Honest Scrap

I've been given this award for the third time and asked by the lovely Menopausal Stoner to give up 10 more things you don't know about me.  At the moment I can't think of ten things you don't know about me.  I tell all just about every day.  And lately it seems I'm repeating myself a lot. So here is more or less what I said the first time.

I think I was the first American blogger to receive this award:

What makes this especially important to me is that Eizzy K is an Ugandan poet and a reader of my poetry. I write poetry so seldom that I have neglected the site. I don't know when I got this award the first time exactly, but I'm really thrilled that it came from a young poet to an old woman who hardly considers herself a poet. And Eizzy K, called me "Savage Queen" which makes me cry. It's one thing to write the occasional poem, but some of the poets in the blogosphere write a poem a day. That amazes me, since I only write poetry when a poem presents itself to me and gives me no choice. It's like having a vision or a little stroke or a mild seizure. So thank you Eizzy K.

One of the things I love about this award is the muscularity of it. It has an industrial, workman-like aspect that appeals to me esthetically and politically--it reminds me of my fondness for the labor movement. I love the wage earning working men and women of this world.
Now I have to think of ten things you don't yet know about me.

1. I fantasized a life as a labor organizer. I'm completely pro labor, and damn proud of it. I read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclaire when I was in my early teens. That was the beginning of my desire to be a labor organizer. Yet I have never been a member of a union.

2. Kindness makes me cry. I have toughened myself over a lifetime of cruelty from my family to be unmoved by the carelessly tossed off insult, but a kind and loving word brings tears I can't control.

3. I'm a socialist. I think the public utilities should be owned by the public. Water should not be sold. Nor should the oil and coal be owned by a company with a profit motive. If Alaska owns it's oil, why don't the rest of us own our oil? I'm not a fan of capitalism. Capitalism has given us a meltdown of the world's economies. What the financial services industries have done amounts to an enormous Ponzi scheme. Those responsible for the collapse should be prosecuted for gross malfeasance. I wanted single payer universal health care.  I want the rich taxed like the rest of us.  I want an end to corporate wellfare.  I want an end to tax havens for rich fuckers trying to avoid paying their fair share.  I want to see the end to obscene bonus and salaries for those who do nothing but find ways to fuck us over while raking in more millions for their billionaire friends.  I want a redistribution of wealth.  I'm a dreamer.

4. I love the underdog, literally. I will take an animal no one else will, just to give it a bit of happiness and security before it dies. I'm sentimental for the person or animal who has been treated badly. I would love to be able to rescue all those needing rescue. But I can only rescue one creature at a time.  And at the moment I need rescuing.

5. I care little for wealth and have never been ambitious enough to strive for money. It shows now. I can't even get a line of credit on my unencumbered house to do long needed repairs. I worked in a industry where the pay is enormous for merely being pretty and showing up for a couple of hours of easy work and knowing how to move on a runway or pose for a photo. I was always embarrassed by this profession. Why so much money for something that is actually bad for society? I worked as little as possible.

6. I purposely avoided getting academic credentials as a way of pissing off my mother.

7. I married three men I did not love, and if asked, would not have married the one man I always loved.

8. I do not like my fellow humans much. I like people online more than I like people in the flesh. I like a few people very much, but generally I avoid places where there might be crowds.  This will make political demonstrations difficult for me, but I may just have to gird my loins and participate, since there are so many things to demonstrate either for or against, like financial reform with very tough regulations on financial institutions deemed "too big to fail," or to my way of thinking "too big to exist." I fear the growing clamor for deporting "illegal immigrants." It feels like fascism to me.

9. I see everyone whose ancestors came here seeking a better life as illegal immigrants and I've told you why many times.  I'm a descendant of indigenous people.  I feel related to the indigenous people migrating north for the opportunity to make a living and feed a family.  Once there were no borders on this landmass.  Once this land was populated by indigenous people.  Since you guys came here you've tried to exterminate and marginalize us.  Well, fuck you. We're here to stay.  Get used to it. And if you're one of those so righteously claiming that the white culture is the best culture, I can't wait for the day your favorite child calls you to say she just married Jesus Morales in Las Vages and is pregnant with twins.  Cheers!

