May 2, 2017 · 7:08 am
Dear Donald,
You may not remember me, but I was at Le Cirque one night, that December, when you were having sex with Marla & trying to get rid of poor Ivana. Remember your ski trip? I was there for that too! Isn’t life funny? Anyway, Ivana was still running the Plaza. You hadn’t destroyed it yet. Of course you would be instrumental in that, letting that fabulous, fabulous hotel where Scott & Zelda frolicked in the fountain — and where I & my daughters enjoyed many a Sunday brunch — get turned into condos (using nonunion labor, of course). Even then we knew what you were made of, and it was ticky-tacky.
You were a prematurely balding joke, you were getting soft & going broke, and your lovely, long-legged girl spoke to me — at length — while we were in the ladies’ together. She asked to borrow my lipstick. I’m a nice Southern girl, too, so like sorority sisters we joshed about the men we were with that night. We joshed about stuff like sex, and how it was really funny how men were so simple, so easily fooled. Turns out my mother knew her mother from way back!
I actually asked poor Marla what she thought of Trump Tower. One of my friends had tried to get me to go inside but I refused. It was too ugly, and you’d torn down that beautiful Art Deco facade & not even given it to the Metropolitan like you promised! I wish I’d known that night what you’d be up to in 2016, because I would have spit on your plate on my way out the door. I have good aim. I was a tomboy.
Anyway, back in the Le Cirque ladies’, Marla giggled and said she didn’t really like it much herself, but that she’d never tell you because she knew how much building that brass & glass dick substitute (her words, not mine) meant to you. Apparently insecurity knows no bounds. Plus, she thought you were rich. She played that gig pretty well, I must say.
I myself was there with my then-husband, a man who is on one of the Nobel Prize nominating committees. I was there while my then-husband & his boss discussed you at table. You were too busy grabbing Marla’s sweet little pussy under the table over in the corner to notice much else. So, while you pussy-grabbed, my then-husband & his boss regaled me & my then-husband’s boss’ wife (a tall, blonde doctor whose Polish-born mother had survived Auschwitz) with the rumors (all true) of your imminent financial demise.
You were also a complete laughingstock down in Palm Beach. All of old Palm Beach hated you! I’d heard how you were ruining Mar-a-Lago — which I’d visited as a child, playing happily out in the garden whilst the grownups did boring things inside which didn’t involve roses, or butterflies, or dogs. You destroyed it, just like you destroyed that beautiful Art Deco facade. And, by the way, I know all about Jared’s brother. And your youngest kid.
So you thought being President of the United States would be easy? Cry me a fucking river, Herr Blotus. I know exactly who you are. You’re that pudgy asshole crybaby who got sent to military school for beating up the little kids. You’re that fat old man who cut off his nephew’s health insurance because he didn’t like the way his nephew refused to bow & scrape to him after he stole his nephew’s inheritance. Honestly, sir, you are nothing more than a piece of shit.
Sincerely,
Madame X
Filed under adultery, anger, anthem, assholes, child abuse, con man, con men, corporate states of amerka, criminal, criminal behavior, criminals, daughter, daughters, evil, father, fatherhood, fathers, fear, federal judge, hypocrisy, idiots, ignorance, insecurity, jerks, justice, karma, law, legal system, legal writing, letters, manifesto, memoir, murder, personal responsibility, racism, satire, sexism, tea party mad hatters, trump, truth, united states of america, users, war
Tagged as art, Business, donald trump, f. scott fitzgerald, incest, ivanka trump, journalism, marla maples, news, politics, Relationships, science, tacky, the plaza, travel, trump tower
October 24, 2016 · 10:58 am
Giant Redwoods
(Statements in italics taken from Ethics, by Baruch de Spinoza)
Look farther and farther toward thin blue sky, until the green feathery tops of the trees are like the northern pole on some dream planet. Put the anger back in its bottle. These trees are generous. Hatred can never be good.
Your carsickness from the ride up the mountain begins to fade, leaving behind a breathless, weepy echo not unlike your first religious fervor. Hatred is increased through return of hatred, but may be destroyed by love.
When have you not been afraid? The random can be scrutinized for meaning, the puzzle solved, when surveyed long & carefully enough. Anything may be accidentally the cause of either hope or fear.
These trees have plenty of time. As a child, you stared at Jesus’ sad face for hours, wishing you could marry him — wondering what it was that made him love you. Could you sacrifice yourself for the sins of the world, if it was that simple & necessary? Cathedrals turn us small and vulnerable again, for reasons both blessed & cursed. Devotion is love towards an object which astonishes us.
Vague, starry eyes like yours feel at home here; the air is weighty, burdensome & solemn. You’ve loved trees before; this is different. These trees have plenty of time – more time than you. If we love a thing which is like ourselves, we endeavor as much as possible to make it love us in return.
Your nerves are suddenly frozen, by the unaccustomed richness of perfect light. Your guide is tall & slender, hesitant to speak. Her mother has the tattooed forearm of a Polish Jew of a certain age. The knowledge of good and evil is nothing but an idea of joy or sorrow. Sorrow is [a hu]man’s passage from a greater to a less perfection.
