January Night

Okay!  A new year calls for some cheerful, simple-minded new verse.

by Susan Cameron

Our cozy home on this cold night!
I walk inside and hold you tight.

Your crock-pot soup has cooked all day,
The heater's on, I've got my pay,
We have no flu, the candles glow,
Got Buffett on the stereo --
With bellies full, and sleepy-eyed
We listen to the wind outside.

There's just one task that needs addressing --
Let's give our thanks for every blessing. 


copyright 2013, Susan Cameron

Algebra

by Susan Cameron

(with my deepest apologies to Joyce Kilmer)


I think that I shall never be
A fan of x times y plus z.

Within parentheses they nest,
With pi and log and all the rest;

I sort the segment from the ray,
And disentangle i from j,

And graph parabolas with care;
I plot the points, come up for air,

And know the true source of my pain:
I'll never use this stuff again.

The textbook's size amazes me --
For this we sacrificed a tree!


Susan Cameron, copyright 2012

Dementia

The title is fair warning! If you need to be in your happy place right now, don't read this!

"Why am I here?" asks my buddy, bewildered,

Eyes searching the wardroom for clues.

There are six beds for six lost men

Who don't know where they are or how they got here.

He still knows who I am -- for now.

"My brain's not working right," he says.

I bring Chinese food, and magazines filled with

Lovely photos of pretty places he'll never visit again.

I bring art supplies, hoping the two-lane roads

Connecting eye, hand and brain

Are still unblocked by the protein-boulder avalanche

Crashing through his head, severing his synapses,

Cutting off the supply lines of all that's familiar --

Ford trucks, fast bikes, fast food, freeways, freedom, friends,

All his disappearing past. He has no future.

I bring him an mp3 player filled with echoes,

Music time-traveling,

A lost civilization calling out across the void --

Beach parties, house parties, little deuce coupe,

Surfing and biking and sailing a sloop,

And I worry. Will the music make him smile or cry?

Those days, his days, have long gone by.

His new best friend, Death, hasn't shown up yet

With the only gift that can help -- a one-way ticket

Out of the misery and into the mystery.

I share some time and bring some things

But can't do any good.

My friend's asked me to kill him.

If I could, I would.

Susan Cameron, copyright 2012

On Writing

The classroom assignment: Write a villanelle. So I did, and the professor liked it so much, she asked if she could use it in her instructional materials. I was honored. Here it is.

Inside my head I know what I must say

But language trips and falls and stumbles blind.

My words emerge and blink and lose their way.

To take this pen and slash the fog away,

To put on paper what is in my mind --

Inside my head I know what I must say.

A phrase can dance and spin, a child at play,

Or crash about, malformed and misaligned.

My words emerge and blink and lose their way.

My thoughts can soar like hawks at dawn's first ray,

They seek the sun and leave dull earth behind.

Inside my head I know what I must say.

I want to write these thoughts without delay,

But, God! The perfect words are hard to find.

My words emerge and blink and lose their way.

Some words can shine and shimmer bright as day,

Illuminate the dark for humankind.

Inside my head I know what I must say;

My words emerge and blink and lose their way.

copyright Susan Cameron, 1998

Santa Ana, 9/8/94

by Susan Cameron

I wrote this in 1998 (I think!) about an incident in 1994. I still like it. :)

(And I'm glad Santa Ana has calmed down tremendously compared to back then).

I fling my bulletproof vest on the chair and open my first beer.

We worked the war zone on Third Street tonight.

My adrenaline's still pumping, nerves jumping,

heart thumping, body ready for flight or fight;

Genghis Khan would get his ass capped if he rolled up here.

Kafka couldn't invent this place. Teenage killers roam

while their parents cower trembling behind window bars.

Their bullets play with babies: "Tag, you're hit!"

And that's it. Tiny coffins, processions of beat-up cars

head to the graveyard to take the innocents home.

This story is as old as time, as old as Cain and Abel,

as old as I feel right now. But Attila the Homeboy is young.

He rips through flesh and crunches bone, a predator high on

testosterone and unconcerned with right or wrong.

There's no guilt or redemption in this fable.

So off we went to war again -- blue suits versus black,

shirts and skins -- to make the world safe; another story

you've heard before. The players change but the game

stays the same. We busted a hundred and got some glory;

but they'll make bail, and they'll be back.

Susan Cameron, copyright 1998

Storytelling

I’m telling a story today.

Like all stories, it needs

a beginning,  a middle, and an end.

So, the beginning:

I pick up my pen, open my notebook,

place the pen on the page.

I wait for words to appear,

to crawl out from the tip of the pen,

cover the paper

like ants on a picnic blanket.

