Once upon a time a long, a long time ago (before Black Friday), Thanksgiving was a celebration of harvest and a time to give thanks.
The early pilgrims did not have the conveniences we enjoy today, yet somehow they survived. (I know, it’s CRaZy, right?!)
I didn’t really know any of those pilgrims but I did see a John Wayne movie once. John knew a pilgrim when he saw one. He seemed to know a lot of pilgrims, but that was a long time ago too.
I propose we are all pilgrims, each one of us on a journey of sorts; our own personal pilgrimage.
Aren’t we all looking for something? Be it a quest for self-confirmation, a truth, a cure, enrichment, enlightenment, comfort, a friend, a lover, a job, a meal, or a place to lay our weary head at the end of another long day.
I believe life is a journey, or at least it should be. It would be terrible to think we were just flailing through this experience, killing time on this giant floating gumball, while waiting for the next Black Friday specials.
I believe we all have one destination, though we travel many different roads and I trust that we have choices.
Hopefully we will choose well. On the occasion we take a wrong turn [and we will] I pray we have enough sense and humility to stop and seek direction, to reassess our route and to be considerate in our voyage.
So here’s wishing all of you pilgrims a Happy Thanksgiving and may we all, whatever road we’re on, take time to look ahead, pause, and meditate on the many things we have to be grateful for, put aside our grievances and give thanks.
My personal prayer: I pray our good seeds of hope, humility, toil and courage produce abundantly; that love and kindness grow wild like the weeds of early spring – fruitful and undeterred. And your harvest be rich with wisdom and discernment.
Of course it is. Maybe a little lame… a lame frame ( 😀 I crack me up) but cute nonetheless. Facebook turned me on to the idea.
So what am I mad about now?
I’m mad in a good way about the sheer funness (yeah, funness is a word – look it up) in creating frames but I’m kind of pissed annoyed that Facebook would not let me use the actual book cover for Smoke Free because of the cigar. Yeah, it sends a bad message and encourages smoking. WTF?!
And I love this book cover…
The hubby designed it and that cigar was his special touch.
Anyone that has read Smoke Free knows smoking is the least of Erwin Smutter’s problems. LOL. But hey, I ain’t judgin’ and I do not want to be the cause of someone picking up a stogie.
I would rather you pick up a copy of Smoke Free instead. For 99¢ or less it might cure you. 😉
And Heeyy, don’t I look mad as a hatter and bat-shit cRaZy in this frame? Well I am supposed to, it tis the season. HaPpY HaLloWeEn Y’all!
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
Cloud
Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and murmuring like a mouth.
You were the shadow of a cloud crossing over a field of tulips.
You were the tears of a man who cried into a plaid handkerchief.
You were a sky without a hat.
Your heart puffed and flowered like sheets drying on a line.
And when you were a tree, you listened to trees and the tree things trees told you.
You were the wind in the wheels of a red bicycle.
You were the spidery Maria tattooed on the hairless arm of a boy in downtown Houston.
You were the rain rolling off the waxy leaves of a magnolia tree.
A lock of straw-colored hair wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel.
A crescent of soap.
A spider the color of a finger nail.
The black nets beneath the sea of olive trees.
A skein of blue wool.
A tea saucer wrapped in newspaper.
An empty cracker tin.
A bowl of blueberries in heavy cream.
White wine in a green-stemmed glass.
And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet a white cloud glides.
*Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street (1984) and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature.
Oh my goodness, those final lines left me a little misty eyed. I do not recall reading Sandra Cisneros before but I certainly enjoyed Cloud and in case I haven’t told you 1000 times Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. I will be saying it again, and again… and again in case you missed it. As a matter of fact I am going to paste it on every NPM post.
P.S. If you have a recommendation for a poem (even your own) Get in Touch
Don’t you just love an ancient oracle with history and mystery served up in rhyming little stanzas?
Say, “Yes Janna. Indeed I do love such wonderful things.”
Thank you. Now say “Yay NPM!!” and let’s get started.
The following is an excerpt from William Blake’s epic poem titled Milton. I like Blake for several reasons. The main two being that he was a nonconformist and that he believed poetry could be understood by common people.
Allow me to share his sentiment right quick.
Listen up folks!
Poetry can be understood [and enjoyed] by common people!!!
Those are also [probably] the main two reasons he died poor. But you know what? It’s okay to die poor; I’m sure I will. After all a casket can only hold so much. Me and ole Billy can agree on that but who the heck was Milton?
Adding to our poets of the future, laureates in waiting, aka not yet notorious composers today I present to you Typhanie Tijerina- Hill. No we are not related as far as I know but if she were to win a Pulitzer or become a future Poet Laureate that might change.
Typhanie is currently a student at the University of Texas at Tyler studying Chinese, Literature and History.
