poem: Good Medicine

your home, my home, everyone's home

 

 

What this place needs is more observations of the intimate life of fire ants

and diving water beetles. More blackburnian warblers singing in early

spring maple themed orgiastic festivals, more canonizing of non-Catholic living

saints, more tall tales and giants to slay and baobab trees to hang the slain

carcasses from. More solo trips across Jupiter's moon's surface in search

of the one that left you high and dry with a raging hardon and nowhere to

turn when July's humidity reached its breaking point. more humilty. More

seven deadly sins. Especially Greed. But especially Lust. Perhaps more lust

than greed, even- your grandma recounting her nocturnal adventures with

Burt Reynolds in the French Riviera; how you were certain that girl in 7th

grade was your soul mate and you chased her into magical realms only

to come face to face with a real living and breathing goddess and discovered

that you are really meant to be a god not a suburbanite not a garden gnome.

 

 

This place would benefit from more biography of the haphazardly insane,

trivia of the ones who peer into humanity from the world's great stages,

tributes to driving grating infuriating perfect obsession; mockery of the vast

mediocrity of twaddle and schlock and sophomorically earnest but unearned

unlived untested Love of Him, all wrapped like straight jackets around our

most precocious and bright youngsters' burgeoning identities. This place needs a

regimen of one-eyed Swedish swashbucklers armed with rapiers and foreign

accents to immediately muster with wit and derring-do against the threat of

invasion by pestilent hordes of vampires and werewolves and Hallmark stores.

More dear God in heaven who the Hell is boiling pickled cabbage in here AGAIN?

 

 

This place needs a kiddie table where everyone starts out and a select few

graduate to the big person's table where they had better damn well mind their

manners knowing they can be kicked back for any measurable amount of inane

sycophantery or any of 18 identifiable offenses styled in nincompoopery, and

that table would totally rock if it were presided over by a heavy handed matriarch

wearing owl glasses and purple robes and a big old flopping high-faluting fire-engine

red honking hat. Definitely needs more gossip from a backwoods Pennsylvania

front porch neighborhood watch brigade complete with a cooler of ice cold Pabst

a fan and a porch swing. This place needs more mockingbirds serenading day

into her predictable close and welcoming nightfall into his unpredictable strains

of crepuscular space where foxes' wails echo like sirens of old in evening's soft flame.

 

 

This place needs more decorated war heroes laughing about getting thwarted by

little brothers in their attempts to lose their virginity in hay barns and basement

couches. This place needs to step aside in wonder and let its princesses take the

hand of her fellow prince, and waltz in awe-filled recognition even if it is just for

one round, one night, or one season's tune, remembering that sometimes make-

believe is for grown-ups as much as for star-crossed adolescents, and magic is magic

and we should never be afraid of letting it in, we should be afraid of letting it slip

out unnoticed before the spell's casting could be realized. Virtual affairs made real

and real ones trivialized by sleight of hand and smoke screens while lovers carouse

on hot savannah afternoons with grapes and honey and pacifiers. More celebrating

out loud when a wanted baby is made, no matter what the circumstances; more

compassion when failure of technology or boundaries or human judgment creates

one that is not. This place needs more kvetching over real and imagined ailments

by stodgy old curmudgeons or just my own Aunt Marilyn to sit in pronouncement for

a day. This place needs more veterans' spouses and families telling their story- on

both sides. More Andy Warhol sharing an ice cream with Moby on second floor balconies

while the bellhops scramble to drain the dishwater in time. For what? We forgot.

 

 

We wait for John Wayne to admit that none of it was real, you all just wanted it to

be. For Armenia to say yes it was real and there to be a collective moment of world

silence. For our little girls to safely say, daddy, I want to study the lives of fire ants

and blackburnian warblers and make the world's best ice cream and meet my princess

and dance under the moon with her. This place needs to recognize that it by the grace

of our charlatans and broken ones and misfits and and honest madmen and watercolor

artists that we grow and thrive and break out of mediocrity. This place should open

reserves for kung-fu pandas and trial lawyers and men wounded forever by the One

who never loved them enough; for the skittish and the bold, the observant and the

always-abandonded. Children need to pet dragons and be allowed in sick-rooms and

know they are never alone in this deception of a life. We need to spend brooding time

walking across moors in search of the life-giving blue flowered hallucinatory plants

that awaken us to the Prophet's Madmen. This place needs more jazz dives and kids

playing in the spray of fire hydrants and whale song researchers and truth commissions

and divine recipes whipped up by foul-mouthed Brooklyn working class Italian babes

demanding to know what your fookin' problem is. A handsome Latino man showing up

at the door at 4 am with a rose between his teeth. An infinite dose of authenticity.

