Unreal/Poemeleon

"Holy wow, Batman! That's unreal!"

"No, Robin, that's quite real. It's Psychotria elata, also known as Hooker's Lips, or Hot Lips."

"I wonder if Poison Ivy would look good in that shade? Is it toxic, like her kiss?"

"No, Robin, but it doesn't look that luscious for long. Soon those lips will fill with what looks like already-been-chewed food--"

"Like when I burp, and I vomit a little in my mouth?"

"Thank you for that visceral image, Robin.  ...That turns out to be a further blossoming, of new leaves."

"Holy Hot Lips, Batman. I just Googled it and found more photos on Amusing Planet."

"And I just Googled images of Poison Ivy, but 1) they are copyrighted and 2) she's way too sexy for you, Robin."

"Wait!? Doesn't the woman who writes this blog sometimes use Psychotria elata as her profile picture at Facebook?

"Yes, Robin, but that doesn't make her psycho."

"Holy Cannoli, Batman! She's written a poem with you and the Scarecrow in it, from when you were in Batman: The Animated Series."

"Ah, yes, Robin. Those were the years when her son's constant attire was his Batman jammies, which came with a little cape, Velcroed on at the shoulders. And cowboy boots, finally procured at Sears. The closest thing she could find to Batman boots. Where exactly is this poem?"

"In the Unreal issue of Poemeleon. It's called 'Real Life (in Nervous Font).' There are dirigibles in it, Batman, and a numerical code."

"Hmm, maybe she is psycho."

"And somebody named Samarra Samarra."

"As in 'An Appointment in Samarra'?"

"I don't know, Batman. I'll Google it."

"Just a minute, Robin. Is that a Sicilian cannolo lightly sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, with ricotta filling and dark chocolate squares, generously provided by Paolo Piscolla?"

"Holy bat*&^%, Batman! An appointment in Samarra is an appointment with death, and/or cosmic irony. Or  it might be a date with a dog in central Illinois."

"Good to know, Robin, good to know."

Sweet/Escape

I have a poem up in the new issue of Sweet: A Literary Confection. Take a look at the snowy cover and the whole issue--so many interesting connections. My poem, "A Man's World," has several sweets in it, but I love that writer Amy Monticello calls it a "quiet, but razor-edged poem." (So be careful.) Meanwhile, on this Hump of the Week that is also a Random Coinciday, you can read about Scott Klavan at Escape Into Life, linking to his theatre reviews, an extended bio at Heartland Theatre Company, and guidelines for a one-act play competition for Midwest writers, deadline May 1. The theme is Escape! And a buzzfeed quiz informs me that my soulmate is Anton Chekhov, with whom I should drink champagne and think about the meaning of life. Thanks to Wikipedia for the brut cork.

Apple & Oranges

More citrus fruit, plus an incomparable apple, from Jonathan Koch. More sunshine in central Illinois, and we needed it.

I'm feeling the same ongoing uncertainty in my personal life side by side with the radical uncertainty in life in general...which sometimes makes me want to pull a dishcloth over my head.

But most of the time, I just sit there on the edge, a fat apple.

Speaking of fruit, I've reviewed A House of Many Windows, by Donna Vorreyer, for Prick of the Spindle, in my Poetry Cheerleader column. Yes, this was the only way I was ever going to be a cheerleader, thanks to my [lack of a] tiger jump.

One of her poems has the line "Care for the container and the fruit will not bruise" which may be true about fruit baskets but not always true metaphorically, poignantly pertinent in the book.

Vorreyer has a chapbook called Womb/Seed/Fruit that I wrote about here, in my whimsical way, and another about a pioneer wife, also reviewed in Prick of the Spindle. She's a lovely poet.

Winter Lemon

Here is a new painting by one of my favorite painters, Jonathan Koch: Winter Lemon.

Background music: "Birthday" by The Beatles.

You say it's your birthday.
It's my birthday, too, yeah.

It is my birthday, and I am glad to have been born. The ice is melting into winter lemonade all around me. I hear the polar vortex is returning, but it don't worry me, it don't worry me...(another song, from Nashville, sung by Barbara Harris.) You may say that I ain't free, but I would guess that I probably am, in some deep, important ways.

I've been pondering some deep, important things while 1) re-reading short stories by Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore (wise, compassionate, hilarious, sad) and 2) continuing to read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin tells us that Lincoln went to the theatre a lot, finding it a marvelous stress release during the Civil War. Of course, that last visit to the theatre was fatal, but in the meantime he found joy! This makes me feel OK about my love of movies!

And in the amazing story "Free Radicals," by Alice Munro, she gives us a character who loves to read and to re-read, especially the classics. (I re-read, too, and re-watch movies, to see what I learn this time around. The Bruce Willis character utters something about re-interpretation of movies in Twelve Monkeys, I might add, having just re-watched and re-interpreted that. I have a happier take on the ending now.)  Back to Munro:

She would pick one up [a classic], thinking that she would just read that special bit--and find herself unable to stop until the whole thing was redigested. She read modern fiction too. Always fiction. She hated to hear the word "escape" used about fiction. She might have argued, not just playfully, that it was real life that was the escape. But this was too important to argue about.

I understand this and connect to it. In "real life," so many people wear masks and costumes, don't they? They imitate conventions, they celebrate "re-inventing yourself," etc. In fiction, people are what they are and quietly or dramatically deal with their problems, and authors create a context in which we learn more about the "why" and the "how" of their lives and struggles. Fiction broadens and deepens my compassion for the people around me in real life, while the behaviors of people in real life don't reveal much of their real life to me. A paradox. An irony.

I was recently reminded that Elbert Hubbard was the one who said the lemon/lemonade thing, in an obituary for an actor. Others used and varied it afterward. Hubbard was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and raised in Hudson, up the road, the town of my rural address growing up. One of my college professors descended from Hubbard, and I handled some of his Roycroft books during my stint in a used book store. I do love the random...and connecting the random dots into a constellation. Maybe I'll call it Lemon Tree.

New background music: "Lemon Tree" by Peter, Paul, and Mary

Still Happy

On Blue Monday in the blog, I needed to get happy, and, thanks to some sunshine and Pink Martini, I am still happy. Also, Pink Martini notwithstanding, yesterday was National Drink Wine Day, so I did not have a pink martini, nor any other kind of martini. (But Diane Keaton did, with French music in the background, in Something's Got to Give, which I watched again in order to stay happy. Once again, I adored the crying-laughing-writing montage in that fun movie.)

Anyhoo, what I meant to say was 1) you can make your own collage at the Pink Martini website and 2) I love the song "Je ne t'aime plus (I don't love you anymore)," sung by China Forbes and Philippe Katerine and written by them over several years--1997-2013. They sing in French, but the translated lyrics include such romantic lines as "And I think that you are fat / And I know that you are bald / And I think that I don't love you anymore." Don't worry, as 1) there's a context: "I am angry with you tonight / Because you told me that I belong to you" and 2) like Something's Got to Give, it's got a happy ending.

But, speaking of hair, please go read "Girls with Moustaches" and "'I Wish My Dad Had Hair'" and other poems by Yvonne Zipter, up today at Escape Into Life, with fabulous art, some of which you also see here, by Sean Mahan. Zipter's poems are sweet and funny but also elegiac, and today calls for an elegy. Our community has lost another theatre person, and a masterful singer, Phil Shaw. There is sadness in town today, and fond memories. And fading sunshine.

Here's an Origami Girl.

Now go make your own collage.

And/or arrange buttons into a beautiful flower.

And stay happy.