2017-2018 Calendar from CalendarPedia

The Year You Thought You Were Dying
~ Mindy Nettifee

was a really great year.

You ate licorice on the beach in January,
swam rum sauced in the icy Pacific
wearing only blue rubber flippers
and your grandfather’s dog tags
and for the first time, it felt good to be cold,
it felt good to be so cold it hurt.

You doted on pigeons and stray cats.
You ate honey peanuts in the park
and re-watched every movie that ever made you
cry, including Steve Martin’s The Jerk.
You tattooed your entire body in Pablo Neruda
translations and cherry blossoms.

You blew all your money on comfortable shoes
and one of those mattresses made from NASA space foam.
You slept the sleep of assassins and kings—remorseless.

You bought chocolate bars from all the kids who came
to your door and stock-piled them in your broom closet.
You left them in your will to THE SECRETARIES,
every last one of them.

You volunteered at the local senior center playing bingo.
When you won you forced to whole room to take shots of
Welch’s grape juice and sing the national anthem.

And you spent time with your favorite lover.
You let him get close.
Secret suicide note, nonsense alibi close.
shampoo scent dissection close.

Close enough to memorize your tells,
hand you your ass at pillow poker,
make your defenses look like the silly decoupage
of paper angels and Victorian roses that they were.
Close enough that your laughter
punched him with mint gum puffs.
Close enough that his sighs drove circles
in the parking lots of your sighs,
close enough to measure your ribcage
in wrists, your palms in lips.

So close, you didn’t even notice
your heart speed up, then stop,
when he kissed you so hard,
when the New Year’s ball dropped down.

My note: We spend so much time not living, merely going through the day. Live as if this were your last day—why wait to enjoy your life?

You Loved Me
~ Marina Tsvetaeva

You loved me. And your lies had their own probity.
There was a truth in every falsehood.
Your love went far beyond any possible
boundary as no one else’s could.

Your love seemed to last even longer
than time itself. Now you wave your hand—
and suddenly your love for me is over!
That is the truth in five words.

Three of Swords from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, art by Pamela Colman Smith

Count
~ Paul Celan

Count the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you awake,
count me in:

I looked for your eye when you opened it, no one was looking at
you,
I spun that secret thread
on which the dew you were thinking
slid down to the jugs
guarded by words that to no one’s heart found their way.

Only there did you wholly enter the name that is yours,
sure-footed stepped into yourself,
freely the hammers swung in the bell frame of your silence,
the listened for reached you,
what is dead put its arm round you also
and the three of you walked through the evening.

Make me bitter.
Count me among the almonds.

Another Day
~ Martin Miller

How mad I must have been
When I look back now
On all the reasons why
It never happened somehow
The excuses I made with
A self-constructed lie
The boldness that I lacked
That made others gently cry
You have vision
You have time
Why? You have the flair
There’s no success like failure
They flippantly cry.
But never do themselves try
Everyone’s a winner.
I’ve been heard to say
But boldness never came my way
It’s so damn easy just to say
Another day
Another day.

My notes: What strikes me hard about this poem is that Martin Miller was no slouch at trying new things. He had a successful career as an antiques dealer, then went on to establish a gin distillery, a small group of hotels (the place in London was fabulous, and sadly is no more), and an arts and culture academy in London. He was also an investor in several side businesses, as well as self-publishing a novel (an entertaining, if uneven read) and the book of poetry in which this poem appears. He had some major financial swings (divorce is expensive, among other factors) but he recovered each time. And yet, he somehow felt “boldness never came my way”.

Drawing Room, Miller’s Residence, London, UK

The Heart of a Woman
~ Georgia Douglas Johnson

Armored Heart/Caged Heart by Renee Stout