Waking Mr. Mitochondrion

SHINE

2010-03-13T06:38:00.000-05:00

what burned brightest
was always too hot to touch
but this is different
I can touch and it is safe
there is a way to loosen
ties
bodies
the thing inside that is so often clenched
we've stopped noticing.

there is a way to
provide just enough light
without blinding
just enough warmth
without searing.

we don't know what it is
but if you let me
I will find it.

it shines outside today
a shade brigher than yesterday
I look into the sky without squinting
my skin is soothed
robe loose and open by the window.

you would shine just as bright
without my words or touch
and if these became a burden
I would not speak,
I would not touch.

tonight there will be a new moon
for a few days
it cannot gather light
nor shine
within this, no dark parallels
just the reassuring
cadence of cycles.

of gathering by the light to
gather light,
of imminent shining.

New Year's in Paris 2010

2010-01-02T04:24:00.014-05:00

The first noise of the year,
like so many noises
was inappropriate and mine.
It sailed over the
skyline of dirty plates
and bottles,
our french waiter's backhanded homage to
American gluttony.

We mocked
female barbershop
reality show finalists
left on the island
their Andrews Sister-ized "Rehab"
notwithstanding.
Then got booted for
their Beach Boys medley.

Gong.

We roasted the Bass,
a regular James Earl Jones
on testosterone,
her low hanging ba-dum-dum-dum
was picking up bad, bad, bad vibrations.

None of this made a bit of sense
to the Italians at the next table
but, smitten with all that becomes
progressively louder and more chaotic
they gifted us
a gallon of limoncello,
which readied me for a midnight solo:

Three, two, one,
me:

"i ayyun't gawt the tiiiime,
but if mah daddy say-uzzz eeeets fiiiiine..."
nothing like a some Peter Brady warble
to ring in the new year.
my sister's eyes bulged.
her husband side stepped his way to the italians,
mine went directly.

My daddy
did not say I was fine.
He said
I was a cutting man
dithering beneath high ceilings
of potential,
the skilled mocker
that could barely withstand
being mocked.

These were low, maison ceilngs
perfect for ushering sound
into rooms laden with
unfestive customers.
The italian maître d' yells"Basta!"
I smile and point dumbly to my pasta.
Perchance I just might have the time, but still:
I won't go,
no, no.

My First Shrink

2009-02-24T00:59:00.013-05:00

I met my first shrink at a third grade assembly. I’ll get to him in a minute…first, the assembly. The topic was “The Dangerous Stranger”, a film about a Pinto-driving pederast with tinted glasses, feathered hair, and a penchant for Cindy Brady look-alikes. He pulls up alongside poor Cindy, whose book-bag seems to have been mischievously packed with limestone. Rolls down his window, holds up a lollipop…the large, swirly kind...and says her parents sent him.

The film pauses here, then re-enacts the scene three times, changing only Cindy's response so that we could weigh the harrowing consequences.

In the first take, she cheerfully hops into the Pinto, no questions asked. The frame freezes and the narrator harps on the gravity of her error in a stern, echoey voice.

In take two, she asks a very dumb question ("What flavor is that lollipop?") and within moments, has a chloroform-soaked rag over her face. We reel back in horror as the narrator shrieks: “Remember, the Dangerous Stranger will say ANYTHING to get you into the car! DON'T listen! RUN, and TELL an ADULT as quickly as you can!"

My pulse raced with questions. What was on that rag? Was it simply so dirty that she was overcome? Why would the stranger you flee to be any safer than the one you flee from? If they're not, then what happens? I envisioned poor, panicked Cindy racing from house to house, greeted time after time by suggestive lollipops, sneering grins, and those filthy, filthy rags.

The principal paused the film. Having anticipated our trauma, he handed the program over to our school psychologist, Mr. Mazzoto. I had seen Mr. Mazzoto before, noticed how he always smiled, and assumed he was a special ed teacher. Countless after-school specials taught me well: special ed kids make people smile, even in agonizing moments, simply by smearing pudding on their faces.

Mr. Mazzoto asked if we had any questions. I thought about asking mine, but quickly reconsidered. It contemplated a world teeming with rags so dirty you could be knocked comatose, and worse, murderous, molesting suburbanites at every turn. It was 1980. They weren’t ready.

One of my classmates, Janet, piped up with a more innocuous question: “What if someone comes for you and your parents really did send them, and then you get in trouble because you disobeyed?”

Mr. Mazzoto smiled. I began to study him in earnest now. He was tall and a little husky, the way New Jersey italian men often are, and wore a creamy yellow polyester-blend shirt. Knit tie over a very thin fabric, no undershirt. His eyes were caramel brown and even from five rows away, I could detect a whiff of Old Spice. He hunched over a bit, making his frizzy comb-over that much more visible. He was unremarkable in precisely the right quantity - any less and he'd have been imposing; any more, he'd have been boring. He had my full attention.

