All weekend I kept hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand, desperate to get away from medical jargon. Then, I remembered. Poetry. And I went off to find some new one.
Barbara Hamby is so very talented, funny, and wise. You can find more poems and links
here.
Ode on Dictionaries
–Barbara Hamby
A-bomb is how it begins with a big bang on page
one, a calculator of sorts whose centrifuge
begets
bedouin, bamboozle, breakdance, and
berserk,
one of my mother's favorite words, hard knock
clerk of clichés that she is, at the moment
going ape
the current rave in the fundamentalist landscape
disguised as her brain, a rococo lexicon
of Deuteronomy, Job, gossip, spritz, and neocon
ephemera all wrapped up in a pop burrito
of movie star shenanigans, like a stray Cheeto
found in your pocket the day after you finish the bag,
tastier than any oyster and champagne fueled
fugue
gastronomique you have been pursuing in France
for the past four months. This 82-year-old's rants
have taken their place with the dictionary I bought
in the fourth grade, with so many gorgeous words I thought
I'd never plumb its depths. Right the first time, little girl,
yet here I am still at it, trolling for pearls,
Japanese words vying with Bantu in a goulash
I eat daily, sometimes gagging, sometimes with relish,
kleptomaniac in the candy store of language,
slipping words in my pockets like a non-smudge
lipstick that smears with the first kiss. I'm the demented
lady with sixteen cats. Sure, the house stinks, but those damned
mice have skedaddled, though I kind of miss them, their cute
little faces, the whiskers, those adorable gray suits.
No, all beasts are welcome in my menagerie, ark
of inconsolable barks and meows, sharp-toothed shark,
OED of the deep ocean, sweet compendium
of candy bars—Butterfingers, Mounds, and M&Ms—
packed next to the tripe and gizzards, trim and tackle
of butchers and bakers, the painter's brush and spackle,
quarks and black holes of physicists' theory. I'm building
my own book as a mason makes a wall or a gelding
runs round the track—brick by brick, step by step, word by word,
jonquil by
gerrymander,
syllabub by
greensward,
swordplay by
snapdragon, a never-ending parade
with clowns and funambulists in my own mouth, homemade
treasure chest of tongue and teeth, the brain's roustabout, rough
unfurler of tents and trapezes, off-the-cuff
unruly troublemaker in the high church museum
of the world. O mouth—boondoggle, auditorium,
viper, gulag, gumbo pot on a steamy August
afternoon—what have you not given me? How I must
wear on you, my Samuel Johnson in a frock coat,
lexicographer of silly thoughts, billy goat,
X-rated pornographic smut factory, scarfer
of snacks, prissy smirker, late-night barfly,
you are the megaphone by which I bewitch the world
or don't as the case may be. O chittering squirrel,
ziplock sandwich bag, sound off, shut up, gather your words
into bouquets, folios, flocks of black and flaming birds.
blanched c. in said jars, w/onion. Then pickling liquid over all. A canning funnel comes in very handy. I hadn't done this in so long, I was a bit rusty.
et, voila!
all that was left, which I threw into last night's vegetable mix for supper:
shredded cabbage + 1-1/2 Tbl of pickling salt
My own touch, to keep out creepy crawlies (natural, too).
Bag of 1 qt water + 1-1/2 Tbl pickling salt; per Ms Bone, it acts as a weight, and if it leaks, it leaks only brine.
view out dorm window . . .
JACKSON, Brent R. Of Dorchester, died unexpectedly on December 20, 2009 at the age of 67, of pancreatic cancer. The son of the late Harry & Helen Jackson of Framingham, he is survived by his sister Sue Jackson of Woodbury, MN; aunts Meg Fillmore and Vi Ross of Hudson, Betty Greeley of Peabody, and Evelyn Greeley of Chapel Hill, NC; and uncle Tom Coolidge of Dunnellon, FL. Brent worked at the Boston Museum of Science for 37 years until 2004. He proposed and then built their Courses & Travel programs, which grew to hundreds of courses and science-based travel tours. Brent got his Bachelor's degree in Biology from Tufts in 1964 and a Master's degree in Zoology from UNH in 1968. Before joining the Museum he taught biology at the Newton North High School. He continued to lecture on teaching science to all ages of students at Suffolk and Boston Universities, and was named Science Educator of the Year in 1985 by the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers. He worked with the Massachusetts State Science Fair as an organizer, fundraiser, and chairman. Until his death, he was a board member of the New England Museum Association and an active supporter of the Becket-Chimney Corners YMCA camp in Becket, Massachusetts. A veteran world traveller, Brent explored 205 cities in 28 countries across 6 continents, and 42 American states. In recent years, he was a guide for New England tour companies and a school evaluator for the Commonwealth. Information about a spring-time celebration of his life will be posted on his Facebook page. Donations can be made in his memory to the Becket-Chimney Corners YMCA, 748 Hamilton Road, Becket, MA 01223.
