The Smell of Decadence
That feeling of decadence
named now in retrospect
was the stench of rotting
bucolic melancholy
as a war boom's velvet-lined decline
unspooled and a new decade climbed
until the crest of the wave folded.
We hardly noticed sliding
into cartoons on the couch
where tubes behind
the screen affixed us
to Betty Boop's boobs.
Before we knew it the neighbours
sprouted their own little loonies
with football-esque heads
strange combinations evolved
in cities and in burbs --
inside ticky-tacky little boxes Melvina
lived sticky little noses smelling lead
all the way to church
and some of us breathed it in deeper
feeling saved by visibly waving fumes.
Recording the be-bopping, rockabilly
car-radio love of the fifties
from seven days to age ten
I can recall the factories going derelict
along the river by Hertel and Military avenues
as time moved like index cards flashing past
us in seconds to leave only
dark-windowed emptiness
creeper vines draped on the sill’s bricks
abandoned to crack and seed
daddy's war bucks making more bucks overseas
marginally employing conquered orphans
burning with a yearning
to breathe anything
besides napalm and terror.
At the pinnacle of the great corn syrup phattening
the moment when momentum
sapped our vitality with its appetite
and sucked it all back in
before releasing the tidal wave
that left the teeth to feed a city frozen
grain belts & hoppers stoppered
going from boom to bust.
A gradual prospering cancer
eating away at it bit by bit by rust
as the new Chevys drove past
on their way to repo-yards
spitting rocks on the sweat of working slobs
picketed behind their white fences
and then, time moved on. . .
I've had to post my Amazons
at the archways
of every decade since
while I rush to get the details down
but the bandits still slip in
every time I sit to write
every time I rise to greet the light
every time I move to fill love’s distance
and get so close the lantern shivers;
whatever is most sacred
they've been taught to take –
and time marches. . .
The unblinking armies amass hordes
my trapped capture all but inescapable
I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or awake
May I not regress into cowardice
as I've done more than once
But can I become as devoted to lotus-eyed Truth as the gazelle
as graceful and fiercely willing
whatever comes
to trust:
There is purpose
where I see none!
Bath Time in Dyea, Alaska
Music heightened the mayhem when
guitars & drums & flutes & whistles
jumped out of the messy corners of the cabin
we claimed as squatters in our twenties
where we were fused together by our love’s child
then ripped apart against the tides
mixing rich river run-off with teeming hooligans
we fished from meandering rivulets
and the brave stripped naked like they were
home & perched bare derrieres along
benches we levelled into the glacial silt
deposited along the River Taiya’s banks
& we built a log sauna around us
peeling poplar bark with a spokeshave
feeling the juice beneath the skin
breathing it in as we worked
We cooked rocks like vertebrae dug
from the river’s side & ladled her cold water
on them for steam that forced
impurities to the skin until it glistened
with sweat streaming & screaming for more steam
until it hurt to breathe another heated breath
crazy we leapt up & ran to the river’s edge
grabbing overhanging branches as we plunged
trusting their stubborn roots to hold
immersing fully into the river’s quickness
ice milk & snow melt scrubbed us
with its grains hitting & exhilarating our skin
the danger of her current tingling over our scalps
we emerged cleansed from inside out & hauled
a bucket of Taiya’s sweet waters up to the house
to pour a long drink down our gullets
right from the river’s mouth
Now I jump into a hot shower
just like everybody else
Mary Elmahdy - When Mary was forced into an early retirement, with absolutely no plan, no savings, facing 4 years of surgeries that left her unable to work again, yet still living, although just barely on the dole alone. She thought what can I do with all this time but no expendable income? On a trip to Ireland, a young woman in a pub suggested to Mary that instead of writing short stories, “Why don’t you just write poems, they’re shorter!” So, that’s what Mary started doing about 10 years ago. She has been published about a dozen times, in a small quarterly in Sligo, Ireland under the nom de plume of Maria Sopapilla, in online zines and anthologies, but hasn't submitted any of her work for over 5 years whilst quietly working to hone her craft. Not because poems are shorter, but because writing is affordable and the journey into self-discovery has been intensely fulfilling. She feels like she has found her true calling.
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