Jack Horner Berates Julia Child outside the Montana Museum of Natural History

Jack Horner Berates Julia Child outside the Montana Museum of Natural History

 

Perhaps you fed me the petrified eyelash of a dinosaur.

Birds have eyelashes, those feathered dinosaurs,

think of the ostrich, batting its thick translucent lids

and smiling coyly.  An eyelash, you said, pointing,

 

to my omelette.  But it was only the edge

of a bubble of oil.  Grease, you called it,

but when I looked horrified, you said, yummy grease,

as if adding the word yummy would make it okay. 

 

The eyelash reappeared in a stew, then in a sandwich,

then on my steak.  It grew and grew.  Not a coprolite, precisely,

not the imprint of a giant fern or the wing of a pterosaur, just that eyelash.

The tyrannosaur who lost it thrashes in my belly.

 

 

Mary Stebbins, 060329a, 060328b

 

Mary Stebbins, 060329a, 060328b

Attempting Patrick Lawler After reading a poem in Feeding the Fear

Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain

 

A highway runs through your dream.  Harleys rumble,

Hell's Angel Harleys, and big semis.  A little platoon

of matching yellow cars flits through the semis, a flock of goldfinches,

a school of fish.  You spot a deer standing at the edge

of the road, know it is about to die, to be thrown

up over the hood of a red car that will careen into an SUV.

They will roll in the ditch at your feet.

Crumpled.  You want to wave your arms to head off the deer,

but your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship.

Somewhere, fog.  A ship founders on rocks.  You know now

you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix metaphors,

awake.  You're trapped in the dream, surrounded by Harleys.

They're revving their engines, skulls grinning.  Soon

the deer will drown

and you will fall

tangled

through green water

in the limbs

of drowned deer

forever.

 

Mary Stebbins, 060329c, 060328b

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary

Patty Heart Dreams of Persephone on Cadillac Mountain, 3 drafts

Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain

There's a highway running through your dream, with Harleys,

Hell's angel Harleys and big semis and a little platoon

of matching yellow cars. You know that deer standing

at the edge of the road is about to die, to be thrown

up over the hood of a red car that will careen into the side

of another and they will roll into the ditch at your feet.

You want to wave your arms and head off the deer, but

your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship

that has grounded on rocks in the fog. You know now

you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix metaphors like that

in your waking life, but you're trapped in the dream anyway,

surrounded by Harleys revving their engines, skulls grinning,

knowing that deer will drown soon, knowing that you will fall

through the green water tangled in the limbs of the drowned

deer forever.

Mary Stebbins, 3-28-06

Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain

There's a highway running through your dream, with Harleys,

Hell's angel Harleys, and big semis and a little platoon

of matching yellow cars. A flock of goldfinches, a school

of fish. You know that deer standing at the edge

of the road is about to die, to be thrown

up over the hood of a red car that will careen into the side

of another and they will roll into the ditch at your feet.

You want to wave your arms and head off the deer, but

your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship

that has grounded on rocks in the fog. You know now

you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix metaphors like that

in your waking life, but you're trapped in the dream anyway,

surrounded by Harleys revving their engines, skulls grinning,

knowing that deer will drown soon, knowing that you will fall

through the green water tangled in the limbs of the drowned

deer forever.

Mary Stebbins, 3-28-06 060328b

Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain

A highway runs through your dream. Harleys rumble,

Hell's angel Harleys, and big semis. A little platoon

of matching yellow cars flits through the semis, a flock of goldfinches,

a school of fish. You spot a deer standing at the edge

of the road, know it is about to die, to be thrown

up over the hood of a red car that will careen into the side

of an SUV and they will roll into the ditch at your feet.

Crumpled. You want to wave your arms and head off the deer,

but your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship

that has grounded on rocks in the fog. You know now

you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix those metaphors

in your waking life, but you're trapped in the dream anyway,

surrounded by Harleys revving their engines, skulls grinning,

knowing that deer will drown soon, knowing that you will fall

through the green water tangled in the limbs of the drowned

deer forever.

