être pour soi’s Neighborhood

on these days i have brilliant half thoughts.  the middle of a fairytale. a glorious one liner.
the pictures are in shutter delay and i lose imagery.
so i start reading, because the best way to ignite writing is through reading.
and it comes to me, through the glossy pages of a magazine or a glowing computer screen.
through the wrinkled paperback covered in coffee stains.
it comes to me.
the smell and sound.
the texture of words.

you said it slowly
complicated string quartets
warm words in icy breaths
when the smoke cleared it began
the thinking
the thinking

on my mind, on friday morning:

$400 shifts; fireworks and flames and burning romance; feeling lucky and excited, something is about to happen, i can taste it; medical nutrition therapy; HIV/AIDS; Mike Doughty, sweet poetry, Asbury Park and switching Friday for Monday; call that coworker and remind her; Steveo loves me - I have always loved him; best friends and 15 year dreams; his broken elbow resting on my bony hip; the only answer; 5 weeks left and 4 grand to go; ruined in restaurants; stolen kisses, in the back of a busy kitchen; i'll do anything but listen; the button dress, an occasion to wear it again; baby fat; calling the appraiser, my father, the newlyweds; contacting the recruiter; starting the peace corps process; transferring journal thoughts to computer screens; dancing; washing, drying, ironing; research papers; journal articles; two heads on one pillow; laughing at 3am; drug tests; tremendous brunettes; getting lost in an album; getting found at the scene; hot showers and sinus infections; headaches and the pills i don't take; Reds are overwhelming, Slims are too light; my ipod shit the bed, again; budgets and savings and concert tickets; the national in the park - virgin concerts, summer venues;  i like my sugar with coffee and cream; new tattoos and old memories; owls in cars and trees on bodies; that it is 12:15
and i need to accomplish something....

June 20, 2008
By Ginny Smith
philly.com

Broomall gardener Carol Lim used to be known for her cyclamen, but these days it's Clematis viorna. She pronounces it CLEM-a-tis, but lots of folks, especially in this country, say cle-MAT-is.

(Theoretically, both are acceptable, but if you want to impress your friends, the former rules.)

Viornas are easy. Unlike big hybrid clematis, they don't have tricky pruning schedules. They die back in winter.

"You just have to remember where you planted them," says Edith Malek, president of the 320-member American Clematis Society, who grows about 200 clematis of all kinds in her garden in Irvine, Calif.

"First, you fall in love with the big saucer shapes. That's how the love affair with clematis starts," she explains. "Then, when you start finding out about the viornas, you realize they bloom more and you get more out of them. That's pretty nifty."

Malek recommends crispa for its beauty - "looks like a little marshmallow, so darling," she says - and pitcherii for vines that shoot 20 feet a season. These and other native viornas are naturally tough, suffering none of the wilt that plagues hybrids.

"They're so cool," Malek says.

Finding them is difficult, though. Lim's Web site (http://www.clematisviorna.info/) lists a handful of plant sources, including Brushwood Nursery in Unionville. For seeds, she uses seed exchanges through organizations like the North American Rock Garden Society (http://www.nargs.org/).

Plants should go in the ground in sun or part shade, with three inches of stem covered. Lim says this will result in more buds.

She puts compost in the hole and keeps it mulched, not so much to cool the roots as to retain moisture. She also applies a slow-release fertilizer and aged horse manure maybe once a year.

If you want your clematis to mingle, run thin wires up into a tree to guide the vine. You can also attach screw eyes into stone or place a grid against a building.

"You don't want to see mesh wire. You want it to be invisible," Lim says.

After all that, be mindful of chipmunks and deer - both like clematis. But viorna that's eaten or weed-whacked to the ground has been known to bounce back.

Where can you go to see these "American bells"? They're in only four public gardens in the United States, three of which are in our area:

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve in New Hope, http://www.bhwp.org/ or 215-862-2924.

Chanticleer in Wayne, http://www.chanticleergarden.org/ or 610-687-4163.

Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College: http://www.scottarboretum.org/ or 610-328-8025.

You can also see them at Mount Cuba Center outside Wilmington; information at http://www.mtcubacenter.org/ or 302-239-4244. Admission by reservation only.

- Virginia A. Smith 

    This week is a jaw crusher.  A punch with a 80 pound rock named Pele that soldiers carry up a mountain in Iraq-- some form of military hazing.  Or desert boredom.  With internal bleeding, deafness in one ear, and a cracked rib, I think I know where this started. 

    I had this conversation with TOW about a party I went to.  It is the same story I could tell after any given party, really, with minor variation.  At this particular party I am drinking 151, ala peak alcoholism. 
Me: I went to this hulking(just saw that tonight) party with a cheap bar and a dj
Me: and I was just stumbling around into girls telling them I am emotionally vacant, swigging and instructing people to put their cigarettes out within a two foot radius of me-- I'm like a gas pump, guys.
TOW: What the fuck? Were you drinking the 151?

