Banana Camouflage

On Our Mats

2009-05-13T17:53:00.011-04:00

Funny how they litter the room
Our little spots
Colorful dots
Mine is purple, thick and spongy
Yours the blue of a Caribbean sky
Push our sweaty palms in
Push our heels down
A leg raises high
Then through the hands
Feet come together
Bend over
Lungs fill up
Empty
Her gentle voice
Breathe here for awhile
Suddenly instructions
Hand goes under
Turn and look up to the sky
Breath comes in and pushes out
Mine too fast
A rhythm
On our mats
Music
Humming into chaturanga
Updog downdog
Stay here for awhile
Breathing
Lavender scent
Her gentle voice coos
Exhale the day away

by Jetset Jenna

Photo of Kaia

rutland park

2009-05-12T21:03:00.006-04:00

sticky picnic tables of summer
hold mayonnaise-laden potato salad
that never killed anyone but caused many a frenzy

mayflies hump atop a sultry wind
their days numbered,
once emerged from their aquatic wombs

flip-a-flopping feet stumble on roots
whose gnarled toes poke up
from under satin sheets of brown pine needles

the lake carves its own country
floating ropes define its bustling, splashy capitol
fearless anarchists, slip the lifeguard's watch, pushing the border

bottle caps, dried up minnows, beer can tabs
all the shiny currency winks back at the sun
peddled for a sip of warm soda or a peek under a bikini top

teeny frightened frogs wielded by cracker-crumb-faced boys
add squeals of feigned fear to the chorus of marco polos
muffled slightly by granpappy's public furry chest

these are melon days
the coleman is a war chest
full of ice bullets snuck down unsuspecting backs

moments after waving arms call the pond pirates back to shore
the sun sets, a showboat all the way down
enchanting the chilly towel-draped audience

waterlogged waddlers brush off sandy limbs
before boarding the full-blast heated station wagonship
facing backward, jump seat riders reap the last glimpse

Ode to a Whack-a-Mole

2009-05-11T21:50:00.005-04:00

Marty writes:

I took the mallet to you and your friends
Paying a toll to the house where you live
You somehow survived while they met their ends
They took it for you, how could they forgive?
No one but me noticed your secret trick
Just as certain doom loomed over your head
And my weapon was poised to smash your skull
My score froze when you ducked, you little prick
If I had a gun instead, you’d be dead
I hate you - you never-been-whacked-a-mole

About my father on mother’s day

2009-05-10T09:39:00.010-04:00

Marty writes:

When friends talk about what they have in common with their fathers (like Jenna recently did right here on Banana Camo), I just think of quiet, dark places and have no idea how I would convey my father/daughter bond in a conversation. It would go something like this, “Calm. Peace. Hard, honest work. Eyes closed in prayer and thought. Comforting darkness. Quiet.” Not party conversation. It would make more sense if I were to first say what we don’t have in common. Him, a thin, meek devoutly Catholic Portuguese man born in 1920, no taller than five foot three and me, a five foot ten big out dyke with a flattop born in 1970. In the moments he did talk, he told me about life before television and about his days performing in the waning days of vaudeville.

My father is a quiet man. What we have in common are quiet moments. Time spent with him allowed my mind to rest and then wander. Driving the streets of Worcester doing errands, he rarely spoke unnecessarily. Necessary is subjective, but in this case, it points to what he didn’t say. When we passed an old closed down factory, he didn’t talk about what happened to our industrial city. He didn’t say what happened to create the dozens of drug addicts and hookers who peppered that infamous strip of Main Street. He didn’t tell me not to do drugs or hang out with drug addicts. He didn’t talk about my mother’s problems and her bouts of truly crazy behavior.

His two jobs kept him busy most weekends…kept us busy on weekends. In the winter, the grade school where he was the janitor needed constant attention. My mother gave Blithewood Avenue Elementary School the villainous name, “That bloody Blithewood.” From my mother’s perspective, Blithewood held her husband hostage every winter with its hungry coal-burning boiler system. My father’s Blithewood was a serene place, a poor man’s club med. My Blithewood was a monk’s chamber.

