Beach Day for the Writing Project, A Sestina

The girl asked her professor to explain in more detail
the class trip to the beach. “Our intention is to write,
meet for coffee and be home before dark.
Bring sunscreen, umbrellas; bring pens, paper and water.”
Face heatstroke, strangers, flabby tourists, death at sea?
For odes and prose? Seemed like quite a risk.

The girl went to the beach anyway, forgetting the risk
of poor grammar, of writer’s block, of conflicting character detail.
All the students headed to the shore, hoping to see
Venus shoved from foamy waves, on her right
Calliope, on her left, Eros, all thrashing in the water,
bringing the lifeguards, who’d drag the muses to the dark

shade of the first-aide tower. The gods, unused to the dark,
looked to each other, an inquiring glare, what kind of risk
had they taken, coming to these writers, afraid of the water.
The class pressed them, “Just give us more detail!
Please! You don’t know what it’s like to have to write!”
But the muses moved past them, head back to the sea.

Staring at the celestial backs, aghast by what they see,
“Now what?” the students thrash about like new mermaids, dark
waves drag their musings down, their ideas struggle to right
themselves on jumbled, green rocks. Untried words willing to risk
their prefixes, cutting themselves into roots, just a detail
gone ignored, a suffix dropped off, to avoid drowning in the water

of rough drafts. The girl trashes her first copy, drinks her water.
Is it already time for lunch? Most of the class, she can see,
is already heading for a café, one where each detail
of the menu is neatly written in neon chalk in a dark
corner, the blackboard hangs ominously above waitresses who risk
it all, balancing iced tea and salads to write
the menu items while standing on stools, not caring if the spelling is right
or worrying that a muse has slipped back into the water
or turning grey at the thought of the taking a plot risk.
Their sails have no holes; their boats not lost at sea.
They don't wonder if their peers pass judgment, critical and dark,
"She's no artist! Her abysmal word choice! The lack of detail!”

Finally, the girl steeled herself, took a risk that day to write
about every detail – the gods, the waitress, the water.
And though she can’t see the way, words float in from the dark.

11 Ways of Looking at Zucchini

I.
Zucchini strips green and greener
Fuzzy prickly starchy seeds

II.
Bees in yellow blossoms
Big as my hand
in July turn into zucchini

III.
Luscious, dark, intense
Chocolate cake,
Infused with 2 cups of
jade zucchini
Served to vegetable avoiding
step-mother
as dessert

IV.
Kitchens, hot as rusty August cars,
On the counters
Zucchini, tomatoes, basil, garlic
In the garden
Pumpkins wait for grey October
Mornings

V.
Cafés in Paris serve
Smoky ham and white cheese
On baguettes
or
Zucchini omelets
Sautéed with earthy mushrooms
And wine in brown clay pots

VI.
Two orange cats
Toy with the small mouse
Found in the dirt behind
The zucchini patch

VII.
You have thrown away
My brilliant love
The way a toddler
tosses
Zucchini
To the cold, linoleum floor

VIII.
She looked great,
Amazing, in fact
10 pounds lighter, easily.
“Zucchini” she replied
when asked,
what was her secret

IX. Men must feel weak
Near an unpicked
Zucchini

X.
Lock the doors,
roll up the car windows,
cross the street
Here comes the neighbor
With more bags of zucchini

XI.
The young people held hands
Milling through gardens
Of lavender, rosemary,
Stopping abruptly
At golden
Zucchini blossoms
Which he picked for her
took a petal and placed it
on her tongue

Train Song, a photo poem

Train Song

Nothing ever happens on the southbound train

In a way, it is the people's stomping feet

That signals any motion.

Nothing every happens on the train
except a man in dark glasses
not noticing the way a Carlsbad gull
dives into the lagoon, rising in the surface of a wave
looking across the ocean, nothing is happening
the Pacific is still salty and blue

On the train, nothing is happening
As the announcer declares, through crusty static,
The stops for Encinitas, for Solana Beach, for Old Town
Where you can take a bus, a trolley, or a cab to somewhere else
Where, likely, nothing happens

Nothing is happening
So the poet in yellow is distressed, she clutches her neon pink
Composition book
And watches the new arrivals clomp to their seats
The train climbs passed Torrey pines, then eucalyptus
Parallel to Highway 101,
See The Bar Leucadian, the Just Peachy Fresh Fruit stand,
Then a bump, the lost rhythm of train tracks at Lou’s Records

There is nothing to see on the southbound train
Girls in blue dresses, their boyfriends in baseball caps
Tourists pull a sandwich from their packs, then a sweater
To ward against the impossible cool of the indoor air
Just another day, without anything to see
A man in the corner lays his head down on the small center table
Sleeps

The middle-aged couple, in matching khaki shorts
Move toward a seat across from the poet,
A smile offered as a way to simply ask
That her feet be removed from the seat the woman wants

All the people on the train
Look out the window, toward the fairground
Something is probably happening there
Ferris rides, deep fried turkey legs
But the train rushes by too fast to know for sure

The passengers with window seats move their
Eyes
Above them a fighter jet wings towards Miramar
Then, nature gets the last say
a hawk echoes the flight of the jet

Inside the train, its clear little happens
Four people are chewing gum
One a texter
One talking on a cell phone
The man who has awakened from his nap
And the poet

Who, though she is almost 35 years old,
feels young again.
She resolves to enjoy the nothingness on the train
The lack of drama and
Puts away her notebook.
Nothing needs to happen on the southbound train.