    I remember my friend Graham screaming at his phone, telling a mutual friend that we were at some HUUUGE PARTY!  I arrogantly shake my head, lay an open palm on his shoulder and say, "Stick with me, and this is every night."  So proud of my provincial party planet.  My ears pulse, pressure building.  My cracked rib from another drunken night, it's there, wrapped tightly and bound with 151/Budweiser cocktail.  Muted from notice.

    What TW would say now.  She would scoff at me for getting sick, for being this light, this unhealthy.  This desperate.  TOW goes through the same thing-- unable to achieve any sort of honesty with the man.  The other man is just a prairie vole.  I hear about prairie voles.  God, how some of us share this characteristic.  They're monogamous.  When other vole people aren't looking, they're fucking whoever they want.  Only in a social setting are those little vole mothers raising their kids with their prestigious computer science alpha voles. 

For caste when eyes present. 
For pleasure when eyes absent.

And here I am, doing the opposite, wanting that private life back. 

    Here I am, hacking up hard chunks of mucus with streaks of blood.  Throwing up bile or coagulated blood in the sink at sunset.  The summer sound-- the secada--crescendos with the dimming.  All things become blue.   
    I dream people in my bed.  Awake, I sleep. Asleep, I wake.  I toss and turn.  I burn, I freeze.  Uncomfortable in delusional conversations with the dead or fictional.  Zombies in my bed and spiders on my wall-- neither present when I return speech or reel back the lids.

    Drinking has ruined my bank account and my body these past two months, while you were off committing so soon and she was thinking of me.  I made rent with 5 dollars to spare(not counting savings, because in my mind that account is untouchable).  And this morning.  The big surprise.  The big letdown.  I go to Patient First because my doctor's office is closed for the holiday.   I do the insurance bullshit and step onto a scale.  Beep, beep, beep.  Three LCD lines do 'the wave' where I expect numbers. One final beep.  Electronic scales don't lie.  Two years ago, I weighed 185.  This past semester in school-- 175.  Now, with my current lifestyle, I weigh I mere one-hundred sixty-three pounds.  Maybe it's time to start writing more of that life, and live a little less of it.

her fingers smelled of acetone
her hem held by safety pins
she pulled wire from a tangled mess
to scratch a thought in the bar surface
she bent three times in ten minutes
crouched close to dead cigarettes
strapped her foot in the leather noose
of vintage stilettos
worn and weathered
heels uneven from leaning on the outside
broken soles on sticky tile
she gives up and gives in
finds a way to stay centered
and slip out of them
heals broken souls
by bruising the ground
bare skin

overwhelmed.

underqualified.

the atlantic swells behind steel gray eyes.

said some thoughts angry.

cried some prayers sweet.

soleil, won't you sing to me?

and dry the gray skies blue.

anxiety knots dread

in my tangled bed mess

if these thoughts cease, i'll be sleeping alone again

if i can quiet the voice in my head,

i'll find dewy dreams, wet

spent a night with my momma. and some friends. in a few seaside bars, on the jersey shore.
women. powerful together. scared and independent.
old souls.
i'm an old soul.

felt brave and honest. accomplished. completed that scholarship essay of dreams. explained it all again - the vision, with imagery. played the thesaurus on repeat.  world health and starving scenes. why i deserved this money.

drove to terre's. sat by the pool with my vodka and cranberry. watched baby girls perform fashion shows and dance routines. laughed. laughed. remembered what it was like in the third grade. was congratulated on being brave. i felt it - bravery. mom was knee deep in rum drinks and looking for a party. trying to be bad (judgments i don't make) and caity cait came through, as she will always do. so we left the pool, drove a destiny. the road is long and winding, but i control the machine.

arrived at bar number 1: my mom, her friend, caity cait, me, some random stranglers... you know how it works. dirty goose, momma's pick, mine up, she likes rocks, we both hate olives. passed them to the left, to the only lady who likes green. laughed. talked. laughed. we were laughing.

momma coerced us through. thought i was cool till mom had later plans then me. went to bar number 2 to see a band. forgot i found music in the womb. remembered what it was like: dylan, stones, black 47. danced, with myself at 52. danced. complimented the microphone man. he liked my flower hair - i liked the bass line. i'm a sucker for bass and a harmonica. dylan.

did some bathroom runs. did some cigarette bums. drove a car load home and convinced the cop that littering was no good. spoke about wrecking weddings. sang some funky ceili. cried for james connolly. wept for michael collins.  my mom, my kc.

from johnny boy
who first let me read his poetry
then let me listen to his crying guitar
years later, he sends me sad songs and soft words
xoxoxo

and thats how the world will end...

the universe is shaped exactly like the earth,
if you go straight long enough
you'll end up where you were