Error 400 (a poem)

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Bushtit - ©2007 Walter Siegmund. 
Available under the Creative Commons ShareAlike License

Error 400**
    ~Mari Nichols Haining
I admit we are sharing a moment unplanned
if you followed a link, I quite understand--
you were searching for boobies or a fuscous bush tit, 
not photos of birds or a writer's weak wit.

But sit for a moment. You've been Googling hard
though some of your search terms are...shall I say scarred?
     (I'm aware you've been wondering if Morgan Freeman is dead.
     But men with dark thoughts about "blonde thoroughbreds"?!
     He's not, as I write this, just slightly banged-up.
     And there's a chance someones looking for ponies or pups.)
The internet is huge, with its chatter and chitter,
and Spaces and Faces and blogs all-a-Twitter.

yet if you stop for a byte, the stories unfurl
among hyperactive places in this deficit world.
Still, if Google misled you and you're determined to go
here's a tip: change your settings, set your filter to low.

**Error 400: An HTTP client error. 400 Bad Request - The request cannot be fulfilled due to bad syntax.

The monsters have taken names

Back then, the gremlins under my bed were not a concern.
What I feared were the stuffed bears that shape-shifted after dark
and the demons who threatened from corners
where the walls and dust and shadows intersected.

The monsters in the closet were less threatening than empty spaces.
Those voids hovering between the church dresses and Sunday shoes,
wedged between the boxes of clothes I'd grow into
and a summer of childhood I'd never wear again,
those voids scared me into insomnia.

Even then, it was too obvious a betrayal
when a snake formed from the trinkets on my most loved bookshelf
taking my diary key for a tongue,
while my Just So Stories and Little House became angry eyebrows
over stern lips from The Great Brain and Nancy Drew.

Now, in my unkeyed  journal
I've written my fears without mention of closets or trinkets or books.
But obvious, too, are my lies by omission --
without darkness or shadows now
the shape-shifters remain animate; the voids still hover.

While my demons avoid the cobwebs and corners now,
my serpents don't bother to hide among the books,
        and the monsters have taken names.

       ~Mari Nichols Haining

Check out other poetry posted on this blog.

Hungry for more? A host of talented contributors participate in  One Shot Wednesday - it's a online poetic flash mob. Go check it out!

And as always, comments, constructive criticism, and links to other writing are encouraged and appreciated!

My house hates me

Forget 2012. Did I miss some big 1/1/11 doomsday prophesy?!

You remember the blizzard that wreaked havoc on the airlines last week? If you lived in my neck of the woods, you were probably waiting it out inside with a nice cup of hot chocolate. Maybe you popped some popcorn and watched a movie with the family. A few logs crackling in the fireplace? For ambiance of course, because we all know that the average fireplace isn't really going to heat much more than the three teenagers vying for marshmallow-roasting space in front of it. So the thermostat was still set to keep you comfortable, right?

Of course, the furnace has to actually work for the thermostat to do any good. Aye, there's the rub.

Mine didn't, and it didn't LOUDLY.   Imagine every time the blower started up, you heard 100,000 angry bees buzzing simultaneously in your basement. Actually, make them wasps, because being a little more worried than usual is part of the experience I'm recreating for you here. So are you imagining that? Pretty loud buzzing noise you have there, eh?

Now imagine those wasps are roaring around a monstrous A380 jet engine and you'll get a better picture. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. A commuter jet then. You get the point though: it was is really damn loud.

It seems the problem may be a teeny little capacitor no larger than a flip phone.  
The good news: A replacement capacitor runs about 20 bucks. It could be worse.
The bad news: it's worse.

While I was the down there, I noticed the water lines leading to my condenser furnace had been turned off.  I sat down to ponder how that happened and realized the answer when a dream woke me from my nap (did you know your body starts to shut down at 37 degrees? Seriously not cool.).

Forty

When it was young, The Story wanted to tell her
    with elegant wrinkles in the final chapter.
Gentle lines that framed her eyes with wisdom and sadness--
    not cracks that split her face and whispered of capture,
    nor crevices to remind a gentle reader
    of furrows like dried Arizona mud,
dug by the wild madness of the sun.

