Exploring the Intriguing
Author: whodeanny
Barbed wire paraphernalia
Wraps tightly across my heart
A thousand-thousand tiny pricks of pain
Soaking my whole world red
With the fresh heat of oxygen
fired flame portending
the sudden relief
of cool still emptiness
and rusting wires
© Gayle Force Press 2012
The once sturdy oak
Now exists in trio
Oddly mangled logs on the ground
It has yielded its form
To become a different kind of conduit
No longer a respite for birds
It shelters a thin, shedding snake
Some small colony of ants
Leaf chewing grubs
All while wearing a brand new crown
Of white, spreading flower
Perfectly fit to the majesty
Of a still sturdy oak
© Gayle Force Press 2006
Seven decades ago, a frightened young girl named Nina saw the tallest, greenest statue she could imagine. The statue held some sort of lantern and little Nina was transfixed in its light. While everyone around her began jumping and shouting, Nina stayed quiet and perfectly still as her eyes remained focused on the lantern and pulled in all the light they could hold. When the ancient boat finally stopped moving after weeks of rough passage across the Atlantic, Nina’s mother had to pull her arm, hard, to break the lantern’s spell.
Five years later, Nina began working, helping to sew gowns at the Catholic hospital on the Lower East Side. She could hardly wait to bring her first wages home to the tenement where she lived with her mother, stepfather and little brothers. Nina knew how much Mamma and Papa Tony could use the extra money. She only held back one quarter from her wages.
After six weeks of hard work, aching fingers, teenage longing and two bits at a time, Nina walked nineteen blocks out of her way to find the storefront that sold the tallest, greenest Statue of Liberty bank in all of New York City. Nina now knew that the light she’d fallen in love with was called a torch and that the torch on her new bank was a simple piece of wood, painted and glued onto the plastic. But pulling the torch, just a little, opened the back of the statue, just enough.
Over the years, Nina stuffed her bank with a few paper dollars then a letter from Korea stamped USMC then a postcard from a small college in Ohio then a picture of her first grandchild. For six decades, the statue bank held Nina’s hopes for the future and dreams of the past.
Even now, the statue remains unbroken and its light is reflected in our memories of Nina.
I started writing down the waves
Because of the first girl I knew I loved
She had mentioned sonnets to me
just an hour before
My parents always took the coast route
instead of the interstate bypass
Which annoyed me every day before this one
But that day Shelley saw Petrarch’s Cleaners’
On a fading cursive painted sign
She began to tell me about the Petrarchan sonnets
she’d learned about in school
Since Shelley was a year older
and two grades above mine
It happened pretty often that she became
the way I tumbled
Into some new mystery
secret piece of information
This time seemed different though
As she began singing out the lines that she remembered
from the poem sharing my new discovery
like she hoped the wind would carry her voice
From Maryland’s craggy coast to Petrarch’s grave
I sat amazed and open hearted
Stunned that this lovely girl could exult
so much in this poem
Never noticing the grinding seat belt
across her ribs
When an hour later
Dad finally stopped to get snacks for us
Shelley and I huddled under the blanket
uncomfortably
Both trying to pretend
That we weren’t dying to kiss one another
So to break the silence
I asked her
To sing the poem again
© Gayle Force Press 2002
On days this hot, I sometimes reflect on my mom's experiences working in a laundry.
One of the plants she worked in was a giant, industrial facility that specialized in uniforms. All summer long, my mom and the other women (at least at the time, this was still very much ‘women’s work’) baked in a giant brick edifice that contained dozens of megamachines. The washers and dryers were vastly oversized and designed to rid work clothes of their odors, stains and wrinkles.
If you’ve ever spent time in a crowded Laundromat or even a self-contained home laundry room, you have some beginning sense of the temperatures laundry machines can generate on a small scale. Now magnify that output while considering the scale of dozens of these megamachines running 10 hours straight. In the summer, in an all brick building, with no external ventilation. 6 days a week.
