Q. And your results include the fact that the Defendant is greater than 99.99 percent the biological father of the products of conception?
A. That the probability of paternity, yes, is greater than 99.99 percent.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Picnic?
I can't remember exactly when, but it's been about a year since the writers first started meeting. We had a small little picnic and walk out at Baugo Creek. Chris and David and Talia (with Haldey and Bonita in tow) and me. It was a gorgeous day. We saw some baby raccoons climbing a tree and David showed us where any theoretical trout, if they ever frequented Baugo Creek, might be. Chris brought humus and crackers. Hadley and Bonita were a hoot. Talia hiked in her nice shoes. I showed everyone the train trestle and we walked underneath it.
Summer is on its way. It's time to do it again. The date is May 10th. Everything else is TBA. Send me suggestions, time, place, format....
Summer is on its way. It's time to do it again. The date is May 10th. Everything else is TBA. Send me suggestions, time, place, format....
Sunday, April 13, 2008
New Arrivals
(Franz's Wright's God's Silence came this week.)
The Visiting
by Franz Wright
I suffer from insomnia, from loneliness I sleep;
in the midst of the talk and the laughter
all at once you are there--
Hour of waking up and writhing
with humiliation, or
of wishes answered before
one was aware of what they were.
And let me ask you this: the dead,
where aren't they?
Hour when the ones who can't rest
go to bed, and the ones
who can't wake go to work--
Dark blue morning glory
I reach to touch, there is another world
and it is this world.
Then the light streamed in yellow
and blue through long windows, and blood
turned to wine in my veins.
Tears of wine
rode down my cheek.
It's happening, I thought,
though it had never happened
before. I squeezed
my eyes closed, gazing into
a darkness all of light. The more
you tried to hold it back, the more
sweetly and irresistibly it arrived.
***
(Published in God's Silence, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)
The Visiting
by Franz Wright
I suffer from insomnia, from loneliness I sleep;
in the midst of the talk and the laughter
all at once you are there--
Hour of waking up and writhing
with humiliation, or
of wishes answered before
one was aware of what they were.
And let me ask you this: the dead,
where aren't they?
Hour when the ones who can't rest
go to bed, and the ones
who can't wake go to work--
Dark blue morning glory
I reach to touch, there is another world
and it is this world.
Then the light streamed in yellow
and blue through long windows, and blood
turned to wine in my veins.
Tears of wine
rode down my cheek.
It's happening, I thought,
though it had never happened
before. I squeezed
my eyes closed, gazing into
a darkness all of light. The more
you tried to hold it back, the more
sweetly and irresistibly it arrived.
***
(Published in God's Silence, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)
No Slow
The next few weeks are going to go screeching by, so I was pretty happy to see these turkeys taking their time pecking through a soggy field of shaved corn out on Kern Road. The DNR reintroduced them a few years ago and every season I see more. For some reason, though, they weren't keen on seeing me, even though I got my feet wet just so we could have a chat. Suddenly they had places to go.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
To Sea
(Christine Hamm is someone else I'd like to keep an eye on. Salt Daughter at times was too much of the same thing, but I still really liked it.)
Snow White's Apple
by Christine Hamm
At eight my mother brings the turkey pot pie
to our table. I gauge the gleam in her eye.
She paces around the edges, touching each
of us on the shoulder. She refuses to sit down,
slips off to feed the animals. My father pours
glasses of milk, from the pink pitcher, passes
them to me and my brother. My brother and I
look at each other from across the table. He is
smaller than me; his chin barely reaches the
tabletop. He looks up. We can hear Mother's
footsteps in the room above us. She appears
to be dragging something. Anxiety wrinkles
waves into my brother's forehead. The plates
are huge, blue and white, covered with
oriental men carrying fish and women down
a mountain in baskets, castles built of
curlicues and children waving as if to warn
from the balconies. My father cuts into the pie.
The knife releases steam--it smells like love,
like fresh bread and garlic and cloves
and something else. My father passes slices
to my brother, to me. My brother watches me.
I will do it first. I lift up the fork and begin to eat.
***
(from Salt Daughter published by Little Poem Press, 2005.)
Snow White's Apple
by Christine Hamm
At eight my mother brings the turkey pot pie
to our table. I gauge the gleam in her eye.
She paces around the edges, touching each
of us on the shoulder. She refuses to sit down,
slips off to feed the animals. My father pours
glasses of milk, from the pink pitcher, passes
them to me and my brother. My brother and I
look at each other from across the table. He is
smaller than me; his chin barely reaches the
tabletop. He looks up. We can hear Mother's
footsteps in the room above us. She appears
to be dragging something. Anxiety wrinkles
waves into my brother's forehead. The plates
are huge, blue and white, covered with
oriental men carrying fish and women down
a mountain in baskets, castles built of
curlicues and children waving as if to warn
from the balconies. My father cuts into the pie.
The knife releases steam--it smells like love,
like fresh bread and garlic and cloves
and something else. My father passes slices
to my brother, to me. My brother watches me.
I will do it first. I lift up the fork and begin to eat.
***
(from Salt Daughter published by Little Poem Press, 2005.)
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Employment Opportunities
(Why can't you be like your big brother Bob...)
Q. What is your position with Walgreens?
A. I'm the senior beauty advisor.
Q. What is your position with Walgreens?
A. I'm the senior beauty advisor.
Taste
(Okay, Mary Jo Bang is not my style, which is my problem and not hers, but there were a few things that I could enjoy.)
Here's A Fine Word: Prettiplease
By Mary Jo Bang
Mrs. Donna spoke, saying it was all very clear.
In the long month of Maggio, Louise would be jailed
in a match that one might say was morbid--
as in an attachment to one who would give not a fig
for the right to be near.
She wrote down a date
with an eight at the end. This, she said, means the end
will occur at a seaside resort, a respectable spa
where one eats in one's robe and takes side-by-side baths
in beds made of ready-mixed mud.
She said Louise should then proceed, designless
and dissident, to a place where unlikely glitter would drift
like snow in the May of a previous year. That's memory,
my dear, she said softly.
Listen, Louise told her, he gave me a pill,
saying, With this you'll taste of divinity. With this
you'll be easy to love. He said, Lie down, and I did.
(Published in Grove Press books, 2001.)
Here's A Fine Word: Prettiplease
By Mary Jo Bang
Mrs. Donna spoke, saying it was all very clear.
In the long month of Maggio, Louise would be jailed
in a match that one might say was morbid--
as in an attachment to one who would give not a fig
for the right to be near.
She wrote down a date
with an eight at the end. This, she said, means the end
will occur at a seaside resort, a respectable spa
where one eats in one's robe and takes side-by-side baths
in beds made of ready-mixed mud.
She said Louise should then proceed, designless
and dissident, to a place where unlikely glitter would drift
like snow in the May of a previous year. That's memory,
my dear, she said softly.
Listen, Louise told her, he gave me a pill,
saying, With this you'll taste of divinity. With this
you'll be easy to love. He said, Lie down, and I did.
(Published in Grove Press books, 2001.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)