During the coldest winter months, the school’s boiler needed stoking around the clock, causing us to drive through blizzards. Why we? I don’t really know. Back then, I thought it was because my father wanted company and I was a good helper. I don’t remember any discussion between my mother and father about it either. Now, more than 30 years later, some reasons make sense, but none can have confirmers. Two likelihoods are 1) My father took me with him to give me a respite from my mother’s abuse fueled by mental illness and/or 2) My mother sent me with my father because she didn’t trust him.

The school’s only telephone was locked in the principal’s office and my father was reticent to use the big boss’s telephone and, yes, again, he didn’t talk much. Although it was in a city, Blithewood was a remote island when school was not in session. The place filled with lively students and overworked teachers seemed to grow bigger in its emptiness when closed. On weekends, the rasps of a dragged desk reverberated in a classroom, when the same sound would be just a few notes played in the orchestra of 20 fidgeting performers, with the maestro’s face turned away holding a chalk baton.

Bathrooms, hallways, and stairways were simply their surfaces. My father taught me cleaning tricks. Sometimes he smiled slyly, showing me how to make a job easier, “I don’t kill myself.” Then, I looked up to him; he knew how to clean the shit out of his building. It was all his to clean, fix, heat, run. Now, I don’t know what I think about a 57-year-old man taking pride in how he got away with something by making backbreaking work manageable.

Blithewood was one of the last schools in Massachusetts still fueled by coal. There were a few lights in the stone and mortar basement, but my father did almost everything by one very low-wattage bulb. The rest of the light came from the roaring flames of the open door of the boiler. A few feet away from the boiler sat two metal-framed cots. Their narrow green canvas shells were uncomfortable unless we lied flat on our backs with our arms folded. We slept like two mummies, waking every two hours or so to check the fire. If one of us got up while the other slept, we’d simply shovel coal in the mouth of the boiler and go back to bed. The scraping and flinging sounds awakened the other, but it meant that the sleeping person‘s bones could rest longer. My father never told me this is how it was going to be, it just was.

I brought piles of library books on these retreats and my father brought peanut butter, jelly, bread, cereal, crackers, powdered milk, and anything else that was easy. These blizzard weekends were busy. I’m sure I wasn’t much help at seven years old, because shoveling the schoolyard by hand took both of us all day. The day was full of blinding light bouncing off the snow with coffee breaks together in the teacher’s break room. At home, I snacked a lot, but at the school I was relaxed and just ate when I was hungry. Being away from the anxiety of my mother’s rages was a vacation on many levels.

At night, tired from a day of work, I read lying with my head near the boiler’s door. It was hot as hell, but the orange glow was ideal for reading. My father read the newspaper and listened to his Radio Shack AM radio through the single old yellowed ear bud.

This tranquility created by the fire and the soft shadows is what we shared. After I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer to read, I turned around to put my feet close to the fire. This was usually when my father prayed with his rosary beads. Raised Protestant by my mother, my prayers rambled on and on. I sometimes wished someone dictated what to say to God and how, like the Catholics. I felt like my prayers were never done, falling asleep mid-prayers.

Today, on Mother’s Day 2009, I think of my father who was more like what people say is ‘mother.’ (Tune into Banana Camo on Father’s Day for some words about my mothers…yes, plural.) Parkinson’s disease has slowed down 89-year-old Abel. A couple of months ago I visited my parents for my yearly pilgrimage. As other people talked and the television blared, my father and I simply looked into each other’s eyes and had our halcyon moment.

At this point, he can’t put words together to speak very well, making me wonder about his silence in my childhood. I thought this man didn’t say things when it’s possible that he couldn’t verbalize the realities he prayed for and feared.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the quietly nurturing fathers out there!

