essay

CLAY MOUNTAIN

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Wet clay, and pond scent in the air, and towering

Cat Tails baking at mid-day

Welcome us to the edge of the stream,

Delicious cold stream, with rocks placed just so,

Making stepping stones into the world

Of Clay Mountain.

Gray sands rise in ridges fissured by the rain.

We run and jump over the little valleys.

We marvel over the carcasses

Of dead birds or beavers’ bleached bones

Along the railroad track that runs along

The edge of Clay Mountain.

Remnants of the St. Lawrence Seaway dig,

The big dig, with trucks of gravel gouged

Out of Grandpa and Grandma’s farmland

Carried to make cement

For the Great St. Lawrence Seaway

Connecting the Atlantic Ocean with Chicago.

We never understood back then,

When we used this Clay Mountain for exploring,

For digging up the clay, for imagining a Moonscape

Where we beamed down from Star Ship Enterprise.

We never understood how it got there,

That big Clay Mountain.

We, the Secret Five, who met up in a Maple Tree,

We had our little world of Barbie and of Honey West,

The Beatles and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.

I wonder now, how it looked before

Trucks and heavy equipment came to rearrange the landscape.

Before the Pit and the two Ponds appeared.

by Diane E. Dockum

©June 2013

He said, She said

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He said, She said

It was raining

And the clouds were gray

In spots

I sat in a corner booth

Drinking coffee

They were college young

He wore a beret

She, a short blonde cut

He asked her why she’d called

She said I missed you like crazy

He pretended to cry

He wanted a sirloin steak

She said it was too expensive

He said she sounded just like his mother

She felt that was lame

He wanted moist, soft meat

That slid right down

The conversation I’m sure

Had sexual undertones

He giggled like a girl

I think she missed him

But she didn’t know why

She studied macrophysics

He had transferred in from Harvard

She mentioned her boyfriend

He asked if he was banned From her room

Probably, she said

Her boyfriend needed to see him first

No offence

But he looked twelve

The wings and dip came

He wanted to share

But Erica, that’s her name,

Said she couldn’t

Share dip,

She absolutely couldn’t

Share dip

Even with her boyfriend

He said she should see a doctor

She had issues

They talked about Los Vegas

And when he lived in Europe

And when he went to Amsterdam

During Thanksgiving

And then Paris at Easter

I could hear the chicken wings

Smacking On their lips

Unstructured Time

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Unstructured Time

 

You are eight, almost,

And it is 1962.

Kennedy is still President,

But you don’t know that

Or if you do, you don’t really

Think about it.

 

Your mother has gone into the store

To get some groceries, and

You and your sister

Are left in the 1957 Buick convertible.

The top is up because the sun is too

Bright, and makes the plastic seats hot.

 

Cars pass by, and pedestrians scuff

Along the hot sidewalk

No one knows that someday

There will be few who do not

Own a cellular phone,

So they walk along actually

Talking to their friends, who walk next

To them and make eye contact.

 

Panty hose have not been

Invented yet.

Phones have dials.

Televisions have knobs that you walk

Across the room to turn on.

Your mother still gives you a

Vitamin every morning

Before breakfast.

 

Your sister, who is five,

Sits in the back seat

Kicking the back of yours,

Thumping, thudding,

Annoying you,

As you stare through

The front window of the store

Waiting to see your mother paying

For the groceries.

 

There she is, in her red lipstick

And white cotton gloves.

Pulling paper money from her

Purse as the grocer packs the food

Carefully in cardboard boxes, and the tomato

carrier with the curved handle.

The store door jingles, as he smiles the

Boxes to the car,

Calls you Sport or shorty,

winks at your sister.

The trunk pops open

And you can’t see them anymore.

But you can hear them exchanging pleasantries.

 

“See you next time Mrs. ______,

Looks like it might rain tonight, the humidity is real high!”

You can smell the ripe bananas in the trunk,

And your mother has bought each of you

A red rubber ball with stars and stripes.

When you get home, you run around the yard

Just to feel the breeze.

 

 

 

Diane E. Dockum

March 15, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

On Writing

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On Writing

I’ m having trouble thinking of things to write about. I wonder why it is so hard sometimes to get words worth reading on the page. I wonder why there are spaces of time when it is easy and it flows, and it is followed by weeks and then years when we can’t think of anything.

I’ve spent a lot of money on books about writing, and I have read them. In the middle of reading these books about writing and writer’s block I start to wonder if I am reading too much and if that is preventing me from writing.

So today I am trying writing about writing.

They say that everything you need to know about writing is found through writing. That is what life is like. You live, you learn. You write, you write. That is so Zen.

So many authors, these days, are trying to live in the moment, experiencing life as it happens. I hear them say that they don’t worry about tomorrow, that tomorrow will come and the problems that come with tomorrow will be dealt with as they happen. I have also heard that Jesus and Buddha have both said that.

When I write a poem or a story, it begins to take on a life of its own. It begins to unfold in its own way. As in life, I have to give up control, and let it go.

I am trying to do that. It is harder than it seems. Day to day worries and insecurities creep into my mind. It is 2012. They say the world will end this year on the twenty-first day of December. I really don’t believe that, BUT….things have been a little weird lately.

Who knows? Maybe the Myans just ran out of rock to chisel their calendar on. Or, maybe they just knew something we don’t know. I guess we’ll find out this year. I just don’t want to go and spend a whole lot of money on Christmas presents, and then not be able to give them away.

I’ve been talking to a writing friend, ironically by writing to her, and she writing back to me. She has always given me a little spark, just enough to push me forward. I love her for that. I know she knows who she is.

I also think that I am beginning to sound like the Late Andy Rooney.  Whatever. I always liked Andy. I just hope my eyebrows never get like his did.

Well, this is my blog about writing, and writer’s block. I can’t think of anything else to say about this subject right now, so I guess this is a good enough place to stop.