I made this... sort of

 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Written on the Job at Seattle Door and Window

Maw of Tomorrow

I don’t know what this new sun will bring Brad

I can’t read these tealeaves in my cup
They are scatter-shot up to the rim to that place
Where hot lips join smooth porcelain

“The future is not the fate we make
the future is the past
the past is now the now
the now just is…” Brad asserts

I’m living on the ledge smiling into the gaping maw of tomorrow

I can hear a trickle in the distance

It is dark

I drink

Dated Friday, February 12, 2010. This poem was composed on the Job at Seattle Door and Window in the morning around the time I got the news that the business owner had quit and we all had lost are jobs.

Transparent Secrets By Carla Blaschka

 

       "You sent it on?" said Grandad. Grandad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower.

       It was my favorite place, why I bought the house after I become Director of Medical Research at SnoDaiz. I had fixed up the shed as my office. Granddad came to hear about my adventures in medical research every Saturday. Why he thought mine were exciting, I don’t know. He had been in the protest that took over the BIA Building in Washington, D.C. He told me that one old Grandfather, a victim of the BIA throughout his life, took a fire ax, jumped up on the BIA commissioner's big mahogany desk and split it in two!

       I didn’t have much to report this week. It had snowed and kept a number of our researchers at home. The ones that came in were the more gung-ho types like Tom, who wanted to be invisible. He was already waiting when I arrived on Wednesday.

       "Ready to roll?" Tom, covered with snow, was halfway in the front door. "Got a box ready?" He had set up the experiment the day before and I felt the need to be there. I didn’t want him to go off half-cocked and do something stupid, like try his formula on himself.

       He was supposed to use a rat. That was the plan. The rat’s name was Jenny and I was rather fond of her. He covered her head with a little hood and shook up his mixture in its aerosol can, the balls rattling around like a precursor to graffiti. He was prepared to spray when Leslie, our resident Drama Queen slammed open the door and shouted -

       “He’s dead!”

       and started to sob.

       Startled, Tom turned halfway around and his finger jerked on the trigger. He was very apologetic about it later but the blast caught me full in the face and I breathed it in. I started to cough, Leslie was sobbing and Tom was in distress. He tried to wipe me down but that merely spread the liquid more evenly on my skin.

       By the time Leslie came out from behind her hands and looked up, I was a goner. She looked shocked. “Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, Your - all of you? Why not transform me also? She appealed to Tom. “How can I live if you’re all gone? She started to sob again.

       “Who are you talking about?” shouted Tom.

       “Dick,” she said.

       “Who?”

       “I don’t know, maybe it’s Harry, I can’t keep track, they keep changing.” At Tom’s still baffled face she shouted, “Our receptionist! Our receptionist! The guy at the front desk! He was in an accident, and his mother called to tell me he wasn’t coming into work. He’s in the hospital - he may not even live!” She wailed and started to sob again.

       “Hmmm, excuse me!? Can I get some help here?” I was transparently annoyed about their lack of concern and rather see-through as well. Both pairs of eyes looked right through me, like I wasn’t even there.

       “Where are you?” they chorused.

       I had moved over to the desk in the corner and sat down. “I’m right here.” I tilted back. Their heads swiveled. “I’m sorry about Harry, remind me when you see me to send flowers.” I addressed that to Leslie, and then asked Tom. “Do you have any idea when this will wear off, if ever?”

       After a clearing of the throat and an “er, well” he admitted he wasn’t sure but assured me it should be soon. So while we waited we played poker. I won, since they couldn’t see me when I leaned over and looked at their cards. I figured Tom owed me the $10 bucks.

       It did wear off after an hour or so, but gradually, with bones showing first and then the muscles and veins. There was much ooh’ing and aah’ing and pointing of fingers until my skin covered it all. After we feed Jenny and put her back with her own kind we each headed to our own burrows. I left a note about Harry on my admin’s computer.

       Back at my home desk in the tower I read over my weekly report.

       “It is clear that the small blood vessels of diabetics are subject to accelerated degeneration.” Crystal really, maybe the invisibility spray should be used to show people the damage a poor diet and lack of exercise will do. I nibbled on a chip, my drug of choice in times of stress.

       Should I send it on? Would admitting to being invisible hurt my career or make it? Would it help patients or brand me a crazy? Human trials were years away. Could I hide my transparency? Should I?

       What would you do?

