Twenty Years Later

Today is Angel's birthday. b and I are driving down to his school to take him out to dinner. I know at his age it is next year--the coveted 21--that matters, but for me there is something poignant about reaching the two decade mark.

Here's a poem I wrote a very long time ago, when I was already feeling he was getting so grown and wanted to capture some of the moments of his earliest years.

Photos

I remember your first practical joke.

You told me to get up and then

you took my seat

and laughed.

I remember you fell out of your chair

because

I didn't strap you in.

You only fell a few inches

but

you hit your head and

the floor was wood and

you cried and

I felt so bad

because

I knew it was a bad idea.

But I did it anyway.

I remember the time

I told you to bring me the toy and you

went to the other room

and got it.

I remember the first time I took you on

the subway and you fell asleep and

the train felt

too loud and

too dirty and

too dangerous and

you were so small

and I was afraid.

I remember bringing you into bed and

you would curl up with your head

under my chin and

the rest of you

between my arms,

your feet tucked tight into my chest.

I'd smell your little bald head and

drift into sleep.

But I'd wake up with

the bed and

my shirt and

you

soaked through

with pee and

milk and

everything

needed to be changed.

And then I'd do it again.

I remember walking into the living room

and seeing you sitting on the couch

by yourself

like it was your house and

your couch

and it was.

Fairy Tales, Part II: Shameless Family Promotion

Drax reminded me of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson. That was one that really affected me as a child. It is both dark and cruel. The fact that someone could get issues of poverty, class, and domestic violence into a Christmas Story is pretty amazing.

Drax is a wonderful writer in his own right--and also my BIL. However his usual fare is a little too dark for my taste (sorry Drax). However a few years back he wrote this--which I quite enjoy--that takes fairy tales to a whole new stratosphere. While you're checking out the wonderfulness that is Drax, don't forget to follow the link on his website to an interview with a very fabulous uncle. In case you get lost, you can also find it here.

On a related note, several years ago I wrote this little myth:

How Winter Began: A Myth

A long time ago there was only one season and that was summer. One day a young boy decided he was sick of seeing nothing but green trees. He took out his entire collection of magic markers and started coloring every leaf he could find. He colored them red and orange, yellow and brown. Pretty much everything but green. Several children gathered around and watched as the trees started turning into living rainbows. Children being children, they couldn't sit idly by. They ran home, returned with their collections of magic markers, and started coloring. Word spread and soon the world was engulfed in a frenzy of leaf-coloring. In their haste and excitement, the children tore leaves from the trees as they colored them. At one point they looked down and saw the lovely patterns the colored leaves made on the ground. An excited cry rang through the air as they scrambled to pick all the leaves off the trees and send them cascading down to earth. When every tree was picked clean, they jumped and played in the colored leaves. Suddenly a large gust of icy-cold wind came rushing by. The leaves were lifted into the air and blown from sight. The children shivered and were afraid the gods were angry with them for destroying all the leaves. They looked up into the sky but instead of seeing angry gods, they saw white powder falling softly. Confused and a little bit nervous, they started to scatter. However, as the powder hit the ground it stuck and started to build. The children played in the piles of cold powder until their mothers called them for dinner. Ever since then winter has come for the children.

That very short story turned into this even shorter poem:

Autumn

Leaves,

picked

with

crayon-stained

fingers,

invite

winter’s

breath.

Fairy Tales, Part I

I've been very interested in the response to my fairy tale question. It seems several of you have not had a great deal of experience with fairy tales in childhood. In spite of that, I was glad to see references to fairy tales other than the usual fare (Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty). Several of you mentioned how grim the Brothers Grimm really are. We think of fairy tales as children stories but they really were originally meant for adults.

I have always loved fairy tales. Several of you were unsure what fell into the category of a fairy tale, and while I think there may be some disagreement out there for me fairy tales are stories that involve the land of fairy and/or enchantment in some way. Fairy tales can include both the dark and the light but, like White Trash Academic, I do have a preference towards the dark.

I received this book on my fifth birthday and have cherished it ever since.

Its a little worse for the wear but then so am I. I actually own several books of fairy tales but it is this the pictures in this one that are in my mind's eye when I hear the stories. I am also a big fan of myths and, like JaneB, the King Arthur legends. To me they are all an extension of my love of fairy tales.

Growing up, we also had an album from Danny Kaye's Han Christian Anderson (and yes, Dr. Bad Ass, he definitely does count). It was an actual LP that I played to death on a tiny kids' phonograph. I remember Thumbelina and The Ugly Duckling the best.

