Posted 9:12 AM by melanie

@}----------}---------

Tip of the Iceberg:
How Republicans MOCK the VOTE

The Great Voter Disenfranchisement of 2004

Over all there were 34862 incidents of voting irregularities reported;
these included machine malfunction/errors, disability access problem,
and voter's being harassed at the polling stations.

Nationwide 24842 incidents of voting irregularities were reported on Election Day.
(Election Incident Reporting System: 1-866-OUR-VOTE through this hotline/
many other incidents have since surfaced and are still surfacing with public hearings)

1414 incidents of voter intimidation were reported Election Day with 201
incidents in Ohio, 252 incidents in Pennsylvania and 223 incidents in Florida.

If you delve further into this site you’ll see that many harassment incidents were
reported under other poll related problems (2531 incidents/ everything from
scuffles, to police involvement, to rude workers, challengers, and long lines) which
would bring the figure quite a bit higher.


In Cuyahoga County, OH there are over 46 incidents of intimidation, many are
cases of police harassment and intimidation by Republican poll challengers.

In Broward County, FL many instances of police intimidation and first hand
accounts of Republican poll challengers harassing voters.

I grew up believing that my country was special and that voting was a sacred
civic responsibility, and now they tell us that this election was all about Morals, yet
what the Bush supporters did to mock our voting rights and deny us our right
to access the voting booth is Immoral and wrong and I am ashamed of our media
and our representatives and the power elite in both parties for refusing to acknowledge
that these problems went on with this election. I won't shut up and I won't stop writing
about this.

Posted 2:04 PM by melanie

**********************************************************************************

Ok, here's a really good link on the exit poll discrepancy, if you'd like to read
an intelligently compiled study, and love graphs, statistical analysis, and research data
as much as I do; it's from Steven F. Freeman Ph.D.,

Renea, (my fellow pollster extraordinaire) this link is for you (especially) so please
be sure and read it. You'll appreciate this one. All intelligent life forms,
happening by my page please read it, too.

The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy

Posted 10:30 AM by melanie

@}--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Contact Rep. Conyers and report all voter irregularities to Mr. Conyers
and The House Committee on the Judiciary-Democratic Members here

Mission Accomplished NOT!

BLOGGERMAN (THE MAN)

LEAGUE OF PISSED OFF VOTERS TO HOLD:
PUBLIC HEARINGS IN OHIO!

Ohio Voters tell of Election Day Troubles at Hearing

Green Party link to recounts (sorry Dems)

Link to report problems with voting in your state includes access issues ; disability, discrimination (provisional ballot etc.) If you were forced to cast a provisional ballot; it's the law that they have to tell you if it was counted or discarded and why. HAVA SEC. 302./a> <> PROVISIONAL VOTING AND VOTING INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS.

VOTERS UNITE

Posted 10:52 AM by melanie

BUSH LOST! Mission Accomplished NOT!

VOTER
GATE

The war ain't over and neither is the election
until we say it is.

(Keith Olbermann's Blog)

Note I updated links on voter fraud: today 11-09-04

New Links today: 11-10-04

Ideamouth



Members of House Judiciary Committee seek investigation

New link 11-12-04

And in Indiana RECOUNT is ON

Posted 6:56 PM by melanie

@}-----------------------------

A Values minded post for the Christian Right


Let me explain the post below to all you values minded folks. You just fell for
the oldest trick in the book. You went to the Republican store for their loss leaders
(discounted items intended to lure you in for bigger purchases.) You entered the
voting booth for the ban on homosexual marriage amendment, the possibility of
restricting access to abortions, adding regimented prayer in the schools (like every
child doesn’t say a private prayer before a test) and to have the 10 commandments
displayed on the lawn of city hall.

You probably got those things, but before you left they stocked your shopping basket
full of goodies like, corporate corruption, war profiteering, torture of other
human beings (you know the ones that are already born) global warming,
and the always-present chemical goodies they spew out of their
enormously profitable plants that maim and disease all of God's children.

You voted for the anti Christ not once, but twice, naughty, naughty
little Christian half-wits. Hope Jesus is real forgiving when he gets
to your luke warm souls.


In other words:

You're straining at gnats while swallowing elephants.

Posted 3:00 PM by melanie

*************************************
KERRY ******************************
EDWARDS ****************************
*************************************
*************************************
*************************************
*************************************
*************************************
*************************************

I picked up my mother this afternoon and we voted early
for KERRY/EDWARDS and every Democrat on the ticket.
We voted NO on the Protect Marriage Amendment.
I’m so glad we voted EARLY!!!!!!!

Posted 10:51 PM by melanie

*
*
My poem Ritalin was chosen to be included (Along with many other
talented writers. I'm so excited to be included with this group) in a
new print book anthology of online poets called Slow Trains Volume II,
it’s edited by the wonderful, and amazingly, talented Susannah Indigo
and it is also available here through Amazon.