“That’s an excellent question. But I’m sure your parents would understand. Just run to a house that has a Helping Hand in the window, and you will be safe there. They will call your parents.”

Ah yes. The Helping Hand. In the days before missing children on milk cartons, Amber Alerts and Megan’s Law…we had The Hand. It was not, as we like to say today, a “rigorous program.” About ten years earlier, the police left a decal at every house, depicting a limp, alabaster hand, fully separated from the wrist. An ominous red border surrounded the severed, wordless image. The idea was to have homeowners affix it to their front windows, so that hunted children would know who exactly who would save them and who would not.

I thought of the closest “Helping Hand” home to me, senile Mrs. Ingersol’s. She could usually be found in her yard, bra-less in her nightgown, pasting Efferdent to a twig and spearing leaves. I imagined fleeing to her, wildly motioning toward the decal so as to convey the gravity of the situation.

I imagined her flashing me in return.

Mr. Mazzoto spoke: “Let’s go back to the film and see the correct way to handle this situation.”

Back to Cindy, take three. Pinto pulls up. Out comes the Lollipop. Close-up on Cindy, whose face contorts into something resembling a Munch painting. She releases a blood-curdling cry, drops her sack of books/rocks and bounds up a heretofor unseen grassy knoll, pigtails a-flapping. The class bursts into cheers, nearly missing the part where she gets taken in by a kindly, high-functioning housewife who locks the door, puts out freshly baked TollHouse cookies, and calls the police.

The principal shut off the projector, and the lights went back up. There was no further discussion of the film, just abrupt dismissal, and the class shuffled off indifferently. Jaded assembly veterans, we knew enough not to process any of this too deeply. Kind of like church.

And then, during the shuffle back to homeroom, it happened. The moment that ushered 30 years of therapeutic process upon the youngest non-Jew ever: with half the class already out in the hall, and the other half waiting to exit, Mr. Mazzoto looked directly at me and called out, “If any of you ever want to talk to me, just come by my office!”

Somehow, in that one remark alone, I inferred the full range of what he was willing to discuss, and the depths of his empathy. But I did not acknowledge anything, yet.

*** to be continued ***

Pearl

2009-02-22T15:25:00.009-05:00

This is a new poem.

Pearl and Kitty and their fates are real...

I observed these

and filled in the rest.

PEARL

Pearl lay limp in their Sunday arms.

"It's done", she said.

Goodbye Kitty.

My door cracked a narrow path to

her devastation; I closed it slowly

to hush the tell-tale click.

This shoulder cold not because

I am, no, it's just...

too many flames on her kettle

and she'd be overcome.

Caretakers closed,

Pearl puts Stiff Kitty in her wagon

and trudges up Court Street

to find a serviceable square.

Angels circle her shovel at all angles

while neighbors watch this

and everything

through screens, their rooms ripe

with flame, butter

and seed.

When the cat is buried,

Pearl is done.

Having survived all of Brooklyn

it's dive-back time to the third coast,

her native inland seas.

Through Sarnia to Oshawa

past the boomtime of canals

back through Man

his plan, and finally

to this...

life, done, wants only to

come undone.

Chairs in Cheyenne

2009-02-21T12:36:00.024-05:00

I was not a hyper child. I did not entertain more than one thought at a time and for every thought, there was a conclusion, and then another thought. I paid endless attention to books, lessons, and behavior, not because I was enthralled by the information, but each piece sparked new, engrossing conversations with myself.

This came to light my fifth grade year, when Mrs. Huff had us create and present 50-page reports on the United States. Which is exactly 47 pages longer than any state deserves, except maybe Rhode Island, because it's smallest and could use a boost. My 25 classmates and I each picked a state and then, over the course of two and a half weeks, presented our tomes to the class at the rate of two per day.

A “student teacher” magically appeared for those 13 days, without introduction, and promptly took her seat in the back. It was only a matter of minutes before she felt comfortable enough to whip out her compact and touch up her foundation. Note to self: she is super-smart. If I ever become a teacher, pick student teaching days where the kids are watching movies, playing 7-up, or reading stuff aloud.

We presented in alpha order by state, beginning with Alabama, then Alaska and so on. I learned that "A" states offset the hubris of their alphabetical primacy with crushing poverty and vast stretches of uninhabitable land. To this day, I have yet to visit an “A” state other than Arizona, at which point I was well into my thirties, and besides, it was for business. I was welcomed there by flash floods and what locals call “mini-hurricanes.”

