Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

Writing as I walk, I follow word trails through a forest of thought,
each word linked mutably to a host of images and memories.
An Icabod Crane tree hangs over the path: twisted. The word twisted
links to broken, broken to shattered, shattered to glass
and to my heart, that old saw, that cliché that still feels so rich and real
to me, so true, in spite of centuries of overuse. It's difficult
to be a poet when you love clichés. My glass heart shatters from anger,
from a hand or fist or knife, smashed against a face, face links to fly,
fly escape bird wing fast fancy fallow Farrow Darcy.
I liked that name, Darcy. But I could not name
a daughter Darcy because of Darcy Farrow, though any name
must link to some tragedy or other. A good name ruined.
Alicia was another. I'd chosen it as a possibility until Robert Garrow
raped and killed Alicia Houk and abandoned her body along the trail,
the trail I walked to school each day. A beautiful girl left all winter
under the snow, no a trail of words, but a trail of horror. Strange
what we remember and what we forget. A trail of memories.
Reading old letters, I discover that I wrote my parents daily, twice
daily, often, after I left home. Such an outpouring of confusion,
a plethora of words, forbidden words, like fire hunger beg drugs,
like robbed, beaten, kicked, evicted, like plethora, a word my teacher
says not to use in poetry. Much of what I wrote my parents
I forgot, but occasionally, a favorite story surfaces, suddenly revisited,
shiny in the moment of it's recording, fresh with excitement
and pain or matter-of-factly written as commonplace,
two of us cramming into the turnstile together because we only
had one subway token between us. The half-rotted fruit
we pulled from the dumpster behind the grocers, devoured, grateful
for any sustenance. Sitting on the fire escape to get even the slightest
hint of breeze. "Don't send money," I wrote repeatedly
to my parents, "if I can't make it on my own, I'll come home."
Unlike Darcy Farrow, unlike Alicia Houk, I made it home eventually.
Boyfriend lover husband anger fist hit bleed abuse. Finally, escape.
Twisted, broken, shattered, home. I made it home,
if that breathing but mangled girl ringing my parents' doorbell
was still me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090417-2124-1c; 090417-1641-1st (complete) draft

word image from Wordle, adjusted by me.

No Help for the Snake Bite (Rattlesna...

No Help for the Snake Bite (Rattlesnake dream/nightmare)

I am out in the distant "bush" on a work-related task when I encounter a snake. The snake comes after me, chases, attacks and bites me in the finger in spite of my efforts to elude it. I am in thick underbrush and cannot run. The snake is small, brown, and thin and does not look like a rattle snake (they are usually thicker, huskier). It is wrapped tightly around my finger and won't let go, and its tail is hidden in its coils. I try to remove the snake, but it is locked onto my finger. I manage to press the coils aside and I find the tail which has 3-4 rattles on it; clearly its a rattle snake and poisonous. I struggle and struggle and finally get it off and it tries to attack again, repeatedly. I am encumbered by the brush and thicket which I can barely press through let alone run. I escape the snake and realize of course that I must go for help (and abandon my work). After I press through more brush, I have to swim across a large body of water. It is choppy and dark. The sky is very "black" with threatened rain and I fear lightning. I am, however, proud of my ability to swim through all this. At first I swim hard, but then realize that the excess flailing with circulate the poison so I swim more gently.

I have now arrived back at work which is a school/museum. Many of my work friends and coworkers are there in a meeting and I tell them I've been bitten by a rattlesnake. They are joking around and telling me unrelated things having to do with work and with their personal lives. No one is listening or hearing me, that I have been poisoned and need help. I make a loud announcement to the whole group, which embarrasses me, but they still don't listen. I ask the security guard for help--but he also does not help, he is busy with his own problems. I call 911 and get the police station and the person who answers the phone cannot give me directions to get there. I am thinking I need to get to the hospital. I keep saying; it's been over an hour, I need to get to the hospital, but no one is helping me. Because the snake was small, I think it may not kill me, but it still could, some snakes are more toxic than others and I don't know what kind of snake this is/was. I wake up in a panicked dither.