Some of my other poems are also online. I am listed as Melanie Burke Zetzer
in the spring/summer Slow Trains 2003 edition. Stick around and read
the other writers, too. You’ll find that these are some of the most talented
young authors anywhere on the internet.
*
*

And if its really good literary porn that interests you, then check out
Clean Sheets Literary Porn Magazine.
You can read my poetic contribution under Exotica right here.










********************************************************************************

Posted 8:23 AM by melanie

Posted 8:43 AM by melanie

@}-----}-------



Daddy (for your grandson)

The last time
I saw you or touched you
was in 1985
It was on my birthday.


You stood in the front yard
in your overalls
working on my car
screwdriver in your hand
red grease rag tucked in your
back pocket.
The autumn sun
winked a lazy afternoon eye
through a hickory nut tree's
branches
lighting your face
for a moment
making you squint
and wipe your brow
with the oily rag.
You wished me Happy Birthday.
I kissed your grease-smudged face.
I cranked my car, two sputs then vroom
you smiled at the engine.
I waved to you
standing there, lonely with the pavement
and I was gone.

The last time I talked to you
was on the phone
the day before
Thanksgiving.
I told you I couldn't come home.
You offered to fly me back.
I refused
I said I was busy.
I said I had to work.
I was lying to you.
The next day
at lunch
I sat crossed legged
my hair wet, in my bathrobe
on my bare wood apartment floor
eating a cold turkey sandwich
and drinking warm corona beer
without lime.
I should have been
with you.
I called the bus station
to ask about tickets
and plan my trip home for Christmas.

December 12, 1985
I made it home
for your funeral
and now you are
the center of my attention
laid out, like a conversation piece,
everyone says, you look good
to them you are a
coffee table book
open to the last page.
I walk out
to the store down the street
to buy a bottle of wine
and I can still smell your roses
two blocks away.

One week later
My mother is crying
next to me in bed
all night, she won't stop
I am on my left side, facing her
propped up on one elbow
I brush back her hair from her face with
the palm of my right hand
and my fingertips trace the lines on her forehead.
It is raining outside
for the first time
since we buried you.
Cold December
taps on the windowpane.
She is worried about you
out there, in the rain.
She wants to bring you a jacket
she thinks
you are getting wet.
I hold her tight, swaying back and forth
until she quiets.

Two years later
my first son is born,
September 1987.
I name him after you.

He is 3 months old tonight.
I wrap him like a Christmas present
in a soft blue blanket
tucking the corners around his legs
folding it, carefully,
over the back of his head.
He cries and screams
He is a colicky baby, tonight.
I cradle him and walk across the room
I sit in a rocking chair
and hold his head to my chest
rocking slowly.
I repeat your name over and over
until he falls asleep.

Posted 6:59 AM by melanie

***************************************


I wake up in the middle of the night
With the dumb foggy room realization
That someone suffered
The only dull ache comfort
Other than pillow and blanket
Is that
Thank god it wasn’t me
Ruthless prayer
Like a warm wind on a humid day
I can’t cry out or seek forgiveness for what
I didn’t do
Survivor guilt
Apparently my shoot opened
I landed here

When I finally wake at 6 am
and make coffee

I am surrounded by the lush green pine
Hard bark stretch to the sky
soft pink champagne and orange juice trees
Litter my roadway with fluff
Skies thick with clouds hang heavy
Interspersed with bright patches of sunlight
Steam rises from leaves and frogs
and snakes sunning on sharp jagged gray slate rocks on water’s edge

Every morning my first thoughts are the night before
Wakeful moments never to be dreams
startled to eyes opening
Twilight nightmares
Other people's pain
Problems with no solutions
No logic to suffering or dying
Or how to prevent what has already occurred
Tears can’t soothe wounds on their corpses
My half wakeful mind doesn’t know this
I can’t stop last minutes or make it any better
I spend a lifetime of nights
Seeking redemption for something
That I didn’t do
Grateful for every sunrise
I smile at every blade of grass wet with dew
Blackberry bushes ripening twenty feet from my door
On soft June morning
Tiny rabbits run ahead on deer trails
I bury my conscience day in sight, sound, smell and taste
Children playing in the woods
Water splashing on creek bed
We do things like drink strawberry margarita
Boil shrimp in lime and talk about the weather.

Hedonism is the order of every day
Shallow comforts skin thick
no salty tears
to rub in wounds as long as the sun is shinning

I am happy to be alive and have shelter
And eyesight and hearing and legs
Very lucky and knowing it.
Not understanding why
I was blessed.

