Had an interesting evening with the new guy at work. I was only supposed to spot him. I was going to study. But it didn't work out that way. He is very conversational. No possibility of studying but at least the topic range was interesting! Shamanism (He has been to the Amazon to see a shaman) mythology, Altlantis, All sorts of stuff. It was fun. But i sure didn't get much studying done.

I moved the dogs I had scheduled for Thursday to tomorrow. There's too much to do! And I need to find my camera and some cables and stuff.

My English teacher handed back some writing today and on the sonnet (criteria was that it be 14 lines with no regular rhyme scheme or meter inspired by a food that has a strong emotional association or memory. The fifth line should contain a metaphor, the 8th line should name a color, The closing couple should have a slant rhyme. The poem should also contain a person's name and name a part of the body) Ok...I struggled with this. A thousand things should have come to mind but really only one did. I wrote my "sonnet" in about 10 minutes before class. She wrote that she thinks I should submit it somewhere. Made me laugh. It was a true story in my grandma's kitchen (now mine. Much cleaner when it was hers. Still....)

Greeting

Kibbutzing in the kitchen, preparing for Buddy

the blinky boy, we peered into the fridge, found

olive casserole. That would do. The right mix

of comfort and chic. Pulling it out you

dropped it on the floor, olives staring up- 

black accusing eyes. We gaped. There was

nothing else to offer him, come all the way

from Wyoming. Your cheeks red as the strewn

tomatoes, you scooped the mess onto a plate,

then to a pan, and began warming it.

“Not a word,” you hissed,” He’ll never know.”

My eyes were big, I startled at the knock.

“Come on in Bud, I baked some bread, the casserole

is warm.” Secret family recipe

and my poem about the death of Ben. This was a persona poem with lots of criteria (that makes it awkward for me) For instance the persona had to recount a dream....

The Bill and Ben

I am the dream of men

who prize “cheap” and “efficient.”

Men who gather the goods of the world into their own

very private piles.

They mete out so much for an hour.

The smallest number sufficing for subsistence.

Their glutted stores confer permission not to see

the need of those whose sweat and deferred dreams

have built their empires.

I have never seen these men.

I am too low

-a dollar bill.

When I was fresh,

a humble, smiling woman

asked for five hundred of us from the bank.

Fan-folded and wired to a branch like palm fronds

we bloomed, green and hopeful,

her wedding gift to her daughter.

Fruit of months of her careful toil.

Once, I was a tip for pie and coffee.

The waitress gathered me gladly

she later spent me

to slip into a movie’s digitized dream.

I was payment to a child,

for a hundred dandelions plucked from the lawn.

That price has not changed in a generation.

I poked from the clown card

on a four year old’s birthday.

His mother said she would keep me safe in her purse,

but she needed to buy food.

Now they’ll burn me.

I was in the pocket of a man who went mad.

He had dreams he could not achieve.

He couldn’t care for his Down Syndrome son.

Donning a wig, he robbed a bank-

took hostages and shot wildly at pursuing police.

Bullets riddled him and he died.

I am stained with the red ink of his life.

You can’t unsee it, so fire awaits me.

Before I burn to ash I have a dream.

I’m a green leaf on a tree

under the natural sun.

Unowned and free.

 I may share more writings from this class. Haven't decided. Right now I should go to bed