prejudice further.

"Think about a price", Michael Corleone said to Moe Green in

"The Godfather". Everyone, it seems, is someone else's loot. I had

a friend, Lisa lets call her, who rode the back of her bedroom slippers

into moccasin shaped flowers. She started her summer gardens

by slicing a single red potato into even halves that she stuck two crosswise

toothpicks into; the windowsill became her voodoo woodlands, the red potato

her variegated orchid. We sang together when the sprouts shown thru.

Birds would sit for hours staring, pecking at the glass. We all inhabit a world Virginia,

where our half moons are devoured by lesser black holes than ourselves. We've started to give names

to the stray cats that visit our back porch. I smell their pee in the orchids

I've realized were the purchase of someone else's charred paradise. They shot Moe Green

in the eye with his glasses on. We pretend to love the lesser vamps among us.

Reviews

[Corset]

Being one of the lesser vamps has its advantages it seems, no one expects you to walk on water. I was in Virginia once, beautiful place, grass is so green even in August, in Texas the grass is brown or dust by that time, unless you own a sprinkler, and even then if you water more than once a week you will be yard shamed by the gnomes. Jesus says you should love everyone Dana. If you think pee smelling orchids are bad, just wait till it burns the leaves and grass to a weltering stench, everything is bigger in Texas, ah but I do so love to read you, love red potatoes too, I tried the upside down tomatoes once, muy feo.

[h d e rushin]

I've never been to Texas but I had a friend who lived in Houston for a spell and left during the floods that "Harvey" brought. Perhaps the reference to "bigger" is what they mean....lol. Michigan, on the other hand is very green and very cold. We had snow yesterday. It shouldn't ever snow in May. So much for that theory...thanks love....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

I was not cut for this world at all I am an irregular sized pair of boxer shorts languishing on the shelf of a closed Family dollar store Dana I exist in spite of myself and I spent a lot of time brandishing my cut in the face of would be purchasers. When the store is closed I dance about the perfectly sized undergarments and tell them how nice they are and secretly feeling pity for them for soon they will lay upon the crotches of the perfectly sized masses and I will still be me unsullied and irregular and soon some day I will get picked up in the dollar bin and made into a dress for a little girls doll and loved for what I am (and could be) and not for what I am not and couldn't ever:) this is brilliant as you Dana

[h d e rushin]

Exactly! Whitman toiled in the field hospitals of the Civil War then raced home to write poems. He was not underdone by the constant stream of death and dying men just as long as he could be close to their lives. No one's getting rich by writing poetry and no one will. But people look in prejudice at our unequal parts in an effort to uncover the two qualities it takes to write a poem in the first place. First, loyalty and Second, the lacking of judgment. You exist as a inhabitant of yourself my friend; a native in this pilgrimage of scribed duty. Thank you my friend for your continued support and your intellect....dana

[Robert Trakofler]

I love to read you Dana:) we will never be rich from our efforts, but in our efforts we are so very rich:)

[Lydia Shutter]

They pretended to be religious yet killed those who did not fit into their plan. The Godfather is much more than just a simple movie and your poetry, Dana, is always much more than a collection of words. In the midst of the message, you give us a simple potato and toothpicks starting a garden....great metaphor. I just adore peeling off the layers of meaning in your poetry. Lydi**

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dearest and stay safe.....dana

[Ken Simm.]

You have such a skill in wrapping words around concepts and describing the whole in deceptively simple language. You hit us first with the points that most of us can fathom and then take us further, much further developing what we thought we knew, about prejudice and gardening and classic films into what we should know when seen from the angle of one who does.
We pretend to love the lesser vamps line is a classic interpretation of this. Intelligence cubed.

[h d e rushin]

thank you Ken from across the ocean. I am always amazed by your intellect....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

we pretend to love the lesser vamps...but we are eaten by the system and it sucks us dry.
And we pretend to love everyone, but prejudice stops us in our tracks, even when we can't visualize the train coming to run over those cats who strayed too far from the porch.
do we just buy each other's affections?
Is love real or are there silent letters in that word that are only dollar signs.
and Moe said to Michael...."you don't buy me out, I buy you out" and then called him a wop, guinea...
I can smell the pee of those in such fear for their lives because they don't fit into society...or at least are made to believe that...scared to be more than stray cats.
j.

[h d e rushin]

yes. another "God Father" fan who understand the message in those iconic lines. Mario Puzo had us to believe that immigration was somehow a parallel contingency where the only thing you had to do was "speak" good English. Capola fleshed out a more modified interpretation between difference and real difference. Every time you watch that movie you see a different thing. Is love "real" Jacob in this time of crisis? Can we trust it? All great ideas my friend....thanks...dana

[redzone]

it's funny/ironic that 'The Godfather' was a metaphor for the system we live in and under and confine us to self indulgence and having those vamp's and lesser black holes shoot us between the eyes.... as I read your poem Dana, I couldn't help asking why do we live this way??? think of the good we can do with our half moons and potato slices....

Dana, your poetry is always filled with vision and imagination while hitting us hard with metaphorical reality...

one of my favorite scenes in the Godfather was the baptism of Michael's son, "do you renounce the devil" wham Moe is shot.... make as mockery of Michael's claim to want a 'legit business' but then there is nothing legitimate about america....

[h d e rushin]

I remember that part too Redzone. It functioned as the fabric of deceit. A priest sprinkles holy water on your sons head while men are being murdered in your name. What a constant contrast America is my friend....thanks for your kind remarks...dana

[Marie Anzalone]

No formal review, I just absolutely love this. I also start my gardens the same way- pieces of older potatoes, tomato innards, celery and onion bottoms, beet tops, avocado pits in water. How I long for the day when we compensate the unpaid real work that holds the world's heart together.

[h d e rushin]

first of all, happy new year. second, it's good to hear your voice again. Third, your brain and resolve is a necessary contingency when a world is spinning out of control. It's still cool here in Detroit. 50's mostly. I will plant a garden when the dirt is warmer in my yard. I miss you.....dana