Posted 9:21 PM by melanie

Presidential visit memorable event for Baton Rouge

By BRETT TROXLERbtroxler@wbrz.com
2theadvocate.com staff
From a report by WBRZ's Tammi Arender and Summer Jackson


"The motorcade, we knew it was coming because all the emergency vehicles came and they had a Secret Service guy up there," said Terry Dicarlo, who caught a glimpse of the president's motorcade. "And in the second limo was President Bush, and he was just smiling and waving. It was real exciting."

But not everyone on hand was excited to have President Bush at graduation. Some protested his presence by spray painting the words, "Bush is a killer and a coward. And 800 soldiers dead for what?" on the sidewalk next to Bernie Moore Track Stadium.

While some on campus protested his presence, the president received a strong send-off before leaving the city via the Baton Rouge airport. A crowd of 300 supporters gathered to see Bush before he boarded Air Force One.

Posted 1:17 PM by melanie

***********************************************************************************

Life with Artie (a true story) A. P. B. (his initials)



My baby and I were sleeping when he came in drunk looking for the car keys. His eyes were wild and he looked like he had been doing crank, crack or some other disgusting toxin. He came in and he pulled me out of bed to help him find his keys, but we couldn't locate them. He got angrier and angrier at me and he was yelling and calling me a "fucking cunt."

He picked up a shotgun that was sitting in the corner by the front door and he ran at me with it. He held it over his head and he backed me in to a corner with the blunt end. I was on my knees, and I was covering my head with my hands, and he acted like he was going to bludgeon me to death with it. I begged him not to kill me and I told him that I didn't hide the keys.

After awhile he let me get up and he kept demanding the keys. We looked for them as he carried the shotgun waist level and held it on me the entire time as we searched through the house. I was crying, and I was sober, I had just woke up, and it was 6am. I hadn’t even had my coffee, yet. He started getting madder and madder because he thought I was hiding the keys, but I wasn’t and I didn’t know where they were.

He aimed the shotgun, and he held it on me, and then all at once, he threw it off safety, and he cocked it, and he pointed it at me again. I thought, oh fuck, this is it, I'm dead. He was going to shoot me. The baby was still asleep in the next room. I wanted so badly to get the baby, but I was afraid that he would shoot both of us.

He started running across the room towards me and I had to think fast. I thought if I went out the front entrance and into our courtyard, someone would see him from the hotel next door, and then if he shot me in the back,he would have to keep on running and the baby would be safe. I really wanted to get my baby out of there, but I couldn't.

I ran out the door and he followed me and I could feel the butt of the rifle close to the small of my back. When I hit the bottom steps, he turned around and ran back into the house. He grabbed the baby out of his bed and held him up by his leg and pointed the gun at him and he told me to get the keys or he was going to “kill the kid” or “kill the little bastard” as he called him because "he wasn’t his son and he didn't care if the little motherfucker died."


He held the baby up high by his ankle, so that I could see the shotgun aimed at his head. The baby started crying and it was pissing him off. I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do. I ran and I grabbed my Mother who lived the down the street. We wanted to call the police but we were afraid that, that would only escalate things. We finally talked him into handing us the baby back.

I was still afraid to call the cops because we thought he would kill us all. I waited an hour and I snuck back over to the house and I peered into the window and I could see him passed out on the bed. He was snoring loudly and the shotgun was laying on the floor. I eased open the window and I climbed into the room and I retrieved the shotgun. ( I was determined that, if he was going to kill me, it wouldn't be with that gun) I noticed the keys on the floor under the bed and I got them too. I took his shotgun to the pawnshop and I pawned it and I used the money to buy gas for my car, so that my son and I could leave him forever. We sped out of town with out looking back.

Posted 1:16 PM by melanie

@}---------


This Is Final


When we all do that final

nod

At the end of life

hooked up to a
morphine
d
r
i
p
.

That over half of us reading

THIS

L o n g e d

for

(and I ain’t naming names)

For most of our adult lives.

Then we won’t appreciate

IT

As much as when

we were younger

and nodding

OUT.

And we won’t remember our younger years

Only the moments in between

WAKING

And


falling asleep.

Oh never mind…


this is your brain on

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
(((((SNORE)))))

Posted 3:23 PM by melanie

*
I've added some new things to this one and I may keep on going with it.
more additions this am (4-17-04) and (4-20)

W, and The Prophecies of Nostradamus

(Warning: The Alert Level is now raised to Flaming Red)

I had a friend years ago who was a real idiot. I hope you don’t mind me calling him that, but he really was an idiot. For the purpose of this diatribe I am going to call him by the first letter of his first name which is W. I don’t want him to get busted, so I‘m not going to use his whole name.

I think the only book that W had in his house, besides the phone book, and the bible, was a book on the Prophecies of Nostradamus. He kept an AK-47 in the corner of the kitchen and lots of FMJ ammo in his closets to help him prepare for the day when every thing fell apart. I knew him and his family as they readied themselves for the end of civilization, as we know it, back in the late 1980s. They were sure that 1987 was the year, that was going to be end of the world. I was pregnant at the time and they were my neighbors.

