[Critique Group 2] Pieces for March 21st

[Abbie Taylor]

Leonard has asked me to compile the pieces in the order I received 
them, so I'm pasting them below in that order. You can navigate between 
pieces by searching for three number signs. Will see you all Tuesday.

***

###From Valerie Moreno

When No One's There
He sits in the oversized recliner
glasses crooked on large nose
as he dozes, head bowed,
newspaper in a disarray of pages around his slippered feet
She paces the livingroom
cold cup of coffee in one hand
as she checks her phone for a text--
where is he?
no communication, dinner dry in oven
with the late news on the television
They share a room--
twin girls in second grade,
long dark hair spread against their pillows
as Marcy sleeps curled on her side,
Mazie's blue eyes stare at the dark ceiling
cat settles his long body
in the center of the coverlet,
stretches and prepares himself for a
dreamy, exquisite nap

###From Abbie Taylor

PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER

One hot Arizona summer afternoon,
clad only in bathing suit,
ensconced in her favorite red armchair,
hands at her sides, relaxed,
as if not being painted,
she smiled at no one in particular,
gazed into space,
not at the television
blaring a 1960's soap opera.
Now, almost fifty years later,
I want to believe that in death,
she smiles at me
from my Wyoming kitchen wall,
but she was everything I'm not,
a perfectionist, pretty, witty,
and most important,
she could see better than me.
Would she have chosen my life's path?

###From Alice Massa

A Sonneteer's Bucket List
by Alice Jane-Marie Massa
Alas! The day has come for me to ask:
What can you find in my pale Bucket List?
Do I present for you too hard a task?
Of course, my list has a poetic twist!
Turn to Bedloe's Island for your first clue.
A pedestal was placed and did inspire
A "Colossus," once thought of as so "new"--
verses of which immigrants will not tire.
Oh, you know, Ms. Lazarus holds the lead:
her poem is immortalized on a plaque
for generations of tourists to read.
No pages are needed--take this book back!
I want my poem in granite.  Please don't laugh!
My Bucket List comes with my epitaph.

###From Brad Corallo


Meet you in the Intermissional sauna
© By Brad Corallo
Word count 961

“Hello, my old friend, I have been waiting for you. But where were you, 
you look terrible!”

“I was on a small obscure planet named Earth. I don’t recommend the 
place at all. I mean, the planet was beautiful once but the highest 
level life forms have turned the place into a workhouse out of a 
Dickens novel.”

“What are you talking about and what in the universe is a “Dickens novel?”

“Oh, sorry, Dickens was a great story teller on Earth. Hey can someone 
pour some more water on those rocks, I really need to cleanse Earth off 
myself!”

“Yes, sorry I have been ungracious. More water and a soft cloud towel 
for your comfort.”

AH, balm for the returning warrior. I really do need some to recover 
from that last mission.”

“Of course my friend, decompress for as long as you need. I won’t 
bother you with annoying questions until you have sloughed off the 
detritus of your trying mission.”

“Thanks, I will tell my story after I have chilled in this lovely warm 
place---well you know what I mean.”

“So, wake up my friend it has been one half an era and you appear like 
your old self again.” “Yes, thank you I do feel fully unburdened. But 
how long have you been here?”

“Oh, quite a while. My last mission was on Eridani-B-prime where the 
life forms Clantajanet living rock beings have 10 Era long life spans. 
So, I had no trouble getting extended time here in the sauna.”

“Well, good for you. One good thing about these crazy multiple mission 
journeys that we’re all on is , they do allow for much quality time in 
between.”

“Oh sure, they are very lenient about time. I mean, you could remain 
here for an Eon or two before anyone even began to try to move the 
process along. And, even after this there is the cherishing and 
channeling to go through and that also takes a good long time. When all 
that is over you are all gung ho to choose another suitable mission and 
take the next step on your journey back to The Clearlight.”

“Perhaps, but even after all that, I think I will retain some memory of 
my Earth mission. The highest level beings; they call them humans 
really, well, suck!”

“They do what?” “Oh sorry again just a term they use a lot down there. 
For example, when I was a roving wave lattus on Aldeberon-4, it wasn’t 
the best of all missions but at least things made sense there. Earth, 
forget it! The creatures there—wow! They have such great potential but 
their most important values are greed and popular fancy. It is so 
discouraging!”

“Well yes, that doesn’t sound like much fun. Is it worse than a mission 
as a Plutonian cave slug?”

“Oh yeah, I’d be a PCS anytime over a human. They do have lower life 
forms; I think they call them dats and cogs which are pretty cool. I 
suggest if you are ever mad enough to choose to mission there, be one 
of those. Just forget about being one of those totally frustrating 
human creatures. You won’t believe it but they have actually created a 
mechanism to destroy their entire species and much of the planet and 
its other life forms.”

“Really? I mean, why? Are they extraordinarily stupid?”

