Rosalia (Rosa multiflora), a poem
Rosalia (December 13, 1918 – December 6, 1920), was a child who died of pneumonia. Her father was so grieved by her death, he hired a famous embalmer to preserve her body. It is still nearly perfectly preserved, nearly 100 years later. This poem was written after observing a garden near her tomb, planted with the flower she was named for, Rosa multiflora, commonly called Rosalia, an especially fragrant and vigorous climbing rose.
Rosalia (Rosa multiflora)
The haughty snail rears up, large and indolent,
its creamy shell ponderous, though rakishly tilted.
The knowing eyes unfurl on stalks greyish-violet,
above tender undulate flesh, faintly quilted
as if by past misdeeds. Near a warm slate path
thrust through the damask-brown earth, a small bird
dips wings, cocks head, perches on the birdbath
shaped in the lithe innocence of a fair-haired
Roman cherub. The rose-heads swoon in the sun,
lazy petals curled inward to form delicate bowls
ravished by enormous bees, whose silvery finespun
wings vibrate, ceaseless keepers of love’s oversoul.
Hungry Baby, a short story
Hungry Baby
Whenever Ella was feeling close to the edge, a hair’s-breadth from lunacy, she liked to shop for groceries. She went up and down all the aisles, methodically picking out food. She threw boxes and jars and bags and cans willy-nilly in her cart, always stocking up for the big one, the storm that would tear the roof off. It’s a habit, one she learned as a child. The women in her family were bony, starry-eyed drunks, with bad skin and lank hair, but by God, they knew how to grocery shop.
She was in this twitchy, nervous state because her mother had showed up again last night. She would never know if it was just a dream: she hoped it was. Ella opened her eyes and saw her mother standing next to the bed, almost touching the mattress. She didn’t smile or speak, but simply shook her head. Mama seemed angry; Ella could tell her mother wanted to hit her. Mama was jealous that Ella was still alive, driving Mama’s car, watching her TV, wearing her jewelry. Ella met her fierce gaze without moving, then closed her lids against the image like hurricane shutters.
The room was so dark, and her mother was like a column of gray smoke, rising over Ella. Meeting death hadn’t changed Mama’s face one bit. How was it that Ella still missed her? That was an embarrassing, childish pain, an overgrown mouth sucking a rubber pacifier. There would never be a second chance for Mama and Ella; Ella wished she could believe in heaven like she believed in hell. If her mother had loved herself, or Ella, even a little, maybe she’d have pulled through the dark waters. But poor Mama was so full of self-hate there was no room for anything else. Now Ella was afraid her mother’s habits were coming after her.
Ella confessed it; often she had hated her mother too, while she lived. She even killed her mother once, in a dream. She stabbed Mama many times with a kitchen knife, and it felt right, like it was the only graceful way out for both of them. There wasn’t as much blood as Ella expected, though there was still enough to soak her mother’s nightgown all the way through. When she woke, clammy and trembling, Ella hurried to Mama’s room to make sure she still breathed. Ella knelt at the side of her bed, watching her mother’s scrawny chest. At first, it didn’t stir, and Ella almost cried out. Then she saw movement, enough to know her mother lived. Forever after, she feared the terrible anger in herself. It was always waiting, a tiger with ivory teeth and steel claws — waiting for her to stumble, to lose her grasp on mercy, on forgiveness, and throw open its cage.
Wishing her mother was dead half the time didn’t keep Ella from breaking down the door in a panic when she thought she’d overdosed. After the first incident, Ella wasn’t all that worried, she knew her mother to be too much of a bumbler, she would screw it up, or not finish, like she did everything else. The door became only an excuse for Ella to use her rage, to make her hatred tangible, give it life, a physical existence. She used a heavy folding chair, swinging it over and over again, watching first the splintered crack appear, then the bit of light, marveling at how the door-frame itself gave way all at once and the entire door fell cleanly into the room. Mama sprawled on her bed, half-clothed, her knobby knees the bulkiest part of her, her huge, brown, doe-like eyes looking puzzled. Even with all the noise, Mama was so out of it, she couldn’t figure out how Ella had gotten in the room. Later, sober, she realized she’d underestimated her daughter, she hadn’t known what Ella was capable of. Much later, a couple of years after Ella left home, after a hundred false starts, Mama managed to finish what she’d begun.