These women worked for just above minimum wage and many of them suffered fainting spells (and worse) from heat exhaustion, dehydration and heat stroke. And unless one of her children fell ill, my mom made her way to this plant every day for years.
Eventually, she received a (long overdue) promotion and moved to a different physical facility. She made a point of insisting that one of the other employees become her assistant, so someone else could leave that plant too. I’m continually grateful that Mom endured so much to help my dad provide for my sisters and me.
And I promise not to whine about the heat today.
FDO
Chelsea ran away as I tried to take her picture again.
We are going to end up with a lot of blurry sightseeing photos. Few of the marvels of Vienna will be documented appropriately. Too bad she got that awful haircut right before the trip. I bought her a hat from a street vender but I don’t know that it helped much.
I was upset when we got home because the only picture she’d let me frame was the one of the benches where I proposed. No Chelsea, just benches.
We could never afford a honeymoon so we always thought of that trip as our grand adventure. Too bad we were stuck in Lansing instead.
© Gayle Force Press 2012
Relegating another spring
To the caves of memory
This new summer has begun to settle
With its calm, stilling heat
Past my mind and into my flesh
I darken steadily so as to glow
Imperceptibly richer being filled with light
and warmth transmuted and sanctified
By my only temple
This ground beneath me
Beginning to bake then break
Its well hidden secrets
Long for their sacred moment of revelation
And today this glorious summer’s sky
Reminds me of picnics and parades,
Baseball games and the blessing
Of times gone by
When lying in grass and losing
Myself in the sky was a habit
Not a vice
© Gayle Force Press 2004
I want new constellations tonight
since dippers and belts and crowns and crabs
are far too antiquated
to make me point with wonder
at the night sky’s lights
I think I need dollar signs
Logos and ampersands to fill me
with the open eyed interest
of ancient Greece
and childhood
© Gayle Force Press 2012
Yesterday, I suggested that the NBA honor its greatest champion by changing the name of the league title to the Bill Russell Trophy. As good an idea as that is, it causes a potential conundrum because the Bill Russell Finals MVP Award is already given to an individual for his Finals performance. As I mentioned yesterday, the idea of a Finals specific MVP came about in 1969 so Russell never won the award. I think a sound argument can be made that the award would be more appropriately named after Michael Jordan.
Jordan after all won 6 Finals MVPs and is widely considered the greatest individual player in league history.[i] Jordan, like Russell, is an important enough figure that the trophy would retain its distinction. In fact, among the fans to whom the NBA consistently markets, this move would be considered an elevation in status.
Now if we could convince Russell and Jordan to share the stage and deliver the trophies together… WOW!
FDO
[i] While I disagree with that contention, I understand why people (especially those 40 and under) believe it true.
I'm convinced that the NBA should create named awards to honor the legends of the game AND provide tangible rewards for specific accomplishments. This is the first in a series of suggestions in that vein.
I think Bill Russell should be honored by naming the NBA Finals Trophy after him. The Bill Russell Trophy seems like a great idea to me.[i] There is already precedent for this since the trophy used to be named for Walter Brown then was changed to honor Larry O’Brien. What player, coach or fan cares about Larry O’Brien? I appreciate that Bill Russell has had the NBA Finals MVP Trophy named after him; it makes a little sense as an honorific. However, the award didn’t start until 1969 so Russell didn’t have the opportunity to win the award himself. And more appropriately, this would be the team award. Who exemplifies team more than Bill Russell?
Naming the trophy for Bill Russell would recognize his place as the greatest champion in American team sports history. It would also connect the trophy to an important figure in the way the Lombardi Trophy does. It happens regularly that football players talk about winning the Lombardi Trophy because that very name resonates with the NFL’s concept of winning. No one ever talks about winning the O’Brien Trophy. Winning the Russell Trophy? That’s got cache.
This change would mean that Bill Russell would have two Finals Trophies named after him which seems odd. Tomorrow, I’ll give you the perfect solution to that dilemma.
FDO
[i] Even if the NBA goes a different route, O’Brien needs to be dumped anyway. David Stern has been much more important than O’Brien.
The WhoDeannyPod 