My pen is sluggish,

says she craves caffeine.

At Starbuck’s,

my pen and I run into a friend.

Oh, so good to see you,

but I can’t stop now.

I have to go.

I’m writing a story today and

my pen needs a cup of coffee.

So much depends

on this cup of coffee,

even more than depends

on a red wheelbarrow,

glazed with rain,

as someone once said.

So, I must go I say

two hours later.

The Middle:

My pen is alert now.

A double shot espresso macchiato

wakes one with a jolt

to the juices like a lightning bolt.

So, my pen poises

like a diver on board’s end,

bounces, plunges onto the paper

with a splash of letters

that scramble up and over each other

searching for a word, a thought, an image:

“Purple graham crackers floating in the air.”

Oh, glory, we're off and writing.

But wait! My pen complains that she’s hungry,

weak with the need for nourishment,

her inner resources famished, fatigued,

her literary allusions lost in illusion.

She says she’s faint, suffering delusions.

She needs lunch, just a little bite of something,

perhaps a graham cracker, preferably purple.

The End:

My pen needs a post-lunch nap.

A dream or two will do, she says.

An hour later,

she awakes refreshed and ready.

She taps out a few words,

then with a sigh, exhausted,

she says it’s cocktail hour.

She needs a glass of wine,

some soft music.

We can’t quit now, I wail.

What about those purple graham crackers?

What kind of story is this?

Perhaps, we should change direction,

take a road less travelled on.

It might make all the difference.

It’s worked for others.

Give me a break, she says.

Don’t worry, we’ll write

“…tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”

Okay, I sigh,

but I think someone already told that story.

Geography

An old mapmaker of local renown

roams a narrow beach between the sea

and sheer cliff  that forms a promontory

on the outskirts of this coastal town.

He shakes his fist and shouts at the sea,

berating the waves that batter the shore,

drown his words with a thunderous roar,

and threaten his published geography

     with a watery blasphemy.

Towering above him, the stone-faced crag

watches his antics, impassive and dour,

its creviced face like a furrowed brow,

resigned to the tide’s inevitable drag,

the superior force of the ocean’s invasion.

The mapmaker’s shouts drift away and float,

abob like timbers from a shipwrecked boat,
on an ocean impervious to rhetorical persuasion. 

Dawn

Dawn shakes off her cape of darkness,

dappling drowsy trees with a feathery touch.

She tiptoes from branch to branch in silver slippers

that flicker and flash through the leaves.

Her gray silk gown billows across the sky;

light glowing like white lace on its hem.

Like a lover reluctant to leave a tryst,

she lingers on the horizon, then

picks up her skirts and slips over the hills,

as the satisfied sun settles down

on the blue satin sheets of morning.

Valentine's Day Haiku

by Susan Cameron

* * * . . . . . . . * * *
* * * * * . . . . . * * * * *
** . . you, me, together: . . **
**. . a wonderful valentine! . .**
** . . . .every day is . . . .**
** . . . . spring . . . . **
** . . . . . . . **
***
*

copyright 2011, Susan Cameron

The Artichoke

The artichoke has no fashion sense.
It dresses in olive drab splotched with brown
like a raw recruit in jungle fatigues.

Camouflage is second nature to the artichoke.
It hides its tender heart and sophisticated tastes
under a tough-guy exterior of thick waxy petals
and thorn-tipped leaves in overlapping layers
like rows of sharks' teeth.

Overly sensitive to criticism,
the artichoke has a prickly personality.
It's given to barbed responses
from its sharp-tongued thistles,
stiletto-like bayonets fixed to the tips
of its concentric leaves.

The artichoke is sturdy.
A hefty compact globe,
it looks like the accidental offspring
of an amorous adventure
between a cactus plant and a pinecone.

Intensely private, the artichoke is hard to get to know.
It demands patience and pampering,
prefers a thorough manicure
to prune its sharp nails
and luxuriant lemon-juice massages.

A steam bath eases its defensive posture;
its uptight petals relax and recline
like sunworshippers in pool-side lounges.
The artichoke shows its softer side then,
becomes vulnerable to touch,
secure in offering up its secret self,
its tender-hearted core.

How to Write a Poem

First, cultivate daydreaming:  lie on the couch, stare at the stains in the ceiling, browse a bookstore, wander the woods, climb a tree, hide under a lilac bush, lunch at the zoo with zebras and monkeys, soar over the city.

When an image taps you on the shoulder, take it by the hand and hurry home. Make a cup of tea, sit down and chat, just the two of you. You can even flirt a little—smile, flash your dimples, give a sly wink, chuckle low and sexy.

