Uhh...Umm

Hi. I've run out of poetry, and don't feel like writing any. So, if you're in the mood, you can read my poetry at the Blood Blog, and we'll call it good. I'll even make some suggestions: I like Egyptians, The Bells, Flood, Death Clerk, Archeology of the Self, Sea Worthy, The Worry Noise, Three Seasons, and Bottom Note.

Some of the Blood Blog poems have already appeared here at WLPF, some haven't.

Enjoy the rain. I am.


Lacsidaisically,


Cindy

Urine for a Surprise

I haven't sneezed at all today. I don't have kleenex peeking out of the waistband of my pocketless pants, for once. It occurred to me as my nose started to run from the spicy Mexican dinner I enjoyed this evening, that I hadn't had to blow my nose today. Not once.

I don't want to jinx whatever it is that might be working. I don't want to be presumptuous. Mostly, I don't want to be wrong--again, but I think the auto inoculation is working.

Also, I felt better today than I have in ages. Lots of energy--all day long, but that could be from the crack-spiked mocha from Starbucks.

I'm breathing in through my nose--and no tickle. How about that? I'm doing it again...still no tickle, no sneeze, no irritation, and I'm in my dustbin of a house, mecca of all allergens.

MMmmmaaaaaah. It's really nice to breathe like a normal person again.



Cindy

Good Morning

I'm taking the day off.

I felt sick yesterday, and tired. Didn't take my Vitamin B in the morning, and boy did I feel it. My whole day drug by in slow motion. I was foggy, groggy, and by the end of the day, headachey and photo-sensitive for some reason.

My hip is back to it's normal, pasty color, though, and there's not a speck of necroitizing fasciaitis.

I'll have a late breakfast at Old Wive's Tales, then enjoy a leisurely walk through the Grotto.

Ahhh, possibilities.


Cindy

The Cesspool that is My Bloodstream

I administered my first urine inoculation Sunday. Everything went smoothly, and the whole affair was as easy as pie, a sharp, pointy pie. Except for one thing: I forgot to use the filter.

I wasn't too concerned, I'm pretty indestructible as microbes and foreign bodies go. But Sunday night, I tossed and turned all night, feverish and achy. Monday came around--much too soon after what I thought was a night of hot flashes, and I started coughing. All day long, I had a constant, dry cough. Just a cough, nothing else, except a sore, 5'' by 2'' pink oval where I had given myself the shot.

Dr. Ada was back in the office this morning, so as I was opening up the place I stopped into her office to say good morning, and to let her know I gave myself the inoculation, mentioning, as if it were no big deal, that I had forgotten to attach the filter to the syringe. She made a bad face. A scary, bad face.


I now understand that the filter removes bacteria, microbes, and other weird shit that isn't necessarily beneficial when reintroduced back into the bloodstream. D'oh!
Urine is sterile--in the bladder. It picks up all manner of crud on the way out of the body.

"Let me see the area around the needle puncture." Still pink like rare New York strip. "You need to see me later this morning after my phone consult." She was freaked out, REALLY freaked out. My cough had gone, and so had my fever, the aches, and the crying jag. But she was nearly ready to amputate.

So an hour goes by, I'm doing my thing at the front desk, and Dr. Ada comes up with an arm full of supplements and tinctures. "Is that for your phone consult?" I asked. "You're so cute," she said, amused at my oblivityness. "These are for you."

"For me? What on earth do I need to take all these for?"
"To fight off infection."
"But I feel--"
"This is serious" she interjected. So Dr. Ada gave me three homepathic remedies, a bottle of Bereberis, which is an herbal antibiotic made from Oregon grape, and enzyme pills that will dissolve any infection if I take them without food.

I'm being a good patient, and have followed Dr. Ada's instructions to the letter. But honestly, I don't feel sick. I think that whatever made me sick Sunday and Monday has worked its way out of my system, or just gave up after having to stand in line behind all the other bodily afflictions that were there first.

I'm on more pills than a 75-year-old Medicaid grandma.

But I still have only one cat.

Pill-poppingly,


Cindy

I Really Need Some New Material

I bought a red pen during the summer of 1994. I like pens and paper; I really do have a paper fetish. I could spend hours in the office supplies aisle. Don't ask me why. My dad used to indulge this prediliction by bringing letterhead, forms, and different colored pens home from the hospital warehouse he worked in.

Anyway, back to the summer of '94. It was a prolific poetry season for me, and while doodling with my new red pen, a poem appeared. It started very nonsensically, and only as a means to admire pretty, red words, but I rather liked the finished product, which as my poetry goes, was a rare bit of fun.