San Diego's Sante Fe Station

What it feels like to...

...Get a Beauty School Haircut.

The Paul Mitchell School in downtown San Diego is located on 4th and A. Located in an imposing white building, a former bank, it is easily accessed from the Sante Fe train station, past the courthouse, cafes, and the civic center.

I arrive about 20 minutes early, check in with the twenty-something at the front desk. He reminds me a punk rock front man, spiky black hair -longer on one side than the other-, black lipstick, an eyebrow ring, and an indecipherable tattoo, curling half letters growing out from the white collared button down shirt he is sporting along with a black vest, black jeans, black jack boots. Black and tattoo is obviously the school uniform. Everyone from the supervisors to the students wears black and white, tattoos of all sort are permitted: angel wings, neck scrolls, sunbursts rotating around bleeding red hearts.

I am directed to wait along with about nine others in their lounge area, which consists of three white ottomans, piles of fashion magazines, six plasma screens all showing a cirque d'soliel-type hair and fashion parade. The smell of the 80's rush over me while I wait: perming solution, aerosol sprays, Obsession. I get a different type of whiff every few minutes as the lounge is located between the work floor and the student time clocks and classrooms. Students rush passed the ten of us in a dismissive fashion, no eye contact allowed and I get the feeling that they are too cool for clients. School, however, they obvious think is "rad" because they are up in everyone’s business, checking each other’s dye jobs, watching like a pride of lions as a fellow classmate slashes into this hour’s prey.

Soon, Casey, my stylist, approaches and leads me to a chair in the corner. She is still fresh faced, her brunette color looks natural, her black a bit more subtle than the others stylists near us. She takes a moment to assess my hair. Her eyes grow wide as she handles the split ends in the back. "How long has it been since..."
I am unable to answer honestly, because I have forgotten. I explain that I had been trying to grow it out, what I'm going for now, and she brings her instructor over, they confer for a moment, then the instructor, a very white-blonde Annie Lennox look alike, writes some cryptic symbols on the mirror in front of me. Next, Casey leads me over to the wash room.

The washroom is behind the check-in counter, in the old bank vault. We wait our turn outside and Casey and I make small talk.
"Yes I have the day off, I teach 8th grade, No, no, I like 8th graders. What about you?"
Casey is moving to Napa in a month, she likes doing facials and up-dos, her boyfriend is a night club promoter, so she's not into happy hour, more like blood marys and hair of the dog.

Finally, our turn in the washroom has come and I follow Casey into the red-lit, concrete vault and take my seat. "Would you like a sugar scrub?" Casey is running warm water through my hair. "Uh, probably" I answer not knowing or caring really what it entailed, I needed some serious hair and scalp work, and because I knew I would pay less here than at a salon I went for it. Blissful, is the best word to describe the next ten minutes. Warm water, a grainy sugar scrub massage into my hair, rinsed, conditioner massaged into my hair, a hot towel wrapped around my head, then my temples, neck, forehead, sinuses, all massaged slowly. After the final rinse, Casey tells me to open my hand. She popped a Hershey's kiss into it. This unexpected token, signaled that bliss time was up, time for serious business.

The haircut took about 45 minutes. As a rule, students take longer to finish the job than professionals and I felt Casey's intense thoroughness and determination. As she finished, she began to dry and style my hair. Our small talk ceased at this point, I thought about the next item on my to do list for the day, her instructor signed her off. My hair was cute enough, all the dryness gone, a weight lifted and she handed me a mirror and twirled me around to get a better look at the back. It all looked fine, she didn't transform me into a Heidi Klum or make me look too much like my mother, so I was happy.

As she walked me to the register, I pay the $17, hand her a tip and finally notice her tattoo. On the inside of her wrist, the single word LOVE scrolls. Adorable.

Garden Fun

The Whole Garden

 

My Favorite - An egglant called Japonese Millionaire

 

Gorgeous! The Eggplant plant

 

Squash Blossom

 

More Garden Fun

Hummingbird and Butterfly flower garden

 

Sunflower Power

 

Pumpkin Pie!

 

There are called Red Runner Beans - They are huge!

 

Good Morning Spider Web