Every morning I had to face W in the parking lot. W was a short, middle aged, gnome looking, little country guy, from way back in the swamps, he had greasy dark hair, and squinty eyes. When he smiled it revealed a half empty mouth of blackened, decaying, corpse-like, fetid, rancid meat smelling, stumps of teeth, and he knew how bad they looked, but took pleasure in their appearance, and would sometimes try to kiss unsuspecting friends of his teenaged daughters and send them running out of the complex parking lot in tears.

And it wasn’t that W didn’t have access to a dentist. He did have a dental plan at the auto body shop where he worked and could have had them all pulled at once, and replaced with those new egg shell colored veneers, but he preferred to have them done one at a time after he began seeing the new dentist whose office sat over the floor of the old grocery store on Airline highway. Everyone had given the new dentist the nickname of Dr. Demerol, because of his favored method of pain control, and W figured at the rate of having one tooth pulled or worked on per month, that he could get enough prescriptions to last him up to the Apocalypse, and after that it wouldn’t matter because all the drugstores doors would be wide open (it’s occupants having fled in the confusion) and then it would be “ Nothing but Dilaudid for this old long haired country boy” W’d say patting on the dull rig in his right hand pocket of his filthy, grease stained levis while sucking gleefully on his remaining teeth. And judging from the six teeth that I could count on the top and three on the bottom, it looked like Armageddon was going to happen in about nine months give or take a few abcesses along the way.

W always wore a dirty white T-shirt. His parking space was next to mine at our apartment building and W would always be sitting on the hood of his beat up old butternut yellow colored 1966 Chevelle with his AK-47 assault rifle propped up next to the 15 inch front driver side Cragar wheel. The Cragars were the only thing decent about the whole damn car and I think W knew that, too and he would position his assault rifle propped up next to the wheels just to show off his most valuable worldly possessions.

When W wasn’t talking about the end of the world, he would read the want ads in some soldier for hire trade magazine out loud to anyone who would listen, and he’d talk about which job he was going to take, usually some kind of mercenary position in South America, I think. He'd exclaim loudly if he found one looking for a hit man, and who ever was walking by, (mostly me) would have to point out to him, that the one for the hit man, was probably put in there by the feds. And then he’d scratch his head and agree, and go back to reading, or he’d bring up Nostradamus and the end of the world, again.

I don't think W ever carried out any of his plans, although everybody in the neighborhood had heard about the aborted hit that didn’t place in Metairie when the ex wife of the man that paid them caught him and his friend hiding in the bushes around her town home just off Veterans Boulevard and chased them out of the yard armed only with a garden hose and spewing obscenities as they hopped a fence and almost dropped their assault rifle. “ That was just a rehearsal for the big one" is how W explained it later as he counted the 1500 hundred dollars that he had to return or get hit himself.

W’d see me outside going to work or a doctor’s appointment or something, and he’d walk over and say things like, “Well Marie are you ready for it? It’s going to start with earthquakes and then everything is going to happen at once. It's going to be the war to end all wars and everyone on earth is going to die” and then he’d hold up his assault rifle and pat the barrel of it and say, “If you need protection, girl you know I’m here.“

His daughters and his wife believed it too, except they were into this religious thing and if they were outside, they’d chime in with eerily sweet little tinny voices and say odd things like, “Jesus, will come for your baby, so he won’t have to be born or die.” Everyday was going to be our last day on earth, or could be according to them, and Orson Welles, who narrated the movie about the life of Nostradamus, which they watched over and over, and talked about incessantly.

If you live in a city like Baton Rouge you get used to scenes like that. Hyper religious, republican, racist, gun nuts with assault rifles in your parking lot are all the norm in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas but W and his family were starting to really get on my nerves. I was 6 months pregnant and every morning I awoke to that asshole and his brood and their apocalyptic visions complete with weapons, and descriptions of how he was going to be ready for the fall of all civilization, and he said it with such a gleam in his eyes. You know, I think W and his family were actually looking forward to it.

Finally one morning I’d had enough, so I started yelling at him “Look W, let me tell you something. I don't give a FUCK if it is the end of the whole FUCKING world as we know it. W I have had enough of this and I don't care if we are all about to die. I have to go to work, and my feet hurt, and it's going to be another hard day, and the last thing I need to wake and hear, is more about possible catastrophes. I may walk across the street and get hit by a car and die from my injuries, or I may get struck by lightening, or die suddenly from a heart attack. W what you and Nostradamus say might be true, we may all be about to die in one big bang, in earthquakes, wars, or terror attacks, but we’ll all still be the same kind of dead. It doesn’t matter if we die one by one, or whether we all die at once, because when I die it’s the end of my world, and when you die it’s the end of yours. People have been dying for millions of years, so what fucking difference does it make how you die, or how many people die along with you? You‘ll still be just as dead. W you gloat too much about fighting in wars for profit and you don't even think about who you might kill if you do answer one of those ads. W I think you and your whole family should enlist and go join the fight." I kicked the Cragar wheel on W's car for emphasis, as hard as I could, and watched as his AK-47 clattered down to the pavement.