Prior to UT she attended Trinity Valley Community College where she studied theater, literature and history.
Typhanie is also a wife and a mother. Anyone who has juggled such roles knows the hardships and the rewards. It takes an iron will and an artist’s heart and that is a kick- *ss combination.
I chose A Willow Among the Maple because (for me) it reflects humility and strength… Coming to terms with who we are and accepting our limitations without conceding defeat.
A Willow Among the Maple
By Typhanie Tijerina-Hill
I am a willow among the Maple
I weep while they pour out syrup so sweet
I am droopy and they are strong
I fight for survival while they grow with ease
My roots are planted deep
But are small compared to their large core
They hover over me mocking my fragile limbs
I know I will never be as big as the maple
But I don’t have to be
***
I really, really liked this poem because it left me nodding my head and thinking…
Sometimes it’s like reaching for the stars on a cloudy night. But if we keep reaching, groping into the unseen – maybe one night the clouds will pass and maybe, just maybe we will find a star in our hand. Perhaps not the biggest or the brightest star – but it will be the best star because this one will have our name on it.
This week I’m not featuring renowned poets.
This week let’s look at future poets or should I say not yet notorious composers.
The following poem was taken from
Poems for MIT Students.
A simple cover for a deep book.
It was written [and I quote] “by MIT students, for MIT students.”
Of the 20+ poems in this little chapbook I chose Almost by Julia Kimmerly.
Ahh you thought MIT was a boring technical institute with some weird shorthand logo that has occult meanings. Maybe that was my line of thinking? No, all I can think of is the Bee Gees so y’all go ahead and read while I sing.
And the lights alllll weennnt out in Massachusetts…
Julia Kimmerly / 2013
it’s been a while since the smile of a pen has styled my page,
ages since mental meandering, penned pondering, wistful wandering
wondering about mysteries, histories, blistering bliss stories
of sinister misters, kissed-hers, twisted listening and
tea: a small plea from me to indulge.
today is a break from the intensity.
it makes a bulge in the tense immensity of stress,
incensed duress.
Dad’s mom’s locket rests in my palm,
her psalms next to his curbed proverbs:
once begun half done
measure twice, cut once
a stitch in time saves nine
but what about when the second half is baffling,
twice doesn’t suffice,
and the stitches come undone
like poorly hitched horses looking for fodder?
what about:
everything in moderation
variety is the spice of life
everything is relative—
relative to what?
it’s all the same insane struggle,
trouble bubbling over from one night to the next.
fight the biting light, the tightening sight as eyelids sigh
sleep is nigh
the group droops with equations left unsolved
greek letters in an unresolved war
equality separating the horror.
symbols swapping sides and constants barring pi’s.
Intensity Has a Taste For Pain.
this feast of information has ceased to be fun.
the yearning of learning gone,
no longer appealing.
the feeling of prolonged gratification
empty.
the anticipation not
tempting.
teachers hold the treat just out of reach,
each time bringing me forward
toward the future, it’s
badder, better, bigger, baller, butter from the stick
but if I don’t get out of this mean fiendish routine—
color outside the confining outline—
i won’t survive.
my thriving creativity of young,
now stifled insensitively,
clung to by what grip I have left.
i want to rip away from the
numerical masochism
hysterical workaholism
compensation for lack of sensation.
i have forgotten how to live,
rotten, now oblivious to what reality does,
sacrificing who I am now, or was, for who I could be.
but that to-be she is only one possible me
a successful breast full of delicious accomplishments.
yes, enticing time now is dimes and cents to my future dollars
a smaller price to pay for a greater later
a relentless satyr of ambition
searing volition to steer myself straight to the top.
but I don’t want to wait and be
a fated one-sided, dull-minded, blind signer
i want to be alive.
strive for more than better letters and wonder numbers
get out of this slumber and
find time for stars and clouds and dimension counting
Mars and How’s and existential doubting
the so-bad-its-good idea talks
the late-night, fate-type of walks
more coffee shops and railroad stops
beer stein hops and sly eaves drops
i want to tout the now and
scout the crowd for smiles and Guastavino tiled lies
(he knows woe woven into faulted vaults).
i want to drive and be driven.
And given the chance, yes i will.
but until the game is won, tassel hassled and the famous cap flung,
i have to persevere
buckle down for my career
gear up for my dear job.
study, read, feed my mind until it wants to be fed.
beg, plead, lead my mind until it wants to be led.
heed my mind until it is ahead, not overrun.
until all is said and done.
Just in case I missed telling one person in the far reaches of Idonwannaherit (which is my husband’s country of origin) April is National Poetry month.
And guess what?! I was informed this morning that I have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize Award. I’m thinking OMG! Am I so special they called me early? Turns out it was an April Fool’s joke. Damn you cruel jokester and may the winning of Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes forever be just out of your reach.