These trees have plenty of time. She touches your wrist, and for a moment, you, too, want to grow taller, leaving the surface of the earth behind forever. Shyly, she picks up a tiny pinecone, smaller than a toy. You both laugh when she tells you this is their seed. Joy is [a hu]man’s passage from a less to a greater perfection.
These trees have plenty of time. And all around, their wise, fallen, hollow bodies litter the ground like the bones of saints. Childlike, you understand a wish to die here, never to leave this hush. They’re only trees – your neck bent back as far as it will go; only trees, yet wondering if the giants can hear your thoughts. Love is joy, with the accompanying idea of an external cause. Love and desire may be excessive. When the mind imagines its own weakness, it necessarily sorrows.
Is there anything we have less power over than our own tongues? These trees have plenty of time, growing wise as the Buddha, in their silence.
Filed under absent father, acceptance, addiction, adolescence, adult children of alcoholics, adultery, alcoholism, anthem, anthropology, apologia, apology, appeals, art, art history, baby, baha'i, beauty, bible, birth, black, blood, born again, boys, buddhist, Catholic, charity, child abuse, child neglect, childbirth, childhood, children of alcoholics, christian, civil rights, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, everything, evolution, faith, family, father, fatherhood, fathers, flowers, for children, forgiveness, friendship, girls, god, good, graduation, grief, he, health, heart, hindu, history, hope, human beings, humanity, humor, jesus, jewish, justice, karma, kindness, law, life, logic, loss, love, mama, man, manhood, manifesto, maturity, men, mitochondria, mortality, mother, mothers, mourning, museums, muslim, mysterious, nature, parenting, paris, passion, peace, personal responsibility, personification, poetry, politics, pregnancy, prose poetry, rastafarian, redhead, regret, relationships, Saint Teresa, science, sex, sisters, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, spring, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, woman, women, wood, world, zoroastrian
Tagged as art, Business, cats, christianity, dogs, faith, family, feelings, frogs, games, Health, journalism, life, literature, medical, music, new stuff, news, poetry, politics, questions, Relationships, religion, science, sex, travel, truth, writing
October 15, 2016 · 12:32 pm
Conjoined Twins, a poem
Her entire pregnancy was uneventful until the second stage
of labor. Mother pushed and pushed, but we babies could not
budge. Surgeons came, made quick cuts necessary to disengage
us from the womb — found our joined skulls, an impudent topknot.
Mother wouldn’t let them separate us, she said the risk
outweighed the benefits. We learned to walk as best we
could; I, the taller, faced front in hopeful arabesque
while Sister followed. She didn’t mind, droll legatee
of my cranium, girl I never see. Despite our closeness,
we live in opposite ways; I view her face only in mirrors,
with my one good eye — our skin melts together, flawless,
pearly. A nice thing is, we never suffered night terrors.
We have never been alone. When they say, look, Siamese
twins, I want to scream. That is not the proper name for
our arrangement. Sister says, let them talk — I think she’s
crazy to let it pass, but I don’t say that. A big furor
won’t help at all. One trick we are good at is peace.
Negotiation has been our forte since that first incomplete
division; the moment each cell refused the other’s release.
We have minds of our own, thank god, and life is sweet
when you know where you’re bound. I go off to work,
Sister goes too. I sing while I type up my data, she reads
her mysteries, we break for lunch. My boss goes berserk
every once in a while; he’s got the same kinds of needs
for perfection we all possess. The one worry I have
not tamed is which of us will die first. I hope
it’s not me — how would she walk? I am the brave
one, the one who catches bugs. I would try to cope
without her. Once, in the night when she fell sick
with the flu, I held her until the shaking stopped,
until the fever broke. I wondered then, all dyadic
jokes aside, what if we had been cut apart, clipped
early into two separate forms? If it ever comes, will life
on my own be any easier? I’d save some of her long hair,
for sweet remembrance. She’d be a sharp phantom pain, a wolf-
gray stone with my birthday — my head a floating solitaire.