By the time The Story became the story,
    it asked the narrator to leave editing
    to the children or to another day. She agreed.
She could let the climax stay, though discrediting
    her truth: lives not plotted intersect long before merging.
She feared only that the gentlest would read
   of destiny between the lines.

Soon enough, a studio was completed
in one bare room marked by a red glass door,
  somewhere between the attic and the root cellar.
There, the story danced on the parquet floor
   while waiting for her to begin transcribing.
Instead she paused to ask, "But who will write the end?"
    as though she hadn't wondered it before.

And as though it hadn't also considered this,
the story shrugged and gently, gently offered
                                                              "Destiny?"
   before mutely deciding she needn't write at all.
With an elegant pirouette, the final elegy renounced,
   it danced her through a vast hall.
Spinning, she found it easy to ignore memory
   as it fell from the stairs and dared her to catch up.

Now danced, she doesn't care to understand
   why life tried so hard to convince her.
Instead she paints rivers and moist Arizona mud
   on glass with colors that wouldn't dare to occur.
She ignores the narrative when it chants
   and she can't find the straight lives that once intersected
   so she doesn't try to paint the people or their truths.

Through gently wizened creases, she sees the irony
  of pigment drying on stiff brushes
   as she tells The Story, climaxes too.
Words pause, hopeful she'll give them consideration.
In time, the end will offer its own narrative
 but she'll be too busy painting life between the lines
   to hear the storyteller.
------
Loosely related: Before this, came Fifeteen.

The Fall from an Almost Empty Nest

(Here)
            "And now for something completely different..."  ~Monty Python

Gravity seems weak, but weaker still here--
     is his grip.  I'm free-falling toward the stars.

     Minutes hail from the rails of the clock face,
     while my boys find time to hand out blue cigars.

     The air? It is thin enough to drink here,
     where the horizon falls away to give me view.
     My girls stop playing for a moment, or a decade,
     to pen an honest analytical review.

     The atmosphere gulps in another year here,
     while paper dolls are decomposing in the lawn.

     I write in crayon on the moon I find eclipsed here,
then fall to watch the majesty of dawn.

~Mari Nichols Haining 

        It's another One Shot Wednesday.

her first untimely death

her first untimely death
   (Or: A teenager mourns a death)
 
She couldn't have known it was Childhood's last night.
So she stood on the wet grass and sang to the evening
as though it was any other.

She should have realized when she noticed,
in grown-up thoughts,
the stars arcing above her had shifted
and were marking time like the hands of a clock.

Then somewhere far away a boy died
and the moon winked a minute.
She could not have known she was waiting for a shooting star
to note the second on the asphalt sky.

In ten hours, the phone will ring.
She will step outside her body without effort. To watch,
because events like those need historians.

Detached, she'll consider it theatrical.
And when she falls to the ground
she'll wonder if the wail filling the room and straining against the walls
really comes from her.

Somewhere, innocence just isn't anymore.
It will be too late for her to know
she's wishing she were outside, singing to the stars again.
Oblivious to the clock.

~Mari Nichols Haining

This is my contribution to One Shot Wednesday - a poetic flash mob. Go check it out!

Text from early labor. Bonus photo included!

This text  came from my daughter-in-law about 4.5 hours after her water broke. She was at the hospital in early labor with her first child.

This is bbbboring.

 I responded:
No worries - I bet it will be more interesting three hours from now!

-----------
I was right. An hour later, after an emergency c-section, she and my son became parents and I met my first grandchild. Mother and baby are doing fine.

Congratulations Jonathan and Sierra! You will be phenomenal parents. In parenthood and life in general, I hope you both remember to let the small stuff go; pick each battle carefully and choose your words as though they'll be the last the other person will hear; and most importantly,  to really live each moment, because they are the memories you'll treasure each tomorrow.

Welcome to the world Baby Alex! I'm crazy about you already!

Alexander

7lbs 10 oz

20 1/2" long
 8:38 PM

To-do list

To-Do (in order): Charge video & still cameras. Prep spare room for arriving family. Sleep. Go to the hospital. Meet 1st grandchild. Cry.

A game! Brought to you by YouTube and Japanese zit tools!

I'll start! digusting (dg-stng)adj. Something a user of digg.com would find abhorrent.