Whimsically,


Cindy



The Red Poem

This is my red poem:
Bright as a cherry and
tacky as lipstick--
shocking little attention-getter--
it certainly is a red poem!

It'll make no reference
to that oft' mentioned
body fluid--
(too obvious and overdone).
But it might go on and on
about strawberries and tulips.
Yes, they can be in my red poem.

Oh, the apple's tempting crunch
and those rosy puckered lips,
a firecracker sunrise--
all lend themselves nicely
to this vision in red verses
which speak of patent leather pumps
on that smartly dressed woman
commanding the obligatory 'once-over'
like a corvette at a stop light.

Ah, these crimson-lettered stanzas
now less vivid, alas, they're fading.
My pen's final strokes,
as its scarlet life is waning.

Should the ink run dry
before my thoughts grow dim,
I fear that this poem
may never be completely
read.

Hey--I spelled Burgeoning Right!

I'm finally addressing an increasing energy deficit and the allergies that have bothered me for the last few years. And I'm doing it naturopathically.

My chart is burgeoning, with tabs separating each of the modalities I've experienced these last three months: "Acupuncture," "Massage," "Naturopathy," "Esthetics," "Chiropractic." Except for the chiropractic adjustment, my chart is a log of wellness services had just for the pleasure and pamering of it all. Now I'm really sick, and have visions of my chart thickening into a record of my being an abyss of of lack and need.

I sat down with Dr. Ada this afternoon, seeking help for debilitating fatigue, among other things. I had complained earlier this morning to a co-worker that I thought I may have Lupus, allowing myself a little melodrama. I'm learning that in a clinical environment, I can't just blurt out symptoms for the sheer joy of complaining. I can't make a passing comment about an ache or cough or light hemorraging without being triaged by any practitioner within earshot. I received a dose of Bi Yan Pian (Chinese herbs) straight away from Natasha, my acupuncturist before Doxie (the other office admin) urged me to see one of our doctors.

So Dr. Ada started me on Auto-Inoculation for two months. I am to regularly inject myself with my own urine. Had my first shot in her office. I'm also trying a nightly castor-oil pack, vitamin B supplements, and increasing my water intake. Interestingly, I'm taking giving myself a pee shot in stride, but balking at having to drink more water.

I did feel good enough after my shot to actually have dinner tonight. Haven't felt like eating much the last few days, so this is an immediate improvement. I'm hoping that my health improves steadily in the days to come, and that my replenished energy will fuel more writing, and more frequent posts here at WLPF.

Not feeling terribly clever at the moment,

Cindy

Ode to a Houseguest

Some people have a way of growing on you, endearing themselves to you no matter how intent you are on despising them.

Crispy Bangs, my brother's girlfriend, camped out at our house this last winter, trying my patience, getting on my last nerve, and testing my very tentative belief in the sanctity of human life. It was a stressful time for me. But a tiny shred of compassion allowed me to see how difficult was for her as well. She was homeless, unemployed, battling addiction, trying to keep a new relationship together, and tripping over eggshells as an unwelcome guest in my home.

She couldn't make herself unobtrusive, so she made herself useful. Cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, pulling weeds-- the kid is a hard worker. She's also a compulsive hoarder, saving plastic yogurt containers, and packing the fridge with souvenirs from yesterday's lunch at Red Robin or dinner at Original Taco House-- leftover cheese, olives, and soy sauce, whatever. Yet, in the midst of incredible hardship, insanity, and cramped living quarters, she managed to inspire this week's poem, written in March of this year.

By the way, if you hate waiting until Friday to have whatever good taste you've cultivated assaulted by my meandering bombast, head over to my Blood Blog

Remember those “magic paintings” that revealed a 3-D picture if you stared at them, letting your eyes go out of focus and blur? My poetry is best appreciated after a drink, and accompanied by dirgy, minor key music, like say, Lisa Gerrard or Gorecki, or the soundtrack to Black Hawk Down. This is the surest way to lose yourself in the benign, gray glyphs of text, before awakening suddenly in an iambic spiritual wasteland.

Both Concedingly & Promotionally,



Cindy



St. Mary

Mary, Our Lady of the Appliances.
She imbues the long cold coils
with heat and light, committing
herself to caring, from the hard
beginning of sustenance.

Mary, Our Lady of the Groceries.
She is the ever flowing fount
of produce; from her bosom pours
the stuff of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
She feeds the hungry, and fattens
scavenging kittens with a harvest
blooming from cornucopia hands.

