Lucid Writing

Hey Folks.

While walking my son, his friend and my toddler to school, a driver suddenly backed out,while we were behind her/his car,  the back bumper coming close to son's friend, frightening him and me.  My reaction was to stand behind woman's car shout "hey" repeatedly and wave my arms to alert driver that people were behind her/him.  I should have gotten out of the road.  She stopped and when I was going up to the car, I saw it was another mother, whose kid goes to my son's class.  She speeds off like a bat out of hell.

I am very upset that she could have hit a kid.  I consider going in to tell the office.  Another mother comes up to me and says she heard me and saw "it" and that she was "terrified." I talk to another mother in my son's class, who tells me to talk to the "woman," who must not have seen me.  I know the woman has back problems, like I do.

I get home and call, but leave a message on the answering machine, which is the wrong thing to do.  I am polite, but tell her that she scared me and the kid and to please look before she pulls out.  I also mention how I do this to avoid turning my neck.  I fully expect a call and an "I am sorry I scared you.  Didn't see you."

Instead she leaves a message saying not to "lecture her" and that her car was nowhere near me, that I was on the opposite side of the street.  Now that is a lie or her memory is shit.  I now think she saw us and was trying to get us  to "hurry up."  Perhaps she didn't see  us and is embarassed.

I called and left another message, apologizing for my previous message, but saying that I'd be happy to meet tell her in person what I saw.

It is really quite disconcerting.  Had I not known her, I would've tried to get a license plate and/or phoned the cops about reckless driving around the school.

I  scared a pedestrian once and went back to apologize profusely.  I don't get it. 

Help.  How do I prevent this from turning into a big screaming match with someone who has a ton of Jerry Springer in her and who I don't want on my bad side.  I really don't want enemies at that school.  This woman bad mouthes all the other moms.  She isn't nice once a person's back is turned.

Help.  Please.  I don't  want my kids or any other kids to be terrified of crossing the street.

Lucy

Donkey Skin - Man's Coat (Work in Progress, based on Donkey Skin Tale in Andrew Lang's Fairy Book, where a father tries to marry his adopted daughter)

Donkey Skin - Man's Coat

(for my husband, Michael)

The mother dies or is absent

Maybe she drinks jug after jug

of cheapest table wine

The daughter hides in her royal chamber

cloistered in silk bed clothes

the curtains drawn

or perhaps she sits in her closet

pretending to be Amelia Earhart

in the darkness, seeing sky

The mother is laid in a grave fresh

or stops bathing

to avoid his loathsome touch

The daughter is fresh in morning

in black hat and dress

or perhaps fresh as morning in cotton

Her father weds her, bad as the Bay of Biscay

With old man ice hands he probes

to find his own boy self, lanky and pale

wedded to his own gray father

once upon the time

when he held innocence like an egg

Thus a chain of souls goes back to Lot

in certain families

a rank disease, tenacious as Virginia Creeper

The daughter, apoplectic

unable to move marmoreal limbs

or to speak

Even her own name

is a Shibboleth she cannot pronounce

gravel on her tongue

She is to blame

for her hair was unbound

for she slept naked at nine

like a white fleshen arrow

She skins a donkey

wraps herself in putrefaction

wearing death and ferocity.

Maybe she shaves her head and dons

her fathers old wool coat

with its moth balls

and is called sir or beast in 7-11

She hides herself

till one comes with courage

reaching fingers through the hide's opening

to translate her snarls and growls

to poetry

and lead her naked to the waters

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

5/2008

The Blue Light

 (based on a Grimms fairytale where an old wounded soldier is booted out of the kings personal

 guard and finds the house of a witch, where he makes away with a blue light.  He eventually

 becomes king and marries the daughter of the king.)