With the fool’s business out of the way I’d like to talk about Plath.
Not because of her life’s work. In all honesty it is/was her chronic obsession with death that compels me.
In reading Lady Lazarus with or without knowing Plath’s history I could have imagined a poet scribbling thoughts that were just that- thoughts.
But the [reportedly] last two pieces she wrote and the two small children she left behind. I became strangely fanatical.
photo by Rollie McKenna
I tried hard not to judge her as a person and to focus only on the writing but I fell short. History, rumor and suspicion clouded my judgment.
In Balloons all I could see was her surveying her child at play – a child she would [knowingly?] soon leave motherless.
And in Edge… it would have been eerily sufficient without knowing Sylvia Plath Hughes had made for herself a gas chamber.
In doing so she had eliminated the need for an executioner so I became her judge, juror and examiner.
It wasn’t enough for me to obsess over the tragedy I insisted my husband partake of the mind numbing fixation.
His first response was, “You know I don’t read poetry. I don’t read anything that doesn’t have live game, a stock symbol or a machining program written on it.”
To that I handed him a beer and smiled, “Okay. I’ll read it to you and you tell me what you think.”
He agreed, though once I finished reading Edge aloud he held out his hand and ordered me to give it to him.
I graciously obliged.
Here it is in its entirety. Our discussion will follow.
Edge by Sylvia Plath 1963
The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
When he finally looked up I asked, “So what do you think?”
He took a long drink and shrugged, “She obviously wanted to be dead and she’s happy about it.”
“Yes, yes. Go on.” I urged, “What about the scrolls of her toga?”
“Sounds like the Clinton – Lewinsky thing. You know with the stained dress.”
I laughed and he continued. “Here where she says ‘it is over’ means just that – she’s finished.”
“What about the lines ‘each dead child coiled, a white serpent, one at each little pitcher of milk, now empty’ what do you think about that?”
“The Exodus? It sounds like the first Passover and the last plague in Egypt to me.” He looked back at the page in front of him and read,
“She has folded them back into her body as petals of a rose close when the garden stiffens and odors bleed from the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.”
He shook his head and returned the poem, “Did she plan to kill the kids and take them with her? I guess it doesn’t matter- It was fifty years ago, she was mentally ill and she’s glad she’s dead.”
“What about ‘the moon has nothing to be sad about, staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag’ – what are your thoughts on that?” I asked, watching as he became more uncomfortable.
“It sounds like craziness. She was obviously mentally ill. Did you say she stuck her head in an oven?”
I nodded.
“Was it butane or natural gas?”
“I have no idea. Why would that matter?”
“Well one falls and the other rises – natural gas rises. Did she live in town or in the country? If she lived in town it was probably natural gas.”
“She lived in London, a town residence once occupied by Yeats.”
“Hell, it might have been coal fuel.” He paused as if it took added effort to ask the next question. “Did she kill her kids too?”
“No.” I answered.
His face relaxed a bit until I added, “The youngest, a boy named Nicholas hung himself in 2009. The daughter who was less than three years old when it happened went on to become a painter and poet.”
“Dammit! How’s the girl doing?”
“I don’t personally know her but she was still alive the last I heard.”
“Poor thing. Damaged people leave a lot of garbage in their wake. Hopefully she’s not too messed up.”
With that he bent and twisted the empty can indicating the discussion was over.
I mumbled a thank you, delighted I had snagged him into reading a poem yet a little ashamed that I had disturbed him with the past of Sylvia Plath.
Next week maybe I will entice him with a new poet, a living poet.
I will probably [silently] take a closer look at the works of Ted and Frieda Hughes, dissecting their psyches and torturing myself in the aftermath of Sylvia Plath.
I honestly didn’t know who this man was (I’m sheltered like that) until Sara’s post exposed him here on WordPress. No, I do not live in a cave though I have often wished I did.
The thing that moved me other than his world renown photography is that Steve McCurry’s Simple Act of Waiting told in pictures is [chillingly] what I imagined when I wrote Waiting. I seriously got goosebumps.
If you’re like me (sheltered and horrible with names) or you are lucky enough to live in a cave, that doesn’t matter – I know you will recognize his photos when you see them. Who could forget the eyes of the Afghan girl starring out from the cover of National Geographic? Who would want to?
Waiting
For hopes that hung on a chicken bones
For hearts that lived in chains
For pods of green that died unknown
While waiting for the rain
For dreams left bare on empty prayer
For souls that wished in vain
For tears unshared in mute despair
While waiting for a change
For you and I and all mankind
For worlds where peace was slain
For faith and mind no man can bind
We wait and wait again
The Real Janna Hill in 