Things I am saying in the first narration of the dream:

• I am being poisoned
• I am being attacked
• No one is listening to me or hearing what I am saying
• No one seems able to help me
• I am encumbered and held back by multiple barriers to getting help/healing (underbrush, water crossing, bad weather, lack of assistance, stupidity/ignorance, distractions)
• I am in danger

Since all the characters in the dream are parts of myself (as well as other people in my life who aren't helping, doctors etc), I need to look at how I am holding myself back from healing. And why. And how I can change this pattern.

My chapbook, In the Circus of my Sanity, was sitting on the dining-room table at PB's place and I moved it over to the other side of the table. BB must have been looking at it, reading it. It shows a picture of "me" wrapped up by snakes. This image, fresh in my mind from yesterday, could have influenced/"caused" this dream.

Possible extended meanings:

Since snakes can represent penises and sexuality, perhaps I am being "poisoned by my sexual experiences," e.g.: rape etc.

Snakes can also mean:

• transformation and healing
• possible betrayal or loss of money
• someone liking/being attracted to you.
• hidden fears and worries
• phallic temptation, dangerous and forbidden sexuality (as mentioned above)
• a person around you who is callous, ruthless, and can't be trusted
• knowledge and wisdom
• Goddess Worship/the old religion
• doorways or journeying/knowledge/wisdom healing/shamanism
• my own masculine energy--the ability to take action in the world
• a poisonous or toxic situation in my life (if it's a poisonous snake)
• and of course, they can mean other things as well, as personal symbols. A controlling person, a parent etc.

I have always liked snakes in waking life and am not normally afraid of them, but most of the snakes I've encountered have not been poisonous. I did get very close to and photograph a Massasagua rattler, but it looked nothing like the snake in my dream. They are very placid snakes and do not attack (most snakes do not attack unless cornered.

The dream could also be a warning about the dangers of therapy and getting into toxic or poisonous areas of my life/mind.

I have snake dreams fairly often. One I had recently took place in the water (subconscious?)

Of course, the snake, too, represents a poisonous part of myself--and I can be toxic to others as well as myself. I keep returning to snakes, like I do to eggs.

White Duck on a Green Pond

White Duck in a Green Pool

The Clinton River makes an acute turn, chews
up the banks and topples trees whose roots hang fibrous
and ungrounded into the green water. Mallards, quacking
and grunting, slide along the current like pucks
in an air hockey game, smooth on the wrinkled green surface,
interrupting the reflection of willows and phragmites
with their shiny blue and green heads. When the river cuts
back far enough, it will rejoin itself, abandoning
this U-shaped oxbow to stagnate like an old appendix.
Already, the trail caves into the river and disappears,
almost impassable between the plunge to water
and the thicket of brambles. Already,
old oxbows ring islands of trashy willows and weeds
where Canada geese nest, the males hissing,
trailing intruders, attacking with wing blows,
with the heavy thump of breastbone against neck and shoulder.
No one in this dismal place is jubilant, but the white ducks,
resting on the sandbar opposite the bend of the river preen
their spotless feathers with bright orange smiles.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090416-1025-2a, 090413-1730-1b

Okay, something a little more cheerful.

Flash in the Pan

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #8, for the "Old Flames prompt," for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Flash in the Pan

Barbara screamed, pointed at me, and everyone turned to look.

She screamed and screamed, pointed and flailed. Her face turned

scarlet. The thirty children who had gathered around me gaped at her,

all of us standing as still as if we were staring at Medusa, until my boss

found someone else to teach them and secreted me away with Barbara.

I shrank. Disappeared into a knot of thorns that tightened around me.

In the news, only that morning, a crazed wife had killed her husband

and his lover. But in private, Barbara's maniacal frenzy abated;

she spoke quietly. Fingers released their threatened hold on my neck

and I took a breath and another.

I still wanted her to disappear and take Gordon with her. Forever.

Before our first kiss, I'd asked him: "Are you married,

are you engaged, are you in a relationship?"