Mary, Our Lady of Merciful Gathering.
She collects every plastic little thing,
understanding the value of that
which contains. Every vacant bowl
is a womb, and every orphaned
space will be renewed its purpose.

Mary, Our Lady of Tornadoes,
this tiny whirlwind of spoons
and sauces. It must distract her,
the spinning, the constant movement,
weaving herself out of task
and into chore—it must
put from her mind the memory
of storms much bigger than she.

Mary, Our Lady of the Eternal Washing.
There are always things in need
of cleaning, and those things
have a way of not staying clean.
In her fastidious mission, even
the smallest speck is doomed.

How does a force
of wind and water and
perpetual industry move
through a small house, leaving
it vastly improved?

This is the might and the mystery
of our blessed St. Mary.

Yet, I Have All My TeethAnd Indoor Plumbing

I make fun of stupid people. They are legitimate targets of ridicule. And the crazys too. And anyone who I think is too big for his or her britches. I call people out for being ignorant and illiterate. I roll my eyes at poorly spoken or written English, and am a self-professed language snob.

I also can't stand people who can't see themselves, who seem to be the only ones oblivious to their own shortcomings. I refuse to be one of those people.

My project for the long weekend has been to transfer all my blog posts to Word files, because blog sites have been known to vanish into thin air. In doing so, my misspelled words glared back at me. I don't have spell check on the page I write my posts on, so I don't catch all the typos and misspellings. Holy crap, there are a lot of them.

So, it's time for reck...(r e c k...yeah--that's right)oning. I'm owning up to my own idiocy, and here for your literary enjoyment, so that you may bask in your acedemic superiority, are the words I've misspelled over the last six months.

I found the occasional receive written in flagrant disregard of the i before e... rule. And, of course, there were those words where I had either omitted a double consonant, occurred showed up with both Cs but only one R. Or I had padded a word with an extra letter. Occasion is a word I will never spell correctly. I've practiced. Still, it comes out with an extra S.

I realize now that therapeutic has the same tricky eu thing that pharmaceutical has. And that both disastrous and wondrous have dropped the e before the r. Millennia has two ns and preferably doesn't need the extra r. Withdrawal is a form of birth control, and someone describing, in broken English, how Southeners speak, says withdrawl. The word is traipsing, not trapesing.

Guatemalan, ethereal, ideology, vengeance, and dominatrix--I can say these words just fine. But I can't spell them to save my life. Of the lexicon I have butchered to date, I couldn't believe I fucked up cemetery, and for some reason made want a contraction. I added a silent e to smooth, and what I did to conniption, is just unforgivable.

What I couldn't believe as I began to catalogue my many faux mots, were the words I got right. Nihilist, Caesar, unprecipitated, and cannulae, among them. How on earth does cannulae appear effortlessly and perfectly, every letter matching Webster's version, but I insist on placing an apostrophe in want? I don't understand. Oh well. My conscience is clean now. Oafish, but clean.

Bless your hearts, every one of you, who never said a word, but treated me like the intelligent sophisticate I've pretended to be. I have seen the error of my ways, and I encourage you to gloat.

I would.




Making more of an effort to look it up when in doubt,


Cindy

To Sleep the Sleep of the Dead

No more alarm clocks. I can't take one more buzzing, screeching, obnoxious, early morning traffic report or commentary about last night's basketball game. If you're going to jar me from a hard-earned dream, or even a nightmare, it better be because the world is ending and martial law is in effect.

I don't want to be bothered for anything less than Armageddon. Or a snow day.

Wearily,


Cindy




Marathon

Sleep eludes me
two, three nights now.
Across my bed—
I stretch diagonal.
Not a solid line
but a series of dashes—
itching, aching, but
never connecting.

Not in repose but posed,
I’m sketched by some
over-caffeinated Bohemian.
His pencil scratches—
flick, flick, flick—drawing
spokes in my irises.
Around and around,
he rings my eyes,
engraving, rasping—his
strokes are furious—darker, he says,
they must be darker!
He stops—short of shredding paper,
getting them just right.

These damned eyes—
sore, darting, afflicted beyond
seeing and anguished for their
dreams—glisten from livid
sockets like the hint of water
in a well.

I can’t remember
how tired feels, that
gift of weariness.
I can’t fabricate the drowse
and the want of eye-closing.
I can’t recall the way
wakefulness sinks
like sediment into the pillow.

Parched for the cool liquor
of mind-quenching laze, starved
for the nourishment of dreams.
I beg—two, three nights now,
for the heaviness of blessed slumber—
the sinking and drifting,
the careful folding and
putting away of the mind.