Ella shopped hours for the perfect funeral dress; pulled grimly through all the racks, looking at everything dark. No, not dark, black. “Nobody wears mourning black anymore,” the saleslady said, but for her own mother, Ella insisted. In photographs, she appeared the proper, bereaved daughter. She spent three days wearing the black dress, feeling grimy by the day of the burial, and glad of it.
They buried her mother in front of a croton bush, God, how Mama had hated those things, crotons. Ella stared at the shiny marble urn where it sat in the little hole, the tacky brass plaque glued to the top. She couldn’t object to the shrubbery, not with the priest standing there, tall and lean and handsome like some Marlboro Man, chanting and swinging his billowy canister of incense on its copper chain, the black robes clinging to him under the harsh weight of the sun, his hand so big and hard when she shook it, her knees almost gave way.
That night, Ella left the house long after dark, she walked in shaky high heels down the street and around the corner, ruining the delicate heel tips on the asphalt. She decided to keep walking until she dropped; to walk forever if no one came running after her. She stopped only a couple of miles away, limp from the humid August air. Crickets vibrated, frogs exhaled, stars flickered; the glowing, yellow windows of strangers were her last comfort, her final safe haven. Nothing but love for those strangers kept her from leaving for good, nothing but fear of the anger-tiger kept her from going any farther after her mother; Ella stood alone in the velvet grief of that hot summer night, calling her mother’s name over and over again like a stupid, hungry baby.
Filed under addiction, alcoholism, anger, apologia, black, child abuse, child neglect, daughters, ella, eve, evil, funeral, girls, god, good, health, ignorance, justice, karma, kindness, love, mama, matricide, mothers, mourning, murder, mysterious, parenting, regret, relationships, short stories, truth
Fast Food, poem
Fast Food
Even a trip to the local burger joint
is a fright show these days. I observe
with alarm a flock of silvery shriveled
biddies: granted, every one of them’s
probably some kind of genius right down
to her to gnarled toetips, but as we all
know, the quality most admired in women
is not wisdom but rather, blank-eyed youth.
I myself am sliding down that gentle curving
slope to total invisibility, and worse;
in their gentle faces I read the pounded
knowledge of tasks left undone, words not
spoken, tricks never learned. One woman’s
eyes, set deep in bluish sockets, slide over
my small daughter’s body like guilty, halting
fingers. I know she remembers watching her own daughter
sleep night after night, I know exactly how she used to stand
over the child’s bed listening to the sweet
melody of inhale, exhale, sigh, feeling
against her wrist the exhilarating rhythm
of the flying hummingbird heart of her sleeping child. Now, she smiles
to herself, clutching her cup of steaming coffee,
and nods. Near her, at a different table, is a young man, his hair
a glowing honey-blonde, drawn back tight
into a long, curling ponytail, and from his earlobe
dangles a dull silver cross. His narrow hips barely
support his work pants, and in profile his perfect, cruel,
unshaven features promise every solemn gawker,
male or female, an expensive though unique mistake.
And I realize we are all here for the same thing: to fill up our
insides with this cheap, warm sustenance, to travel
homeward bearing an approximation of what we really
long for, which is to keep scrambling for the same
small favors tomorrow, the next day, and the next.
I find myself crying (for all of us) and stage-cough, pretending allergies,
wiping my eyes under my sunglasses and blowing my nose into my paper napkin.
Eleven Random Questions, and please submit your own answers as replies!
ELEVEN RANDOM QUESTIONS
What do you think of keeping a journal?
The real issue here is not that of how journal writing affects all the other forms of writing. There is much to be said about journal writing, both positively and negatively, and probably all of it is true at one time or another for all writers who face changing circumstances over the course of their writing lives. Sometimes journals can help our other projects, sometimes they can’t. Each person’s situation is best handled by themselves. The real issue here, the issue that has people so stirred up, and rightly so, is the fundamental arrogance displayed in both the “writer” Jimmy V.’s original essay condemning journaling out of hand, and his later condemning replies to any and all responses proffered to him. Arrogance of the intensity he displays has always been a substitute for actual wisdom. This truth is one of the fundamental truths of human nature, and I am not the only person to realize it. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” (Bertrand Russell) That, little Jimmy V., spoiled rotten “writer,” is the central issue you should concern yourself with.
