Hi, 2023! + "O Faded Elegant World" + MacQueen's Quinterly

These kids predate me, I suspect, but still, happy 

and goofy kids is what kindergarten is about. 

 

I started the year with a long walk, longer than expected, on the sidewalks of musty New York, first to a bar where I discovered an event had been canceled then across town to a building complex that demands I walk an extra ten blocks in the wrong direction before it will allow me into its time-honored walls. Every time. There, people I know, all warm smiles, warm hugs.  And in-between the Lower East Side and the evasive building down some from the Whitney Museum I ran into a friend. And that was unexpected - insofar as, what! you? yay! - and delightful. An unexpected, impromptu, generous meet-up. Somehow helped me clear a bit of the baggage I was hauling from 2022. 

After seeing some warm acquaintances, and friends, on top of two-and-a-half hours of walking on sidewalks, I caught a bus, but only part way. It gets complicated. Once home I popped into bed, fully clothed, fell asleep. Woke. Did some things people do when awake, such as removing a sports bra, reading a poem, watching a t.v. show I knew would lull me back to sleep.

So no booze, no big parties. I like booze and I like big parties. Another time. Soon!

One more event. When I woke for the small portion of time I saw that new work of mine had been published. A Flash autobiographical essay* of mine was online. "O Faded Elegant World" in MacQueen's Quinterly. That surely wins the prize for a journal name. It mixes the hip and the quaint. My mini-essay is personal history as recalled by the personal historian who was seven? six? when the events took place. So. Grain of sand. Definitely with a toss of salt over your left shoulder. And truth.

Here's to 2023! Peace and sanity, please. 

*500 words or less, in this case

A Friend of Mine Has Disappeared #poem (she was at a #retreat / I nailed it)

spiral or tendril?

A Friend of Mine Has Disappeared

To a spiritual retreat,

I am thinking,

the sort wherein

orchestral rustling

of leaves accompany

spiritual exercise.

Wherein spirals and tendrils,

the inner ear's carpet,

unfurl as royal messengers

bear baskets overflowing

sweetmeats and jewels

and, remember, I know 

her, mystique.

A truck's bullhorn blast

on Third Avenue, 2 a.m.

That's mystique, too.

I suspect she is at a writers'

retreat and didn't say.

She knew I'd be jealous.

Oh, Universe, embrace me

as I weep my petty tears.

Wherever she is, allow

my friend settle into 

knowing as You allow

my wretched unknowing.

Thanks to Pure Slush for including this poem in their anthology on friendship. There's a story here, much of which is set in my imagination. I hadn't heard anything from my friend A., who lived nearby. She wasn't at a spiritual retreat, it turns out, but she was at an artist colony and also in the midst of 'issues'. So, this and that, a call-for-work from the Australian press Pure Slush . . .

When a Friend Is Jealous of a Friend

Does everyone want to write?

I connected with an acquaintance from way back and was gratified to discover more commonality between us now, so many years after college (she was a year ahead).

She'd always had money--and although to me, middle class comfort seems like "money," she had more money than middle class students and still does. She'd also raised two aware and charming sons, now in their twenties, and devoted much time to charitable activities and traveling. And lived in one of the country's coveted beautiful spots.

While I might be inclined to feel a little silly by comparison, having lived my outsider life--no money, no kids--I didn't. For one, I know I've lived the life I was meant to, not so much in the sense of there being a Divine plan (there is, but it's misunderstood; no divinity planned for abomination to women and children; for war or oil spills) as the odd beauty of everything making sense as I look back.

So, the point of this posting? Is that I e-mailed my friend of many possessions, a beautiful home, world-traveling, children, good works, and she responded, "I envy you"--in relation to my writing poetry and having published a book.

She'd even read the book (The Future Is Happy) twice.

I don't know what to say or think. Or feel. Envy, like the other deadlies is both a waste of time and an inevitability insofar as, well, we're human. And I'm not using her honest admission as a springboard for thoughts about Sarah Sarai as a wonder. It's not about that.

