They said there would be cake

I think that is why my soul said yes
to this life
that and banana cream pie

but the heaven realm
couldn’t capture
the promise of flesh

and some times
I am up to my neck
in this muddy life

having insisted on the outdoor barbeque
despite predictions
of pouring rain

desire and misery
is a finely mixed
recipe
-Philomena Moriarty

Perhaps this is the best poem Philomena ever wrote.
Perhaps it is my favorite.

Perhaps I should follow my own principle of never reworking.
I tried to fix last week’s poem. Now I hate it.
Perhaps I am just feeling hateful today.

Jim skittled in late wearing a very attractive red ref shirt, poem in hand. Another exploration – a pantoum, a poetic form which first appeared in 15th century Malayan literature in which lines b and d become lines a and c in subsequent verses. Jim’s consisted of very clever rhymes.

Jim slipped me a copy of another poem I had requested: Tercet Eight: Shadow-Poet
Arriving like the waterless flood/having fewer neurons than he’d like/shadow-poet knows the secret of the universe. The rude one is only one of many/ who populate my ego, my subconscious/a rowdy group of feisty complexes who try to run my life. My dogged efforts to tame this lot/are endless, ongoing…

Like this, too.

Ally the birthday cat was present with a well-titled work called Old Haunts. We had a few suggestions for ways for her to clarify the action in it, particularly identification of the people mentioned. It was a little confusing as written.

Alan seemed determined to cram every fact he could into his biographical poem about Albert Andriessen Bratt, the sawyer from Norway who arrived in Fort Orange in 1637. Bratt was an interesting character, but I think we all agreed that there were too many dates included. Alan’s best line (again which I loved and want for my own): “glitches and gremlins did the guy in” That’s how I want to go.

Larry wrote a long conversation with Tanya the Check-out Girl. Not a lot of commenting (that’s okay).
I am finding Larry’s artwork wonderful, creative and weird. (He doesn’t mind if I say that). Don’t miss seeing it for a reflection on Larry. It will be up through the end of May.

Burke was back for his first meeting since November. His bi-annual poem was about a poor dead guy named Dave, or rather, Dave’s funeral. We didn’t like the line about the shaky old preacher and made a couple of other suggestions.

Paul‘s retired musical instruments brought about a discussion of melancholia vs. nostalgia vs. plain old sad. Poem was “pretty complete” except for title. Perhaps “Notes on Notes”?

Dan’s poem was very aptly titled A Tyrant’s Regrets and went on in that vein. Dan empathized thoroughly with the tyrant and Cathy wittily commented that what he described could be attributed to mothers as well.

Sorry this took so long to blog. The blog was inaccessible last week and then I got busy.