Which celebrity would you like to bitch slap?
Dr. Laura wins by a light-year. I only slap those who’ve been guilty of slapping others. She’s angry and cruel and gives just plain bad advice to her callers. I listen to her all the time to remind myself how wise and kind I am by comparison. King Solomon, she isn’t. She’s a one-note piano with a bent wire. She sounds like she needs heavy meds, and pronto! Wouldn’t we all just leap at the chance to come back as her husband or son? I’d rather be eaten alive by a swarm of rats.
Do you remember your dreams?
I remember my dreams often, but not every single night. My dreams run the gamut of emotional response — from terror to euphoria. I write down most of the dreams I remember. They are usually very long & complicated & sometimes make perfect sense but sometimes don’t contain the slightest thread of logic. My favorite dreams are the ones I call “therapy dreams.” Often, when I’m upset or angry with someone, I’ll dream about that person & act out my feelings in the dream & achieve some sort of resolution which flows over into waking life & is vastly superior to any traditional therapy I’ve tried. I’ve done everything in my dreams — flown without mechanical aids, been wonderfully fluent in foreign languages, had phenomenal sex with friends & strangers & celebrities, lived as a member of the opposite sex, written best sellers, killed people… my dreams are in many ways the best part of my life because they’re absolutely limitless in scope & action & intensity. Sometimes dreams are a lot more “real” than real life & more enjoyable. Surrealist dreams are the most interesting — upon waking I always try to puzzle out what was the link between seemingly unrelated events or objects. I’ve even accurately prophesied the future in dreams. I tend to think it’s because the subconscious is free to express itself rather than any supernatural explanation. We’re just that smart when we’re not weighed down with all our conscious baggage. Thanks for asking about dreams!
What’s your Wu-Tang name?
Contagious Specialist
What’s the deal with long hair?
You’re right, it is 40. Not 30. Sometimes long hair can make the face look thin & drawn, but that’s also true for teenagers. Some of them shouldn’t have long hair. On the other hand, I’ve seen old ladies in wheelchairs with long fluffy white hair & it can be quite charming. I think if you look good with it, who cares what the rules are?
What are five good things about springtime?
1. Getting the taxes filed & out of the way
2. Wanderlust & regular lust & spring fever
3. Plants waking up & showing off & intoxicated
4. Putting the hand lotion away till next year
5. Birds, bees, butterflies & bikini underwear
What are your irrational annoyances?
Noise, noise & noise. Ungrateful children who view me as their maid. Children who, rather than empty the trash, stuff the can so full you can’t get the bag out. Children who leave dirty dishes & empty snack containers scattered around the house. Children who are, currently either at the movies or sleeping. Thank you, God.
Does springtime make you horny?
Nope. For me the season of lust is definitely winter. But then, I live in Florida.
Why do you love your pets?
I love my pets because they’re far less demanding than my children.
What do you think of the name game?
I have a former sister-in-law who collects unusual names. A couple of her favorites are Shithead (pronounced Shi-THEED) and Lemonjello (pronounced Le-MON-jello). Also PsalmCIV (pronounced PIZUM-siv). These are actual legal names, no joke.
What do you think of magazines with articles titled “Ten Steps to a Killer Orgasm!”?
I used to read Seventeen as a child… then read Glamour as a young woman… then read Mirabella as a grown-up. It figures Mirabella went bust, it was the most intelligent in a sea of dreck. Redbook was pretty good until they quit publishing short fiction. Jane’s okay, but too young for me. I hate Martha Stewart but her magazine’s got the best art direction, I think. And I like when she runs those articles about 27 varieties of tomatoes, or whatever, with a poster illustration. Gourmet is an old classic, still living up to its past. Vanity Fair has great writing & an eclectic subject matter. Rolling Stone & Sports Illustrated also win for good writing that crosses subject lines. I find I don’t have enough time to read all the magazines I subscribe to — they languish in piles. W is nice just for the outsized format but their writing is negligible.
