New Publications

I have some publications up, in Quill and Parchment (feature, for this you'll need the passwords, in order, september and school), Underground Voices and Abandoned Towers (under "Poetry").

I've also had an overture from a publisher but I'll keep that quiet for now, no need to upend good fortune with presumption.

I have been battling the deer, who more than decimated my vegetable garden and took care of a host of blooms as well; the very plants they are said not to eat, mainly of the daisy family, are not even immune to them. I have found but two resistant flowers, zinnias and marigolds. They eat the flowers of petunias, cosmos, lobelia, alyssum, poppies, roses, geraniums, jasmines, and in some cases their leaves well. They resist spices in general, like sage and dill and lavender, but will eat mint. Our persistent drought has made them bold in seeking anything green, even if authorities say they "dislike" it. It's all relative to hunger. I'd eat grasshoppers if I had to.

That said, my mood has improved since increasing my Effexor by 75 mg. a day. I'm glad I thought of it. Too often even the experienced chemically impaired patient fails to suspect his disease first. I should know better. To be fair I was blindsided by the scene of the crime.

Little else to report. I did replant over thirty vegetable starts today with my motion-activated sprayer (Scarecrow) set to spray a swath to protect them against any approaching mammal of a certain size. This includes humans, sometimes to my guests' dismay.

Tomorrow I pour wine at a Subdudes concert. Pretty good ticket for me. Wish you were there.


Kiloneutral,

CE

New Publication, Old Poem, Holding at 2 Kilorats

Here's a new publication on the theme of parents, where I am lucky to be the featured poet: Quill and Parchment

To enter, the passwords are "september" and then "school."

My mood remains fragile, I am navigating melancholy with appropriate fearfulness, hoping the disease of depression will remain at bay, but just last night at a meeting of men where I know I am loved and accepted I felt like the complete outsider, and the long view of my life being worthless wants to creep into my mind and declare me an utter failure, but these depressive symptoms are recognizable and I intend to view them as a tourist views a city, not owning them for my self. I still have a sense of self, though tenuous, as in deep depression my self becomes an abstraction and I become depression incarnate: hopeless, helpless, worthless, angry, sad, fearful, incapable of love, pleasure, or human connection. I will see my shrink tomorrow and see if I should increase my adjunctive anti-depressant, Abilify, even more.

Some spider bit my ass repeatedly and Kathleen says the bumps make a smiley face. LOL!

Pray for me, or if that is too much, think of me with favor--as I so dread dropping into a drop-dead depression again. I was recovering steadily before the motorcycle accident; now I'm on shaky ground again.

Here's a revision of a villanelle I sketched during my depression, where the fog proves a prescient metaphor, I think, for the black dog:


Through Fog

Encapsuled in the intimacy of mist
Our visibility’s but fifty feet.
World within world we exist.

My markers vanish, the road dips and twists
As if its narrowing shoulders have to meet
And marry in an intimacy of mist.

I want to scream, I want to raise my fist
And curse the small circumference of our light.
World within world we exist.

This driving makes me itch. I should desist.
We follow dim tail lights like idiot sheep
Pastured in an intimacy of mist.

Back home we make a fire, share a kiss.
The fog’s outside, a monster in a sheet.
World within world we exist.

Head on your lap, relieved, I feel blessed.
Your belly's breathing makes my being complete.
Conjoined, one droplet in the intimate mist,
World within world we exist.


2 Kilorats and holding,

CE

How I Am Currently Responding to Current

Two weeks into ECT and I'm not doing very well. I feel in danger of complete relapse. What precipitated it was my sister's generous suggestion to have a driver take me home for the weekend to Mendocino. My sister's too good of a soul to say, "It's been almost three weeks and you're a space eater and I'd like my house and nuclear family back," but that has to be part of it, too, and I understand. Even though I try to make myself scarce, hiding in the basement with a book, going for walks, I am nevertheless an interloper, a species not native to this house, like a northern pike in a trout lake.

The thought of seeing my one true love, Kathleen, while still depressed, was too much to bear. I so want to get well for her; I want her suffering to end, and because of the love she bears me her suffering can only end when I am stable and my depression is in remission. As my illness began on April 1, 2006, it will soon be of two year's duration, with only two partial and brief remissions. I'm a sick puppy. I can't imagine being in Kathleen's position; I have been with her during her depressions but she's never had one this protracted and treatment-resistantant since I've known her. Nothing makes me sadder than the thought that my presence will sadden Kathleen. We had such hopes for this treatment! Obviously I need more, but how much will be enough? And I'm wondering if I shouldn't be on stronger medications as well to try to help stabilize my mood during treatment.

In any case I broke down in tears in front of my sister after treatment today, not a good thing. I also forgot a lunch date I'd made with a poet from San Francisco; the overwhelming emotion of my situation caused me to forget. I did call him and told him I had a good excuse for forgetfulness: "Sorry, I had electroconvulsive therapy this morning." He likely didn't need to hear that and was probably relieved not to have lunch with me afterwards, though he said he still wanted to meet. Oh well. I wouldn't have been very good company in any case.

I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, which my sister recommended. Atwood's work always humbles me and I did find this book alluring.

I got a note from Sam Rasnake today that soon a new issue of Blue Fifth Review will be out and had forgotten that I had a poem in it, "Home Surgery." I'll have another poem in Barnwood (a paying venue) and three in Umbrella. Niederngasse has also accepted a poem, as has Barefoot Muse. These are all pretty good venues and I'll post the links again when my work comes out. (Meanwhile you don't need me as an excuse to visit these fine e-zines!)

See that? Talking about something besides myself, like literature, helped the tears dry up. (I try to explain to Craig that he's not worth crying over but he doesn't get it.)

So, having mentioned a number of poems you can't see yet, here's one I wrote the other day in San Francisco:


Something Christian

Rheumy eyes, mahogany head;
tan polyester coat, white shirt;
no tie; septuagenarian
tiny Chinese-American
stood on a folding two-step
stepladder of aluminum
in Union Square and preached:

"Homo sick! Queer go to hell!
“AIDS wrath of God”

I must say I've never understood
why Jesus hates queers
more than other men.
Besides, if God has time
to invent new scourges
to punish the innocent--
babies guilty of birth,
patients guilty of transfusion,
doctors guilty of defective gloves--
maybe I'm on the wrong side?

"The city is filled with sin!”

How must it feel behind those rheumy eyes
to hate and think God's work is being done?

"You look unhappy,” I offered,
"Your eyes are filled with hate.”

“I hate the devil and I hate sin,” he said,
his thin lips set in a Maginot line.

"No, no, you hate yourself,” I said.

His look of incomprehension
was almost beyond redemption.
I should have passed and said nothing
like the other pedestrians
but something Christian wanted out.


Pray for me in whatever way approximates prayer for you; if you are an atheist you can wish for new treatments for depression, for instance.

In need of a miracle,

CE