Next, once you’ve charmed your guest, throw a party to celebrate. Issue invitations to your favorite words. You know so many, but be picky. Invite only the sturdy nouns and vigorous verbs. Insecure nouns and verbs dress dowdy, hang their heads, and act like wallflowers. They don’t make the best party guests. Most important, include only a few adjectives—they’re always fun, but such a rowdy, flamboyant bunch. They tend to talk too much and take over the conversation.

Now gather the necessities—the dictionary, the thesaurus, the rhyming book, pens and paper, snacks, cold drinks. Don’t forget those orphan lines and images you loved, but had to cut from other poems. They’ve been living in the basement, stuffed in the files. Dust them off. Place them around the room.

Make sure to introduce the guests to each other. Work the room, mix with everyone, poke a little here, provoke a little there, tell a joke, sing a song, turn a cartwheel. Don’t forget the music. Play a polka, a country-western stomp, a ballad, or a jazz trio. How about a symphony or piano solo? Play them all.  Let the guests cavort, romp, tumble, tangle, debate, discuss, chatter, and cavil.  Don’t turn out the lights until the moon goes to sleep.

Finally: do not clean up when the party is over.  Put your feet up. While nibbling on left-over bonbons and tasty bon mots, describe how the black knight boogied with the ballerina, the fireman squashed a lost flame, and you caught the frog and the princess kissing in the hall.  Don’t forget to note the spinster drank too much and left wearing the chip dip bowl on her head.  Close by expressing what a good time you had.

Susan Matthewson

The Weight of Water

They call me flatlander here in this high Sierra town.

They call me flatlander from LA, from la-la land

where the lunatic fringe holds center stage.

They call LA “down below” in this frontier town

            of crusted hardtack ranchers and farmers.

They say, “Down below where flatlanders stole our water

to build mega-mansions and cartoon houses

in the so-called city of angels.”

They ask, “What happened to the damned angels?”

They call me flatlander from down below.

They say it with scorn,

tempered a bit with shame.

They don’t like it, but they need our fat wads of cash,

pieces of silver exchanged

for this valley town’s pastures, once fertile and green,

for its rivers and streams that once overflowed banks,

for its lakes that glistened with sun-cut diamonds,

for its towering cottonwoods, now shriveled and dead,

that line only the river banks of memory.

Dust storms bedevil the town today,

rising from empty lakebeds and dried up rivers,

veiling legendary blue skies with yellow-brown gauze.

The water flows south in concrete aqueducts

            built by big-city rustlers  made rich by stolen water.

They say they fought the flatlanders with posses of armed men.

They say they blew up construction sites, 
            sabotaged equipment, vandalized vehicles,

harassed work crews, destroyed makeshift lodgings.         

Still, the water flows south as flatlanders head north

flooding this town by the thousands,

            searching for back-country quiet,

            seeking a respite from lives down below

that churn and surge in a city afloat on troubled waters.

When we open our wallets,

            they are grateful, cordial, and smile their thanks,

            but their guarded eyes shoot blanks.

They call me flatlander in this dried-out town.

Susan Matthewson

Divorce

by Susan Cameron

I said, "Hell will freeze over before our love will die."
The young say stupid things like that. We don't know it's a lie.
Now I’m one successful lawyer; you’re a high-priced lawyer too,
So when our marriage fell apart we knew just what to do.

Our troops assemble in the courts when we call reveille –
The Hessians on the left are yours, the others stand for me.
Our bloody little skirmishes, our combat hand-to-hand,
Has escalated to this point. We take our final stand.

We snarl and scream our orders, and before this war is done,
Our napalm burns our daughter and our shrapnel maims our son.
But we’re blinded by the smoke and we’re deafened by the noise,
And the casualties of war are often little girls and boys.

With murder pounding in my heart I roar a battle cry
And watch the life we’d had blow up as fireworks light the sky.
You call in an air strike, and then I take my turn,
With hands on hips, triumphantly, we watch our bridges burn.

Direct hit on the ammo dump! A satisfying roar –
What we had built went up in smoke. No chance of getting more.
I call in the coordinates – before my rockets land,
Belatedly, I realize Ground Zero’s where I stand.

A sickly light illuminates the ghostly, smoky pall.
The windswept ash floats through the air – I watch hell's snowflakes fall.

copyright 2010 - Susan Cameron

Another One Bites the Dust

by Susan Cameron

I patted my old Saturn goodbye yesterday.
I loved that car. It was
Hard-working, reliable and fun –
The perfect partner, yes?
But car years are like dog years.
So at fifteen,
Unless there was costly life support,
My Saturn was at the end of the final road.

