The Mag 130: No Shell Game

Image by Francesca Woodman

Don' t dare look past my flesh self

ignoring what discomfort troubles you.

I've come out so that I can be everything

I truly am-   the co-worker, the mother, the friend

the wife and the lover.

I don't hide my intellect behind my body

anymore then I will shelter my flesh

with intellect or my personality.

I've shed my shell;

these breasts, the curves-

this flesh and bone

this is my architecture-

I embrace all that I am.

The Mag 

Michael A. Wells

The Nightly News I Remember

There are times I remember the nightly news
framed in a seriousness and we all watched.
I would come home from school  and the others
they came from work or household chores
but we watched in the same room
the same RCA Victor
that doubled as a piece of furniture;
topped with white lace doilies and blonde lamp-

and always a man with a voice of authority
and there would be body counts every single night.
And for the longest time this went on
and we all watched and when it was over went
our separate ways.

There was no liberal newscast or conservative choice
there was only news and it could be very brutal.

Confession Tuesday Under Cotton Candy Skies on Thursday

A storm is threatening if that is possible in this drought inflicted Midwest.  We are already a day late - let's hurry to the confessional.

Dear Reader:  I confess I know I'm a day late. It's been 8 days since my last confession so lets get this over the cotton ball sky is moving quickly.

I confess that as I gassed the car this morning and realized that gas had shot up considerably since I last gassed the car I so wanted an all electric car. Of course wanting and having the ability to obtain something are two different things. Even a gas electric hybrid is out of the picture unless that lottery ticket in my pocket is a winner. I'm really pretty good normally about not wanting things I know are beyond reach. Occasionally some electronic gadget will creep into my wanting eyesight but I mostly try and contain myself. These are usually things that I could have, I have the means available to go get one, but don't because my better wisdom says don't.

I confess that I when I learned yesterday that my daughter was likely going to put down Scarlet - her pet rat today - I spent some time just watching Scarlet and taking pictures of her last night.  She was actually pretty cute. So when I learned today that it actually occurred I admit I had some damp eyes for a rat. Okay, not just any rat but Scarlet.  Earlier this summer she lost Mason but as far as rats go I am told that Mason was an old man.

That's about it for tonight... I just realized the San Francisco Giants are on ESPN so my attention is now divided. And I guess that's a confession too. 

Speculation

In bony avoidance I hide
from the possible. Still
my mind is well aware
of what it prefers not

to accept. Would be surrender,
disappointment to the indifference
that might be expected of me.

There is always the possibility
just as there is the what if I had
done differently. What ifs

are lame excuses for the afterlife.
They add nothing to the internal
discussion we have with our self.

Such speculations is cowardice
behind closed eyes. If I must,
speculate by poking out my eyes.



      

The Risk To Write

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~ Voltare

Playing in what rain they could find

This morning the ground was wet with fresh rain, I caught sight of  geese across the street on the ball diamond.  The rain would soon disappear into oven baked ground. I would depart for work, and the geese I suppose they lollygagged about for a while and left.

Journal Bits

The following are representative bits, notes, quotes, writings  from my journal July 16 to present.

• 7/16 - fey - pronounced (fay). Adjective meaning 1. strange or unconventional or otherworldly. 2. doomed 3. able to see the future.
• 7/18 - art is not always in the details, sometimes it's the big picture
• 7/20 - Am I cursed? My poet home page dis down this morning. New hosting site and I'm dealing with this issue again.
• 7/20 - never have I laid eyes upon her / that the cortex was not held hostage. / Never have we touched that my heart / did not ache for more
• 7/22 - it will be known as the summer / of toasted coconut lawns / we began to lower our standards / of comfort
• 7/23 - At 9:00 PM the temperature was 102, unbelievable...
• 7/30 - I read Diane Ackerman's poem Between the Creases, probably not for the first time, but it really resonated with me today. 
• 7/31 - "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." ~ Charles Bukowski