 

This place needs a whopping share of what the Cree called, simply, Good Medicine.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

today, for: Chris, Christian, Vesa, Jeff, Lynne, Emily, Jorge, Chris, Ken, Emma, dana, Kylan, Craig, Jill, Patrick, Marc, Mary, CJ, Peter, Phibby, Mark, Rick, Linda, Christy, Yos, Mike, Shmoke, and Ed.

tomorrow, there will be probably be more. ;-)

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

Marie, I'm not even at the kiddie table. Perhaps I'm in the back room, the basement or that crawlspace in the attic. I've not been truly read here since 2007 - but I consider myself a fixture. Perhaps I am roaches in the wall....I actually have UNREAD posts here. But that is my lamentation and maybe it doesn't even belong in a review.
There are real writers here - I know a few and I seek them out. I concur we need more. I love the way the thoughts just spill together as though you were twirling under a late summer sky, fat raindrops splashing at your bare feet and a song bubbling up from your heart.
There was a time I wrote a story - and a few at the cafe read and enjoyed - and I published the thing. Then real life happened - stops and starts and horror and now I'm back but this poem - it eats at my soul and reminds me I am lonely - I want to sip tea with these writers.... I do
This was a wild river of a poem - beautiful, deep...all the things it should be

[ríða andlit]

Pass the gravy, TL, because you are definitely sitting next to me at the kiddie table!

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Screw the gravy. I want Hollandaise.

[ríða andlit]

Surely not for mashed potatoes!

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

I want Hollandaise for the steak. Butter and parsley will suffice for the mashed potatoes.

[ríða andlit]

And salt, d****t.

[TL Boehm]

Do we get bendie straws? My parents never bought me bendie straws!

[ríða andlit]

That is a TRAVESTY! The only straw worth its weight is the bendie kind!

[TL Boehm]

I know, right? And just because I'm at the kiddie table - don't cut my pasta. I want to slurp it down and get the sauce on my shirt.

[ríða andlit]

Screw that! We don't even need utensils!

[Marie Anzalone]

Do you have Friendly's restaurants where you are? Because they offer this awesome thing that is better than a bendy straw. It is a large bore swirly straw... that changes color depending on the temperature of what you are drinking with it. If you ask for one, they will bring it to you. It is sturdy enough for several washings and reuses.

LOL TL will be back soon to give you a serious response on this wonderful review. ;-)

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Still can't believe I forgot the salt and black pepper.

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

I've never used a bendie straw in my life! It's not fair!

[ríða andlit]

I also like the straws that change regular milk to chocolate or strawberry...

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

IMPOSSIBRU!

[ríða andlit]

http://www.magicstraws.com/

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Looks fun.

[Marie Anzalone]

Magic Straws rock, too. I think all of need to go out and buy us soem funky straws and have a chocolate or strawberry milk tomorrow. Or a malt. I found a place ion town here that serves chocolate malts. I wil join you!

See, TL, here's the thing. I looked across once at the big persons table, and did not like how they treated each other, nor the location of the table inside a hot stuffy room with forced politeness. All that scraping and bowing, you know? Just not for me. If we're at teh kiddie table then let's build us a tree house like the flets in Lothlorien and have an open air banquet table among the treetops, with wizards and elves and brave and fair folk stopping by to enliven the conversation. Let's make it the kind of place where such people WANT to be a part of the conversation.

You only live once, you know?

and I am so totally there with the straw thingy. :-)

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Marie, no elves, please.

[ríða andlit]

Why? I love the elves of Lothlorien... in fact, all the elves in Middle-earth are badass!

[Marie Anzalone]

PS: TL, I have always been one of the most under-read of the longer standing authors on site. I have learned to accept quality of review as a suitable replacement for quantity of reviews. When one of the "site giants" steps down far enough to review me, it really becomes something special to me. That's the kind of grown-up table I hope to someday sit at. I invite you to come sit at it any time.