Mary Stebbins, 060329a, 060328b

Not a poem

Not a Poem: Patrick Lawler follows St. Francis Down the Freeway

Because it's a solar oven, I sit in the car with door open. I read a Patrick Lawler poem from his new book, Feeding the Fear. Then I read another. While I am reading, clouds of shadow pass over the page, roiling and twisting. Heat radiation. The sun bends through it reaching toward the words. They escape like smoke. I tumble into the hooting coos of mourning doves. This is not a poem, I say. This is mortality. We dream the world solid. I bang on it with my fist. See, I say to no one in particular. To Dante, to Persephone, to you, see? It's not a dream. It's too hard to be a dream. Too difficult. It's real. My hand hurts, and the banging echoes in my head. I wake up. It's morning. I brush my teeth, start frying eggs. Then I wake up again. I'm in this car and it is driving down the road by itself. No one is steering. The car goes faster and faster. Careens down a hill. But I'm okay. I'm reading this poem by one of the Patrick Lawlers, reading through shimmering shadows, through heat and dove song, and I know this is just a dream. Mary Stebbins, 060328

Not a Poem: Patrick Lawler follows St. Francis Down the Freeway

The car's a solar oven; I leave the door open. Inside, feet hanging out, I read a poem from Patrick Lawler's new book, Feeding the Fear. Then another. Clouds of shadow pass over the page as I read, twist and weave. Heat radiation. The sun bends through it reaching toward the words. They escape like smoke. I tumble into the coos of mourning doves. When I stand again, they gather on my arms and shoulders in pairs. This is not a poem, I say. This is mortality. We dream the world solid. I bang on it with my fist. See, I say to no one in particular. To Dante, to Persephone, to you, see? It's not a dream. It's too hard to be a dream. Too difficult. Too real. The thumping hurts my hand and echoes in my head. I wake up. It's morning. I brush my teeth, start frying eggs. Then I wake up again. I'm in this car and it is driving down the road by itself. It goes faster and faster. Careens down a hill. In most dreams, I'd be terrified, but I'm okay. I'm reading this poem by one of the Patrick Lawlers, reading through shimmering shadows, through heat and dove song, and I'm safe because I know this is just a dream. Mary Stebbins, 060328b

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary

Gorilla Boy

Gorilla Boy, part I

Georgie thought his father had lost his mind when he came home from work one day and announced that he'd signed Georgie up to take piano lessons from a gorilla. But no, his father was serious. Georgie had to go the zoo every day. His parents bought him a membership pass and he took the cross-town bus. His parents had never let him ride the bus alone before, but now he was not only riding the bus alone—hello?—but taking lessons from a gorilla. The gorilla, Elsie, had a special talent with the piano and loved children. keithy: did he have a Zoo key? Her own gorilla baby had been still born and she hadn't liked the suitor they brought her to try again. She had picked up the piano and beaned him with it and he had been unconscious for days and they had had to buy a new piano

