:: Mental Kudzu ::

Poet Losse has a marvelous interview published today on Very Like a Whale.  It is a wonderful thing, having a poet as one of your best friends. I would wish such a fate upon everyone.

I plan to keep publishing as many and as diverse a group of poets from the south as I can until we decide we’re ready to archive the present Mule. I’m not sure when that will be. I think when our ten years are up, we may decide to put the Mule out to pasture. I’d like our April 2017 Dead Mule to kick butt like a donkey, jackass and a mule combined. But that’s just dreaming. In other words, I want to go out with a bang! I want it to make the Washington Post. Big Washington. Not Little Washington. At least Silliman’s Blog.

Music Thoughts of Random Motion and Quality

1.
eMusic can deliver some real treats. Today it’s all about Earl. I just found Justin Townes Earl and the song Lone Pine Hill. The March 2008 release of Earl’s album “The Good Life” by Bloodshot Records shows Justin can claim more than being just “Steve’s son.” Finally. Finally! Another singer who can follow Darrell Scott on the iPod. It’s been quite a search.

2.
It’s a real creative zone you’re in when you realize iTunes just began to play another piece from the Philadelphia Chicken album and you’ve been singing along through the last four song. Be like a duck…

3.
Writers know how important the correct background noise can be. The barking and wailing of two Jack Russell terriers and a “special needs” Scottie can overwhelm even the best editorial intentions.

4.
Ruth and I have stereo wars. This is unceasingly sad — pathetic to admit, right? I mean, she’s 91. She turns her Public Radio East to distorted loudness levels and complains she can’t understand “a thing they’re saying”. I pull my classic, never-fail, Monsoon speakers and sub-woofer close to my keyboard and listen to whatever my mood requires. Large, very old houses do have some excellent benefits. Like the distance from room to another.

5.
My life always contains music. Even when no machine plays the tunes. That is the rare beauty of tinnitus. It may be one note, but by God, it’s my note.

We’re prepping for a June trip to Costa Rica. Ruth is revving up the “don’t leave me here alone” engines. There’s no gas shortage here. We call her condition: Opportunistic Senility.

So far she’s been dizzy. Club-footed. Fog-headed. Suffered from insomnia, exhaustion, allergies, a hang-nail, ingrown toenails, lower back pain, upper back pain, dry mouth, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, acid stomach, diverticulitis, more brain fog… she leaves the dogs outside in the rain. Puts dirty dishes in the clean dishwasher. When choosing lunch from the fridge, she’ll have one piece of 3-week-old English toasting bread, some butter, and a small splotch of jam with a half-glass of water. “Oh, were there left-overs? I forgot we had pot roast, mashed potatoes, cream corn, salad, biscuits, green beans… for dinner last night. Oh…” Then she throws her plate and her glass in the trash and goes outside to smoke a cigarette. When she comes back in, she reads: The Smithsonian, The Wilson Quarterly, the Utne Reader and solves today’s New York Times Crossword.

Join me, would you, in celebrating Opportunistic Senility Week here in North Carolina.

Costa Rica. Here we come.

***

I have my grandmother’s butterfly specimen case. My grandfather made it for her to use in school. It’s supposedly made from a bed frame, and the wood is quite nice. The glass has survived since 1890s. Hard to believe we never broke it, huh?

My grandfather’s 1890s textbooks from when he studied Latin and Greek at Ohio Northern University are on a shelf nearby. And I have their graduation photographs and diplomas. These are the kind of treasures, family ephemera, that mean most.

The walls of my house are filled with images of all of them. My mother, my father and their families. I remember them; I store them in my mental database and it creates an illusion of knowing and understanding who they were.

I polish my ghost with care and silent pain. I clean the glass; I dust the frames of the photos that contain images of lives of which I can only conjecture their reality.

What I know of my ancestor’s collective experiences comes from black and white photos and memories of my parent’s conversations at night, in the dark as they nestled together on the 1950s era flagstone patio behind our house. After dinner, they would sit in redwood deck chairs, smoke Winstons, and talk about the past. I sat on the steps, a cautious interloper listening to tales of those who had gone before me. They were as real as flesh. Many times I held a small photo of my Grandfather Val as I listened to my parents speak night visions of what he had been, and the family that had passed to another place.

My childhood is confused with true images of self, the conversational images of my parents late at night, and the black and white photographs of our family and home movies.