9. Poems take me like possession. They come on me like bad weather that can't be ignored.

 10. Twitter has taken me like a favorite lover.  I can't get enough of it.  I have no idea why twitter claimed me and not the rest of you.  But twitter is where I expend my political energy

Since this is the third go round on this award for me, I'm going to refrain from tagging you.  I probably got most of you the first and second time I was fortunate enough to get this handsome award.  I hope Eizzy knows how far and wide this award from her has gone. But I don't think Eizzy reads this blog. Eizzy only reads my poetry.  Bless you Eizzy.  Every time I write a poem I think of you.



Then the instructions for the 'chosen ones:'
1.You must brag about the award
2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger
3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.
Then pass it on with the instructions!

Remember, I did not make the rules, I just pass them along.

"Because hate is legislated... "

This gift was sent to me by LeeAnn. It also came with a lovely large and delicious home made pumpkin bread and a card. I had never heard of Walter Benton, but I opened the book to the first entry, dated April 28, and it says this:

Because hate is legislated...written into
the primer and the testament,
shot into our blood and brain like vaccine or vitamins

Because our day is of time--and the clock-hand turns,
closes the circle upon us: and black timeless night
sucks us in like quicksand, receives us totally--
without a raincheck or a parachute, a key to heaven or the last long look

I need love more than ever now...I need your love,
I need love more than hope or money, wisdom or a drink

Because slow negative death withers the world--and only yes
can turn the tide
Because love has your face and body...and your hands are tender
and your mouth is sweet--and God has made no other eyes like yours.

Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
      who used to
      ride a watersmooth-silver
                                stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                Jesus

he was a handsome man
                    and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death


e e cummings


I awoke this morning with the last two lines of this poem running through my mind.

And When I Die

Just so you know, when I die, you will be the only ones to notice my absence since I seem unable to shut up. Oh, yes there are a few here in the "real" world who might miss me for a moment, but it is you who have paid the most attention to my thoughts, and that means more to me than almost anything. It's you who have given me the confidence to believe, and maybe even know, that I can write. None of the men I have loved and lived with, sadly in some cases even married, have ever read a word I wrote unless it was a letter. Tom's comments on my impassioned letters were, "Nice penmanship." How insulting is that?

But many of you have taken me seriously as a writer. Fancy that. You have allowed me to help start blogs here and there for all of us solitary, unknown writers to write, and receive editorial help, to encourage, and make suggestions. And most importantly to grow and gain confidence.

So you have become a family for me, a woman with no living blood relatives of her own.

Yesterday I posted my blog roll to wish you a Happy New Year. And many of you came to say thanks and Happy New Year, and even offer words of appreciation. What surprised me most was the appreciation of a couple of men I didn't know were paying any attention at all. Dada of Dada's Daily was so lavish in his kind words. I do appreciate it.

But the words of one, thepoetryman, say best exactly what I'd hope I might wish to be, to become. This is the kind of immortality to which I aspire. And were anyone to ever read or speak a eulogy for me, these would be lovely words. So thank you Poetryman. Now I am going to publish on my blog your words without your permission. I hope you'll forgive me. But I want someone to know and remember. To be able to find this archived back at least twenty years and say...
That a Poetry Man said, "Utah,

When the wind has your breath within its throat
And the moon reaches you down within our grasp,
You enter a flame, a glimmering ember, a guide, and
We know you by your friends, whispering who you are.

When the rain drops your laughter upon our gardens
And the snow perches your spirit upon a window sill
Like a songbird warbling of our sloping lives-
We sense you; savage, tender, candid, thoughtful, loved… "