W just scratched his greasy gray-black hair, and pretended not to think, and jumped down off the hood of his car, and picked up the assault rifle and released the magazine catch and removed the magazine and cocked the rifle, holding it with his left hand ready over the receiver to catch any ejected cartridge. Then he released the catch on the right side of the rear sight and he pushed the piston assembly cover forward, detaching it from the rear receiver. Then he lifted it and then pulled it back and removed the piston assembly and bolt. Then he began cleaning it and paid extra special attention to the barrel, gas hole and gas piston. He oiled it and reassembled. Then before he inserted the magazine he pressed the trigger to release the spring tension and then he cradled it, like it was a newborn, (I think he may have kissed it) and then propped it up on the car, again, and then went back to reading the classified ads. I think the idiot really wanted to be a hit man or a mercenary.

My baby was born, healthy, months later, and 1987 came and went without the fall of civilization or the massive continent jarring earthquakes, or world wars, and we moved away and I don't know if W ever answered any of those mercenary ads, but I haven't seen him in quite a while.

Posted 6:25 AM by melanie

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Baton Rouge is getting fooled by the Big Business representatives of the Chemical Industry, again and our emergency federal planning officials (the guys who are supposed to save us from the terrorist are helping them. No we are not safe)

Honeywell and our local Department of Homeland Insecurity met with the residents of the Chemical Corridor, better known as the CC (not to be confused with the OC. The CC is where the poor people have to raise their children) in Baton Rouge two nights ago and no one came away feeling any safer or less toxic.

My friend Renea (who lives in the neighborhood) called me and told me that the Feds and Honeywell hosted a neighborhood meeting about the CC and the recent chemical spills and they are claiming that they warned the residents as soon as the spills occurred, but those of you who have followed this domestic act of terror with me will remember that as it was happening we were discussing it here and here and the residents were not given adequate notice or even medical treatment.

This was an impromptu meeting and instead of discussing real safety concerns the industry and government reps ended up talking about boarding up old houses in the neighborhood that surrounds the chemical plants and planting flowers or something. They seemed to think that once a CC Lockdown was called that the people were allowed to evacuate, but this has never been the case. Police cars seal off the interstate ramps. Nobody is allowed to leave this area once they call for a lockdown. CC Lockdown means evacuate in place and like I discussed in my above links as this crisis was happening it is not enough to tell women and children to do this.

Posted 5:34 PM by melanie

*
My Abortion

So glad they were there for me.
Leave child at friend’s apartment
Drive 6 hours by myself to Planned Parenthood.
No doubts.

Sit in waiting room read article in magazine
On Romanian street children

Third generation
Living in sewers.
Think about Ceausescu



Think about Bush, Scalia,
then think again about Romanian street children

Pray to God for those children.

Pray to God that it doesn’t happen to us here
With these idiots in office.

Say private thank you to God
for kind Doctors
Risking their lives to help me
Cramps, pain, and blood follow.
No regrets.
None.
Not now
And not ever.





Obsessive/ Compulsive
(Don’t cure Me!)


And then it all goes back to the poetry
When I get frustrated
I think with my fingers
Endlessly pacing the width of the screen
I walk to one end
And then jump back
and walk across almost the same path
My hands know what I am saying
before it reaches my brain
(Automatic writing)
And if it gets too hot
I flinch only after the sentence has been written
Sometimes I have to slap my own fingers
If they get out of hand
Years of masturbating
Having given them a mind of their own
And that is weird
When I get angry or frustrated
Or especially if I have something else
That I’m supposed to do
Then that’s when I need to write
Writing being an uncontrollable urge
Sometimes I’ll think about something for years
Before I know how to frame it
Or theme it
And then it comes all at once
In the middle of the night
I drag myself out of bed
Make a pot coffee
And over to the computer
And then I write
Because
I do
.

Posted 1:23 PM by melanie

Another old one

*To A.P.B.*

Motherfucker with your faded blue eyes
Like the stars on a rebel flag handkerchief
You kept folded up in your back pocket.


Blue eyed Cajun’s son
You thought you were like Lafitte
When you were dealing drugs.

Your smugglers blues
Are nothing but leftovers in a silver spoon
You stole from your mother’s kitchen sink.

Junkie fever
Have you got cotton candy in your blood?

I’ve watched you twitch and flinch
With your veins rolling like wheels on a hearse
To your own Goddamned funeral procession.

And I would be glad to be there
And cover your grave in shit
Just to watch the poppies sprout up when springtime comes.