YouTube has standards?  And a Japanese commercial for a zit popping tool violated those standards? Weird. I glad they draw the line at digusting content, because we all know there's plenty disgusting stuff up there!

Newly edited: The Second Kind

After you gave me her poem, the name replaced,
I said there were two kinds of women:
those who inspire sonnets
and those who don't.

And then I laughed;
the tension was too much to bear.
It's fine, I said.
I tried not to sound like a martyr
but thought,
Why have I never inspired
art of any kind?
Not even a charcoal sketch or quick haiku.

Once, I convinced myself I was a rough draft
living  in the coffee-stained pages of your journal.
On that occasion, I didn't mind --
because we were a draft
and romance can be rough.

I am aware of my own gracelessness.
Yet grace is required of a muse.
Still, consider that I have desire,
and what is love without desire?
And here is patience,
because what is art without patience?

I remember now. Again.
And the uneasy laugh escapes again.
I conclude aloud
(with melancholy, not martyrdom)
that if I had been the first kind,
I would have abandoned beauty and art
as just moments.

Moments as transient as our forever.

Becoming Ms. Fix-it - Handy tip

Another Becoming Ms. Fix-it Tip:
Before using that circular saw you left on the patio for months, check that stinkbugs haven't claimed it as home.

The grass sighs

Melancholy floats in the wind today.
Memories are deposited by the rippling breeze,
and the waving grass sighs.

I remember when fall winds
brought fairy songs twisting around me
teaching me to dance and fly in concert.

Later, zephyrs nudged me to the future,
before towing me urgently by my whipped umbrella.
Yet, aren't I too young to hear the sigh?

These days beneath the crimson,
I see the dust has settled now as crystal morning frost.
These evenings, no nanny in the wind
and no longing for the memories.
But the grass?
It still sighs.

From somewhere: a bird.

I am cold, my sweater damp,
but I am only here.

Without decision,
I stay to watch a leaf parachute
and listen for the wind to shift

until the sighs fade in to day.

~Mari Nichols-Haining

One Shot Wednesday: A poetic flashmob.

There once was a lady who lived in a boot, after Jacobs and Kors took all her loot...

I love fall. The browns and golds and burnt siennas. Those reds and blacks--oh..all of the season's colors--they enliven me. I find myself inhaling deeply to catch the sweet leathery smell that permeates the air this time of year and wakes up my soul. Oh sure, the changing leaves are pretty too, but I'm talking about boots. I admit it: I love my boots and look forward to pulling them from the back of the closet each fall. Like the unique love felt by that mother (the one who lived in a shoe) for each child, I love every pair of boots I own for some unique quality.  Some might claim I have an unnatural obsession with them. 

Sometimes, I want a wife too!

The satirical essay below has been floating around for 40 years, so there's a good chance you've seen it before.  It was originally published in the first edition of Ms. in 1971.  A friend's status message reminded me of it tonight, so here I am. It's worth a reprint every now and again.

-------------------------------------

I WANT A WIFE

Judy Syfers, (1971)


I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A
Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.

Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh
from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his
ex-wife. He is obviously looking for another wife. As I thought
about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me
that I, too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically
independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent
upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And
while I am going to school I want a wife to keep track of the
children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of
mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and
are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children's clothes
and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant
to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they
have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park,
the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they
are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need
special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My
wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may
mean a small cut in my wife's income from time to time, but I guess I
can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for
the care of the children while my wife is working.

Once Gold

Like Midas in this world
far removed from myths and gods,
your touch consumed it all--
time, the past, then even vague dreams.
In their places
are thoughts like statuettes.
They stare, unnerve me, remind me
that value is often measured differently.

So, once reminded, I think
Perhaps I didn't understand you.
But of course, I did.
And perhaps I didn't love enough?
But of course I did.

It is reflected in the obscene glint of all that is left
unconsumed.
It is in the grime that settles after droughts and dusty summers;
a blanket on the golden of the decayed.

In Passing: For my complicated friends.

A repost from my other blog...

It's time now to admit that if I'm lucky
these are my middle years.
That while watching the obvious enormity
of each morning rise,
this other life I couldn't watch
became the one I'm living.