Filed under health, humor, justice, karma, kindness, love, men, mysterious, notes, personal responsibility, relationships, science, sex, short stories, women
dreams & wishes & the plain truth, a poem
Dreams & Wishes & the Plain Truth
(originally published in Eclectica)
The man you dreamed up
was like an animal, a confused,
restless animal that didn’t know
what it was. From one angle,
it looked graceful. Other times,
it bobbled and bumped in the night
like a blind cow. It had to be fed, and often.
You never knew what it would fancy–
sometimes plain mash, once in a while
something with a burnt sugar crust,
and lots of whipped cream. It made noise
constantly. Whistling, burring, keening,
but never in the same way twice.
You found yourself wishing
it would run away of its own accord–
since it was so unusual no one would take it
off your hands. It would look at you
out of eyes so swollen and pale
you’d think it was dying,
then it would kick back its head
and bray and bray, music…
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Please Speak Well of Me When I’m Gone, a 397 word short story
Please Speak Well of Me When I’m Gone, a 397 word short story
October 11, 2012
5:00 a.m.
I had the strangest dream, where I was back together with K!!! We were together in this hotel room, packing our stuff, which was a lot, and getting ready to ride on a plane somewhere (what else does he do these days, but ride on planes!). It was as though we were back together, after all these years, something had happened; our subsequent, real-life remarriages were never mentioned. Clearly, we knew it was awkward that we hadn’t been together in so long — but there it was, we were going to try it. We didn’t have sex in the dream, although it was clear both of us were sort of thinking about the concept. But we weren’t anywhere near ready for that! And when I awoke, I started thinking about how sometimes I get confused about my life, about the sharp turns, the complete disconnections from my entire past life, etc., and how sometimes I don’t recognize the current terrain.
And why have I been thinking so much about K. these days, like that song by the Weepies, “Speak Well of Me When I’m Gone?” The one that has made me cry so many times? “I’ve been away, a year and a day….” That’s true of so many people in my life, isn’t it? Only they’ve been gone far longer than that: some have been gone for 35 years. How young, and blind, and ignorant, and how many horrendous mistakes it’s possible to make, etc.
“Looking back now, I only wish I had been kinder.” It’s the truth — some part of me has never stopped loving K. “And when I’m gone, please speak well of me.” Some part of me wishes we had worked out, because he was the first truly committed relationship I had, the first husband, the father to my first child, so many firsts. I met him when I was 22. He was 27.
Wouldn’t it have been sweet, had it worked out? Almost like high school sweethearts. Young — I was so young, so inexperienced. God! And I would apologize to him on my knees, if it would do any good. He wouldn’t, I don’t think, be able to hear me. The way I would want it to be heard. Still, I could try, couldn’t I?
Filed under apologia, apology, divorce, justice, karma, kindness, love, marriage, mea culpa, men, mysterious, personal responsibility, regret, relationships, short stories, women
The Way Love Is Supposed To Be, a very, very short story
I wanted to run upon the moors with tears streaming down my face.
She treated him as if he were a rajah, wearing a satin robe and slippers.
Don’t ever marry an accountant.
You’ll laugh, but I cried.
Her radar had failed her over and over again.
Men were tricky.
She danced the samba, then the tango, in the arms of a smelly Russian with piercing blue eyes who fancied himself a ladies’ man.
I would never marry someone who ogles women right in front of me. At least, not until I’ve started ogling them, too.
My Mama loved mohair; I loved angora. We were opposites.
Move your ass and don’t take a year.
I felt at sea for most of my thirties. The forties couldn’t be any worse, I thought. Wrong, wrong, and wrong!
I plodded, envying the agility of those around me with obviously higher serotonin levels. When I studied those brain chemicals in college, I didn’t know they’d turn out to be so important.
Redial that oily odor; a ray of water consoles the jilted; all beds of roses rot eventually; be brave and rest; the noose leads to the abyss; don’t gouge the luge, egad! Lazy seared meat; too addled to ladle. Baba rhum; Joanne Arel/Aral; raison d’etre; brave agar; the smell of water; conic Eros; seed the boo-boo, Sergeant. I came, I saw, I conquered; day-O, me say day-ay-ay-O; I say, Merv, that canary sure can sing!