But old junkies never die
They just get used up.
Their heads hard and dull
As the needles they try to poke in the backs of their hands.

Mel 1991

Posted 10:31 PM by melanie

Continued from Visiting Day a piece that I wrote a while back

Visiting Day

concrete, blacktop diamonds
glistening in hot texas summer
the fields held in chains of thought
like sweat driping round my neck
stark pale building
with turrets and gates

appears in distance like city from nowhere
after long drive
this is oz in reverse
anti-oz
walk the careful path in between lines
past grim faced men
in dark glasses
with thin pursed lips
standing on a series of x's
printed on cold stone floor
being searched and searching for answers
in your thin face
through thick glass
eyes meek downcast
cheeks drawn
like soul shotgun
through pock marked plexi-glass
I was 12
you were only 18
and I could never go back again.



Visiting Day: Continued Part Two


On The Way To The Pen


My parents picked up a girl walking up to the prison.
It was on a hot summer day and everything seemed to be wilting
And there she was walking along at a nice country trot
There were no houses to speak of for miles and no gas stations
There was only one place that she could be headed and the road ended there
We had never seen anyone walking on this stretch of highway, before
She was tall and lean and she had straight copper colored hair
And a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up
Freckles covered her arms, neck, and face
The only tattoo I noticed was the obligatory thorns around her left wrist
She had on frayed blue jeans and white tennis shoes
Everyone was passing her by when we noticed her
My dad leaned back and looked at me and my mom

We had driven the whole day in the old Cadillac to be there
The air conditioner was on and we had just stopped to ditch all the beer cans.
And this was the last five miles before the searches, the dogs, the questions
The clipboards, and the weird otherworldly lighting with grown men who liked to wear sunglasses inside and who would only grunt at you in response
If you were dumb enough to ask them for directions.
We saw her as soon as we turned off the main highway
to the long road with the plowed, sickly, looking fields on either side
It was so dry and dead that you couldn’t tell what had once grown there
Her hair was shining in the sun in the midst of all the brown dying grass
The blacktopped road rose up in odd, eerie patterns of heat waves
The white rubber soles of her shoes contrasted with the hot, hard pavement
she didn’t look like the sun was going to slow up her pace.
And we all decided that we liked her at the same time
“Anyone that determined deserved a ride.”
“And she was headed to the prison and not away.”
We had a quick conversation amongst the three of us.
“So she wasn’t escaping.”
“Not that there was a women’s lockdown anywhere near.”
“And it was a long way and it was awful hot.”
She seemed surprised and relieved
when she saw it was a family offering the ride

she wasn’t hitchhiking, but she smiled, and got in and thanked us
We offered her a cola from the cooler and she asked for a piece of ice
Which she rubbed on her face and her arms
She wasn’t a girl, she was probably in her forties
With smooth lines like a road map of many smiles
And miles of walking and not giving a damn
Though she wasn’t going to turn down a ride
She was very tan with freckles on the inside of her eyelids
You could tell that she had worked hard all her life
She was muscular and had the healthy glow
of someone who worked outside and liked it
or was at least never going to admit that she didn’t.

She had an air of resignation without any sort of self pity.
She was going to see a husband who was going to be in there a while.
And that’s all she said, and we weren’t anxious to share our tale either
We didn’t talk much, none of us
But she thanked us for the ride and smiled the whole time.
It was such an odd moment of triumph for everyone in the car
A civilized gesture met with equal civility
in a place that was supposed to have none.
Finally we saw the gates off in the distance
With rusted barbed wire fences and guards on horseback
All the cars slowed in dreary procession about a half mile long
She asked my dad to pull over
and she volunteered that it was probably
“better if she walked in by herself, so no one would get the wrong idea.”
She thanked us again
and she got out and maneuvered in between the cars
and walked up to the gate and was the first one in.

Mel 2004

Posted 12:21 PM by melanie

Edited to add. I don't know how I should end this or if I should take the other part into more detail. I didn't mean to sound drippy, but I honestly felt like that at that moment and it's hard to change the way you feel. It made me feel better about everything and it all occurred to me at one moment in time, it was very brief and I thought about how different my life would have been had I never met him and how much richer my life was because I had, every bit of bitter fled out of me, and I know a lot people take this voyage frequently (the ferry ride/ no big deal) and may not understand how I could see all that, but I did and I was happy at least for moment and sometimes in life that's all you can do is grab time and hold on to it tightly and memorize it and understand and you get to know it ALL for only a second.







Repost from last year (I'm still working on this!)

