BEASTS by Amanda Jernigan

       In my kind world the dead were out of range

       And I could not forgive the sad or strange

       In beast or man.

– Richard Wilbur

Her told me of the Cape Town walkup where

he lived till he was eight; the years were spent there,

he claims, his best,

although he’s range his wooden beasts, some nights,

along the windowsill to watch the fights

outside. At last,

presumably, his folks were reconciled

to moving – this no place to raise a child –

and made to flee.

The family came to Canada, where not

much happens for a lion or an ocelot

or boy to see.

Where I grew up, and entertained myself

with fairy tales from which I’d struck the wolf.

Though now, I found,

I summon wolf and lion, woman, Lord

knows what, and bid that wooden horde

to laager round.

The Painting After Lunch – By Clarence Major

It wasn’t working. Didn’t look back. Needed something else. So

I went out. After lunch I saw it in a different light, like a thing

emerging from behind a fever bush, something reaching the

senses with the smell of seaweed boiling, and as visible as yellow

snowdrops on black earth. Tasted it too, on the tongue Jamaica

pepper. To the touch, a velvet flower. Dragging and scumming, I

gave myself to it stroke after stroke. It kept coming in bits and fits,

fragments and snags. I even heard it singing but in the wrong key

like a deranged bird in wild cherries, having the time of its life.

Reflective writing prompt: Write about a time it wasn’t working for you or what you needed to do to be inspired

A close reading of a photo by iconic New York City street photographer Weegee (Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968)

Mannikin Crime Scene

Reflective writing prompt: Write about your power of observation

___________________

Origin of the Name “Weegee”

He acquired the name Weegee early on, a reference to the Ouija board and his uncanny ability to arrive quickly at crime scenes – sometimes, even before the police (from 1937, he was the only civilian allowed to install a police radio in his car).

He captured tenement infernos, car crashes, and gangland executions. He found washed-up lounge singers and teenage murder suspects in paddy wagons and photographed them at their most vulnerable – or, as he put it, their most human. He caught couples kissing on their beach blankets on Coney Island and the late-night voyeurs on lifeguard stands watching them. And everywhere he went, he snatched images of people sleeping: drunks on park benches, whole families on Lower East Side fire escapes, men and women snoring in movie theatres. He was the supreme chronicler of the city at night. He was the only shutterbug that would make it to a murder scene before the cops. Weegee loved New York and New York eventually loved Weegee.

The Dog Star – Tom Billsborough

Sirius rising, seed of power..

Wind rode or tide rode
A reed boat sways the whole night,
Straining at anchor.

The papyrus dawn stretches.
The pale East trembles.
The priest too. Who knows.

Red sails tether

The dawn breeze.
The Nile renews her annual surrender.

Sirius rising, seed of power..
In this man’s soul
What joy to compose its shell,
The hollow ritual!

Reflective writing prompt: Write about your annual renewal

Angel From Montgomery – John Prine

I am an old woman
Named after my mother
My old man is another
Child who’s grown old

If dreams were lightning
And thunder were desire
This old house would’ve burned down
A long time ago

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin’
Is just a hard way to go

When I was a young girl
Well, I had me a cowboy
He weren’t much to look at
Just a free ramblin’ man

But that was a long time
And no matter how I tried
The years just flowed by
Like a broken down dam

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin’
Is just a hard way to go

There’s flies in the kitchen
I can hear ’em there buzzin’
And I ain’t done nothing
Since I woke up today

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Then come home in the evening
And have nothing to say?

Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin’
Is just a hard way to go

To believe in this livin’
Is just a hard way to go

Reflective writing prompt: One thing I can hold on to.

Investigation Into Poverty at the Russell Sage Foundation, 1933 – Alice Neel

Reflective writing prompt: Write about a time you had to explain yourself.

You are invited to a special event hosted by Columbia University’s narrative medicine’s community Wednesday, June 23, 7:00-8:30pm Eastern.

In Trust by Thom Gunn

You go from me

In June for months on end

To study equanimity

Among high trees alone;

I go out with a new boyfriend

And stay all summer in the city where

Home mostly on my own

I watch the sunflowers flare.

You travel East

To help your relatives.

The rainy season’s start, at least,

Brings you from banishment:

And from the hall a doorway gives

A glimpse of you, writing I don’t know what,

Through winter, with head bent

In the lamp’s yellow spot.

To some fresh task

Some improvising skill

Your face is turned, of which I ask

Nothing except the presence:

Beneath white hair your clear eyes still

Are candid as the cat’s fixed narrowing gaze

—Its pale-blue incandescence

In your room nowadays.

Sociable cat:

Without much noise or fuss

We left the kitchen where he sat,

And suddenly we find

He happens still to be with us,

In this room now, though firmly faced away,

Not to be left behind,

Though all the night he’ll stray.

As you began

You’ll end the year with me.

We’ll hug each other while we can,

Work or stray while we must.

Nothing is, or will ever be,

Mine, I suppose. No one can hold a heart,

But what we hold in trust

We do hold, even apart.

Reflective writing prompt: Write about something held in trust

Pedestrian Crossing, Charlottesville by Rita Dove

A gaggle of girls giggle over the bricks
leading off Court Square. We brake

dutifully, and wait; but there’s at least
twenty of these knob-kneed creatures,

blond and curly, still at an age that thinks
impudence is cute. Look how they dart

and dither, changing flanks as they lurch
along—golden gobbets of infuriating foolishness

or pure joy, depending on one’s disposition.
At the moment mine’s sour—this is taking

far too long; don’t they have minders?
Just behind my shoulder in the city park

the Southern general still stands, stonewalling us all.
When I was their age I judged Goldilocks

nothing more than a pint-size criminal
who flounced into others’ lives, then

assumed their clemency. Unfair,
I know, my aggression—to lump them

into a gaggle (silly geese!) when all
they’re guilty of is being young. So far.

Reflective writing prompt: Waiting impatiently.

The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo

Reflective writing prompt: Write about two sides of yourself, or about a time you were split in two.