The air conditioning fan had failed, so
I listened, window down, as we squeaked
To a halt at the stop light –
Listened to the death rattle of the exhausted engine,
Clattering despite the half-quart of oil it drank a week –
Smelled the faint whiff of sulfuric rotten egg
From the failed catalytic converter
Making its way through the rumbling muffler
And out the rusty tailpipe
As we headed to the junkyard.

But it was a good car, a great car, a noble car,
Even as it struggled and gasped –
A dying car
From a dead division
Of a near-dead car company
In the dying city of Detroit –

My Saturn, tough and gutsy to the end,
Knowing this was a good day to die,
Sang mariachi music at the top of its lungs
And I saluted
As it headed to the crusher.

copyright 2010, Susan Cameron

Flash Fire

That red petticoat
Flashed from under grandma’s skirt
Like the flicker of a cardinal’s wing,
Against white snow in a winter wood.

That red petticoat,
Six yards of scarlet taffeta,
Scalloped ‘round the hem
With white lace and satin bows,
Put a strut in grandma’s walk
That made her silver curls
Bounce and giggle on her head.

Grandma said red is the devil’s color,
And it was the devil made her buy it
When she spied it on the rack
Among the weary whites and pale pastels.
Grandma said it caught her eye
Like a bullfighter’s cape,
And she charged that rack,
Head down and nostrils flaring,
Grabbed that petticoat
And turned her back forever
On baby blue and powder pink,
Those soft-hued shades old ladies wear
To match their tinted hair.

Grandma said when she wore
That red petticoat
She thought of gypsy girls
With the rosy flush of campfires
Creeping over their copper-colored skin,
Or, can-can dancers high-kicking
Across a stage in starched crinolines.

That red petticoat,
Some might say,
Was as out of place on grandma
As a blush on a burlesque dancer.
But when grandma wore
That red petticoat,
She shot off sparks like a firecracker,
And we leaped around her
Like little tongues of flame
At the edge of a flash fire.

Copyright Susan Matthewson 2010

Larry Lee's Orange County Story

by Susan Cameron

Back in the early 60’s I had a house in Dana Point.
You remember the movie “On Any Sunday”?
Remember the opening scene, kids on Sting Ray bikes,
Tearing through the dirt? My house was just behind them.
There was room then, room to play then, room to move then,
Space and freedom, not house house house as far as the eye can see.

We were young men, swimming in easy money.
We owned our own businesses -- we were 22, 23, 24 years old.
We had wives and kids and houses and motorcycles and race cars.
No big marina in Dana Point then, we surfed there then.
Hobie had his surfboard shop in his two-car garage.
Killer Dana – well, there’s a lot of hype,
Things always seem bigger and better after they’re gone –
But the surfing really was great. Orange County was great. Life was great.
Everybody played back then! I remember
The kite contest at Easter, where Blue Lantern ended by the headlands,
A contest for grownups, catered by Chart House and Ancient Mariner,
A bathtub full of booze with plastic cups for dipping.
Can you even imagine that today?
Liability! Lawyers! Lawsuits!
But there we were, hundreds of people partying, laughing, dancing to the
Mexican Fighter Pilot Mariachi Band. You heard me!
Crazy bastards in kamikaze helmets and goggles, dress whites,
Gold-braided epaulets, riding in,
Playing mariachi music on horseback. Great guys!
Did I ever tell you about the German tank my buddy the importer bought?
Tearing around Dana Point in a tank, sixty miles an hour in the dirt, with
Buckwheat the pit bull up the hatch wearing sunglasses and a red scarf!
We played back then, didn’t take life so seriously back then –
We were winning!

But then –

The developers bought off the county, threw up stucco wall to wall.
The grim-faced yuppies swarmed in to buy their house house house
And filled the harbor with their boat boat boat. That killed surfing.
No more motorcycles in the dirt because there was no more dirt.
The times changed. The people changed. The culture changed.

Hollywood came to Orange County with their shitbox ethics,
Running scams, snaking other men’s wives, breaking up homes,
Greed and evil running rampant.

No more easy money, no more free time, no more camaraderie,
No more young guys doing honest business with each other,
No more friendship, being playful and having fun.

Money dried up
Fun dried up
Land got built up
Harbor got filled up
People got split up
I got fed up
And got the fuck out of there.

But I remember Dana Point.

And every so often I watch “On Any Sunday” and see what used to be.
The place was a young man's paradise.
I was one of the lucky ones.
I feel sorry for the young now --
They don’t have what we had
And they never will.