Imagine
(this is a piece that I continue to work on, it grows, evolves, and changes daily)

Reflections


Ed and I boarded the Ferry that takes passengers from Port Clinton, Ohio to Put-n-Bay Island, a tourist destination on Lake Erie

I sat at the back of the boat on a metal bench, I propped my feet up on the rail, and surveyed the immediate area

From my two story vantage point, I could see a grocery store and a seafood restaurant where we had just eaten fried walleye filets

across from me was the garage that Ed's great grandfather John Zetzer had owned; the parking lot still had the old man's name etched on the brick wall

and then I looked at the harbor with its sailing vessels, mahogany cabin cruisers, fishing boats, and small black and white dwarf lighthouse

A raucous crowd began to gather on the deck, a whole group of corporate kids (middle aged business men and their underlings)

in their matching red company blazers, around 20 of them, laughing, leering, stumbling, intoxicated, flirting and chatting with all the women.

grandmas, grandpas, and teenagers, in Hawaiian shirts, tank tops, blue jean shorts, straw hats, flip flops and tennis shoes, all laughing and going to get drunk.

The ferry powered up and began moving across Lake Erie's, grayish-white wave tossed waters; I stared at the whisps of cloud against a blue sky

and the disappearing, storm faded, old city buildings of downtown Port Clinton and the docks and pylons alternating with the wake of the boat

I wondered why he’d ever left a place so beautiful, then I thought about a time when he and I lived in Louisiana at Head of Island on the Amite river.

He was exasperated with me as I tried to direct him in the proper boarding of a Batto as we piled in to go to Lake Marepaus to fish for our dinner.

He was so much fun; he woke up every morning and stood at the end of our pier in his undershorts and sang the Banana Boat song at the top of his lungs.

Our neighbor across the river was a chef from Detroit who cooked Cajun food at a local hotel and he would come outside and sing with him.

I would listen to their voices mingling with the fog and the sound of splashes as they checked trot lines and hauled in our meals for the day.

I turned and stared at the sun, closed my eyes for a minute, and let the wind blow at my hair, beating against my forehead in a wild pattern

Ed tapped my arm and hugged me, placing his chin in the curve of my neck, before he took his Harachi clad feet up the metal steps to the next deck

to talk with a pretty brown, wavy haired, dark eyed, girl of sixteen who was all dressed in freckles, laughter, and a white halter top sundress.

I looked back at the Victorian style, prohibition era, summer homes with their gazebos and the ivy crawling lattice work and the red and yellow rose bushes.

and the wild grasses of the islands dotted with red cardinal flowers, orange trumpet creepers, white bone-set flowers, and acres of hardwood;

cottonwood, green ash, juniper, dogwood, oak, maple, and elm, growing along and beyond the rocky banks of the meandering shoreline as we sped past;

I felt the misty foam touch my face like early morning dew and I looked in the distance at the faint bluish purple traces of the Canadian shore.

It occurred to me that I was lucky to be there. That if I had never believed in Ric, or his music, or his poetry, or his life song

I would not have a curly headed teenage son who laughs, cries, sings, and shouts with the perfect timing of his musician father

I can hear his father’s voice echo in the many mansions of his mind like a haunting melody in the dance of his footsteps, his life, and in his voice.

I thought about our ferry ride and I stared deep into the shimmering blue-gray waters of Lake Erie; the wind continued to blow my hair in a carefree way.


I imagined his soul in the moist breeze on the ends of my eyelashes

I imagined his soul through the vibration of the motor on the pads of my feet

I imagined his soul smiling inside me like a sated feeling in the bottom of my stomach

I imagined his soul in the waves that rocked the ferry and moved my shoulders back and forth

I imagined his soul in the rhythm of my heart as it beat faster when the boat picked up speed

I imagined his soul like a dolphin dancing in the waves splashing along behind us in the lake

I imagined his soul on the tip of my tongue like something I’d forgotten to say; the last time I saw him hair damp in the rain

I imagined his soul in the refracting, shifting, and changing beams of sunlight that rippled and sparkled on the water

I imagined his soul laughing in the green tree tops of the hardwoods and pine growing along the gray craggy cliffs

I imagined his soul flying with the sea gulls swooping down to the frothy swirling water up to the clouds and finally free

I imagined his soul singing with the birds; I could hear his strong sad life song enduring in their cries, and chest beat of wings

I imagined his soul in the steady damp breeze that tousled my hair and blew at my dress and touched every inch of my skin

I imagined his soul in the rustling of clothing and footsteps and in a dozen different conversations in the crowd around me

I imagined his soul in the eyes of our son as he smiled at me and leaned over the rail to feel the foam-born splash of water

I imagined his soul in the gusts that billowed and powered the sails of a passing ship

I had a long friendly talk with him and in my head

I talked to the sky and the lake and the wake of the boat and the seagulls trailing along

I talked to the houses that lined the shores and sail boats docked in the harbor.

I talked to the clouds, and the sun, and the spirit that was Ric

I said thank you to Ric and thank you to God

Thank you for giving me this day, thank you for this healthy son

Thank you for the chance to be here

Thank you for the chance to see what you saw when you were growing up

Thank you for the chance to meet your family and your friends

then I knew, it was so obvious, that I almost missed it.