"No, no, no," he said, and he lied. I believed him. He wore no ring.

I tend to trust. I'd welcomed him

into my home, my heart and then my bed. But they were engaged,

and then they married. After he lied,

after he cheated, they married. He probably blamed it on me.

If I were her, I'd have been as angry, but never

would have married Gordon. She told me, in tears:

he'd cheated before. Said he saw other woman

when he was with me, too, Cheated us both.

Cheat once, cheat again. I so would not have married

Gordon that he was the first step toward a vow of celibacy

One year, then another and then a third. And on to ten. Barbara married

a cheat. I married silence, peace and a spacious

empty bed.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090415-2212-3b; 090414-1115-2b; 090413-2252-1d; 090313-1602-1st

This poem has long lines which don't translate well into blog format.

I've started seeing a therapist; can't remember if I mentioned that, because I was hoping it would improve my insomnia. I'm dredging up all kinds of bad old experiences. I think I was a MAGNET for bad people.

The Fallen Moon

The Fallen Moon, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is from a dream the
other night--actually from two dreams in early morning. The white fox
in the trees and the fallen moon were juxtaposed dreams, one after the
other.

No Escape

No Escape, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Abuse is hell. I started seeing a therapist. We were talking about my earlier life.

Fritzy and the Fish Tank

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been through a lot lately, medical tests, my brother, etc. My dad has flown in from Australia, and is staying with me for probably the next 3 to 6 months. I refused to get involved when my brother's pastor called several weeks ago to say that my brother was out of control and scaring some of the women in his congregation. Normally, I would have driven him downtown to the county psych hospital, and told him to check himself in and get back on his meds, or find another way home. In the past, I was always able to talk him into it. I didn't have the time or energy this time. I had to work. My other brother was mad because I wouldn't help. He used the excuse of having a client on the other line, like his job was more important than mine. He and my sister have come to expect me to just take care of these things. Now, because I didn't, my dad has come to try and straighten things out. I believe this has turned out for the best, because my dad is getting a dose now of what I've been through for the last 20 years, and had no idea that my brother could get this bad. It's been eye opening and heart wrenching for him, but having him with me 24-7 has been exhausting and painful for me.

I've been telling him exactly how I feel in the most diplomatic way I can think of, but I can see it's hard for him to take. After some of the awful things my brother has done, no one in this family expects me to live with him and take care of him anymore, and that's a relief to me, but as I've pointed out to him, I had to get physically ill, before anyone would step in and help. And, they're all irritated by the inconvenience of this whole thing. My sister still thinks that I'm just being lazy and need to see a psychiatrist, and convinced my dad to make an appointment yesterday [without asking me what I thought].

In the midst of all of this, I had this dream. It's about a dog I had and loved dearly as a child, Fritzy.

- Fritzy is old and dying. I accidentally sit on his head. I put him in the fish tank to help him recover, and then forget he's there. The next morning when I remember, I panic thinking he might be dead, but when I call him, he swims to the top and I lift him out. There's another little brown dog in the tank with him. I reach in to pull him out, too, but he swims under a rock, frightened. Then, I wonder how they were able to breath under water. That's when I wake up. -

In the past, I've found that dogs in my dreams usually represent my "pet projects" or therapy. Fish tanks are usually my responsibilities, and are usually neglected. I don't really get this dream, though. I asked for clarifying dreams, and lately the only ones I can remember are about moving furniture, which usually represents my baggage. I'm sure it's connected with my having to talk about the past with my dad, but it seems like I'm missing some of the meaning. Oh yeah, my dad's a heavy drinker, and it's been difficult lately for me to say no to alcohol, although I've not had more than one or two.

Report on Biopsy Procedure

Report on Biopsy Procedure

I am back from my biopsy.  I am feeling light-headed (slightly) and a little out of it.  Not exactly well, but nothing bad I can put my finger on.  A slight pressure in my head, tiredness.