Sometimes a blue light leads you home

through the darkest owl-screeching woods

to the castle you've dreamed of

to the princess whose arms

hang paler than snow

The blue light is a bit of a star

with which you must be careful

lest it explode in interstellar gas

and take all life

the mouse in the wheat

and the king at his table

to become blue light

drifting in the ocean of space

that also is a dream from your childhood

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

5/12/2008

Suicide Girls

The suicide girls are bitter

as mandrake roots

sunk into the earth

They show you their scars

small reverences

permanent bird tracks

in the soils, deserts

and snows of their skins

their glorious skins

Yank them into the sun

and they may scream

ungodly howl at you

Sit with them

in the dun earthen grave

these dear Persphones

and they will show you

their jewels

share their bone secrets

and grow slowly up

aching

to the light

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

5/2008

The Merits of  the Frog Man

would you wed the frog

to have your own gold ball back

and more besides?

for wells are very deep

and other gold must lie

at the murky bottom

he must be very rich this frog

and determined

to have you be his

you are told of the story

of how an old waddler

blossomed into a youth

with arms like dinner rolls

strung together

and breath like plum wine

not this sour weight

beside you in the night

slathering you with kisses

and slime

you keep waiting for

the promised transformation

which does not come

his cold amphibious fingers

find you in the bed

and his sticky tongue

leaps from his lips

to taste you

as well as to devour

the fly buzzing overhead

no more bug problems

and plenty of riches

still you must learn to appreciate

this creature

more female than you

after years in a well

which is a cold womb

you must love that he asks

so little of you

and knows his place

below you even as he fingers

your skin

frog slime is good for the complexion

and he looks at you

with absolute devotion 

in his watery algae-colored eyes

he croaks you songs

for the merest smile

that if understood

would put the bards

to shame

he can survive on such

mere delicacies

as your laughter

and your gloved hand

he's learned not to expect

love and passion

not at his froggy age

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

5/2008

The Middle School Girls

Addie loves Michelle

She does not love Victoria

Victoria loves Lois

who also does not love Addie

A girl has to belong

to someone

or she is no one

wandering the jungle of girls

who comb each others hair

like monkeys picking nits

They laugh, slightly strangling

none too confident of their place

in the grooming line

wary of being bumped

by a more attractive

smarter girl

one who perhaps

doesn't care so much

or at least seems not to

wearing a shield of indifference

and hairspray

Later, she will hold the lighter

close to her stiff bangs

to show she doesn't care

Her face will be fine

She'll hold a funeral for her hair

She'll move on

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

5/2/2008

Dear friends,

I am leading a workshop on poems about paintings and would appreciate any suggestions of poems or paintings to present to the teens.  I have a whole pack of poems, but most of them seem to be in a similiar vein, from May Swenson to Anne Sexton.  I do have a Longfellow one to add to the pot.  Bring it on!!!

My goal is to read and discuss poems for the first hour and then have the students create poems from various paintings.  I will also throw in a raucus game of Duck, Duck, Goose, Poetry. 

Lucy, off to clean the family car... uggh...If I don't reply to commnet, I may have been eaten by gross dirty car lemurs

Blood of My Blood

Part One, a Fairytale in Which the Mother Cuts her Finger

The blood passes from mother to daughter

recycling, cycling through veins

the water washes away the who

she was, how she sliced her own

finger to the bone

a cut unnecessary

to bleed for her loveliest love

the daughter she pushed forth

sixteen years prior

when there was color of pinks

still left in her cheeks

and her womb was apple-full

The daughter has menarche

in the mother's menopause

She loses her mother,

or so she thinks

She loses her power,

till she gains her own power

through the bones

of a horse,

which is also a type of mother

Part two, in Which the Poet's Mother Dies

Mother, you would not have cut your finger for me

or did I miss it when you did

and placed the stained cloth near my heart

It felt like it was either you or me

sinking down in the river

and that you pawed my head

to keep your own head lifted

You did not want to die

while I began to fancy the river-bed

and the crayfish scuttling the bottom

I began to weary of the struggle

when disease took you

from inside

You had taken on too much wine

and you sank down

though in my love

I tried to hoist you on my back

and crawl with you to shore

Part III, in Which My Daughter Breathes

How it aches this love

between mother and daughter

a deep womb-heart soreness

I will spare you the histrionics

of taking the boning knife

to my finger

I can feel you

were you a world away

as if an umbilicus

stretched across briny seas

I wish to tell you

of the unfaithfulness of others

both women and men

to be wary the one who rides

with you,

who carries envy inside

cyanide capsules

I wish to warn you

my loveliest love

that you will bleed more

before you die

When I am long dead

my face as bare

as the horse's head

hung on the gate

I will enter your dreams

and the dreams of your daughters

a bit of gauze in a river

floating up

to say I am still here

My trace of blood is in you

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

4/2008