Before I thought to look, four decades passed,
while people wandered in and out of doubt
and of these years.
And while I thought I was moving
(or knew I was standing still)
I met the people who will become
my old, complicated friends in another cycle of time.

In our complications then
we'll play chess and talk of now with nostalgic fondness
while watching the imperceptible shadow of each day fall.
And if we're honest, we'll admit we're content
with enduring our passions
and with the passing decades.

It's then, I think, that time will stall.

~Mari Nichols-Haining

Is it a roar, or a meow?

I'm not going to lie. I get a thrill when I successfully fix something around the house, especially if it's something that seemed daunting to me when I considered trying. Being single has been educational: I've learned to use a propane torch, sweated pipes, fixed a dishwasher and a washer and dryer, wired lights and doorbells, and deconstructed (then reconstructed) a box spring that was too tall for a stairwell. I just purchased my own multimeter and electric receptacle tester; I purchased and own my own circular, jig, chain, miter, and hack saws; and I literally carry the scar of someone who has learned, through trial and huge error, how not to cut her finger off when the protective plate for the electric hedge trimmer is broken.


The cycle of concentration-frustration-elation (wash, rinse, repeat)

Travelers will understand...

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. -Henry Miller

At this very moment (who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow), I have a great need to get away. From what? I’m not sure. Actually, I think I have the need to wander; it’s a subtle difference, but the need to go is different than the need to get away. I call it my ‘gypsy blood,’ although there's no evidence that I actually have any real gypsy heritage.

Between the ages of 16 and 30, I moved around often. I don't think I spent more than two consecutive years in the same house or same town, and I convinced myself I needed to move. Now I think I get the same relief from traveling without a firm itinerary. What I didn't know back then was that I didn't need to physically relocate my household, I just needed whatever it is I get from interacting with other travelers, meeting people with different experiences, seeing things I’ve never seen, feeling life happening again after I've let it stagnant around me in my tiny hometown, watching the sunset from a different horizon (or from a horizon at all, considering I don't have one at home)....

It's time for a trip and I don't care where I go. My feet are getting twitchy and my lightest suitcase is beckoning from the back of my closet. The world is vast and I have an urgent need to see more of it.

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Morgantown, West Virginia--An economic Oasis

Mountaineers surviving the recession!

This is not supposed to happen.

 A friend wrote: 
I still can't believe it. Honestly. All day today I spent not believing any of it. Does that ever go away? I mean,I can't believe that he's really gone. That this has happened to me. This is not supposed to happen.  

Sometimes, I think it would be wise for me to remember my own response to hm:

--clipped--

 You know, I started a response a few days ago and fell asleep while writing it. I'm glad I did, because today seems more right. My answer today is No. It never seems exactly real...
I flipped on the news this morning and came across a story about a little girl who died. Her parents said that right before she died, she was  reaching and grabbing at the air from her bed. When they asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to catch the butterflies she could see everywhere.
Ron died 15 years ago this December, yet hearing this made me wonder what he saw as he died. It left me crying. The kids are at a sleepover this weekend, so I did the 'talking out loud' to him thing I seem to do when I'm alone and get into moods like this. 
My secret craziness goes deeper. This is how sick I am: sometimes, I'm mad at the world that people can give birth to 8 preemies in a small hospital in PA and every one of them survives and are healthy. But my one preemie, who wasn't even THAT early, couldn't make it out of a top notch Children's Hospital in LA. WTF? I'm not saying I wish anything had happened to other babies, I'm just pissed about the randomness.
So my answer is that the bad days go on forever. But they become a comfort, because to hurt this long means I've loved intensely. To have loved and lost is better than having never loved at all is really true on a much deeper level than most people realize. To have known the kind of love that can touch you randomly on a Saturday morning 15 years later is astounding. It's weird to be so pained and so grateful at the same time.

So, I hope you're having better days. But I don't hope you're not sad anymore. And I hope that if you're dating again, you're having fun and enjoying the people you meet for who they are; but I don't hope it erases the joy of loving Antonio or the pain of losing him.

And I really hope I explained myself well enough that my last paragraph made sense and doesn't sound like I'm just cruelly wishing you endless pain.
 --------