Here's what happened:

I went to the ultrasound desk at Beaumont hospital, checked in.  The receptionist had my name and put a wrist band on.  I hadn't had a wristband for the mammograms or ultrasounds, so immediately I knew this would be a little more invasive."  (Of course, I already knew that, e en though it's my first in situo biopsy.)  I waited past my appointment time and was just starting to antsy (15-20 minutes later) when a woman called my name.  She was Nancy, the person to whom I'd spoken in the phone, the one who had made the arrangements.  She took me to the ultrasound room--looked like the same room where I'd had my previous ultrasound and had me strip down and put on a gown with the opening in the front and sit on the ultrasound bed while she checked my wrist band and ask me questions--the SAME questions she'd asked on the phone and I already answered--while she filled out forms.  She asked my name, date of birth, why I was there.  Checked my wristband.

Then another lady came in.  These were NOT the same women who gave me my previous ultrasounds.  (So maybe it was a different room?)  Nancy is blond and tall and middle-aged (younger than me, maybe 50?) and the second woman had an accent.  At first it was very noticeable, but after a little while, I didn't notice it at all any more.  She asked my name, date of birth, and why I was there and checked my wrist band,  She was short and dressed in dark blue scrubs--the first one, Nancy was in pale blue scrubs.  L2 was the ultrasound lady and she looked with the ultrasound for the lump they were going to biopsy.  They had the images from last time on the light box and I had looked at them to see what lump looked like (I'd been studying lumps on-line to see what I could learn about them).  I had wanted to take a picture of the lump with the little camera I'd had in my pocket, but by the time I got dressed, I'd forgotten and just wanted to go home.  DARN!

After she found the lump--and I could see it on the screen--she went out looking for the doctor, who came in and identified himself.  Meanwhile, Nancy had hooked me up to a blood-pressure monitor and heartbeat monitor.  My blood pressure was really good (even though I was a little nervous--eek)--and my pulse was also really good. 

The doctor, who was Italian and must have thought I was, too, because he kept talking to me in Italian--(and I am but I was too nervous to even pretend I understood--although I did understand a little, scrubbed my breast with turquoise stuff--antiseptic and then told me to turn my head to the side and he sprayed me with numbing pray which did not smell very good--kind of what one might expect.  He asked me my name, date of birth, why I was here.  And checked my wristband.  Then he said, "bee sting." and explained that he was going to give me shot to numb the breast tissue.  He actually gave me several.  I could feel it--it was milder than a bee stig--it hurt, but less than a shot normally does--like a little prick as opposed to a big one.

Then he got out the biopsy device.  It looks a bit like a large needle, only much more complex.  It has a gun-like trigger and parts--metal tubes--that fit inside the needle-like part.  I was feeling slightly queasy and fearful--I was afraid it would really hurt--the thing was HUGE--literally like 10-12 inches long!  EEK!  It was a scary-looking tool.  I could see him inserting it on the monitor--and I could feel a sense of pressure and a hint of pain and also something deeper--like pain I couldn't feel--don't know how to explain it--it didn't really hurt.  It hurt a little, but very little, less than my normal fibromyalgia pain.  But it was still upsetting--dunno how to explain it--I remained very calm externally, but inside I was getting a little dissociated.  After he'd gone in 3-4 times with this device, he said, "almost done."  Then went in twice more.  Each time, I expected it to start hurting worse, in part because of my previous bad experience with anesthesia.  Usually, they don't give me enough and then proceed to hurt me.  But in this case, there was never any real conscious pain, just that sense of pain I couldn't feel that was making me queasy.  Also the sight of that gian needle entering my breast on the monitor--pushing its way through the tissue--I could see the tissue giving and tearing a little as the needle went through it.

When he said he was done, I asked if I could see the samples and he handed me test tube with little bits of my body in it, swirling around--because he kept shaking it--like little eels or snakes.  They were maybe a 16th of an inch wide and half an inch long and curly.  I hope he got some of the right part.  Some of the lump.

I'm still feeling slightly out of it, slightly headachey, slightly queasy.  And tired.  I just want to lie down.  I have an ice pack Ia m supposed to keep on my breast ten minutes on and ten off, and I am supposed to wear a bra to bed and do no heavy lifting etc.

