Prose Poem: Saint Charles Avenue Streetcar at Hickory (On a Rainy Tuesday)

Saint Charles Avenue Streetcar

The neighborhood streets are filled with a nice one-inch blanket of water. The Toyota is at school on high ground; I'm happy to be a transit commuter for a bit. The rain is heavy; slight fog. Streetcar comes to a halt at the Riverbend so the conductor can get herself a jelly donut. 

Lady tells me, "Supposed to be like Saturday. Supposed to be like Saturday. Tulane and Claiborne flooded, Lord, Oh Lord. I'm surprised right here ain't flooded." 

It ain't nothing but "a hair flip" thang, I tell her, flipping my hair in dramatic fashion. Mother nature's a bitch, but you just swat your hair *me imitating Chris Crocker * like that. That's what you do. Sure do.

The streetcar starts up again. I'm relieved I won't be late for work. We're finishing up some miscellaneous myths. Perhaps we'll do flood myths; sounds a propo.

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Commuting to Work: Saint Charles Streetcar at Rosa Park

In this post, I talk about commuting to work on the Saint Charles Avenue streetcar.

-everyday that i commute to work on the saint charles streetcar i take a photo. /-)

today was especially foggy; wet; the streets are still soiled from saturday's rain; poseidon licked his lichen lips to the city's dirty pits.

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Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

i love puppies

sleeping;

puppies

love i

text and image © Greig Roselli

Inspired by Armistead Maupin's The Night Listener: A Dedication to Mourning

I think Armistead Maupin wrote in his novel, The Night Listener, that sadness can be a physical thing, “wet and woolen” — he called it, a tangible entity that clings to us, heavy and damp. This poetic imagery captures the essence of how grief and sorrow manifest not just emotionally, but physically as well. Our bodies become the canvas on which our sadness paints its hues—sometimes subtly, sometimes glaringly.

Ties: A Prose Poem

Big Brother approached a stolid teacher:
"Where's your tie?"
"I've noticed you haven't worn yours today!"
He replies, with a grin
"I had a rough night —"
An interminable set of chores ...
"I don't want to hear it. Wear a tie to work"
Apples and trees; bells ring.
The mosaic of color blends. He scrambles for a rejoinder.
0
So, the stolid teacher sighs
and taught another class of happy, eager student to whom an entirely different set of restrictions had been laid out:
Overstuffed maroon sweatshirts
Lack of earrings for the men
Pleated skirts for the girls
Conservative appliqué
Legs outstretched, one chews a pen to its raw carcass center.
The bitter avowal of knowledge and lessons; Socratic questions; plaintive pleas for individualNESS.
Time bleeds
A former student visits:
An altercation in form:
Wearing a French-style hat, bold cerulean colors, he says, "hi" — fresh from some college where self-expression is allowed: its own set of burdens.

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A Few Stray Observations On William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (With a Copy of the Poem)

Shakespeare wrote "the marriage of true minds admits no impediments" and true love remains constant even in a tempest, a fixed star in love's night sky; even though Time rages; rosy lips fade; love never dies - at least spiritual love.
     An astute observer, by the way, as an aside, would notice that the stars are not truly fixed in the sky. Every atom in the universe, stars included, are moving outward at a quickening pace. Where's my astrophysicist when I need him?
     And I don't recommend remaining unshaken in a storm. King Lear barely pulled it off on the heath and you're bound to get hit by a renegade umbrella to the head. 
But, I digress.     The sonnet reminds readers of everyone who has ever loved: Heloise and Abelard, among them. They never tasted physical love, but their eternal love lives on forever in their passionate letters.
     I think of love that inhabits a lifespan. Love that lives on even after the first love.
     I think of Cupid and Psyche: the marriage of Eros and Mind.
     The poem is fresh in my memory for we did a close read of it on Friday last (N.B. I am a high school English teacher).
     I like the sonnet's solution: it is a typical Shakespearean jest. I would rephrase it thus: if you can't agree with me on love, then I could never have written these words and this sonnet could never exist.

Sonnet CXVI (116) by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

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