[Marie Anzalone]

I like elves. I think I have Elvish blood.

[ríða andlit]

I far more prefer Tolkien's elves than those of the cookie baking (Keebler), shoe or toy making kind.

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

First things first, I'm not really a fan of Tolkien. I used to enjoy him very much, but then I started reading Martin. I find that Tolkien is a master at painting landscapes but is clueless as to how the human mind works. His character are devoid of personality and appear to me pretty much dead inside. Other thing is the cliché Good vs. Evil antic. And the complete lack of sex and personal interaction is disturbing. Now, I really do hate elves and their up-tuned noses and pointy ears.

[ríða andlit]

Between your eyes, Meta! http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/06/03/FL-The-Hobbit-Desolation-of-Smaug_1224x760.jpg :D

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Hey, I still like the films. I just don't swallow the Tolkien-is-a-genius speech.

[ríða andlit]

Fightin' words... :D

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Once I was told the following, by a guy that works in a local record store: "The Lord of the Rings is for children and Game of Thrones is for scruffily-bearded men."

[ríða andlit]

LOL, that is definitely true regarding Game but I always said, "Narnia is for children, Middle-earth is for badasses."

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

http://youtu.be/RXAhqvMy2lQ

[TL Boehm]

Thank you, Marie. Yes, when one of the cafe giants reads me I am humbled, but when one of the kids at the kiddie table comes over I'm excited - and I even appreciate it when one of the toddlers tries to hand me a half sucked lollipop. I'm a bit of a dog. Any attention I can get, you know? Its my IVM. (internet validation monster) As for elves depends on the clan and how it interfaces with my berserker DNA. (random boring fact: I come from vengeful pillaging Viking stock - it takes a Viking to raze a village....you know pillage first then burn.)

[Marie Anzalone]

yes, exactly. Or, as my wise friend Dan used ot say, "Rape and Pillage BEFORE you burn."

read moreyes, exactly. Or, as my wise friend Dan used ot say, "Rape and Pillage BEFORE you burn."

George Martin is a JRR Tolkien fan. I rest my case.

And I delight in the kiddie table. More creativity over here anyway. Just saying when we graduate, I want something than 18th century morals and wallpaper to look forward to. :-)

[Marie Anzalone]

*something better

[Princeps Angelus Mors]

Ma'am, I like the way you think.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks so much, WC, for deleting the rest of my comment there. Much obliged. What I was going to add, TL, is that I spend a lot of time at the kiddie tables because the ideas are less stale and old. Edgier. Got more that is worth listening to. Us stodgy middle age folks seem to lose it after a while. When it comes to adult tables, I want mine situated somewhere that is not bound by 19th century morals and wallpaper. Give me somewhere with a better view and underwear that is less constrictive, please!

[TL Boehm]

yup. we need a spanks free table. Can I I say that? I mean the undergarment....ok, and no spanking either.

[Marie Anzalone]

Let it all hang out, TL. No one will spank you for it... unless you want them to. :-)

[OBWhiteHawk]

Wow crrraaaazzy! Run on sentences and many thoughts crammed into one paragraph, hard to know where one thought starts and another one ends. And yet I somehow agree with it all. I came to this one because of the title, and like how you end it even if it does mention the Cree and not the Navajo. :P

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, OB! I have heard the term used as a Navajo, Sioux, Cree, Ojibway, and I think Cherokee term, in one form or another. In many ways the Maya here celebrate it, too, even if they do not have an actual term for it. The Cree referece was chosen for two reasons- it fit the form better, and it was a nod to a Lorre Boyd's use of the term throughout her amazing autobiography of herself and her mother's lineage, "The Spirit Moves."

[OBWhiteHawk]

Yes I think it is a general traditional Native term and belief. We visit the Medicine Man when out of sorts and he "reads" our medicine to see if it is good or not, then gives the advice on what to do if it is wrong. I will have to check into that book, have not heard of it.