God is easy to see, so easy that sometimes we overlook the blessings that are abundant in our lives.

Our trek, our journey, our visit, our pilgrimage to Port Clinton and to Lake Erie

to visit the grave of my son‘s father was all meant to be.

Mel 12-23-02

I may work on this some more, it might become something else. I haven't decided.

Posted 6:59 AM by melanie

*
No Child Left Behind

I dropped my son off at a party tonight. It looked like fun, somebody’s barn away from the main house down a dirt road way out in the country with lots of lights and laughter and loud music. It was his friend’s birthday. I asked him if he would call me, if he needed to leave, or had to leave, or if the cops showed up, and please don’t get in the car with anyone drunk, because I was hanging out at home and not doing anything in particular and would be happy to get him.

He called me about 4:30 this morning and I slurped down some coffee and jumped in car; he was waiting at the rusted gate in front of the old farmhouse with a big smile, and sleepy, happy eyes, and he climbed in the car and we sped away. He said thanks, Mom and I told him that this is the moment that parents live for. I drove him home and made him breakfast and he went to sleep (all in one piece) and I put on a pot of coffee and started reading Litkicks.

I remember when I was his age. I spent my 16th birthday in the French Quarter in New Orleans drinking hurricanes with a gorgeous oilrig worker that I was dating. I still have the picture. My parents were probably at a party somewhere, maybe in New Orleans, maybe somewhere else (they usually were) and I didn't even live at home most of the time, so who knows.

They say, as you get older that you become more like your parents, but I don't know that I could keep up with them.


My son and his friends are the kids left behind, left out, pushed out, unable to fit in those proverbial round holes, they are the ones pushed from school to school until home is the only place left for them; bright, smart, articulate, politically aware and literate, computer savvy, and hopelessly devoted to their music, play station games, and the real world; I marvel at their determination and I remember what it was like to be like them and I try to help and get everyone on the right track with ACT preps, student aid info, (I want them all to go to college) encouragement and being there for them, and mostly that means staying sober, so I can sort out the difficulties that arise. They won’t be prom queens or football stars or valedictorians, no one’s offering them any Ivy League scholarships, (they won't even let them stay in school) but they are so much a part of the future that I refuse to allow any of them to be marginalized.

Posted 12:51 PM by melanie

I was reading some of my first post, and when I started writing this blog over a year ago, I was lot more personal, and I may try to work my way back to that. I had more time back then and I had just been through some traumatic events and was talking my way out of it. I'm back in school, now and trying to figure out what to do with my life, again.

I don't know what I want to retire from when I reach 70.

Posted 7:59 PM by melanie

*
COME ONE! COME ALL!


Freaks of technology now on digital. Watch your favorite celebrity as they fart, pick their nose, and scratch their ass, 24/7 coming soon to your TV.

I sometimes think about the odd assortment of people that pass by my TV window everyday, and I think of how we used to go to the carnival, and witness freaks of nature and side shows, and now we have the freaks of technology, instead; the un-elusive celebrity culture, so sure that everyone wants to be like them, but most people watch with a grotesque fascination once reserved for two headed cows, bearded ladies, and the world‘s smallest man and I think we view this in the same way we did when we went to the carnival, observing only to reassure ourselves that we are the normal ones because after all we’re not the ones on display.

Please note that even with the advent of digital channels, our celebrity population seems to be increasing at alarming rates with the massive over breeding that seems going on amongst the indigenous population of so-called show people and it may be necessary at some point to tag them (perhaps a silver tag on the ear) and track their mating habits and introduce new forms of birth control so as to ensure they will not over populate existing broad band channels and eventually trample FTC airwaves and depopulate by starving off local dinner theater fare.

Posted 9:54 AM by melanie

$
Better RED than dead.

I feel the need to explain myself to those of you who may now believe that red means Republican, it doesn’t and I realize that I am a bit old fashion in my own fashion of political idealism and purposeful naivety. There are those of us out there that still believe in a utopian philosophy of socialism, and who still adhere to the tenets of Marxism, and who aren’t afraid to express ourselves, which I know makes me a little crazy, but frankly between you and me; I could give a fuck if someone disagrees, or doesn’t understand my viewpoints, but don’t steal my vibrant red stance with your blue and red state media blitz, CNN/FOX/MSNBC, because there are many of us out there who still remember and still believe, and who realize that things like minimum wage, child labor laws, and workplace safety standards would have never been enacted in to laws without a good push of Marxist ideology . By hijacking the red label I feel like the modern media ideologues of capitalist expansion, and free market wankerism, are trying to make it all moot, like that era never existed, and by doing so, are going try and make the reforms non existent as well, so call me what you may, but don’t you dare call me a Republican because I call myself a RED.

Posted 9:51 PM by melanie

BURP