Canary Conn? Transsexual on Merv Griffin. Breathtakingly beautiful, not a man in drag.
At this rate, we’ll never get there. Or perhaps, we are already there and are too stupid to know it! Dogs vs. cats… different, not better or worse. Different is GOOD.
No one’s a fool. At least, not forever.
Filed under evil, god, good, justice, karma, love, mysterious, short stories
Opening editorial message for Truth, the magazine, 1st draft
Opening editorial message for Truth, the magazine, 1st draft:
First off, my name is not really Kimberly Townsend Palmer. It is, or rather, should be, Kimberly Townsend Pomikala. Pomikala is a Bohemian name, which my father was born with but which was changed by his family not too long after he started school in Arcadia, California. It was changed because one fine, sunny day he came home in tears after being called a “dirty Bohunk” by the other children. It was 1943, and the world, and finally the United States, had long been at war. The biggest battles were not being fought on battlefields but being fought inside the human heart. Many families lost their entire physical existence, multiple generations snuffed out in less time than it takes to inhale, exhale — mine lost only its identity. A small price to pay for being safe in southern California, in a town named for the residence of the Greek gods. So my father grew up as a camouflaged ethnic. The name was changed, but the inside could not be changed. He never felt at home anywhere he went. He might well have been a war refugee of a metaphysical battle — a battle, the fundamental struggle humanity has been waging since its inception, the inexorable war between truth and ignorance. Factual accuracy is not always the truth — truth goes to the essence of a thing. Not the surface, but what is deep within.
The story is told how Eve caused the fall of humanity from the garden of Eden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What is the remedy for this? What is the essential nugget of truth we may take away from that crucial moment? My answer is: there is no absolute good, there is no absolute evil — there is but truth and ignorance. Eating the apple and gaining the surface knowledge of good and evil was a trap humanity fell into, a trap we have been struggling to release ourselves from ever since. Love exists. Hate exists. Both can serve the truth. Both can serve ignorance. We must harness ourselves to the wagon of truth and pull our heavy burden to wherever the driver leads us. The driver is God, the driver is love, the driver is peace, serenity and acceptance of the way things are on this planet. Many things we label good and many things we label evil are in fact neither. They are simply in the service of truth or in the service of ignorance. Satan, in the guise of the serpent, led Eve and Adam into a terrible, incomprehensible trap and God is now and has always been guiding humanity out of that trap. The reason God forbade eating of that fruit was it was not yet the right time for humanity to have that knowledge.
Plainly put, we are not yet advanced enough to receive the knowledge of good and evil. God is the only entity qualified to eat of that tree. We have taken a small, superficial bite of knowledge and used our imperfect bodies, minds and hearts to inflict merciless cruelty and oppression on others. Our biggest enemy is pride — believing we, as fragile, physical and temporal beings, can ever know enough to accurately judge another’s worth before God. How dare judges and juries impose the death penalty! It is not our role to take life, which is bestowed by God. It is our role to live it and seek the truth and banish ignorance. We are entitled to keep ourselves safe, we can ensure our physical and emotional safety from injustice and repression — but we cannot ever presume to know the will of God.
The Healer and I, a prose poem
The Healer and I
Fay, the healer and I, the subject, both consult my body in its entirety. Fay directs me to examine the sensations within this body, the instrument of change I have placed upon her table. There is first the feeling of water dripping, ice melting, inside the body. The dripping is insistent, patient, slow. The water is flowing from the head to the feet, and from the feet down into the earth itself.
What is melting the ice? Light, and heat, from a source outside the body. The ice melts, bringing forgotten memories & feelings. A vision of mountaintops, sheathed in ice, but below the ice, green plants wait, alive, waiting to raise their heads, once the ice is gone. Luxuriant jungle foliage, frozen water holding it down. The ice melts, the water is freed — the water nourishes the plants growing on the mountainside. The water…
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Filed under love, maturity, mysterious, poetry, relationships
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 