[Clockwork]

And the priest who loved his best friends sister said amen and got married at the court bourse this afternoon screaming: glory, glory, hallelujah in the highest, we are free at last, thank god almighty, free at last." This is good medicine indeed with some truly brilliant lines. You have got a very cool spoken word vibe going I. Here. I just read this Out loud to my dog in my living room and the birds in the locust trees. These lines are some of my favorites: "to come face to face with a real living and breathing goddess and discovered
that you are really meant to be a god not a suburbanite not a garden gnome." That is awesome!

[Marie Anzalone]

And they did feast upon the breakfast cereals and the antelopes, and then they asked Jesus, "You're great! Do you do children's shows?" and Jesus replied, "No." I am glad you enjoyed the spoken word vibe to it.. that was intentional. This one would be fun to read at the poetry in the Park. To answer your question, not sure if I am on the docket or not. My money has run out, and I need an income before I can think about anything else.

You, my friend, are not a suburbanite. You will always be a god. Sound your YAWP and do not be afraid to walk tall.

[lee von cleef]

the pancake, needs a egg, needs Pet milk, flour, butter or bacon grease, or / and, then thump thurlp, of a spoon,mixing it as the bowl spins in your hands, a hot cast iron skillet, to raise the acne bubbles just so,then a spatulas quick flip.... ahh a taste, this needs sugar and Vanilla, or honey , Black Desert Honey, to keep me....yes more, please may I have some more ?

[Marie Anzalone]

Come to my table anytime, Lee, I serve up a mean batch of buttermilk pancakes with wild blueberry syrup and almonds roasted in butter.

[lee von cleef]

Yes and thank you in advance...

[Marie Anzalone]

you are quite welcome

[4$H]

Unique :O
But lovely :)

[Marie Anzalone]

hmmm... someone showed me a fork once, with the tines all bent in varying degrees of crookedness and spirals. "Just because one is unique," this person reminded me, "does not necesarily mean you aere useful." So here's to hoping that 'unique' is a compliment!

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a review, 4$H. Much appreciated.

[4$H]

It actually is :)
One gets bored by reading the same stuff over and over again

[Marie Anzalone]

agreed! I know I sure do!

[Blaise]

Who do you recommend reading?

[Marie Anzalone]

Hard to tell indiviudal tastes form a few exchanges, but I will proudly share some of the ones whose words I return to time and time again, for challenging me in different ways (these are ones who have stood the test of time for me, I am not incuding most newer ones yet simply because I need more time with their words): Emily Burns, kylan, Vesa Lee, Phibby Venable, LJW, Emma Joy, hde rushin, jcharo, ken simm, Diego Paz, Cool Handless Luke, Ed Hart. You read a few of each, I think you would be guaranteed to find a few styles that would call out to you. Probably also discover a few others by looking through reviews.

Hope this helps.

[Cool Handless Luke]

this is one to read aloud marie. i know a good poem when i find myself needing to read it out loud and hear it. the way it rolls within the varying cadence of the words and the sing-song rhythm of a thoughtful and descriptive wish list. very well done. will have to file this one away to read every now and again.

[Marie Anzalone]

many thanks, CHL. While you are at it, you can help Leica and BRS in suggesting items for a version 2.0!

[Tree]

This is not a poem you want to pick apart but instead allow it to just reverberate, so much good stuff going on in here. And I agree with Em this is huge, broad but detailed with intricate nuances and then bam, some real straight talk. And though you illuminate some serious subject matter it is rife with beautiful, funny nostalgic imagery. I see Dana has already dropped by, and I would imagine this was something he could appreciate. If it's even possible, I have a feeling this might be one of those pieces that gets better and better with every reading.

Creatively, you are in a good place.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, Diego, your review was wonderful and very apropos. Some of my conversations with both you and dana made it into there- you probably recognized some of ours. I am really glad you saw the humor in this, too. It was fun to write, and it makes me happy that you stopped by and appreciated it. Un brindis por ser aun tan joven que tengamos vidas que se pueden llamar, "interesante!"

[Tree]

Yeah, I caught that right away. Clever. Creative...

[Tree]

Marie came in for another read, and I was right. It did get better with time. Good medicine, this place, every place, we can all use it. Consider putting this out at versewrights as audio; it's meant to be heard/ out loud.

[Marie Anzalone]

will definitely consider your suggestion, my friend :-)