The Ugly Duckling

My favorite fairy tale is Rumplestiltskin. (I was also fascinated by the Princess and the Pea but I think that is because I've always been such a sound sleeper and can't imagine noticing such a small object under so many mattresses). I'm not sure why I loved this tale so much as a child. I think, unlike other fairy tales that have wicked stepmothers behind it all and end with happy-ever-after, the (supposed) bad guy in this tale is a creepy little man. Exactly why does he want that baby so bad? It always seemed so sinister and dark. Also the story really gets good after the young woman is married. It is the one of the few tales that actually talks about life after marriage.

But as an adult, I think the draw is that the story depicts how an imaginary child is so different from a real one. We can promise away the life of an imaginary child to save our own, but if the child is here...if we know what a child means to us...there is no bargin. I also appreciate, as an adult, the real culprits as being the father who bragged about his daughter to gain favor with the king and the greedy king himself--who threatens death and promises marriage--in order to get free gold.

However I remember a part of me thinking that Rumpelstiltskin had been gypped. The queen used her advantage to find out his name, which didn't seem quite fair. It also never seemed right that he struck the deal out of pity. Perhaps he wasn't so evil of a character? It is a complex tale in many ways.

This is the image that lingers in my mind when I hear the story of Rumplestiltskin.

I've been reading updated fairy tales (a description of these will need its own post) lately and it has gotten me thinking about an update to the Rumplestiltskin story. I have a good one in mind (although it seems there have been many many retellings) but alas fiction writing is very low on my list right now and quite frankly I don't think I have the writing chops for it.

I did run across this recently. How have I lived 44 years and not known about these poems? Here is her version of Rumplestiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin

by Anne Sexton

Inside many of us

is a small old man

who wants to get out.

No bigger than a two-year-old

whom you’d call lamb chop

yet this one is old and malformed.

His head is okay

but the rest of him wasn’t Sanforized.

He is a monster of despair.

He is all decay.

He speaks up as tiny as an earphone

with Truman’s asexual voice:

I am your dwarf.

I am the enemy within.

I am the boss of your dreams.

No. I am not the law in your mind,

the grandfather of watchfulness.

I am the law of your members,

the kindred of blackness and impulse.

See. Your hand shakes.

It is not palsy or booze.

It is your Doppelgänger

trying to get out

Beware….Beware…

There once was a miller

with a daughter as lovely as a grape.

He told the king that she could

spin gold out of common straw.

The king summoned the girl

and locked her in a room full of straw

and told her to spin it into gold

or she would die like a criminal.

Poor grape with no one to pick.

Luscious and round a sleek.

Poor thing.

To die and never see Brooklyn.

She wept,

of course, huge aquamarine tears.

The door opened and in popped a dwarf.

He was as ugly as a wart.

Little thing, what are you? She cried.

With his tiny no-sex voice he replied:

I am a dwarf.

I have been exhibited on Bond Street

and no child will ever call me Papa.

I have no private life.

If I’m in my cups

the whole town knows by breakfast

and no child will ever call me Papa.

I am eighteen inches high.

I am no bigger than a partridge.

I am your evil eye

and no child will ever call me Papa.

Stop this Papa foolishness,

she cried. Can you perhaps

spin straw into gold?

Yes indeed, he said,

that I can do.

He spun the straw into gold

and she gave him her necklace

as a small reward.

When the king saw what she had done

he put her in a bigger room of straw

and threatened death once more.

Again she cried.

Again the dwarf came.

Again he spun the straw into gold.

She gave him her ring

as a small reward.

The king put her in an even bigger room

but this time he promised

to marry her if she succeeded.

Again she cried.

Again the dwarf came.

But she had nothing to give him.

Without a reward the dwarf would not spin.

He was on the scent of something bigger.

He was a regular bird dog.

Give me your first-born

and I will spin.

She thought: Piffle!

He is a silly little man.

And so she agreed.

So he did the trick.

Gold as good as Fort Knox.

The king married her

and within a year

a son was born.

He was like most new babies,

as ugly as an artichoke

but the queen thought him a pearl.

She gave him her dumb lactation,

delicate, trembling, hidden,

warm, etc.

And then the dwarf appeared

to claim his prize.

Indeed! I have become a papa!

cried the little man.

She offered him all the kingdom

but he wanted only this—

a living thing

to call his hown.

And being mortal

who can blame him?

The queen cried two pails of sea water.

She was as persistent

As a Jehovah’s Witness.

And the dwarf took pity.

He said: I will give you

three days to guess my name

and if you cannot do it

I will collect your child.

The queen sent messengers

throughout the land to find names

of the most unusual sort.

When he appeared the next day

she asked: Melchior?

Balthazar?

But each time the dwarf replied:

No! No! That’s not my name.

The next day she asked:

Spindleshanks? Spiderlegs?

But it was still no-no.

On the third day the messenger

came back with a strange story.

He told her:

As I came around the corner of the wood

where the fox says good night to the hare

I saw a little house with a fire

burning in front of it.