Note to self: Come on people. Is this the coyest meteorologic euphimism you can muster? We can do better:

· tornado-ettes

· tsunami-lite

· “being in a Category Five way”

Anyway, back to the presentations. By the third day, boredom was reaching medically dangerous levels. The kid behind me nodded off, and awoke choking on his own slobber. The girl next to me went comatose and did not wake even when Mrs. Huff pulled her up by the hair.

I trod lightly around Mrs. Huff because I knew something the other kids didn’t: the teachers’ union was threatening to strike (the dishy advantages of being a paper boy.) The teachers felt they deserved more money.

I felt they deserved more rigorous training.

Either way, I wondered how Mrs. Huff was going to feed her four children, all of whom were classmates of mine. Her husband was a landscaper but by my reckoning, there wasn’t much land to scape in my town. It wasn’t like Alaska or Arkansas, you know.

Presentations continued. On Day 4, absences skyrocketed. I, on the other hand, was enthralled. Who knew that nearly every state had sovereign, Indian nations? I envisioned their reservations as Oz-like, where my backdrop of endless motel-style brick construction would be instantly swapped out with rows of swaying maize and a riot of feathers. I would hunt with chieftains, dance with shamans, make headdresses under the tutelage of protective squaws... and still be home on time for dinner.

What reservation does the “Crying Indian” come from? Skip that one.

Day 6. It was a Friday. First up was Robbie Jones with Louisiana. Then me. I had “Maine”, which I picked because we had a summer house there and I thought the selection would please my parents. They encouraged me to write to the Chamber of Commerce to get free travel brochures. All of which were quickly re-purposed into martini coasters.

Robbie led off by having his mom teach us how to make gumbo. I rolled my eyes. It was already prepared! All they had to do was cut up hot dog and let it simmer in the crockpot while Robbie presented. It was right before lunch. Of course we’d all be paying attention, yoked into Pavlovian submission.

As if this weren’t bad enough, Robbie delved into the history of the Cajuns. I had a whole section of my report entitled “Frenchmen on the Go! The Story of the Acadians”, now rendered pointless. I spied a bag full of French Vanilla Jello puddings behind the podium.

I was irked that Mrs. Huff clearly hadn't thought through the inevitable overlap. With fifteen states now covered, it was painfully evident that most didn't have much interesting stuff to claim. Colorado bragged about The Four Corners. Guess which three other states did as well?

Mrs. Huff had been running this little exercise for twelve years, and should have known better. If only she'd been paying attention. I turned to find her gossiping with the student teacher, whose name we later learned was Miss Shader. We nicknamed her Darth Shader, even though she was not coated in a hard black shell and breathed normally.

They’re probably talking about how unfair it is that they didn’t get their raise, and whether or not they can make extra cash driving the bus, monitoring the lunch room, or supervising detention. Note to self: do not become a teacher, even if the training is easy.

We all feasted, leaving me a mere 15 minutes to present. I led off with a fun fact: "True or False: Maine's prisoners once staged a protest because they were tired of eating lobster!" I left a dramatic pause, for effect. The class, loaded to the gills with white rice and pudding, received me with hyperglycemic apathy.

Day 9. South Dakota.

Did they make any Indians help out with Mount Rushmore? If I were one of them, I’d give Roosevelt cross-eyes and boobs.

Last day, day 12. Wyoming.

My classmate, Cheryl, could not pronounce “Cheyenne”. She kept pronouncing it with a hard “ch”, CHAY-ANNE. My teacher, having hit the bedrock of Darth Shader’s conversational limits, suddenly re-engaged. She saw the opportunity: that golden moment when you can appear to be teaching when in fact, you are howling at the Injustice Of It All.

“CH-ER-YL”, she said, leading off with hard, nearly projectile “CH”. “Do they have CH-AIRS in SHHH-AY-ANNE?”

Cheryl bit her lip til it turned white.

“Do they SH-ARE their CH-AIRS in SHHHHHH-AY-ANNE? Are the CH-AIRS made of CH-ERRY, CH-ERYL?”

The room was quiet and Cheryl’s hands began to tremble. She looked down at her paper. Mrs. Huff was smirking, Miss Shader shuffled her notes. I was seized up by a profound surge of empathy. Touching, I know. But what was to follow was not touching whatsoever.

I began to giggle.

I desperately searched for an antidote, something reliably unfunny. Liver and onions rotting on a pier. The stench of urinal cake wafting from my church's sacristy. Kelp.

Current-day note to self: the image of Jessica Tandy throwing a shot put in a lace teddy is equally unreliable.

In the end, the whole situation went viral and within 30 seconds, four of us were assigned detention.

Yes, with Mrs. Huff.