The Results Are In

2009-04-29T13:05:00.002-04:00

See what happens when you mix:

3 writers
An East Village Tiki bar
High-octane beverages

An Ode, Inspired by Olds

2009-04-13T21:24:00.004-04:00

Jetset Jenna writes:

Sitting between Martinique and Nikkolina at the Sharon Olds poetry reading at NYU last week made me feel like I'd landed in writer heaven. Okay, so there was no free food (not even hummus), no free Zinfandel and no free t-shirts. But we were there for the poems. We were ready to be wowed by the woman some say is the greatest American poet alive today. And they may be right. Sharon Olds is da bomb. She rocks the English language hard. She's funny, generous and brave. She writes about her painful childhood, the complexity of relationships, and odes to all sorts of things, like tampons and condoms. Sharon Olds has inspired me to write an ode. It's called:

"Ode to the Jeans That Make My Ass Look Hot"

Thank you
Jeans that make my ass look hot
For holding up your end of the deal
The others
Tri-folded beneath you
High hopes, but nope
There's no fooling the ruling class
Dark droopy denim
Causing disappointed double-takes
Powder blue too tight
Camel lips all night
Not in fashion since '92
But not you
Perfection in shape and stitch
Color of a blue-grey sky
Like wet streets
Houston
or Delancey
After a morning rain
There's a stain
I can forgive
Because the backside
Is where the action is
Where the wear is what is best
Pert, maybe, not quite
But thanks to you
Round and snug
Like two lovely pillows
For sitting on

I Climb; Therefore, I Write...

2009-04-01T09:17:00.013-04:00

Jetset Jenna writes:

Several years ago my dad and I discovered we share a passion for mountain climbing. That's not to say we actually climb mountains. No, that's dangerous. We prefer to sit in the comfort of our own homes and read about other people's climbing adventures. The book that got me started was Jon Krakauer's bestseller Into Thin Air. I loved the drama, the danger, the packing lists. I learned new words like "sherpa," "crampons," and "pulmonary edema." I was hooked instantly and my collection of mountain climbing books began to grow. Reading about individuals with successful careers and families who spend ungodly sums of money to risk their lives to climb the world's highest peaks is utterly fascinating. These people--men and women of all ages, from all walks of life--feel the pull of the mountains and must climb them. Luckily for us armchair enthusiasts, just about everyone who's ever climbed Everest, K2, or Aconcagua has also written a book about it. Some books chronicle the long careers of climbers like Reinhold Messner whose book Free Spirit includes details of his many mountaineering accomplishments. Above the Clouds by Anatoli Boukreev is an eye-opening diary into the true life and journey of a controversial climber. Other books focus on the horrors of high-altitude climbing such as In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories From the Mountaineering World by Peter Potterfield. Survival stories in general are the real draw to mountain literature, especially if they contain tales of frostbite, lost appendages and mountain sickness followed by a major comeback. Beck Weathers' book Left For Dead is about his ordeal during the 1996 blackout on Everest that resulted in several deaths. Weathers, a pathologist from Texas, was literally left for dead during a blizzard, found his way back to camp, and later had his frostbitten hands and nose amputated. All the gruesome details are there and best of all, now Weathers is an inspiration to others. Now that's a story! The question every climber has been asked, Why climb the mountain? has a standard answer, Because it's there. But I wonder if sometimes a more accurate answer would be, Because then I can write a book about it. Either way, I'm glad they're out there climbing the high peaks and then finding the time to chronicle their adventures. That way I too can reach the summit of the world's highest peaks. From the comfort of my couch.

Hey, Jack Kerouac

2009-03-23T22:14:00.002-04:00

The Facebook quiz for writers tells me I've gone all Jack Kerouac. I'm a Dharma Bum, people. I feel so...zen.

Let's get this party started right

2009-03-19T10:59:00.002-04:00

Let's get drunk and freaky fly. I :::heart::: my BC sisters! --Martinique

Turn it on, turn it up and tune in often... - Nikkolina

2009-03-18T22:07:00.002-04:00