Filed under courage, faith, family, hope, human beings, humanity, identity, life, loss, love, maturity, mortality, mysterious, nature, poetry, relationships, science, sisters, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, tribute, truth, universe, woman
Tagged as art, faith, family, feelings, film, Health, life, medical, news, poetry, questions, Relationships, science, truth
July 18, 2016 · 10:47 am
Filed under women
Tagged as 1950s, 9/11, abigail, abortion, abuse, acceptance, adolescence, adultery, africa, america, Amphibian, angels, Animalia, appeals, art, artistic failure, attraction, baby, beatles, beauty, belladonna, bible, Biology, birth, bitch, blood, blue, bohemia, bones, boys, brain tumor, bravery, breakups, broken, broken heart, brother, brotherhood, buddha, butterfly, cancer, cats, change, character, charity, child, child abuse, childbirth, childhood, children, chin pu, China, civil rights, college, communication, compassion, con man, confession, conservative, conundrum, corruption, couch potato, courage, coward, cowardice, crazy, Crime, crying, custody, Czech Republic, dance, daughter, daughters, death, death and dying, deer, Defenestration of Prague, dementia, democracy, depression, desires, discrimination, disrespect, dog, dogs, dream, dream-time, dreaming, dreams, drugs, duck, dumb, dysfunctional family, eclectica, elizabeth I, emotion, emotional, emotional abuse, emotions, enlightenment, eternity, everything, evil, evolution, exhaustion, expectations, extinct, failure, fairness, faith, family, fate, father, fatherhood, faux news, fear, feelings, female, fiber art, Fiction, fish, fishing, Flora and Fauna, florida, flowers, flying, food, forgiveness, fort lauderdale, freedom, friendship, frozen, future, gainesville, games, ghosts, girls, gittern, god, gold, governor, grandfather, grandmother, gratitude, Greed, grief, guilt, happiness, hatred, haunting, hawk, healer, healing, Health, heart, heartbreak, hearts, heaven, heroism, high school, hippie, history, hitler, honey, hope, horror, hugging, human, husband, hypocrisy, hypocrite, identity, idiot, ignorance, illness, incompetent, infinity, insanity, italian, jealousy, jesus, jesus christ, joy, june, justice, karma, kimberly townsend palmer, kiss, kisses, kissing, knitting, laughter, law, lawyer, lawyers, legal system, leslie gaines, leslie m. gaines, leslie moreland gaines, letters, liar, liberation, lies, life, light, literature, longing, loss, love, lover, lust, madness, male, man, manhattan, marriage, mating, maturity, medical, memories, memory, men, miami, milk, mimetic consumption, misogyny, money, moon, mother, motherhood, murder, music, mystery, mysticism, nana, nature, nausea, new england, news, nursing, ocean, old age, oppression, pain, panties, papal legate, parenthood, parenting, paris, passion, peace, personal growth, physical, physics, piano, pink, poem, poetry, police, politics, poverty, power, Prayer, pregnancy, psychiatry, punishment, racism, rage, rain, rainy day, rape, rational thinking, reality, red, redemption, regret, relationship, Relationships, religion, reliquary, renaissance, reptile, responsibility, revenge, revolution, rick perry, river, romance, Rome, sadness, saints, sculpture, sea, seagull, sex, Short story, siblings, signs from god
April 12, 2015 · 9:22 pm
Pregnancy, a poem
(after Alice Neel’s painting, Margaret Evans Pregnant)
Puffy hands clutch the seat
of the ruffled boudoir stool
to keep the woman from tumbling
to the floor, injuring
more than dignity;
her cumbersome belly bulges
taut, looms over the
bewildered thighs
like a great question mark.
Around her delicate knees
are small white dimples;
the pulse in the blue vein
revealed within a pale breast’s
transparent skin
taps in dreamy rhythm and
though her hair is unkempt,
her eyes gleam with gentle
confidence, patient sureness
that she will pass through
the coming ordeal of body
unharmed, spirit intact; that
everything in the world,
all the movement both inside and
outside her flesh, will emerge
from its hiding place at last….
Filed under alice neel, art, baby, beauty, birth, childbirth, poetry, pregnancy, women
Tagged as alice neel, art, baby, beauty, birth, childbirth, poetry, pregnancy, women
November 25, 2014 · 10:07 am
Heads of Caracalla, a poem
There are three of the ancient busts on display
in the Louvre. Poor soul: he only controlled
his great empire for six years. I’ve been married
for seven, and though it isn’t like ruling Rome,
it’s hard enough. Thus, I can’t imagine how
he managed, even if he could imprison or execute
at will. Maybe stress did him in at twenty-nine.
True enough, during the heated third century
after Christ, the common man was too often dead
by thirty, teeth rotted away to stumps,
complexion scarred and worn, creased deep
like pegged and scraped hides drying in the sun.
Surely Caracalla’s own hands were soft,
languorous and pudgy, with those meticulous
shiny nails? Perhaps he was afflicted
with diabetes, or simply poisoned by his lovely
but illiterate wife. Will anyone wonder
what carried me off after a thousand years —
or even ten? During three decades on earth,
sculptors recorded all his secrets: first the pretty
baby, innocent and round-cheeked as any three-year-old,
blunt-cut curls springing away from his tender forehead
like the petals of an iris. Around the time
of his ascension, he had become sullen, his eyes
impenetrable, glassy, his torso clumsy, thick-necked,
his full, full lips bowed with palpable cruelty.
I must admit, by the year of his death, he’d grown
into his flesh — he looks wise, even kind,
and his drilled marble eyes are lively, holding
a gleam of curiosity for something outside his own
imperial body. I place my finger against the hard marble
cheek, hearing my own frail life tapping its brisk heels.
Filed under ancient history, art, art history, beauty, bust, childhood, death, emperor, empire, everything, history, life, louvre, manhood, marble, maturity, mortality, museums, paris, poetry, rome, sculpture, travel, universe, youth
Tagged as ancient history, art, baby, beauty, busts, caracalla, child, compassion, empire, heart, history, louvre, man, marble, paris, roman sculpture, Rome, sculpture, youth
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 