Elsie had several other students before Georgie, but she took a particular liking to Georgie and would grab him and cradle him to her breast in a huge gorilla hug and shower him with big, wet gorilla kisses. The first time Georgie was terribly frightened and thought she was killing him and screamed bloody murder but the more he screamed the harder she squeezed so he started singing Papageno from Moozart's Magic Flute. He had no idea why that particular song had popped into his head, maybe because his dumb parents played it too much and maybe because his breathing sounded like that when she squeezed him: papa papa papa papa Papageno. Elsie immediately put him down and picked up the piano and set it down beside him and began playing Papageno on the piano. Georgie was sorry he'd started that because Papageno was hard to learn, but she wouldn't let it go. She showed him over and over how to curl is fingers and which keys to hit in which order. She was very strict about the hand curling business and if he let his fingers straighten she would take them and curl them again and make him start over at the beginning which really was annoying especially at first because he kept forgetting and relaxing his hands. Elsie sat beside him on the piano and sometimes played along with him. she tapped her foot to keep time or pounded one of her hands hard on the top of the piano. She kept grinning and showing her teeth when she was happy with him, and that was scary because she had big sharp teeth. If he concentrated hard and remembered to keep his fingers curled and which notes to play and not to speed up while he played, she gave him a big hug and a banana at the end of the lesson. The lessons were supposed to be a half hour long, but she often kept him over and then he had to run to catch the bus back home. There was usually another kid waiting for a lesson. He was a teenager with scraggly blond hair and a little bit of bears whose arms and legs seemed too long for him. He never seemed to know what to do with them. He ept looking at his watch whenever Elsie kept Georgie extra. Georgie would point at the kid, but Elsie ignored him and k Sometimes, Georgie could hear them and got really upset. But mostly, he had to concentrate too hard paying attention to Elsie. She didn't talk at all, she just showed him what to do, and it took extra attention to learn that way. One day, Georgie's class went to the zoo, and when they got to Elsie's cage and she saw Georgie standing outside, she began hooting and hollering and grabbed the bars and shook them. She wanted Georgie to come in, he knew that, but everyone thought she was fierce and scary. Which she was, because she was getting upset that he wasn't coming in for a hug. The zookeeper opened the door and Elsie came charging out and all the other kids and the teacher ran screaming away, but Elsie only had eyes for Georgie. She picked him up, hugged him ad squeezed him and kissed him and carried him back into her cage. She hugged him again and set him down at the piano. Georgie hadn't told his friends about Elsie, it was all too weird. But when he started playing the piano, they all gathered around and listened. Without realizing it, he had gotten quite good and everyone was really impressed. The teachertook pictures and posted them at school and on the internet and videos of the gorilla hauling him into her cage were circulating. Everyone started calling him Georgie the gorilla boy, and that wasn't really who Georgie wanted to be.

A Sudden Change of Seasons

A Sudden Change of Seasons


My father disappears
in stacks at a crowded bookstore.
The aisles echo,

now oddly empty.
Calling his name,
searching in ancient

Greek and Latin, in Shakespeare
and George Bernard Shaw,
my mother and I bump

into each other
It is later
than we thought.

We missed
the downtown bus.
Eat lunch and wait

in the sun.
Between planters of petunias and golden
honey locusts, we watch

for my father.
I think I see him,
an anonymous man

in a brown felt hat
and trench coat flapping
headed our way,

books tied in twine
and brown paper. The city bus
blocks him from sight, won’t stop

when I try to flag it down. When it is gone
without us, my father is gone
again, too.

I think he’s vanished
into the city until I spot him
sledding

with a group of children,
running up the snowy hill
with an air mattress.

He turns, waves once,
and continues on
without us.





Mary Stebbins
060318 this version (see earlier)

A Sudden Change of Seasons

A Sudden Change of Seasons


My father disappears
in stacks at a crowded bookstore.
The aisles echo,

now oddly empty.
Calling his name,
searching in ancient

Greek and Latin, in Shakespeare
and George Bernard Shaw,
my mother and I bump

into each other
It is later
than we thought.

We missed
the downtown bus.
Eat lunch and wait

in the sun.
Between planters of petunias and golden
honey locusts, we watch

for my father.
I think I see him,
an anonymous man

in a brown felt hat
and trench coat flapping
headed our way,

books tied in twine
and brown paper. The city bus
blocks him from sight, won’t stop

when I try to flag it down. When it is gone
without us, my father is gone
again, too.

I think he’s vanished
into the city until I spot him
sledding

with a group of children,
running up the snowy hill
with an air mattress.

He turns, waves once,
and continues on
without us.





Mary Stebbins
060318 this version (see earlier)

A Sudden Change of Seasons

A Sudden Change of Seasons


My father disappears
in stacks at a crowded bookstore.
The aisles echo,

now oddly empty.
Calling his name,
searching in ancient

Greek and Latin, in Shakespeare
and George Bernard Shaw,
my mother and I bump

into each other
It is later
than we thought.

We missed
the downtown bus.
Eat lunch and wait

in the sun.
Between planters of petunias and golden
honey locusts, we watch

for my father.
I think I see him,
an anonymous man

in a brown felt hat
and trench coat flapping
headed our way,

books tied in twine
and brown paper. The city bus
blocks him from sight, won’t stop

when I try to flag it down. When it is gone
without us, my father is gone
again, too.

I think he’s vanished
into the city until I spot him
sledding

with a group of children,
running up the snowy hill
with an air mattress.

He turns, waves once,
and continues on
without us.





Mary Stebbins
060318 this version (see earlier)