I’m reviewing photos for the Ann Hite short story collection we’ll feature on the Dead Mule in May. These will be scanned family memories from the 1940-1960 years. I use an HP C4180 All-in-One with my classic iMac. This scanner is all right (see previous blog posts for installation instructions) but it is a sad experience editing the photos in Seashore freeware rather than GIMP or PhotoShop. I miss the good stuff. For some reason, GIMP won’t find my X, the G-spot of Apple orgasmic programs. Whine whine…

The first story from “Life on Black Mountain” will be published on April 30th. New stories published each even day of May.

On April 29th, ya’ll need to take a look at Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda’s Dead Mule poetry.

She was appointed Poet Laureate, 2006-2008, for the Commonwealth of Virginia by Governor Timothy M. Kaine. She is the author of several books and anthologies. Her poems have appeared throughout the United States and abroad in numerous publications. Her many poetry honors include three Pushcart Prize nominations. She has been named a Virginia Cultural Laureate for her contributions to American Literature. And yet, when the Mule asked her for poems, she replied by saying, “How kind of you to write to request a poetry submission.” The last three poems are from Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda’s newly released book, River Country.

Please welcome our newest Poet Laureate Mule Poet, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda.

I’ve never been particularly earnest, so it’s a good thing my mother named me Deborah Valerie. She swears she meant to say “Valerie Jane” but got confused while heavily sedated. She was thinking of Debbie Reynolds’ latest movie at the time of my birth. “Debbie” left my signature upon arrival in Fort Smith, Arkansas at age 6 when I would be forever after “Valerie”.

My mother tells me that, as an infant, I would spend quiet mornings in a wooden playpen on the front porch. She came onto the porch one morning as my brother was just beginning to use my father’s hack saw on the bars of the playpen. “She wants out,” he told my mother. The same rationale was used when she caught my brother gently placing me on the roof of the third story porch of our house. He’d lifted me out of the window after removing the screen.

“She wants out,” he said, “to touch the snow.”

My father documented our childhood moments when he could. Poor guy was 43 years old with two toddlers 18 months apart. My mother developed an aversion to being the photographer — the family chronologer. Sadly, she was quite adept at cutting off people at the neck or photographing feet. When Daddy was around, camera in hand, he filmed “Debbie Being Angry” or “John on His Bike.” It is probably to my benefit that Mother never grabbed the camera to film “Debbie Bleeding Profusely.”

One of those thank you for not filming moments in my younger days–
My best friend in kindergarten was Elizabeth Steele. Being overly clever at age five, I nicknamed her Lizard Ironpants. Poor Lizzie became irate upon hearing her new moniker. She picked up the object closest to her and threw it at me. Unfortunately it was half a brick and it hit me smack in the face. I have a true memory of this incident. My mother’s retelling does not reinforce it. She wasn’t even home at the time. My father was. He and his friend Winton were tearing out the back porch of our house in preparation for a new screened in version.

I walked through the yards, home to Daddy with my hand over my nose and mouth. This became a familiar hand gesture throughout my childhood. Placing my hand over the injured area to stem the flow of blood.

My nose was broken, my upper lip split. I don’t know what happened to Lizard Ironpants. I don’t think anyone came down on her too viciously; her homelife left something to be desired, according to my reinforced memory files. Something looms in a forgotten place in my brain about guns with real bullets and a suicide in Lizzie’s house. And there’s a faint memory of Lizzie showing up at the front door at “six o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake, with no shoes on and it was snowing.”

Shortly after the Lizard Ironpants incident, but long enough for my face to have healed, my father bought a Bell & Howell movie camera. He missed a few classic shots of me. Like when I was sitting on the headrest of the front seat of my mother’s 1960 Chevy Impala convertible.

John and I were told to wait in the car while she ran into the store for milk. The 1960 Chevy Impala convertible did not have seats that locked in place like they do today. So, when my brother kicked the seatback, I flew forward. Face first into the radio. This is a true recollection, not reinforced. I remember an elderly woman grabbing Kleenex out of her purse to staunch the blood as she yelled to my brother to go into the store and get my mother. The memory stops there. I don’t remember the pain of childhood injuries.

I pondered pain quite a few times this week. Epidural steroid injections, Hepatitis A vaccine, more steroids in my poor torn rotator cuffs… it’s been a week in needle park.