I am sure I'll be fine soon.  It really wasn't that big a deal.

Now I have to wait 3-7 days for the results of the biopsy.

A Can of Worms

A Can of Worms

"Isn't sex over-rated?" a long ago husband
writes to ask. "Except, of course," he adds,
"what we shared in the sixties." Enter
Hieronymus Bosch with his can of worms.
Twisted trees shoot up around me and fill
with monkeys; the ones riding my back chatter
and screech. A fountain of acid erupts from the earth;
grass sprouts tongues and the edges of flaming
dragon's teeth scorch my inner thighs.
I remember honey bright kisses,

fists and bruises, languid touches
but mostly terror, long alleyways, hiding
under bushes and inside trashcans full
of maggots. Always, he found me, dragged me
out by the hair and hit me, painted me
into canvases with leering eternity signs
between waves of fire and mustard.
Always grinning. He dressed me and stood
me by the highway, thumb out (or in my mouth),
while he hid in the bushes, waiting for a ride.

He forbid my descent into undersea canyons,
beam probing the coelacanths, if my mermaid
laughter wasn't on his schedule of simultaneity,
tantric song and knives balanced on his nipples.
Malevolent demon bats, keepers of eternal darkness,
fluttered around us, roosted in the shadows
and threatened to engulf us. We argued
about who had called them. He insisted I did,
and of course, I did.

Now, when I dive through the skin-nets of their wings,
they dissolve in veils, and I am home in the lychnis,
catchfly and moonflower. I sit among garter snakes
and mother stones, sun soft on my face. No
longer do I fall endlessly into darkness, as I did
in his arms. I walk down a different path. No
man lives beside me, no sex shatters me. No
landmines, no torn talons, only a vow of chastity,
cardinal babies and their red-beaked parents
in the sweet syringe, and black raspberries,
with their small thorns, ripening outside my door.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
090404-1219-3a, 990705-2f, 990621-1st, originally called "Underrated" L
from the Desire 6 Ms

This is an extensive revision of a poem I wrote in 1999.

Dream Poem "Backwards"

This poem is from a dream I had last week.  I had considered making a poem of it and didn't attempt it because it seemed too hard, but it continued to worry me, so I attempted it and here it is (danger, upsetting images!):

Backwards

 

Round, puckered and striated like a nipple, the fossil

hides among rocks on the mountain top.  I stroke it,

feeling the bumps and indentations in grey rock.

Limestone, perhaps.  Below, sky stretches, endless,

fading toward white.  It shimmers like the sea.  I call you

to see this ancient stone creature, knowing

how you like breasts, the soft roundness of them,

the responsiveness of nipples.  Not rock ones,

of course, but still, "come check it out." 

But you frown and step back, refuse to touch it,

and when I look back, I see, not a fossil,

but a dead girl, naked, lying deep in the rocks,

disintegrating.  An arm here, a leg there,

features half rotted from her skull, the nipple

just showing in shadow on the twisted torso

deep between the summit's rocks. 

 

Boulders shift and ocean now surrounds us.

We're on a breakwater, but no waves strike

the rocks.  The water is still, calm and blue as a summer sky.

We stare at the dead girl.  She's become intact and fully clad,

her clothes pressed and clean.  Her cheeks blush

with color, brightening.  She lies on top of the rocks,

no longer lost between them, and I'd swear I see her

breathing.  She's flung across a slanted rock

as if dropped there by great bird, head downward, legs up,

long brown hair draped down the rock toward the water,

facing the endless blue above.  We're on an island,

a shrinking island, no land in sight, only the glassy water,

the unmarred sky.  I'm surprised when I realize

she looks a lot like me, at maybe nineteen. 

 

Her eyelids flutter, and I awaken, in another century,

in a distant place, alive, and much much older.  Tears

dribble down my cheeks.

 

 

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090403-0930-2a, 090402-1757-1c, 090402, 1st 4:15 PM; from a dream last week