“No, they are not exactly stupid but they don’t work and play well with 
one another. They love to create artificial divisions between groups of 
themselves so they can fight.”

“Why do they do that? I must say it sounds pretty stupid to me!”

“I really don’t know why. That is the frustrating part as they also do 
things which cause them to appear as beings with great compassion. It 
is so confusing. The dats and cogs try to help them by offering 
unconditional love and the humans do love their pets but they never 
learn to extend such love to each other.”

“Wait a minute, what is a pet?” “Sorry again, I really have to stop 
using their expressions. When a dat or cog lives with them, they call 
it a pet. I think this means that this is a designation that the dat or 
cog is a delightful and enjoyable possession of the human it lives with.”

“Very curious and strange! How can other living beings be possessions?”

“It is even worse than that, in their recent history, they did the same 
thing with members of their own species.”

“Wow, so they have created the means to destroy themselves and they 
enslave their own kind and other intelligent species. I am beginning to 
understand why you have been so affected by your mission there.”

“I am just hoping that when I receive the cherishing and channeling 
that I gain a greater understanding of that place through The Clearlight.”

“For your sake, I hope so too! I would suggest (if it fits your 
development profile) a mission on Synclavier-2 as one of their cloud 
beings. It is very peaceful and you get to observe and learn a lot.”

“Well thanks, I will keep that suggestion in mind and will consider it 
very seriously at the time of choosing. But wait, another of our old 
companions has just entered the sauna. Let us greet our old friend.”

“Old friend we both welcome you! But you look awful. What happened?”

“Oh may The Clearlight preserve me. I just came from a mission in a 
terrible place called…”

“Don’t say it” said the first two old friends “I think we can guess!  
More water for the rocks, quickly please!”


Dedicated to the memory and work of Kurt Vonnegut.

###From Leonard Tuchyner

Finny Society of Waterdown
 by
 Leonard Tuchyner
Deep in a cellar, on an old oaken desk,
many lives have thrived and died
in the seventy-gallon town of Waterdown.
There was a time when black mollies
plied the town like black trolleys.
But something in the water altered,
and this thriving tribe began to die.
A chapter in Waterdown was over.
The epoch of mini snails approached,
when tiny black dots of life exploded
out of every rocky ridge and crevice,
from behind the most piddling little stone,
and gushed out of every broken shell,
quickly infiltrating pumps and filters,
portending death of gasping citizens.
 To wit,
An eight-inch snaky, brownish placo --
a.k.a. Sir Suckey.
A sleek, black, sharkey catfish --
 a.k.a. Mack The Knife --
Two surviving, elderly mollies --
 a.k.a. Molly and Polly.
What to do? What to do? What to do?
As Waterdown Warden, I wanted to know.
With much consultation with Mrs. Warden,
I employed a highly recommended Miss Clooney,
a young, but voracious, snail-eating clownfish,
to clear the glut of marauding snails.
Miss Clooney took to her job expeditiously,
cleansing Waterdown of its fouling scourge,
alarmingly increasing her size and girth.
Mrs. Warden also employed a young
pretty, tear-shaped, orange-blushed cichlid,
to add class and color to the décor.
She called him Lolli Lolli Lollipop.
Without snails, the algae ran rampant,
smearing every surface with slimy green,
quite too much for Sir Sucky to clean up.
Frustrated, Mack ate Molly and Polly.
Then he went after Lolli Lolli Lollipop,
but the little tear-drop was too quick and cunning.
Besides, he was getting too big to eat.
So I hired another, smaller sucker fish
to be an apprentice to Sir Sucky,
but he was reclusive to the extremus
and a no-account, worthless stick-in the-mud,
too lazy to even eat, grow or show.
Despite the slime, the citizens flourished.
Mack and Lolli reached an accommodation.
Clooney took up dwelling in an old conch shell.
Regardless of the fact that she had grown quite fat,
she managed to squeeze herself snugly
into its curly, pearly coils,
though often her wiggling tail protruded.
She quite intended it to be a tell-tail,
‘cause other times she vanished completely, tail and all.
Miss Clooney had her girly, wily reasons,
and Mack became her intimate companion.
He is often seen sneaking out of her home.
No one really knows what scandal goes on.
It is touching to see him rush to her shell
and inform Miss Clooney when dinner time arrives.
She emerges to gobble up the fare
in an astonishingly expeditious manner,
then returns to her happy, safe haven,
where one can imagine a cozy hearth fire
there to warm her and her dashing dark suitor,
leaving Lolli to swim and shake his head
with curious disturbing suspicions
of the unnatural collusion between the two,
right there in seventy-gallon Waterdown.
As for me and Mrs. Warden,
What to do? What to do? What to do? --
about the green slimy algae, that is.

-- 
Abbie Johnson Taylor, Author http://abbiescorner.wordpress.com
http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com
abbie at mysero.net
Order my new memoir at http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com/memoir.htm