It occurs to me I could follow up and ask if she writes, or what she meant, although I worry that's an indelicate probe into sensitivities. That one statement--of a moment--doesn't define my friend or our friendship. It was said (written); and I continue to consider its impact, relevance, meaning, compliment, implicit anger, recognition.

Though I do wonder if more people want to write than want to paint, make music, dance . . . Please feel free to comment here or contact me otherwise if you have any thoughts on that.

Peace and art to all.

Painting by Al Zahraa Sulaiman.

Poem: European Holy Minimalism

Ah, there’s no friends like the old friends, she said, when all is said and done, no friends that a body can trust.
James Joyce, ‘The Sisters,’ Dubliners

The ocean’s quite clear
and swimable to all shores
we maidens hope to wash
up on

like Ulysses lured by great sex
and new tunes. How pretty to roll
on wet sand firm, for a spell
entrapped.

Ulee was restive; us too.
No Homer blowing wind
in our sails and still we
wander

plotting maps
to wealth and love, claiming talks
with God alter physics
of class

inclination and destiny
and maybe they do and maybe
they will, but think of Ulee’s
many-

callused peds treading
towards Ithaca, ‘Penelope Penelope,’
for ten years after
the war

where Patroclus
got pierced. A long time
to grieve for a friend, ten years?
It’s not.

But odyssey-enough our goals: Baja
for ten days, a new couch, a mate
advanced as our years. The troubles
with banks

bodies demons submerge
and could drown us Europeans
minimalized on shores American
where we

self-start -heal -help,
forgetting we’re holy which
we are. Water nymphs stow our
lately

soggy selves. Linens starched
by the girl and tea cups greet the old friends
not lonelier than anyone longing
for tales

of washed-up heroines tricked
but canny and artists
of the quick-change who
triumph.



From: The Future Is Happy
http://www.amazon.com/Future-Happy-Sarah-Sarai/dp/1935402358

Quick Note: the word conveys personality

I've been using Facebook for a year and a half and it has increased my sense of community immeasurably. Indeed, all of cyberworld has done for me what my time in academia couldn't, and as a matter of fact refused to do--given me good friendships in writing.

I don't mean to give the impression these new friendships are my first such friendships but they are reinvigorating. I joined a poetics listserv first and then dug into Myspace. Both seemed such nervy actions to me, at the time. I remember the moment I decided to use my first and last name on Myspace. I held my breath and clicked the mouse so that all the world could access "Sarah Sarai."

I was no longer hidden or hiding. I quoted a phrase from an acceptance letter, "cute and profound...and different" Blackbox, which I thought accurate enough in describing me and my writing. I set up links, tried to remember the HTML I'd had to learn when I was a Web producer (really, an editor).

The odd thing is that through the listserv, less so with Myspace, I learned of poets who lived in New York City but travelled in different, uh, stanzas than I did. I had quit writing poetry (long story) and took it up or it took me up about five years ago, and so I hardly knew anyone. No book. I was no one.

My letter of introduction was my cyber contributions, comments I shared on the listserv and my Myspace presentation. Then came Facebook, with its little photos and, in its glory days, room to romp, to interact in an approximation of real time by way of comments.

I've now met enough people through Facebook--in the flesh--to know I can trust my instincts. People I find a delight on Facebook are the same in life. I'm not saying there isn't a need to reckon with the flesh when we meet--to assimilate our emotions, our bodies, our intensities. Certainly anyone meeting me in person has to realize I'm more than clever.

But it has worked out. New and real friends, shared interests (most of my friends on Facebook are poets, a few are fiction writers, the rest are true and dear friends), a match. I've learned more about long-time friends and about warm acquaintances through Facebook. Yes, you're right. It's a time suck.

But also verification that the little bits we write about ourselves, about politics, about poetry, family, our cats, movies, Gaza, Obama, poverty, life's insanity express who we are. The word can be trusted.