Great turnout at Writers' Group - Kym was there via Skype - Carly's Encomium - My poems: The Woman on the Cover and

We are GOOD and you better believe it!

Am awaiting Scott's phone call saying, "Ms. Deming, Giuseppi's Pizza. Come and get it!"

We were delighted to see the argyle-sweater-clad Allan Heller, master of the pun, who punished us with his cleverocity, like no other.

His poem "The White Death" was a little short story with a surprise ending.

"The Furies" was written all with the letter "D" as in delightful.

Martha suggested he bring us a poem next time using all the letters of the alphabet.

I told the group I watched a Ted Talk this morning by the poet Sarah Kay. Here's the link.

Donna of the totally gorgeous nails read a poem "Brad."

Donna paints her own nails. They come with glitter inside. I wanted to get everyone's hands but no one wanted to do it.

I just emailed Donna my true story "Codebreaker" to get her opinion. I keep revising it. Of course.

Donna's poem was called "Brad."

Who dat, I wondered.  It was a beautiful narrative poem - tells a story - about her brother's son, Brad. Even though he had Asperger syndrome, he made out well in life. These special people have a difficult struggle in life, but he triumphed over the limitations of the illness.

I bring things to the group that I no longer want. Marf will put this rabbit on her shelf of chatchkas.

Her wonderful poem was "Telling Myself the Truth" with great lines like "riding the couch." She, Donna and I agree that once you're diagnosed with bipolar d/o you can never live it down.

Beatriz wrote another great piece about pollinators. I brought her a pair of bee earrings I found hiding from me, but she said her ears weren't punctured.

She's writing a book about state flowers and pollination. "Many flowers are not very selective and they welcome all kinds of visitors. They are wide open."

There are also "ambush bugs" whose only concern is to snare hapless pollinators to make a meal out of them.

I'm like that, too. When I go over Mom's, I ambush her refrigerator.

More than 80 species of pollinators, she wrote, have been seen on the much-maligned goldenrod. We've learned it's actually the ragwood that makes us sneeze.

At this point, I sneezed twice.

Why? There's always a reason. A woman had just walked by. I'm guessing it was her Chanel No. Five.

Most wasps, she wrote, are less hairy than bees and have narrow waists.

Sexy! I can just hear the males whistling.

My teapot just whistled. Am getting ready for the company.

They canceled. 

Hello Kym! We spoke to her via Skype. She looks great, doesn't she? This is B's computer. Kym read us some short poems we enjoyed.

Send em to me for the Compass, I said.

She also commented on everyone's work.

 Carly Brown

CARLY'S ENCOMIUM ABOUT THE WRITERS' GROUP

Aren't we fabulous!  YES we are. 

We have B. who understands all thing Bees and Butterflies, then there's Ruthie who has the number on short stories and is prolific in poems and has the buzz on where to publish.

Then my beautiful friend Donna who is short on thinking great of herself, but long on making any one of us to feel the same greatness we feel for her.

Martha who is understanding of all the nuances of each of our poems and stories and is a magnificent poetess on her own.  

Lest we forget our very own Poet Laureate's punny insights and marvelous smiles, Sir Allan.

Linda with her constant writing and insight into life on galaxy's beyond our gaze.

Then how can we forget Sir Floyd! with his weirdly wonderful names and manly insights into the human condition located in his overflowing imagination.

Then lastly but certainly not least we have Kym who carries the banner on short but sweet poems that can take us right to the precipice of "WOW" but bring  us back to where it's safe to breathe again.   

Yes, we can all quite agree and to borrow from a well known fighter, of our yesterdays,

                                                       "We ARE the Greatest!" 

                               The Greatest Eights!
*

Last night I hadn't a single idea what to write about. I really wanna start a new short story, but I'm overloaded with editing the Compass and that Codebreaker story.

This morning, after my delicious egg breakfast, I paced around the room and came up with two ideas.

Ages ago I bought an old Life magazine at a thrift shop. I posted the cover in the dining room. Here's a poem I wrote about it.

THE WOMAN ON THE COVER

In July of 1943

a pigtailed girl

posed for the cover

of Life magazine

she sat

hands in lap

demure as a

sheltered maiden

sitting in her parents’

parlor, while Tommy

from across the street

was down on one knee

asking for her hand.

She smiled. We’ll name

her Patsy. “Wait till I’m

home from the war,”

she said. Then in a

whisper, “I don’t wanna

get knocked up while

I’m flying a plane.”

She wore a pilot’s

jumpsuit in the B&W photo

Behind her the

engine of a B-52

with an Army star on it

swelled with might

its steel energy

held it aloft

over Paris London

and Berlin

she, a twenty-year-old

girl, fighting to save the

Jews from Hitler, to puzzle

back the world from its

death throes

and then go home

to birth her babes

and fall into oblivion

dying with a contented smile

on her lips

her family beside her.

I had the honor of

closing her eyes for

the last time. 

*

Someone in the group, probly Marf, asked me if I felt like I was Patsy. I suppose so, I said, just like I feel I'm all the characters I've ever written about.

*

Last week, Donna had wrin a poem called "The Mirror Doesn't Lie." I think we're using it in the Compass. I happened to go in the baffroom and looked at myself in the meer to see if I needed to brush my hair.

I took a long look at my face. 

LOVING THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

The gum-chewing woman

I see in the bathroom mirror

has evolved from a freckle-faced

kid with thick brown hair who

could ride backwards on her

bicycle and win at broad jump

and baseball in elementary school

into the unsmiling woman she

she views in the mirror.

Her eyes have tiny creases over

the eyelid, she touches them

gently and blessing their fealty

over the past sixty-nine years.

Where have the freckles gone?

Faded with the loss of a loveless

marriage, cheered by the birth

of two children.

Thin lips, like her father’s, can

cackle loudly when her sister

tells her something awful about

Mommy, or purse in silence

when reading about the latest

treatments for depression.

Shall we talk about the dewlaps?

Not as bad as Mommy’s of course

And that crinkly neck.

“Wear a scarf,” Freda told her.

She tried it, it choked her.

She loves stroking it

fondling it

a neck for all time

she will go to the grave

with this crinkly neck

whose many folds are

like the deep furrows

of her vegetable garden.

Has anyone noticed?

I’m still the girl in the photo who

once wore pigtails and

ate ice cream and pretzels

on the front porch.