contradictory currents of his true nature.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions? I don’t know. Maybe so. But I'm very far from hell. And the subjective goodness of those intentions has to count for something. This is how I feel today.

Still very lucky. My kids only knowing Mom-and-Dad places.

The water is lucid and clean. I can see my toes wriggling. The bones of shells bedded in their wet grave. Beneath the warm embrace.

I told my dad I loved him the other day. Not a big thing, right? But yeah, it kind of is. It took something nearly tragic for me to admit it to him. And he didn’t say it back. But he let me kiss him on his cheek without it being too awkward. I think he appreciated it.

Anyway, it was something I could do. He always preached personal responsibility. But it's my gospel to interpret.

The water remains blue and white, as I wade further into its depths. Like my mother’s eyes. Mine, too. 

Blue eyes are a recessive trait. My father’s eyes are brown. But he carries the gene, buried deep inside his cells, and he gifted it to me.

I had other dreams last night, ones that were less kind. But this is the one I choose to remember. This is the one that makes me salty with something better than nostalgia. And this is the one that makes me smile.