Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Poem for Wednesday, Mount Vernon, Game of Thrones

Thrown as if Fierce & Wild
By Dean Young


You don’t have a clue, says the power drill
to the canoe hanging from the rafters.
Is life a contest everything plays
by different rules for different prizes?
You’re really worthless, aren’t you?
barks the cherry tree covered with eponymous
fruit to the wagon lying on its side.
Unfair! Wasn’t that wagon not two days ago
leading the parade, the puppy refusing
to wear her hat? Can’t you just leave me
alone? says the big picture of Marilyn
Monroe behind her nonreflective glass.
Is the universe infinity in ruckus
and wrack? The third grader loose
in dishwares, the geo-tech
weeping on the beach. Mine, mine,
says the squirrel to the transformer,
unclear on the capacities of electricity.
String of Christmas lights tangled with
extension cords, can’t you work things out?
The young couple takes a step toward the altar,
increasing the magnetic force that sends
ex-lovers whirling off into nether nebulae
but attracting mothers-in-law. In one wing,
the oxygen mask taken from the famous writer
of terza rema glee while in another
an infant arrives, loudly disappointed
to have to do everything now himself,
no longer able to breathe under water.
Will we never see our dead friends again?
A motorcycle roars on the terrible screw
of the parking structure, lava
heaves itself into the frigid strait.

--------

Daniel slept ridiculously late on Tuesday, which allowed me to get work done in the morning but required me to wake him up with a higher level of roaring than usual. I had promised to take him to Bagel City to get the lox spread of which he was deprived last week, and I wanted to take him to get new shoes -- having a broken arm makes tying shoelaces rather complicated and his flip-flops are many years old -- but it was so hot out that when he begged to skip the shoe shopping, I went along with it, even though we had to pass Target to get to Bagel City. We got his lox spread and my walnut raisin spread and the veggie spread the other members of the family like, so everyone was happy.

In the afternoon I took Adam to tennis, not realizing that although the lockers and seating area were air conditioned, the courts would be the same 95 degrees as the air outside. While he was sweltering in there, I was melting on the trail in the park, which is mostly shaded but has patches of open sky and gets very muggy even near the creek, though that meant lots of lovely damselflies and beetles, plus a large black snake that took one look at me and slithered into the water before I could take a photo.

In the evening we started catching up on Game of Thrones -- I forget if it was episodes 2-3 or 3-4. I am enjoying the actors, but I am really not seeing what makes people adore this series. Every single man in power turns into a bratty little boy -- sure, power corrupts, but it does not corrupt every single man in every single society exactly the same way -- and every woman with any power at all currently does so only because she has a powerful man backing her up. Aside from Stark's younger daughter (whose fencing teacher calls her "boy" because apparently that's a prerequisite for being worthy to use a sword), the direwolves are the only characters I love unreservedly. Mount Vernon last weekend, not at the same time as Sarah Palin:

















Happy June!

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