Around that fire a ridiculous little man

was leaping on one leg and singing:

Today I bake.

Tomorrow I brew my beer.

The next day the queen’s only child will be mine.

Not even the census taker knows

that Rumpelstiltskin is my name…

The queen was delighted.

She had the name!

Her breath blew bubbles.

When the dwarf returned

she called out:

Is your name by any chance Rumpelstiltskin?

He cried: The devil told you that!

He stamped his right foot into the ground

and sank in up to his waist.

Then he tore himself in two.

Somewhat like a split broiler.

He laid his two sides down on the floor,

one part soft as a woman,

one part a barbed hood,

one part papa,

one part Doppelgänger.

Myths

I have always loved myths and myth-making. I love stories of gods and saints (pagan or otherwise) and constellations that explain phenomenon that would otherwise puzzle us. I love learning myths from different cultures. I also love fairy tales, which have many of the qualities of myths but focus on entertainment and (sometimes) teaching morality rather than explaining phenomenon. (Probably an oversimplification of the distinction and my scholar friends in lit, please do chime in here). I love to anthropomorphize, especially in poems. Here's one I've been working on:

Recovery Myth

Hurt follows me;
a hungry child whining
'round my waist.

Cupid’s baby sister;
Lust’s progeny;
born to soon and then forgotten.

Lank hair falls on gaunt eyes,
her long limbs reaching up,
until I bend and cup

her strained face in my hands.
I brush a dry kiss across
her cracked lips and bring fire

to her cheeks. Her eyes change from want
to greed and she grows; mighty and strong.
Her arms circle me as we stand

foreheads touching. Flinging
my head back and opening my throat
I shout: long, strong, and full.

She whithers from my anger; slowly
receding but not yet gone, she clings
with the frailest of fingertips.

Unprying them from my flesh
I feel her slip and fade
from my side.

Grandmothers Part II

As per Julie's request, here are two of my poems my grandmother (GR):

Grandma Had a Garden

Grandma had a garden;
pansies,
tulips,
marigolds,
and morning glories.

Grandma grew tomatoes;
big,
fat,
sweet,
juicy,
bursts of joy.

But mostly,
Grandma grew
roses.

The sun would leave
it’s scent
on grandma’s dress
as I wrapped my arms
around her world.

Heritage

When I heard the story
it was Granma
who bought the house.

A baby
was on the way and
Granma knew
babies need a home.

When I heard the story
I imagined Granma walking up the block
her arms wrapped around
two big brown bags
filled with groceries and
balancing on top
was our house.

When I see Granma I know
my arms can carry
a home.

Productivity

I've been rather unproductive the last two weeks. It probably has something to do with my menfolk coming home and all but still it bothers me. Wednesday and today I went into the office and got tons of stuff done. Usually I'm pretty good at staying focused at home but these past few weeks, not so much.

Another thing that kept me from producing any of my work was a project I started (and completed - yay!) for my mother's 70th birthday (which is next Tuesday). One of my cousins has sent us all a CD of my grandparents slides and photos that he had scanned from the originals. There are LOTS of them. Most were in bad shape and/or bad photos (my grandfather had a thing about taking pictures from a moving car, don't ask me why - but boring doesn't begin to describe them). So I wanted to create a book of photos and poems for my mother. I decided to take the photos just of the womenfolk in the family: my grandmother (her mother) at different points in her life, my greatgrandmother (posed with my mom as a toddler), my mother at different stages (although nothing recent), her sister as a toddler and young mother (her sister passed away in her early 50s), my sisters and I as kids and then the last page includes fairly recent shots of all her grandchildren (she has 6 - 2 girls and 4 boys).

It took me quite a while to go through the photos and then I had to correct them via Photoshop. Now b is the photographer, web designer, graphic artist etc of the two of us, not me--seriously not me. I'm not crafty (in any way imaginable). But he wasn't home so I had to learn what I could on my own and do the best possible. I think they ended up looking pretty good but nowhere near what a professional would do. Then I found poems on motherhood, sisterhood, grandmothers, and daughters. I even included one of my own. I created the book using this. It is pretty cool and rather inexpensive. I recommend it if you ever have a need to create an entire book.

Boy gave me a hard time about the project all week long because--well because he gives me a hard time about anything these days. He told me not to expect him to do anything that involved for my 70th. Since he also forgot to bring me home a slice of some delicious wedding cake from his job that night, I told him I was not expecting much of anything.

Its being shipped directly to her (I had to rush order it since it took me so long to finish) so I haven't seen the final product. Hopefully she'll get it by Tuesday and love it. I'll let you know.

Haiku

As seen at Dr. Curmudgeon's

Haiku2 for dirtandrocks
living in boxes in a closet finding a book i needed was not
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