Thursday Poem

I’m a nobody trying to make me a name

I sit at my desk and read Mickey Spillane

And when lunchtime comes my onlyest care

Is an elevator ride where the strangers don’t stare

They stare at my rotund, irrepressible tummy

They want to say something to keep the ride chummy

But I just want quiet, no diets, no small talk

I want high art and low art, the hereafter and cock

I’m an old bag a sick hag an ER repeater

But also a woman who reaches into the ether

I pull out a jacket, I pull out a doll,

I bundle up my son and he sleeps,

And that’s all.

Guido Cagnacci Allegoria della vita umana

Kira Yustak (I love this artist)

www.kirayustak.com
http://www.etsy.com/shop/kirayustak

Brer Rabbit Acrylic on Canvas, 20"x16"

Talking Elephants Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 30"

Chatter Phone Acrylic on Canvas 20" x 16"

Seahorses

Tenderfoot

images from Mikey and Nicky (1976) by Elaine May

Hey tenderfoot

You are kaput

Why don’t you sign on the dotted line?

Why don’t you sign on a valentine?

I have a hunch you laugh a bunch

And then you cry when the party’s through

Hey tenderfoot

Do you think it’s cool

That the night is always night

And the day is always day?

unstuck in time again

I’m always mentioning on here how I try to make dead things from my past (dead people, friendships, places) come back to life by researching them online.  Well I spent hours trying to use Google maps to get an aerial view of a house of a friend of my mom’s that she doesn’t know anymore.  This man was a packrat, but if you have to be one, he was a pretty good one – his floors were littered with money and old paperback books of Peanuts cartoons, his favorite, and also weir things like that Snoopy Sno-Cone maker from the 1980’s that many of us my age may remember.  This packrat indoors was cool in its way but I’m way too used to packrat environs to be interested in all the half-buried treasure trash for long, but he lived in a pretty neighborhood, and his back yard was absolutely one of a kind.  Hidden in the overgrown grass was some of the most beautiful tilework I’ve ever seen.  I had a suspicion that some famous tile person must’ve made and laid these tiles him/herself they were so lovely.  I can’t go back to that house but I thought if I spent long enough on the computer, I could find a picture of it, at least, but no dice. 

However, I did find a current picture of the Glendale bungalow where the ghost that leads me, Bill Tunilla, used to live, also from google maps, and I’ll share it here.  I remember one time when I parked in the lot to the side of the bungalow, I walked past his bedroom window to get to courtyard and his front yard, and I heard him say “Hi Robin,” and, straining to see through the window screen, I saw him laying in bed, reading a novel, maybe Saul Bellow or Barbara Pym, with his cat laying down with him, and I just loved him so much then.  My mom told me a serial killer used to live at his apartment (after him) but I tried looking this up, and, nope.

Sketches by my wonderful friend Valerie