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| Like many of you, when The Muse strikes, I listen and write it down! A Photo of My Great Grandfather Scandrett I actually never saw him, only this faded photo, stained now from light and leaks from roofs long gone, but I know all the clothes he's wearing had nothing to do with his life. High necked starched shirt, tie, dark tight suit hair starkly parted and slick, hands tucked carefully out of sight hiding the earth under his fingernails, from the Iowa cornfields just plowed and planted. Posing now, waiting for the corn to tassel. GEOGRAPHY Somehow I missed geography-- knowing where things are in the world. I trace broad outlines of continents on the globe, unchanged for centuries. Inside, everything has shifted, wars, earthquakes, typhoons tidal waves come and go, erasing, redistributing, leaving survivors to find their outlines again. People and places rise up to claim their spaces. My hand follows the rich curve of the world, to known places now unknown, changed where thousands of people died without knowing why giving up their hold on this or that slice of earth, changing the borders again and again. I feel the earth redistribute, like my body settling into the unknown regions of middle age not knowing what it is in the middle of. What I Have to Say
I say stop--slow down.
I say watch the spaces between clouds,
hear the silence before the morning light changes.
I say stop swallowing words
spit them out and get on with it.
I say see what life has brought you.
Sort everything, fold it, put it in the right basket,
just like you always have.
Now throw everything up into the air.
Watch it land in different places,
Throw away your basket.
Now pick up the pieces of your life that still fit.
Call the trash collector to pick up the rest.
Time of Your Life
I fall asleep scheduling tomorrow,
Project X due by yesterday, employee reviews,
meetings, meetings,
pick up dry cleaning, plan a party,
call the children, get groceries.
My pocket calendar flips page after page
by itself, each hour penciled--no--inked in
no minutes left in any day,
not even any seconds.
Whatever happened to all the time I saved
using the express lane,
cooking minute rice
instant cereals
using elevators
and airplanes?
Tick toc, screw the clock.
I sleep late.
The Good Old Girls
(For a former boss)
You flow out of the executive washroom,
your Good Old Boys bobbing around you.
Straighten your muted stripe silk tie, pat your pinstriped fly,
knee jerk reactions to some long ago
boyhood embarrassment.
'Well, good lookin', you ready for your big moment?'
You look down at me, self-confidence rolling off you
thick as L.A. smog.
Triumphant blue eyes burn down
through the inversion layers of your ego.
You think I don't know you set me up
to fail on this project,
lost memos
unanswered phone calls
false information
missing reports
meetings on the golf course without me.
Yah, you think I don't know
and you can barely wait to get into the Board Room
with the Big Guy
and retrieve this project,
offer to help me get it back on track,
then take all my research and the credit.
Your Good Old Boys can hardly wait, either,
straining at their leashes for release of the rabbit.
You're wrong. I didn't need you or the Good Old Boys.
My chief aide was your secretary.
Yah, the gorgeous green-eyed natural blonde
with the nice legs and the good chest
the one you think has all her brains in her bra.
I heard everything, all your plans
through her beautful, invisible ears.
Your office adornment avoids your hands,
ignores your crude remarks,
goes to college nights,
wants to be somebody, not some body.
She'd rather risk her ass to help me up
than have you pat it on her way out.
We set up the heavy artillery
researched information, wrote feverishly,
distilled everything into rich, heavy packets
stacked solidly on the conference table down the dark hall.
And I've got all the bells and whistles, too, Handsome-
power point slide show, laser pointer, the works.
"Ready, doll?" You smile, all teeth, open the door
to the polished, hushed Board Room where a dark rainbow
of neutral pinstripes waits.
I look at you and smile sweet and pretty.
I think--Yah, baby, I'm ready.
And Sweetie, if I were you
I'd check that zipper one more time.
Mother Never Told Me
My Mother and Walt Disney lied to me.
And so did Mother Goose.
Mother, you told me my Prince Charming would come and find me,
and we would live happily ever after, just like Cinderella, Snow White
in Walt's movies.
I waited a long time, went into training to be tall and blonde, just in case.
Now I'm looking at it all again, Mother, all the myths I lived by.
Cinderella didn't live happily ever after.
Prince Charming lost his kingdom to a military junta,
developed a drug problem; Cindy's in treatment with him.
Looks like they'll make it, but it's going to be a long process.
Snow White is in group therapy, Prince Charming couldn't save her.
She never really got over the abuse from her wicked stepmother,
or the horror of waking up in that pretty little coffin
with everyone staring at her.
And I can't believe, Mother Goose, that you didn't teach
all little women about real life. Here's what you should say:
Miss Muffet, tell the spider to keep his hands off your tuffet.
And if that doesn't work, file a sexual harassment complaint.
Red Riding Hood! Believe your own eyes and ears.
You can tell a wolf from your Grandmother
at a hundred yards, I know you can.
And you, Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe,
maybe it's too late for you, but send your children
to Planned Parenthood, so they know what to do.
Chicken Little, what a hero!
He was absolutely right, Mother Goose.
Pieces of the sky fall every day.
Parts of jet planes, meteors or whatever
else someone sent up that must come down.
I'm not waiting any more, Mother,
to live happily ever after with Prince Charming.
He doesn't look like such a hot bet, anyway,
if you judge by past performance.
I'm with Chicken Little right now.
He's an all right guy, and we're having a good time.
Wish you were here.
All poetry by Karen Karsten
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