 

---By Carla Blaschka, 1/14/12. Written at Richard Hugo House alongside PurpleMark Wirth,

    Jennifer Reed, and Liza. Performed at Richard Hugo House’s Open Mic 2/7/12

 
 

Prompts:                                                                         

1. "Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, Your - all of you? Why not transform me also?" P. Ovidius Naso translated by Rolfe Humfries. Perseus In Metamorphosis. (Indiana U Press, 1983)
2. "'You sent it on?' said Grandad. Grandad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower." Terry Pratchett. Going Postal. (HarperCollins, 2004)
3. "It is clear that the small blood vessels of diabetics are subject to accelerated degeneration." Jimmy Gutman. Glutathione: Your Key to Health. (kudo.ca, 2008)
4. "One old Grandfather, a victim of the BIA throughout his life, took a fire ax, jumped up on the BIA commissioner's big mahogany desk and split it in two!" Leonard Peltier. Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance (St Martin's Griffin, 1999)
5. "'Ready to roll?' Tom, covered with snow, was halfway in the front door. 'Got a box ready?'" Diane Mott Davidson. Tough Cookie. (Bantam Books, 2000)

 
 
 
 
 

Chinese New Year: The Year Of The Dragon

 

A suggestion was made to take in the Chinese New Year Celebration as part of our writing group instead of the usual Hugo writing room. I was up for it and so was John, so we planned to meet at noon at the Panama Hotel as our beginning point. Phillip had bowed out, even though it had been his idea to attend the Lunar New Year Food Walk. I had thought of it as an excuse to investigate some of the places I had walked by before, but had never gone into.

The Panama Hotel was an out-of-the-way Tea House whose already harried crew dealt with a line which were here for the Mochi Mini-cupcakes and green-tea maple leaf-shaped shortbread cookies and the tiny stamp on their cards in order collect at least four stamps and win some no doubt fabulous prize when all these cards were collected and a winner chosen. While in line I spotted a trained bamboo that was half My Favorite Martian and half vegetative antler rack. Larry who had mentioned he might show up, did. Waiting for him, we saw that in the windows were a line of Luck Cats on either side who had their left hands raised except for one who bravely had raised it’s right hand in defiance.

The Sugar Bear Bakery was our next stop and it was fairly deserted and unlike most bakeries it had none of the smells associated with the baking of their goods. Here we got 3-ham Vietnamese sandwiches, which only had, 1-ham as far as I could tell along with mayo, cabbage, carrots cucumbers and a slightly sweet and peppery sauce on a baguette wrapped in white paper and held together with a rubber band. It was okay, but somewhat uninspired and rather too filling, but a good deal for 2 bucks.

By this time the hordes had descended and every place had a lengthy line waiting for their chicken wings or whatever little tidbit that was being offered up in order to get another stamp on their cards. After trying to get into 2 more places, Larry left us and we decided that getting another two stamps was a silly pursuit in the face of hordes. So we sought out the places which weren’t part of the Stampede, only to find that every table was full or waiting to be filled all over the International District.

Walking around I saw lots of tots in their Chinese Best in colorful silk costumes and wearing animal hats. The surprising thing was the amount of mixed races of their parents who herded or more usually carried these kids. There was a Dragon false alert with firecrackers and a cloud of smoke which drifted in along with percussive groups whose intent was to get enough people to stand and block any late-comer from seeing what everyone was gathered for in seemingly random locations to witness.

After I grabbed some shots, we found that we had walked completely around the Old Uwajimaya building and found a table at Henry’s Taiwan beside the North side of the Dragon Gate. Taiwanese was a cuisine that hadn’t tried before, so. It was a very small place, but the mirrored wall made it seem that there was more space than a place about the same size as my living room. It was close enough Chinese that I thought I knew what I was ordering, but it was odd stuff indeed. We got an odd flan-like thing, which couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to be a dessert or a strange savory. What I ordered turned out to be sort of an Asian burrito in reverse. In the plastic wrap was a mix of mostly white rice with a few grains of purple rice around a crispy egg-roll with hard-boiled egg yokes and an odd curry mix in there. Our second choice of soup: the Shanghai Wonton instead of the Oyster with Ginger came in huge bowls with chrysanthemum stems in it as well as cilantro, scallions, pork-filed wontons, squares of Nori seaweed and so much clear broth that I couldn’t finish the soup. We paid up and John went off to catch his #73.

I went to Uwajimaya’s to get some purple rice, ginger tea and chili sauce with garlic while something had burned and filled the whole store with a smoky starchy miasma which made me wish to get what I needed and get out of there. I managed to catch part of the Dance of the Dragons though once again it was difficult to see and this time photograph. By this time the drizzle was beginning to fall and I took the tunnel bus back to the Convention Center stop and walked back home from there to capture in words the various impressions of the day upon the page.

 

---Purple Mark 01/28/12

 
 
 
 

A Disastrous Cutup Poem

 

I Made This—

We know about the power of

space in time

smashing

your rubber soul.

Those stories you’ve heard,

about the myth

of the impossible,

they’re true.

Who knew?

A possible mission

behind the saint and

thirteen topless dancers

was

a pregnancy?

Well, pimps

we’re all puffed up now.

Eat, drink, smile, keep partying —

the cows aren’t coming home.

We want to join with you in

the ocular concern.

The giant

at the end of the world,

it was the best thing I ever

saw!

—sort of

 

---William James, 01/22/2012