Susan Cameron (courtesy of Larry Lee), copyright 2010

This Will Not End Well

by Susan Cameron

I must have been feeling a little cranky about the dating scene years ago...

THIS WILL NOT END WELL

It's after work on Friday and I hurry down the highway
to meet my brand-new boyfriend in this upscale bar.
I've ordered Chivas neat, and I take a ringside seat,
and I watch the suit-and-tie boys show me who they are.

They hang around in packs, laughing loud, slapping backs,
and swearing like they're tough guys from the streets;
but their diction is precise and their fingernails are nice,
and they only fight ennui and balance sheets.

I listen to them chatter about stuff that doesn't matter,
comparing all the things they own, or want to --
their stereos and cars, their whiskeys and cigars,
the women that they want to do or will do.

They yap and yip and bark and my mood grows bleak and dark.
They're drowning out the chanteuse as she sings.
Their talk is loud and crude, and though the lighting is subdued,
I see the gleam of lots of wedding rings.

I think about their wives. Did they suspect their lives
would be spent home alone night after night?
Do Mercedes and Chanel make it less a living hell?
Does money make philandering all right?

Or am I completely wrong? Does wifey go along,
knowing but not caring that he cheats?
Is he a paycheck with a prick, just a wallet with a dick,
is she glad he comes on someone else's sheets?

I glance down at my watch and take another sip of Scotch.
The man I'm waiting for? He shows up late.
He's so sorry, and he misses me, he hugs me, and he kisses me,
and looks around and smiles and says, "Isn't this place great?"

Susan Cameron, copyright 1999

Growing Pains

Spring was sullen this year,
Pouting like a spoiled child.
She ruined the weekends with crying spells
And the weekdays with windy tantrums.

I planted geraniums along the walk,
Only to watch her stamp her foot
And crush them in the mud.
She tore through the daffodils,
Strewing them along the porch like broken dolls,
Then cried as only a child can
Over the loss of a favorite toy.
She trounced the roses on the back fence,
Spitefully scattering blossoms
Like soapbubbles in the wind.

I saw her sneak a sly, sidewise glance,
Full of mischief and caprice,
As she headed for the tulips
Huddled on the hill beyond the back fence.
She was almost out the gate,
When summer flew around the corner,
Picked her up by her petticoat,
Smacked her bottom with a broken branch
And sent her squalling to her room.

Copyright 1998 Susan Matthewson

Christmas haiku

by Susan Cameron

the
tree,
triumphant;
banishing winter
darkness, glittering
like
hope

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,
and Best Wishes for 2010!

Susan Cameron, copyright 2009

Poetic Play

Today I offer a few poems. The first one is a copy of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, followed by my parody of his poem titled, Shall I Compare Thee to a Winter's Day: Or, Just Drop Dead. The final poem is The Artichoke

SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?: SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A WINTER’S DAY: OR, JUST DROP DEAD!

Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?
Thou art more chilly, bitter, and extreme.
One look from you, one testy word convey
Such stinging slander one can only scream.
Yet sometimes even wintry days abate
And grant relief from frigid, freezing times,
Bring milder days that do not aggravate
And give one hope for softer, warmer climes.
But thy eternal winter does not fade
Nor lose intensity of harsh ill will.
My only hope’s for death to grant thee shade,
Deliver me from thy infernal swill.

So long as thee can breathe or thee can see,
So long lives this. I hope it torments thee.

Susan Matthewson
Copyright 2009


THE ARTICHOKE

The artichoke has no fashion sense,
Dressed in olive drab splotched with brown,
Like a raw recruit in jungle fatigues.

Camouflage is second nature to the artichoke.
It hides its tender heart and sophisticated tastes
Under a tough-guy exterior,
Thick-skinned, waxy petals and
Thorn-tipped leaves in overlapping layers
Like rows of shark’s teeth.

Overly sensitive to criticism,
The artichoke has a prickly personality,
It’s given to barbed responses
From its sharp-tongued thistles,
Stilletto-like bayonets fixed to the tips
Of its concentric leaves.

The artichoke is sturdy.
A hefty compact globe,
It looks like the accidental offspring
Of an amorous adventure
Between a cactus plant and a pinecone.

Instensely private,
The artichoke is hard to get to know.
It demands patience and pampering,
A thorough manicure
To prune its sharp edges
And a luxuriant lemon-juice massage.
A steam bath eases its defensive posture;
Its uptight petals relax,
Recline like sun worshippers on tilted lounges.
It shows its softer side then,
Becomes vulnerable to touch,
Secure in offering up its secret self,
Its tender-hearted core.

Copyright 2009 Susan Matthewson